The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-25 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, SEPT. 25, 1866.

Of course it can surprise no one that Mr. BRIGHT
has taken every opportunity to come forward this
autumn, and to express himself vehemently about
things in general. The fact of the DERBY Govern-
ment being in power is quite enough to excite and
enrage him beyond all bounds; and it may be ob-
served that in this last speech of his, at the Reform
Demonstration at Manchester yesterday, he devoted
all his energies to the task of abusing and reviling
the Conservative party, and more especially their
leaders. After an address, which was couched
in such extravagant terms that it was a dis-
grace to those who presented it, Mr. BRIGHT
addressed his audience. Surely it is enough for the
chief actor in such a scene to outrage common sense
and exaggerate everything without others following
in his wake. When we find such language as this
employed, we recognise the excitement of partisan-
ship, and not the avowal of deep conviction and the
exposition of public sentiment. The Chairman said
they presented.= address to Mr. BRIGHT, " whose
name in the House of Commons was a terror to
evil-doers, and who, with the late RICHARD COB-
DEN, had earned a name which would be for all
time endeared to the people of England." We
think that it was never more plainly shown than
it was this last session that Mr. BRIGHT'S reign
even in the Rouse of Commons has greatly decreased
since the famous days of old, when the Anti-Corn-
Law League was in the zenith of its reputation,
and he was its redoubted champion. Many then
who did not agree with his politics or coincide
with his way of advocating his views admired his
talents and respected his earnestness; but since then
he has retrograded, and sunk from the advocate of
a popular cause to the political agitator, who
loses the representative in the demagogue As for
the notion of Mr. BRIGHT'S returning to Parlia-
ment not as simply the representative of a single
borough, but as the elected tribune of a mighty
people, it is quite preposterous. We beg to recall
to the recollection of these devotees the manner in
which Mr. BRIGHT left the Parliament to which he
is to return in such an enviable position. It was
properly denounced at the time as quite un-
worthy. He could not, or would not, appear in
Parliament to state his opinions, where they could
be called in question, but he could spare time to
indite letters from his retirement, which stirred up
the people against the law, and drove the ignorant
and infatuated to acts of .violence. Mr. BRIGHT
never did himself more discredit during his whole
career than, when he thus regaled to expedients to

annoy his opponents and serve himself. If he con-
sidered the conduct of the Government to be so
faulty, he ought to have said so in his place in Par-

liament.

But this is always his way of proceeding ; he never
speaks so well as when no one can reply to him, and
he is addressing those whom it is his purpose to excite
to the utmost against all who differ from him. This
is conduct that is neither fair nor straightforward,
and those who clamour about obtaining their rights
should show a little more respect for the claims of
others. There is one part of Mr. BRIGHT'S speech
in which we cordially concur, and that is where he
says that he has no ambition for leadership because he
" has no fitness for such an office." He has not indeed,
and never could succeed is getting a large following.
A speech of Mr. BRIGHT, which contained no abuse
of the House of Lords, would be, indeed, " Hamlet,'
with the part of Hamlet omitted, and so we are
not surprised to learn from this last declaration of
the oracle at Manchester that that august as-
sembly abrogates its inheritance mad forfeits its
privileges. "It gives its votes, its power, its
proxies into the hands of one man, and he often, as at
present, not by any means the wisest of men." After
this it is not astonishing to find this doom predicted
for it, " Decay and darkness will settle upon it."
Is it not an insult to the understanding of those he
declares are worthy of the suffrage denied to them
that Mr. BRIGHT should talk in such a clip-trap
style to them ? The working classes are not to rise
to the level of those now in power, but they are
to take their place, for which they have shown
themselves to be so manifestly unfit.
Perhaps nothing can better illustrate the one-
sidedness of Mr. BRIGHT'S argument than this sen-
tence : " I regard the county representation to a very
large extent as a dead body tied to the living body
of the borough representation." This is exactly the

view which he and his friends take of the matter

whenever the question of Reform comes forward,
and, in fact, it forms one of the chief obstacles to
its satisfactory settlement. We believe that a
Reform Bill which did seriously affect the interests
of the country party, and curtail their power and
influence, would never meet with the approval of
Mr. BRIGHT, however liberal might be its provisions,
and however great the advantages it conferred upon
the working classes. Mr. BRIGHT resorted to the
worn-out dodge of quoting the particular pas-
sage of Mr. LOWE'S speech which referred to elec-
tions, in order to implicate Lord DERBY with the
responsibility of it, because he had proposed to
that gentleman to join his Government. Now, who
would have been more ready than Mr. BRIGHT to
characterise the new Administration as a clique
and a party monopoly had no proposal been made
to those not in the ranks of the Conservative party?
Of course we find America and her institutions
extolled at the expense of ours, and the superior

education of the people of New England vaunted.
We think the events now taking place in America
are a sufficient proof that knowledge is not power
without discretion to guide it. Mr. BRIGIIT
himself is far more American than English in his
intolerance of opponents and extreme self-sufficiency.
Mr. BRIGHT is ready to stake everything he has
in the world upon the notion that "if the platform
of the National Reform League were embodied in
an Act of Parliament, they would not pass over
three sessions without making a full provision for
the thorough instruction of every working man's

child in the kingdom." If this is the case, how is
it that Mr. BRIGHT is so opposed to the educational

franchise, and to those propositions which
he stigmatises as " fancy-franchises ; " and,
again, why were he and his friends against
those who laboured to shorten the hours of labour

for children, and prevent those of tender years from
being employed in factories? "The man who is

now Prime Minister of England" has, indeed, much

---I•_,_ _ Ar- nrnrr, hilt. WA
•
man present in that assembly who ranked truth
above making a sensation, and considered fair play
of more consequence than the furtherance of politi-
cal prejudice, he would have risen and told Mr.
BRIGHT that his charges against Lord DERBY could
not be tolerated in a city where he had shared

so much zeal and assiduity in the cause of the suffer-
ing poor. We do not believe that the men of Lan-
cashire really forget this, but they are confused and
bewildered by the statement of their leaders, and
thus injustice is done, and facts mixed with fiction.
Lord DERBY'S failures are in the annals of Eng-
land for thirty years past." Lord DERBY was con-
cerned in passing the Reform Bill of 1832 ; and
we mention a fact, which history will confirm
when this generation has passed away, when

we say that Mr. BRIGHT never aided in
the passing of so important an act. We
really do not think that we can exhibit the hon.
member for Birmingham's intolerance and unfair-
ness better than when we quote his own words and

replications of most notable passages from the

melee of extravagances and vituperation with which
his speeches abound. " The same Lord STANLEY
came forward in 1852 to stem the tide of democracy,
in 1859 he was at the head of a Government which
introduced a Reform Bill of a most fraudulent cha-
racter, and in 1866 he is at the head of a party which
has destroyed an honest Franchise Bill, and over-
thrown an honest and patriotic Government."
The reason for all this comes out pre-
sently, Mr. BRIGHT has read in the news-
papers that Lord DERBY is not in the least
degree disabled from dealing with reform. Of
course this is dreadful news, and hence he gives
utterance to language which is, if possible, more
vehement than any he has ever yet made use of.
If Lord DERBY does introduce a. Reform Bill, it
will be a " juggle or dishonest trick," something
base, like means by which they overthrew the bill of
Lord RUSSELL. We believe Mr. BRIGHT prides him-
self upon his good memory, but what, we ask him,
is his recollection worth if he ignores the affair at
Willis's Rooms, and the means he and his friends
resorted to to overturn the DERBY Government in
1859. We are willing to borrow Mr. BRIGHT's
own words in reference to the last measure
before Parliament, and apply them to the
Conservative Reform Bill. "If that bill
had passed, moderate as it was, I undertake to say
it would have been received in every part of the
United Kingdom with the liveliest satisfaction."
Who prevented it passing, we may well. ask ? There
is no man in England more responsible for the
country being still without a second measure of
Reform than he who so glibly denounced his op-
ponents last night at Manchester. How dare he
get up in the presence of his countrymen and charge
Lord DERBY and his friends with practising a
juggle when he was foremost in the
greatest juggle in the memory of politicians,
—namely, getting Lord RUSSELL into power
on false motives ? How dare he also
charge them with setting class against class, when
he knows that it is the object of all his public
speeches to do so himself ? " The men now in office
cannot govern Britain," says he. We may retort
upon him, neither can they who follow his leader-
ship. We would say to those who cheer
to the echo all the assertions of this violent agitator
that before they clamour for Reform they had
better begin at home; for, if they suffer theta-
gelYes to confuse things 44 I\lr, 13Eicall would