The Sun.
London, England, 1867-10-17 00:00:00

REFORM BANQUET A? LEEDS.

On Tuesday evening the Leeds and Bradford
members of the Yorkshire department of the Reform
League celebrated the passing of Lord Derby's Be-
form Bill by a banquetat the Queen's Hotel, Leeds.
Mr. A. Illingworth, of Bradford, occupied the chair.
Mr. Baines, M.P., Mr. E. A. Leatham, Mr. Chad-
wick, of Arksey, Mr. S. Plimsoll, of Sheffield, were
among those immediately supporting the chairman,
but there were also in attendance gentlemen from
Halifax, Huddersfield, &c., and many members of
the Leeds Corporation. After the usual loyal toasts,
Mr. BAINES, M.P., in responding to the toast of
"The houses of Parliament," which had been re-
ceived most heartily, said in the manner of its re-
ception there was an assurance to all who neededsuch
an assurance, that when, they (the Reform League)
were calling for Reform they never meant revolution
—they never meant that they were not attached to
the glorious old Constitution of England. No; they
honoured both Houses of Parliament, and even the
aristocratic house, as institutions. They looked back
upon their history ; they knew the great number of
distinguished and noble men whom they included ;
they believed that they were a machinery calculated
to promote a free opinion, and calculated in every
way to promote the happiness of the nation ; but
what they claimed was, and what their conscientious
wish was, that those Houses of Parliament should
represent the people—(applause)—that they should
not represent a mere fraction of the people, and that
claim certainly was most reasonable. And now what
made them rejoice was not a selfish object attained,
but an object wide as the nation itself, and which
they shared and enjoyed with all their fellow-citi-
zens. (Applause.) He might remind those present
that with their good help for years, and as the
chief work of his Parliamentary life, he had aimed
and strived at accumulating proof that the -work-
ing classes of this country—men fitted for the
exercise of the franchise—were almost entirely
shut out of the pale of the Constitution. lie ac-
cumulated evidence which had convinced him-
self over and over again that this was so. He
had told the men of Leeds when standing in their
presence that, when he looked upon the faces of those
very men, perhaps a large majority of whom were
not electors, he could no more doubt their fitness—
no more doubt the fitness of the men before him
whose eyes beamed reason, and judgment, and in-
telligence—than he could doubt the fitness any
gentleman sitting around that table. During the
eight or nine years that he bad been in Parliament
his labour had always been to gather proof of what
be thought it was impossible for any one to deny—
that there had been a great advance in the intelli-
gence, in the education, in the temperance, in the
saving habits, in the political knowledge, in the read-
ing tastes, and in everything which went to consti-
tute the fitness of a people for the exercise of the
electoral franchise, and that it was no longer either
just or wise or safe to withhold the franchise from
them. (Cheers.) During the nine Sessions that he
had been in Parliament he had supported six Reform
Bills. Three of them were what his witty and wickgd
friend (Mr. E. A. Leatham) had called his (Mr.
Baines's) own bill, "single-barrelled bills." (Laugh-
ter.) But three of them were great revolvers brought
forward by the Government, and he (Mr. Baines)
was not sure now that that last revolver had not
gone off so imperfectly that even Mr. Leatham would
not have been glad if it had been a single- barrelled
bill. (Laughter.) He believed that if they had dealt
last session with the question of the franchise only, as
Mr. Bright proposed, and as Government proposed in
the preceding session, and had left those other ques-
tions as to the mode of voting, and as to the redistri-
bution of seats, to the new Parliament, they would
have done a great deal better. And they might
depend upon it, the question of the redistribution
of seats was still to come on. (Applause.) He need
scarcely remark that in Parliament, when he and
Mr. Leatham sat there together, they had the Tories
continually for their zealous opponents on this ques-
tion. Five out of those six Reform Bills were op
posed by them, and their leaders were found leading
their troops perpetudly to the defeat of the opposite
party, when they advo'ated the right of the people
to an extension of the suffrage. Let him give an
anecdote or two to show what the position of the
leaders of the two parties had been with regard to
this question. And first with regard to Lord Derby,
the head of the present Ministry, and by whom the
recent Reform Bill had been passed. And Leeds was
somewhat peculiarly interested in the statement he
was about to make. In 1860, when Lord Palmer-
ston's Government brought forward a bill with which
they did not persevere, a committee of the House of
Lords sat under the chairmanship of Earl Grey, and
two gentlemen from Leeds were examined on that
committee. One proceeded to prove that a £6
borough franchise would admit a great number of
men admirably qualified to exercise the franchise,
and he endeavoured to show reasons for the belief
he had formed, and also endeavoured to show that
after all it would be a minority of the population of
Leeds who would be admitted then to the exercise of
the franchise. It was him (Mr. Baines) himself who
proceeded to give evidence in that sense. (Applause.)
Now what was the position in which he saw Lord
Derby on the committee ? He was the man who
chiefly cross-examined him (Mr. Baines) in order to
throw doubt on all his statements, and on his assur-
ances with respect to the fitness of the people and
their strong desire to be admitted, and to express his
(Lord Derby's) own alarm with respect to those who
would be admitted by a £6 franchise. The other
gentleman examined was Mr. Bond, the Leeds agent
for the Tory party. Mr. Bond was Lord Derby's
witness, and he was brought forward to show that
there would be an alarming number of persons ad-
mitted to the franchise in Leeds who were not parti-
cularly well qualified for it. That was the state
of things which he (Mr. Baines) saw, and in which
he took part so far back as 1860. So much, then, for
the consistency of Lord Derby, who in 1867 had
comp forward to carry a household suffrage bill.
(Hear, hear.) Well, now, as to Mr. Gladstone.
(Loud cheers hailed the mention of Mr. Gladstone's
name.) He (Mr. Baines) was glad they received
that name with the honour it deserved. (Cheers.)
He felt very great happiness that on one of his own
feeble attempts to bring this question before Par-
liament he was honoured by the support of Mr.
Gladstone in the first great Reform speech which
that right hon. gentleman made, and which speech
might be considered as perhaps the commencement
of that course of action and popular feeling, and as
awakening it, which had never ceased until the great
work of Reform was accomplished. (Applause.) Mr.
Gladstone was the principal author of the bill of last
year, which did not succeed. It was known to many
gentlemen in Parliament that Government would
bring forward not a £6, but a £7 borough franchise.
When he (Mr. Baines) heard that he went to Mr.
Gladstone, and did all he could to persuade him that
it would be safe and wise and right to bring forward
not a £7 but a £6 franchise. Mr. Gladstone lis-
tened most attentively, and with the eagerness of a
man who sought to be convinced or to find grounds
for supporting such a measure ; and he was con-
vinced that as to Leeds and Bradford and the York-
shire towns, as well as those of Lancashire; but he
said, " While I am convinced that you are right,
and that if left to Lancashire and Yorkshire it might
do, yet Mr. Brand tells me that in the midland and
southern counties of England it would not go down,
and that I should not be able to carry it." It was
Mr. Gladstone's conviction that he should not be
able to carry a bill so strong as that, for that was
considt red too strong to go down then. ( Laugh ter. )
how times had changed since ! Mr. Gladstone would
have embraced most heartily that course and brought
forward that measure, but after referring to the
southern and midland counties, and to the state of
so many Liberal members of the House of Com-
mons, and of the Liberal party, on whom he could
not rely for support in such a case, he said, after
be (Mr. Baines) had been with him an hour, " Ah,
it is hard work to make a silk purse out of a sow's
ear." (Cheers and laughter.) That really was the
state of Mr. Gladstone's mind. He was most
anxious to bring forward a more liberal measure,
and only refrained from doing so because he was
determined not to bring in a measure stronger than
he should be able to carry. What was the contrast
between the two administrations, the Russell and
Gladstone on the one side, and the Derby and Die-

raeli on the other? The Russell and Gladstone
Ministry sacrificed office in order to carry a Reform
Bill ; the Administration of Lord Derby and Mr.
Disraeli carried a Reform Bill only because they
would not sacrifice office. (Loud cheers.) He
asked those present to agree with what Mr. Leat-
ham had said as to the honour of public men and of
statesmen, and then they would agree with him
(Mr. Baines) that if the leaders of the Tory party
had been honestly convinced that they had been
wrong for so many years, and at last saw it was
necessary and safe and wise to carry a Reform Bill
the course of honour was to say, " We are not the
persons who have all our lives opposed it to be the
means of carrying it ; but a Reform Bill should be
carried by Reformers, and, therefore, we resign and
give place to those who =e duty and prerogative it is
to carry one." (Loud cheers.) But what was the bill
which after all they brought forward ? it was
just a nose of wax which might bo twisted into
any shape by those who were around it.
(Laughter and " Hear, hear.") Tbey knew what
Lord Cranborne said about it in the last debate.
He said that it had the ten fatal vices which had
been pointed out by Mr. Gladstone early in the
Session, and every one of which had been removed
at Mr. Gladstone's dictation. Then he (Mr. Baines)
would say that the bill as it passed with its good
points was not the bill of Mr. Disraeli certainly, but
a bill which he allowed to be shaped by those around
him, his own business being to stick to his post.
Now, he (Mr. Baines) was not disposed to sail under
false colours. (Hear.) They knew that in former
times he had frankly told them when he did not
entirely agree with them, and they had always been
so kind to him that they had received what they
knew to be his honest and hearty sympathy—(ap-
planse)—in the substance of their demands, and not
exacted from him that he should go the full length
that they went. He did not believe, then, that they
would find fault with him now, whenhe acknowledged
that he should not himself have gone the whole length
of househould suffrage. But he believed that suf-
frage he was prepared to adopt would have been
utterly as extensive and vastly more satisfactory—
infinitely less unsatisfactory, as experience would
show, than the measure which had passed, and which
would lead to endless complications in consequence
of the payment of rates. But now having said this,
because he did not wish, and could not bear to ap-
pear before them in false colours—having said this
frankly, he would add that he was not afraid of
the suffrage being intrusted to the householders of
England on one condition—namely, that they
could get the honest, the unbought, the unforced
verdicts of the constituencies. (Applause.) What
he had always been afraid of, and what seemed to
him a measure rather to be approached gradually
than adopted suddenly, was what Mr. Bright had
expressed his doubt about, namely, that there were
certain classes scarcely deserving to be called the
working classes, certainly not the enlightened think-
ing artisans of our great towns, but a class below
them, and he was afraid of the effect of intimida-
tion and of the beer barrel upon a certain class.
(Applause.) He wanted to know how they were
to get rid of that danger. It was a danger
which still loomed in the distance. He confessed
that he himself did not know how to do it, except
by the adoption of one measure, and that was a
measure to which he believed they (the Reform
League) had always clung. (Applause.) It was a
measure, too,which he had always maintained. He
did not see how they were to avoid the enormous
influence of the purse, exercised in every variety of
improper manner, except it could be by the ballot.
(Loud cheers.) It had always seemed to him so
clear an acknowledgment of the right of con-
science, and of the right of every man to exercise
his own judgment in giving his own vote, that he
never had seen how it could be fairly and honestly
withheld. (Applause.) lie knew there were those
who differed from that opinion, and he could only
say that what he had stated was the light in which
it presented itself to him. He believed the ballot
to be the only effectual means of preventing the
evils to which he had alluded, and be did not see
why they ought to have any fear of that which
would enable every man to exercise his vote accord-
ing to his conscience. (Hear, hear.) One word
more and he had clone. He had said in the speech
he made in the House of Commons in bringing for-
ward his Bill, when it was thought that in some
dozen boroughs or so throughout the kingdom there
might be a majority of the working-class voters,
and when that seemed to be a terrible bugbear to
many gentlemen—he said he was not really alarmed
at the prospect of having working-class voters or
having working-class representatives. (Hear,
hear.) It seemed to him that, on the contrary,
it would do a great deal of good to both
sides to have working-class representatives.
(Applause.) First of all, he thought it
would bring a great deal of valuable informa-
tion to the House of Commons itself as to the inte-
rests and opinions, the wants and sympathies of the
larger portion of their fellow countrymen; and he
believed, in the next place, that to those who might
get into Parliament it would also be a great advan-
tage. They would there have the opportunity of
comparing and exchanging opinions with so many
men that, perhaps, if they had prejudices and pre-
possessions of their own they might be led to mo-
dify some of their views. At all events, there would
be a fair expression of opinion on the part of both
parties, and it seemed to him (Mr. Baines) that
good and not evil would flow out of it. (Hear,
hear.) He retained the same opinion still. (Ap-
plause.) He should not be in the least sorry, but
glad, to see some of the hardest headed, best edu-
cated, most virtuous, and best informed members of
the working classes taking their seats in the House
of Commons. When he said that he must be
allowed to explain. He did not think, expressing
his own opinion, it was desirable that they should
appear there simply as the representatives of labour,
and as representing only the working class. He
thought they should appear there on a level, on a
complete level, with all the rest of the men who were
assembled there--(hear, hear)—with the best uni-
versity scholars, the practised statesmen, the gene-
rals, the admirals, the governors of colonies, the
great travellers, the merchants, the manufacturers,
and the men of high names and long descent and
great titles, who appeared there. He thought they
should appear on a level with them, and as repre-
senting like them all classes of the people, and not
one class alone. He thought they would stand in a
very invidious position indeed, and that it would
damage there influence there if they went
simply to appear there as the representa-
tives of labour. He did not think they
would have the weight they otherwise would have. It
was always a delightful feeling that came from the
blending of the different classes of society together,
and whatever differences there were among° them'
socially they should diminish the breadth and
strength of them as far as they could, and seek to
consider the interests of England alone, and with
patriotic hearts and a brotherly spirit meet
there to do the best they could to consult the
greatest happiness of the greatest number. The
hon. gentleman then sat down amid loud cheers.
The toasts which followed included " The Reform
Act of 1867," " The newly Enfranchised," and
" Civil and Religious Liberty." To the last-men-
tioned Mr. Edward Miall should have responded,
but he was not in attendance, though his name '
ap-
peared in the printed programme.

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