The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-23 00:00:00

MR. B.R. IGHT IN GLASUOTV.

[We published i yesterday a summary of Mr.
Bright's speech, delivered by telegraph. We now
publish a full rep ort :—]
On Tuesday night Mr. Bright, the member for
Birmingham, adrerised the citizens of Glasgow, in
the City-hall, oil the subject of Parliamentary
Reform. The h all contained 2,700 persons, for
whom suitable ac cc nnmodation had been made, and
on the whole the arrangements were excellent.
The complexion of the meeting was that of the
attendance at a middle-class concert or assembly,
and there is no ea3ubt that the vast mass of those
who filled the be aches was attracted, not from poli-
tical motives, bet from a natural desire to gratify
the feelings of novelty and curiosity. The hall
was completely filled long before the hour an-
nounced for the commencement of the proceedings.
There was a small sprinkling of ladies in the
throng. Mr. Lambeth played some airs on the
organ while the company was waiting for the
opening of the proceedings.
Mr. Buchanan, M.P., was called to the chair.
This distinction had been previously offered to the
Lord Provost, but it was declined by his lordship.
The CHAIRMAN having introduced him in a few
appropriate phrases,
Mr. BRIGHT, on rising, was received with great
cheering, the audience rising to their feet. He
spoke as follows :—Gentlemen, when I look upon
these great meetings, at several of which I have
been permitted recently to be present, I cannot
help asking myself--What is the question—what
is the matter that appears to be stirring to its
innermost depths the heart of my countrymen ? Is
it some sudden frenzy, some fanaticism, which wise
men might rather be sorry for than rejoice over?
Is it some phantasm which you are pursuing, and
which you never will overtake ? I judge, by the
look of expectation and hope, and even of assur-
ance of success, which lights up the counte-
nances of so many before me, that you believe
that yon have at least some great and worthy ob-
ject which has brought us together this evening.
(Cheers.) I believe no more worthy object can
assemble any portion of the citizens of a free
nation, for we are here to discuss a great question
of constitutional reform—to consider how far it
may be possible to confirm and give greater per-
manence and security to whatsoever portion of
liberty we have derived from our forefathers. And
let me remind you that when you discuss questions
connected with the House of Commons, you are
discussing that branch of the Legislature which is
by far the most important to liberty, and without
Which liberty cannot exist. You may have liberty,
and a large share of it, with a monarchy, as we
have happily in this country, but you might have
monarchy without libery, as yon see to be the case
in many of the countries of Europe. You may have
liberty, as we have, even with a portion of your
legislative power in the hands of a house of here-
ditary legislators ; but you might have hereditary
legislators and no liberty whatsoever. But the
House of Commons, that branch of the Legislature
which we are to-night particularly about to dis-
cuss, is not only consistent with the existence of
liberty, but is inseparable in this country from the
existence of liberty. (Hear, hear.) One of the
greatest men, one of the brightest names on the
muster-roll f English worthies, the illustrious
founder of the colony and province of Pennsyl-
vania, gave this definition of freedom :—He said,
" That is a free country where the laws rule, and
where the people are a party to the making of the
laws." (Cheers.) And we are assembled to-night,
I hope, in the full understanding of the magnitude
of the question before us, and with'none but
this high resolve in our hearts, we will, if we
can, by the extension and improvement of our
representative system, confirm and secure perma-
nently, as far as lies in onr power, that which
is the greatest guarantee for freedom which
we in this country possess. (Loud applause.)
Now, in the discussion of this question we are
in a very different position from that in which
we found ourselves when we were here before. It
is now, I believe, generally, conceded that the
figures are all on our side. Yon recollect twelve or
fourteen years ago that there were orators almost
innumerable about the country, some scores of
them at least, who attacked us with figures without
end in favour of the policy of Protection. Ido not
intend to dig up those speeches from the oblivion
which I am sure the orators who delivered them
must wish they may perpetually' keep—(a laugh)
—but I turn to them merely for the purpose of
pointing out that nobody gets up to prove to us
from the multiplication table that the people of
England are fairly represented in the House of
Commons. But there is one complaint made against
us which it is very difficult to escape. We are told
—I am told—that I use the same figures and the
same facts. Well, now, what would be said were
I to use different figures and different facts ?
(Laughter and cheers.) It is the same case, the
same cause, the same great grievance ; I speak to
men of the same order, to be appealed to, reached
and convinced and aroused by the same facts and
arguments ; and, therefore, I cannot be expected to
say something here wholly different from what I
have said on other occasions. (Hear, hear.) For in-
stance, if I tell you that the whole body of the
electors of the United Kingdom amount only to
one-sixth portion of the whole number of adult men
in the United Kingdom, and that one-sixth of the
electors—that is, 1-36th of the adult men in the
United Kingdom—return more than one-half of
the:members of the House of Commons, I shall find
it very difficult to convey an accurate idea of that
fact, unless I make that statement ; and, therefore,
though one may grieve our friendly critics who
watch over everything we do and say, yet I am
bound to explain this matter to my countrymen
wherever I meet them, and wherever they are will-
ing to hear. Now, putting that statement into ano-
ther form, we have at least 6,000,000 grown men in
the United Kingdom, and we have not more than
1,000,000 of them, or a little more, who have
votes,, And we find by Parliamentary returns that
200,000 electors out of that 1,000,000 return some-
what more than one-half of the whole number of
members who sit in the House of Commons. (Hear,
hear.) The fact is it is very easy to show that the
electoral body is so grouped and so managed, and
the whole machine so ingeniously contrived, that
almost all the objects for which a representative
assembly should exist, and representation be ad-
mitted as part of the Constitution of a free country,
are frustrated under the system which exists among
us. There is another illustration of it that has often
occurred to me. I have imagined that all the men
in this kingdom, from 21 years of age, were assem-
bled on some Salisbury Plain, or, not to go so far,
on some wild and desolate part of your own coun-
try. I should be afraid to take you there, even
though it be but in imagination, for fear we should
be charged with disturbing those sacred animals,
the grouse and the deer. (Great laughter and
cheers.) But for the sake of this illustration we
will imagine ourselves so assembled. The Consti-
tution—that is, the Parliamentary arrangement as
we now find it—addresses the 6,000,000 men, and
says to 5,000,000 of them—comprising almost the
whole body of the working-classes of the kingdom,
and not a few of those who may be said to belong
to the middle-classes—we don't want you ; you
may return to your homes, and those who are left
will do your business for you. Well, then, there
would remain a million which would compose
the electoral body. Let us, then, make another
separation. Take all the electors of the boroughs
which comprise the greatinetropolis of the kingdom,
seven great boroughs and seven great constituencies,
and then add to them the constituencies of
seven of the next largest cities in the kingdom—
Liverpool. Glasgow, Manchester, Dublin, Birming-
ham, Leeds, and Edinburgh. It would require
that you should take about 200,000 men from this
million to form the constituencies for the great
metropolis and for these great cities, and when
youhad formed them you would find that they
permitted to return 50 members to the Eng-
lish Parliament. In another part of this plain you
find 200,000 more taken out of the great group, and
put on one side, and they are permitted to return
330 members to the House of Commons.. Well,
everybody sees a-
ea glance that though Parliament,
year, sitting half the rs, must do something, and must
k„,, islate, pass laws, ometed. un es good, sometimes bad
—but, as we all know,
cgewbi
utht
be sensible
difficulty
—(laughter)—yet we cannotbut
the
opinions
of. this
fact, that as a machine for representin
and carrying g
views
uprions
of the people, out their v
poli-
tical questions, or sustaining the character on
country in
its legislation, it would perhaps be im-
possible to devise an instrument more utterly clumsy
and untrustworthy for the purpose for which it
exists. (Applause.) These boroughs that I have
mentioned—the metropolis and those 7 great cities
--tcontain•not less than four millions of inhabitants,
being nearly one-seventh part of the whole popula-
tion of the United Kingdom, and yet they only re-
turn 30 members to the House of Commons. And
of these 200,000 you have not heard the last. You
= do not know so much of it in Scotland as we know
of it England, but the 200,000 are not labelled
together only in groups of 20,000 each, to carry on
their political operations, and to return members
freely; but they are scattered all up and down the
country, many in Ireland, very many more in Eng,
land, with constituencies varying: I think there is
one as low as 86 electors, a .considerable number

between 200 and 300, and the bulk of them have
Only a very small body of electors, compared with
the larger towns and constituencies. And when you
have a very small number of persons to ether they
can hardly, to use a common expression, keep them-
selves warm together. They can't preserve their
independence. A neighbouring landowner, two or
three lawyers, two or three anybodies who choose
to combine and to act with a certain amount of
unity and subtlety will affect the representation of
one of those small boroughs ; and the members
who go up to the House of Commons from them are
often, and generally, not earnest men, anxious to
carry. out any great popular principle, or any great
principle at all ; but the House of Commons is a
convenient club, a pleasant lounge, affords a nice
way of filling up the time of a man who has passed
through business, or being of the order that does
not like business, and has never had any business—
(laughter)—he wants something respectable, where
he may pretend at least not to be absolutely idle.
(Laughter and cheers.) Well, it follows from all
this that the general result of what we call our
Parliamentary representation is not found as yet a
guard of our public interests ; it does not respond
with any heartiness or any willingness to the
aspirations of the people for a better Government.
But it is found to be in sympathy, not with you,
but with the ruling class and is infinitely more
careful to preserve monopolies and privileges than
the general interests of the great body of the na-
tion. (Cheers.) But to-morrow morning some-
body who is probably now sitting, or will be then,
pen in hand, will say, and perhaps with a show of
reason, that I am arguing entirely on a question of
magnitude of population. It is not true ; but still
he may say that, and say that in a country like this
numbers simply should not decide these great ques-
tions, though there is a large space for improvement
between the condition of things I have pointed out
and the condition my critic dreads. But he will
say property is to be taken into consideration at
least as well as, and perhaps before, population.
Let us take for a moment the test of wealth ; and,
as I am in Scotland, take a comparison of your two
foremost cities with some other portion of the coun-
try which enjoys, or possesses—l doubt if it does
enjoy—an unfair share of representation. Your
two cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow have a taxa-
ble property, taking Schedule A of the Income-
tax and Property-tax, which means land and
buildings and property you can see, and Sche-
dule D, which means profits on trades and incomes
from professions, and so forth—a taxable pro-
perty to the amount of £7,800,000—1 leave out all
the odd sums. And there are 101 boroughs in
Great Britain and Ireland, and by no means the
smallest, whose taxable property is £7,434,000—
that is, some £350,000 less. Edinburgh and Glas-
gow, with the larger amount of that taxable pro-
perty, return together four members to the House
of Commons ; and these other boroughs, with a
smaller amount, return no less than 126 members.
(Loud cries of Hear, hear.) Now, when I speak of
these boroughs as adding 126 members, let me
make this explanation. In the bill which Lord
John Russell, acting in Lord Aberdeen's Govern-
ment, brought before the House of Commons in
1854, which, as you know, did not become law, he
proposed to disfranchise all boroughs with a popu-
lation of less than 5,000, and whose number of
electors was less than 300. Now, I have omitted
all these ; I have drawn the line even higher. I
believe if the line be drawn at 7,000 or 8,000, it
will still leave this amazing. disparity, that
£7,800,000 of taxable property in Edinburgh and
Glasgow is represented by four members and a
smaller amount of taxable property in other
boroughs, leaving out these small boroughs of
which I have spoken, is represented by 126 mem-
bers in that house. Take one other illustration on
that point. The annual sum paid by the population
of Edinburgh and Glasgow in taxes, including the'
Income and Property-tax for the two schedules
referred to, including house duty, assessed taxes,
and land taxes—the whole of these taxes paid for
Edinburgh and Glasgow is £556,000, represented
by four members in Parliament ; and the whole sum
which the 126 members represent, of annual direct
taxes paid by their constituents is £562,000, being
only £ll,OOO more than Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Now, my investigation led me to this conclusion,
whether you take numbers, or industry, or wealth,
or what we comprehend as political indepen-
dence—l do not care by what test you choose
to try it—but you will come to the same startling
and, I would say, oppressive result, that these great
populations and interests are most inadequately
represented in the House of Commons under the
present system of representation. (Applause.)
Well, having got thus far, perhaps we shall all be
agreed with everybody else out of doors, as .Mr.
Buchanan says we are, that we must have a change.
The question is, what change ? I have a great
suspicion of those men who profess great anxiety
for something to be done, but constantly assail
those who are attempting to do something. (Great
cheering.) You are aware that less than two
months ago—some six or eight weeks ago—l had
the privilege of addressing on two occasions very
large meetings of my constituents in birmingham.
You recollect the sort of howl of astonishment—
(laughter)—with which—l do not complain of the
Tory papers, because they are constantly labouring
in their always unsuccessful vocation—(laughter)
—but I mean that was set up by papers that cal
themselves Liberal, but who, by some means or
other, seem to be manacled to the triumph of 1832,
and, after living 26 years longer, do not appear to
be, if they are, even so far advanced as they were
at the time of the Reform Bill. (Cheers.) Well,
I am told that the sentiments that were so fright-
ful at Birmingham were very much moderated at
Mane hester, :and that at Edinburgh they were
almost, if not altogether, thrown away. (Laughter.)
Well, now, I say to any of you who read leading
articles, and who invariably believe them—
(laughter)—and I have not the slightest doubt but
this sort of notion may prevail in some minds here
—I say that I believe it is impossible for any one
to compare those speeches at Birmingham with the
speech at Manchester, or the two or three with the
speech at Edinburgh, and to discover the smallest
possible abandonment of any one single sentiment
that I uttered on the first occasions. (Cheers.) Do
these men suppose that I .have the effrontery to
stand before many thousands of my countrymen,
after days and weeks of notice that I am so to ap-
pear before them, and that I conic there to speak
simply the temporary passion and sentiment of the
hour ? They-little know, if they dream of this, the
sense of responsibility which I think every man
shoed speak under who offers himself on any
occasion as the expounder of the opinions
or the guide of the deliberations of his countrymen.
(Great cheering.) Nearly 30 years ago the senti-
ments that I have uttered upon this question of
Parliamentary Reform were proclaimed to thou-
sands of our countrymen by the late Lord Durham.
My opinions with regard to the franchise are not
novel. I stated in Manchester that they were but
the opinions which Fox uttered, and which Lord
Grey proposed to the House of Commons to adopt
in the year 1797. (Hear.) I am no conjuror, I have
got not specific for national happiness. I offer you
nothing made up of all sorts of conundrums and
tricks, but I bring before you what I believe to be
a rational and substantial project for the amendment
of our representation, which I venture to say has
had during the last 60 years the sanction and ap-
proval of the greatest minds and greatest patriots
of our country. (Cheers.) Well, then, what is this
change that is to swamp everybody, and that men
stand aghast at ? (Laughter.) It is that the elective
franchise, which now is confined, both in England
and Scotland, in boroughs, with some exceptions,
to the occupancy of a house of the yearly value of
£lO, shall be lowered so as to take in in reality all
the persons who are householders and occupiers of
premises rated to the relief of thepoor. Your system
of rating is much more- modern in Scotland than
ours in England ; but I learn that, with two or,
three most inconsiderable exceptions, it has now
become uniform throughout the whole of your
country. One reason why I propose this franchise
is this. Unfortunately, in this country—l mean
Great Britain and Ireland—there is a very large
class constantly requiring assistance from their fel-
low men. There requires to be levied all through the
kingdom a rate that does not amount to less—at
least, in 1856 it amounted tomore—than the sum of
seven millions sterling, chiefly devoted, and in fact,
raised for the express purpose of giving relief to the
indigent poor. Now, I think that one of your arti-
sans, let him be what he may in his particular walk
of life, who works hard from morning till night six
days in the week, finds heavy demands at home in
his own family ; he is called upon to perfoam all
the duties of citizenship, and to contribute from
his own earnings to the support of some feeble,
some sick—it may be, some dissolute and profligate
man who is not able to support himself—l think
that every man who is thus called upon to pay
taxes from his weekly and annual earnings for such
a purpose, has some claim to be considered a citi-
zen and to be admitted to the rights of citizenship.
(Cheers.) I have been asked, lam told—for I have
not had time to read half the attacks which, I
understand, have been made upon me—but I am
told that I have been attacked as having been
Fuilty of misrepresentation in stating the custom
in England with regard to the franchise.. I said
that in England, in our parochial governments, in
our Poor Law Unions and municipal governments,
the system of rating and the scale of rating form
the basis of the elective
should not
and I could see
no reason why they shod
of the franchise in the election:flso
na
eforbm
r the basis
liame nt. Well, I am told that
with nl
regardes tof Poor Law unions, in the case of Someparishes, but not.
universally, there is a mode of .voting by which
men give,votes somewhat in proportion to their pro=-

perty in the parish. One man may give one vote,
and another man give, perhaps, six. It is a plan
not very pleasant, wherever it is carried out, to
those who have the smaller number of votes • but
the defence and justification of it are this—that as
the question is a question of expenditure in the im-
mediate locality—the making of roads in some
cases, and a variety of objects requiring to be
attended to by our various local governments—
that it might possibly end in throwing an enor-
mous inequality of expenditure and taxation on a
particular firm, or a few individuals, in a particular
parish or district. But when you come to a ques-
tion of Parliamentary representation, where not
taxes only are to be considered; but rights, and
personal rights, and not taxes only and personal
rights only, but all questions affecting the great
policy of the country, both at home and abroad—l
say that it would be to cast the most deadly and
unchangeable, ineradicable insult upon the work-
ing classes oithis country if anybody for one single
moment contended that I should go to give my six
votes at the poll for a member of Parliament, and
that one of the operatives in my employ should go at
my side and give his one vote. (Cheers.) Till you
are prepared to do full justice to a great propor-
tion of the unenfranchised class I would advise you
to allow matters to remain as they are. lam sure
that opinion is growing, intelligence is growing,
power is growing, combination is growing, and
before long it will be seen to be the interest of all
those who value the tranquillity of the country
and the contentment of the people that political
rights should be widely and honestly extended
among all classes of our countrymen. (Cheers.)
There is one question about the suffrage which, I
believe, I have never yet touched upon in any pre-
ceding speech I have delivered, and that is with
regard to the possibility of conferring the franchise,
in some shape or other, on those who are not rate-
payers, but what are called lodgers. (Hear, hear )
In England we have no such franchise ; in Scot-
land you have. I don't know whether it is by in-
difference in the Scotch Reform Bill—l rather
think it must have been by a different interpreta-
tion being put upon it—that persons in lodgings
for which they pay as rent £lO per annum—the
rental required for a house 'which gives a vote—
that such lodger can claim to have his name put on
the register; and in Edinburgh I learn that there
are a few—l believe not more than 30—on the list
under such conditions. If that be so, there cannot
be, I suppose, much difficulty in reducing the £lO
to some smaller sum which shall become in some
degree accordant with the principle on which the
general franchise is based, in order that persons of
this description who are ambitious to have a vote—
and I do not want any one to have a vote who is
not ambitious of it—that these persons should be
placed on the electoral roll. I now come to the
question of the counties, in which in England we
have a considerable advantage over you in Scotland.
I understand that in your counties you have no
franchise whatever less than a £lO property fran-
chise and a £5O occupancy. In England we have
a lower property franchise, coming down as low as
4s. a-year ; and, though many persons may exag•
Berate the number that would be admitted, and I
have made no calculation as to what the number
would be, I think he must be a very fas-
tidious person indeed who thinks that the British
constitution would be overthrown, and the safety
of anybody worth preserving—(laughter)—be in
the smallest degree put in jeopardy by extending
the 40s. franchise to that part of the United King-
dom called Scotland. (Cheers.) One has to tread
with remarkable particularity over the various
steps of this great question, for if by any chance I
say anything that is not fully explained, it is sure
to be explained in a manner favourable to some
supposed inconsistency. And if any point I have
spoken on at a previous meeting is omitted, it is
said that I have seen reason to change my opinion
on that subject. (Laughter.) In Edinburgh my
voice was very bad and the meeting crowded, and
I was anxious not to make a long speech, and so
said nothing of the question of the ballot. It was
insinuated, therefore, that possibly I did not hold
the same opinion on the ballot that I did in Man-
chester and Birmingham. So we won't altogether
leave out the ballot to-night. (Laughter.) If the
franchise in your boroughs be reduced so much as
to double the whole number of your electors—if it
be reduced so much in your counties as to increase
by probably more than a half all the number of
electors in these counties, I think, if there be any
call now for the adoption of the ballot, that call
would be imperative if such a change in the fran-
chise were made. lam quite certain that in the
district from which I come, the county of Lancaster,
there is but one opinion among the great body of
those persons who are hoping by any Reform Bill
to be admitted within the pale of the constitution
of their country. And I think they would to a
very large extent implore the House of Commons
not to confer upon them the right of franchise, un-
less they conferred upon them also the power, which.
I believe the ballot alone would give them, of ex-
ercising that franchise in accordance with their
own convictions. (Hear, hear.) I cannot compre-
hend why any man should oppose the ballot. I can
understand why men should think that we exaggerate
its importance, but I cannot understand the man
who supposes that it would be likely to inflict in-
jury upon the country. Every good and legitimate
influence would still exist. The rich man would
still be rich and powerful ; in the nature of things
he must be so. The educated man, the intellectual
giant, the benevolent man, the man of religious and
saintly life, would exercise among all those who
were of his circle, and knew of his excellent repu-
tation, an influence which is most beneficent, and
which the ballot would not, I believe, in the smallest
degree impair. But the influence of the landlord,
of the creditor, of the customer, and the influence
of the strong and unscrupulous mind over the feeble
and the fearful, that influence would be as effectu-
ally checked' as, I believe, it can be by any human
contrivance whatever. (Applause.) But there is
another aspect of the question of the ballot, which,
I think, is more important than its political one,
and that is its moral aspect. How would canvass-
ing be conducted under the ballot ? Ido not know
how you conduct canvassing in this large constitu-
ency. I suppose it is not very accurately done at
all. But I can tell you how it is conducted in small
and moderate boroughs in England. .The candidate
goes round to see as many of the electors as possi-
ble ; the next thing is to try to find out about
doubtful electors, who is his landlord or employer,
or who did some particular kindness perhaps to one
of his children, or has some kind of influence over
him. Then half-a-dozen or a dozen get together
and call upon him, and though there is somebody
in that small number who has done him a benefit,
and who expects to have a return; or somebody who
has a power over him, and expects to be obeyed; anal
while the professed purpose is that a canvass and soli-
citation are going on, it is in thousands of cases
little better than a demonstration of force and
tyranny. Every man who, for want of the ballot,
votes contrary to his convictions, is a demoral-
ised and a degraded man, if he is not so be-
fore. (Applause.) He feels it necessary for the
sustaining of his character that he should turn
round and belie the principles that he has always,
up to that moment, held, and declare that he holds
contrary principles now, and therefore did not vote
against the conviction of his conscience. There is
no portion, I can assure this meeting, of the propo-
sitions for reform that have been submitted to the
public in other parts of the country in England
that has been received with such unanimity and
such an enthusiasm of resolution as the proposition
that the ballot shall form a portion of the coming
Reform Bill. (Applause.) We come now to that
question which, after all, is more difficult than the
others to which I have referred—l mean more diffi-
cult of obtaining or carrying through Parliament—
viz., the determination as to the mode in which
members shall in future be allotted to electors and
constituencies. I presume that any Reform Bill
will draw some line, and below that line will dis-
franchise a number of boroughs ; assuming that
their population is too small, their number of elec-
tors too limited, their interests too circumscribed to
justify them in returning a member to Parliament.
And the more of those boroughs that are thus cut
off the larger 'will be the number of electors which
Parliament. will have to distribute among our con-
stituencies. Now, what should be done with such
a burgh as Glasgow ? Are you content to go on
with your brethren in Edinburgh, with a popula-
tion of, I forget exactly how many, but approach-
ing half a million now—will you go on contentedly
returning four members to the House of Commons
to represent your vast and annually increasing in-
terests and population, and that a population no
,greater than yours shall return, as the case may be,
50, or 80, or 100 members elsewhere. You are not
the lovers of freedom that I take you to be—you do
not understand this question as I am satisfied you
do—you have not resolved .to brace yourselves
up for this great contest as I hope you
will to-night resolve, if you are content at all
to go on in the same condition of things which
you have been under in times past. (Applause.)
I am not about to state what I think should be
the limit that ought be taken. The limit that
ought to be taken I am perfectly satisfied will not
be taken. Lord J. Russell proposed that all boroughs
whose population was under 6,000 should be dis-
franchised. Many persons proposed that all boroughs
under 10,000 should not return members to Parlia-
ment, but should merge in the counties, electors for
boroughs becoming in future electors for counties,
to the vast improvement of the county representa-
tion. I will leave that point, for in my mind, if I
had the drawing of a bill, it is not a settled ques-
andl know nothing whatsoever about the in-.
tendons of either the Government or of anybody
else who may be likely to take a prOlinent part in

introducing any measure to the House of Commons
and the country. Now, bear in mind that it is possi--
ble to make a great change in your representation
without the smallest improvement. It is the same
thiirg in daily life. At dinner you may go from one
bad dish to another ; you may go from one unplea-
sant street to another ; you may go from unprofit-
able business to another. You make a very impor-
tant change—you may change the representation as
you shuffle cards or move the pawns upon a chess-
board, but there may be no successful result ; and it
is precisely this which we ought to warn each other
about, especially because it is quite possible that the
Government, hampered, perhaps, by their own pre-
judices and indispositions, hampered by their fol-
lowers—there may be some of their opponents who
do not want much reform—may attempt a measure
which, with the seeming of reform here and there,
may leave the whole question of the representation
in a state quite as unsatisfactory as it is at present.
However, this I maintain, that there can be no re-
form whatsoever except upon the basis, or some-
thing like the basis,l have endeavoureatO lay down;
and I state this with the more particularity, because
I 'am anxious that all my countrymen should have
so entirely investigated the question that, when any
measure is really placed before Them, they may be
in a condition of knowledge to form an intelligent
opinion on it. (Applause.) At present the great body
of the working classes of the country are excluded ;
and I have shown you, I think, that, from the
mode in which the electors are grouped and man-
aged, the great body of the middle classes, if not
excluded, are so arranged and so worked upon
that they may be said to be almost altogether de-
frauded. I want the working classes and the middle
classes—l wish we had no such terms or that we
had some better terms, but I mean all those persons
who may be said to compose the vast population of
the country, below the great privileged and titled
classes of society—why should we not all unite
fairly on behalf of this great measure of political
freedom to which we are looking ? Depend upon
it, a real measure of Reform is as,,much wanted for
the security and the welfare of the middle classes
of society as of the operative classes. (Applause.)
There is a great attempt constantly made to frighten
the middle classes. They are told that the working
men will not be influenced in the least by those
above them in condition, in circumstances, or in
education. Some of you recollect 40 years ago, when
such a thing as a public political meeting could not
be held im Scotland. What did the ruling class say
then ? That political meetings were dangerous, that
they were absolutely treasonable, that public tran-
quillity and the security of Government were im-
possible, if Englishmen and Scotchmen were per-
mitted to meet and to discuss public affairs. Well,
now we meet, and have met for many years, and we
find that the public tranquillity and the security of
the Government are infinitely, more established
than they have been at any previous period proba-
bly in the history of this country. (Cheers.) Twenty-
seven years ago, before the Reform Bill passed, what
did these great peers, some of whom I appear to
have startled out of their somnolent security, say ?
They said the King's Government could not be car-
ried on, and that from the time when that mode-
rate but great measure of reform was passed, there
would be an end of the greatness and glory of this
great nation. Well, what has been the result?
Every one of their predictions has been utterly fal-
sified. Twelve or 14 years ago, when I was here
last, what did they tellus about that small measure
of repealing the Corn Laws ? Why, one great peer
told us that he would leave the country; but one of
the labourers at the meeting said, " He'll not take
his land with him." And we are told that not
agriculture alone, but the manufactures and all
the great commerce of the country would be crippled,
if not destroyed, and your noble river, bearing the
leviathans of naval architecture constructed upon
its banks, would return into its former state of a
small and pleasant stream, and I suppose men would
catch trout and salmon from the bridges. (Laughter.)
This kind of argumentation is what Jeremy Bentham
has very happily described as a hobgoblin argument
—the great trick now-a-days to frighten people lest
they should do themselves some good. To the middle
classes—to you who 27 years ago were pronounced
utterly unworthy of the franchise, and to be filled
with all manner of ignorance and all manner of evil
tendencies—to you now they say, " You are the
very bulwarks of our constitution." (Laughter.)
You live in £lO houses ; but if you go below—to
£9, £B, or £7—you go wrong, the case becomes
more desperate at £5, and a rating franchise is
positively revolutionary. (Renewed laughter.) I
confess I do not believe this in the least. The num-
ber of electors under this rating franchise has been
very much exaggerated by those who have not exa-
mined it. It was stated at a meeting at Edinburgh
the other night, by a gentleman whose authority
will not be disputed, that the franchise I propose
would raise the number of electors in Edinburgh
from about 8,000 to about 17,000. Well, I presume
that in your city it would raise it in a rather greater
proportion than that ; but, whatever it may be, I am
satisfied myself that if we are to take any step—if
we now must change our representation without
going near to convulsing the country and. Parlia-
ment, destroying a Ministry or two, and perhaps
having a couple of general elections Wore this
question is settled—l say to every man of the
middle class, to every man who wishes the stability
of all our valuable institutions and the security of
law—treat the great body of your people with
magnanimous generosity, and I wholly mistake the
character of my countrymen if 20 years hence there
is not a unanimous acknowledgment that genero-
sity in 1859 was the path of absolute wisdom.
(Loud and repeated cheers.) I observe in a num-
ber of some newspaper—l am not sure whether
it was one in your city—but I will say of those
in your city that I have seen, that when they
have differed from the views that I have propounded,
there has been a fairness in their criticisms which
I appreciate and which I honour. am in favour
of the most rigid criticism of political opinions and
political acts, but this I do think, that we are en-
titled to demand of those who criticise that they
shall not knowingly misrepresent, and that they
shall not fill up any void which we may happen to
leave with something that is obviously inconsistent
with the general character of our observations.
Now, one of those critics said that I had failed to
show to the working classes that giving them a
vote would be of the smallest advantage to them.
I believe that it would be of advantage % them in
the way of raising their self-respect. (Hear.) I
have seen thousands of mea who had no votes at-
tending at the nomination of candidates, or stand-
ing about the polling booths with looks of great
anxiety, and often with looks of great dejection. I
believe that if the major part of these were enfran-
chised the effect upon their minds and morals and
mental condition would be obvious and signal. The
great secret of raising any man who happens to be
in what may be called an inferior walk of life, and
who seems as if he could make no effort to raise
himself in it or from it, is to find out something
that will increase his self-respect. If he becomes
possessed (that is not, to be sure, a very high ground
for self-respect) of the sum of £5----ff he thinks he
can make it .ElO by frugality and labour—if he
sees there is anything among his fellow-workmen,
or any of your numerous societies, benevolent and
educational, in which he can be of the least use,
don't you see at once a change in the look of the
man ? 'What there was that was stupid, or low,
or degrading to some extent, or hopeless, seems as
if it gradually sank and diminished, and in time
retires altogether, and in its place it is succeeded
by something greater, andhappier, and ennobling.
I believe when you invite the great body of your
artisans within the list of the roll of electors—when
they can not only attend your nominations and hold
up their hands and cheer for the successful or ap-
plauded candidate, but when they can also go one by
one into the polling booth and register their fiat a, to
the man who shall represent the great interests of
the community—my honest, my conscientious con-
viction is, that you will do as much to raise their
self-respect, to give them at least the rudiments and
elements of a higher class of citizenship, as you do
by all the other means that you now have in opera-
tion, with the view of improving the temper and
the condition of the working classes. (Applause:)
And there are other results that will come to this
country, in case you ever obtain a fair representa-
tion of the people. I have been in Scotland a good
deal for the last three or four years, and often before
then. I have found, in travelling over your coun-
try, that your land is not the land of the people
of Scotland, but that it is in possession in a manner
exclusively, which is not found to be the case with
regard to any other property, compared with the
whole number of the people, of a small handful of
proprietors. • Now, let no man say that I am about
to assail any landed proprietor in Scotland. I have
received many courtesies from them, and not a few
courtesies from the most eminent and most dis-
tinguished among them. I speak only of a system
which arises from legislation, which is diametrically
opposed to all those great principles of political
economy which we and you struggled for many
years to place on our statute book in the shape of
legislation in matters of trade. Land is the basis
of your industry. Is there any reason why land
should not be as free as machinery, or ships, or
household furniture, or cattle, or the goods and
manufactures in your warehouses? If freedom be the
law of right, of wisdom, and of benevolence with re-
gard to all other kinds of property, how shall the
reverse of freedom be any other than the law of mis-
chief and injury when applied to land ? (Applause.)
You travel, I was i•oing to say, from the rising of
the sun to the going down thereof, on one single
estate in Scotland ; north -or south, east or west,
'wherever you go, you ask whose land you are on,
and: it belongs to
.Lerd This= or Lord qie:Other,
or Mr Sothebody-else. - These- are happy mortals

ER 23, 1858,

it may be said, who possess these great territories,
and so-, --perhaps, they would be if it were
possible for any man, however well disposed, ade-
quately to answer the responsibilities which such
possessions lay upon him. You find on these vast
estates very few tenants, and generally few of an
agricultural population at all. There is little social
freedom—there is little industrial freedom—there
is still less political freedom in districts such as
these lam describing. I don't know myself very
well how men can breathe freely when they find
themselves continually—but I suppose habit helps
them to it—on a soil not a morsel of which can
they call their own, nor can they ever hope to call
any of it their own, until they take their last long
sleep in that which society shall allot them. lam
no advocate for laws to force a division of land. I
do not want any landlord to be compelled to have
a greater or smaller number of tenants ; but I say
that a system of legislation in laws of
.primogeni-
ture and in laws of entail, which is intended to
keep vast estates in one hand through successive
generations, to prevent that occasional dispersion
and change of property which is found so advan-
tageous in every other kind of property—l say
that state of things is full of the most pernicious
consequences not only to the agricultural classes,
but to all other classes of our countrymen, for all
are affected by it. (Applause.) I recollect seeing
a farmer one evening riding away from an inn that
I was staying at in the Highlands, and I asked his
name. They said he was a farmer in some neigh-
bouring glen, and that he had a prodigious farm.
At one time my informant said he recollected there
were 14 good farms on that farm, and that these
14 families always managed to send at least one of
their sons to get a first-class university education.
I don't want any law to strip that one farmer of
his -farm and restore the 14, but laws that interfere
with the free course of transactions in land, which
aid and keep, up such transactions in an estate,
giving to one man the power over, a whole terri-
tory, whereby he has at his disposal tenants and
labourers alike, is a state of things not consistent
with that freedom which the people of England
and Scotland, in my opinion, are alike entitled
to. (Applause.) Your agricultural population
have no chance of rising in the world. They
can come to Glasgow, as scores of thousands of
them have come here from the Highlands and
from Ireland, and, forced by the unfavourable cir-
cumstances in which they find themselves, that
they may become exiles from their native country,
and may form colonies in the far Pacific or beyond
the Atlantic. But I think we are bound as free-
men—and we in this town are especially bound, for
we only have the power, to take the initiative in
this great question, so far as we are able by our re-
presentatives in Parliament, and I have no doubt
it would be one of the consequences of a real Reform
Bill, to apply those great principles of political
economy which are the gospel and charter of indus-
try as fully to the great property in land as we
have already applied them to property enjoyed in
trade. (Applause.) There is one other point to
which I must ask your attention, in answer to the
question, What is the good which the working
classes, or any class will get from a wider extension
of the franchise ? Now, there is one great qnestion
which the public have no sort of hold over. The
present Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Disraeli,
an eminent member of the' House of Commons, a
leading member of the Government, and a man of
genius, whose position, I may say, is a proclama-
tion to the world of the incompetency of the Con-
servative aristocracy and of the country gentlemen
of the United Kingdom—(applause)—and, what is
still more to be remarked, is the evidence which
this shows of the humility which adorns their
character—(laughter)—in thus permitting it—Mr.
Disraeli said. on more than one recent occasion,
that expenditure depends upon policy, and he
meant by that that our public expenditure depends
upon our foreign policy. Now, our past foreign
policy has been of a very questionable character.
It has landed us in a permanent payment, from
which there is no honourable escape, of the sum of
£28,000,000 sterling per annum—(hear, hear)—and
our present foreign policy, and matters connected
with it, involve us in a present payment of
£22,000,000 per annum in our great military and
naval preparations and expenses. Now, lam not
about for a moment to discuss the question of whe-
ther our foreign policy has been, or is now, good,
bad, or indifferent, because that does not very much
affect the question to which I want to call your atten-
tion. • Now, in our home affairs we have a very open
system of Government. If the Home-office is
going to do anything somebody hears of it, and
somebody approves or somebody objects. On all
matters connected with our freedom, with the ad-
ministration of justice, on things which may be
called internal, we have the freest opportunities of
obtaining information and expressing our opinions
and enforcing our views upon the Government,—
that is, the freest that is possible so long as our re-
presentation is as imperfect as it now is ; but when
you come to our foreign policy you are no longer
Englishmen, you are no loner free. You are re-
commended not to inquire ; if you do you are told
that you cannot understand it, =you are snubbed,
hustled on one side, told that it is a matter too deep
for common understandings like yours; there is a
great mystery about it. We have what is called
diplomacy,—we have a great many Lords engaged
in what they call diplomacy. (Loud applause.)
We have a Lori in Paris, we have another in Ma-
drid, another in Berlin, .another (at least we have
had up till lately) at Vienna, another until lately
at Constantinople, another at Washington—all over
the Continent particularly, and where the society
is the most pleasing and the climate the most agree-
able, there is always an English nobleman to repre-
sent the Foreign-office. (Laughter and applause.)
But you never know what he is doing. You have
three or four columns in the Times newspaper
nearly every day, and in almost all the rest of the
London papers, and not a little of this is copied
into the provincial papers, all about foreign affairs;
but, notwithstanding that, you are seldom a bit
more acquainted with them when you read these
things—if anybody ever does—than you were be-
fore., But yet out of all this has come this great
fact of the £28,000,000 which you have paid since
1815, for more than 40 years—a thousand millions
of money paid out of the industry of your people.
And out of this comes now the supposed necessity
for armaments twice as large as were considered
necessary 25 years ago ; and yet you have
no control over this, and you positively
know nothing whatsoever about it. There is
no population equal to this in Russia, Austria,
or France, that knows less about the foreign
policy or foreign affairs of Russia, Austria, and
France, probably than this nation knows of the
foreign affairs of England. Lately, your Minister
of Foreign Affairs was. candid enough to tell you
that the Government drifted—you know what they
mean when a ship drifts—into war ; and these
Foreign Ministers have drifted us into a great many
wars; and I suspect if some change is not made
with regard to this matter, they will find it very
convenient, or find that they cannot avoid it, from
some cause or another, to allow us to drift into war
in future. I won't talk about what 'war is ;we
have had a specimen. Be it necessary, be it unne-
cessary, be the quarrel just or be it unjust, be it for
the rights of a nation, or be it to gratify the
stupidity of a Monarch or the intrigues of a Minis-
ter—war, nevertheless, is one of the greatest cala-
mities which can ever afflict any kingdom of the
human race. (Loud applause.) But your people
are ignorant of the steps by which you are dragged
into war. A Scotch duke—rather a sprightly duke
too—lately took me to task for something which T
said in a public speech. I called in question the
wisdOm of these enterprises abroad while the people
of Ireland had a shilling a-day of wages, and great
numbers of families in the Highlands of Scotland
had two or three meals a-day consisting only of
oatmeal. Why, what is the answer, the triumphant
refutation—that oatmeal was a wholesome diet.
(Laughter.) If I had said that the duke's dogs, at
Inverary Castle were fed with oatmeal the answer
would have been perfectly satisfactory. (Loud
and repeated cheers.) But I am told further by
these great authorities that though the country
does occasionally become involved in the calamities
of war, the people are as fond of war as their
rulers, and that even the House of Lords was less
disposed to the last war than the people. 'Well, if
they sorrowed for the wars, all I can say is they
"never told their grief." So far as I can recollect
there was but one member of the House of Lords
—and I hold him in the highest honour for his
courage, and, as I believe for his wisdom—that
boldly declared the non-necessity of the contest
into which we were drifting. But is the
people, are we, the nation, who know nothing
about these foreign affairs, to. have the blame
of these calamities thrown on us when
they do occur ? Who form your Cabinets ? Glas-
gow merchants, or shopkeepers, or artisans, or the
farmers of your counties ? No ; but members of
the peerage of the United Kingdom. The half of
your Cabinet is alwaTs in your House of Lords,
and the half that is in the House of Commons is
more than half always connected with the peerage.
Don't let us have the same men for generations—
men of one class, of a few families holding these
high positions, enjoying their , vast emoluments,
standing before their country honoured with all its
dignities, and when some one such as I am steps
forward to point out the grievous blnnders they
have made, and the crimes that some-of them have
committed, and the fearful and incalculable suffer-
ings which their countrymen have endured—suffer-
ings which never will be. revealed to us here, but
are known only, and will 'be recorded only, on the
everlasting tablets of the Eternal : I say, when we
point at these, don't let them turn round and say
that we' were in the Cabinets; we received the emo-