The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-06 00:00:00

42R. BRIGHT AT EDINBURGH.

Mr. Bright is working very hard. Two speeches in one
.ay is not at all bad work. His speech on the morning of
?hursday, to the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, on
he national expenditure, set forth his opinions on the
financial policy of the future. " I once advised," he said,
' the Financial Reform Association of Liverpool, who
re against all indirect taxation, to hoist a flag with
he motto, ' A free breakfast table ;' that, as the
tread was no longer taxed, some effort should
,e made to untax the tea, the coffee, and the sugar.
!Tow, I need not tell you that there are great inequalities
n our taxation, particularly with reference to the probate
and succession duties. If that succession duty were made
,qual on all property—and it ought to be made equal—
hat would bring in a considerable addition to the
evenue ; and if at the same time we were to bring down
he expenditure of the country by about ten millions—
vhich is perfectly easy to be done, then we could
;et rid of the duties upon tea and sugar, which
zoduce an enormous sum—l suppose, perhaps, about
,welve millions a year—and also the duty upon coffee, a
nuch smaller sum. If those duties were removed this
,ffect would be produced—the consumption of those arti-
:les would be greatly increased. You see they are articles
which enter now into the consumption of every family in
the kingdom. There is no woman who manages a house,
iowever poor she may be, who does not spend something
n tea, something in sugar ; and even down to the very
?super who receives her 2s. or 3s. a week from the :parish
i portion of it goes for tea and sugar. If those duties were
!emoved we should have those articles cheaper still further
than by the amount of the duty, because the amount of the
iuty involves a large expenditure of capital, and altogethee
tdds more to the cost of the article ; so that if those duties
were removed we should have an enormous increase in the
:onsumption, and, as a matter of course, a corresponding
ncrease in our foreign trade, and at the same
time we should give, in a special manner, relief to the
;Teat body of the wages-receiving class, because they are
the people who consume less than they would consume if
these things were cheaper. People who are well off would
not, probably, make their tea much stronger, and would
not, probably, use more sugar in their cooking and so on ;
but for the working classes it would be all a gift to them,
Ind the demand for their labour would of course be
stimulated by the increased trade. The rate of their
wages would not be diminished. The whole of the 12
millions, or whatever was the sum that was remitted, would
be an absolute donation to the working classes of the
country. Well, now, I propose that, not because I think
the working classes of the country should pay no proportion
of the taxes, and that legislation is merely for the purpose of
making them comfortable at the expense of others, and at
the expense of justice, but because the amount, which
they contribute in proportion to their means and to their
incomes is very much larger than the amount which is
contributed by other and richer sections of society." Mr.
Bright complained further, that Ministers of this country,
were too much occupied in keeping office to look after
these things, Only Mr. Gladstone was powerful enough
to act in this matter, and he did not think it would be a
bad undertaking for the Chamber of •Commerce to jog
Mr. Gladstone's elbow on the subject. •
In his evening speech to the working classes he congrk
tulated them on having obtained the franchise. "The
fact is—and I will not say it with any expression of scorn
)r with any feeling of triumph—the aristocracy of the
country who so lately governed the country have abdi;
cated, and their most boastful leader, Lord Derby,
as the chief, in their name, and for them, has
capitulated to the people. One hundred and eighty years
ago there was a revolution in England. The revolution
of 1868 had this effect, that it stripped the monarch of
absolute power, and, pretending to confer it upon the
nation, conferred it mainly upon the nobility. The bill of
1832, combined with the bill of last year, has given us
another revolution. Power has not been taken from the
Crown and given to the nobility, but it has been taken from
the nobility and has been given henceforth and for ever
to the people. The form remains yet of aristocratic power, and
so long as it lasts in the country with the possessors of
great wealth it will have power. lam not now complain.
ing of it ; lam merely stating the fact. We stand at this
moment on the threshold of a new career. Standing
there, we need no longer have recourse to language
such as we have often heard from platforms, and such as
I sometimes have been the first to use. We have no
longer a contest with the House of Lords; we have no
longer charges to bring against a selfish oligarchy ; we no
longer dread the power of territorial magnates ; we no
longer feel ourselves domineered over by a class ; we feel
that denunciation and invective now would be out of place.
We appeal to you —not that you should rise and overthrow
the power which hitherto has ruled you, but we appeal to
you now with arguments, with facts—if it be possible, if
we are capable of doing it, with words of wisdom, that we
may give you counsel that all of you now in the govern-
ment of the country of which you are part may be known
hereafter solely by your acts of wisdom. We feel—l feel
- that the fate of this great nation is in the nation's hands,
and that, come weal, come woe, the responsibility of the
future must rest with the great majority of the people,
admitted as they now are, at least within the burghs, to a
large share of representation and political power." With this
introduction, Mr. Bright passed to those questions which
the nation had still to settle. The first was the ballot.
Mr. Bright contended that it was needed, and gave Mr.
Mill a stroke for his opposition to it. "No man is more
fair in argument than Mr. Mill, no man is more
willing to admit the force of anything that an
opponent offers for his consideration ; but it is not
necessary that we should believe that Mr. Mill can
know every question better than everybody else."
He laughed at Mr. Mill's argument as to the
public duty of the voter. " Mr. Mill thinks— Ido
not quote his words—that public duties should be per-
formed publicly ; that by and by there will be morality
and power enough to put ane nd not only to corruption,
but compulsion ; and he compares the free and open
exercise of the ballot to the presiding of a judge
in a court of justice open to the public eye. It appears
to me that the comparison is not a good one. The
judge in open court has no compulsion brought upon him;
he is independent ; the Crown, which appointed him to
his office, cannot remove him. If Mr. Mill had gone into
the jury-room, he would have found that the jury, just as
important in a trial as the judge, does 'sit apart from
the public eye, and more than that, that it is
considered a gross violation of confidence if any
juryman should convey to the public a know-
ledge of what has occurred in the jury-room. I am
not able to accept these glowing pictures of the imme-
diately improved morality of the people. If it be wise
not to bring in the ballot because men without it will
become strong enough not to need it, I need not say
why we might dispense "with the judge and jury and
the police ; for (who knows?) at some time—it may be
remote—men may become strong enough in virtue,
honest enough in their hearts, to try not to violate the
written or moral law, and judges and juries and courts
of justice may no longer be required." Till this state of
things was so the ballot was absolutely required. The
Irish Church was next spoken about, and the hardship
they would feel in Scotland had they "an alien church "
there commented upon. Then, as to the Irish land
question, Mr. Bright demanded that some plan might
be put forward. " I believe that in Ireland it
will be necessary to adopt some plan—and I believe
there is a plan which can be adopted without
injustice or wrong to any man—by which gradually
the land of Ireland may be, to a considerable extent,
transferred from foreign, or alien, or absentee Protestant
proprietors—transferred into the hands of the Catholic
resident population of the country. I do not anticipate
myself that until something of that kind is put in process
and in operation we shall find tranquillity and content
in Ireland such as we would wish to see it." The
land system in the United Kingdom also came
in for condemnation. " Perhaps many of you are not
aware that from year to year, from ten years to ten
years, the owners of land in the United Kingdom are
becoming a smaller and smaller number of persons, that
the laws which we have in this country, having been
based and supported by the territorial powers, are laws
whose express object is to maintain great estates in the
hands of great families, and to make the land not of Ire-
land only, but of Great Britain, a monopoly in the poses-
sion of a few. Nature has provided certain forces which
tend to the accumlation of estates and lands, and certain
other forces which tend to its dispersion ; and I maintain
that the true policy of the Government and of the law—
the just policy of the law—is to leave to all the forces of
nature, whether inducing accumulation or inducing dis-
persion, to their fair operation. And when they will
make laws by which men who wish to buy property will
be able to buy it, some in large and some in small quanti-
ties, the monopoly which exists in this country will be
brought to an end. lam not proposing that there should be
any law by which estates should forcibly be cut up and divided
among families. I want to leave the owner, the man
in possession of the estate, perfect freedom to decide
whether he will leave the property to one, or divide it
attotig dig many of his children. The law of division
obtained In 'ranee and in many countries of Europe is
there believed by most people tube a good law ; but it appears
to roe to be contrary to principles of political economy,
and I prefer the operation of the L.: as it exists in the
":ance
United States of America, which rejects the law or

and rejects also our law. I conceive, therefore, that
before long it will be the duty of the people of England,
of the electors of England, and of Parliament to remove
from the statute-book what is called the laws of primo-
geniture, to allow land where it is left by a person who
makes no will to be justly and honestly divided
by the law as other property other than land is
Uow divided, and that the present practice of entails and

.
iiettlemente should be limited to persons who are living
when the deeds are made ; and when we come to that
believe that it will be found that it is a wise thing not to sacra'
floe the public interests to family pride or to the notion that
you must build up great families to have great power, that
theymayexercise a paramount authority in a great count*"
The national expenditure was commented upon at great
length. He attributed the terrific sum which was nog
spent to the army and navy, and declared that our former
wars:had been the result of the lunacy of the-people on the
question of the balance of power. "If you read the
papers, you will find they tell us something about
the West Indian and North American fleet ; some'
thing about the Pacific squadron ; and something
about the naval force of her Majesty in the China
seas ; something about what has happened to a great
ship of war on the coast of India, or the Cape. Then
you hear of Lord Clarence Paget in some part of
the Mediterranean, with a tremendous fleet. You
hear, further, that there is always a great Channel
fleet necessary for our home protection. There is
no necessity whatever for these fleets on your'
coasts, or traversing every ocean as they do nov'
There is no other country that finds it necessary to
have these great fleets and squadrons everywhere. I don't
know whether it is a dream, or a vision, or a foresight, or
a reality that sometimes passes across my mind, but I
like to dwell upon it, that the time may come when
the maritime nations of Europe—this renowned count*
of which we are citizens, France, Prussia, Russia,
resuscitated Spain, Italy, and the United States of
America—may see that those vast fleets are of no use ;
that they are merely menaces offered from one country W
another ; that they are grand inventions by which, as
Milton says, the blood is withdrawn from the veins of the
people to feed their ulcers ;' and that theymay come to this
grand and wise conclusion—they will combine at their joint
expense, and under some joint management, to supply the
sea with a vast sailing and armed police, which may be
necessary to keep the peace on all parts of the watery sur-
face of the globe, and those great instruments of war and
oppression shall no longer be upheld. This, of course, by
many will be thought to be a dream and a vision, not
the foresight of what they call a statesman. Still, I have
faith that it will not be for ever that we shall read of what
Wilberforce called the noxious race of heroes and
conquerors." On education Mr. Bright spoke of the neces-
sity for it, declaring that the Suffrage Bill had given the
power in to the hands of those who would demand to be
taught. In his " peroration" Mr. Brightprotested against
the nc n-progress of the labourers when the masters had gone
so far ahead. " This great and solemn question of the
condition of a considerable portion of the labouring classes
of this country cannot be covered up. It must be met.
It is a great work upon which the new electoral body and
the new Parliament will have to enter. It is a long WI
from Belgrave-square to Bethnal-green—we cannot men-
sure the distance from the palatial mansions of the rich to
the dismal hovels of the poor, from the profuse and costly
luxuries of the wealthy to the squalid and hopeless misery
of some millions who are below them ; but I ask you, as
I ask myself a thousand times, is it not possible that
this mass of poverty and suffering should be touched and
should be reached ? What is there that man cannot do
if he tries ? The other day he descended to the
mysterious depths of the ocean, and with an iron hand
he sought, and he found, and he grasped, and he brought)
up to the surface the lost cable, and with it her
made two worlds into one. I ask, are his conquests
confined to the realms of science? Is it not possible that
another hand, not of iron, but of Christian justice and kind-
ness, may be let down to moral depths even deeper than the
cable fathoms to bring up from hence misery's sons and
daughters and the multitude who are ready to perish?
This is the great problem which is now before us. It is
not one for statesmen only ; it is not for preachers of the
Gospel only—it is one for every man in the nation to
attempt to solve. The nation is now in power, and if
wisdom abide with power, the generation to follow
may behold the glorious day of what we, in our time,
with our best endeavours, can only hope to see the earliest
dawn."