The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-28 00:00:00

Mr. Bright at Manchester.

MANCHESTER, Tuesday Evening.

This afternoon a conference of Reformers from
various districts in Lancashire was held in the
drawing-room at the Free Trade-hall, to consider
the best means to be adopted for assisting to carry
the Government Reform Bill. The meeting was
influentially attended.
Mr. Bright was received with much enthusiasm.
Mr. G. WILSON presided, and said there were two
old constitutional ways of proceeding—the one be-
ing by public meetings, and the other by petitions.
He suggested that before the 12th of April every
borough and town in Lancashire should have its
meeting,* and petition.
Mr. TIIO3IASSON of Bolton, moved a resolution
urging upon Reformers that steps should at once be
taken for holding meetings and to petition in all the
principal towns in Lancashire.
Mr. G. lIADFIELD, M.P., seconded the motion,
and said the bloodless victories won at Manchester
were of world-wide importance ; the great guns
(subscriptions) they used to fire for victory in the
free-trade contest had a mighty influence, and he
suggested that the cause should not starve for want
of funds. (Cheers.) It was a pity men were not
sometimes made of good Sheffield steel, and he re-
gretted that Mr. Bright was of a constitution that
precluded the possibility of his taking a more active
part in the present movement. As it was, they
ought to save him as much as possible, because he
was wanted for a more important service where it
would be best rendered.

Mr. WHITWORTH, M.P., urged Reformers to rally
round the Government and their old friend Mr.

Bright, who never before possessed the influence he
did now. (Cheers.)

A number of gentlemen from various towns sup-
ported the motion, and it was carried unanimously.
At the conclusion of the business,
Mr. BRIGHT, who rose amidst loud and repeated
cheering, addressed the meeting as follows :—Your
chairman has said very truly that I am here acci-
dentally, for I did not know till, by pure accident,
last evening that any meeting was to be held here
to-day. I walked in with Mr. Wilson with a view
of seeing whether there was any disposition to move
a little faster on the Reform question in this county,
and as we are, as I have seen, I don't feel in the
slightest degree disappointed. The question of Re-
form at this moment is in a very different posi-
tion from any that we have seen it in during the
last 20 years, when we have been discussing it, and
hoping in some degree to advance it. We have had
Reform Bills proposed before this, but we have not
had one proposed since the great Reform of 1832
under the same circumstances of distinctness in the
measure itself and of earnestness on the part of the
Government by which it has been proposed. With
regard to the distinctness of the bill, I think there
has been a universal admission throughout the
country that, notwithstanding the disappointments
of many constituencies—and I confess the disap-
pointment of mine—that the franchise, both in the
counties and boroughs, was not proposed to be fixed
at a lower figure, still what it is proposed to fix it
at is something that we clearly understand, and the
advantages of which we can, in our different localities,
pretty clearly measure. In speaking on the bill in
the House of Commons I said that it did not pro-
pose to give something with one hand and take it
with the other, that it clears away great obstruc-
tions to the free working of the Reform Act, and
does not allow these obstructions to appear with re-
gard to the new franchise, and that both in counties
and boroughs it makes a sensible advance towards
what we may call a fair representation of the people,
and the Government now come forward and declare
that this is the measure of their administration ;
that if it passes into law, they will, of course, be
glad for many reasons ; and that if it should
fail the Government will fall. I have a great desire
always to see a Government in that position when it
has a great measure in hand, because it can exercise
much more influence both upon public opinion and
upon Parliament ; and Parliament is much more
disposed to regard with a fixed and earnest attention
any bill which may have consequences of great
moment to the Administration, and even upon the
duration of Parliament itself. (Hear, bear.) At
this moment I think we are really engaged in a con-
flict for something more than this bill, because, as
the question has been discussed in the House of
Commons, it is clearly thiswhich is put to the people
—whether there shall be a Parliamentary Reform
or there shall not, and whether in future the govern-
ment of this country shall be a government upon
the principle of popular representation. You have
read, I dare say, some of you with curiosity, some of
you with amazement, and some of you with disgust,
speeches that have been made from the benches on
the Liberal side of the house against this bill. If
you examine these speeches—one of them and the
most important of them in particular--you will find
that almost every argument which has been directed. ,
against this proposition of the Government is an
argument that would have been as good against the
Reform of 1832, or would have been as good against
any other proposition that at any former period of
our history created or extended the representation of
the people. In point of fact, the speech to which I
refer is a speech that should have been made really
in a country where popular representation formed
no part of the constitution (cheers), because it went
upon the principle that the great majority of the
people are wholly unfit, by their character and their
ignorance and their vices, to partake in any degree
whatever in that power which is conferred by a sys-
tem of representative government. Don't understand
me in referring to this particular, or to the oppo-
nents of this bill in this language, to apply it in
any degree to the member of a city not far from
here—the city of Chester—who has proposed an
amendment on the second reading of the bill. Lord
Grosvenor has made no speech against the Bill; he
made a proposition which, if it be carried, in all
probability will be fatal to the bill for this Session,
and, unless we have a dissolution of Parliament im-
mediately, it will also be fatal to the Government ;
but he has not ventured upon any language which
is contemptuous of the people, and we are to a large
degree in ignorance of the precise grounds upon
which he is acting. He is a member of one of the
most powerful aristocratic families of this country ;
he is heir to a property perhaps as great as the pro-
perty that is in the hands of any one family in this
country ; but he is not a member of a family which
has been hostile in past times to popular freedom.
(Hear, hear.) I recollect very well the pleasure
with which our chairman some 22 or 23 years ago
produced in Newhall's-buildings one evening a check
signed by Lord Grosvenor's grandfather for £5OO
tor the funds of the Anti-Corn Law League.
(Cheers.) Therefore lam not willing to enter and
s
ne''la not join in any denunciation or expressions
of strong feeling against Lord Grosvenor on this
matter I had heard what he had to say upon it.
understandl that a man standing on his social
elevation, and
Itarilsaessed of vast property, and, per-
Imps, not
acquainted ua.inted with the character of
the people from
whomeis so far separated, may
feel for a time some apprehension c
nension of the advancing
power of the people in
like this ; but I can
Jou.o4ur.unnee, that there. is
assure him, if lie needs'a,a_nat37
association
no man whose name is enr
during, the Iyour
or who will struggle
next three months
on behalf of this bill, who would INAstly touch one
territories—(cheers)—or
acre of his :terri -who
acts would
nee or acts
by of i
v-o-e
diminish in any degree
of terrorism that social elevation to which he
was
born. I am not very confident that Lord Gros, enor
feels perfectly satisfied with the position he has
taken up. I thought I gathered from the few words
hich he spokelastFriday night, I thin • k, in the house
that he was not very strong against the bill, or very
confident in the wisdom of the notice which he
has given, and though I have no authority
whatever to say more than the impression upon my
own mind from what I observed on that evening,
for I am in no communication with him, direct or
indirect, with him or with any of his friends, still I
will not, until I see it actually enacted, quite be-
lieve that he will lend himself to men, I think, very
much inferior to him in moral sense who are anxious
to destroy this bill, to overturn the Government, it
may be to throw this great country into the chaos
of an agitation, out of which at any rate persons in
the position of Lord Grosvenor can have nothing to