The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-28 00:00:00

REPRESENTATION OF GREENWICH.

Last night Mr. Alderman Salomons made his ap-
pearance before a large assembly of the inhabitants
of Greenwich, convened in the Lecture-hall, as a
candidate for the vacancy in the Parliamentary re-
presentation of the borough caused by the retire-
ment of Mr. Townsend. The meeting was an-
nounced to take place at 8 o'clock, but so early as 7
the people began to pour into the hall ; and when
the Alderman presented himself on the platform it
-was crowded to excess, while some hundreds more
applied in vain for admission. He was accompanied
by General Thompson, M.P., and several of the most
influential inhabitants of Greenwich, and was en-
thusiastically cheered on entering the room. Dr.
Prior Purvis, of Blackheath, acted as chairman, and
briefly congratulated the audience on the recent
alteration in the law, which enabled a gentleman
whom the constituency had once before under me-
morable circumstances sent to represent them in
Parliament, to present himself again for election
with the certainty of now being able to sit and vote
in the House of Commons in the event of being re-
turned.
Mr. Alderman SALOMONS then stood forward to
address the meeting, and was again loudly cheered.
After a passing allusion to the Act of last session,
providing for the admission to Parliament of per-
sons professing the same religious creed as himself,
he said he stood there to challenge the eleotors to
fulfil the promise they once made that they would
return him again to Parliament as their represen-
tative whenever the day arrived on which he should
be freed from the disabilities which until recently
attached to members of the Jewish religious per-
suasion. He told them most unaffectedly that he
was sorry for the circumstances under which an
election for .Greenwich was now likely to arise.
(Cheers.) On those circumstances it would not
become him to make any observations. All that he
had to say was that the period of election was at
present so uncertain that he should not have come
so early into the field were it not that others had
come forward to challenge the suffrages of the con-
stituency. That being so, he thought it his duty
not to think of presenting himself as a candidate
for any other place until he first the electors
of Greenwich an opportunity of redeeming the pro-
mise they formerly made him ; and he was now
ready to meet any other candidate for their suffrages
at the hustings, where alone the election could be
decided. (Cheers.) Of Mr. Angerstein, who had
recently announced himself as a candidate, he would
only say that he was, in every sense, a gentleman
—a worthy opponent, and a man of honour ; and
if the circumstances were such as he thought ought
to induce him to enter the lists on the present occa-
sion, he would find in him (Alderman Salomons) an
individual who would meet him on terms such as
those on which gentlemen ought to meet. (Cheers.)
But he did think that Mr. Angerstein, coming for-
ward, as that gentleman said he did, professedly on
the same side as himself—ought not to have pre-
sented himself on the present occasion, allowing his
political opinions to be in accordance with those of
a majority of the electors. Having said so much,
he would come to a statement of his political prin-
ciples, and ask how far they in accordance with
those of the greater part of the constituency. He
was no stranger among them. For many years they
had been familiar with his principles ; and living
besides, as he had done, in public for a considerable
part of his life, and having served the office of chief
magistrate of the city of London, in which a man
might be said to live for a whole year in a glass
house at the top of a pole—(laughter)—and to be
wholly unable to hide his light under a bushel, he
thought he had some claim on the consideration of
metropolitan constituency, when he sought at
their hands the honour of representing them in the
House of Commons. (Cheers.) At present there
were three questions in which the country at large
was interested, and those were—an extension of the
franchise, the ballot in connexion with it, and the
abolition of church-rates. First, in regard to the
franchise, a large extension of it, as they all knew,
was made in 1832, but since then new interests had
grown up, a striking advance had been made by all
classes of the people in intelligence and moral worth,
and especially by the industrial classes, and he
thought the time had arrived when the great mass
of the community should be afforded facilities for
expressing their opinions on public questions to a
greater extent than was accorded them by the Re-
form Bill of 1832: This country differed from all
others. With what part of the community had all
the great movements originated which had con-
ferred advantages on the whole country ? Had these
come from above or below? They had all been
the result of public opinion, expressed chiefly by
the middle and working classes, and they had all
led to some signal impetus being given to the trade
of the country, and as a consequence to a manifest
amelioration of the condition of the humbler ranks
of the people. He thought the time had now come
when a large extension of the suffrage should take
place, with the view of satisfying those great public
wants that had grown up in the community since
1832. (Cheers.) The country was to a certain
degree in the dark as to the extent to which the
new extension of the franchise should 60. If he had
the Government Reform Bill before him he should
be able to say whether he approved or disapproved
of it. But, without knowing the programme of the
Government, his opinion was that the franchise, as
hitherto, should be based on property- in some way
or other, whether in the shape of rating, household
occupation, or accumulations of money in the sav-
ings-banks. Those were matters of detail ; but he
was certain that no person who heard him would
say that the man of no property whatever ought to
be placed in the same position as the man who had
property of some kind or other. (Oh, oh !) He
would convince the gentleman who cried " Oh, oh"
that he (Mr. Alderman Salmons) was right. So-
ciety was banded together for mutual protection,
and what the Legislature should look to was to
place the franchise, or rather the possession of pro-
perty- as the groundwork of it, so low that it should
be the ambition of every man to obtain it ; and
that was the principle by which he (Mr. Salomons)
would test the soundness of any coming Reform
Bill. (Loud cheers.) In connection with that
he would have the ballot. (Cheers.) He himself
believed that both those who were strongly in
favour of the ballot, and those who were as much
against it, over-rated its importance. But it
was essentially an elector's question ; and it'
an elector thought he would be more protected by
the ballet than without it in the exercise of his
franchise, there was no reason whatever why those
who asked for it should not have it. He might
speak with some confidence on this subject, because
he had come by slow degrees to the determination
which he had submitted to the meeting. He was
one of those who at one time felt considerable hesi-
tation in having recourse to the ballot ; but seeing
the great advances which had been made by the
working and industrial classes generally—seeing
the order that had prevailed for the last ten years,
and looking at the diffusion of the means of educa-
tion among the humbler orders of the community
—he thought the time had arrived when it should
he conceded, and lie would never lend himself to the
imputation that when a working man was asked
for his vote and promised it he would afterwards
seek to evade the performance of his promise at the
ballot-box. On the contrary, he was of opinion
that the promise of a working man was as good as
that of a man who wore broadcloth—(cheers)—and
if such a man thought it would be to his advantage
to vote under the protection of the ballot it was not

for him (Mr. Salom- ons), who asked him for his vote,
to prescribe the manner in which it should be given,
whether in an open or a secret manner. Passing
to the question of church-rates, the speaker pointed
out how inimical to, religion and to the interests of
the Church itself, as well as dangerous to the pub-
lic peace, had been the unseemly controversies to
which it had given rise for many years past. He
also alluded to the progress which the voluntary
system of maintaining. th fabrics of the Church, and
the expenses attending Divine worship was mak-
ing in the rural districts. Looking, he added,
at the question in a comprehensive spirit, and
when he saw the large sums of money raised
throughout the country for the support of
public worship, in one form or other, he could not
for a moment doubt that if the maintenance of the
ecclesiastical fabrics was a voluntary instead of a
compulsory charge; not only would Churchmen but
Dissenters also be willing to share in it. (Hear.)
He would now say a few words in reference to our
international relations. He spoke in a borough in
which there were two dockyards, and where there
could be no insensibility as to the requirements of
military and naval affairs. A great deal had been
said within the last two or three months on the re-
lations of this country with France. We had been
at peace with France for the last 42 years, and if
under the circumstances of that period we had been
enabled to live on terms of peace with our nearest
and most powerful neighbour, he could see no rea-
son why we should not remain at peace with her
for at least another 42 years. He believed himself,
having
some intimate connexions with the French
people, that although there might be among them
those who were still swayed by the recollection of
ancient feuds, there were many more who cast 'a
wistful eye on the mode in which we had become
as a nation rich, great, and powerful ; and he be-
lieved there was a very large proportion of them
who were anxious to remain on the best terms with
this country. When he told the meeting that
during the last 10 years the French imports and
exports had been doubled, they would see how
deep an interest our neighbours h ad in the undis-
turbed continuance of the peaceful relations which •
had- so long subsisted between them and us. lie
added that-it would he-unbecoming a great nation
like England to neglect those proper defensive pre-