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

introducing, any measpre to tlle,.ljouse, of commons
and the' country. Now; in mind that it is possi-
ble to make a great change in your representation
without the smallest improTement. -It is the same

thing in daily life. At dinner you may go from (MP
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, I have endeavoured to 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--I 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 hi 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 . mere 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 tell us 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 consti ucted 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
bery 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
verymuch 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
(soing near to convulsing the country and Parlia-
ment, destroying a Ministry, or two, and perhaps
having a couple of general elections before 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-=I 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. lam 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 tlitem a
vote would be of the smallest advantage to them.
I believe that it would be of advantage to them in
the way of raising, their self-respect. (Hear.) I
have seen thousands of men 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 £s—if he thinks he
can make it £lO 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 gi eat body of your
artisans within the list of the roll of electors---when
they can not en4ly 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 as 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 hither 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. Nov, let no man say that lam 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 ferniture, or cattle, or the goods, and
manufactures in your warehouses ?• If freedom bethe
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 going 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 Lord This or Lord the Other,
or Mr. Somebody-else. These are happy mortals