The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-11-03
The Great struggle IN England.

ton such as she has not before experienced
during the present generation. We find
every now and then, in the speeches of her
"eform leaders statements which reveal the
radical and fundamental character of the con-
test that is now going on in that country
The speech of Mr.. John Bright at Glasgow
on the 10th instant, before an audience oi
seventy thousand people, is before us. Some
of the points that he makes are very signin-
cant. He alludes to the corruption that pre-
walls in the parliamentary elections, and says
that the reason why the Government of Lord
John Russell, upon the defeat OF the Reform
bill at the last session, did not dissolve Par
lament and go to the country for new elec-
tion, was that it cost so much for the mem
bers to make the canvass that Lord John was
satisfied to retire from power rather than i'm
pose such a grievous tax upon them. One
member had said that his election had already
cost him 10000, and that he had $4,000 yet to
pay, and if Parliament should be dissolved
he could not afford to make another canvass,
and should retire from the field. Upon this
Mr.. Bright remarks -
"You will believe, then, that the Government
were greatly pressed by this consideration, and
this consideration, added it may be others, in
duced them 10 resign office rather than to dis
solve Parliament. Thus you have proof that,
whereas general corruption and putrdity are
the destruction of most bodies which they affect.
the corruption OF the present Parliament was
and is the cause OF its present existence. Now,
bear in mind that this state of things which
have been describing exists at the present
moment-thirty-iour years after the passing of
the great Reform bill. What the Government
must have hpnn hpfOrp that hill vuo . 10
scarcely possible to describe or TO imagine; but
/ have no doubt of this that it was one of the
worst Governments in civilized countries and in
Europe; and think this may be fairly argued
from the fact of the ncessant wars in which the
country was engaged for one hundred and hfty
years before that reform, from the enormous
debt that was created, from the crushing taxes
That were fixed upon the people, and, worse
almost than that, from that most Infamous law
which ever passed Parliament of civilized men
that law which limited supply OF bread to
the people. Now, if the Clerk of the House of
commons were placed at Temple Bar, and If he
mad orders to lay his hand upon the shoulder of
every welldressed and apparently clean-washed
until he had numbered 65S, and IL tue Crow, r5n,
summoned these sos to be the Parliament for
the United Kingdom, nv honest conviction is
that you would have a better Parliament than
now exists" q 2 t+
Mr.. Bright alluded to the laws affecting
land, and said that half the land in England
was in the possession of less than one hun
dred and Fifty men, and that half the soil of
Scotland was owned by not more than ten or
twelve men. He also averred that the mono
poly in land in the United Kingdom was daily
becoming more and more close, and was fast
annihilating the middle class as owners of
land, and plunging into deeper and more
hopeless degradation the tillers of the soil.
The condition of the farm-laborers of the
southern counties of England he described as
hopeless in the extreme. They seem to have
no aspiration to better their condition, and
there is no sensible emigration from these
wretched countries to the more prosperous
countries of the north. lbaa
The great gulf of fpauperism" is fast draw
ing into its depths a1arge proportion of the
population. The paupers at the present time
in the United Kingdom number 100000,
and cost the taxpayers for theirsupport more
than e7,500,000. Justice, not benevolence,
Mr.. Bright says, is what is needed to cope
with this overwhelming evil. BE remarks -
''Now look, I beg of you, to this mass of
misery. 1t isso great mass that beneyoeRcc
cannot reach. it; if benevolence could do il
there would be no paupersm in England, for in
no country, believe, is there more benevolence
than in the United Kingdom. The kindness of
the women OF England is beyond all measure
and beyond all praise-there do not exist among
created beings beneath angelic ranks those who
are more kind and charitable than the women
of the United Kinedon but beneYolence can
touch scarcely the fringe of this vast disorder.
There Is another virtue we could add, and that
virtue and that quality is justice. IL Is not 6ee-
UOienoe bla justice that can deal Goith giant eus.
1t was not beneyolence that gave the people
bread twenty years ago, but 1t was Justice EN-.
bodied in the abolition of wicked and a guilty
law But justice is impossible from class, il
IS most certain and easy from nations; and
believe one can only reach the depths of igno
rance and misery and crime in this country by
an appeal to the Justice the intelligence, and
thevirtue OF an entire people,"
Mr.. Bright asserts that during the last forty
years the navy OF Great Britain has cost the
enormous sum OF e4O0,000,OOO sterling. Dur
ing the last six years he estimates that It has
cost as much as the American navy. and
adds:-
During the same time we have been in a
condition OF profound peace; the United States
have had to build or buy six hundred ships To
man them, to furnish them with munitions OF
war, and to fight them during the greatest
struggle that any nation ever waged; and vet
at this moment after spending so much, we
haYe Sir John Pakington, the great reconstruc-
tor. coming into Office and promising not 10
extend the liberties of the people, but to recon
struct a navy on which such enormous and
countless sums have already been sunk"
Such are some of the great questions that
are now agitating the people of Great Britain
They are certainly momentous enough and
iarrreaching enough to fully account for the
extraordinary interest they are exciting. 1t