The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-28 00:00:00

THE SUN.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1858.

Mr. BRiGHT'S admirable speech, yesterday, at
Birmingham, has sounded the trumpet-note of Re-
form for the next session of Parliament. It rings
clear and loud upon the ear of the nation ; and will,
happily, be echoed for some time to come from
journal to journal as distinctly as by a series of
audible reverberations. The Reformers of Eng-
land—and we may count them in almost any direc-
tion by hundreds of thousands—have again reason
to be grateful
_fora the complete restoration
to health of the most eloquent of all their
great advocates in the Legislature. We say
this quite as cordially, as unreservedly, as un-
affectedly as the most Watuated of the political'
followers and personal friends of the ex-member
for Manchester, now M.P. for Birmingham. Mr.
BRIGHT is by none more sincerely respected or
more heartily -admired than by ourselves. Yet
upon many questions, and some of these vital ques-
tions too, we have often been, we shall probably
-very often be, diametrically opposed to him. We
b2lieve him to be as thoroughly conscientious a
politician as ever, with the rarest witcheries of
oratory, charmed the senses and led captive the
judgments of an assembly of Englishmen. But we
don't by any means regard him as infallible in his
own judgment. We conceive him to have often
been, and still to be upon many points, egregiously
mistaken. And, by the same right that he him-
self utters those opinions which appear to us so
very fallacious, we presume frankly and explicitly
to declare them to be, according to our view of things,
erroneous. For our exceeding audacity in so doing
Mr. BRIGHT has, before now, fallen foul of us with
the utmost possible degree of discourtesy. That
he has so retaliated upon the independence of this
organ affects our judgment in his regard not in the
least particular. His abilities will still find in the
columns of The Sun an ever cordial recognition.
His arguments will still be examined by us
neither in a captious nor in a sycophantic
spirit—but with a candid regard to their
intrinsic value in our own unbiassed estimation.
It is with these sentiments that we have always
hitherto scrutinised—that we shall continue still
hereafter to scrutinise—the reasoning of Mr.
BRIGHT upon all those important subjects so inti-
mately affecting the welfare of the community—
subjects discussed by him with the ready mastery
of a man at once of genius and of common sense,
both within and without the walls of Parliament.
As a Reformer we go with Mr. BRIGHT heart and
soul. As a Peace-at-any-price man, we are opposed
to him absolutely. Of his whimsical pugnacity
in insisting upon his views in the latter character,
he himself almost perversely, certainly very gra-
tuitously and superfluously, afforded a new and
somewhat striking illustration at the outset of the
brilliant oration delivered by him yesterday in the
Town-hall of Birmingham. Now—in 1858—he
must needs go harking back to the old irritating
que"Stion—the vexed question and the vexing ques-
tion—of the war of 1854 between the Allies and
Russia. He reminds us of what we only too well
remember—How at the time when that great war
apppeared to be imminent he insisted upon it, from
his place in the House of Commons, that it
was in no way worth the cost and sacrifices it
would inevitably necessitate. Mr. BRIGHT at
that time was in a conspicuous minority.
He is so to this
moment. At the
period he refers to, the Crown, the State, the
Country thought otherwise. And, thinking other-
wise, war was declared. At an enormous cost, with
very fearful sacrifices that' war was continued
with many blunders, with precipitate, with in-
sensate haste it was brought to a conclusion. And
now that three years Shave elapsed since the date of
its close, Mr. 1311101 ff—still in a minority, no doubt
a conscientiOus, but still a very ridiculous minority
—signalises the commencement of the first
great speech he has yet delivered outside the walls
of Parliament since his happy restoration to health
—by taunting the Crown, the State, the Country
with the query, " Was this war really, after all,
worth this enormous cost, these terrible sacri-
fices ?" He takes pains to bring before the national
ken as vividly as possible the mournful penalties of
the war—the aggregate of 40,000 lives lost by
Pal. Maud, the total of £100,000,000 sterling
*ea by England in the agonies of the
Crimean Struggle. Was the war worth all this ?