Year: 1870

Mr.. BrIRht,s speech mt BirmIn RhamThe Glad
stone Democratic PlntfOrm-Iiberal IntcD-
lions of tbe Government.


LoNpoN jan 15.-If Mr.. Brights Blrming-
ham speeches failed TO satisfy those who were
foolish enough to believe that the invariably
sobering effects of office would fail to make the
Manchester reformer reticent and cautious, and
who anticipated from him blunt expose of
many important Cabinet secrets, they have yet
afforded ample ammunition both for his friends
and enemies, and the daily papers are still COM
mentlDg upon them according to their several
proclivities.


The conservative organs would of course have
found occasion to assail the Objectionable min
lister, no matter what he had said III he should
have told his constituents that the Cabinet had
been seriously divided on the details of the
Irish Land bill and the mode of dealing
with the present lawlessness in that troubled
country, when they met in council last
month, and should have then gone on to state the
points on which he insisted in the great measure
of the next session, the whole Tory pack would
have opened cry upon him. and denounced him
as unfit for office. Had he refrained from men
toning Ireland at all, or simply alluded to Irish
affairs as q subject occupying the serious atten-
ton of the Government and hence not n de-
srable theme for discussion at this time, he would
have been assailed from the same quarter as q
coward and traitor to his lifelong convictions.
Had he said any more or any less than he did
say his condemnation would have been as GER
tain and as severe as it now Is. 1t is not sur
prising, therefore, that Tory objection should be





sent Government 'had given to the Irish free
church and free schools" and would soon, he
hoped, give them "a free vote and free land"


To be sure he took the precaution to avow
that he was an enemy to conhscation, and that
the evil of handful of landowners and nation
of starving dependents was one that could only
be removed by time and by careful legislaton
but this goes for nothing in the eyes of the con-
servative organs, and on the strength of the
promise of free land" Mr.. Bright is denounced
as q red republican and a socialist


SO in his interview with an amnesty deputa-
ton although he told his visitors that the stories
of the sufferings of the Fenian prisoners were
mischievous fabrications, circulated for the pur-
pose Of stirring up sedition, and declared that
no government would be justified in setting
loose convicted rebels who avowed their deter
minaton to repeat the offense for which they
were imprisoned as soon as liberated, he is as
sailed as Fenian sympathizer, because he drew
government and rebellion against tyranny, and
because he expressed the hope that the time
would arrive when the cells of all political pris-
oners could be opened.


The friends of Mr. Bright, on the other hand
although some of the most exacting among them
would have preferred to have listened to such
speeches as he was accustomed to deliver when
he was a tribune of the people and not respon-
sible member of her Majesty's Government are
in the main well pleased with his utterances,
and accept them as gratifying assurance that
there is q healthy spirit of progress in the
Cabinet which cannot fail to bring forth good
fruits in due season.