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

MR. BRIGHT AT BIRMINGHAM.

Mr. Bright paid his first visit to his constituents
of Birmingham yesterday. The townspeople of Bir-
mingham were summoned by the Mayor to meet
him in the Town-hall at 7 o'clock last night, and
long before that tinie the large hall—galleries, floor
and all—was crowded ; not an inch of ground was
unoccupied. In addition to the Birmingham people
a great number of the hon. gentleman's friends
from Manchester and neighbourhood was present.
The Mayor took the chair, and in a few words in-
troduced Mr. Bright.
Mr. BRIGHT' in rising to address the meeting,
Was received with loud and prolonged cheering.
lie said—Mr. Mayor and gentlemen, if I exhibit
embarrassment in rising to address YOU I must ask
your forbearance, for, in truth, as I cast my eye
over this vast assembly I feel myself almost be-
wildered, and I am oppressed with a consciousness
of my incapacity properly to fulfil the duty which
devolves upon me to-night. It is now nearly three
years since I was permitted, and, indeed, since I
was able, to stand upon any public platform to ad-
dress any public meeting of My countrymen, and
during that period I have passed through a new
and a great experience. From apparent health I
have been brought down to a condition of weakness
exceeding the weakness of a little child, in which I
could neither read nor write, nor converse for more
than a few minutes without distress and without
peril ; and from that condition, by degrees so fine as
to be imperceptible even to myself, I have been re-
stored to the comparative health in which you now
behold me. (Cheers.) In remembrance of all this
is it wrong in me to acknowledge here, in the pre-
sence of you all, with reverent and thankful heart,
the sinial favour which has been extended to me
'by the great Supreme ? (Cheers.) Is it wrong that
I should take this opportunity of expressing the
gratitude I feel to all classes of my countrymen for
the numberless kindnesses which I have received
from them during this period—from those high in
rank, and abounding in wealth and influence, to the
dweller in one ofour Lancashire moors, who sent me a
kind message to say that he believed where he lived
was the healthiest spot in England, and that if I
Would come and take up my abode with him for a
time, though his means were limited and his dwell-
ing humble, he would contrive to let me have a
-room to myself ? (Cheers.) I say, looking back to
all this, that if I have ever done anything for my
'countrymen or for their interests in any shape I
am amply compensated by the abundant kindness
they have shown to me during the last three years
—(hear)—and if there be any colour of shade to
this picture, if there be those in the promotion of
whose interests the prime years of my life have been
spent, who, when I was stricken down and was en-
during a tedious exile, subjected me to a passionate
and ungenerous treatment—(cheers)—l have the
consolation of knowing that their act was not ap-
proved by the country—(renewed cheering)—and
that when my cause came up, by appeal to a supe-
rior, because an impartial tribunal, their verdict was
condemned and set aside by the unanimous judg-
ment of the electors and population of this great
central city. (Continued cheering.) I shall not
attempt by the employment dimly laboured phrases
to express to you what I felt at the time when you
conferred upon me the signal honour of returning
me as one of your representatives to the House of
Commons. I am not sufficiently master of the Eng-
lish language to discover words that shall_ express
what I thsn flt and what feel now to you for
What you did then and for the reception which you
have given me to-night. (Cheers.) I neverima-
gined for a moment that yon were prepared to en-
dorse all my opinions or to sanction every political
act with which I was connected ; I accepted your
resolution in choosing me as meaning this—that
you had watched my political career—that you be-
lieved it had been an honest one—(cheers)—that
you were satisfied I had not swerved knowingly to
the right hand or to the left—(cheers)—that the
attractions of power had not turned me aside—
(cheers)—that I had not changed my course from
any view of courting a fleeting popularity—
(cheers)—and, further, that you were of this opi-
nion—an opinion which I religiously hold—that
the man whose political career is on a line with
his conscientious convictions can never be un-
faithful to his constituents or to his country. (Pro-
longed cheering.) At the time of my election you
will remember that some newspapers which com-
mented upon it took the liberty of saying that I
had had a good deal of time for reflection, that I
had been taught a wholesome lesson, and that I had
changed or modified my views with respect to re-
cent public policy. I have had no proper oppor-
tunity before to-night to refer to that statement,
and I beg leave to tell those gentlemen that they
were and are, if they still hold the same opinions,
entirely mistaken—(cheers)--that whether I was
wrong or right I acted according to what I believed
to be right, and that all the facts and all the in-
formation which I have since received have only
served to confirm me in the opinions which I had
previously expressed. (Cheers.) I wish now too—
and all this is rather preliminary—to refer to one
ingenious misrepresentation which it was of no use
attempting to meet when passion was at its height,
and when public clamour prevented any calm argu-
ment upon the question then before the country.
(Hear.) All who read the newspapers at the time
will recollect that it was said of me, and of others
who thought and acted with me—but more of me
than of any other person—that my opinion upon
such a question as any particular war in which the
country might be engaged was, after all, of no kind
of value, because, whatever was the war, whatever
Were the eircumstances,lshouldhave taken exactly
the same course, and therefore that argument upon
a particular war was of no avail and was totally
unnecessary. Now, I beg leave to say that that was
a misrepresentation which no person had a right to
make. (Cheers.) I shall not trouble you more than
a moment or two on tcis point, but permit me to
say:that the first time I spoke in the House of Com-
Mons on the subject of the Russian war was on the
31st of March, 1854, when a message from the
Crown came down announcing that the calamity of
war was about to befall the country. In the very
opening of my speech were these short sentences,
which, if you will allow me, I will read to you. I
said :

" lam not going,- to enter into a discussion as to the
opinion of those who contend for peace at any price and
those who support peace on religious grounds alone; but I
ate merely going to inquire on the present occasion as to the
absolute necessity of the war ; to create which necessity we
must show that the objects to be attained by the war are
proper, and in some degree worthy the cost and sacrifices
we made to attain them."

And I went on to say that I hoped if a noble lord,
who was then a member of the Government, rose
to make any reply to my observations he would not
run away from the subject before the House, but
would meet me as having discussed the question in
that way, and that way only. (Hear.) Well,
now tell you, what it ought not to be necessary to
say, that from that time until the time when I last
spoke on the subject of the Russian war I confined
myself entirely to those points ; my facts, my ar-
guments, and my case were drawn from the de-
spatches and blue-books which the Government for
their justification laid before Parliament ; and
therefore I repeat it was not open to any one who
opposed me to oppose me on the ground that my
opinion on the Russian war was worth nothing ;
because whatever might have been the cause of war
I should have held exactly the same language.
(Cheers.) Now, after all is over except the tax-
gatherer, and the sorrows of those who have lost
their friends in war, I will
.just in one sentence Say
that I am still unable to discover what compensa-
tion England has for the hundred millions of money
she expended, or what compensation Europe has for
the three hundred millions squandered by all the
parties engaged in that frightful contest. (Hear.)
It is not easy to say how much, but of this we may
be sure, that the squandering of £300,000,000
by the nations of Europe in that struggle has had
agr.eat influence on the enhanced price of money
during the last few years, and greatly aggravated
the Pressnre of the panic through which we passed
12 months aga. The 40,000 lives which we lost in
the Russian war some persons hold cheap; I do
not. (Hear, hear.) I think that the grown men of
Birmin ghain from 18 years of age to 50—and there
are, probably, not more than 40,000 of them—ar3
something worth lookinc, by the statesman and
and the Christian—(
Christian--(cheers)—and I say that the
40,000 lives which were lost to Europe
be considered before
we rushed blindlyro into a war
deserved to
with Russia. (Hear, hear.) For
myself,t there-
fore, all I wish to point out tothat the
man who hesitates before he squanders so so blood and so much treasure has at least a rightmucth
You is
be received with a moderate amount of tolerance
&Id forbearar ce. (Hear, hear.) I intend to take
an early opportunity of going into the general
question of foreign policy a little more at length
than would be proper this evening. I now see be-
fore me, lam afraid to say how many persons,
who arc by the present constitution of this coun-
try shut out from any participation in political
power. (Cheers.) I shall take this opportunity of
discussing, and as far as I am able with brevity and
distinctness, what I think we ought to aim at this
moment, when the great question of Parliamentary
reform is before the_country. I think we may
fairly say that that question cccupies now some-
thing like- a triumphant position—and at the same
time a position of great peril, triumphant, inasmuch
as it has now no open enemies, perilous, inasmuch
as, for the moment, it is taken up by those who, up
to this hour, have been, for the most part, the un-
compromising opponents of reform. (Cheers.) We
nai-e had four Governments pledged to Parliamen-
tary reform within the last few years. Lord John
Russell, as pie •
Minister, introduced a Reform