Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1882-08-03
JOHN BRIGHT.
A Glance at the Career of the Great
British Statesman.

Mr.. John Bright, who has found it i'm.
possible at this time to reconcile his po
sition in the Cabinet with his conscience
has been one of the sturdiest figures i'll
English public life for over forty years
| He was born at ROckdale on November
16, 1911, and is now well advanced in
his list year. Taking his stand with
Golden in the organization of the Anti
Corn Law Associations in 1888, he enter
ed Parliament in 1S43, and labored in
cessantly until the Corn laws were rs
pealed in 1S49. AS d member of the
Society of Friends, he has always op-
posed in the past-as he opposes at pres
ent-war ornaments and foreign cam
paigns.
In consequence of this policy he lost
his seat in the House of Commons in
1857, but was subsequently returned
from Birmingham. In December, 1868,
when Mr.. Gladstone first became Pre-
mier, he was made President of the
Board of Trade, but two years later was
forced to retire from Office by reason of
ill-health. In August, 1878, he again en-
tered the Ministry, this time accepting
the sinecure Office of Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster, a post chiefly valu-
BILE Except so far as the holder of it
draws $4,000 year for doing nothing)
as comforting seat in the Cabinet. He
retired with Mr.. Gladstone in February,
1871, and when the latter returned to
power in April, 1880, Mr.. Bright was
again made Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, with seat in the Cabinet.
The Parliamentary tie formed in Au-
gust, 1857, has never since been broken,
and the names of Birmingham and of
Bright has been best known to the pres
ent generation, and it is under his pa
tronage, if not his inspiration, that the
capital of the Midlands has gradually
attained the distinct political character
by which it is now known. To ascribe
the various measures in which the 25
years that have passed since his cleo
tion he has taken leading part, would
be to write the political history of En-
gland for that period. Among the is
sues with which he has been most prom
inently associated during the last quar-
ter of a century, are those relating to
America, Ireland, and Parliamentary re-
form. 1t may be said of the last, that if
any one man is responsible far the bills
of 1866 and 1867 that man is Mr.. Bright.
So, too. in the matter of the Irish meas
ures of 1869 and 1870 Mr.. Bright is to be
reckoned as at least half responsible for
them. AS to this country, his attitude dur
ing the war for the Union, when he stood
for some time almost alone among emf
nent Englishmen, is well remembered
both here and across the Atlantic. When
President Lincoln died his gold-headed
cane was given by the family to DR..
Smith, a favorite American preacher.
and he at his death bequeathed this to
Mr.. Bright, "as token of the esteem
which the late President felt for him."
President Hayes sent him warm invi-
tation to visit the United States, but Mr..
Bright dared not face the strain and the
excitement at his time of life, and wise
ly declined.
The story of Mr.. Bright's forty years
of political life shows, as was recently
remarked by the London Times in re-
view of biography of the Quaker ora
tor, "among other things, that elOquence
is still power in England-a greater
power, perhaps, than it has ever been
before. 1t shows that English Demo-
Gratis have at bottom fund of common
sense which keeps them within the lim-
its of the practicable and the possible;
that they trust their leaders, and that
their leaders do not desert them. 1t
shows, moreover, that a man may in his
youth and middle age be the bug bear
ard the by-word Of the upper classes,
= \ IL
not only good citizen, but as man
for whose views there has, after all,
been generally much to be said"