Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-03-28
THE CAREER OF JOHN BRIGHT.

roih III AoAi. by traUS ne was cotton-
spinner. In the leissre between hours of
labor he devoted himself to study, and
especially to reading upon questions of
political economy and researches in history
and political scieace. He came first into
prominence by his speeches in 1881 on the
Church Rate agitation. He was given
greater celebrity by his union with Golden
in the Anti-Corn Law Association in 1888.
he being then but 81 years of age. Such
was his success in that movement to repeal
the corn laws that he won the appoint
ment of chief orator Of the association.
In 1874 he entered Parliament for Dur
ham, and represented it for three years.
As co-taborer with Golden, Fox and
others he became an active worker for the
cause of free trade in this period. His
political labors were rewarded by the Act
of 1916 for the modification of the corn
laws AID finally by their repeal in 1849.
1852 for Manchester, and became the ac-
knowledged Manchester leader.
As Mr.. Bright was member of the So
ciety of Friends, he was uniformly an adj
vocate for peaceful settlement of all diff
culties between nations He was foremost
in sending delegation of Quakers to the
Gar of Russia to dissuade him from war
with Turkey. and took an especially bold
position against England's participation
in the Crimean war. His unyiolding OPP
position to war brought him into consider
able unpopularity at the time England
and China engaged in hostilities, and his
position entailed defeat in Manchester,
where he had stood so firmly in the
esteem of the electors. During this period
of his career Mr.. Bright advocated radical
reforms in Englands financial policy, and
was the boldest and among the first to de-
mand relief measures for Ireland. He an
tagonized Russell's ecclesiastical title bill,
and Palmerston's continental policy, but
was not able to accomplish all his ambi-
ton inspired him to undertake in those
directions
Turning to Birmingham, in 1857, after
his Manchester defeat, he secured return
to the Commons, when he began and main
tanned a general assault upon the Ministry
of Lord Palmerston, which was compelled
to resign because of Its introduction of the
foreign conspiracy bill. He was always an
advocate for the reduction of the military
establishment of England, and certainly
succeeded in lessening the military spirit
in that country.
When the South rebelled, in the face
of bitter opposition John Bright took his
stand as the friend of the union of Ameri-
can States, and during the whole of our
civil war he stood the unfaltering advocate
of the cause of the defenders of the Ameri-
can flag. He did not hesitate in Parlia-
ment and upon the rostrum to announce
his faith in the American republic, and to
denounce slavery and all its associations.
1t was duriug this eventful period that he
delivered his famous speech at Birming-
ham against the sympathizers with the
Southern Rebellion, and in which eloquent
delivery occurred this imprisoned proph-
etc utterance, quoted from the deep i'm
press upon memory made by It's fervid elo-
quence: II cannot believe that civiliza-
ticn in its journey with the sun will sink
into endless night, to crafty the ambition
of the leaders of this revolt who seek to
wade through slaughter to a throne, and
shut the gates of mercy on mankind. l
have another and far brighter vision be-
fore my gaze. 1t may be but vision, but
| will still cherish it. ] see one vast con-
federation, stretching in unbroken line
from the frozen north to the glowing
south, and from the troubled waters of the
Atlantic to the calmer shores of the Pacific
main, and | see one people and one Ian
guage and one law, and over all that vast
territory home for the free and a place
OF refuge for the oppressed of every cline"
1t was due to Mr. Bright's efforts in
1866 that the reform bill of 1867 was
passed, enlarging the elective franchise
1t must have been source of gratifca-
ton to him that he lived to see a still
more liberal measure enacted in 1884 by
his efforts largely; twenty years before the
voters of the United Kingdom were in
creased from l,lS6,000 to PASS, 600; the
Act Of 1884 raised the number to 5000. 900.
1t was during the agitation of this last bill
that Bright made his famous speech de-
nouncing the House of Lords, in which he
said that the Peers were IAN arrogant and
unpatriotic oligarchy," and declared that
''unless English freedom be fraud and
sham, the English people viii know how
to deal with titled and hereditary Cham
Der, whose arrogance and whose class self
ishness has long been at war with the
highest interests of the nation"
Mr.. Bright was the originator OF the
agitation for the disestablishment of the
Irish Church, and secured his end in 1869
prior to which time the Church of Eng
land was an Irish establishment also. and
the source of great irritation in that
island. Gladstone was the author of the
disestablishment bill when be was Premier.
but unquestionably without the aid Of
Mr. Bright, the measure, which the Lords
at hrst rejected, could not have passed. 1t
was during the three years debate of the
question that Mr.. Bright visited Ireland
(iSoe), and was banqueted in Dublin. In
1865 he was voted the freedom of the CITY
of Edinburgh. Perhaps these were the
periods 10 his life when the people made
most of outward manifestation throughout
the Kingdom OF their esteem for the elo-
quent champion of human rights.
Mr., Gladstone in 1868 placed Mr.. Bright
at the hesd OF the Board of Trade. and he
was, therefore, the first Quaker to enter
the British Cabinet. He retired because
of i'll health in 1870, but in 1872 again