The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-29 00:00:00

MR. BRIGHT AT ROCHDALE.

Last evening a soiree was given to Mr. John
..13right by his fellow-townsmen of Rochdale, in the
:,jublic hall of that borough, when the hon. gentle-
, nan took occasion to make a further exposition of
his views on Parliamentary Reform. The hall,
Although very limited in its dimensions, and in this
:espect presenting a marked contrast to the St.
George's-hall at Bradford, where Mr. Bright first
iropounded his scheme of reform, is nevertheless
the largest building used for public meetings in
Rochdale, and it Ivay filled to overflowing in
every part. The audience comprised about 800
persons, and hundreds were refused admission
owing to the want of room. The company assem-
bled at half-past five o'clock in an apartment
situated below the hall, where they partook of tea
and other refreshments. The more serious business
commenced at seven, the cliair being taken by Mr.
Andrew Stewart, the Mayor.. Mr. Bright was ac-
companied to the meeting by some of the leading
reformers of the district, and on taking his place on
the platform he was most enthusiastically cheered.
Letters of apology for their absence were received
from Mr. Cobden, Mr. E. Miall, Mr. W. J. Fox,
M.P., Mr. Thomas Bailey, my., and other gentle-
men. Mr. Cobden's letter was as follows :

" Midhurst, Jan. 18.

" Dear sir,—Circumstances, which I trust justified mY
to doing, lea me to the detarinination to withdraw for a sea-
son-from public life. In order to fulfil this resolution, I was
obliged to adopt a rigid rule of abstaining from all political
meetings for a time. It would have been very pleasant to
have made exceptions, and I need not tell you that your
approaching meeting would have been one of the pleasantest,
but I should not longer have the plea which I require to
justify me in declining other invitations ; besides, I should
really be wanting in something like veracity if I were now
to appear at a public meeting, after the answers which I
gave to the invitations from Manchester and elsewhere.
You will, I am sure, therefore, not misconstrue my motives
in declining to partake of the pleasure of your approaching
meeting ; and with many thanks for the kind terms in
which you have conveyed the invitation.—l remain, &c,
" To Robert Mills, Esq." " R. COBDEN.
The CHAIRM.A.N having opened the proceedings,
Mr. W. FENTON moved and Mr. G. ASHWORTH,
seconded the following resolution, which was carried
by acclamation, viz. :
" That this meeting desires to place on record the
high esteem entertained for Mr. John Bright, M.P., by
his fellow-townsmen. Born and educated among us, a
member of a family noted for liberality and the care
bestowed by them on the physical and intellectual improve-
ment of their numerous workpeople, he early developed, in
the defence and advancement of local interests, those great
talents and thathigh-minded integrity which have since, in
a more extended sphere and on questions of national impor-
tance, gained him a world-wide and lasting reputation. Re •
cognising these services, his fellow-townsmen have assem-
bled on this occasion to assure him of the sympathy they
felt for him in his affliction and temporary exile, how greatly
they rejoice in his restoration to health and a seat in the
British Parliament, and to express their fervent hope that
he may be spared not only to bring to a successful issue thp
great measure of Parliamentary Reform confided tohis care,
but to reap the only reward he seeks in seeing it contribute
in future years to the peace, happiness, and prosperity of
his fellow-countrymen.' _

Mr. BraoHT then stood forward to address the
meeting, when the demonstrations of enthusiasm
recommenced, and were continued for several-mi-
nutes. Silence having been restored, the hon. gen-
tleman said—Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen
—I wish I were able to convey some just idea of
the feelings which crowd upon me at this moment.
I cannot say how much I feel indebted to those who
are here to-night, and to such of my townsmen as
have promoted this assembly. It is to me not an
ordinary public or political meeting ; it has another
and a deeper significance, for I find myself sur-
rounded by my friends and neighbours, among
whom I have lived from my youth, by those with
whom I have acted on many questions—some of a
local, and others of a more general character ; by
those who have known much of my private and all
my public life. I hope I may be permitted to accept
this manifestation of your kindness as a token that
you at least believe that I have in the main endea-
voured to pursue a course in unison with the best
interests and the honour of my country. (Cheers.) I
may, perhaps, also assume that with regard to recent
proceedings, and to a great question with which my
name has been prominently connected, you are not in-
disposed to give the sanction of your high approval to
those proceedings. (Renewed cheers.) This question
of Parliamentary Reform, which some men speak
lightly of, and which some writers write of as though
it were of no moment, is of the highest moment to
you and to this country; it lies at the basis of poli-
tical improvement, and from it and from its proper
settlement alone is to be derived any sound and wise
hope for the future power and prosperity of this
great nation. There is a change, a noticeable change
in the mode in which this subject is treated now,
compared with that which it received but three
short months ago. You recollect that three months
ago I had the opportunity of addressing a meeting
composed of many thousands of my friends and
constituents in Birmingham. You recollect the vio-
lent hurricane of abuse with which the facts and
arguments I laid before that meeting were met by
a portion of the public press. I afterwards attended
an assemblage wonderful in magnitude and in influ-
ence in the city of Manchester. After, too, a meet-
ing scarcely less numerous in Edinburgh, I also
attended another gathering of like importance in
Glasgow, and only last week I spoke before a meet-
ing as numerous as any of those to which I have
referred, except in the town of Bradford. Well, I
now find that that which was rovolutionary, and
wholly to be condemned and repudiated, has begun
to be regarded as something reasonable, which men
may discuss without being considered outlaws in
the country. (Cheers.) I have made no change
since the hour that I applied myself to this ques-
tion in the Town Hall of Birmingham, three months
ago. I have not made the slightest change in any
single thing that I have said in connection either
with the extension of the franchise, the mode of
voting, or the manner in which members of Parlia-
ment should be distributed among our various elec-
toral bodies. There is one portion of the press which
I cannot in the least blame, which, consistently
with the objects of the party to which it belongs,
has always been opposed to Parliamentary Reform;
there is another portion, which may probably
be said to represent the late Govern-
ment more than any other party or section
of a party, and which has not professed to be alto-
gether opposed to reform, but of which one thing
is quite clear, namely, that it is very much opposed
to reform not emanating from the old workmen of
1832. This portion of the press has no wish for any
measure in the carrying or in the proposition of
which I may have taken a prominent part ; and I
don't wonder at this, for in this country, for a much
longer time than any of us can recollect, all these
affairs have been managed with Freat comfort and
great profit by certain small sections of the commu-
nity, one calling itself Tory, and the other calling
itself Whig; and they have a very great objectionl
to find this question taken up b
selves, or by anybody sprung from, allirdopto, brhorund
up with, and faithful to the people.
dislike to see a great measure of this nature) takeniley
out of their accustomed and orthodox hands. T
discussion that has occurred during the last three
months has materially changed all this, and I am
bound to say, so far as I have seen the newspapers,
—and they go far to mould or to follow public
opinion—that they are beginning to take a view of
this subject more consonant with the character they
assume as public instructors, and more in accord-
ance with that which ought to belong to them as
writers, full of patriotism, endeavouring to do the
best they can for the legislation of the nation. I
said that I have not made any change from the
meeting at Birmingham down to the meeting at
Bradford, or the meeting this evening. What is it
that I have recommended on the question of the
Parliamentary franchise ? I began by stating that
I was in favour of the ancient franchise of the coun-
try, which prevailed universally until restrictions
in later times had been imposed upon it. I con-
tended that every man who was in such a
_position
of independence as to be able and compelled to con-
tribute to the support of the more necessitous of his
countrymen, might safely and rightly be placed on
the list of electors in the boroughs of the United
Kingdom. Now, the Reform Act treated this subject
not indeed exactly in the way I would treat it, but as
showing that it had regard to the ancient basis of
the suffrage. The Reform Act insisted that every
£lO householder in the boroughs should be rated to
the poor. That Act, not as it originally stood, but
as it now works, gave a period of six months, be-
tween the sth Ja, n. and. the 20th of July. in which
it assumed that
likeverY man's rates would be paid
whose rates dthue-eienly to pay them ; and if all those
the sth Jan. were paid by
20th of July
or right
\t to have their names placed
on the register of
in
housescrs was conceded, provided
always they
the annual value of
£lO. Now, what I propose of
and I t;3la.
do is to strike out
the restriction of £lO,have never ever wished to
go further than to leave the rest' these proposi-
tions_ d'then standing on the footing they
woui
occu-
py. But the question may be asked, " Why keep
up the condition as to the six months, or why take
periodm
odly those who during that or some other
shall pay their rates ? " I put it to every
whatever be his theoretical notions, whether he abne,
heves it would be beneficial throughouttheboroughs
of the kingdom for the constituency as a whole to
include some scores in a very small borough, some
hundreds in others, and a few thousands, perhaps,
in the largest, of a class of which unhappily there
are so many among us, I mean the excessively poor,
0 me of them intemperate, some profligate, some it
may be only unfortunate, some naturally incapable;
but all in a condition of dependence, such as gives

us no reasonable expectation that -they would be
able to resist the many temptations which richer
and unscrupulous men would offer them at elections,
in order to induce them to give their votes in a man-
ner not consistent with their opinions and their
consciences, if they have any. in the matter, and
inconsistent also it may be with the interest of the
representation of the town or city in which they
resided. It is curious that among the thousands of
letters which I have received on this question during
the last three months, I have had more applications
from working men, asking me to specify my views
on this particular point than I have had from any
other class. (Hear, hear.) One man writes to me
—" I am in favour of the widest possible suffrage
to every one of whom it is presumed that he is in 1
the least independent," but he adds, " I don't think I
that a man in my neighbourhood who is so idle, so
profligate, so intemperate, and so abandoned, and
who so neglects his family that there is not a single
duty of citizenship which he ever undertakes or
performs—l don't think that I as an industrious,
frugal, and striving working man have any interest
whatever in such a person being placed on the elec-
toral list, knowing as I do that when his vote comes
to be exercised he will be open to every possible
evil influence that can be practised upon him."
(Cheers.) That, of course, is a question which will be
for the ultimate determination of Parliament, as
indeed all these questions will be ; but whether we
take the proposition of household suffrage or rating
suffrage, there is a difficulty which must be met in
consequence of the different modes in which the
subject of rating is treated in various parts of the
country. In Scotland, for example, I found that in
Edinburgh, and I don't know whether it is exactly
the same in Glasgow, it is not the custom to rate any-
body who lives in a house of lower value than £4 a-
year ; the reason is this—that persons who occupy
houses of lower value than that, being the most
helpless and poorest of the population, it is found
impossible to obtain one-tenth probably of the
amount of rate from them which it would cost to
collect it. The landlords not paying the rate as is
the custom here, it was found impossible to collect
it from tenants of this poor and suffering descrip-
tion. Therefore, a rating suffrage in Edinburgh
would at once exclude all that class. Well, I am
prepared to maintain that it is consistent with the
establishment of the bestconstituency, and consist-
ent also with the public opinion certainly of the
present electoral body in this country, that persons
who are in a condition so absolutely dependent—
many of them, perhaps, begging from house to
house, many of them receiving parochial relief, all
of them living from day to day in a state which
we must all deplore, but which puts it wholly out
of their power to act an independent part in almost
any relation of life—should not be admitted upon
the electoral roll. The difficulty is not with regard
to Edinburgh, because you will observe that my
plan of rating franchise would of itself exclude
all those who were not rated on account of their
extreme poverty, and from whom no rates can be
raised ; but when you come to Lancashire, and
other parts of England, you find, to a large extent,
that a custom has prevailed, sometimes by law and
sometimes by agreement, by which the landlords
pay the rates even upon the poorest and lowest class
of dwellings. Thus you will see that a rating fran-
chise would admit a class to a franchise in England
which the same clause in a bill would exclude in
Scotland. That is a distinction which, of course,
Parliament would not be expected to sanction, and
which certainly would not be just, because it would
grant the suffrage to a considerable section of the
community in one part of the kingdom, and with-
hold it from the same section in another. Then
comes the question whether you arc to lay down
some rule by which that unfortunate class in Scot-
land is to be admitted, or one by which the corre-
sponding class in England is to be shut out. Now
I should recommend a plan something like this :
It is, I fear, almost impossible to make the matter
quite clear to everybody, but I have received so much
correspondence about it, and I find it to be so
much the subject of discussion, that I think it
necessary now, which is perhaps the only oppor-
tunity I may have before Parliament assembles,
to meet this question, and briefly to discuss it.
(Cheers.) I think it is extremely likely that if Par-
liament were to entertain a proposition so extensive
as I have suggested, they would say that it is far
better the corresponding class in England, whom
you acknowledge to be utterly dependent in Scot-
land, where your own plan excludes them, should
also be excluded in England ; and they might pro-
pose that the clause should enact that down to a
certain point of assessment, as low as they like to
descend, whether the tenant pays the rate or
whether the landlord does so, the tenant should be
enfranchised, but that below that line, which is
supposed to set apart the very dependent class,
every man who is ambitious to have a vote must go
to the poor law officer who manages the rating, and
tell him that he wishes not only to be rated, but
wishes as tenant and occupier himself to pay his
own rate, the amount of which might of course by
some arrangement be deducted from his rent, and
then he should be as free as any of those above him
to be placed on the electoral register. If a system
like that were devised—and I am only suggesting
and discussing it—you will see at once that, what-
ever may be the number of the class that is ex-
cluded, there will be no single individual among
them who had paid, perhaps, but 4s. or ss. in the
course of a year in. the shape of rates, and who had
had the industry first to acquire, and then the fru-
gality to save that sum, and who also had the
ambition to become an elector—that no such person
could possibly, or at least necessarily, be shut out
from the franchise which I propose. Another point
on which I have received a great number of letters
relates to the line to be drawn for the county
franchise. I am constantly asked what is the reason
why a man living in a house of £4 or £5 rent in a
borough should be allowed to vote, while the man
who lives in a house of the same rate in a county
is not to be allowed to vote ? I can only give the
answer which I have given elsewhere, that I be-
lieve myself this is the least defensible part of the
proposition which I have submitted to the public
—(hear, hear)—and the more I examine the ques-
tion, the more I am satisfied it would be desi-
rable to bring the franchise in the counties to
a lower standard than I have fixed upon. I have
not the smallest doubt when the next Reform Bill
passes, ifiit does establish the county franchise at
a rent of £lO that only a few years will elapse be-
-fore motions will be made in the House of Commons
for the purpose of bringing it down, if not to the
same level as the franchise in boroughs, at least, to
a lower point than that laid down by the coming
measure. The fact is, the more people look at this
question of the franchise, handle it, and see its
working, the more their fears will vanish. The fear
of the rich and the great at the votes of the people
arises from a suspicion, based I believe almost en-
tirely upon an ignorance, first, of the character of
the people, and, next, of the effect which the pos-
session of a vote has on the mind and on the actions
of every man intrusted with it. (Cheers.) I have
spoken of a £lO county franchise simply on this
ground. I believe there is a majority of the House
of Commons in its favour. There would probably
not be a majority for anything below that. It is
that which public opinion has for several years
rested upon with respect to the counties, and I am
anxious in everything not to go impractically, as it
were, a-head of what the country is prepared for,
but get as much of public opinion as I can to go with
us in doing the greatest and the best thing that is
possible in the day in which we live. (Cheers.) I
shalt not detain you by any discussion on that ques-
tion,which is not one of degree, but one which a man
must say either Ave or No. I mean whether voting
shall be made compulsory open, as it is now, or shall
be
conducted by secret ballot. (Cheers.) I believe no
meeting hasbeen held during the last three months,
and I have read the accounts of nearly all of them, at
which there appears to have been any difference of
opinion as to the propriety of giving the shelter of the
itballotshne ostai
ilnvrhtaheanee .
pt ho
I power
hr shallh
t be any further extension of
hold
any de hpartoytitnotbhe be inevitable.nense of
c etnlt.
mons to prevent it—(cheers)-230 members of that 1
assembly are at present in its favour; every dissolution
proposition from anya to its supporters. Any
of Parliament must
Government to bring in a
Reform Bill considerablyuld, I believe, or
widely extending the
be
irte. e, e i(vcehde e
rflatly,(Cheers.)
) I with-
out enthusiasm, almost with distaste, if it id not
suffragee
of
offer the ballot along with •
tthoe,
others,s is
now to a question which I was about .
much more important than either
but which has been very little discussed at übli
that
meetings; that is - the mode in which thep seats
should be distributed among the constituencies. Let
me tell you, as AI have told other assemblages,
the working min who are now enfranchised should
particularly study this point, that although to • give
a man a vote may be to please his sentiment of in-
dependence and equality, and he may like to go up
and poll with his richer and more free neighbour,
yet, as regards the legislation and the composition
of Parliament and the action upon your Govern-
ment, by giving a man a vote or 1,000,000 of men
votes may be made of no effect, no value what-
ever, unless that -which I call the soul and jewel
of your representative system be fairly considered
and equitably adjusted. (Cheers.) The other day
at Bradford I laid before the meeting and before
the public certain schedules, showing what number
of boroughs I should propose to disfranchise, what
number of seats I should obtain from that process,
and
how those seats were in my view to be dis-
tributed amour, the old and new electoral bodies
throughout the kingdom. Now, I am bound to
state—and I think I say no more than the truth
when I do so
—that the reception which that scheme
has met with generally from the public has been
much more favourable than otherwise. (Cheers.)

Of course those persons who said that I was
going to turn everything upside down pretended
remarkable astonishment, and even satisfaction
that they were not about to be turned out
of the windows. (A laugh.) They said, " Why,
this is not at all like the violent speeches
which were made at Bradford and at Man-
chester V' But the fact is there never were any vio-
lent speeches. (Cheers.) The violence and the
folly, and the misrepresentation and the misstate-
ments of facts, and the iteration of all that was
illogical and absurd, were found day after day in
the leading articles of newspapers and nowhere
else. (Cheers and laughter.) I shall refer to the
criticisms of only one journal, and that notoriously
the most important and most influential in this
kingdom—the Times newspaper, as you know.
(Cheers, and some hisses.) I would not express
any disapprobation, because, after all, the Times
newspaper will, no doubt, do your cause great ser-
vice, and it will begin to do it, and to do it ear-
nestly, the moment it sees that you are in earnest.
(Cheers.) The Times said the other day that it did
not find much fault with my scheme of disfranchise-
ment, but that my distribution of the members
gained from the disfranchised places was very un-
fair ; I think it said that it was " a gigantic fraud,"
and that to take 87 seats as proposed from the
boroughs by Schedule A from one side of the house,
or from one interest in the house—the landed in-
terest—and to put them on the other side, meaning
the side of the commercial and the popular interest
made a difference in a division of 174 votes ; and the
Times assumed that those 87 seats were all seats
for very small constituencies connected with what
they call the " agricultural interest," although
there is not the smallest connection really, or, at all
events, it is a very trifling connection, between
what is called the ' landed interest" and the " agri-
cultural interest." Now, the Times has a very short
memory. Six weeks ago in that newspaper there
was a proposition which I was very glad to see,
although I thought at the time that the editor was
rather extreme in his views. (Cheers and a
laugh.) He proposed to disfranchise every
borough with less than 10,000 inhabitants, and
that boroughs with less than 25,000 inhabi-
tants should not return more than one member.
If that plan had been carried out he would
have obtained from the disfranchised boroughs
not less than 47 seats more than I have obtained.
The Times also proposed that 20 or 25 new mem-
bers should be given to the counties. Now, when
my plan came out—which is really a more reason-
able plan, a much more reasonable plan than that of
the Times, for I disfranchise only up to 8,000, and I
take only 120 seats, .whereas he would have taken
abmit 170--forgetting what he had written six
weeks before, he condemns my plan as very ex-
treme, and happily for us he produces a rival
scheme of his own. (Hear, hear.) lam told that
in the Times of to-day—for I have not seen the
paper—there is a considerable correction of that
rival scheme. That scheme was, in fact, what is
called a plagiarism; it was, not to speak offensively,
stolen from my schedules. They:got my child, and
they took off its decent clothing—(cheers and
laughter) ;—they put on it rags of their own, and
they marred its countenance that it might excite
pity. (Renewed cheers.) Leading articles, you
know, may be written almost anyhow—that is,
they are published this morning, and are forgotten
when the paper comes out to-morrow morning, and
it does not always matter whether everything that
is in them is very correct ; but when you come to
figures and to give us tables there is an amount of
truth in the multiplication table which even great
authorities like the Times cannot wholly dispute,
and their blunders are easily detected. Now, the
Times complains of this—that in distributing the
members which are obtained from the disfranchised
boroughs I give far too large a population to the
towns and far too small a proportion to the counties,
and he says that in his scheme he gives to every
county with more than 160,000 inhabitants an extra
member. But how does he make out his list for
those counties ? I will illustrate his mode of doing
it by a reference to these counties which I have before
me, and I believe there are others of the same de-
scription, We will take Berkshire, Buckingham-
shire, and Oxfordshire, and all of which are much
under the population to which I propose to give an
additional member. And how does he make them
up to this amount ? He forgets that the boroughs
in those counties are represented, and he includes
in the population of the counties the population of
the boroughs. For example, take the county of
Berks, in which the principal proprietor of the
Times has an estate, and on which he is very much
to be congratulated. (A laugh.) The population
of that county, exclusive of the boroughs, is
131,000 ; the Times calls it 170,000. The popula-
tion of the county of Bucks, in the same way, is
129,000 • the Times calls it 164,000. The popula-
tion of the county of Gloucester again, exclusive of
the boroughs, is 250,000, but the Times calls it
468,000. Well, a man might make a mistake in a
figure, and one would not complain of or condemn
upon that account a great scheme ; but when such
a huge and absurd blunder as this has been made
throughout the whole of his table, as I believe it
has, I must say that, instead of proposing schemes
of reform, the Times had better take to some other
occupation for which it is better fitted. I could
show you a great many other faults in that scheme.
The town of Chatham, for example, to which he
proposes to give an additional member, making
two ; and the town of Rochdale, to which I pro-
pose an additional member, are within some 2,000
of the'same population. But it happens that Rochdale
is the more populous place of the two. The Times,
however, drops one member for Rochdale, and
keeps one member additional for Chatham. Now,
Chatham is to a large extent a Government borough,
and you had much better have one member and
Chatham one, probably, than that you should have
one and Chatham two; and the object, no doubt,
of leaving a member to Chatham and taking him
from Rochdale is that the power of the Minister of
the day, and not the power of the people, should be
strengthened. There is another borough which is
particularly favoured in that scheme, and that is
the borough of Nottingham. I don't know at all,
of course I can't even guess, with any certainty
whence that scheme comes. But when one finds
that the county of Berks, where the proprietor of
the Times has a fine estate, and the town of Not-
tingham, which he happens to represent, are espe-
cially favoured, one cannot help thinking that
somehow or other the person who concocted that
scheme has not been so impartial in dealing with
all places and all interests as I have been in the
scheme which I have proposed. But there is
another great error in the proposition which has
appeared in the Times, to which I must call your
attention, and which is of a much more serious
character. He disfranchises all these boroughs in
England and Wales, and he distributes the mem-
bers in England and Wales; he has made no pro-
vision for an extension of the number of members
to be granted to that part called Scotland or to
Ireland. He gives to Liverpool and to Man-
chester, as I proposed to give, six members each,
but he does not propose to given even an additional
member from those disfranchised boroughs to the
great city of Glasgow, possessing at this moment
400,000 inhabitants. But are Edinburgh and Glas-
gow not parts of this United Kingdom as much as
Manchester and Liverpool ? I propose to disfran-
chise a less number of places than the limes, and
I propose to give to Scotland—l forget the exact
number, but I think 16 or 17—additional members.
(Cheers.) The justice that I would do to Scotland
touches the heart of Scotchmen everywhere, and do
you think for a moment that 3,000,000 of en-
lightened people north of the Tweed, who pay in
proportion to their population as much of the taxes
of the United Kingdom as any other portion of the
kingdom, will be content with a proposition which
leaves them as they are now and have been here-
tofore, and wholly ignores the enormous strides
which that portion of the kingdom has taken
in all that constitutes the wealth and strength
and prosperity of the empire? Well, but
now we will come to the real question of
the proposition which I have made, and that is,
whether I have dealt unfairly to the counties of
the United Kingdom. I can hardly hope that this
part of my subject can be very interesting to every-
body, but I assure you that it is of the very pith
and marrow of the question before the public. The
statement which the Times makes, and which others
make who object to my scheme, is, that I disfran-
chise a great number of small boroughs which it is
generally admitted ought to be disfranchised ;
that I get in England and Wales—l leave out of
view Ireland at present, and in Scotland I disfran-
chise no boroughs-121 members, for whom it is
necessary to find constituencies, and that in finding
those constituencies I show great partiality to the
towns, and do great injustice to the counties. That
isatyheuersecasoesueen, atthieegasn, i,nst me. In England and Wales,
though there are but 52 counties, there are 81
larger
counties or divisions of counties, many of the
as w youha t are
the
factsaware,
a are. I being
yt iakdcedn.
Let
those counties that arc purely agricultural—for it
is that great landed interest that complains—(a
laugh)—and I have taken
those that are to a eon-
isliadveer atbalke extent
entii e
manufacturingcounty of Lancaster and
mining;and
e
exceptional and
Westd
t oI
Riding of Yorkshire alone, as being
all others from the vast population and the enor-
mous manufacturing interests which they contain.
Of the purely agricultural divisions there are 62
out of the 81. They would have by my scheme,
which is pronounced to be unjust to the agricul-
tural interest, 128 members, and the average num-
ber of per.f. 'as, men, women, and children to every
member would be just 55,000. I conic, then, to the
manufacturing and mining counties, of which there
are 16. They return 36 members, and the average