The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-17 00:00:00

was supported by Mr. E. BEALES, and unanimously

adopted.
Mr. G. Ross then read the following address to
Mr. Bright :-
4, Honourable Sir,—Those who have invited you to Scot-
land on this occasion may venture to assure you that the

great mass of her people are not wanting in gratitude to
those who have toiled and suffered in their cause ; they re-

joice at your presence amongst them, having earnestly
marked your lifelong labours for the good of the entire
nation. They have heartfelt pleasure in knowing that the
genius and eloquence conferred on you by nature—first em-
ployed by you in teaching to prize virtue, knowledge, and
temperance, and in raising the moral standard and material

prosperity of those among whom your lot was more imme-
diately cast—have been exercised in later years in the wider

sphere of statesmanship, till your name and influence have

become appreciated and honoured throughout the world.
We honour your incorruptible integrity, and recognise in

you a statesman wise to foresee dangers, and capable of
discerning the benefit to be gained by doing justly to all,
and speaking the truth without fear of man or desire
of earthly regard. We shall never forget your free-

trade labours in fellowship with one whose memory is
embalmed on our hearts as your friend and ours. While we
receive our daily bread for ourselves and our children, we
remember those who secured to us that the bounty of God
should be freed from the tax of men. We are thankful

that while others have been taken to their great reward,
you have still been spared to be the advocate of those
among your countrymen who, unjustly deprived of politi-

cal liberty, have no voice in the council of the nation.

Your presence in Glasgow to-day inspires us with profound

gratitude. We are hereto give expression to that gratitude,
to offer you our heartiest thanks ; but also thanks for some-
thing more. We are alive to tho crisis in our affairs. The
wrongs you have so long denounced must needs be re-
dressed. We again point the opponents of Reform to the
great evils in our midst, imperilling society, for the removal
of which the present system has been tried and found want-

ing. We dread that gulf, pauperism, the scandal of the
world, amid unparalleled wealth, which is swallowing up

our aged and infirm, and in which so many of our youth

are abandoned to misery and crime. We protest against
the domination of sectional parties, who, professing to go-
vern for the people, have failed to provide education for
the nation, which popular Governments in other lands

have secured, leaving us far behind. We point to the

wasteful expenditure which has produced and fosters our

dangerous national debt, sapping the energies of the coun-
try, and burdening it in the race of nations. In the city
from which Smith taught, we point to the unsatisfactory
laws of banking, and the attendant paralysing of our trade.
We denounce that system of misgoverment in certain colo-
nies, where different races come into close contact, which
has culminated in the recent vindictive punishment of a
political opponent under the plea of necessity. We protest
against the present sectional representation, its restricted
basis, its grossinequalities, and the interference with tenant
voters and the shameful bribery and corruption. Through
you, we call attention to the unrighteous policy prevailing
upon these and other matters within the State, and com-
pelling the flower of our population to seek freeholds
and freedom -where entail and primogeniture are un-
known. We seek not to retaliate, as an injured
class, by desiring special privileges for ourselves, or
by imposing restraints on others. We seek rather,
by asserting our rights as men, to assist in the solu-
tion of those great problems on which the future of our
country depends. Freedom and union are to-day the ideas
which inspire and control the peoples of the world. The
Great Ruler among the nations has been overturning the
barriers in the way of these ideas, and has signally frowned
on those, both in Europe and America, who sought empire
with division and slavery. We seek union for all classes,
on the broad basis of political liberty. What has been ac-
complished in other lands by means of war we fervently
pray may be accomplished here by means of peace; but we
warn our rulers against the continued breach of the great
charter, wrung from reluctant hands at Runnymede, which
provides that the rulers "shall not deny nor delay justice
-to any one." We, the sons of Wallace and Knox, join the
men of England and Ireland in taking up the words of
Richard Cobden, addressed to you at the outset of your
former victorious struggle—" Come with us, and we will
_ _

never rest till we have abolished monopoly." Signed in
the name and by appointment of the Scottish National
Reform League." •

Mr. BRIGHT, who was received with enthusiastic
cheering, said---Mr. Chairman and citizens of no
mean city, I accept this address, which has been
read in your hearing, and presented to me, with the
feeling of deep gratitude to those who have expressed
such friendly feelings towards me, but with a deep
anxiety when I consider the intent and purport of
the document. lam consoled by regarding it as,
in some degree, a compact or covenant entered into
to-night by you and those whom you represent, with
me and those whom I may be supposed in some de-

gree to represent, and that we covenant together

that whatsoever is moral for us to do we engage to
do in the prosecution of that great cause which has
stirred the hearts of Glasgow to-day. (Cheers.) I
can do but little—any one man can do but little,
but you, in your vast numbers, can do much, and,

uniting with numbers not smaller in other parts
of the kingdom, I have a strong sense that
the day is fast approaching which will see the
triumph of our cause—(cheers)—and I think he
must be blind and foolish indeed who is not willing
to admit that it is a great issue which is now sub-
mitted to the people of the United Kingdom.
(Hear, hear.) Gatherings of scores of thousands
of men, extending from south to north, must have
some great cause. Men do not leave their daily
labour, the necessary occupations of their lives, thus
to meet, unless they believe there is some great
question submitted to them in which they have a
deep and an overpowering interest. (Hear and
cheers.) And the question is this—whether, in
future, the Government and the legislation of this
country shall be conducted by a privileged class in
a sham Parliament, or on the principles of the Con-
stitution, by the nation, through its representatives,
fairly and freely chosen. (Cheers.) Now, there
are persons who will think that I am speaking
harshly of the existing Parliament ; some, probably,
I in this meeting might think that Mr. Beales was
indiscriminate in the term which he used when he
spoke of our representation being steeped in cor-
ruption ; but I am certain that if the representation
of this country existed in any other country, and
that its details were explained to Englishmen, there
are not five Englishmen within the boundaries, or
five Britons within the bounds of this island—
(hear, hear, and cheers)—who would not admit that
the language we applied to the Parliament was cor-
rect. (Cheers.) Now, what we charge against
Parliament is this, that it is chosen from constitu-
encies not only so small that they do not and can-
not adequately represent the nation, but from con-
stituencies so small as to be influenced by corruption
and by all kinds of motives that are neither national
nor patriotic. (Hear, hear.) In our boroughs, for
example, the numbers, for the most part, are very
small. There are, I think, 254 boroughs in the
United Kingdom,
but there are only 54 of them that
possess a constituency of 2,000 electors and upwards;
and large and fair constituencies are indeed
the exception. In Scotland your borough consti-
tuencies, though not generally very large, are larger
than those in England ; and to your honour it must
be said they are far more incorrupt than English
constituencies. (Cheers.) In the counties the free-
holders—those who own land for cultivation--are
constantly diminishing in numbers ; and that por-
tion of the constituencies which is not composed of
freeholders is composed of tenant farmers—the most
dependent class of occupiers probably in the nation.
(Cheers.) But now let me point to one or two facts
which should sink deep in the minds of all men.
Out of every 100
grown men in the United King-
dom 84 have no votes—(cries of " Shame")—those
84 might just as well, for all purposes of constitu-
tional government, so far 'as they are directly con-
cerned—those 84 might as well live in Russia, where
there is no electoral system of government, or in
those other countries, now very few indeed, in which
parliaments and representation are unknown. If it
be the fact that only 16 men out of every 100 have
votes, it is also the fact that those 16 are so arranged
and so placed that the representation is in reality
almost entirely destroyed. (Hear, hear.) If the
electors were fairly divided amongst all the mem-
bers there would be nearly 2,000 electors to every
member, but what is the state of things? Why,
that one-third of the House of Commons, or 220
members of the House of Commons, are chosen by
a number of men scattered over the country who
are fewer by almost one-half than the numbers of
grown men in this city of Glasgow alone. (Cries
of °' Shame.")
And further, one-half of the House
of Commons is
chosen by about 180,000 electors,
being only
one-seventh of the whole number of elec-
tors, and very much below the number of men who
are to be found in the cities of Edinburgh and Glas-
gow. (Cries of " Shame.") And if we come to that
great event which excites so much interest, but
which is generally of so little value, a general elec-
tion—(laughter)--we find and believe that not more
than ten in a hundred—not more than 10 per cent.