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

Mr. J. Firth, Keighley ; fifth platform, mover, Mr.
H. Hodgson, Bradford ; seconder, Mr. T. Wood,
Dewsbury. This, like the first resolution, was carried
with great acclamation. The following was the third
resolution :

" That this meeting expresses its indignation at the con-
duct of those members of Parliament who have refused to
aid the working classes in their endeavour to obtain a fair
share of the franchise, and hereby pledges itself to unite
with the men of London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol,
Northumberland, Glasgow, Dublin, and elsewhere in their
determination to press the question of Reform to an imme-
diate settlement, to maintain the peace and secure the con-
tentment of the country."

The mover at the first platform was Mr. J. M.
Mason, Leeds ; seconder, Mr. E. Thomas, Bradford ;
second platform, mover, Mr. Whitehead (Town
Councillor), Bradford ; seconder, Rev. J. Compston,
Barnsley ; third platform, Mr. M. Edge, Manches-
ter ; seconder, Mr. M. Porritt, Leeds ; fourth plat-
form, mover, Mr. E. Finnic, compositor, Leeds ; se-
conder, Mr. Gascoigne, Dewsbury; fifth platform,
mover, Mr. P. Grant, Leeds ; seconder, Mr. A.
Sharpe, Bradford. The fourth and last resolution
was a vote of thanks to the chairmen of the several
platforms ; and speeches were made upon it by Mr.
Croft, Huddersfield ; Mr. Butterworth, Bradford ;
Mr. A. Scarr, Leeds ; Mr. J. King, Bradford ; Mr.
Derrick, Leeds ; Mr. J. Roberts, Wortley ; Mr. J.
Dawson, Bromley ; and Mr. Garnett, Bradford.
The following were the chairmen at the different
platforms :—Mr. Woodhead, Huddersfield ; Mr. R.
Kell, Bradford ; Alderman R. M. Carter, Leeds ;
Mr. Clarkson (Town Councillor), Dewsbury ; and
Mr. A. Illingworth, Bradford. According to previ-
ous arrangement each resolution was disposed of in
half an hour, so that the whole proceedings were
brought to a close by half-past 4 ; and then the
bands struck up " Rule Britannia," as an intimation
that the time had arrived for the procession to get
once more into marching order and return to the
Town-hall and its vicinity. It may be added that
the speakers fiercely abused Mr. Lowe, M.P., and
highly eulogised the working man.
Everything passed off in an orderly manner, not-
withstanding that the enthusiasm was at a high pitch.
There were but few symptoms of brutish and sensual
indulgence on the part of the labouring class. Whe-
ther it was in consequence of a warning voice hav-
ing gone forth from the central committee it is im-
possible to say ; but the chairman of the Leeds
association had publicly exhorted these parties to be
on their guard, as he knew their conduct would be
strictly watched by those who did not believe in
their many high qualities.
In the evening a meeting was held in the Victoria
Hall of the Town Hall, and the whole of this magnifi-
cent room was densely crowded long before the hour
appointed for the commencement of the proceed-
ings ; but, owing to the incomplete arrangements of
the parties in charge, there was a great deal of
unnecessary confusion and no little struggling at
the entrance. Mr. Alderman Carter, chairman of
the Leeds Manhood Suffrage Association, presided,
supported by Mr. Bright, M.P. ; Mr. E. Forster,
M.P. ; Mr. E. R. Leatham, ex-M.P. for Hudders-
field ; Mr. E. Beales, Mr. Ernest Jones, Mr. Potter,
and a number of the leading Liberals of the town
and West Riding, who as they appeared on the
platform were received with enthusiastic cheering.
The CHAIRMAN, in opening the proceedings, said
that they had two things to perform that night.
The first was to declare their own views on the
question of Reform, and the second to thank Mr.
Bright and their friends in Parliament for the stead-
fast manner in which they had supported the cause
of the people, but they did not desire to pledge them
to adopt their particular views. He regretted the
absence of so many members of the West Riding ;
but from all of them with the exception of the Radi-
cal member for York (Mr. Leeman) they had re-
ceived letters expressing their regret at not being
able to atend. The letter of Mr. Leeman, however,
who stated that the question of Reform ought to be
left where it was during the late session of Parlia-
ment, he considered a downright insult. It might
also be gratifying to the Irish residents in the West
Riding to know that a letter had also been received
from The O'l)onoghue, in which he stated that the
Irish Liberal members would join heartily in pass-
ing i well-considered and extensive measure of Re-
form. In conclusion, he strongly denounced the con-
duct of the directors of the railway companies in
refusing to grant special facilities to enable the Re-
formers of the adjacent towns to attend the demon-
stration, but they must not think that they could
thus arrest the progress of Reform.

The Rev. W. THOMAS, of Leeds, moved the first
resolution :

" That this meeting entered its solemn protest against and
its denial of the charges of venality, ignorance, drunken-
ness, and indifference to Reform brought against the work-
ing classes during the last Session of Parliament, and
hereby pledges itself to advocate for the future registered
residential manhood suffrage and the ballot as the only just
and proper basis of representation."
Mr. E. A. LEATIIAM, who was loudly cheered,
seconded the resolution. He regretted the absence
of the members for the West Riding, whose letters
of apology showed that they had enjoyed a special
training in framing plausible and ingenious excuses.
He, however, could not bring himself to adopt that
course, and after having witnessed the magnificent
demonstration that morning he was glad that he had
been present. To some minds the very words
"Manhood suffrage" conveyed as terrible an idea
even as the charge of being a poacher. Ile, however,
was not of that opinion, and was prepared at once
to vote for manhood suffrage. With manhood
suffrage he felt that his personal liberty would be
respected, his property safe, and his country pros-
perous and happy. On the contrary, if the £lO
franchise was to be declared perpetual, and all the
power of the law and all the force of the Govern-
ment was arrayed in its defence, he was profoundly
convinced that neither liberty nor property would
be long safe, and that both law and the Government
must themselves eventually perish in the attempt to
enforce this shameful and perpetual silence of the
people. (Cheers.) If they once broke down the
barrier of the £lO franchise and admitted that
intelligence rather than occupation or property
should be the passport to political power, where was
the man who would engage to fix a point short of
manhood suffrage, at which, with the perpetual
march of intelligence, he was prepared to take his
stand and say, " This is the final goal beyond which
the suffrage must not be advanced ?" (Cheers.)
The resolution was unanimously agreed to.

The following address to Mr. Bright was then
moved by Mr. Robert Kell, of Bradford ; and
seconded by Councillor Gaunt :--
"To JOHN BRIGHT, Ese, MP.
t,,

Sir,—The advanced Reformers of the West Riding of
Yorkshire desire t) take this opportunity of acknowledging
your services as their champion and advocate in the House
of Commons. As you, Sir, have frequently and forcibly
pointed out, that House does not represent the nation at
large, inasmuch as only one-sixth of the whole adult male
population has the power to elect members of Parliament.
4
It is this unsatisfactory and anomalous state of the British
Constitution which has caused the people to assemble in
hundreds of thousands, and peaceably but
nainteltyliewei
ltehetiotralthre-
rotoposrhtatore
firmly and unani-
sponsibility of the countryyour
ou,PSir, in conjunction witsho duties and taxation.
mously to declare their desiret
jsl‘
protective
laws which until recently
oppressive and unjust
coadjutors, the British nation Lion owes its freedom, and those
against your
fought
forgot how fiercely the
Tory party
virtually deprived the country of cheap broad. Wo cannot
But the cause of right
efforts when you were advocating free trade, and with what
bitter invectives you wore assailed.
and of justice triumphed over all.
a noble and righ teens
attackingyou for your championship of
The same party are now
object—the political enfranchisement of thousands of your
fellow men. Wo hope the day is not far distant when your
groat efforts will be crowned with success. To you the
they have unbounded confidence, and through you (God
people of the United Kingdom intrust their cause. In you
giving you health and strength) they trust soon to be able.
to shout with heart and voice the glorious word 'Victory.,
' Mr. BRIGHT, on rising, was received with great
enthusiasm, the meeting rising en masse and
cheering vigorously for nearly five minutes. When
silence was at length restored the hon. gentleman
said—Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,—lf 1 accept
the address which has just been passed by this
meeting, and handed to me by your chairman, be
assured that I do it full of feeling—feeling, in the
first place, of thankfulness to you for your kind-
ness ; and, in the second place, of fear lest in
accepting it I should promise to do that which I
am wholly unable to perform. Perhaps some
of you in your vast meeting to-day have not suffi-
ciently measured the forces which are opposed to

you. In the carrying of any great measure of Re-
form I must ask you not to imagine for a moment it
can be effected, as it were, by one swing of some
victorious arm, but that it must be done, and can
only be done, by the combined and resolute efforts
of millions of people. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Kell, in
the observations he has addressed to you, has re-
ferred to the opinions of a dear and lamented friend
of mine. I recollect one thing which he said, and
which he said often during the course of our great
agitation. It was this, that the West Riding of
Yorkshire freely pronouncing its opinion influenced
to a large extent the opinion of England, and on
many great occasions had finally determined the
policy of the Government. (Cheers.) To-day the
West Riding in multitudinous meeting has spoken
with a voice loud enough to be heard all through
the nation, and, if I am not misinformed, that vast
meeting of which you have formed a part decided
by unanimous consent that the representation of
the people in the English House of Commons was
bad and unsatisfactory to the last degree. You de-
cided that it was bad, not only for what it excluded,
but also for what it included. While it excluded the
great bulk of the nation, it included every form of
corruption and evil of which a representative sys-
tem is capable, and you came to resolutions which
meant this—that you would change this system, if
it lay in your power, and that you the unenfran-
chised millions would stand the exclusion no longer.
(Cheers.) I suppose that after this meeting, and
the great events of this day, we shall have no end of
criticisms upon our conduct and our speeches. I
find that some writers, criticising the observations I
made a fortnight ago at Manchester, complaining that
I said very much the same thing that I had said at
Birmingham. I believe a charge of this nature was
brought more than 2,000 years against one of the
wisest of the ancients. They said that he was
always saying the same thing about the same thing
—(cheers and laughter)—and he asked them in re-
turn whether they expected him to say a different
thing about the same thing. (Laughter.) I have
another answer to make to these critics, and it is
this—when they have answered what I have already
said about this thing then I will try to tell them
something new. (Loud cheers.) New, the case
which we submit to the thinking portion, and the
fair portion, of our countrymen is a very simple one.
We say that we are the citizens of a country that
has had representative institutious for many centu-
ries. There is no time when history goes back when
there was not a representative assembly of some kind
within the kingdom of England. We say, further,
that the House of Commons is the only real basis—
if not the only true security—for the people of
these realms. We know, everybody knows, that
the Crown in our day cannot give freedom to
the people, neither can it materially impair our free-
dom. We know further that the House of Lords,
from its very constitution, from the nature of its
being, cannot be relied upon as a safeguard for the
freedom of Englishmen. (Hear, hear.) We know
that representation, and a just and fair representa-
tion, is that which alone makes a free country. One
of our colonies, now the United States of America,
100 years ago knew that they could not be repre-
sented in the English Parliament. They would not
stand taxation from a Parliament in which they were
not represented; they threw off therefore the supre-
macy of the English Crown, and declared themselves
a free and independent State; and at this moment
there is not an English colony from Canada to New
Zealand that would not also throw off the supremacy
of England if the Parliament or Crown of England
denied to it representative or responsible government.
(Hear, hear.) In fact, there is nothing whatsoever
that distinguishes us from any despotic country in
the world in the matters of political freedom except
the possession of a representative assembly ; so we
have been taught. The people of this country have
been taught, in my opinion, foolishly and wickedly
to hate and despise Austria and the kingdoms of the
Two Sicilies or Naples, as it lately existed, and mainly
because those countries were despotic countries, in
which the people had no influence in their govern-
ment. Well, then, we come to this conclusion, that
the Parliament of England, and mainly the House
of Commons, is the foundation of the law and of
order, and that unless the people are heard in that
house the people are not the source of power, and
they are themselves but little removed from a despo-
tism not of the Crown, but of a privileged and limited
class. (Cheers.) I believe that the House of Com-
mons has no pretence whatever for its existence, ex-
cept that it speaks for the nation of which it is a
part. It is not established to speak for the Crown
and the dynasty. It was not established, or ought
not to exist, to speak merely for nobles and great
landowners. It has not the pretence to be a popular
assembly, if it speaks more for the boroughmongers,
and I say that its character is degraded when on
its benches can be seen by scores the money-bags—
(cheers)—the money-bags M.P. who has walked
into his seat for Lancaster, for Totnes, for Yarmouth,
or for a score, or it may be for two or three score of
other boroughs, which are very much in the same
predicament. (Cheers.) While speaking for these,
for the Crown, for the nobles, for the great land-
owners, for the boroughmongers, for the men who
have purchased their scats in Parliament, the House
of Commons is no security for the freedom of the
people, and if it speaks for only one out of six or
seven. of the people it is no fair representation of
the nation. If it exists at all, if it is to be in ac-
cordance with the principles of the English Consti-
tution, it ought so far to represent all classes of the
people that every man, whether he has a vote or
not, himself can feel that he has an interest in the
house, and that it watches fairly over his rights and
his interests. (Cheers.) Let us take a case, and if
we had a meeting every week during the year we
should have in some way or other fresh cases to
dissect. There has been during last week an elec-
tion in a small borough in Wales—the town of
Brecon. What happened there? There were two
candidates. The carcass was a very small one, but
there were candidates ready. One was a nobleman
of whom I can say nothing but what is in his praise,
for I happen to know that he resigned or quitted the
representation of the Duke of Marlborough's
rotten borough of Woodstock because he would
not subject his own honest Liberal convictions to
the views of his Tory brother—the Duke of Marl-
borough. Well, Lord Alfred Churchill was one can-
didate ; I forget the name of the other. (A Voice—
" Howel Gwyn.") That sounds very Welsh. That
was a furious contest; the whole town was in excite-
ment; public meetings were held and speeches made,
and there was a canvass of the most pertinacious
character. lam told that the agents of the great and
powerful houses were begging and coaxing and com-
pelling that they might get votes, and the end was
the Tory candidate polled 128, and the Liberal can-
didate 102, so that it took just 230 to return this
last made member of the House of Commons. Before the
Reform Bill the borough of Brecon was a borough returning,
4I believe, two members to Parliament, and the electors con-
sisted of ton burgesses. I boliovo that they did not make
an even dozen, although they might make 11, and the Re-
form Bill extended the franchise and added something more
than 200, so that 230 have just voted. I ask you whether
it is possible there should be any fair representation in a
borough like this ? I have heard from private sources,
and I see it stated in the newspapers, that at least two
noble families have been very active in their interests
through their agents—noble families that I am told came
in with the Conqueror, and, as far as I know, it is the only
thing they ever did. (Cheers and laughter.) They are
noble, but, judging at least from any observation that I have
been able to make, they are obscure and unknown to an
eminen!, degree. But how can there possibly be any freedom
of election in a borough which•can only raise 230 voters ?
But this is not the only borough of the kind. Lot us give,
only for a moment, our attention to one or two facts. To,
England and Ireland there are 1t; boroughs, and the popu-
lation of each of them is under 5,000 ; but they return '22
members to Parliament. In England, Wales, and Ireland
there aro not less than 72 boroughs whose population
varies from 5,000, but is under 10,000 persons, and they re-
turn 127 members to the House of Commons. (Shame.) You
do not know much about little boroughs, but there aro small
boroughs in Yorkshire, as well as in Wales and the south,
in which there is a little compulsion or corruption, or a very
acute attorney, or that sort of combination which prevails
among a few publicans, and which may be accounted for, if
it cannot be justified, by the exceptional position in which
they they
aa
rr ee pled,sa
hajc
eet and
In thThee
se exceptionalsm all
brlegislation to
of wt
hh
ei cshe
things can make the difference whether one man or the other
is returned to Parliament. In point of fact, there is no real
representation in these small boroughs. In them the wishes
of the people are nothing. The representation is in the bands
of 200 or 300 electors, manipulated, coaxed, compelled,
corrupted, aucthribod. Take two cases which have DM pro-