The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-12 00:00:00

_.......,,..---- ".

Ikt R. BRIGIIT AT LEEDS.

LEEDS, DEC. 11.
This evening a society recently established in
Leeds, cat led the Leeds Working Men's Parliamen-
tary Refo rm Association, was inaugurated by a
public meet ing held in the Victgria-hall. Among
the speakers w ere John Bright, M.P., Mr. B.
Baines, M.P., a a d Mr. E. A. Leatham, M.P. Nearly

2,000 persona 'w ere present.
Mr. Aldermi An Joseph Middleton, barrister-at-law
presided.
The CHAIR .MAN in opening the proceedings said,
that the obje ct of the Leeds Working Men's Par-
liamentary 'Reform Association was to assist in
obtaining a, sound and comprehensive measure of
reform, inch ding a considerable extension of the
'
elective franchise, a protection for the voter in the
exercise of flat franchise, and a more equal distri-
bution of the members of Parliament in accordance
with the population of the electoral districts, so
that all classes of the community may be fully,
fairly, and equally represented.
Mr. HICKES, a compositor, (the secretary of the
society), read letters of apology from the following
gentlemen who were unable to attend the meeting :
—Mr. G. S. Beecroft, M.P. (applause and laughter),
Mr. W. E. Forester, and Mr. Hamer Stansfeld.
Mr. GEVES ( a working man) then moved the fol-
lowing resolution :
e That this meeting is of opinion that the working
classes of the United Kingdom have a just claim to a fair
share in the representation of the country in Parliament,
and it regards with great satisfaction the formation of the
Leeds Working Men's Parliamentary Reform Association,
with a view to the promotion of a sound measure of Parlia-
mentary Reform."
Mr. RAWLINSON (another working man) se-
conded. the resolution.
Mr. E. BAINES, M.P., on rising to support the
resolution, was received with much cheering. Two
things had always seemed to him entitled to give
solid pleasure to every right feeling max—first of
all to see a great improvement in the intelligence
and condition of his fellow-countrymen. He be-
lieved that the working classes were doing per-
fectly right in demanding an extension of the
franchise, and that it could not • safely be much
longer withheld from those upon whom it would
have been conferred by Lerd J. Russell's Bill, and
that they would exercise it as intelligently, as in-
depen.clently, and as honestly as those above them.
(Applause.)
Mr. BRIGHT, M.P., then rose to address the
meeting, and was greeted with loud and reiterated
cheering. He commenced by saying that, when
he heard this was a meeting specially of working
men, and that working men and unenfranchised
men—if men that were unenfranchised could be
fairly called men—(laughter)—w ere expected
mainly to compose the meeting, he accepted the
invitation which he received, because he felt it was
quite impossible to absent himself from the meet-
ing without doing violence to his own feelings and
his own intense interest in the great question of
Reform. (Applause.) Mr. Bright referred to the
recent elections at Reading, Newcastle, and South-
wark, remarking that at non. of those elections
had a candidate offered himself on Tory principles
or opposed to Parliamentary Reform. (Hear, hear.)
With very few exceptions, wherever there was a
free constituency there was a declaration of opinion
in favour of Reform, and no man could stand upon
the hustings in any town of the United Kingdom
with much probability of being returned if he was
definitivelypledged to oppose Parliamentaryßeform.
(Hear.) If this were so, then the middle classes were
not opposed to such a measure. They themselves were
miserably represented. Large numbers of them
had votes, but they were subjected to a hocus-
pocus kind of contrivance, by which 20,000 men in
one place had no more political influence than 200
men in another place, and some lawyer and land-
holder or rich man in the neighbourhood carried
the whole vote of these 200 men in his pocket.
(Laughter.) But leaving this class to come to the
working class, to that class the Reform Bill of
1832 was a positive, an intended, and an absolute
exclusion. (Cheers.) That exclusion still con-
tinued, and unless the working classes asked for
the door to be opened that some of them might
squeeze themselves in, he was sure that nobody in
either House of Parliament would be able to pro-
cure them admission. (Hear, hear.) In the years
1852, 1854, 1859, and 1860 the Queen had recom-
mended Reform in Parliament. In each of these
years the Ministry had brought in a Reform Bill,
but no measure had been carried. Four or five
Governments had pledged themselves to this ques-
tion, all the leading men of both parties were
pledged to it, and whatever might be the course
taken by the existing Government in the ensuing
session, no Gevernmeht could maintain its place
unless it introduced and carried some real, fair,
substantial measure of Reform. (Cheers.) The
House of Commons generally preferred, at least
with far more ease, to go in the wrong path rather
than in the right ; it could not do with much good
in one session ; it was astonishing how much it
would make of one good measure; it was like a
child with something sweet that it was afraid tt
swallow lest it should lose its taste of it—(laughter,
—but that simile was not very good, for the fact
was that the House of Commons did not like the
good things of the last session ; they were irritated
at the French Treaty ; they were bitterly hostile
to Mr. Gladstone because he was in favour of
economy and a more just imposition of the taxes ;
and when to the other disagreeables a Reform Bill was
to be added, it was more than they could endure.
(Laughter.) Some men not very honest, and some
very weak, on the Reformers' side of the House,
began to find fault with the Bill ; that gave cou-
rage to the Opposition, and ultimately the session
was so far advanced that it was impossible to pass
the Bill then. Still, the Bill was not opposed"on
its first reading, and there wis no division against
it on the second reading. Its principle passed the
House unanimously, and the question must come
up soon for a righteous settlement, unless it turned
out that the people of England and the working
men of England were the only people in Europe
who had no concern with freedom. (Cheers.) He
believed that in the United Kingdom there were
7,000,000 men of the age of 21 years and upwards;
but the actual number of men who possessed a vote
was not more than 1,000,000, so that 6,000,000 had
no votes. It followed, further, that 5,000.000
families, mainly of the working classes, and who
were therefore precisely the class who suffered first
and most from bad legislation, had not a vote in
the election of members of Parliament. He said
that for 5,000,000 families in this kingdom, which
Pretended to be free, which had a representative
system, which had a Parliament centuries old,
which pretended to unfurl the flag of freedom to
all the world,—for us to have 5,000,000 families
from which there
came no single voice, nor mur-
mur, nor vote in the Rouse of Commons was a scan-
dal mid disgrace,
(Land cheers.) Mr. Bright
proceeded to observe that a stranger spectacle had
in Italy, been seen y' The people of the Duchies
of Parma, Modena, Pr
Papal States, of Sicily,"useanY, the
people of the
and of
cottatilee6 wreevroeluintiaokni,!
part) a pea
(for the most
--111Tary man-
dismissing their rulers
ner, and asking the King of a
State to come and rule over there.
doing this because Victor Emmanuel, the kin..
of
Sardinia, was a better man than the D u.e of
Tuscany ? The people of those States knew
nothing of the King of Sardinia personally, but they
knew that under their old rulers—their kings and
their dukes and their Pope—they had no free
expression of opinion, that the people themselves
were utterly excluded from any portion or share in
the government of the country in which they lived.
(Applause.) The object of the revolution
in Italy,
therefore, was that instead of a despotic Govern-
ment there should be established a Government of
a King, with a Parliament, and that if anything,
is hereafter done by legislation or administration in
Italy, it shall not be done by the fiat of one man,
or of a handful of men, or of a handful of families,
but by the general consent of the body of the people
represented in the Parliament of the country.
(Cheers,) This change had given wonderful pleasure
in England—even the Minister of the Crown had,
in a memorable despatch, expressed the pleasure
which the English Government had in looking on
the gratifying Prospect of a people building up the