The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-02 00:00:00

N°. 23,023.

THE SUN, LONDON MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 2, 1866,

MR. STAMER'S ADVENTURES.
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RECOLLECTIONS of a LIFE of
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worth said, I ara not here in any political character,
yet I cannot help feeling that, after all, if it had not
been for a political career which is not wholly con-
demned, but may be approved by my townsmen
(applause)—probably I should not have been here
to-day. Strengthened by the approbation and by
the sympathy of my townsmen, I shall hope yet to
do something to extend the liberties of my country-
men. (The hon. gentleman was loudly cheered.)
Mr. POTTER, M.P. for the borough, afterwards
addressed the assemblage, and the proceedings at
the stone terminated with cheers for the Mayor.
Afterwards there was a luncheon at the Public-
hall, attended by about 250 gentlemen, the Mayor
again presiding. A marble bust of the late Mr.
Cobden, by Mr. Burnard, sculptor, of London, Which
is an excellent likeness, had been lent by Mr. Bright
for the occasion, and was placed at the end of the
room, facing the platform where the principal
guests were seated.
Mr. BRI GHT, in response to the toast of his health,
proposed in very laudatory terms, said,—Mr. Mayor
and fellow-townsmen,—lt is a very difficult task to
rise to speak in answer to such a speech as that
which my friend Mr. Alderman Ashworth has just
made, and for the kind reception which you have
given to me. If I -could possibly believe that
not one-half, but one tithe of wbat he said was true
it must-inevitably be my -.rum: (Laughter and
.cheers.) But thenl can attribute it all to a certain
partiality, which
.I shall not contend against, and a
great kindness on your part which, even if it be in
any degree exaggerated, I am willing with all thank-
fulness to receive. The ceremony of this morning
has been very simple, but, as 1 then said, there is a
-significance about it, and I have been struck be-
yond what I can easily express with the apparently
almost- universal sympathy of the whole population
of the borough. Those of us who have lived here
for 20 or 30 years have witnessed a great change,
from which, if we may not learn a great lesson, at
any rate we may derive confirmation for what I
think at any rate is a wise and just opinion. Years
ago our town was governed by a body who went by
the name of Commissioners of Police. I don't re-
collect very well how they were appointed, but I
think at one time they appointed themselves—
(laughter) —that is, under a clause of an Act of
Parliament every man who was rated to a certain
amount of £2O or £3O, might offer himself and take
up his position as commissioner. After that there
was som e change, and the governing body was elected,
if I am not mistaken, upon the principal of what is
termed Sturges Bourne's Act—that is, that one man
give one vote, and a man who was not a bit bigger,
but was a little richer, gave two, and another richer
still gave three, and so on, and until at last some-
body who got up to the perfection of the possession of
wealth gave six votes. And that is a principle which
some people have recommended for Parliamentary
elections of late years. (A. laugh.) However, the
Commissioners of Police were so elected, and under
that authority exercised power in this borough. Now
I put it to all the population of the town, and ask
them whether that body had great respect or great
influence, or whether it would have been allowed by
any possibility to have levied the taxes, and incurred
the expenditure, and done the works which have
distinguished the career of our corporation ? (Ap-
plause.) I venture to say that all these things are
done, and have been done, only because you have
had during the last 10 or 11 years a municipal go-
vernment in which the town has had perfect con-
fidence, and which is in point of fact the direct
creation of all the householders and ratepayers in
the town. Five years hence—probably less—we
shall have the Mayor, instead of being shut up
where you can hardly find him,. in that place in
Smith-street--(laughter)—seated on what may be
fairly called his municipal throne in this great
building that is about to be reared. You will have
him surrounded by dignified aldermen (" Hear,"
from an alderman, and much laughter), and, if in
any degree they are less dignified, still by very ho-
nourable councillors—(applause)—and, instead of
taking to the present practice of the constitution of
the country, in which we have two Houses of Par-
liament, one which they call the Lower and the I
other the Upper House, though I don't exactly
know for what special reason those words are used—
(laughter and applause)—the mayor of Rochdale, no
doubt, will revert to the ancient practice of the con-
stitution, when lords and commons sat in one House,
and we shall have one House for those dignified
aldermen and these honourable councillors, and
the Mayor may save the expense of the
woolsack in the one House, and the Speaker
in the other, and will preside in person over an
united Parliament. I have heard persons joke about
mayors and aldermen and councillors, but in my
opinion there is scarcely anything more import-
ant in a country than an honest municipal govern-
ment. That is the government which we feel every
day, which preserves the peace among us, which im-
partially administers justice, which makes our towns
and districts comfortable and safe to live in ; and I
feel always great gratitude to the men who devote
so much of their time to the service of the town and
the public as do the members of our municipal go-
vernments. But I said that I thought this power of
our corporation, by which so many good things have
been done and were promised us, was a power that
arose in this manner—that it was based upon the
will of the whole people. I don't think the expe-
rience of our town ought to make reasonable men
afraid of a large number of votes. It is to me the
most curious thing going, probably, about that
matter, that there should be a class of men in this
country who believe that it would be extremely benefi-
cial to have more voters, and there should be another
class of men, whom you cannot distinguish from
the first, as they walk the streets or you see them
in their houses—(laughter)—who somehow or other
come to the exactly opposite opinion, and a line is
drawn between them which neither will pass, and
there remain two parties divided upon this question.
In our Borough we have about 1,440 electors.
I shall not say a word,:it would be foolish and
stupid for me to say anything against the mode in
which the 1,440 electors of Rochdale exercise their
Parliamentary franchise. If I look to the mem-
bers who have sat for this borough, taking the
whole time from the period of our enfranchisement,
now 34 years ago, Ithink we may hold up our heads
alongside any constituency in the kingdom. (Cheers.)
Whether I point to Mr. Fenton, who was our
first member —(applause)—a neighbour in high
esteem, faithful always to his convictions, and
retaining, so long as he chose to sit, the confi-
dence of the constituency, or come down from him
to Mr. Sharman Crawford, who came to this town
—I can hardly say as a candidate, because he was
no candidate of his own offering, but who came to
be elected at a time when I believe there was not a
single person in the town but myself that had ever
seen him, and I was one of those who did not vote
for his candidature when he was first proposed,
though, of course, I voted for him at the election.
(Cheers.) After him was MrMiall—(cheers)—a man
who has made for himself a great position, and a
name in connexion with great principles, for which
it may be this country is not yet prepared, but which
perhaps will live long after all those who deride and
oppose them are most of them forgotten. (Cheers.)
Well, after him we elected another man. (Here
some of the audience began to laugh ironically,
while others anxiously checked the demonstration ;
apparently the one party imagining the speaker was
about to name the Conservative member, Sir A.
Ramsay, who displaced Mr. Miall, while those
who observed Mr. Bright's expression of counte-
nance more closely perceived the mistake.
Ifear
to speak now of one who this time 12 was
months
yet living, but the anniversary of the day of whose
death will be only to. morrow. You see there in
marble (the reference was to the bust at the end of
the room) a representation of his outward form, so
good, I think, as you will rarely see of any man that
has passed from among U 3. But marble itself is but

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of a transient duration compared with the perma-
nency of that fame which his services to his
country have conferred upon his name. (Cheers.)
We have elected since then another re-
presentative ; but I will not speak of the present
member for this borough. He has said of the Par-
liament that it was a new Parliament, and that it
had not been for a very long time tried, and there-
fore I might say the same of him. (Laughter.) I
have no doubt that when the time shall come that
his connection with the borough shall cease, and I
wish that time to be remote—(applause)--we shall
be able to add him to the list of our representatives
who have done credit to the choice of our consti-
tuency, and who by their consistency in support
of all great principles of public freedom
have done something to aid the advancing in-
terests and liberties of this country. But that is
altogether a digreSsion. What I wanted to show
was this—that although our 1,440 electors for the
Parliamentary representation have done wisely in
the main in the exercise of their right, they cannot
pretend at all to have been wiser than the 5,000 of
our municipal electors. (Hear, hear.) The muni-
cipal body, the 5,000, I believe have cliosen a town
council which as well represents the true opinion
and true interests of this town as any that could
possibly be elected, if the choice rested in the
1,440 Parliamentary electors. And‘if it were to be
assumed that the 5,000 were no more wise than the
1,440; let it be granted that they ammo more foolish,
and is it not infinitely better that your corporation
should be based upon the support of the 5,000 than
on the support of 1,440 ? (Applause.) And if you
turn back to any election which has taken place,
when there has been a contest, since the enfranchise=
ment of the borough, notwithstanding that we boast
euselvesio be Probably One of the very best boroughs
in the kingdom in regard to the absence of an offen-
sive interference with voters' rights, and in regard to
corruption of any kind, yet let any man here of
moral sense and of self-respect look back to the pro-
ceedings of our contests, and he will see that there is
not a little which he would rather have wished had
been absent. And I understand that your municipal
elections when the 5,000 come to vote, there is infi-
nitely less of everything that is unpleasant and that
ought to be condemned, than there is when the 1,440
find themselves plunged into, an electoral contest.
If this be so, then if there be any gentlemen
here—and I have no doubt there are some—who are
alarmed, it may be, at the present proposition of
the Government, let them look at the influence of
their own town, at the conduct of their own people,
and let them believe this, which I believe to be as
true as anything in the world, that where you trust
men, give them votes, appeal to their intelligence,
and to their higher sympathies, show them the re-
sponsibility of their position, the grandeur it may be
even of the act of giving a vote, you will find that
there is nothing whatever in propositions now be-
fore Parliament, or in propositions more extensive,
that might possibly be offered, which ought to
create the slightest apprehension in the mind of any
man who is acquainted with the genius and cha-
racter of his countrymen. I therefore draw an
argument from this town in favour of what is now
about to be discussed in Parliament. I say that
our municipal Government becomes incomparably
stronger, because it is based on a wider foundation

say that it can do things for the public of our town
of essential advantage to the town, which it dares
not have contemplated or attempted if it had been
based, as it was some few years ago, on the unstable
foundation of self-election, or of that miserable and
odious system of election which was established by
Sturges Bourne's Act. (Cheers.) Now, Ave are
here to congratulate ourselves on the foundation of
this Town-hall. If it does afford a shelter—if you
like a magnificent shelter—for the Parliament of this
town,—for its authorities, for its magistracy in the
dispensation of what our ancestors used to call in-
different, but what we call impartial justice ; if it
affords room for all the various departments of busi-
ness which the Corporation is to manage ; and if it
builds for us that grand hall which the possession
of this small place only makes us long for the more,
then I think, perhaps, we may forgive them even
(fratuhgeh
teexrpoen
trhe
rweghcairdh
tte.hetyhaatregraebaotuhtincur
(Laughter.) With regard to that great hail I be-
lieve there is nothing that tends so much to improve
every town, and every country, as an innumerable,
almost, supply of places for public meeting. Why
this country for the last 40 years would have been
in darkness still if it had not been for its power
and practice of holding public meetings ; your great
Reform Bill of 1832 must have fallen dead if there
had been any power that could have forbidden
the people from the holding of a public
meeting. Your agitation for the great mea-
sure of free trade must have been an agitation
without result, if it were not for the hundreds of public
meetings that were held. And now, in the discussion
of another great question, what could be done with
the tardy reluctance of Parliament if it were not for
the expression of public feeling through the means of
public meetings ? Then, if this, and if all other great
measures that are to come—measures some of which
we do not now dream of, measures many of which
may be called for out of the exigencies of times
and circumstances which we know not—if all this
must owe its progress, its advancement, its success,
to the discussion of a free people in public meetings,
I rejoice as much for that as for anything else that
the Corporation in putting up a building for its own
service and accommodation has included within it
a magnificent hall for the service of the town. And
I hope there are—l believe there are in this
room, and there are many in this town—young
men who, from their education, their habit of intel-
ligent thought, will be able in after times, when some
of our tongues are silent, to instruct their fellow
townsmen, to stimulate to good, and to lead them
to further achievements on behalf of freedom. For
myself I have only to say that I thank you with a
heartiness and a feeling which I cannot put into
words for the kindness which you have shown me
to-day among the thousands that were assembled
at the site of the new building, and which you have
shown me in this hall. I know how little, after all,
any one man can do, in the country or in the world,
but all that has been done by man, of course, is
doneby the little that individual men can do added
together. I hope, therefore, that if my labours
have met with your approbation (enthusiastic
cheers), I can feel that wherever I am, and in what-
soever cause I am working, consistent with the
past, I shall have, so far as it may fairly be given,
the sympathy and support of my townsmen, which
I value far more and far above all the sympathy
and support I can obtain from any other body of I
my countrymen. (Loud cheers.)
A number of other toasts were given, and the
proceedings terminated about 6 o'clock.