The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-05 00:00:00

difference—that is, it did not lower the franchise
below £lO, it proposed a lodger franchise of £2O,
and savings-bank franchise, and I think one or two
others, which I have described as fancy franchises,
all of which I think may be set down to be rather
bad than otherwise. But you may recollect that
two very eminent members of Lord Derby's Govern-
ment—Mr. Walpole, the Home Secretary, and Mr.
Bentley, the President of the Board of Trade—re-
signed their seats in that Cabinet, because they
were in favour of a reduction of the borough fran-
chise ; they wished the borough franchise to be
brought down at least to £B, which is within 20s.
a year of the present Government proposal, and
we have it upon record that Mr. Disraeli, the
leader of the house at the time, did hold
out, it is said, distinct promises, but cer-
tainly did hold out most strong expectations, that
if the House would but read the bill a second time,
they would consent in committee to some reduction
to a borough franchise. Well, if they were willing
for the sake of retaining office then to carry a bill
with a £lO franchise for the counties, and to hold
out the hope that they would reduce the borough
franchise from £lO at least to £B, what are we to
say of the patriotism of the party which now, seven
years afterwards, stakes its Parliamentary reputa-
tion upon a course which involves the rejection of
this bill, and, if possible, the destruction of a Go-
vernment by which the bill has been introduced 9
(Hear.) I say that this course of the Tory party is
factious to the very, last degree. (Hear.) But if it
be not this, it is something, perhaps, if not more
immoral, more selfish and more stupid—(cbeers)—
because it is the manifestation of a desperate re-
solve that they will never consent to any further ex-
tension of political freedom to the people of the
United Kingdom. (Cheers.) They say to the six
millions—more than six millions and
a half of
grown-up men in this kingdom—they say to them
in effect, " Not one of you shall ever come within
the barriers that the bill of 1832 erected. You shall
be outsiders every one of you for ever, unless in a
county you can surmount the barrier of a £5O
rental, or you can surmount the barrier in a
borough of a £lO rental." lam not quite sure that
Lord Derby or any of his followers dare say that to
the people of this country. (Cheers.) But either
their conduct is factious or immoral to the last de-
gree in their opposition to the bill, or they have
changed their minds and their convictions upon the
subject of Reform, and conceive it to be their inte-
rest or their duty to resist in all future time any ex-
tension of the suffrage. (Hear.) Now, what is this
bill, and what is it to do? It is to admit 400,000
men who have now no votes to the elective fran-
chise within the limits of England and Wales. Of
that number 200,000 will be within the limits of
counties and holdings, or land of the annual value
of £l4 and upwards, and therefore we may set them
down as not of the working class. Within the
boroughs it will admit about an equal number
close upon 200,000 new voters ; and although nearly
all these have been reckoned by Mr. Gladstone as of
the working class, yet I am perfectly
and
dtnhgaht
his estimate is altogether inaccurate, although
it would be a substantial increase of the number of
electors, I believe that no more than the bare majo-
rity of that number can be said to be really and pre-
cisely of what we term the class of working men.
(Hear.) I think lam not overstating the case when
I say that after 34 years have elapsed since the pass-
ing of Reform, if a Bill is proposed, and if it be ob-
jected to and resisted by a great party in the State,
we may say that party sets itself resolutely and de-
terminedly against the enfranchisement and the
manumission of the working people— (hear, hear)—
that they mean the representation should remain as
it is. Depend upon it, if this bill is not passed, that
if there be a power in Parliament that can resist it,
any idea of a reduction of seats, or, in fact, of doing
anything in this matter, must be, for some time at
least, abandoned. (Hear, hear.) You are to be
condemned for ever, you working people, to exclu-
sion. The country which carries on a constitutional
Government by representative system is to be hence-
forth only 1,000,000 of electors, and that million so
placed, so distributed in regard to members and
seats, that the representation of the people in the
House of Commons is little better than a sham and
a farce. (Cheers.) In the counties you know per-
fectly well that the landlord, and the landlord only,
is really the elector. You know that in the boroughs
—you read the reports of the electors and every
general election—that is, in many scores of the
boroughs, there is a system of compulsion and cor-
ruption which destroys almost even the very sem-
blance of popular and honest representation ; and
every man knows, who knows anything of our elec-
toral system, that the whole process is hideous, and
disgraceful, and humiliating to the last degree to all
intelligent and honourable men. (Cheers.) I was
speaking the other day to a member of the House
of Commons--a man most honourable, of great
wealth, of high reputation—who was returned to
this very Parliament at the head of the poll,
whose conduct during the election—whose personal
conduct--was without the slightest stain or blame,
who told me that there were things done in this
borough after the contest was over, made
himfee u
feel
sthecil as,deePest humiliation that his name had
been in any degree whatever connected with it, and
I believe that his feelings have been so shocked by
what he has witnessed that nothing probably could
induce him again to appear to be connected with so
ranch that is so odious to those immediately con-
cerned, and discreditable and dishonourable to us as
a great nation. (Hear.) But they tell us in Lon-
don, in the House of Commons, and occasionally at
the clubs, that the working people, after all, don't
care for the franchise, that the middle class who
have the vote don't wish to extend it to their bre-
thren who are beneath them in the social scale, and
that the working classes themselves are altogether
careless about their enfranchisement. Now, so far
as this borough goes, I know no man of the Liberal
party, whatever his position in the borough, however
wealthy, however eminent, who is not willing and
anxious to hold out his hand to the working man,
and say, " My good countryman and fellow towns-
man and friend, come up higher and be on the same
level with me." (Cheers.) I admit that the work-
ing people are very quiet ; they have not yet taken
to breaking windows—(laughter)—they work forlo
or 11 hours a day, most of them ; they have their
wives and their children at home, and there is a de-
mandateryy ; homeda every day for the wages of the work
and it would be a perilous thing for
othfi
this every
country if there should be that kind of move-
metnhtroofw up
eworking classes that will stimulate them
to
for a few days or a weeke
andtheiraogriditantianrgy
labour to turn themselves into active
politicians. (Cheers.) Therm nothing more mar-
vellously obtuse than the expression of these men
at head-quarters that they will not give this ex-
tension of the suffrage because the working
people are very quiet and make no clamour
—even those who vilify them most in the House
of Commons can walk among them unarmed. If
the state of things were otherwise, would it con-
vince these men ? (Cries of " No, no !") They
might yield from fear, but they would not yield
from a sense of justice—(cheers)—and when in the
years 1831 and 1832 your fathers were not so quiet,
and when in half a dozen populous counties there
were great armies ready to take the field, not drilled
and armed, but still assembling in vast numbers to
approach a Parliament partly with petitions and
with menaces,ih these
they men,were or
drivenr athe rfrothme
theirincn
of
fa partly l
that day, although
positions, and the Relfeofromrinßtilrliupmaspshede,d theythan werethey
not more pleased that
s.
arethe willingworkin
working
that
people Reform fomshouldtriumph
offer
enow,
awhenee
r
no o me o
(Cheers.) I may be nothing,
townsman, a man not brought up in
so Universities or
arer quiet
in the • being only your fellow-
townsman,
of statesmen ;
sight, and in foreseeing
nothing of these thins but to me it appears that
gu
8s themel
l
statesmanship con • g 'I may know little or
in what we call fore-
ststs partly • .
preventinn
providing against them,' 'abso-
lutely and in this provision
evils that are coming, in
altogether. At this moment
I regard Earl
and
Mr.
Gladstone, their col-
leagues, and the members
' of
Parliament who are
willing to support the
to whom history will point itrseg ard them all as men
finger in future times
and say, " These were really the statesmen of their
day." (Cheers.) Probably, however,
and the three or four men--for
this Tory party
or when it comes to

the final decision probably they will not be more
than three or four men who sit on our side of the
house who will be likely to join them—the Tories,
I say, have probably a double object in the course
which they are pursuing. They may reject the bill,
and they may destroy the Government. For a mo-
ment we will imagine this to be possible. What
then? Will Lord Derby come into office? Will all
his colleagues, supplemented, it may be, by the two
or three men on our side who will join them ? What
if they do? Will they bring in another Reform Bill,
or will they try something else to avoid Reform ?
Have you read the newspapers within the last few
days ? You will have heard a whisper of diffi-
culties in the heart of Europe—that Austria and
Prussia are quarrelling over the distribution or the
division of the territory which they united two years
ago in seizing from Denmark. The Prussian people
at this moment have a Parliament which is very
much in the position of the Parliament of England
some 230 years ago. They have a monarch who
seems desirous of playing the part in Prussia which
Charles I. played in England. I hope, in our less
severe times, that, whatever may happen him, he
may not come to so calamitous a fall as that which
overtook the King of England. (Hear, hear.) Now,
fsaurppoi t sweiltlhastprwearad broke out,
where it
can anybodyayend? If you
tell how
look at the map of Europe you see Prussiain the
in
ntbe east—alwayswest_ west—always ahgr,.aeas armyt see France
ooransce
agre armythere. You
Y
there.ou You
, that the annual income
Italy in the south with an army so large, and mili-
tary expenses so excessive,
of the country does not suffice to meet the annual
expenditure. If a war breaks out between Vienna
and Berlin, between Austria and Prussia, how far
the conflagration will extend no man can tell ; but
this it would be easy to do if we had a Tory Govern-
ment in England anxious to follow the course of the
Tory Government of 1793. It would be easy, per-
haps—if it were easy it might ultimately be perilous
—it would be easy to postpone the question of Re-
form by plunging the country into an European
war. (Cheers.) Look across the Atlantic and you
will see questions not without delicacy, not without
difficulty. You know the excited state of the Irish
population in the United States ; you know some-
thing of the difficulties which have arisen between us
and Canada, and the abrogation of the treaty of
commerce which has existed between them ; you
know what the Tory newspapers have said during
the last four or five years on every question con-
nected with the United States ; there would be no
difficulty whatever in a Government determined
not to face this question of Reform involving
you in financial difficulties, and, perhaps, in
war with the great Republic on the Ame-
rican continent. I would not trust that Tory party
—(cheers)—their annals for the last 100 years have
been annals of calamity to this country. (Cheers.)
To them we owe mostly what there is of ignorance
and brutality and of the abject povery that is spread
among the lowest and most hopeless class in the
kingdom, and now, when you have a fair measure
like this—fair, but most moderate, I say that they
are showing themselves in the old colours when they
unite, it may be to a man, to resist this small con-
cession to the people. (Cheers.) Well, what have
we to do? The 5,000 assembled here are but a
small portion of all the people of England ; but to
night there are many 5,000 meetings ; last week,
this week, next week, and longer, we have had and
shall have in the newspapers accounts of great meet-
ings to discuss this question. We have to choose
probably whether there shall be a Reform or no
Reform—whether the book of progress in which is
written so many good measures of late years shall
be shut up and closed for ever, because if you allow
the Tory party to gain the ascendancy again it is
impossible to say when that book will be again
opened. (Cheers.) Of the working class, which
they spoke of with so little respect, without which
England would be no nation at all, without whose
industry the greatness and the wealth of the country
would be as nothing in comparison with even an
unimportant country in Europe, you have to say
whether that class shall sink under the slanders which
have been heaped upon it ; whether, for example,
the national verdict shall confirm that which was said
the other night by a gentleman who, being a mem-
ber of her Majesty's Privy Council, is by title a
right honourable, and who sits for a rotten borough,
elected by the Marquis of Lansdowne. (Cheers.)
That right hon. gentleman said, "If you want
venality, which means corruption—if you want
ignorance, if you want drunkenness, if you want to
be intimidated, if you want an impulsive, unreflec-
tive, violent people, go to the unrepresented class."
(Cries of "Oh ! Oh !") Now, what we have to
decide—what this town and the public have to
decide, is this—whether the national verdict shall be
given in favour of that slanderous sentence uttered
against the millions of the people of England.
There is no complaint that you work and that you
toil for 10 or 12 hours a day ; and six days in the
week you sweat at your work ; you pay your taxes ;
you build your wealth for others. In combination
with capital and intellect you make the greatness
of this nation, and yet in the House of Commons—
the people's house—not the House of Lords—lan-
guage like this I have quoted is uttered and cheered
by the great Tory party in the house. (Hear, hear.)
I say there is a desperate peril in this—that lan-
gbt
the
ea
ugt et el ri
doctrineko cle , t ht
bi so
ef,
rdtehovecotisruti
taniteoenoouof
out of
tmindoh fe
wwwoh which
a i cnt adsu
pts
rhe i sen
migt s
osis
tot
calamitous character. We abhor all this. (Cheers.)
with all peace—fornations
Justice, and for the
We are forabroad.
oe .
aar to
fhoorme peace anda
upeace
freedom. We believesa safe
aatn d
the g rtai dmuoa l
is ao do
mv a:
.r,c ne, b
000 f
the middle classes, who are mainly Liberal, shall
unite, and can unite, with the great body of the work-
ing class, who are aspiring
say that, united together, we
and better than they h hitherto had; and we
for something higher
ave
can
for us. We feel that our fate l'
Government and Parliament te
and, assembled here 5,000 stwroh
s in
ogua
ri no
wf from mb a
nodusr,
strong, Svc
isr necessary
for
ask the country everywhere to resolve with us, that
we will never of our own free will be parties to our
own humiliation and to our own enslavement. The
hon. gentleman, who was labouring under a severe
cold and spoke with great difficulty, resumed his
seat amid great cheering.
The resolution was unanimously
mill and
i o
votes of thanks having been passed to the Co-ope-
rative Society for the use of the
Mayor for presiding, the proceedings terrandniattedatnhadet
9 o'clock.
Mr. BRIGHT, in supporting the vote of thanks
to the Mayor, said the people would really
help the question of Reform by signing the peti-
tion to be presented. He hoped no mishap would
attend the bill in its passage through Par-
liament. His own impression was that if the bill
passed the House of Commons, it IN ould pass with-
out mutilation through the House of Lords. He
suspected that wise men of that house would not
wish to get into contest again with the people of
England as to the condition of the franchise which
should return members to the House of Commons.
The petitions should be short, good, and sensible,
and extensively signed, that the House of Commons
might feel that those who spoke of the bill within its
walls were seconded and backed and supported by
the great public opinion in those districts from
whence they came. Mr. Bright was loudly cheered
on retiring.

AN EFFECT BY CAUSE DEFECTIVE.—RATIIEP.
SPITEFUL is the following snarl in the Examiner,
which says—The firm of Russell, Gladstone, and Co. is
aThut to fail. This great misfortune is not due to bad
management, or to the state of the market, or to any of
the usual causes, but solely to the loss of a customer. A
distinguished contemporary, enlarging upon the nature and
consequences of Lord Grosvenor's motion, continues thus:
"After such a rebuff, it is very doubtful whether the Minis-
try can last long." We all know the story of the great
man of boots, lloby, who, on receiving the severe re-
proaches of an angry client, called John to put up the
shutters instantly, Captain Smith withdrew his cus-
tom.' Lord Grosvenor, it appears, is Government's Cap-
tain Smith. Up with the shutters ! Mr. Lowe and Lord
Stanley will perhaps be ready to deal with the assignees
for the " goodwill ;" a thing some of the " party"—the
Hybrid, or Lowe-bred party, or what is it ?—are likely
enough to require. What great effects from little causes
spring