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

MR. BRIGHT IN GLASGOW.

[We fablished. yesterday a summary of Mr.
Bright's speech, delivered by telegraph. We now

publish a full report
On Tuesday night Mr. Bright, the member for
Birmingham, addressed the citizens of Glasgow, in
the. City-hall, on the subject of Parliamentary
Reform. The hall contained 2,700 persons, for
whom suitable accommodation had been made, and
on the whole the arrangements were excellent.
The complexion of the meeting was that of the
-attendance at a middle-class concert or assembly,
and there is no doubt thatAe vast mass of those
who filled the benches was atfracted, not from poli-
tical motives, but from a natural desire to gratify
the feelings of novelty and curiosity. The hall
was completely filled long before the hour an-
nounced for the commencement of the proceedings.
There was a small sprinkling of ladies in the
throng. Mr. Lambeth played some airs on the
organ while the company was waiting, for the
opening of the proceedings.
Mr. Buchanan, M.P., was called to the chair.
This distinction had been previously offered to the
Lord Provost, but it was declined by his lordship.
The CHAIRMAN having introduced him in a few
appropriate phrases,
Mr. BRIGHT, on rising, was received with great
cheering, the audience rising to their feet. He
spoke as follows :—Gentlemen, when I look upon
these great meetings, at several of which I have
been permitted recently -to be present, I cannot
help asking myself--What is the question—what
is the matter that appears to be stirring to its
innermost depths the heart of my countrymen ? Is
it some sudden frenzy, some fanaticism, which wise
men might rather be sorry for than rejoice over ?
Is it some phantasm which you are pursuing, and
which you never will overtake ? I judge, by the
look of expectation and hope, and even of assur-
ance of success, which lights up the counte-
nances of so many before me, that you believe
that you have at least some great and worthy.ob-
ject which has brought us together this evening.
(Cheers.) I believe no more worthy object can
assemble any portion of the citizens of a free
nation, for we are here to discuss a great question
of constitutional reform—to consider how far it,
may be passible to confirm and give greater per-
manence and security to whatsoever portion of
liberty we have derived from our forefathers. And
let me remind you that when you discuss questions
connected with the House of Commons, you are
discussing that branch of the Legislature which is
by far the most important to liberty, 2nd without
which liberty cannot exist. You may have liberty,
and' a large share of it, with a monarchy, as we
have happily in this country, but you might have
monarchy without libery, as you see to be the case
in many of the countries of Europe. You may have
liberty, as we have, even with a portion of yourlegislative power in the hands of a house of here-
ditary legislators ; but you might have hereditary
legislators and no liberty whatsoever. But the
House of Commons, that branch of the Legislature
which we are to-night particularly about to dis-
cuss, is not only consistent with the existence of
liberty, but is inseparable in this country from the
existence of liberty. (Hear, hear.) One of the
greatest men, one of the brightest names on the
muster-roll of English worthies, the illustrious
founder of the- colony and province of Pennsyl-
vania, gave this definition of freedom :—He said,
" That is a free country where the laws rule, and
where the people are a party to the making of the
laws." (Cheers.) And we are assembled to-night,
I hope, in the full understanding of the magnitude
of the question before us, and with none but
this high resolve in our hearts,—we will, if we
can, by the extension and improvement of our
representative system, confirm and secure perma,
nently, as far as lies in our power, that which
is the greatest guarantee for freedom which
we in this country. possess. (Loud applause.)
Now, in the discussion of this question we are
in a very different position from that in which
we found ourselves when we were here before. It

is tiow,l believe, generally conceded that the
figures are all on our side. You recollect twelve or
fourteen years ago that there were orators almost
innumerable about the country, some scores of
them at least, who attacked us with figures without
end in favour of the policy of Protection. Ido not
intend to dig up those speeches from the oblivion
which I am sure the orators who delivered them
must wish they may perpetually keep—(a laugh)
—but I turn to them merely for the
,purpose of
pointing out that *nobody gets up to prove to us
from the multiplication table that the people of
England are fairly represented in the House of
Commons. But there is one complaint made against
us which it is very difficult to escape. We are told
—I am told—that I use the same figures and the
same facts. Well, now, what would be said were
I to use different figures and different facts ?
(Laughter and cheers.) It is the same case, the
same cause, the same great grievance ; I speak to
men of the same order, to be appealed to, reached
and convinced and aroused by the same facts and
arguments • and, therefore, I cannot be expected to
say something here wholly different from what I
have said on other occasions. (Hear, hear.) For in-
stance, if I tell you that the whole body of the
electors of the United Kingdom amount only to
one-sixth portion of the whole number of adult men
in the United Kingdom, and that one-sixth of the
electors—that is, 1-36th of the adult men in the
United Kingdom—return more than one-half of
the:members of the House of Commons, I shall find
it very difficult to convey as accurate idea of that
fact, unless I make that statement ; and, therefore,
though one may grieve our friendly critics who
watch over everything we do and say, yet I am
bound to explain this matter to my countrymen
wherever I meet them, and wherever they are will-
ing to hear. Now, putting that statement into ano-
ther form, we have at least 6,000,000 grown men in
the United Kingdom, and we have not more than
1,000,000 of them, or a little more, who have
votes. And we find by Parliamentary returns that
200,000 electors out of that 1,000,000 return some-
what more than one-half of the whole number of
members who sit in the House of Commons. (Hear,
hear.) The fact is it is very easy to show that the
electoral body is so grouped and so managed, and
the whole machine so ingeniously contrived, that
almost all the objects for which a representative
assembly should exist, and representation be ad-
mitted as part of the Constitution of a free country,
are frustrated under the system which exists among
us. There is another illustration of it that has often
occurred to me. I have imagined that all the men
in this kingdom, from 21 years of age, were assem-
bled
on some Salisbury Plain, or, not to go so far,
on some wild and desolate part of your own coun-
try. I should be afraid to take you there, even
tho,ugh it be but in imagination, for fear we should
be Charged with disturbing those sacred animals,
the grouse and the deer. (Great laughter and
cheers.) But for the sake of this illustration we
will imagine ourselves so assembled. The Consti-
tution—that is, the Parliamentary arrangement as
we, now find it—addresses the 6,000,000 men, and
says to 5,000,000 of them—comprising almost the
whole body of the working-classes of the kingdom,
and not a few of those who may be said to belong
to the middle-classes--we don't want you ; you
may return to your homes, and those who are left
will do your business for you. Well, then, there
would remain a million. which would compose
the electoral body. Let us, then, make another
separation. Take all the electors of the boroughs
which comprise the great metropolis of the kingdom,
seven great boroughs and seven great constituencies,
and then add to them the constituencies of
seven of the next largest cities in the kingdom—
Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, Dublin, Birming-
ham,._ Leeds, an Edinburgh. It would require
that you should take about 200,000 men from this
million to form the constituencies for the great
metropolis and for these great cities, and when
yoti had formed them you would find that they
were permitted to return 50 members to the Eng-
lish Parliament. In another part of this plain you
find 200,000 more taken out of the great group, and
put on one side, and they are permitted to return
330 members to the Ilouse of Commons. Well,
everybody sees at a glance that though Parliament,
sitting half the year, must do something, and must
legislate, pass
laws, sometimes good, sometimes bad
as we all know, good with extreme difficulty
—(laughter)—yet we cannot but be sensible of this
fact, that as a machine for representing the opinions
of the people, and carrying out their views on poli-
tical questions, or sustaining the character of the
country in its legislation, it would perhaps be im-
possible to devise an instrument more utterly clumsy
and untrustworthy for the purpose for which it
exists. (Applause.) These boroughs that I have
mentioned—the metropolis and those 7 great cities
—contain not less than four millions of inhabitants,
being nearly one-seventh part of the whole popula-
tion of the United Kingdom, and yet they only re-
turn 30 members to the House of Commons. And
of these 200,000 you have not heard the last. Yon
do 'not know so much of it in Scotland as we know
of it England, but the 200,000 are not labelled
together only in groups of 20,000 each, to carry on
their political operations, and to return members
freely ; but they are scattered all up and down the
country, many in Ireland, very many more in Eng-
land, with constituencies varying. I think there is
one as low as 86. electors, a considerable number