The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-15 00:00:00

NATION AL ASSOCIATION FOR THE
PROMOTION' OF SOCIAL SCIENCE.

BR2,I.I)FORD, F

.ID-S

Last night a g'reat meeting cf the working cla!ses
of Bradford was held in St. George's Hall, wnen
the leading members of the Social Science Associa-
tion, including Lords Brougham and Shaftesbury,
Lord Badstock, the Hon. W. Cowper, M.P., Mr.
MY., and Mr. Adderley, M.P., were pre-
The chair was taken by the Mayor of Brad-
sent.
ford. The immense hall was crowded Iti every part,
and. a very considerable proportion of he audience
was eureposed of ladies.
The MaTon, having briefly addressed the meet-
ing, introduced
Mr. C. B. ADDERLEY, M.P., who referred to the
mutual interest which all present had in the ob-
jects of the Social Science Association.
They were
all working men, whether it was with the head or
hands, and their interests were the same. All
classes were necessary to each other, though they
differed in outward position.
Loral RADSTOCE: said the members of the Society
for Promoting Social Science were working for
those who composed that meeting as well as for
themselves; and he described the various depart-
ments, to show that in respect to the subjects dis-
cussed in them the working classes had great duties
Ile had ascertained that there were
to discharge.
from 600,000 to 700,000 factory workers in this
kin e'dom,whose wages amounted to about 20,000,000/
annually. Here was an enormous sum which these
factory workers had under their control. The great
caus4 of misery anal destitution was improvidence ;
but if every one of these people would only lay by
4d. a week there would be provided a fund of half
a million, a sum amply sufficient to provide for all
in distress. (Hear.)
Mr. J. NAPIER, who next addressed the meeting,
said, he had been a working man all his life and
never had complained of his lot.
The Hon. W. Cow PER. shortly addressed the
meeting, and adverted to the advantages which
working men had derived from the promotion of
social science:
The Earl of SHAFTESBURY was received with im-
mense cheering. He reminded the working men of
the very different position he and his friends on the
platform now occupied compared with that which
they must have held some years ago. Then they had
to ask the working men "What can we do for you ?:'
Now they had to ask them "What can you do for
yourselves ?" (Hear, hear.) On themselves de-
pended their present and future welfare. He de-
lighted in this kind of intercourse, when men of all
degrees and ranks in England met together. He
liked also to see men from foreign countries come
and hear with their own ears and see with their
own eyes that England was not a country where
the rich man trembled and the poor man frowned.
(Cheers.) He advised the working-men to make a
good use of the boon they had attained in shortened
hours of labour.. He hoped he should never hear
that his factory friends spent their spare time in
the gin-palace—(cheers)—or subjected themselves.
to the degrading vice of drunkenness. He trusted
they would spend their evenings at the Mechanics'
Institute, or the reading room, or, better still, at
their own firesides with their happy wives and their
children growing up as olive plants around their
table. (Loud cheers.) He would ask whether the
working man did not lose by the absence of his wife
from domestic concerns more than he gained by
her earnings. (hear, hear.) Then he would say,
avoid strikes. He did not deny their right to com-
bine and strike, but the exercise of a right was
oftentimes the greatest injustice. (Hear, hear.) If
they had a grievance, let them go boldly arid state
it to their employers, and, looking to the temper
employers were now in, he believed that if justice
was on their side they would be listened to. (Hear.)
He never knew a strike answer, but he had known
a great many bring irretrievable ruin on those en-
gaged in them. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. W. CHAMBERS; of Edinburgh, shortly ad-
dressed the meeting, and was followed by Mr. M.
MILNES, M.P., who impressed upon the working-
classes the duty of perseverance in the discharge of
their duties, and of co-operation with the other
classes of the community.
Lord BROUGHAM (who had only a few minutes
before entered the hall, having just come from Shef-
field, whither he had gone to attend a meeting)
was received with loud demonstrations of applause.
He could not address the working-men of Brad-
ford without expressing, in common with those
who had gone before him, the great admiration lie
felt at the good conduct they had exhibited. But
it was always more useful to point out defects
than to indulge in panegyric—(hear)—and he
would take the liberty to advert to one defect
which, in common with all working-men, the ope-
ratives of Bradford were chargeable with. The de-
feat was, that they did not sufficiently estimate the
absolute necessity of provident and prudent con-
duct. The particular kind of improvidence he was
going to specify might be called comparatively
trifling, and it was very easily remedied. It was
that they did not sufficiently reflect that they were
not entitled to any relaxation or amusement what-
ever till after their day's work was done—that they
were not entitled to take even the relaxation of
reading and instructing themselves till after they
had finished their day's work, and finished it well
-=-(cheers)--for thßir very highest duty and inte-
rest was to follow their regular callings, and so se-
cure their independence. (Cheers.) Now, he was
speaking as a working man himself—(cheers)—and
that was the rule he had always followed. (Hear.)
He never counted any one hour or minute his own,
or considered himself entitled to relaxation even in
the way of instruction, out of the line of the profes-
sion to which he belonged, till his day's work was
completed—honestly and accurately done. (Cheers.)
He had been a working man all his life, and what
was more ; he had all his life lived on wages—
(cheers and laughter)—for it so happened that he
never spent one halfpenny of any little property
he enjoyed, or of any sum that might have come to
him. He had always lived by the sweat of his
brow. (Cheers.) Another subject to which he would
refer was the kind of relaxation in which the work-
ing classes should indulge. (Hear.) He entirely
agreed with what had been said on the subject of
reading. It was a great misfortune that at one time
there had been so large an issue of inferior works of
fancy and imagination. He did not at all object to
works of fancy. The moral was, that " All work and no
play makes Jack a dull boy ;" so, if reading was all
hard re :ding, unrelieved by anything that was light
and fanciful, the mental stomach would not digest
well. (Laughter.) He therefore did not object to
works of fiction, but to those that were not of
the purest kind—to novels of a light kind, full of'
extravagant descriptions, of impossible scenes and
sickly sentiment, and all kinds of things that never
could have occurred among. men and women in this
world. (Hear, hear.) But there had been a great
improvement of late years ; fey: of these trashy
novels were now circulating, and there were many
excellent works of fancy that inielit be productive
of much good. (Hear, hear.) Now, when he had
been a working man all his life, and was so how, it
might be said that he should at iris time of life—
and that was a great deal over 30 years of age—
(great laughter)—take a little rest, and that he had
earned a title to a little repose. (Cheers.) But it
had been said by the great Christian poet Cowper—
" A rain unoccupied is not at rest ;
A mind (Iliac:vacant is a mind distrest."

(Cheers.) And he had resolved that so long as Pro-
vidence allowed him to retain his faculties he would
not fall under the description of a " man unoccu-
pied.," or of a mind "quite vacant." (Cheers.) He
would continue, as far as he was nb!e, to lire a
" life of labour," to which he had so long. been ac-
customed. (Cheers.) They had heard of contem-
plated political changes; but on that point he would
not enter further than to say that such changes
might possibly be improvements, but that they
ought to be adopted only after much forethought
and circumspection, and that they ought to be mo-
derate in their substance. (Hear, hear.) And this
he would most emphatically say, that it was the
bounden duty of all of every class, and of no class
more than the working class, to be content in the
meantime with things as they were, and not to raise
up a hand or a little finger to alter the law by force.
(Cheers.)
A vote of thanks to Lord Brougham and the other
distinguished strangers on the platform was moved
by Mr. WILKINSON, a working man, and carried
unanimously, and the meeting, which was composed
of about 3,500 persons, separated.

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