The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-01 00:00:00

ti,tg

~asax

LONDON, 7 UESDAY, SEPT. 1, 1868.

Mr. BRIGHT has issued his address to the electors
of Birmingham, and declares his belief that they
desire him to become a candidate at the ensuing
election for the honour of their representative.
After ten years spent in their service, and twenty-
five in public life, he does not enter into an elabo-
rate statement of his views on political topics. The
cause of Parliamentary Reform has made great
progress, Mr. BRIGHT admits, since the last elec-
tion, but a good deal remains to be done, he empha-
tically adds. The small boroughs must be got rid
of, and the large populations " still demand their
fair share of political power." This is Mr.
BRIGHT'S everlasting theme. If he had his
way he would concentrate all, or very nearly
all, of power and influence in the large towns
and cities, and leave the smaller ones alone
altogether, or at best show them very little
favour in any shape. The doctrine of large towns
ruling the country with no check put upon them is
not a very safe one, however, and does not admit of
the realisation of broad principles apolitical eco-
nomy. Mr. BRIGHT is a consistent advocate of the
ballot, and declares his conviction that the " true
interests of the public and of freedom will be served
by the adoption of the system of secret and free
voting." In almost every other country that has
representative institutions it is in practice, and he
thinks it is absolutely necessary for the real repre-
sentation of the United Kingdom. On the whole,
the comments made in this address on the Reform
question are more moderate than might have been
expected, but doubtless the hon. member reserves
himself for the time when he treats the subject in
his election speeches. The only part of his criti-
cism which is at all strong is that which refers to
the minority vote, that he considers a " most out-
rageous violation of constitutional principles and
practice." He says nothing to prove the truth of
this extreme view of the matter, and contents him-
self by inveighing against it. The great town con-
stituencies have effected all the " wise changes"
that have been forced upon Parliament, he says,
and, therefore, it is wrong to modify their in-
fluence. This is hardly correct, because it was
found quite impossible to get those who repre-
sented the great town constituencies to agree
among themselves or with their leader,
and, finally, they had to band over the

work of Reform to their opponents to
deal with it as best they could. It may be remem-
bered en passant that Mr. BRIGHT did not seem
very anxicus to extend the number of voters to
Birmingham, for he objected to the limits of the
town constituency being enlarged, and sotne of the
Opposition leaders in the Upper House took the
same view of the case. Mr. BRIGHT concludes his
address by expressing a hope that he may explain
still further his views on a future occasion at the
Town Hall.

Mr. CARDWELL has been speaking at Oxford, and
drew the flattering conclusion that nearly all those
added to the register would support himself and his
colleague when the day of election arrived. Another
cause of hope he found in the recollection that so
many of the most intelligent and active-minded
members of the present Administration were find-
ing for themselves agreeable residences in her
MAJESTY'S distant colonial possessions, and from
this he considered that they were :afraid to risk
their chance of re-election. Mr. CARD WELL tried
to get over the awkward affair that had taken
place on his own side in one of the brightest
ornaments of the Liberal party being opposed to
Mr. GLADSTONE'S politics respecting the disesta-
blishment of the Irish Church. General regret
was experienced by the Liberal party at the time
of the grand debate on the subject, in find-
ing that the name of Sir ROUNDE LL PAL-
MER was absent from the division-lists, but
now the hon. member for the city of Oxford
thinks that all is male perfectly satisfactory by the
explanation given by Sir R. PALMER the other day
of Mr. GLADSTONE'S views. It seems strange that
he should think so, for really it would have been
more consistent if Mr. GLADSTONE had endeavoured
to carry out his convictions when he bad the oppor-
tunity and was in power than to have waited until
he was in opposition to make the attempt. The
question of expenditure was taken up by Mr. CARD-
WELL, and he dilated upon the great advantages to
be derived from having Mr. GLADSTONE at the Ex-

chequer, entirely overlooking the explanations given
by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day as
to the legacies of increased expense which the
right hon. gentleman had left to his successors.
Mr. DISRAELI'S famous Mansion-house speech made
its appearance at this meeting, and Mr. CARDWELL
discovered that the First Lord of the Treasury had
changed his tone, for at the beginning of Parlia-
ment he had spoken of the people below the limit
of £lO rental as an "indiscriminate multitude," but
on the latter occasion he had said that the extension
of the franchise was safer than it would have been
in a " more contracted circle," as over refinement
and education led to " perversity of opinion and
affectation of philosophy." Some of the remarks
made since the closing of the Parliamentary
Session have gone far to justify this view of the
question, it must be confessed.

The Conservative candidates for Cambridgeshire
have addressed the electors. Viscount ROYSTON,

the Comptroller of the Royal Household, said that

he came forward because it had been said that he
was not going to appear at the electibn for the
He had not come before because Mr.

county.

BRAND had given him to understand that no can-

vassing need take place till September. Respecting
the charge of inconsistency which was brought against
the Conservatives for having passed a Reform Bill,
the noble lord very truly said that he wondered at
any follower of Mr_ GLADSTONE'S presuming to do
so, when that right hon. gentleman changed so
often himself and induced his supporters to follow
his example. Concerning the question of Ireland,
the noble lord declared that the argument for the
disestablishment of the Irish Church rested on a
wrong basis, because he did not btlieve that the
Fenians had ever taken note of the religious part
of the topic in discussing the wrongs and grievances
of the country. Besides that, the Liberals had been
in such a hurry to bring the question before Par-

htment that they could not say how they meant to

appropriate the funds when their proposed change

was effected.

There is one point of minor morality in which we
as a " nation of shopkeepers" appear to be lament-
ably deficient. English good faith and honesty in
trade used to be a kind of proverb, but if we are to
judge from the return just printed by order of