The Bee-Hive. — 1872-07-27 (London, England)

HONOURA.BLE JOHN  BRIGHT.  have read your last speech with a great deal of care and anxiety hoping to find in it sonic allusion to the "Free Breakfast Table " for the people, but was doomed to disappointments; not a word was uttered about it. Ever since September 28th, 1843, until the day you accepted a place in the Cabinet, I had (as a fellow worker in the cause of Free tirade) 'chine honour to your name, and was ready to -follow you through fire and water if needs be for the promotion of the cause, but when I saw you taking office without stipulatin,, for a "Free Breakfast Table," I began to doubt whether you had not by so doing committed (political) suicide, and judging from your last speech, I fear my doubts are too well founded. Since reading it I have taken to looking up my first volume of the Anti-Corn Law Leatzue, and I regret to find the Right Hon. JOHN l'lntawr of the present day is a very different Free Trader to the JOHN .13tuoirr of 1843. On the 28th of September, 1843. at the , Covent Garden Theatre, JOHN BRIGHT is •re' 'ported to have said, on the question of " Free Trade, What Is it ?"—" They all know that there were many men (Members of the aristocracy) who .baa considerable sympathy with their operations; -there were several who subscribed to their funds. Why would not such men come boldly out in greater numbers, and show what side they were really on—` the just or the unjust?' Let them rest assured that the time must soon come when they must so declare themselves. They (the League) were not only corn-law repealers, but free traders in the widest sense of the word. They believed that free trade would bless .the world, and would specially bless this country. They wanted to have , the question settled for the world, as well as for England." , Again, in the same speech, he says " we would stand between these helpless beings and their oppressors; between the heartless selfishness of monopolists, and the victims they Would relentlessly trample on." Mr. Conner/ on the same occasion said, ".what is free trade ? "why breaking down the barriers that separate flat ons, those bar riers behind which nestle the feelings of pride, revenge, hatred, and jealousy, which every now and then burst their bonds and deluge ,whole countries with blood (those feelings which nourish the poison of war and conquest, thinking that Without- conquest we can have no trade) which fosters that. lust for oonquest, and dominion which sends forth your warrior &lids, to scatter devastati tit through other lands and then to return enthroned secure in yeur passions to harass and oppress you at home." Speaking figuratively, these were the days when giants lived as statesmen compared with the pigmies of the present d,ty, judging from the frivolous and vexatious questions which are brought forward to the exclusion of that vital question, free trade. I am convinced th,it when Mr. GLAosToNE, put the question to you of ,joining his cabbiete. had you linswereci him in something like thr following strain : "11, I ama to join youCabinet.it must be as Chancellor of the Ex chequer, with full power to give the country that Free Breakfast Table, which you and have been promising so frequently during our eleetion campaign as another instalment of that free trade which I have almost spent a liftime to accomplish"— I say, if this had been your reply, we should now be enjoying the Free Breakfast Table—if not also a rico dinner and supper table—and your memory would have stood on a lofti,r and more durable pedestal than that of any murtal man, ever sinee the world began. There is now the fourth edition of the People's Blue Book out by CHARLES TENNANT, Esq. (Longman and Co., Paternoster-row), which brings the filets and figures down to the latest date, showing the importance of tha question of free trade. With this hook in your hand, you might work in a few months a greater revolution in a peaceable way than even the repeal of the Corn Laws, .seeii.g that you have power to command the ears of the people and the pen Of the press. TH0514 BRIGGS, The Homestead, Riehmi I tit , Surrey.  On Monday the Great Eastern Company's new line from Bibliopsg.ito to Edmonton was opened for traflio. It would have been in toe sooner, but a landslip near Stoke Newington caused a delay.