The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-18 00:00:00

- -
MB . BRIGHT AT BRADFORD..

13) ight addressed a public meeting of the in-
habitant 3of Bradford last evening in St. George's-
hall, on the subject of Parliamentary Reform.
The hall, capable of accommodating between
4,000 a nd .5,000 persons, was densely crowded in
every I ►art. The platform was occupied by leading
mere"' ar its and manufacturers of Bradford, and by
deput At ions from most of the principal towns in
the WE st Riding of Yorkshire. Mr. Henry Brown,
the M.a yor, presided, and when Mr. Bright entered
the Fa 1 at 7 o'clock, accompanied by the influential
me, nb ers of the local Liberal Registration Society,
under whose auspices the meeting was held, he was
re ceived with loud and prolonged cheering.
.After a few introductory remarks by the
ML kYOR,
Mr. T. SALT moved, and Mr. JOHN CROSSLEY
sec •onded the following resolution, which was car-
ric 3 with acclamation :

That this meeting, gratefully recognizing Mr. Bright's
emit tent services in the great struggle for the repeal of the
Corn Laws, cordially welcomes him to Bradford on this his
first visit since the triumphant issue of that conflict, and re-
menibering the severe and painful illness which more re-
centlty compelled him to withdraw awhile from public life,
offers him its hearty congratulations on his happy restora-
tion to health, and expresses its earnest hope that his life
may bo long spared, and that he may be able to devote the
rare abilities and energies for which ho is so distinguished
to the) -promotion of those objects which are most closely
identified with the political and social well-being of the great
mass, of the people."
Mr. BRIGIIT, on rising to address the meeting,
Avv.s received with protracted cheering. He said,—
I must ask you to bear with me if I am unable in
fitting language to acknowledge the kindness with
which you have just received me. I feel it to be
a very heavy responsibility to stand upon this
platform to-night, but at the same time I feel it
to be a privilege, and in some sense a plea-
Imre, to be permitted to join this amazing meeting
in its open deliberation upon the great question
-which is now submitted to the judgment of the
'country. I see before me a very large representa-
tion of your most energetic community, and this
meeting comprises, I have reason to believe, not a
few of what I may call the flower of the active-
minded politicians and Reformers of the great West
itiding of Yorkshire. (Cheers.) The question which
1 shall to-night submit to your judgment is a great
one. If I had not felt it to be such I would not
have left my home and the comforts of my family
for the purpose of exhibiting myself upon public
platforms in various parts of the country. I have
spoken in Birmingham, in Manchester, in Edin-
burgh, and in Glasgow, and upon each of those
occasions vast multitudes came to listen, filled with
a great and glowing interest in the question of re-
form, and anxious as I am that any step which the
Government and Parliament may take may conduce
to the lasting and highest interests of this great
nation—(cheers)—l have been particularly stimu-
lated, if I may so speak, to address the meetings to
which I have referred, by the belief that it is of an
importance which cannot be described in words
that we who wish for reform should know what it
is we want, and should so understand the question
that we could at any moment detect and place our
finger upon any imposture that may be offered to
-us. (Cheers.) Whatever may be our next step, I
trust that we shall have sense and intelligence
enough to avoid any mistake which we or our chil-
dren might hereafter have cause to lament. (Hear.)
I suppose we are all Reformers—everybody is for
Parliamentary reform. I thought I had met with
a man against reform as I came to Bradford to-day
by train, but I found out, after all, that he was not
against reform, only he did not much like paying
to hear political speeches. (A laugh.) If then
everybody is for reform, why, it may be asked,
warn people against an imposture ? Have you
observed the comments which have been made
by the press upon the question of reform, and
upon the course which we have taken during the
last three months ? I am quite willing to allow
it to be assumed that my expressions have
not always been judicious, that I may have com-
mitted some mistakes •, but still the comments of a
considerable portion of the press have been dictated
not by an honest desire to point out with a friendly
finger the errors into which I may have fallen, but
by an intense feeling of hostility. I know not whe-
ther the press which represents the present Go-
vernment, or the press which represents the last
Government, is more open to the charge of rancor-
ous opposition. (Hear, hear.) Have you observed,
again, the silly panic into which some members of
the peerage have been thrown ? These noblemen
are not anxious that the question of reform should
be discussed by those who are able to deal with it
thoroughly, and they imagine that the people will
be led away from the pursuit of a great object by
attributing to me oftentimes language, but always
objects, to which I have never given the smallest
approbation. (Cheers.) The great question which
we are assembled to discuss may be conveniently
divided into three—the first is, what ought to be
done with regard to an extension of the franchise
beyond the limit at which it is now fixed ? the se-
cond, shall :any alteration be made in the mode in
which the right of the franchise is exercised; and
the third, what steps shall be taken to withdraw
members from places and populations wholly incom-
petent fairly to exercise the right of election ; and
to what new, or old, or great towns or industries,
and populations, shall these members afterwards be
distributed? The consideration of the last question
will be the main object of my speech to-night, but
I must briefly allude to the first and second before
I come to it. With regard, then, to the Parliamen-
tary franchise, I may say, on the part of all earnest
Reformers, that they decidedly object to what may
be termed fancy franchises, franchises which are
given, not so much with reference to those they
include, as with reference to those they exclude.
(Hear, hear.) Somebody, for instance, has pro-
posed that our friends the lawyers should have a
special representation in the House of Commons.
You do not know so much of the House of Com-
mons as I do, but you know, at all events, that
on the Ministerial bench there generally sit five
lawyers—the Attorney and Solicitor-General for
England, the Attorney and Solicitor-General for
Ireland, and the Lord-Advocate for Scotland, and
that on the opposite bench there are just as many
more, who want to change places with them. (A
laugh.) There are certainly not fewer than 100
other lawyers—l mean barristers—in the House of
Commons, and therefore I do not think the legal
profession requires any more representation. (Hear.)
Why should we not make a special body of .the
worsted manufacturers of Bradford, just as useful
men in the country as lawyers ? The object of
giving the lawyers a member, or two members, is
that the people should not get that one or those
two members. (Hear.) Again, some one has pro-
posed that the doctors should be enfranchised. I
presume that all the doctors who live in £lO houses
vote in Bradford, or elsewhere. If you talk to a
doctor about politics he generally tells you that, as
he goes into the houses of gentlemen of all parties
he really does not care to raix himself up in public
matters, or that his occupation is so onerous and
responsible that he cannot devote any portion of
his time to subjects beyond the range of his profes-
sion. I maintain that doctors and lawyers, though
highly educated and intelligent, and devoted to the
great interests of society, are not specially learned
on political questions, and have no more right to the
franchise than any other class of their countrymen. I
A proposition has also been made that all persons
should be enfranchised who have £5O in a savings'
bank. I should like to see every man have £5O
or
£lOO in a savings' bank ; but, according to the
proposals to which I allude, if a young man hap-
pened to marry, and to withdraw his £5O from the
savings bank, and invest the sum in the furniture
of a comfortable house, although he would thereby
become what I must consider a more responsible
citizen, he would lose his special franchise. (Hear.)
The fact is, I believe, that all these propositions
are submitted by men who have not really consi-
dered the question, or who have considered it so
much that they are finding out by what means
they can manipulate the representation so as to
avoid conferring it upon the actual citizenship of
the kingdom. (Cheers.) On the other hand, my
main objection to the franchise as it
,n.ow exists is,
that while it is distributed with considerable
is blefifreei-
dom among all other classes of society, l
at a point which necessarily excludesi the most
numerous class of all. (Cheers.) I he occupiers of
£lO houses do not generally receive wages from
week to week, or from fortnight to fort-
night. The object of the Reform Bill of 1832 was to
exclude the wages receiving class. I am not blaming
that bill or its authors, nor have I ever denied that it
was a great measure, considered as the first step
taken in this country with a view to extend political
rights among the people—(hear)—but it is a fact
that it does so exclude the great wages-receiving
class of the kingdom, andthat exclusion I maintain
to be an injury
to all other honest classes and an
enormous grievance to the class
.which it more im-
mediately affects. (Cheers.) It
is not in the least
necessary that everybody should vote, but it is ne-
cessary, for the satisfaction of common sense and
justice, that the franchise should be fairly, and with
such equality as we can arrive at, be distributed
among all classes of the people who are called upon
to obey the law. (Cheers.) How shall we accomplish
this object ? It must, I think, be bysomet
depositshindif-
ferent from franchises founded upon
in
savings-banks, as well as from votes given especi-
allyto colleges and professional men—we must adopt
some more broad and general, and indeed all-
encompassing principle. I have recommended, as
mangy' of you know, that all persons whose industry
is called upon to contribute some portion to the
maintenance of the most indigent and helpless sick

class of the people, should be admitted to the Parlia-
mentary franchise. I understand that in Bradford
there are many gentlemen in favour of household
suffrage. I confess lam not able to discover any
real difference between the two propositions, and I '
would not ask anybody who was in favour of house-
hold suffrage to go with me for a rating suffrage ;
but I will go with the greatest pleasure with him
for the household suffrage which he prefers—the
only difference, if it can be called such, which I can
discern, seems to be in favour of the proposal which
I value. A household suffrage would exclude every
person who did not himself occupy a dwelling house,
although he might have a warehouse, an office, or a
manufactory, and, measured by wealth, be a much
more important member of society than many of
those who are householders. I presume that the
advocates of household suffrage do not wish
to exclude from the franchise the occupier of one of
your warehouses, although he may happen to live
with his friends and himself not be a householder.
(Cheers.) I am willing, as I said before, to take the
franchise which Mr. Fox and the late Earl Grey
proposed in 1797, which Lord Durham proposed at
the time of the Reform Bill in 1832, and which al-
most every leading reformer of the last 60 years has
advocated. I believe that if such a franchise were
established there would be felt throughout the
kingdom a consciousness which nothing could dis-
turb, that so far as that matter at least went Par-
liament had done full justice to all classes of the
people. (Cheers.) Any provision making it easy for
persons wishing to have a vote to procure admit-
tance to the franchise I should be perfectly willing
to see superadded, as I am satisfied that there will
not be among a large portion of those who are now
enfranchised a full contentment with any measure
which shall deal pusillanimously with a distinction,
be it a privilege or a right, which must ever be very
dear to the citizens of a free country. But I am
told by a considerable authority in this country
that danger would arise from so large an extension
of the franchise. The actual extension may be ,
briefly stated, and I believe that in certain boroughs,
where it happens that the working classes form an
unusually large proportion of the population, the
number of voters would be increased threefold—
where there are 1,000 electors there would be 3,000.
But in a great many other boroughs—in fact, I be-
lieve in all those which are not chiefly manufactur-
ing, the number of voters wouldn't be more than
doubled; and, taking the whole of the boroughs of
the kingdom together, I am inclined to think that
the average wouldn't reach, or at all events exceed
two and a-half times the present number of electors.
It may be said, however, that even that is a serious
increase, and " Who knows what the new voters
will do ?" Who, indeed ? (A laugh.) lam quite
certain there are some men returned to Parliament
who would have to revise the tariff of their opinions,
or they would not be likely to go there again. (A
laugh and cheers.) There are others whom, per-
haps,
it would be desirable to have in Parliament,
who would doubtless find their positions changed
in an election ; but I conceive that, as a rule, the
new constituencies would be actuated by precisely
the same motives which sway the present consti-
tuencies. (Hear.) Do you fear that you would
have violence in your streets ? You may have heard,
for I have told the story before, that when it was
proposed to confer two members upon Leeds and to
establish a £lO franchise, a banker declared that it
would be no longer safe to have a bank in that
town, and that if the proposal were carried out he
would be obliged to remove his establishment—l
presume to Knaresborough, or some other similar
place. (A laugh.) All the talk of violence and
turbulence by men who possess votes arises from
an ignorance that is positively incomprehensible.
I always thought that a vote was a symbol of moral
as opposed to physical force. (Cheers.) I always
imagined that when a member was entitled to re-
cord his vote in favour of a particular candidate
the idea of violence vanished from his mind, and
the club dropped, as it were, from his helpless
hands. (Cheers.) How is the franchise exercised
at the present moment ? Some persons vote for a
candidate because they agree in opinion upon some
pet subject, or perhaps because they are pretty
much of one mind as to affairs generally ; but there
are many others who vote because somebody else
votes in favour of a man who in the opinion of both
is a very good, respectable gentleman, who may be
trusted as a member of Parliament. It is not neces-
sary that an elector should be profoundly versed in
history or positively incomprehensible in finance—
(a laugh)—but it is necessary that he should pos-
sess an average amount of common sense, in order
that he may be able to form a moderately just
opinion of the character of the man who solicits
his suffrage as well as of the party by whom he is
supported. (Hear, hear.) But I am told that
the new voters will swamp the present consti-
tuencies. I received a letter the other day from
a friend in London, a most intelligent man, who
said, " I understand that they are getting
up a notion or fear that your franchise would
swamp the shopkeepers, and the shopkeepers are
turning against you ; " but what did they say in
1832 ? Why, they said that you ought to give the
franchise to the shopkeepers because the shop-
keepers would swamp somebody else. I don't be-
lieve that the bakers, the grocers, and various other
shopkeepers in Bradford, or in any town in England,
ever conspired for the purpose of swamping the
men of large capital, such as the great merchants,
manufacturers, and so forth ; and if you go lower in
the scale of wealth you come to men of the same
flesh and blood, the same interest, the same families,
the same hopes, the same fears, who read the same
newspapers and learn the same facts. What would
they do ? They would be acted upon precisely like
those above them, some going one way, some an-
other, and you would find the working men of this
town or of any other, just as much broken up into
all the sections that arise at an election as any
other class. You are, perhaps, not aware
that nearly one-third of the whole of the
present constituencies in the boroughs enfran•
chised by the Reform Act are occupiers of between
£l5 and under £25 yearly rent—that is to say,
between £lO and £25, far more than half of the

constituencies are to be found, and yet the men
under .£25 have never done anything to swamp
those above £25, and when the franchise comes

down to £5, or to household or a rating suffrage, I
believe that any such danger will prove thoroughly
chimerical and absurd as it has doneunder the fran-
chise established by the last Reform Act. So much
as to that point. There is the question of the fran-
chise for the counties, on which I should wish to say
merely a sentence. The county franchise has hitherto
always been of what is termed a more Conservative
or select kind than that of the boroughs. It was
before th© Reform Bill a franchise based on the
ownership of land ; the Conservative and landlord
party broke in upon that principle by establishing
a franchise based on a £5O occupancy. It hr s
now been proposed for many years to bring
down the franchise in the counties on the
same level as it now stands upon in the towns.
That, I think, is the opinion of the majority of the
present House of Commons. I :believe it meets
with a large amount of acceptance throughout
both the boroughs and counties of the kingdom ;
and as I have no intention whatever of advocating
or proposing a measure which is far in advance of
public opinion, but rather going along with and
acting in harmony with that opinion, I shall be
perfectly satisfied, with regard to the county fran-
chise now, to see the £lO franchise established in

all the counties of the country. Now when all
these men get their votes by law it becomes a
question of interest to know whether they shall
proceed to the exercise of their right as we have
done in past times, and up till now, or whether
they shall have whatever security, whatever shelter
from influence and from menace, can be afforded by
the adoption of vote by ballot. (Hear, hear.) In
almost every country in the world, where a repre-
sentative system exists, the ballot is the mode of
voting that is practised. I remember reading in the
work of some historian of, I believe,the United States,
and I hope nobody will be alarmed at this reference
ca laugh), that freedom depends upon representative
institutions, and the freedom of representative in-
stitutions depends upon the ballot. (Cheers.) The
rich generally, though some of them certainly are
not very couragcous—(a laugh)--do not need, and
do not ask for, the ballot, but almost all those who
are not rich regard it as absolutely essential to
enable them honestly to perform their public duty
in giving their votes at the poll. (Cheers.) I would
rather take the opinion of those who feel the neces-
sity for the ballot than I would take that of those to
whom it must ever be unessential. lam satisfied
from no little experience during the last 20 years in
parliamentary elections, that I should be conferring
no advantage whatever upon my fellow-countrymen
who are now unenfranchised if I could give themthe
vote without giving them with it the protection of
the ballot. (Hear.) I have not the smallest doubt of
the passing of the ballot within a short period.
(Cheers.)There are nowin the House of Commons more
than 230, I forgethow many more, members who have
voted for the ballot ; and every election without a
Reform Bill will add to that number—and an elec-
tion with a Reform Bill, even if it were !possible
for Parliament to grant a Reform Bill without the
ballot, would add, I believe, very largely to the
number of that vote ; and I am as satisfied as one
can be of anything that has yet to come, and I be-
lieve I express only the opinion of every intelligent
man in the House of Commons when I say it, that
the ballot is at this moment almost within_ the
reach of the constituencies of the United Kingdom.
(Cheers.) Let us now step on to the ques-
tion of the 'distribution of members—a point on
which you Will probably have observed that I have
never expressed myself in more than general terms
in the speeches that I have recently delivered, be-
cause it was impossible, as you will see, until a list