The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-01 00:00:00

Dinner to Mr. Horsman, M.P.

Last evening the electors of Stroud gave a public
dinner to Mr. Horsman, their junior member, at the
Subscription-rooms. Mr. J. W. Halliwell presided,
and nearly 300 gentlemen, including the Moderate
Liberals and Liberal Conservatives of the borough,
Eat down to dinner. On entering the hall, Mr.
Horsman was very warmly received. The customary
loyal and patriotic toasts having been duly honoured,
The CHAIRMAN proposed the toast of the even-
ing, "The Health of the Right lion. E. Horsman,"
which was drunk amid the greatest enthusiasm.
Mr. HonsmaN, in responding at great length, said
he must leave it to themselves, who knew better
than he did the circumstances in which he stood
among them, to judge what his feelings must be on
that occasion, rather than attempt by any feeble
words to give inadequate expression to his deep gra-
titude towards them. He regarded that gathering as
a great public declaration on their part that they
wished their member to be truly a representative,
and not a delegate—(cheers)—and that while they
valued party ties there were still occasions when
great principles might override the exigencies of
party; that when the leaders of a party, from weak-
ness, from blindness, from selfishness, or any other
cause, entered into combinations at variance with
its true principles, then it was of advantage to have
a representative who would step forward to vindicate
the cause that was about to be betrayed, and who
would raise his voice to warn the country against
danger into which it was being plunged. He had
been a member of Parliament before many now in
that room were born, and during a period of great
labour, anxiety, and responsibility to public men ;
and, speaking for himself, he could say the highest
reward he could look to for any service that he had
rendered would be when he came face to face with
those whom he had been endeavouring to serve to be
told that in his past career there was no cause of re-
proach to himself or of shame to them, and that
their interests had not been prejudiced through hav-
ing been confided to his keeping. (Cheers.) He en-
tered Parliament soon after the Reform Bill of 1832
became law, since which time a greater number of
great measures had been passed than in any corre-
sponding period of profound peace in any country.
But they now had a school of politicians who said
that the Parliament reconstructed under the act of
1832 had done its work, was good for nothing, and
must be reformed ; while every man who stood up
for it was supposed to be a recreant to Liberal
principles. He happened lately to come across
one of these unfledged Liberals descending
from a very old and official Whig stock,
who ran last summer into rather wild courses,
and said he thought the proposed Reform meeting
in Hyde-park ought to have been held there, and
that he himself, if his antecedents would have jus -
tified it, would have been ready to head the mob.
Thereupon he remarked that he thought the break-
ing down of the palings of the park in order to get
within the pale of the Constitution was rather an
irregular proceeding. (Cheers and laughter.) The
ardent young Reformer replied, " Oh ! your notions
are antiquated !" He then asked the youth whe-
ther he remembered Sheridan's rejoinder to a suck-
ling politician, who told him he was not a Reformer,
Ile said, "No." Well, he repeated Sheridan's
words to him, which were—" Sir, I began as a Re-
former before you were born, and I shall continue
a Reformer after you are hanged." (Laughter and
cheers.) The youth was silenced for the moment,
but returned to him next day, and asked him whe-
ther he really thought he should be hanged, to which
he replied, "..No, and for two reasons—first, because
no Government would think you worth hanging ;
and, next, that happily we don't hang people now
for political offences, but if you go on as you have
begun, I may tell you for your own comfort that
you have a very good chance of being transported."
(Renewed cheers and laughter.) Now, if there was
one passage in his Dolitical life to which be could
look back without self-reproach it was his connec-
tion with the question of Parliamentary Reform.
That was a subject on which he had made great
sacrifices, for no other purpose except to proclaim
what he believed to be great principles, to defeat
intrigues, to th a-art discreditable combinations, and
to save his country from the dangers into which
he thought she was about to fall. From the first
his policy had been to effect what he felt to be
just and necessary reforms, without giving the
predominance to any particular class, and to
those principles he still earnestly adhered. Let
him remind them more particularly what, those prin-
ciples were. By a curious coincidence it so happened
that in the month of January of 1859, and speaking
in that very room, and with Lord Derby then, as
now, occupying the post of Premier, he expressed
to his constituents his opinions on Parliamentary
Reform, which, as they would remember, had not
then become a party question. Everybody then, as
now, was asking " Is the Derby Government going
to introduce a Reform Bill?" and his answer to that
question was that he did not know, that they had kept
their secret very carefully. (A laugh.) Then deal-
ing with the future of Reform he proceeded as fol-
lows :—" The difficulties in any plan of Reform that
had hitherto been proposed for the extension of the
franchise arose out of this :—The great defect of
the Reform Bill was that it established one uniform
franchise. Before the Reform Bill there were a
great variety of franchises, although;of course, they
were liable to abuse. In the excitement and hurry
of that time it was more easy to sweep away than
to repair and perpetrate them. Perhaps such a
change was inevitable ; but it left for the first time
io this country a uniform franchise based on the
qualification of property. I will tell you why I think
that was defective—because, if you have franchise
based on the property qualification, if you extend
that franchise, you can extend it only in one direction
—viz., by lowering that qualification. Well, Lord
John Russell in 1832 lowered the franchise and gave
it to the £lO householder. In his subsequent Re-
form Bill, 20 years afterwards, he proposed to lower
it to £5, but the same argument used in favour of
reducing it to £lO or £5 would equally apply for
reducing it to ss. or 5d.; and then you come to uni-
versal suffrage. Well, that is my objection and that
is my difficulty to every plan for the extending the
franchise which has hitherto been propounded." Now
those sentiments expressed by him in that room in
1859 were received with the unanimous approval of
his constituents, who gave him on the occasion
a vote of unqualified confidence. But Lord
Derby introduced in 1859 a Reform Bill which con-
tained no extension of the franchise, and which he
thought defective. He told his political friends that
they would be perfectly justified in the throwing it
out on the second reading, and that if they took that
course he would support them. But they might
amend the measure in committee and then cast upon
the Government the responsibility of accepting or
rejecting it in its improved form ; while if it was not
rejected, they would effect a permanent settlement
of the question, and admit a large portion of the
working classes to the franchise. In that course,
too, he was ready to concur. But there was a third
policy which he told them they might adopt —viz.,
by a faction movement to obtain the return of the
Liberal party to office ; and that crooked and mis-
chievous policy he was not prepared to countenance.
lie warned them that if they pursued that course
they might drive the Conservatives from power and
take their places, but they would at the same time
commit themselves to a pledge which they would not
redeem, and undertake a measure that they could
not pass. The words he used on that occasion were
these :—" When you have briken that pledge and
Liled in yoar measure your Government will be
gone ; but will the question of Parliamentary Re-
form be gone ? No, it will not be gone ; it will have
slipped from the hands of Parliament; it will have
gone out of the hands of the councils of Cabinets,
but it will fall into other hands elsewhere. Legis-
lation you will have made impossible, but agitation
inevitable and successful. That agitation will
proceed year by year, with more and more party
dirt thrown upon it, with Ministers and Parliament,
and public men weakened, damaged, and discredited,
until a period shall arrive when the sky may not be
so tranquil, when commercial difficulty and manu-
facturing distress may dispose an ill-employed and
heart-wearied population to meet the tale of their
grievances half way ; and then, with tumultuous
gatherings in the provinces, with telling re•H