The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-09 00:00:00

minent during the past Session, and allow me to touch
upon the character of those unjust assertions which have
been thrown out on your character by a gentleman of great
ability, capable of doing very great things, but somehow or
other, I know not by what means, he is always prevented
from doing them. He sits nominally for Caine in the House
of Commons. In that borough there are 173 electors, but
the Marquis of Lansdowne is the all-prevailing influence in
it, and there is no practical or real representation left to the
173 nominal electors. Well, but this gentleman comes to the
House of Commons and you know what he said. I received
to-day a letter from the town of Warwick, and lam glad
to see that it is become a little more lively than it was when
I first knew it on questions of politics. I have received from
Warwick a paper in which the calumnies—for I believe
them to be such—uttered against the great body of the
working classes are printed and circulated among the
workshops and cottages of the working classes of .that
borough. I wish they were circulated in every workshop
in the kingdom. I say that, unless you turn your faces
against the man who has thus treated you, who would in-
jure you, and then insult you, I do not know to what lengths
this language and conduct may go in the coming Session
of Parliament. 1 his gentleman, who has not a constituency
—for the man by whose favour he was returned to the
House of Commons has now gone down in the tomb,—
this man, returned to Parliament in defiance of the British
Constitution, in defiance of the orders of the House of
Commons, which has declared that any attempt on the part
of any peer to interfere with the freedom of election is a
breach of privilege—this man used this language in speak-
ing of the men to whom the bill brought in by Earl Russell
and Mr. Gladstone proposed to give the franchise. He
asked us whether, if we wanted 'venality, ignorance,
drunkenness, and the means of intimidation—if we wanted
impulsive, unreflecting, violent people, we should go
to the top or bottom. He said he knew what sort of persons
lived in these small houses between £7 and £lO rental, we
had had a long experience of them under the name of free-
men, and it would be a good thing if they were disfran-
chised altogether. He also said that one of the results of
passing this bill, which he did something to prevent, would
be an increase of corruption, intimidation, and disorder, and
all those evils which usually happen at elections. Andthen
he describes the second result—the working men of Eng-
land, finding themselves a majority of the whole constitu-
ency, would awake to a sense of their power and would do
the dreadful things which he describes. He says they
would be no longer cajoled at elections. Theywould set up
shop for themselves ; they would have objects to carry as
well as their neighbours, and would unite to carry those
objects. He says they have their machinery already—they
have trades' unions, leaders, and the power of combina-
tion, and so he describes the terrible or destructive things
that you would do if you had the franchise, and ho says of
the House of Commons, as long as we have not passed this
bill we are masters of the situation. Now, I have said often
that .1 don't in the least blame the speaker for frankly speak-
ing his sentiments. I think the sentiments are altogether
erroneous. 1 think the courage which made him express
them very unfortunate, but I only consider the sentiments
as of importance because they were welcomed with enthu-
siasrn,and apparently by a unanimous consent, by the whole
Tory party in the house. But there is another gentleman
who does not sit on our side of the house, and who now by
favour of Lord Derby governs over 100,000,000 of people in
British India. That gentleman sits for a rotten borough,
for the borough of Stamford. If the member for Caine sits
by favour of one Marquis, the member for Stamford sits by
favourof another marquis, and he was the man who assailed
Mr. Gladstone with an unusual—perhaps in him not un-
usual, but with a notable—animosity,because Mr. Gladstone
said that the great body of the unenfranchised men of Eng-
land were worthy of consideration, for they were our own
flesh and blood. (Cheers.) I say that the House of Com-
mons, according to the spirit and meaning of the British
Constitution, and according to the spirit and meaning of its
own standing orders, has no right to admit within its walls
any man representing, not a free censtituency of iris coun-
trymen, but a single lord and peer of the realm. Now, if
there be in the House of Commons not a few of this class,
if there bo representatives of half a dozen great land-
owners who sit for counties, is it to be wondered at that
Liberal measures make so small and difficult progress
within the walls of that house ? I was very much struck
towards the end of the last Session by an answer that was
given to me by one of the most accomplished members of
that house, who has taken his seat there only since the
last election, and I believe there is no man in the house
whose opinion on a point like this is more worthy
attention. I asked him, as he sat there from tho be-
ginning of the session, say from February till the
month of June, what he thought of the House of Com-
mons. His answer to me was given in language of posi-
tive sorrow. He said that he was shocked and discou-
raged by what he had seen, for, he said, " I think this is
a house iu which no good can be done." (Hear.) Now,
for what are we met here to-night, and for what did, I will
not say 100,000 or 200,000, or a quarter of a million, but a
multitude meet whom no man could count, come ? Why
did that multitude to-day quit all its usual labours and
avocations, and march long miles through your country,
to gather on your neighbouring Moor? It was to protest
against this state of things, and, if possible, to change it,
and we are resolved. Now, you agree with me. (Hear,
hoar.) We are resolved—(great cheering, the people rising
and waving hats and handkerchiefs)—that every member
who sits in the House of Commons shall have a free con-
stituency, and that every working man throughout the
United Kingdom shall form a fair portion of every free con-
stituency. We propose in fact to restore the representation
and to restore the fair and free action of the English Con-
stitution. We believe that there is a spirit created in Bir-
mingham, in South Lancashire, in the West Riding of York-
shire, in the Newcastle and Durham districts, and in Glas-
gow and the west of Scotland—that there is a power rising
which fairly combined can do all this. (Loud cheers.) The
working men must combine, and they must subscribe a penny
a week or a penny a month from the thousands and from the
millions to raise funds that will enable you to carry on the
most gigantic and successful agitation that this country has
ever seen. (Cheers.) It is mainly your own voice that will
decide your own fate. Ido not quite agree with some of
the observations of our chairman, the observations which
have been made to-night, as if there were a chasm between
you and the middle-class. It is not so, and it ought not to
be so, and if you will take out small boroughs, in which
the middle-class themselves are not independent, you will
find in nearly all the great towns of the kingdom that
there is a powerful middle-class influence in favour of the
enfranchisement of the working classes ; and boar in
mind further, that even of that highest class in
the social scale—that class which has great wealth
great privilege, that in the history of
s been men to stand out from
liberty with the great body of
tEahnnadgt
lhaclass
t thereittloe acnhodna
tvgeenadwfoary
their countrymen. If the nation is to bo split into two
parts, and there is to bo a wide gulf between, there is no-
thing for the future but subjection, for you are powerless
to obtain your end ; but working with a large portion of the
middle-class, and with the most intelligent and just of the
highest social class, we may find these great measures ac-
complished without any violation of public peace, and with-
out any disruption of that general harmony which ought to
prevail throughout all classes of the people. (Cheers.)
this
—rely
have done.
'yTherefore,
arer e fo
there, great
r os
aa yourselves, for
I am not saying this to flatter, for no word of flattery to
the working class or to any other class over passed my lips;
but when I look over this country and soo the cities you
have built, the railroads you'have made, the manufactures
you have produced, the cargoes which freight the ships o
the greatest mercantile navy the world has ever seen—

when I see that you have converted by your labour what
was once a wilderness—these islands—into a fruitful gar-
den ; when I know that you have created this wealth, and
that you aro a nation whose name is a word of power
throughout all the world—then I feel confident that by
your united exertions, in conjunction with the middle class,
you can overthrow for ever the dominion of the class of

which you complain. (Cheers.) The few meetings which

have been held since the close of last Session of Parliamen

have had a prodigious effect. Why, there are newspaper

writers who could not see a bit from February to July, and
now the scales are, as it were, dropping from their eyes ;
but this gradual improvement of vision is going on most cx-

tensively throughout the country, and it is said now that

the Tories are half repenting the course which they took
during the last Session• and when I say that Lord Derby is
not a Reformer they charge me with railing at Lord Derby,
and they say that it is a positive case of shocking injustice
to charge the Tories with frenzy hostile to Reform. Well,
my memory may not be as accurate as that of some people,

but I do recollect that during the last Session 280 gentle.
men, who call themselves Tories, objected to Mr. Glad•

stone's Bill, because it proposed to admit, according to Mr.
Gladstone's estimate, 204,000 working men and some
of the unenfranchised 5,000,000 to the suffrage. Now,
it may be that the Tories did not care about this, but
all they wanted was power and place. Now, Lord Derby
in the speech which he made just after ho came into office
intimated in very distinct language, which I quote from

memory, that if he had refused to accept it when the Queen

offered it it would have been the break-up of his party, for
they had looked on the Treasury Benches so long and with

such intenseness of vision,_ with such eagerness, with such
hunger for what was there, that if ho had not oven for six
months allowed them to get thore they would have said
that he was not worth following; that they gave up the

chase, and would not do so any longer. Well, for this,
what did they do ? They wasted a whole session ; they
have disturbed the whole country, and having made these

great meetings necessary they have disgusted and estranged
_ .

ho unenfranchised classes merely to supplant Earl Russell

in ono house and Mr. Gladstone in the other. In America

there are many political parties.

There is a party that is

always seeking office,
and it goes by the name of " Bread

and Butter party," and it turns out, after all, that the party

of Lord Derby is not an Anti-Reform party, but a Bread

and Butter party. (Cheers and laughter.) For six months'
office, or it may run to nine or twelve, they have rejected
an honest and good measure ; they have betrayed the true
interests of the people, and I have seen men on that bench
who would sell the mace, which is the symbol of loyalty,
on the table of the house, if by doing so they could give
to themselves fixity of tenure on the Ministerial benches.
(Cheers.) Now, I must a3k you in all seriouJness to let the
country know What is our object; what you propose, and
how far you are honestly asking for wh tt yuu believe to