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PUBLIC ADDRESSES 
 
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 JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. 
 
PUBLIC ADDRESSES 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 JAMES E. THOROLD ROGERS 
 
 *BE JUST AND FEAR NOT* 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1879 
 
 I All rights reserved] 
 
7, 
 
 
 OXFORD: 
 
 BY E. PICKAED HALL, M.A., AND J. H. STACY, 
 PBINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 Eleven years ago I published two volumes of my 
 friend Mr. Bright* s Speeches, having had as now 
 the benefit of his revision in the work which I 
 undertook. Soon after the volumes were published 
 a General Election occurred, and a Government was 
 formed which, aided by a powerful but critical 
 majority, carried a series of political reforms. These 
 measures, for their intrinsic magnitude and for the 
 results which they have already effected, or here- 
 after will effect, are without parallel since the period 
 which followed on the Eeform Act of 1832. Mr. 
 Bright became a member of this Government, and 
 took part, during the time that his health was good, 
 in the measures with which that memorable Par- 
 liament and Administration were associated. 
 
 The purpose which I had in collecting and pub- 
 lishing the two volumes was partly to exhibit in 
 them what were the leading political opinions of 
 Mr. Bright, opinions in which I had myself been 
 
 225325 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 fortunately educated ; partly to supply the English 
 people with examples of the art by which a prac- 
 tised master of their language arranges and ex- 
 presses his convictions on matters of public interest. 
 A speaker, says the great analyst of the art as it 
 was brought to perfection in Greece, must convince 
 his audience at the very outset; first that he has 
 their interests at heart, next that he is competent 
 to interpret these interests, and thirdly that he is 
 free from any taint of self-seeking. It is not very- 
 likely that my friend has gathered the precepts of 
 the art of speaking from the great work of Aristotle, 
 but I am certain that he has succeeded in making 
 his oratory prove that he has always had these 
 purposes before him. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that the objects 
 with which the two volumes were printed have been 
 completely accomplished. They who may differ 
 from Mr. Bright's estimate of what constitutes a 
 wise, a patriotic, and a necessary policy, must ac- 
 knowledge that his opinions have been consistent 
 and unfaltering ; that, with hardly an exception, he 
 has done more to instruct the minds of such English- 
 men as make the public good their highest aim 
 than any other politician, and that he has never 
 followed opinion, but always led it. The second 
 object has been even more fully achieved. If men 
 ever again make a study of the art of public 
 speaking, they will, as surely as the great master 
 of antiquity derived his rules from the practice of 
 those orators whose speeches are among the most 
 
PREFACE, vii 
 
 precious fragments of Greek art, refer to the models 
 with which the two volumes have supplied them. 
 
 I have often been gratified to see that the most 
 studious and shrewd of the working classes have 
 made Mr. Bright's speeches a household book. 
 More than once I have found that a present of 
 those Speeches was one of the most acceptable gifts 
 which I could make to working men. But any one 
 who cares may learn that the confidence of the best 
 Englishmen is not given to those who would de- 
 bauch or cajole or flatter them, but to such men 
 as speak the truth which they have learned fear- 
 lessly and generously. It may be necessary to wait 
 a while, till such men become the majority, but the 
 best hopes of the nation lie in the fact that such 
 a majority will be gained, and that, when it is once 
 gained, the acquisition will be out of the reach of 
 residual accidents. 
 
 The reader of the present volume will find that 
 it is a collection of speeches under the name of Ad- 
 dresses, that it contains no speech in Parliament, and 
 that the Editor has printed these Addresses, with 
 one exception, in chronological order. One of the 
 services which long experience enables a practised 
 speaker to fulfil is that of historical review. To 
 collect a series of facts from the stand-point of some 
 general or dominant principle, and to show that 
 such a principle can account for the victories of a 
 definite policy, is precisely the function which a 
 wise and honest politician, who has lived and worked 
 for that on which he comments, can fulfil for his 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 countrymen. Such a man is doing the highest office 
 of history in linking the present with the past. He 
 serves also as the instructor of the generation in 
 which he lives, by informing them of the process 
 by which that which is valuable in their present 
 condition has been won, and that which might 
 have been mischievous has been frustrated. It 
 will be seen that Mr. Bright has claimed the great 
 function of doing good to all classes, and hindering 
 mischief as far as possible, to the attitude and 
 action of the Liberal party, and to impulses which 
 are now happily traditional with it. That reform 
 should beget irritation, fear, or hatred, is of course 
 to be expected. That such passions may be mani- 
 pulated, and be made useful for the purpose of 
 reviving a party, and even of suggesting a policy, 
 may be anticipated. But unless a people be blinded 
 to its own permanent injury, the alliance of such 
 interests as seek to employ the forces of Govern- 
 ment against the public good invites a reaction 
 which, when it comes, will be thorough and healthy. 
 No Conservative Government since the Reform Bill 
 of 1832 has ventured on reversing the measures 
 which the party has resisted when in opposition. 
 Mr. Bright will be found in this volume to have 
 dwelt frequently, though with variety of illustra- 
 tion, on the history of Liberal measures, and on 
 the claims which a great party has on public con- 
 fidence, in consideration of its unvarying character. 
 
 Perhaps one of the worst services which the 
 present Parliament has done for the institution of 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 which it has been an exceptional specimen, is that 
 of causing the marked indifference with which its 
 utterances have been treated by the public. The 
 editors of newspapers have evidently discovered that 
 the purchasers of papers care very little for debates 
 in Parliament. In successive sessions he proceed- 
 ings in the Houses have been sensibly summarised, 
 and no one complains. A majority which never 
 reasons, but simply votes, has chilled the eloquence 
 which can reason, but cannot persuade. But there 
 is no ground for thinking that the public is less 
 interested in pohtical utterances than it has been. 
 The speeches of public men outside the House are 
 very fully reported, and, it may be concluded, are 
 far more carefully read than those which are uttered 
 in Parliament itself They are also more worthy 
 of study, not merely as an index of the speaker's 
 capacity, but as proofs of what the speaker thinks 
 should be the means of awakening public opinion 
 and enlisting popular sympathy. There has been 
 no period since the time of the Anti-CornrLaw 
 agitation in which pubhc speaking on topics of 
 public interest has been so largely practised as 
 it has since the accession of the present Govern- 
 ment to power. There has certainly been no oc- 
 casion on which the highest questions of public 
 morality and international duty have been more 
 energetically and on the whole more successfully 
 discussed. It might perhaps, in the lack of all 
 allies, and in the face of European ill-will, have been 
 impossible to have led England into a war in defence 
 
X PREFACE, 
 
 of Turkey, even if the nation had not been warned 
 in time by those who have always understood the 
 true interests of England. But the warning was 
 given and taken, and the Government was at last 
 reduced to boast of its success in airy aims and 
 petty obstructiveness. Under the wholesome dis- 
 cipline of opposition, the Liberal party has found 
 its wisdom in the strength of its convictions and 
 in the courage with which it avows them. Hence, 
 as Mr. Bright has said, it leads though it may not 
 govern. 
 
 Most of the addresses in this volume, in so far 
 as they are political, were delivered when the party 
 of which Mr. Bright has been the most consistent 
 representative was in opposition. They therefore 
 illustrate the speaker's power of dealing with the 
 defence of his own positions, and of criticising his 
 opponents' policy. The reader may find that they 
 differ in some degree from those which are con- 
 tained in the volumes published eleven years ago. 
 As wise men grow older, they become less contro- 
 versial, and more reflective. They will retain, as 
 worthy men do retain, their dislike of what is false 
 and mean, and may be as competent and as ready 
 to expose impudent sophistry with the touch of 
 Ithuriers spear as they were in their more active 
 years ; but they know much, and pardon much, 
 when the knowledge is of human ignorance, and the 
 pardon is given to human error. I think that I 
 may claim for the addresses of this volume that, 
 apart from their merit as compositions, a merit on 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 which it would be superfluous for me to dwell, they 
 are characterised by extreme kindliness. 
 
 There was no reason whv I should have followed 
 the arrangement of the first two volumes, by print- 
 ing these speeches in groups. They are not — though 
 it is Mr. Bright' s custom generally in a political 
 address to deal with one or two topics only, and 
 not to make a general review of a session or a policy 
 — set speeches on a special subject, but utterances 
 which are deliberative and judicial. For it is the 
 essence of poHtics that, in free states, a pohcy is 
 always on its trial, and that therefore the modern 
 statesman who speaks must be, to take Aristotle's 
 great divisions of rhetoric, a senator, an advocate, 
 and a critic. 
 
 JAMES E. THOROLD ROGERS. 
 
 Oxford, June 6, 1879. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Birmingham, January 15, 1863. An Address to the 
 
 Birmingham Chamber of Commerce on some 
 incidents in the American "War i 
 
 II. Birmingham, January 29, 1864. At the Assembly 
 
 Room, Nock's Hotel, on the history and action 
 
 of the Reformed Parliament 15 
 
 III. Rochdale, December 23, 1867. On the occasion of 
 
 Mr. Jacob Bright's return for Manchester. General 
 Politics 39 
 
 IV. Birmingham, February 5, 1868. On assistance by 
 
 Government to Technical Education 58 
 
 V. Liverpool, June 3, 1868. An Address to the Welsh 
 
 inhabitants of Liverpool on the Irish Establish- 
 ment 69 
 
 VI. Birmingham, October 30, 1868. On the Organisa- 
 
 tion of Birmingham in view of the General Election 
 
 of 1868 89 
 
 VII. Edinburgh, November 3, 1868. On the occasion of 
 
 the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh being pre- 
 sented to the speaker 106 
 
 VIII. Edinburgh, November 5, 1868. An Address to the 
 
 working men of Edinburgh 120 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IX. Birmingham, November lo, i868. An answer to 
 
 a deputation of Birmingham gunmakers on their 
 objections to Government manufacturing estab- 
 lishments 139 
 
 X. Birmingham, December 21, 1868. On acceptance 
 
 of office in Mr. Gladstone's Government . . . 156 
 
 XL Birmingham, January 11, 1870. An annual ad- 
 
 dress, in which the principles of Mr. Gladstone's 
 Government are expounded ....... 170 
 
 XII. Rochdale, July 11, 1872. An answer to a depu- 
 
 tation of friends from Staffordshire, who had 
 presented the speaker with an address, and some 
 specimens of their local manufactures .... 188 
 
 XIII. Birmingham, October 22, 1873. On re-election 
 
 after accepting the office of Chancellor of the 
 Duchy of Lancaster 197 
 
 XrV. Birmingham, January 31, 1874. On the occasion 
 
 of the General Election of 1874 215 
 
 XV. Birmingham, January 25, 1875. An annual ad- 
 
 dress, chiefly dealing with the Church Dis- 
 cipline Act and Sir William Harcourt's speech 
 at Oxford 228 
 
 XVI. Birmingham, January 28, 1875. On the organisa- 
 
 tion of the Birmingham 400, and the causes of 
 defeat in 1874 249 
 
 XVII. Birmingham, January 22, 1876. An annual ad- 
 
 dress, chiefly dealing with a speech of Lord 
 Derby at Edinburgh 262 
 
 XVIII. Manchester, October 2, 1876. A speech at the 
 
 Manchester Reform Club, on the policy of the 
 Govenmient 281 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XIX. Birmingham, December 4, 1876. An annual ad- 
 
 dress, in which a Guildhall speech of the Prime 
 Minister and Lord Salisbury's visit to Con- 
 stantinople are discussed 299 
 
 XX. Rochdale, January 2, 1877. An address at the 
 
 Working Men's Club on the progress of the 
 nation 321 
 
 XXI. Birmingham, June i, 1877. -^ speech made on 
 
 the occasion of Mr. Gladstone's visit to Bir- 
 mingham 347 
 
 XXII. Bradford, July 25, 1877. An address made on the 
 
 unveiling of the statue of Cobden 355 
 
 XXIII. Bradford, July 25, 1877. An address on Free 
 
 Trade, at a meeting of the Chamber of Com- 
 merce 367 
 
 XXIV. Bradford, July 25, 1877. A speech at a public 
 
 meeting in the Bradford Town Hall, on the 
 Eastern crisis 376 
 
 XXV. Manchester, September 13, 1877. On the occasion 
 
 of the formal opening of the Manchester Town 
 Hall 398 
 
 XXVI. Rochdale, September 25, 1877. On the distri- 
 
 bution of the Science and Art prizes in connexion 
 with the Co-operative Society 408 
 
 XXVII. Rochdale, November 7, 1877. On political organi- 
 
 sation, especially that of Birmingham . . . . 423 
 
 XXVIIL Manchester, December ii, 1877. On the most 
 
 necessary kind of public works in India . . . 433 
 
 XXIX. Birmingham, January 13, 1878. An annual ad- 
 dress. On the perils of the Eastern crisis . . 449 
 
xYi CONTENTi^. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 XXX. Hochdale, April 19, 1878. Aii address to the 
 
 Sunday School Teachers of the Lancashire, 
 Cheshire, and Derbyshire Association . . . 464 
 
 XXXI. Manchester, April 30, 1878. In the Free Trade 
 
 Hall, on the policy of the Government in the 
 East 472 
 
 XXXn. Birmingham, April 16, 1879. On the Eastern 
 policy of the Government, especially in relation 
 to India 491 
 
 XXXni. Limerick, July 14, 1868. On the Irish Establish- 
 ment, and the future policy of the Liberal party 
 towards Ireland 508 
 
 Index 527 
 
PUBLIC ADDRESSES. 
 L 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 15, 1863. 
 
 [The second anniversary dinner of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce 
 was held on this day at the Hen and Chickens Hotel. Mr. Scholefield, the 
 senior member for the borough of Birmingham, speaking before Mr. Bright, 
 had advocated the practice of capturing the unarmed vessels of a belligerent, 
 on the grounds that such a proceeding checked war, by enlisting mercantile 
 interests against war, and that it crippled an enemy^s resources, thereby 
 bringing wars to a speedier termination. He also argued that the emanci- 
 pation proclamation of President Lincoln, whatever might be its expediency 
 as a war measure, was *a gigantic confiscation of property,* and that it differed 
 in no particular from the practice of the prize capture of merchant vessels.] 
 
 I FEEL great pleasure in being here to-night, and in being 
 greeted as I have been with that cordial welcome which has 
 always been accorded to me ever since I have become connected 
 with Birmingham. I must say, however, that I should have 
 spent a still more pleasant evening had I anticipated that 
 I was to come here to listen and not to speak. Just now I 
 find it extremely difl&cult to determine what are the topics 
 which are likely to prove interesting, on an occasion like the 
 present, to those whom I have the honour to address. 
 
 My hon. friend has, it is true, found no difficulty upon 
 this score. I quite envy the felicity with which he has 
 touched upon those subjects to which he has adverted, 
 
J^\:'''''y'''''AnMhsS£k OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 15, 
 
 although there is one question which I fear I am not likely 
 to regard in the same light as that in which he looks upon 
 it. Before I came here I asked a member of the Chamber 
 of Commerce whether there was any point on which he 
 thought it particularly desirable that I should make any 
 remarks, but without receiving any satisfactory solution of 
 the question. It seemed to me that the subject of bank- 
 ruptcy reform was one on which it might be desirable that 
 gome comment should be made ; but I have come to the con- 
 clusion that that reform — very much like some others in this 
 country — leaves us precisely in the same position as we were. 
 There is, however, another question — one of international 
 law — to which my hon. friend has referred, which, although. 
 it is of considerable importance, does not seem to me to 
 press upon our attention very much at this moment. Inter- 
 national law is not very clearly defined, and the various 
 contradictory opinions which have been expressed^ with a 
 view to its elucidation, have tended to puzzle, rather than 
 to inform, unlearned persons ; but^ as my hon. friend has 
 alluded to what was done at the Congress of Paris, I may 
 be allowed to say that the Ambassadors of the principal 
 European Powers represented at that Congress agreed to a 
 certain alteration of practice in regard to some points of 
 international law, — an alteration which obtained the assent 
 of, I think, every civilised and Christian nation, with the 
 exception of the United States, the Government of which 
 proposed to accept a portion of the propositions of the Con- 
 gress of Paris, while it did not wish to assent to one of them 
 in the shape in which it was offered. Now, my hon. friend 
 seems to think that an attempt will be made to undo in 
 Parliament that which was accomplished at the Congress of 
 Paris ; but I very much doubt whether that will be the 
 case. The fact is, that which was done at Paris was not 
 done because our Government particularly liked it, but 
 because there was no other mode of getting out of the diffi- 
 
1863. /. BIRMINGHAM, 3 
 
 culty by which their representatives as well as those of the 
 other European Powers were surrounded. 
 
 You recollect, when the war with Russia — a war which, 
 I suppose, most persons now wish had never broken out- 
 commenced, the Queen then issued a proclamation that cer- 
 tain rights of this country as a belligerent nation would be 
 abandoned during the war, and that the property of Russia, 
 if in neutral vessels, would be safe. The reason why the 
 Government of England came to that conclusion was this — 
 that when the Russian war began England was not, to use an 
 insolent phrase, mistress of the seas; while it was felt by 
 England and France that if the old policy of capturing the 
 goods of belligerents in neutral vessels were adhered to with 
 respect to the vessels of the United States, six months would 
 not elapse before we should have to fight, not Russia alone, 
 but that country. It was for that reason, and for that reason 
 only, that our Government assented to the proclamation 
 which was then issued ; for that reason, and that only, it was 
 that the proposition which was adopted at the Congress of 
 Paris was made the law of Europe for all future time. That 
 being so, I do not believe there will be any alteration in the 
 declaration then made in the sense of going backwards from 
 it. I at once admit, however, that nothing can be more absurd 
 than the point at which the Congress of Paris stopped short ; 
 and if anybody supposes I am not giving the right com- 
 plexion to the subject, I would ask him to refer to the 
 motion with respect to it which was last Session made by 
 Mr. Horsfall ; in speaking upon which I explained the cause 
 of the proposition made in the Congress of Paris as I have 
 explained it to-night. I may add that Lord Palmerston and 
 Mr. Disraeli seemed to accept that explanation as the true 
 one ; and it must, therefore, I think, be admitted to be one 
 which is not to be controverted. Under all the circumstances 
 of the case, therefore, it appears to me that the best course 
 is to go forward. You cannot go backward : you have still 
 
 B 2 
 
4 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 15, 
 
 the United States, with its great mercantile marine, to take 
 into account, and whatever may be the issue of the present 
 strife, you may take it for granted that the free States of 
 America will stand in the first rank as a maritime Power, 
 that being the reason and the fact which led to the change 
 at the opening of the Russian war. As this reason still 
 continues in force, it would, I think, be wiser and more 
 liberal, more philosophic and more humane, to look forward 
 with a view to progress, rather than to make a retrograde 
 step in the interpretation of international law as between 
 belligerents. 
 
 There is another and a kindred question on which I should 
 wish briefly to touch. I mean the question of blockade. It 
 is a question which does not usually press very urgently on 
 a nation at peace ; but our attention is directed to it now, 
 because of the blockade of the Southern ports, and of the 
 interruption of commerce between them and this country 
 which has in consequence been effected. It, however, in- 
 volves considerations with respect to which it is undesirable 
 that we should decide absolutely without very earnest and 
 careful consideration. My hon. friend's argument is, that 
 taking ships at sea, as the Alabama is taking those of the 
 Federal States now, is a description of warfare less horrible 
 than cannonading a town. He says that we are bound to 
 make a war as harassing as we can to those to whom we are 
 opposed, and that then the people engaged in commerce and 
 industrial pursuits generally affected by it will entreat their 
 Government to put an end to it. Lord Palmerston, on the 
 other hand, maintains that no nation is induced to sue for 
 peace as the result of any embarrassment to its commerce ; and 
 so far I believe he is right, for I, for one, do not think you can 
 bring any nation, in opposition to its own passions or supposed 
 rights and interests, to consent to peace by the destruction 
 or capture of its merchant vessels. Tlie moment you have 
 a disturbance such as war creates, the moment you have a 
 
1863. /. BIRMINGHAM. 5 
 
 host of your merchants whose interest it is that the contest 
 should be prolonged, the moment you get large stocks and 
 high prices, that moment you have a party whose material 
 welfare is deeply involved in its continuance. What, for 
 instance, would be the result to many men in Liverpool if 
 the news were now to arrive that an armistice had taken 
 place between the contending forces in America? Ruin to 
 several who to-day consider themselves to be rolling in wealth 
 would be the consequence. It does not, therefore, follow, 
 because war disturbs commerce, that you can bring the com- 
 mercial element of a country vigorously to bear in favour of 
 its cessation. The great body of the people, those who are 
 struggling to live on from lo*. to 30*. a week, may complain 
 of war and the evils which it entails ; but you never find in 
 the history of this country or any other that the mercantile 
 classes strongly urge upon their Government the necessity 
 of making peace when once war with all its horrors has 
 broken out. 
 
 Now, with respect to the question of blockade, I may observe 
 that, so far as the European Powers are concerned, it must 
 appear perfectly clear that the system of blockade is at an end. 
 You could not blockade Russia during the Crimean war, 
 for her commerce passed through Prussia. You could not 
 blockade Prussia, or France, or Spain, or Italy, or Austria. 
 Seeing that the railways of Europe enter into and pass out 
 of every considerable country on the Continent, it is pretty 
 evident that unless you go to war with them all — a view of 
 the matter which I am sorry to see some Englishmen up- 
 hold — a blockade is virtually of very little use. As to the 
 United States, it seems to me that a blockade in that quarter 
 is absolutely impossible, and my opinion therefore is, with 
 regard to the question of international law and the question 
 of blockade — though my opinions on these subjects may be 
 at w^ar with tradition and those which many Englishmen 
 entertain — I yet believe that the more these questions are 
 
6 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 16, 
 
 thoroughly investigated the more we are driven to the con- 
 clusion that it is the interest of all nations, and especially 
 of England, instead of going backward, to render its military 
 policy more humane and more in accordance with the moral 
 code. 
 
 Who opposes these alterations ? The Government of Eng- 
 land only. Russia and France would have accepted the 
 propositions of the United States with regard to free ships 
 as well as free cargoes, and thus have agreed to putting an 
 end to everything like a commercial blockade. If war were 
 made less savage, the passions of men less aroused, and peace 
 made more possible, as I think it would be by means of the 
 change which I have indicated, then the minds of men would, 
 when difficulties happened to spring up between nation and 
 nation, be directed to other modes of settling their disputes 
 than a resort to arras. As it is, we are not advanced in point 
 of fact much beyond the savage Red Indian. Twelve months 
 ago, for instance, when this country was told through its 
 press that an insult was offered to it, though no insult was 
 meant, we did not wait to know whether it was intended to 
 insult us or not, but we sent 10,000 men across the Atlantic 
 to threaten a nation which could put 1,000,000 of men 
 under arms. If a different temper would prevail, and if, 
 when a dispute happened to arise between us and France, 
 or Russia, or the United States, men would in the first in- 
 stance look to some mode of settling the dispute other than 
 an appeal to arms, my opinion is that the difficulty might 
 be smoothed over much more speedily and with an expenditure 
 of blood and treasure far less costly than in ninety-nine cases 
 out of a hundred we now arrive at. 
 
 I admit that I have formed strong opinions on this subject. 
 I make due allowance for all those who take a contrary view, 
 and I would advise no Chamber of Commerce to commit 
 itself hastily to a decision on the point one way or the other. 
 Our statesmen are fearful of going beyond the prejudices of 
 
1863. /. BIRMINGHAM. 7 
 
 the people they govern, and are as full of superstition as the 
 rest of us in many things. One of our poets says, — 
 
 *01d politicians preach on wisdom past. 
 And totter on in business to the last/ 
 
 Statesmen who commenced their public career during the 
 great war with France are not likely at their time of life to 
 hold opinions so very different from those which they first 
 found in vogue ; still I must say that Lord Palmerston did 
 on one occasion, at Liverpool, express opinions entirely in 
 accord with those which I am now uttering. I suppose he 
 found that he had gone a little too far for Lord Derby or Lord 
 Russell, and therefore he was obliged last Session to go back 
 a little, and speak and vote against that which he had himself 
 advocated, or at least had hoped for in strong language, when 
 addressing the merchants of Liverpool. Yet even these old 
 statesmen learn something. We have lately had an instance 
 of this, which is very consolatory to me. I allude to their 
 willingness to cede the Ionian Islands to Greece. That little 
 Republic is occupied by a population not greater than the 
 whole of Birmingham, but one which is very turbulent and 
 ill-affected towards our rule. The islands, moreover, involve 
 us in heavy expense, and I think it is very wise in our 
 Government, and highly honourable to the Queen, to have 
 consented to the proposal which has been made to the 
 Provisional Government of Greece on this matter. It shows 
 that the rapacity for territory has been pretty much satiated in 
 this country — a rapacity which has cost us countless thousands 
 of lives, and countless millions of treasure. It shows, also, that 
 there is a growth of sound opinion throughout the world, 
 because I believe that wherever the knowledge of that pro- 
 position has come, although some may have wished it had 
 not been made, yet every man has been willing to admit that it 
 was a course creditable rather than otherwise to the Govern- 
 ment by which it was taken. I should like to see it carried 
 
8 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 15, 
 
 a little further. Many things which I advocate are thought 
 rather foolish at first, but in time people come up to them, 
 and I have the satisfaction of being a little ahead of the 
 Government, and often of the nation. 
 
 The other day I made a reference only parenthetically to 
 the cession of the fortress of Gibraltar, and I can conceive 
 how that must have shocked some people. I am not at 
 all anxious to press it, but though it is no doubt a more 
 difficult question than that of the Ionian Islands, yet if men 
 will only discuss it calmly I think they will come to a 
 tolerably unanimous opinion about it. I observe that the 
 foreign newspapers of Germany, France, and Spain have 
 argued from what I said in your town-hall three weeks 
 ago that there is a great party in England favourable to 
 the cession of the Rock of Gibraltar. Now, I make no such 
 pretension whatever. I know that in connexion with that 
 fortress there are memories and associations which may well 
 make the English people pause when they are asked to give 
 it up to Spain; they have been told from their childhood 
 that it is impregnable ; and some persons have a notion that 
 what is impregnable must be valuable, though that entirely 
 depends upon whether it is in such a position that it gives 
 great safety to something which, is valuable. Now, I believe 
 that most military persons in this country who are not 
 wishing to make out a case, and especially if they happen 
 to be wholly independent of the powers that be, would admit 
 that that rock is of no value whatever to us. It is of no 
 value to us in time of peace, except, perhaps, to smuggle a 
 few goods into Spain; and it would also be of no value 
 equivalent to the cost of maintaining it in time of war. It 
 is to me a monument of a very foolish war and a very dis- 
 honourable peace. I believe when it was taken it was taken 
 in the name of Charles III, the 'lawful Sovereign' of Spain, 
 who never happened to become the lawful Sovereign of Spain, 
 and therefore, when the Treaty of Utrecht was concluded. 
 
1863. /. BIRMINGUAM. 9 
 
 our allies were sold, and we were permitted to retain Minorca 
 and Gibraltar. 
 
 Suppose this company were the chamber of commerce in 
 the city of Madrid, how should we then be likely to view 
 this matter? We have it on the authority of English 
 statesmen that all the relations between the two countries, 
 and every negotiation between them from that time to this, 
 has been embittered and thwarted by the exasperation felt by 
 Spain at England holding a portion of their territory. In 
 Spain there is a very high protective tariff, but I believe 
 that if this thorn in the side of that country were removed 
 we might easily have a very liberal treaty of commerce with 
 her, by which every English production would be admitted 
 upon moderate terms; and, moreover, I think you would 
 long before this — I will not say have compelled, but have per- 
 suaded the Spanish Government to make effectual its laws 
 against the traffic in negroes, thus putting an end to that 
 abominable barbarity — the slave trade — between Africa and 
 Cuba. 
 
 For those of us who believe that the Emperor of the French 
 is a very dangerous neighbour, that he is a man of destiny, 
 and that it is written in the Book of Fate that he is to 
 do something dreadful to the Bank of England — to those 
 who think that every Frenchman spends a portion of his 
 time in looking across the Channel in the expectation that 
 he will some day avenge Waterloo by traversing this countiy 
 with the French eagle, — to all such — and I certainly am 
 not among them — this argument ought to be one of force 
 — namely, that if the English Government is anxious for 
 an united Italy to be a counterpoise to France, surely it 
 would also be a great advantage to us, in the same sense, 
 to have a close ally and friend in Spain. That, however, 
 you never can have, so long as you hold a portion of her 
 territory, taken from her and kept from her under circum- 
 stances reflecting no honour upon England, especially when 
 
10 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 15, 
 
 it is almost universally admitted that the Rock is of no use 
 whatever to ourselves. If England were to become more 
 moral and more just, her influence among the nations would 
 be largely increased, and it would no longer be possible for 
 General Peel, Secretary for War under Lord Derby's Govern- 
 ment, to tell his constituents at Huntingdon with truth that 
 England is detested by every country in Europe. 
 
 There is only one other question to which I shall refer. 
 I have heard that the working men of Birmingham have 
 subscribed about 3,000^. towards the relief of their suffering 
 countrymen in Lancashire. Well, that is a very honourable 
 thing for Birmingham ; and I am only sorry that every one 
 of the men who thus nobly subscribed has not his name on 
 your register of electors, and is not enabled to give his free 
 vote at the poll for my hon. colleague and myself. In 
 Lancashire there is now the strangest paralysis probably 
 ever seen in any seat of industry. The American war was 
 commenced — the one contending party refused to export 
 cotton, and burnt not a little of it ; the other blockaded the 
 ports so that cotton should not escape. The result is that 
 gradually the stocks of cotton have been consumed in this 
 country and throughout the world, except that which remains 
 in the United States, and what that quantity is nobody 
 knows, with any pretence of accuracy. At the same time 
 everybody believes that there is a large stock in the South. 
 It is estimated variously at from 2,000,000 to 4,000,000 bales. 
 I believe that whenever it comes it will turn out very much 
 less than the higher estimate, but that stock being locked 
 up in America, with prices at four times their ordinary rate, 
 you can conceive how much the interests of all who are 
 engaged in the cotton trade are concerned in the time when 
 that stock shall be liberated. East India cotton, commonly 
 called Surat, which sells ordinarily at from ^d. to 4^. per lb., 
 now sells at or about i*. 3^/., and American, which is 
 ordinarily 6d. per lb., is now at more than 2s, A bale of 
 
1863. /. BIRMINGHAM. 11 
 
 cotton, which used to cost lol. or 12/., now costs 50/. The 
 advice of an armistice in America and the cessation of the 
 war with a view to negotiation would produce a great fall 
 and a great ruin; and the apprehension of this necessarily 
 interferes very much with the course of business. 
 
 Now I complain of the oflScial politicians of this country. 
 Last Session there was a motion in the House of Lords 
 against the blockade, and the Foreign Secretary made a 
 speech in which he showed that the blockade was very 
 effective, and he concluded his remarks in a very careless 
 manner^ as if he were really not thinking of what he was 
 saying, by stating that he hoped in a few months the North 
 would consent to the independence of the South, when, of 
 course, this country would wish prosperity to both States. 
 Well, what was the effect of this in Lancashire ? Everybody 
 there thinks a Foreign Secretary is a most profound states- 
 man, and has everything written down in the Foreign Office ; 
 but on this question Lord Russell knew nothing, and that 
 was exactly the position of all the rest of us. He was not, 
 however, content with saying nothing; he said that which 
 people in Lancashire hoped indicated that he knew a great 
 deal. The consequence was that when the news reached the 
 Exchange at Manchester everybody wanted to sell and no 
 one wanted to buy. I know a man who was just then taking 
 stock with a partner whom he was then about to leave, 
 and the effect of that speech was, by a stroke of the pen, to 
 depreciate his share of the business by more than 2,000/. 
 
 Again, there was a speech of Mr. Gladstone at Newcastle. 
 I know the case of a man who, a week before, bought 300 
 bales of cotton in Liverpool, intending to work them up, 
 calculating that he would be able to keep his mills going 
 till Christmas. The moment he read the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer's speech he sent word to his broker at Liverpool to 
 sell his cotton instantly, and if he had kept it four or five days 
 he would have lost a very large sum by it. On the delivery 
 
12 ADDRESSES OF JOUN BRIGUT. jan. 15, 
 
 of the same speech many persons in this country, to my 
 knowledge, countermanded the orders they had previously 
 sent out for the purchase of Indian cotton ; and everybody 
 knows that the state of the cotton-market in Manchester 
 after that speech was almost as different as it is possible to 
 conceive from what it was before it. Again, when the report 
 of it reached India, it was put forth in the trade circulars 
 of every Bombay house that the speech of Mr. Gladstone 
 had created great uneasiness ; and people abstained from 
 buying because they thought prices would fall. Thus, the 
 utterances of these men, who know no more about matters 
 than any one of us, but who speak from their lofty position 
 and with their supposed knowledge, have cost enormous sums 
 to the county of Lancaster during the last twelve months, 
 and they are not the only people to blame. 
 
 I wish to say a word about the London press. I, of course, 
 don't speak of newspapers that have no force or influence ; — 
 the Morning Herald may rave, and the Standard may follow 
 suit, but what they say will not alter the value of a pinch of 
 snufF in any market in England. But it happens that there 
 is a paper which, from its long existence, the energy with 
 which it has been conducted, the good things which in times 
 past it occasionally has done, and its alliance with certain 
 influential sections, is accepted by some persons as an authority 
 on great questions — on the Manchester or Liverpool Exchange. 
 It may also be on your Exchange when it is built; people 
 will rush to see what there is in the columns of The Times. 
 Well, the columns of The Times have been filled with articles 
 on America for two years, but, as I have said before, not one 
 generous article with regard to the Free North has appeared 
 in them. The Times may have what opinions it likes ; its 
 writers write under a mask. I do not propose, although I 
 could do it, to tear that mask away; but it writes as a 
 great power in the press of this country; for two years it 
 has taken up its parable against the twenty millions of men 
 
1863. /. BIRMINGHAM, 13 
 
 in the free States of North America, and has indulged in 
 as many prophecies as Merlin himself, or anybody* else of 
 whom tradition gives us some account, but not one single 
 prophecy up to this time has been fulfilled. There is not a 
 man of the commercial class in Liverpool or Manchester who 
 would not admit to-day, if he were asked, that the influence, 
 and, if you like, the ignorance, or, if you wish to speak 
 correctly, the malice of that paper towards the United States 
 has produced disastrous consequences to very many persons in 
 Lancashire. I know it, and it is universally known that there 
 has been a constant teaching of the people that the war would 
 come to an end, that there would be an armistice, that the 
 North was exhausted, that bankruptcy was inevitable, that the 
 recent elections would break down President Lincoln's Govern- 
 ment, and that everything would happen that has not 
 happened. The consequence was, that while the stock of 
 cotton was constantly being diminished, there has been the 
 greatest fear among all persons who have transactions in dis- 
 tant markets of doing any business in Manchester, and stocks 
 of yarn and cloth have never risen in price at all in proportion 
 to the price of the raw material. At this moment there are 
 400,000 bales of cotton in Liverpool ; there is a very slight 
 increase in the working of the mills, owing to the uncertainty 
 in the minds of all buyers as to whether the high prices will 
 be long sustained. Some of this uncertainty is, no doubt, 
 the inevitable result of the state of circumstances. None 
 of us can predict with any accuracy the duration of the 
 war ; but, surely, the inevitable uncertainty is bad enough, 
 without being aggravated by the inconsiderate speeches of 
 the Foreign Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 or by the incessant folly and malice poured out from day to 
 day in the leading columns of The Times. But I say that 
 this course, besides doing no kind of good, is making an 
 enemy of a great nation, and sacrificing interests which our 
 statesmen ought zealously to guard. 
 
14 ADDRESSES OF JO UN BRIGHT. 
 
 Notwithstanding' my complaint on this score, I am willing 
 to admit that the world, even in our time, is moving on. 
 Within the last two years we have seen two events which 
 posterity will regard as very important. In Russia, serfdom 
 has been put in the way of extinction by the act of the 
 Emperor of Russia and his Government ; in the United 
 States, by the most wonderful series of events, there is 
 evidently coming to pass that which no man dared hope for 
 three years ago as likely to be approached during the lifetime 
 of any one of us. I see from the East unto the West, from 
 the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, in spite of 
 what misled, prejudiced, unjust, and wicked men may do, the 
 cause of freedom still moving onward ; and it is not in human 
 power to arrest its progress, 
 
 *ror God from evil still educes good. 
 And freedom's seed still grows, tho' steeped in blood/ 
 
 And coming back to our own country from this review, I 
 should say there is much to be done here ; and in this obser- 
 vation — I speak to members of your Chamber who are not of 
 any one political party — there are gentlemen here who, even if 
 they give me credit for honesty and conscientiousness in my 
 course, yet think me mistaken and dangerous in the propositions 
 which I make to my fellow countrymen ; but being here, as 
 we are, of various political parties, may T not say thus much, 
 that if we were to shun party spirit, if we were to examine 
 questions fairly and carefully, if we were to endeavour to 
 decide them truthfully, we might have hope that we should do 
 much to elevate our people, to improve our institutions, to 
 make broader and safer the foundations of our freedom, and 
 to build up and preserve a commonwealth which should do 
 much to help forward the advancement of the world. 
 
11. 
 
 BIEMINGHAM, JANUARY 29, 1864. 
 
 [On the evening of this day Mr. Bright attended a soir^ in the Assembly 
 Room of Nock's Hotel. The audience was necessarily small, between two 
 and three hundred. The following address was delivered in answer to a 
 motion of Mr. William Morgan, which called on the audience to recognise 
 * the patriotic labours of the members for the borough.' Mr. Scholefield, 
 Mr. Bright's colleague, was unable to be present. Mr. Sturge, the eminent 
 Birmingham philanthropist, is alluded to in p. 20. The speech was intended 
 to be a familiar comment on the past history and the present interests of 
 the Reformed Parliament.] 
 
 I AM afraid that I cannot in such graceful language as 
 would have been heard from the lips of my colleague, had he 
 been present, express my pleasure at the company of the 
 ladies who have been kind enough to join our party to-night. 
 I can say with the greatest truth, that I rejoice on this, as 
 I have on many other occasions, to see them exhibiting an 
 interest in the progress of political questions. It has not 
 only been common, as Mr. Dale has said, to create the 
 impression that what are called serious people should not 
 meddle with politics, but that these public questions were 
 entirely out of the field in which women should exercise 
 themselves. I venture, not diffidently, but confidently, to 
 difier from any such opinion, and to say that politics, by 
 
16 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 29. 
 
 which we understand the science of legislation and govern- 
 mentj have a very direct and constant influence upon the 
 happiness of every family in every country where there is 
 a government, and that, therefore, what is done under the 
 form of political action can by no means be indifferent to the 
 mothers, and wives, and sisters, and daughters of England. 
 
 I have had the pleasure of meeting, whilst I have been in 
 Birmingham, a gentleman who I suppose, though I have not 
 been told it, does not generally act with our political party, 
 and after much conversation, and after I had told him that 
 some time when I came to Birmingham I would speak on 
 a particular question, he said be should be very glad if some 
 time or other I would make a speech on the bright side of 
 England. You understand, I dare say, the sort of sarcasm 
 there was in that suggestion. I suppose that as he does 
 not agree with me on all subjects, he thought I took too 
 gloomy a view of the position and prospects of this country. 
 Now, you will admit that there are a great number of 
 speakers and a great number of writers whose business it 
 seems always to persuade everybody that everybody is well 
 treated and perfectly happy — and they advise their hearers 
 or readers to avoid the errors of the French on the one hand, 
 and the mistakes of the people of America on the other. 
 But if everybody was contented and happy, and there was 
 nothing that it was our business to reform, I should stay at 
 home. I have no fondness for political meetings and platform 
 work, and I should not for the last twenty years have given 
 the whole of my time to public questions if nothing was 
 necessary but to come before an audience and to rejoice with 
 each other at the glorious position we occupy. It is the 
 very existence of grievances which calls me from the quiet 
 of my own home, from the pursuit of my own business, 
 and from attention to my own family ; and whenever I 
 find that there is nothing for me to do but to say, ' What 
 a happy people we are, and how delightful it is to be 
 
1864. //. BIRMINGHAM, 17 
 
 under the Government of Lord Palmerston and his Whig 
 colleagues/ then I assure you I will not trouble you with 
 saying it, but I shall leave you to find it out, and I shall 
 stay at home. 
 
 But still there is a bright side to the aspect of England, 
 and you may see some of it probably by looking forward, 
 and you may see a good deal of it on looking backward. 
 But the bright side of the history of this country, so long 
 as I have been permitted to take any part in it, is that side 
 in which are delineated the changes that have taken place 
 — the changes which I have the satisfaction of knowing 
 that I have supported — the changes which no doubt many 
 of those who would wish me to speak on in a different 
 tone have to the utmost of their power opposed. I was 
 thinking since I came into the room what these changes 
 were. I own to feeling that I have been what I may call 
 trapped into a speech to-night, for I thought we were coming 
 here for a conversational meeting ; that there would be no 
 tables and very few forms, and that we should walk about the 
 room and make ourselves acquainted with each other, and 
 have some tea and coffee and conversation ; but I find that 
 the managers of the meeting have disposed otherwise, and 
 I was informed that I was expected to make a speech. Well, 
 one cannot make a speech without thinking something of 
 what is to be said, and since I came to this building I have 
 been thinking as to what these changes are which many of 
 us recollect, and which to my mind form the bright side of 
 English history, at least as far as it is to be found in our 
 lifetime. Most of us can remember thirty or thirty-five years 
 ago, and if there be any gentleman who complains of the tone 
 of my speeches in general, I would ask him to bear in mind 
 what are the changes that have been made, and if he can, to 
 measure the results upon the prosperity and upon the happiness 
 of this country. 
 
 The first great measure which suggests itself to me is that 
 
 c 
 
18 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 29, 
 
 which gave the right of Parliamentary representation to the 
 whole nation of Ireland, being the Catholic population of 
 that country. Up to the year 1829, no person professing 
 or holding the Christian religion as it is held by the Roman 
 Catholic Church was permitted to sit in the House of 
 Commons. There were at that time, I suppose, five millions, 
 or very nearly of Roman Catholics in Ireland, but they were 
 not allowed to send to the House of Commons any man 
 agreeing with them in religious opinions. It is within the 
 recollection of many of us that it required an agitation of 
 a most formidable character, led on by one of the most re- 
 markable men that Ireland has ever produced — the late Mr. 
 O'Connell — to obtain the concession of that right ; and bear in 
 mind that it was fiercely opposed by a very powerful body in 
 this country, and there is a party in this country even yet 
 that regrets that the concession was ever made. Therefore, 
 although it may be said that we are in a sense a free country, 
 yet thirty-five years ago five millions of Catholics in Ireland, 
 and, perhaps, nearly one million in England, were shut out 
 altogether from representation, from being able to return 
 any man of their own religious sentiments to Parliament. 
 Every one of them was prevented from becoming a candidate 
 for a seat in Parliament ; and therefore, as regards this parti- 
 cular, this was not then a free country. 
 
 The next great step which was made was that in which 
 Birmingham took so distinguished a part. It is not 
 certain, I think, but, looking back, we may have some 
 doubt whether the Reform Bill would have been carried at 
 the time it was if it had not been for the strenuous and 
 patriotic efforts of the inhabitants of this great town. The 
 body which has always opposed, and does always oppose 
 every step in advance, ran the country to within twenty- 
 four hours of a revolution before they conceded that measure. 
 And when it was conceded it was so mutilated, so much 
 changed from the original proposition, and on the whole 
 
1864. //. BIRMINGHAM. 19 
 
 though so great, was yet so inefficient, that we look upon it 
 now as leaving the representation of the country in a very 
 unsatisfactory state. Now, after that bill had passed, as was 
 natural after so great an agitation, there was a powerful 
 swell of Liberal opinion throughout the country, which did 
 not satisfy itself by the passing of that bill, but carried other 
 measures of great importance. One of them was the bill by 
 which all the corporations in the towns and cities of the 
 kingdom, with one or two exceptions, were reformed. Up to 
 that time there was no real representation in scarcely any 
 town in the kingdom, but some half-a-dozen, or a dozen, 
 or two dozen men, self-elected or elected by some landed 
 proprietor or some lord of the manor, were the municipal 
 authorities. Such were the governors of your town, and 
 formed your Corporation, and the corruption was of a cha- 
 racter so foul that the odour of it remains in our nostrils 
 even to this day. Now, although corporations are by no 
 means centres of absolute wisdom — I say that of course with 
 great trepidation — in the presence of your worthy Mayor and 
 others who surround him ; yet I think it must be acknow- 
 ledged that the passing of that bill and the reform of these 
 corporations has been an enormous advantage to this country : 
 and I only hope that corporations generally will become much 
 more expensive than they have been — not expensive in the 
 sense of wasting money, but that there will be such nobleness 
 and liberality amongst the people of our towns and cities, as 
 will lead them to give their corporations power to expend 
 more money on those things which, as public opinion ad- 
 vances, are found to be essential to the health and comfort 
 and improvement of our people. 
 
 About the time when that celebrated measure passed there 
 passed another still more celebrated, because it affected not 
 England alone but the opinion of the world, and excited 
 emotion in the mind of every good man in every country, 
 and stirred in him, I believe, a lasting admiration for the 
 
 c 2 
 
20 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 29, 
 
 wisdom and magnanimity of the English people. I speak 
 of the measure which emancipated 800,000 slaves in the 
 colonies of England, and did even more than emancipate 
 800,000 slaves, for it set an example which the world could 
 not but follow. You may rely upon it that from this great 
 act is to be dated to a large extent the creation of that con- 
 scientious feeling in England which has been growing from 
 that day to this ; while it is owing to the unteachable spirit of 
 the slaveholders of another country that a great nation has 
 been brought into the throes of a fearful revolution, out of 
 which I trust not only will that nation itself be purified, but 
 that 4,000,000 of slaves will be free. And whilst this passes 
 through my mind, I cannot help for a moment touching upon 
 the fact that one of your citizens now no more, my personal 
 and intimate friend, was one of the most eminent of those 
 who endeavoured to stir the conscience of the English people 
 to that great act of justice ; and I never pass, as I do often 
 pass when I come here, that memorable figure of him which 
 you have erected in one of the most conspicuous places in 
 your town, without hoping that every citizen of Birmingham 
 when he comes to consider public questions, whether regarding 
 this country or that other country to which reference has 
 already been made, and where that great struggle is being 
 carried on, will endeavour to be animated by the disinterested, 
 the noble, and the Christian spirit by which your late eminent 
 townsman was distinguished. 
 
 There is another law to which I might refer, but it is not 
 of the same character, though no doubt it has been productive 
 in some cases of great advantage — I mean the law which was 
 passed for reforming the administration of the relief of the poor 
 throughout this country. That law was subjected, I believe, 
 to greater assault than almost any other law, and this for a long 
 time after it was enacted. It had features in it that seemed 
 harsh, and unfortunately its administration was entrusted to 
 the hands of men who seemed to wish to make it as unpalatable 
 
1864. //. BIRMINGHAM. 21 
 
 as possible. Notwithstanding, I am free to say that, looking 
 back at it as a measure^ I believe it to be one which did 
 credit to the Whig administration of the day — to their 
 courage, and to their legislative and administrative capacity. 
 I mention it, therefore, as one of those changes which I 
 believe have given satisfaction to the country, and which 
 have passed during the time which I am now sketching. Well 
 then, after that we came to a very quiet, and, I may say, 
 unsatisfactory time. The Whigs had settled comfortably into 
 their places. They, I believe, have a motto, which they have 
 not publicly announced. It is this — ' A place for every man, 
 and every man in his place.' That means, of course, every man 
 of their own respectable party. Well, at this time they be- 
 came very much indisposed to go further, and the satisfaction 
 of the country with them was considerably diminished. Their 
 majorities in Parliament were reduced, and, finally, they came 
 to a general election in the year 1841 — but nine years after 
 the passage of that great measure of Reform. They were 
 thrown out of office by the constituencies, and Parliament 
 re-opened with a majority against them of a little under a 
 hundred votes. At this time there came another great change 
 in the State — the adoption of the principle of Free Trade. 
 This question was brought before the public very much in 
 consequence of the sufferings which arose from the bad 
 harvests that we had immediately before that general election. 
 It took from the year 1838 to the year 1846 to bring 
 about the great change of the abolition of the Com Law. 
 Parliament was elected in 1841 with a majority of ninety 
 pledged to oppose the abolition of the law. Sir Robert Peel 
 was the great leader of that great party, and as these men 
 found themselves in Parliament with this enormous majority 
 they looked down with contempt upon all who were moving 
 in that question, and considered that they w^ere absolutely 
 sure to maintain the law and to maintain their places. 
 The result shows how much is to be done by continuous 
 
22 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. ja». 29, 
 
 and disinterested labour on behalf of a great cause, and by- 
 appealing to the sympathies of the whole nation. In 1846, 
 partly at that moment owing no doubt to the failure of 
 the harvest and the difficulties which threatened from an 
 impending famine in Ireland, this vast majority melted away. 
 Men who had pledged themselves in every form of language 
 to their constituents in 1841, who had attended meetings 
 opposed to Free-trade^ subscribed to newspapers which op- 
 posed it, found their whole power melting away, and their 
 leader himself converted to the necessity of a change ; and 
 the change took place, a change so great that there were 
 members of both Houses of Parliament, and I believe a 
 majority of the House of Lords, who believed that to them at 
 least the world was brought nearly to an end. I recollect 
 that a lady — a relative of mine — sat below the bar of the 
 House of Lords on the night when the Corn Law Repeal 
 Bill was read a second time. It was very late — or rather 
 early in the morning — when the division was approaching, 
 and a lady sitting near her, who was a connection of some 
 peer, spoke with him as he came from the House, and she 
 said, * How will it go ? ' It was just before the division, and, 
 pointing up to the clock, as it were in an agony of excite- 
 ment, he said, * In twenty minutes ' — or in some number of 
 minutes which it would take to go to a division — ' we shall 
 be no better than dead men.' Well, now, the Corn Law was 
 abolished, and if they had not told the farmers — ^those poor 
 terrified farmers, and landlords still more terrified — I am not 
 sure that any of them would ever have found it out. The 
 country would have found that it was much better off, and 
 the people would have discovered that by some power the force 
 of which they could not perhaps understand, loaves of bread 
 and provisions to the amount of more than twenty millions 
 sterling per annum had been deposited in their homes for the 
 sustenance and enjoyment of their families, and they would 
 scarcely have known how it was brought about. But we know 
 
1864. //. BIRMINGHAM, 23 
 
 that it was brought about by the repealing of a single Act of 
 Parliament. It was not by a number of benevolent ladies and 
 gentlemen forming societies all over the country and giving 
 people alms, but it was by repealing the Corn Law — by a 
 simple act of justice, an act that was so just that I have never 
 heard a man, or have scarcely heard a man deny its justice, 
 except on something which they call political considerations, 
 which means that there were political reasons why that great 
 act of justice should not be done. I recollect that a pious 
 banker whom I happened to be travelling with in the North 
 of England, admitted that it was very unjust that there should 
 be a law to make food scarce and dear, but said, ' I accept it 
 because I believe it necessary to maintain the hereditary 
 aristocracy of this country.' And further, he said that he 
 thought that our greatness in the eye of the world depended 
 very much upon the maintenance of the wealth and power 
 and the display of the aristocracy of England. That is exactly 
 the sort of reason which people give. Weak-minded men 
 are taken by reasons of this kind, and they give you reasons 
 now that are not a bit better for opposition to many changes 
 which wiser men wish to promote, and which doubtless 
 by-and-by will be effected. And then results will show 
 that the reasons of those who have opposed them were just 
 as silly and just as little worth as those of my fellow-traveller 
 the pious banker. 
 
 But that question of the corn law was not all, there was the 
 question of sugar. In 1840 — it is not very long ago — the 
 single article of sugar in this country cost — by reason of the 
 monopoly — not less than six millions sterling more than it 
 would have cost if you could have bought it freely in the 
 market of the world, while the fall of the corn monopoly, which 
 was the keystone of the arch, let everything belonging to it 
 and supported by it down. The sugar monopoly fell, and 
 I do not now know how much more. One was connected 
 with the supply of timber from abroad ; and another, still 
 
24 ADDBESSES OF JOUN BRIGHT, jan. 29, 
 
 more important, was the monopoly which onr shipowners 
 had, and the abolition of which has been found to be in- 
 jurious, I believe, to nobody, and greatly advantageous to 
 the whole country. When all this was done the course 
 was perfectly easy, for our Chancellor of the Exchequer has 
 had nothing but driving down hill since that time. Once 
 we had a tariff, that upon which Sir Robert Peel began his 
 reform, with looo — I am not sure that there were not liioo 
 items on which duties were raised at the ports, some of them 
 articles which, when the names were read off in the House 
 of Commons, raised a general laugh, for people turned to each 
 other and asked what they were. There were things so 
 minute that nobody in the House had ever heard of, and yet 
 they were articles upon which duties were levied. Then the 
 tariff was simplified until now there are perhaps only twelve 
 or fifteen articles upon which duties are levied. All other 
 things can come freely into the country; we have made a 
 very great clearance, and the result has been that we have 
 obtained fiscal reforms which are more comprehensive and 
 more just to the country than probably have ever been made 
 in the same time by any other Government in any country 
 in the world. I do not think those who were most active in 
 promoting these changes were regarded by certain people 
 with much more confidence than before. But the changes 
 were made and they worked well for the nation. 
 
 We may now come down to one or two other topics, one 
 of them the question of the treaty with France. We were 
 taught when we were children — I was born just before the 
 termination of that monstrous and wicked war which was so 
 long carried on with France — at any rate, the school-books 
 of those days were filled with charges against the French 
 people. The representations on the stage, I am told by 
 those who frequented theatres at the time, were to the same 
 effect, and there was a general feeling that there was some 
 risk to Englishmen if they became too well acquainted with 
 
1864. //. BIRMINGHAM. 25 
 
 the French, and if by any possibility they should learn to 
 believe that the French were not the natural enemies of 
 Englishmen. Well, my friend Mr. Cobden — who as you know 
 is occasionally mentioned with very abusive language by 
 several of the great instructors of the press — thought that 
 the Emperor of the French and some persons who are occa- 
 sionally consulted by him would be very glad to have more 
 intimate relations with the people of this country, and he 
 went over to Paris. He saw the Emperor, and discussed the 
 matter with him. He found the Emperor most willing, and 
 not only most willing, but most anxious that the people 
 of the two countries should be introduced to each other 
 through the medium of extended commerce, and that his 
 object was — for I heard him say it — that the people being 
 thus united together it should not be in the power of rulers 
 and statesmen to induce them hereafter to enter into those 
 dreadful struggles which, now we look back upon them, 
 we can say have for centuries disfigured the history of 
 the two nations. Now, there is another fact which ought 
 to have some interest, but which I shall merely mention, 
 that it was not — and I was glad to see it noticed by 
 Mr. Milner Gibson at Ash ton the other day— it was not 
 one of your official diplomatists who effected that treaty, 
 it was done solely by my friend Mr. Cobden, who, as the 
 cricketers would say, got it entirely off his own bat: and 
 I venture to say that as long as the history of England 
 and France is read it will be read of him, that he, a simple 
 citizen of this country, interested in its welfare, interested 
 in peace between France and England, interested in the 
 spread of great and enlightened principles and commerce 
 throughout the world, that he went over to Paris, and there 
 negotiated with the Emperor of the French a treaty, which 
 I believe is the most important document of the kind that 
 has ever been signed by the rulers of any two nations in 
 Europe. 
 
26 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 29, 
 
 From this I pass to the last of these reforms that I shall 
 touch upon, and that is to another kind of freedom, in which 
 no persons in Parliament were more actively engaged than 
 Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Cobden, and myself, that is, the 
 freedom of the press. You pay a penny for your admirable 
 newspaper in this town, and when doing so you are not 
 conscious, perhaps, of what happened only a very short time 
 ago. The paper on which it was printed, say ten years ago, 
 had a stamp of a penny upon it^ the paper itself did not 
 cost probably more than a halfpenny, and, therefore, there was 
 over lOO or perhaps 200 per cent, of taxation upon the paper 
 before our friend Mr. Jaffray could touch it. Well then — 
 I am not speaking now of the stamp — there was also a tax 
 of, at one time, threepence, and at another time three - 
 halfpence per pound upon paper itself at the paper-mill. 
 This unfortunate article seemed to be thought the greatest of 
 all nuisances and trespassers. The moment it was made 
 out of the meanest rags and rubbish, the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer put a tax upon it of three-halfpence per pound : 
 and the moment it was sent to the newspaper office, unless 
 the manufacturer had already done it, the proprietor must 
 send it to the Government office to have a stamp of a penny 
 put upon it ; and when he ran it through his machine and 
 printed the columns of letter-press, if he put in a short 
 paragraph that a cook wanted a place, or that anybody wanted 
 a tutor, although it was only three words or only one word, 
 it was an advertisement, and for every one of these he must 
 pay a tax of 1*. 6d. to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The 
 newspapers were, as you know, not very long ago many 
 times the price that they are at present. People said then 
 that we had a free press. We denied it, and we asserted 
 that unless the Chancellor of the Exchequer would under- 
 take really to free the newspaper press there was not a 
 single thing else that he undertook to do which we would 
 not oppose. Therefore, by getting the Chancellor of the 
 
1864. //. BIRMINGUAM. 27 
 
 Exchequer into a difficulty of this nature, and by abso- 
 lutely insisting upon an act of justice, we used the skill and 
 ingenuity with which Mr. Gibson conducted that question 
 in Parliament to obtain what we desired. Now, what has 
 followed ? We have a gentleman so eminent as the Speaker 
 of the House of Commons, the other day, at a meeting, 
 expressing himself in terms of the very highest commenda- 
 tion and admiration of the penny newspapers in this country. 
 But what did all the people say who opposed us? They 
 said first of all, 'You will steal everything from the Tiniest 
 Well, I do not think anything else could by possibility 
 make a paper so bad as stealing everything from the Times. 
 I recollect the prophecies of the Globe newspaper, which I 
 believe values itself at 4^. or 5^., while other papers quite 
 as good and as large are selling for a penny. The Globe 
 newspaper declared that these cheap papers would do nothing 
 but crib paragraphs and news from the respectable press, 
 which they would not acknowledge. Why, the Globe news- 
 paper itself is made up almost entirely of ' scissor-work,' 
 and I have seen in it little paragraphs which it has copied 
 from the penny press of the morning, and which it has 
 copied without acknowledgment. I venture then to say that 
 every prophecy of the opponents of a free press, so far, 
 has failed; and that whether it be in quality of writing, 
 in elevated and moral tone, in the industry with which facts 
 and news are collected and offered to the people, I believe 
 that the newspapers which are sold at a penny will bear 
 comparison with any of their dearer neighbours, and that 
 there is but one opinion throughout the whole kingdom — 
 except it be in the mind of some particular man who never 
 could find out anything himself, and never could be taught 
 anything by others, — there is, I say, but one opinion as to 
 the inestimable benefit which the freedom of the press has 
 conferred upon this country. Is it not a very curious thing 
 that every one of the things I have mentioned is now almost 
 
28 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 29, 
 
 by general consent admitted to have been a just and beneficial 
 change ? You can hardly find a Tory now. It is a blessed 
 thing, but somehow or other, either the Tories die off, or they 
 change themselves, or they do certainly take a little different 
 colour. You can hardly find any of them now but will admit 
 that a great number of these changes — some will admit that 
 all of them — have been wise changes^ and beneficial to the 
 country. And yet it is very odd that the very same men at 
 this moment set up to be authorities in politics. They opposed 
 
 3- every one of these changes, they have obstructed every one to 
 the extent of their power, they have told you at every step 
 that every change was destructive to the best interests of the 
 country, and they have rushed to the poll with what I should 
 call a frantic blindness of patriotism to put oflP the good day 
 when these beneficial changes should take effect. And having 
 
 ^ been wrong in every single thing for twenty-five years back — 
 and if they have lived as long, for fifty years back — at this very 
 moment, without a blush, without the slighest appearance of 
 difl[iculty or embarrassment, they will call upon a constituency 
 now to believe that they are the men, and that wisdom will 
 die with them. If there had been no violent party spirit, if 
 these men would have given themselves^ if they were capable 
 of it, to some intelligent thought on these questions, ig it not 
 very likely that many of these changes might have been made 
 at an earlier period, and that the public might have had, say 
 for twenty years, the advantage of these reforms, which owing 
 to the obstinacy of opponents they have only enjoyed, it may 
 be, for five or ten years ? I suppose there are not many of this 
 class of gentlemen here — or else I might try to improve the 
 occasion, and see if I could not reach — reach^ as the preachers 
 say — their intellect and their conscience. There are other 
 questions to which these men might turn their minds if they 
 
 /■s^ liked, unless they have been so long standing still, that, 
 like a weather-vane, they have become rusted, and cannot 
 turn at all. 
 
1864. //. BIRMINGHAM, 29 
 
 There is a question that has been discussed of late years, 
 and that will come on again for urgent discussion before long 
 — the question of Parliamentary Reform. It is thirty years 
 or more since the Reform Bill passed. It was not a good bill, 
 though it was a great bill when it passed ; and to show you 
 how insufficient it was, I have already mentioned that in nine 
 years after it passed, so entirely had the old governing class 
 recovered from its fall, that it entered Parliament in 1841 with 
 a majority of ninety. And when we know that it leaves an 
 immense number of small boroughs that are assailable and open 
 to management, and that it leaves the county constituency as it 
 now is, in many counties entirely in the hands of three or four 
 or half a dozen landed proprietors, and that it shuts out the great 
 body of the people from the franchise everywhere, it is not to 
 be wondered at that we should have found ourselves, nine years 
 after the passing of the Reform Bill, in a minority in the 
 House of Commons, and at this moment in a position, when 
 nobody seems to know exactly whether there is a majority or 
 a minority. What has taken place since ] 833 ? Surely, nearly 
 all the changes I have mentioned. What else has taken place ? 
 Not these changes only, and not those changes only which Mr. 
 Wright has said have taken place in Birmingham, but similar 
 changes all over the kingdom. Have not your schools extended 
 to a great degree ? have not the habits of industry and fru- 
 gality become more prominent? is not the country more 
 peaceful ? is not the law generally better observed ? and are 
 not magistrates and all men in authority held in better regard 
 than they were thirty or forty years ago ? Don't we all feel 
 that there is a more kind, generous^ merciful, and just spirit 
 spread amongst the people, and animating great masses of 
 them ? And unless we are prepared to say that the English 
 Constitution is not a Constitution by which representative 
 Government is favoured ; that we have no right to a share in 
 the administration of the affairs of our country, but that a 
 small, a powerful, and a rich class acting upon a small portion 
 
30 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 29, 
 
 of the middle class, and banded so that their influence becomes 
 almost irresistible, should appropriate the Constitution ; and 
 that the Government shall be handed over to them for the 
 furthering- of their special purposes — unless we are prepared 
 to say this, we have no right to call ourselves free men living 
 in a free country — unless we determine before long that there 
 shall be another substantial measure of reform. 
 
 The other night I referred to the question of emigra- 
 tion from this country. I am told, though I have not seen it 
 in print, that a newspaper, which does not care to improve its 
 character by being fair to those whom it judges, declared that 
 I put myself up as an advertising agent for the American 
 Government. Let me tell you that the advertising agents, 
 the practical advertising agents to the American Government, 
 are those who refuse to do justice to the English people. 
 Mr. Bancroft, the best historian of his country, has declared in 
 words that Europe should never forget that the history of the 
 colonisation of America is the history of the crimes of Europe. 
 We know perfectly well how it was that those noble men who 
 colonised New England — and whose spirit yet lives on that 
 continent, and is now, I will venture to say, directing the 
 energies of the American Government in the preservation 
 of their Union, and in the establishment of freedom 
 from the pole to the gulf — first settled in that country. 
 We know that those men were driven from this country 
 (^ by the oppressions of despotic monarchs and of an insolent 
 Church. And we know that from that time to this there 
 have landed in the United States millions of persons — who 
 have emigrated from the United Kingdom, the largest portion 
 of them from Ireland. I have said before, and it is well to 
 say it on every suitable occasion, that such has been the conduct 
 of the Government of England to the people of Ireland, that 
 wherever the Irishman plants his foot in any foreign land, 
 having quitted for ever his native soil, there he stands as an 
 enemy of England, whom nothing can reconcile to this 
 
1864. //. BIRMINGHAM. 31 
 
 country. But if the Government of England in Ireland had 
 been a just Government, if it had been just even since the time 
 of the Union, sixty years ago, all that hostile feeling might have 
 been cleared away long since, and Irishmen would have been as 
 loyal and contented as any class of Englishmen. And if they 
 had found it necessary from any cause to transport themselves 
 to the United States, you would have found in the United 
 States the feeling that they had not been driven by injustice 
 from their native land, but that turning back to that land 
 with the loving, longing gaze of patriots, they might have 
 s^id-- 
 
 "Breathes there a man with soul so dead. 
 Who never to himself hath said. 
 This is my own, my native land?" 
 
 But now — ^now under the feelings created by a long course of 
 misgovernment, continued from father to son, directed against 
 their social, their political, and their religious feeling, there is 
 hardly an Irishman in the United States who is not the victim 
 of any man who chooses to make political capital by exciting 
 hostility against England. There can be no just government of 
 Ireland until you abolish the Irish Protestant Church. There 
 have been no feelings in the history of the world that have so 
 stirred men's love, and so stirred their hate, as the feelings 
 connected with their religious belief. There was never 
 an act at once so unjust and so unwise as that of the 
 English Government when it maintained a Church in Ireland 
 that never could call within its fold more than about one-tenth 
 of the whole people, and which from the day of its establish- 
 ment to this has probably never been able to convert — I was 
 going to say, a single real Catholic to Protestantism — but 
 which, having found Catholicism a belief of the people, has made 
 it also a patriotism. For every Catholic has not only had the 
 ordinary reasons for adhering to his Church which every man 
 has who learns the doctrines and teachings of his religion from 
 his mother, but he has this further reason — that the Church 
 
o 
 
 32 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 29, 
 
 which is sought to be imposed upon him is imposed upon him 
 by another nation, and, to him, by an alien Government. 
 And, therefore, every feeling of reverence for God, and every 
 feeling of self-respect which he has as a free man, makes him 
 resolve that he never will come within the pale of such a 
 Church as that. 
 
 And, now, but one more matter, which it would be wrong 
 to pass by at this moment. This is the situation of foreign 
 affairs, and the doctrine of non-intervention. The people of 
 England must, and will before long, make up their minds on 
 this great question — whether they will accept the doctrine of 
 non-intervention in its entirety and completeness, or whether 
 they will allow it when it is convenient, and repudiate it when 
 their passions have been a little stirred. Bear in mind that 
 one of two eminent Ministers of the present Cabinet cer- 
 tainly was in office as long ago as some years before I was 
 born. He comes down, then, from a generation that is almost 
 passed away. Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister, is that 
 man. Lord Russell, though not so old, also goes back into 
 that early time. They are both naturally — I am not imputing 
 it to them as a crime, because, possibly, it was what they 
 could not help — but they naturally have been saturated with 
 those theories and doctrines upon the question of non-inter- 
 vention and foreign affairs which prevailed near the beginning 
 of this century, and they may fancy in their old age that what 
 was taught them and practised in their youth is right now, 
 and was right during the time of the Italian war, I mean 
 the war between Austria and France, in which, it is thought, 
 Italy gained much in the direction of liberty. I went one 
 day in the session of Parliament during which these events 
 occurred to spend an hour with the late Lord Aberdeen. He 
 had been Prime Minister, and Foreign Secretary for many 
 years. He was a man of very sound judgment, of great 
 moderation, and of many good qualities, which his political 
 opponents did not always give him credit for. He spoke 
 
1864. //. BIRMINGHAM. 33 
 
 about the war which was then beginning between the 
 French and the Austrians, and he said that when he was 
 young there was not a statesman in England of any party 
 who would have hesitated for one single moment to go 
 into that war on the side of Austria against France, with the 
 view of preventing the increase of French influence in Italy 
 and in Europe. But he said that he hoped, and he thought 
 it was probably true, that statesmen had grown wiser since 
 that time. Well, we did not go into the war in Italy; our 
 Government did not take sides with Austria, nor yet with 
 France. The people generally, I think, were rather in favour 
 of France, because they thought that France was in favour 
 of freedom in Italy. But, suppose these statesmen of the 
 old time, of Lord Aberdeen's youth, had carried out their 
 principles and had gone into that war, it is difficult to see 
 that things would have been any better than they now are 
 in Italy ; it is not difficult to see that probably they would 
 have been much worse, and that no doubt thousands of 
 our fellow-countrymen might have been lying in their 
 graves on the continent of Europe; that great sea-fights 
 might have taken place with great destruction; that the 
 French Treaty certainly would not have existed, and that the 
 harmony which now exists between the peoples of these two 
 great nations might have been intercepted for many years. 
 I won't go back to the Russian war ; you know the part I took 
 in regard to that. I have on my part to thank it for only one 
 thing, and that is, that it is owing I believe to the part I took 
 in that question that I now stand here in this borough as one 
 of your Parliamentary representatives. But, how were you 
 dragged, or beguiled, or excited into that war ? By the 
 impulse of these two aged ministers. They could not keep 
 themselves out of it. I am not imputing to them other than 
 honourable motives, but saturated as they were — I say saturated 
 — with the doctrines of a by-gone time, a time, I hope, never to 
 return, they fancied it was the duty of this small island to take 
 
34 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 29, 
 
 care of a rotten Governraeiit, and of a country devastated by 
 the oppressions and excesses of that Government, The result 
 was that amongst the various contending* nations, at least four 
 hundred thousand men's lives were sacrificed, and probably 
 more than as many millions of treasure were thrown entirely 
 away ; and instead of the affairs of Europe being settled on a 
 permanent basis — that is always their cry — you find that the 
 affairs of Europe at this moment are not settled on a permanent 
 basis, and that Europe has doubled the armed men and doubled 
 the military expenditure that it had before that war. 
 
 And now we come to another topic, and that is the ques- 
 tion between Denmark and Germany. I am one of those, 
 I hope, who sympathise even with men who wear crowns when 
 they are in trouble, and the difl[iculty which has overtaken 
 the King of Denmark does not appear to have been a difficulty 
 of his own seeking. There has been a difficulty for many 
 years with regard to those Duchies. It is not yet settled, 
 though perhaps it may be settled. But I do not know, 
 I doubt extremely whether anything that England could do 
 by sending ii5,ooo men into Schleswig, and by putting a 
 fleet in the North Sea, or the Baltic, or Adriatic, would 
 permanently settle that question. You may rely upon this, 
 that questions of that nature are only permanently settled 
 when they are brought to a conclusion by those alone who 
 are deeply interested in them. We are not deeply interested 
 in this question — I do not mean interested in the sense of 
 the Prince of Wales marrying a daughter of the King of 
 Denmark. I think nothing would be more unfortunate 
 than that, whilst the members of the Boyal Family are not 
 allowed to marry from English citizens, they should, in 
 marrying abroad, therefore embroil Englishmen in the quarrels 
 of foreign countries. I can imagine nothing more likely to 
 make Englishmen doubt whether Royal alliances can have 
 any pleasant interest to them than if such a course is taken. 
 We see it reported in the papers that the Guards have had 
 
1864. //. BIRMINGHAM. 35 
 
 orders, and that the fleet is to come to some place or other. 
 These, I fancy, are mostly at present paragraphs put out as 
 feelers or paragraphs of bluster, intended to operate upon 
 Austria or Prussia. But I cannot understand the object of 
 Austria and Prussia, unless it is that they are afraid of a 
 revolution in Germany, and are therefore taking a lead in 
 great operations which may save them from any unpleasant 
 change which may be impending. But if I were speaking 
 to members of her Majesty's Government, I should remind 
 them of this, that in 1853-4 there were members of that 
 Gt)vernment who talked of peace, and for peace. In Mr. 
 Gladstone's speech at Manchester the burden was a hearty 
 wish for peace, and peace doubtless was the wish of the 
 Queen and the Prince. And yet the Government went into 
 war. They take steps which they fancy do not mean war, 
 but they are gradually brought nearer and nearer to the 
 verge of it, and then under some pretence that they have 
 gone so far that they cannot honourably retreat, they plunge 
 over into the abyss. On that occasion I believe there were 
 members of the Cabinet who had not the slightest idea that 
 they were going into war. 
 
 And that leads me to speak about a curious custom of 
 the Cabinet on which the people generally are ignorant, 
 but concerning which I now feel it my duty to inform them. 
 When a Government is made, a list is drawn up of about 
 thirteen gentlemen who are to form a Cabinet, and who are 
 summoned to the meetings of the Cabinet. But there is an 
 inner Cabinet, and it is generally compounded of the Prime 
 Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and occasionall}'^ one other 
 Minister. While Lord Derby was a member of Sir Robert 
 Peel's Cabinet, he knew nothing whatever of a most im- 
 portant memorandum or understanding which had been drawn 
 up on an agreement come to between Sir Robert Peel, the 
 Duke of Wellington, and the late Emperor Nicholas of 
 Russia. Until he came to be Prime Minister he had never 
 
 D Q, 
 
36 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 29, 
 
 seen that memorandum, and never knew of its existence. 
 Well, I have been told that there was an attempt made when 
 Lord Derby's Government was formed to keep the whole of 
 that interior Cabinet in the hands of himself and Lord 
 Malmesbury, the Foreign Minister, but that a certain other 
 Minister, who knew the responsibility which attaches to the 
 deliberations of such an inner Cabinet, would have nothing* 
 to do with the responsibility of its great decisions unless 
 he were made acquainted with all the facts and with every- 
 thing belonging to them. And, therefore, the secret Cabinet 
 in Lord Derby's Government was composed of three, and not of 
 two members. But take this present Cabinet. I will under- 
 take to say, by what I know of what has been done on past 
 occasions, that a great deal of the most delicate business of 
 foreign affairs is conducted almost entirely by Lord Palmerston 
 and Lord Russell. Do not let me be supposed to insinuate 
 that Lord Palmerston has not had a most lengthened ex- 
 perience in foreign affairs, and do not let me be supposed to 
 say that Lord Russell is not anxious to have the affairs of 
 the country transacted in such a way as he thinks will best 
 serve the interests of the nation. But there may be members 
 of that Cabinet at this moment who are not aware of the 
 steps that are being taken from day to day, of despatches 
 that are being written, of suggestions that are being thrown 
 out, and of resolutions that are partly come to, and which 
 being once arrived at and determined upon by the Prime 
 Minister and the Foreign Secretary, will plunge the country 
 in war. If there be any member of that Cabinet who is 
 not in that secret knowledge, and he finds that these matters 
 are advancing towards war, let me beseech him, as he values 
 the price of his conscience during his lifetime, and his 
 reputation also with his fellow-men, which is of much less 
 real value, that he will take care to know everything that 
 is done, that he will not be made the partner, it may be 
 in great errors, it may be in great crimes, which he and his 
 
1861. II. BIRMINGHAM. 37 
 
 country, if the war should come, may have occasion to regret. 
 I have not seen a paper written out of London which argues 
 in favour of war, and I do not think the London press 
 generally has yet stimulated the country to violent action. 
 But let us here — we, the people everywhere — have our eyes 
 wide open at this moment, and by every means in our power 
 show that, while we are willing to sympathise with any 
 monarch, it may be, or any state under any difficulties of 
 any kind, we also consider it our duty in the present and 
 future interest of the people of these islands to show in 
 addition that, looking over our past history for the last two 
 hundred years, we have come to the fixed determination that 
 the power of England shall not be exerted, the blood of 
 England shall not be spilt, the wealth created by the toils 
 of Englishmen shall not be squandered, except it be in some 
 great cause in which the solid and permanent interests of 
 this country are engaged. 
 
 I fear you will think I have been preaching you a too long 
 political sermon. I wish this to be a free country — not to be 
 afraid of anything that is good because they say it is French, 
 or of something good because they say it is American, or to 
 stand by something that is clearly evil because they say it is 
 old. A very eminent writer, not long ago, said that England 
 to a large extent was still as it were fettered in the grave- 
 clothes of the middle ages. But we have a competition to run 
 with other nations, and, most of all, with that nation which is 
 now distracted and in the throes of a great Civil War. We 
 have also within our shores, and within the limits of these 
 islands, a great and a noble people. We have within us the 
 elements of a nation far greater in the future than anything 
 that has been in the past, even in the most renowned 
 and glorious days. We can set ourselves free from the 
 prejudices and from the darkness of the past. We can give 
 to our people education, we can open up to them new sources 
 of industry, we can reduce the expenditure of our Government, 
 
38 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 29, 
 
 we can invite another million or two of our people within the 
 pale of the constitution, and taking them, we can ask counsel of 
 them that we may assist each other in the wise government of 
 this great nation. All this we can do, and all that is wanted 
 is that in working out our political problems we should "take 
 for our foundation that which recommends itself to our 
 conscience as just and moral. I have not the slightest regard 
 for that statesmanship which is divorced from the morality 
 which we say ought to guide us in our private life, which we 
 gather for a nation as for individuals from the religion which 
 we profess. Time^ persistent labour, fidelity to the great 
 principles which we hold and believe in, will certainly give us 
 the victory over existing evils, as similar qualities and similar 
 conduct have given the victories which I have described to 
 you in the observations I have made. 
 
 ^>¥r 
 
III. 
 
 ROCHDALE, DECEMBER 23, 1867. 
 
 [On November 26, 1867, Mr. Jacob Brigbt was returned for the city of Man- 
 chester, by a majority of 1800 over Alderman Bennett ; the third candidate, 
 Mr. Mitchell Henry, having practically withdrawn. The number polled 
 for Mr. Bright was greater than had ever been recorded in Manchester for 
 any candidate before, though it is remarkable that the proposer of Mr. Bennett 
 disclaimed the notion that his candidate was *a Conservative.' On Dec. 33, 
 1 867, a meeting was held in the New Theatre at Rochdale, with the view 
 of congratulating Mr. Jacob Bright on his election.] 
 
 The first object of this meeting is doubtless to congratulate 
 my — shall I say fortunate or unfortunate — brother on his 
 initiation into the perils, the difficulties, and the disap- 
 pointments of Parliamentary life. But as I shall probably 
 not be considered capable of dealing with that question im- 
 partially, I shall advance a little beyond this subject and say 
 that we are met for the purpose of congratulating our fellow- 
 countrymen who are members of the constituency of the city 
 of Manchester, that they have by their recent choice restored 
 that city to its rightful position as regards the great Liberal 
 party of the kingdom. Looking back but a few years to 
 what happened in Manchester, and remembering how far I 
 was connected with it, I may be forgiven if I take more than 
 a common interest in what has recently been transacted. I 
 have always known that popular constituencies are in some 
 
40 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 23, 
 
 respects very much like individuals, they are liable occasion- 
 ally to fickleness and to error, and to what may be termed 
 aberration from a straight course ; but there is a consolation 
 in knowing that while in political warfare we meet neces- 
 sarily with great changes — now with a great reverse, and 
 now with a great triumph — yet in that respect we of the 
 Liberal party differ most essentially from those whom I would 
 call our friends, if they were not so constantly our opponents. 
 I mean the Tory party. Our disasters, which are by no 
 means unfrequent, and which sometimes give us great grief, 
 are always followed at no distant period by a corresponding 
 triumph; whereas with our Tory friends a disaster is gene- 
 rally final and irreversible. Their policy and their principles, 
 when once overthrown by the advancing intelligence of the 
 people, are buried,, and they hope for no resurrection. But 
 there is one thing even in connexion with these events on 
 which we may congratulate them ; for as we know that the 
 rain falls upon the just and upon the unjust, so we know that 
 our opponents of the Tory party share fully with us the spoils 
 and the advantages which the nation derives from our vic- 
 tories over them. 
 
 A very distinguished Frenchwoman, Madame de Stael, 
 left on record her definition of what she understood by the 
 word 'happiness.' She said that happiness consisted in 
 constant occupation for a desirable object and with a sense 
 of continual progress. Well, if that be so, I think we may 
 consider ourselves, politically speaking at any rate, as among 
 the happiest of mortals, for we have a constant occupation. 
 The end we seek is not only desirable in the ordinary use of 
 that term, but it is, as we believe, good in the hig'hest degree ; 
 and whether we look backwards or forwards, to the past or 
 to the future, I think we have attendant upon us constantly 
 a sense of continual j)rogress. Our friends the Tories un- 
 happily are in a very different position. They have had a full 
 and constant employment, for during the last twenty -five years 
 
1867. ///. ROCHDALE. 41 
 
 we have found them a great deal to do ; ])ut, as the result 
 has shown from 3'ear to year, and even from generation to 
 generation, they have no desirahle end in view, as they them- 
 selves find out in time. And more than that, whether they 
 look backwards or forwards, it is utterly impossible that any 
 one of them, except the mere seeker for some oflfice, can have 
 any feeling that he has aided in any continual progress, 
 unless it be that sort of progress which in this neighbour- 
 hood is called a progress backwards. 
 
 Just look back for a moment so far as the year 1832. 
 You will remember how the Tories were alarmed — almost to 
 mental distraction — at the thought of the passing of the 
 Reform Bill of that year. Go forward to fourteen years — to 
 the year 1846 — and call to mind, if you can, the things that 
 were spoken by most eminent speakers, that were writ- 
 ten by crowds of writers for the press, believed in, it may 
 be, by thousands upon thousands of the people, as to the 
 tremendous and appalling consequences which would spring 
 from allowing the people of this country to have free access 
 to unlimited supplies of food grown in other countries. 
 Remember the state of feeling into which those unfortunate 
 Tories were plunged by that prospect. Now come down to 
 the present year, 1867. Is it possible that all can be 
 untrue which has been said by them as to the disasters that 
 would arise if ever a moderate measure for the suffrage were 
 forced through or granted by Parliament? Think of that 
 unfortunate party — I am not speaking of the leaders — they 
 make it profitable enough ; they know very well what they 
 are doing ; they, many of them, understand these questions 
 just as well and as much as we understand them ; but I 
 speak of the Tory party in the country, who are the pawns 
 and other chessmen with which these leaders play their game. 
 Only imagine, and if you can imagine, it will only be to 
 excite your commiseration, how these men have been misled 
 from time to time, how they have been alarmed, how they 
 
42 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 23, 
 
 have striven as if for life against the very things that were 
 most calculated to do them good ; how they have spent time 
 and money ; how they have squandered untold sums of money 
 and oceans of beer in fighting contested elections, to lose 
 which would be the greatest possible advantage to themselves 
 and to the country. 
 
 But all that fear, these terrors, this striving, this political 
 warfare, this vast expenditure is in vain, for one of two things 
 always happens, — either we entirely overthow them, as we 
 did by the uprising of public opinion in 1832, in the time 
 of the first Reform Bill, or, as in 1846 and in 1867, their 
 own leaders come forward and capitulate. I must ^2iy — and 
 if there be any member of the Tory party here I hope he 
 will convey my feelings to his friends — I must say I feel a 
 great commiseration for them, for it seems to me that their 
 political life must be one unvarying cup of sorrow and dis- 
 appointment. Then, as if the last drop of it were never to be 
 taken, there is always something more left which they have 
 to swallow afterwards. I know Mr. Mill, the eminent mem- 
 ber for Westminster, says the Tory party are naturally the 
 stupid party. Well, that, I believe, is not denied by any 
 intelligent man among the Tories. Unless they are so stupid 
 that they cannot easily feel, the retrospect must be exceed- 
 ingly humiliating to them, and the future, or their endea- 
 vours to look into it, must be equally gloomy; but this last 
 humiliation appears to me to be almost the deepest of all. 
 
 Lord Derby has been considered more than any other man 
 to be relied on. ' Among the faithless, faithful only he.' 
 Everybody has not been of that opinion even among the 
 Tories, for I recollect once by an accident spending an even- 
 ing at a Welsh watering-place in company with the pro- 
 prietor of an out-and-out Tory journal published in this 
 county, and he told me he did not think much of Lord 
 Derby. He used a term which will be understood by a good 
 many here. He did not think Lord Derby was a thorough- 
 
1867. ///. ROCHDALE. 43 
 
 bred Tory; he was only a * broken-bair'd 'un.' My friend 
 evidently knew rather more about Lord Derby than some 
 of those who followed him. But if you look back upon Lord 
 Derby's career you will see some reason why his friends 
 should have trusted him. In 1835 he quitted the Whig* 
 party of that day because he would not consent to inquire 
 into or to interfere with the revenues of the Irish Established 
 Church ; and then in 1 846 he quitted Sir R. Peel and his 
 Government because he would not consent to go, with the 
 rest of Sir R. Peel's colleagues, from Protection to Free Trade. 
 Seeing that he had been so faithful to all that is worst in 
 the Tory creed, in 1835 as to the Irish Church, and in 1846 
 with regard to the Corn Law, I say there was very fair 
 reason to believe that he was a man who might be implicitly 
 trusted ; that at any rate, whatever might come, Lord Derby 
 would never haul down the Conservative flag. Well, that 
 might have been fairly said up to last year, but in 1867, the 
 year which is now about to close, the whole scene changed. 
 In the coming pantomime that will probably be exhibited 
 here there will be nothing more wonderful, and, if there 
 were not something in it melancholy, hardly anything more 
 amusing than the transformation scene that has taken place 
 in Parliament. All the arguments that were before used 
 have been forgotten. Every fact upon which orators and 
 writers relied has been kicked aside. Speeches without num- 
 ber, votes more than I can tell, protestations of the most 
 fervent character, principles which you thought never could 
 be stirred from their hearts, all these have been buried for 
 ever, and it is considered an indiscreet thing even to refgr 
 to them. Even now the insolence which Lord Derby has 
 sometimes manifested in his speeches, the invective of Mr. 
 Disraeli, the scurrilous vituperation of the Tory press — of 
 which we have heard and seen more, I hope, than some 
 of us have taken the trouble to read — all this, poured upon me 
 and others for years, has now been proved to be entirely a 
 
44 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 23, 
 
 mistake. In point of fact it is discovered in the year 1867 — 
 and I think it ought to be chronicled with other great dis- 
 coveries of the century, certainly of the year — that my prin- 
 ciples all along have been entirely Constitutional and my 
 course perfectly patriotic. It has been found this year that 
 the man who alone was considered faithful to his party has 
 hauled down his flag. He has forced through Parliament 
 and permitted to be given to the country a Reform Bill, so 
 far as the suffrage in the boroughs goes^ of a very extensive 
 character. Indeed, I say it is a democratic Bill, because I 
 maintain that it is scarcely possible to give a more thoroughly 
 democratic Bill, as regards the boroughs of England and 
 Wales, than that which has been passed, and that the suffrage 
 which has been permitted to be passed by the Government 
 of Lord Derby is probably as democratic as if he had enacted 
 that portion referring to the suffrage contained in the People's 
 Charter. 
 
 Let us remember too, that although at present it is con- 
 fined to the boroughs, all the arguments on which it has been 
 supported are arguments which go to justify the extension 
 of the same suffrage to the counties. If it be better that the 
 institutions of the country should be established on a wider 
 basis in the towns, why not in the counties ? If the people 
 feel such attachment to the Throne and to the institutions 
 of the country, so as to admire the House of Lords and 
 the Established Church within the limits of boroughs, is it 
 reasonable to doubt that all these affectionate feelings exist 
 even to a stronger degree outside the boroughs and in those 
 portions of the kingdom which we call counties ? In point 
 of fact, having made the concession which they have made 
 this year, though their votes may be withheld for a time, 
 they cannot in the slightest degree supply arguments for 
 withholding the suffrage from the great body of the people 
 who are living in the counties. Only two things are required 
 in order to give us a really democratic Parliament. The one 
 
1867. ///. ROCHDALE, 45 
 
 is that the distribution of seats should be in some degree in 
 proportion to the population^ and that every voter should be 
 permitted by the shelter and the machinery of the ballot to 
 vote according to his own honest intentions. When that is 
 done — and I think the ballot is not a very long way off — 
 I expect another very important change in the distribution 
 of seats may occur at no great distance. When that is 
 done, then I say we shall have a democratic and a popular 
 House of Commons ; and whether the legislation and ad- 
 ministration of the country be wise or foolish will depend 
 upon the wisdom or the folly of the great body of the 
 people. 
 
 Lord Derby has done all this in a certain way, — that is, 
 he has held the reins of office while in the confusion of par- 
 ties the thing has been done, and he has done it rather than 
 surrender office. It is not saying anything unfair to Lord 
 Derby to say that he does not, and did not, believe in the ad- 
 vantages of household suffrage. It is impossible that between 
 the Session of 1866 and the Session of 1867 he should have 
 made this vast change in his opinions and convictions. He has 
 done it to keep his party together, as he took office in the 
 summer of 1866 in order that he might not break up his 
 party. That is his own admission. And it is provable, 
 beyond all contest, that he brought in a Reform Bill, and 
 permitted that Bill to be carried, not because he approved of 
 that Bill, but because he was determined that on this ques- 
 tion, at all events, his opponents should not eject him from 
 office. If any one of you will call to mind what took place 
 in the Session of 1866, you will be convinced at once that 
 the great object of the Tory party was to drive Mr. Glad- 
 stone from office and to take his place. It was not to carry 
 a more liberal Bill than that which they had denounced 
 because it was so liberal ; for when they began to form a 
 government, it is said, and I believe truly, that they entered 
 into indirect negotiations with a distinguished opponent of 
 
46 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 23, 
 
 Reform, Mr. Lowe, and asked him to join Lord Derby's 
 Government. 
 
 But what changed their opinions between then and the 
 Session of 1 867 ? Without doubt the great meetings which 
 took place in different parts of the country, which showed 
 them that if they met Parliament without the promise of a 
 Bill they would within a single fortnight after its meeting 
 have to go back to that side of the House on which they had 
 sat upon so long, and on which they never seemed to feel the 
 smallest degree of comfort. During that Session of 1866 it is 
 impossible to describe, in language which would not seem to be 
 exaggerated, unfair, and even insulting, the eager and howling 
 rage which they exhibited against the unfortunate proposal 
 of a "J I, franchise. Their bitterness and malice against the 
 Bill would have been scarcely justified if the Bill had been as 
 bad as they said it was, and it is clear now that it was not 
 nearly so bad as they declared it to be. Their conduct in 
 the pursuit of ofiice reminds me of some lines which were 
 published a good many years ago, which never had a more 
 exact application than when they describe the course of the 
 Tory party last year. The poet in the ^ Rejected Addresses ' 
 says : — 
 
 * So when " Dogs* meat " re-echoes through the street. 
 Rush sympathetic dogs from their retreat. 
 Beam with bright blaze their supplicating eyes. 
 Sink their hind legs, ascend their joyful cries. 
 Then, wild with hope, or maddening to prevail, 
 Pwnts the quick ear and wags the expectant tail.' 
 
 Just SO the gentlemen of the front Opposition benches, and 
 such of them behind who thought that there was something 
 to be had, were sure to act. Especially, and above all, was it 
 the case with the lawyers, who have since been gorged with 
 patronage, and for the sake of that patronage and plunder, 
 which in India is called loot, formed a combination to over- 
 throw the Bill of 1866. To place themselves in ofiice and 
 to keep themselves there they consented to pass a Bill in- 
 
1867. ///. ROCHDALE. 47 
 
 finitely worse on all the points for which they condemned 
 the Bill of 1866. I venture to say their conduct on 
 this occasion leads to the conclusion that there is scarcely 
 any institution of the country, however honourable and 
 ancient, that they would not sell for the permanent posses- 
 sion of oflSce. 
 
 But, if there be occasion for us to criticise the conduct of 
 the Parliamentary Tory party, we may not the less rejoice at 
 the triumph which our opponents have achieved. There is 
 more to be added. They were not ready to let the thing be 
 done quietly; but since the rising of Parliament they have 
 taken steps to add greatly to that triumph, for we have seen 
 the leaders of the Tory party at great banquets in different 
 parts of the country dancing with a sort of grotesque exulta- 
 tion at the success of the principle of which they have all 
 along been the stoutest opponents, and which they have 
 declared in their speeches would be the destruction of the Con- 
 stitution and of the best interests of the country. To crown 
 the whole thing, we have seen Lord Derby, the last defender of 
 protection, the last and firmest bulwark against democracy — 
 we have seen him exhibiting himself in defence of free trade 
 and household suffrage on the platform of the Free Trade 
 Hall in Manchester. Notwithstanding this, I suppose that 
 our friends the Tories will still have faith, for their credulity 
 is without limit, and still believe in him — they must believe 
 in somebody — and that Lord Derby will stand as a sort of 
 saint in the political calendar of the Conservative party. 
 
 So much with regard to the past, which is full of interest, 
 full of material for astonishment. The future, which is not 
 so clear, is full of interest, but it is full also of anxiety, 
 because there can be no doubt that a matter will have to 
 be discussed in Parliament before long which will excite to a 
 great extent the feelings of the country, and in all probability 
 may excite the heat and the animosity of parties. The repre- 
 sentation of the country is not completed, as we well know, by 
 
48 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, dec. 23. 
 
 this Bill. We who have been active promoters of Reform 
 for the last twenty or twenty-five years never limited our 
 demands to the mere extension of the suffrage in boroughs. It 
 is not enough that men should have votes ; I would undertake, 
 as I have said before, to give a vote to every man in the 
 kingdom, and yet I could so arrange matters that the 
 Parliament would not only be not more popular or democratic, 
 but less so than it was before. At this moment there are in 
 England and Wales about fifty-six small towns with a 
 population ranging from 3,000 to 8,000 each, which under 
 the new Bill will return fifty-six members ; those fifty-six 
 members, one for each borough, will be returned by a popu- 
 lation not much more than half the population of Manchester 
 or Birmingham. The result would not have been so bad 
 provided those Members actually represented the persons in 
 whose names they profess to speak, but the real fact is, that 
 they do not represent the constituents of those boroughs as 
 you see them placed upon the registers of electors. Last 
 spring I was down in Somersetshire, and I saw half-a-dozen 
 gentlemen from a small and interesting town there. They 
 came to talk to me about politics, and I asked them what 
 would become of their borough, which at present returns two 
 Members, if one of those Members were taken away. The 
 answer was, ' So long as we have two Members we have a 
 fair chance of returning one Liberal, and we generally do it ; 
 but when we shall have only one Member to return, Mr. So 
 and So ' — mentioning the name of a gentleman in the neigh- 
 bourhood whom I do not now remember — ^ and the Cathedral 
 will be too strong for us.' Therefore in that borough, hitherto 
 divided between the two parties, Mr. So and So and the Cathe- 
 dral will return the one Member, and he will sit on the Tory side 
 of the House. He will not represent the free voice or voices of 
 the people of the town, but those voices which are subject to the 
 control of that gentleman who lives in the neighbourhood, 
 and of that Cathedral influence, which is very strong in the 
 
1867. ///. ROCHDALE, 49 
 
 borough. That is but one instance of nearly all these boroughs. 
 There are very few of these fifty-six which really have any 
 proper qualification for representation at all ; and so long as 
 you have in the House of Commons a very large section of 
 Members returned in this way, you will see at once that the 
 popular voice of the country — the voice of the great con- 
 stituencies like Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, and a 
 score of others — will have nothing like its proper influence in 
 Parliament, because two men returned from a great town in 
 Lancashire or Yorkshire will find themselves met by two men 
 returned from two villages somewhere in the South or the 
 West. All this will have to be changed very greatly before 
 the subject of Reform is really settled. 
 
 Reference has already been made to the question of the 
 Ballot, and I shall only dwell upon it for a moment or two. 
 The other day, in one of the speeches delivered at Ormskirk 
 or Southport, you who have read those speeches will remember 
 that reference was made to the Ballot, and while I was dis- 
 appointed to find that anything should have been said against 
 it, I took comfort when I found that so little could be said. 
 What was said was mainly this, that in this country we were 
 accustomed to the rule and principle that public duties should 
 be performed in public, and that is only a slight elaboration 
 of the old statement that the Ballot would be un-English. 
 It is curious enough that nearly all the English who formed 
 colonies, especially in the southern hemisphere, find the 
 Ballot a most admirable machinery for elections, and it is 
 there universally accepted as the means by which public 
 duties may be performed in public. Take a court of 
 justice. That is held in public. People may come in as 
 they like, the reporters take notes of the proceedings, and 
 the judge and jury are before the public, but the jury itself 
 discusses and deliberates and comes to its conclusion in 
 secret, and it is understood to be very dishonourable in any 
 juryman, after the jury have given their verdict, to inform 
 
 E 
 
50 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 23, 
 
 any person not upon the jury, any outsider, as to what was 
 the particular view of any member of the jury. It is felt to 
 be essential for the right performance of that important duty 
 that the jury should retire, and that its deliberations and con- 
 clusions should be in secret. Then take Parliament. Parliament 
 is open to the public ; people come in ; the reporters are there ; 
 and every morning, if you read the papers, you may know 
 more of what has been done in Parliament than anybody in 
 the House itself. That is all public ; but the Cabinet does 
 not sit in public ; the Ministers of the Queen hold their 
 deliberations and come to their conclusions in secret ; and it 
 is only when a great result has to be explained to the public , 
 in Parliament that the matter becomes in any degree open to 
 the public. So with regard to elections, they would be in 
 public ; the returning officers, the agents of the candidates, 
 they would all be in public ; everything would be fully known 
 except the individual vote of the individual elector — that 
 would be deposited in the ballot-box, or urn ; and to the great 
 advantage of the town and the constituency, until 4 o'clock 
 in the afternoon nobody would know what is the result of 
 the poll. Every man voting would thus be enabled to give 
 his vote in accordance with his own conscientious convictions, 
 entirely unfettered or uninfluenced by any other consider- 
 ations ; and the result^ I will venture to say, beyond all 
 contradiction, would give, in a more faithful manner than is 
 possible under the present system, the actual conscientious 
 verdict of the constituency to which the appeal should be 
 made. I hope at the next election that this question of the 
 Ballot will be taken up by the Liberal party everywhere, 
 and completely discussed. I do not go into it any further 
 now, because at some, perhaps, not distant time, I shall take 
 an opportunity of devoting an hour at least to a thorough 
 examination of this question, so as to show its vast advantages, 
 not to the Liberal party alone, but to the public^ and to show 
 the utterly flimsy and untenable character of the objections 
 
1867. ///. ROCHDALE. 51 
 
 which are made to it even by the few eminent men who have 
 discussed the matter in an adverse sense. 
 
 Before I conclude there is one other question to which 
 reference has been made, and which I think it would not be 
 right for me to pass by. I mean the question of the con- 
 dition of Ireland. It is not my intention to say anything* 
 in the way of explanation of what I conceive to be the 
 grievances under which the Irish people have laboured, nor of 
 the remedies which ought long ago to have been applied. 
 I have done this frequently, both at public meetings and 
 within the walls of the House of Commons. One thing, at 
 any rate, I may be allowed to say with regard to them, that 
 I entirely disagree with those who, when any crisis or trouble 
 arises, say that you must first of all preserve order, you must 
 put down all disloyalty and disobedience to the law, you must 
 assert the supremacy of the Government, and then consider 
 the grievances that are complained of. Generally after having 
 asserted the supremacy of the law, and having made what 
 they call peace under the terrors of the law, the grievances 
 are forgotten, and there is no consideration of them. This 
 has been the case in Ireland for 200 years. The great pre- 
 server there has been the gallows. Of late years the barbarity 
 of the law has but rarely exhibited itself; but in former 
 years the number of persons who suffered death by the law in 
 Ireland was something wonderful and appalling to think of. 
 Now, twenty years ago many of you will recollect that in 
 Ireland, under the guidance of one of Ireland's greatest sons, 
 the late Mr. O'Connell, there were held in Ireland meetings 
 of vast numbers of the people, equal probably in number to 
 the meetings that were held a year ago in Birmingham, 
 Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, and in London. Those meet- 
 ings were held to condemn certain things that were evil 
 in Ireland, to demand remedies, to even insist that there 
 should be a repeal of the legislative union between the two 
 countries, for many thought that only an Irish Parliament 
 
 E 7, 
 
52 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 28, 
 
 could abolish the miseries of Ireland ; but there is not one of 
 you that can point to any single or great measure of justice 
 which was given to Ireland in consequence of these great 
 meetings. They were on the other side of the Channel. 
 They did not frighten Lord Derby like the meetings of last 
 year ; they were not so near home, and the Government in 
 London always knew that they could count upon the power 
 of Great Britain to prevent any great mischief being done 
 across the Channel. The grievances were not remedied, the 
 demands of the people were not conceded ; nothing has 
 been done in Ireland except under the influence of terror. 
 
 If you go back to the first time when the horrible penal 
 laws were ameliorated, you will find it was during the time 
 of the American War of Independence, when the Government 
 in London felt that it would not do to have a great war with 
 the colonies on hand along with disaffection in Ireland, that 
 the penal laws were mitigated to some extent. In 1829 the 
 Catholic Emancipation Bill was passed, but the Duke of 
 Wellington admitted it was passed because he would not take 
 the responsibility of civil war. Afterwards, when a great 
 famine took place, a Poor Law was passed for Ireland, and 
 the Encumbered Estates Court was established in order that 
 the sale of land might be made more free ; but except under 
 the pressure of some great emergency, no man can point to 
 anything great or good having been done by the Imperial 
 Parliament for the Irish nation. But if these huge meetings 
 were disregarded, what was more natural or inevitable than that 
 a certain portion of the people, not reasoning well, stimulated 
 by an impassioned feeling of the wrongs done to their country, 
 should descend into the ranks, the odious and criminal ranks, 
 of a dark conspiracy ? If last year Parliament had refused to 
 extend the franchise, if all our great meetings had been held 
 in vain, if the popular voice had risen so that all the world 
 should have heard it but the deaf members of the Imperial 
 Legislature, you would have had in England, I will not say a 
 
1867. ///. ROCHDALE. 53 
 
 dark and a criminal conspiracy, but you would have had men 
 who would gradually have worked their way among- the 
 people, and would have instructed them in principles and in 
 practices which are near akin to the worst form of criminal 
 conspimcy. There is nothing so safe as great meetings. 
 Come together ; look each other in the face; let the men who 
 comprehend the things discuss them fairly before you ; consider 
 them well for yourselves ; vote by an open free vote in favour 
 of the policy that you require, and then let your rulers take 
 that voice as significant of the will of the country, and let them 
 bend to it and give the country that which it demands. That 
 has never been done for Ireland, and it is on this ground, and 
 for this reason, that you have at this moment the terrible and 
 calamitous state of things that exists. 
 
 In America you have another Ireland — an Ireland which 
 does not fear the Government in Ireland — an Ireland 
 which is full of passion with regard to what it believes 
 to be the sufferings of the country which has been left. 
 Many of the men who hold these views are capable, and 
 many of them desperate; they have been accustomed to 
 deeds — what shall I say? — deeds of cruelty and of blood 
 in the course of a most envenomed and sanguinary civil 
 war ; and, freed now from that war, what is more likely 
 than that they should turn the instruction they have received 
 to purposes which they believe in some degree patriotic ? If 
 the Government of England, if the Government of the United 
 Kingdom, as it is called, had been a Government of states- 
 men, does any man in the world believe they would have 
 allowed things to come to such a pass as this ? If your lead- 
 ing and eminent men, instead of clamouring constantly for 
 office had undertaken to teach the people what was true, 
 great things might have been done. Ireland might have 
 been tranquil, and the kingdom might long ago have been 
 united. As it is, see what a position we are in. The whole 
 civilised world points to our condition. The newspapers of 
 
54 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 23, 
 
 France, of Germany, and even of Italy, full of trouble as she 
 is just now, and the newspapers of the United States, discuss 
 with great freedom, but with more or less fairness, the 
 condition of this country with respect to the state of things in 
 Ireland. They do not now write about Poland, or Hungary, 
 or Venice, but they write about Ireland, and they point to the 
 people of Great Britain, and say that we have not done onr 
 duty towards our sister country. And whatever be the crimin- 
 ality which we all now deplore and condemn, a responsibility 
 that can neither be weighed nor measured rests upon us, the 
 people of England. Now, it would be easy to show that, as a 
 nation and people, we have lost greatly in character by the 
 state of things existing between England and Ireland ; and if 
 it were not a delicate subject to treat upon, one which I now 
 think it better to avoid, it would be easy to show how greatly 
 we have lost in national power and moral influence with other 
 nations, and especially with regard to our powers of defence. 
 Take one point only, the question of taxes. Many people can 
 understand the question of taxes who cannot understand any 
 other question. I am not able to give you the exact figures, 
 but I suppose that at this moment we are supporting out of 
 the Imperial taxation a force of 25,000 men in Ireland to 
 keep the peace of a country that we have ruled over — abso- 
 lutely ruled — for so many hundred years — which has been 
 under the Sovereign and Parliament of Great Britain for so 
 many generations. In addition to this, we have in Ireland 
 from 12,000 to 15,000 police, equal to the very finest soldiers 
 in the quality of the men, in drill and in discipline. This is 
 not all ; we have at this moment in Canada, 3,000 or 4,000 
 miles away, about 15,000 soldiers paid out of the taxes of this 
 country — and why are they in Canada ? In order that they 
 may confront, and if necessary drive back, the Irishmen in the 
 United States ; and if it were not for the moral sense of the 
 people of the United States and the good faith and honour of 
 their Goveniment, there is no doubt but that great trouble — 
 
1867. ///. ROCHDALE, 65 
 
 far greater than any we have yet seen — would have arisen on 
 that frontier between the Irishmen in the United States and 
 the subjects of the British Crown in Canada. Well, then, we 
 have from 50,000 to 55,000 men whom every one of us has to 
 help to maintain. We do not want them for any other 
 purpose than those I have mentioned either in Ireland or in 
 Canada, because the Irish people are a discontented and 
 insulted people, having grievances which they constantly 
 explain, but which we have hitherto refused to look at or 
 refused to remedy, and there is not a single one of them which 
 any sensible man among us will not say that we ought to 
 have remedied them without being asked. To do so would 
 not diminish our power of action in the least degree. Nay, it 
 would strengthen it for every purpose, and remove from us 
 the very greatest disgrace that has ever in our time, or in 
 recent periods, settled on the character and reputation of 
 England. We shall see by and by whether the present 
 Government is capable of dealing with this question. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel, when he resigned office upon one occasion, 
 admitted candidly that Ireland was his difficulty, not because 
 he had not done his best to deal with it, but because of the 
 party that sat behind him and the stolid opinion which then 
 prevailed widely in the country ; that he dared not propose to 
 Parliament the measures which he knew were essential to the 
 pacification of Ireland. He knew that if he proposed them he 
 would have been driven from the leadership of his party. 
 Therefore, he carried on the Government as long as he could 
 doing his best, although he failed at the last, confessing that 
 Ireland was his great difficulty. What, then, can the Tory 
 party do with Ireland? There is no part of the United 
 Kingdom in which the principles of the Tory party have had 
 such full and perfect opportunities as they have had in 
 Ireland. They have had an Established Church to their 
 heart's content. They have usurped the ecclesiastical revenues 
 of the whole nation, and given it to a small section, whose 
 
56 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 23, 
 
 whole number does not much exceed the population of all 
 Manchester and Salford. They have had nearly all the land 
 in the hands of great proprietors — nearly all the magistrates 
 have been chosen from these landowners and the Protestant 
 party. They have had any amount of soldiery and police. 
 
 r^ There is not a single thing that the most obtuse and bigoted 
 Tory can desire which has not been employed most fully and 
 completely in Ireland ; but unfortunately for the Tories, their 
 only specific when danger arises is terror. They have no 
 security for allegiance, and do not comprehend any but that 
 which consists in powerlessness to rebel ; and the consequence 
 is now that I fear they will act as in time past, enter on re- 
 pressive measures of the most stringent character, will enforce 
 a severe administration of the law_, and will call on the people 
 of England to support them in all that is severe. I could 
 make some excuse for a severe administration of the law, if I saw 
 that its administration would rapidly advance measures which 
 are likely to give satisfaction to a disloyal people. At present 
 I see nothing of the kind. Perhaps when Parliament opens 
 we may hear something, but I venture to say that there is no 
 
 ^_. man in Ireland who is a greater traitor to the Queen and the 
 laws of this country than a Minister who continues to hold 
 office, and is at the same time not enlightened enough, who 
 has not moral courage enough, to recommend to the Crown 
 and to propose to Parliament measures of justice for the 
 pacification of Ireland. Do not let me be understood as saying 
 that if there were a change of Government this question would 
 be grappled with with the force which is necessary. There are 
 men among the leaders of the Whig party who have fair 
 sentiments with regard to Ireland, but who, whenever they 
 treat of this question, are afraid of dealing with it as it must 
 be dealt with, and therefore it might be necessary, if there 
 were a change of Government — suppose that change of Govern- 
 ment were such as people generally expect — to stimulate by 
 vigorous language and by a strong expression of public opinion 
 
1867. ///. ROCHDALE. 57 
 
 the timid counsels of those who mig-ht succeed the present 
 Government when it resigns office. But the more I consider 
 this question, the more I am impressed with its indescribable 
 seriousness. I foresee many possibilities, and I am sure that 
 what I foresee is not without foundation, but I cannot and 
 I dare not discuss them before this audience. I think 
 that there are such perils as for a long time this country has 
 not known, and that it requires great resolution and wisdom, 
 such as we do not often find in our Governments, to meet them 
 as they require to be met. If Ireland is to be made content, 
 if her wounds are to be healed, if there is to be henceforth 
 what there never has yet been — a united kingdom of Great 
 Britain and Ireland — if the sceptre of the Queen, representing 
 the majesty of the law, shall ever be of equal authority east 
 and west of the Channel, this must be done, and this can 
 only be done, by measures of great statesmanship and of 
 justice. The morals of the turf, whether adopted on the floor 
 of Parliament or in the secrecy of the Cabinet, will fail here. 
 The disease which we are discussing is one of a different 
 character. There are remedies, unless it be that the remedies 
 are too late. Has this country fallen so low that it can 
 produce no statesman equal to these things ? I say the man 
 who, leading the counsels of the Queen's Government, shall 
 grasp this great question and conclude it — who shall com- 
 prehend the remedies, shall administer them, and shall make 
 them law — will do that which in future time the pen of history 
 will delight to trace. He will to the very full gratify the 
 noblest ambition of his mind, and he will build up for himself 
 a lasting memorial in the happiness and the gratitude of a 
 regenerated nation. 
 
IV. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, FEBRUARY 5, 1868. 
 
 [On this day a breakfast was given by Mr. J. S. Wrigbt, the Chairman of the 
 Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, to the artisans who had, at the in- 
 stance of the Society of Arts, visited the Paris Exhibition. Several of the 
 speakers expressed alarm at the risks which, in their opinion, English manu- 
 factures were running from the rivalry of foreigners, and were urgent 
 that the Government of the country should give assistance, by public 
 grants, to technical education.] 
 
 Before I say anything upon the special object of this 
 meeting, I must be allowed to thank you for the most kind 
 expressions which you have used with regard to me. I am 
 very sorry that there should be any great subject on which 
 you and I are supposed very much to diflPer, but if there be 
 such I can only say that I give you that full credit for purity 
 of intention and for honest convictions which you give me, 
 and I hope that in our walk through life, though we do not 
 take exactly the same course, we may have the honest inten- 
 tion of doing something if we can to help forward the one 
 great end which you have described as the promotion of the 
 interests of our fellow-men and of our common country. 
 
 With regard to the purpose of this meeting, I feel myself 
 rather as if I had been entrapped on this occasion, because 
 my mind has not for a long time past been running much on 
 the subject of education, and I find myself in the state of 
 some of our Conservative friends who are being dragged on at 
 
JV. BIRMINGHAM. 59 
 
 a rate which almost bewilders them. There is a very feverish 
 anxiety abroad to do something for the education of the 
 people. Years ago, in discussing the question of the Suffrage, 
 I have often argued that the ignorance in which we find 
 a very large proportion of our population was in itself a fact 
 strongly condemnatory of the character, and I will say the 
 really unpopular character, of the present Government. I 
 ventured to make a prediction on more than one occasion that 
 if by any means we could have in this country a thorough 
 representation of the people — I speak not now of any par- 
 ticular franchise, be it universal or household, or something 
 short of that, but a representation which should be a large 
 and fair and honest representation of the people — three years 
 would not elapse before we should have established some 
 general system of instruction, not for the rich or for every- 
 body, but for the great mass of the people who live upon 
 their labour and their weekly wages. Well, we have had 
 a Bill passed which approaches in the limits of the boroughs 
 to that which the most democratic have aspired after in the 
 extension of the franchise, and before that Bill has come into 
 operation, and while people are only looking at it and 
 wondering what it will turn out and what it will become, 
 everybody has found out that the people are not educated, 
 and there is a general rush into a new field of political action, 
 and an excitement upon the subject which is greater than 
 has existed in any previous time within our memory. It is 
 a very happy thing to say that a good many obstructions — 
 cobwebs, I may call them, though something more formidable 
 and stronger — are being swept away under the influence of 
 this new feeling. I believe that some of the assumptions of 
 zealous members of the Established Church with regard to 
 the question of education are being abandoned, and that some 
 of the scrupulous objections held by zealous men among the 
 Nonconformists are also found to be things that are not 
 tenable, and that they are disappearing from the field. 
 
60 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. feb. 5, 
 
 But still, with all one's gratification, I am not at all 
 certain that there is not something like a precipitancy and 
 rashness in the propositions which are being submitted to 
 the public, and perhaps I shall be obliged before I sit down 
 to throw a little cold water on some things that are being 
 said, and which good men zealously advocate. I do not 
 believe in everything being done by the Government, and 
 the speech of the gentleman who has taken such a dis- 
 tinguished part in the Paris Exhibition rather surprised me, 
 especially as he comes, I believe, from the north of the 
 Tweed, where the people are generally considered to be able 
 to take care of themselves. I think there is very doubtful 
 wisdom in proclaiming that everything that is to be done, 
 or almost everything, should be done by the Government. As 
 regards the expense, if the Government did not spend so 
 much as it does unnecessarily and unwisely in other directions 
 it would be very easy, with far less national expenditure than 
 we have now, to do far more than the greatest enthusiast 
 asks to be done with regard to this particular question. But 
 at present, as far as I can see into the matter, I should not ask 
 the Government, either by grants or by rates, by one or the 
 other, or by the two combined, to do anything for public 
 education except for that class of the people whose condition 
 is one of, I will say, to a great extent, deplorable ignorance, 
 and is the result of very great neglect on the part of the 
 Government in past times. Now, the mass of the labouring 
 population, whether m town or country, as we all know 
 — perfectly well know, notwithstanding the number of figures 
 to the contrary, — the mass of the labouring population is not 
 in a satisfactory condition with regard to its education. 
 I believe it is infinitely below that of Prussia, and 
 I think also of Switzerland, and infinitely below that 
 of the corresponding class, if there be a corresponding class, 
 in the Northern States of the American Union. For all 
 above there are ample means — I mean the middle class and 
 
1868. IV. BIRMINGHAM. 61 
 
 the class above them, who have certainly the means of 
 educating their children if they choose to do it. I do not 
 see exactly where the remedy is. There may be much done 
 with regard to the better application of the endowments that 
 exist. There is no doubt a prodigious annual income through- 
 out the country which proceeds from the piety, or some other 
 quality, of our ancestors : on this, special sections of the people 
 have laid hold, and from this the great body of the people 
 to a great extent has been excluded j and much might be made 
 of that. But I do not believe in the necessity or the wisdom 
 of the Government making any special provision for that 
 class of the people whose means are sufficient for the education 
 of their own children, and therefore I confine myself in my 
 view of what ought to be done to that very large portion 
 of the people who have no property but their weekly 
 incomes, and who at present have not the means — and have 
 not the disposition either to contribute of what means they 
 have — sufiicient to procure the education for themselves. 
 I dare say, with regard to the middle classes, when we get 
 rid a little more of sectarian differences, that it would 
 be possible for them in no very considerable time to establish 
 institutions which are more of a collegiate character than 
 those which now exist, and education might be forwarded 
 among them by their own voluntary combinations. There 
 is, therefore, no necessity to apply to Government for them. 
 
 With regard to the question of t-echnical education, I under- 
 stand that technical education means the teaching of trades, 
 or the fundamental principles upon which successful manu- 
 factures are based. Now, suppose we had in this country 
 all the working people educated, — I mean thus far, that every 
 boy and girl among them, as near as could be, should 
 understand how to read, should comprehend what was read, 
 should go through the ordinary rules of arithmetic, and had 
 that little general knowledge which every child picks up at 
 school — such as a little knowledge of history, a little know- 
 
62 ADDRESi^ES OF JOHN BRIGHT. feb. 5, 
 
 ledge of geography, and probably a little knowledge of draw- 
 ing, — supposing that this knowledge was universal among 
 all the children of the labouring classes, what else would be 
 necessary ? You would find from out of that vast body that 
 there would be certain boys who could by no means be kept 
 down to the level at which they left school. There would 
 be found in their mind and brain an energy compelling them 
 to do something more, and the desire to do it, so that if 
 you set them upon Salisbury Plain without anybody within 
 five miles of them, still they would carry on in some way or 
 other their education, and would become technically educated, 
 because one would be led into one branch and another into 
 another, and these children, specially gifted as you find some 
 children in all ranks of life, would become your leaders in all 
 your various arts and manufactures. In my opinion, then, it 
 will not be necessary to have much of what is called technical 
 training for particular trades. I have never heard in the 
 United States — I speak, of course, under correction — that 
 there has been much, or anything, done in the formation of 
 what we call technical education ; and yet I will undertake 
 to say that, looking to the short period during which the 
 United States have been a considerable nation, there is no 
 nation in the world that has surpassed the United States in 
 the progress that has been made by them in manufacturing 
 intelligence. Mr. Dixon spoke of the inventive faculty of 
 the Americans. I believe the people of the United States 
 have offered to the world more valuable inventions during 
 the last forty years than all Europe put together. Now this 
 has not arisen from the technical education of the people, 
 but it has arisen from this — that in the United States there 
 is no class of the people that is not sufficiently educated to be 
 able to read and to comprehend and to think; and that, I 
 maintain, is the foundation of all subsequent progress. Look 
 at our condition in this country. The great rich class have 
 no stimulus whatsoever to make any exertions. What could 
 
1868. IV. BIRMINGHAM. 63 
 
 stimulate a man who is a lord with a great estate, or a 
 country gentleman with a great estate, or a rich man of 
 almost any kind, — what could stimulate that man as a rule 
 to do anything more? He is comfortably placed in life; 
 he is looked on with so much respect that there is scarcely 
 any kind of stimulus which could induce him to make any 
 great effort. If you go to the other end of the scale in this 
 country, you will find I know not how many millions of 
 people totally unable to make those efforts, because they have 
 no education whatever, and their whole life is a mere scramble 
 to get a living. They have no opportunity, as they have no 
 aspiration, for any great discovery or invention. But in the 
 United States you have not that great and idle class, on 
 the one hand, and that great poor and depressed class, on the 
 other. The whole population is more like what we should be 
 in this country if we lopped off the rich from one end of the 
 scale and the poor from the other, and instead of having 
 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 of persons out of whom you can get 
 no invention and progress, you had the whole 35,000,000 of 
 people equal to the effort ; then from that vast reservoir of 
 human power, of human intellect, and of human energy you 
 would get those great efforts which we are totally unable 
 to make, from the circumstance that our very rich have no 
 stimulus to make exertions, and our very poor and very 
 ignorant have no power to do so. 
 
 I maintain, that if we were to establish throughout the 
 country a system of primary education, simple but sound, 
 and give to the people the power to read and to think, we 
 should lay a broad and great foundation from which would 
 arise almost all else that we want. With regard to the 
 distinct and special education, about which some gentlemen 
 have been eloquent, and about which we have heard so much 
 during the last two or three months, my lamented friend 
 Mr. Cobden, referring on one occasion to the condition 
 of Prussia, said that the Prussians were the Yankees of 
 
64 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. feb. 5, 
 
 Europe, and, from their education, he believed they would 
 Le the most powerful nation in Europe, because they had 
 followed in a very large extent, and although not exactly 
 in the same way, the system of the United States of en- 
 deavouring to give a sound education to their whole people. 
 There is no doubt that in future the strength of nations will 
 depend very much upon this possession — I do not mean their 
 strength when in war, although it adds very much to that — 
 but in the progress of invention and manufacture, in the 
 creation of wealth, in the consciousness of self-respect, and 
 in everything that really tends to make one nation greater 
 than another. 
 
 Mr. Aitken has spoken of the Kensington Museum. I 
 do not know very much about it, but certainly Mr. Cole 
 is a very pleasant person, whom I have known for many 
 years. I find him very actively engaged in the duties of 
 his ofiice. At the same time I find him assailed by a great 
 number of persons. But it is hardly possible for any person 
 to be actively engaged in anything without coming in con- 
 tact unpleasantly with somebody or other. Nothing could 
 be more reasonable and proper than that we should have 
 a good museum in Birmingham, another in Manchester, and 
 one in Sheffield, and so on, to allow opportunities for the 
 young, and for the old too, if they choose to see what is 
 excellent in manufacture and art, and for the purpose of study 
 and observation. But really there is no occasion to go to 
 the Government for that. There are some very rich men in 
 Birmingham, although it is said they are not so rich as some 
 of the people of Manchester ; but the people of Manchester, 
 you must bear in mind, are not nearly so rich as they were 
 some time ago. The sum of 25,000^. would go a long way 
 towards establishing a museum for a place like Birmingham. 
 It is not a very large sum to raise. There are persons in 
 Birmingham who might give ^oool., and who would not find 
 themselves poorer next day or less able to command the 
 
1868. IV. BIRMINGHAM. 65 
 
 luxuries of life. In the United States they do it far more 
 than here, and I suppose this arises from the fact, that^in 
 this country we have a very powerful class a long way up 
 above most of us, and there is a general striving to get up 
 there, to make eldest sons and families, and to get into the 
 titled or aristocratic order. Men who have any of those 
 ambitions like to keep their money together, and they fre- 
 quently forget something far higher and nobler. Many 
 people in America — there have been some in this country — 
 but there are many in the United States who set apart large 
 donations for great public purposes. I could mention some 
 of those gentlemen if necessary, though they are not per- 
 sonally known to me. I have often wondered how it is that 
 among our very rich men there are not more who will set 
 apart a portion of their wealth for objects such as those of 
 which we have been speaking. There are many men in 
 Birmingham — still more in Lancashire and Yorkshire and 
 London — who in giving 10,000/. or 20,000/., or even 50,000/., 
 would be in no degree injuring themselves, but would be 
 accomplishing an object of the very highest order in devoting 
 their riches to the elevation and advantage of those who have 
 been less favourably circumstanced. I do not therefore very 
 much favour the notion of going to Government and asking 
 them to help us to a museum in a place like Birmingham. 
 Having worked as you have worked for the last hundred years 
 in building up this great town and its industry, it is monstrous 
 to say — and if a stranger suggested it you would regard it 
 as an insult — that there is not public spirit enough, so far as 
 wealth is concerned, to procure for Birmingham, quite inde- 
 pendently of the South Kensington Museum and of Mr. Cole, 
 anything necessary to teach manufactures and art, and to 
 give an opportunity for that kind of technical instruction 
 to the young men who are connected with the special manu- 
 factures of the district. 
 
 On the general subject of education I shall not dwell, on 
 
66 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. feb. 5, 
 
 account of the feverish agitation which exists just now, for 
 this question is not to be disposed of by any spasmodic 
 effort. It is a subject of great magnitude and of great 
 difficulty in this country, when you consider, I will not call 
 them our theological, but our Church differences, and the 
 varied views men hold. I should recommend rather what 
 I may call a steady progress than a great rush, because in 
 making a great rush and introducing measures based upon 
 what I look at with great doubt — a compulsory and forced 
 attendance at schools — " am not sure that you will not 
 produce among the people a reactionary feeling, which may 
 defeat the very object which you have at heart. Suppose 
 you establish a great and broad system, and proceed to lay 
 considerable and heavy rates upon a people who at present 
 do not much appreciate education, and establish in your towns 
 a kind of truant police to look after the children who do not 
 Igo to school. If you bring too much weight to bear on the 
 people before they ar^ sufficiently enlightened to approve 
 your efforts you m^fi||3[/that there is a great reaction, and 
 your difficidties may:b'ecome almost, if not altogether, insuper- 
 able. Tlier great .mass of your children now are uneducated. 
 If you propose at once to create a great revolution of that 
 kind I am fearful that you will find that those for whose 
 benefit you are acting will not give you that co-operation 
 without which it is impossible that you should succeed. I 
 should recommend a more gradual assault on the ignorance 
 of the country, and that we should survey the institutions 
 already existing^ and as much as possible arrange that which 
 is new so as to dovetail with that which is old, and gradually, 
 it may be in a few years, come to that which exists in the 
 New England States of the American Union, where, through- 
 out the whole country, there is scarcely a boy or a girl who 
 does not receive a sound education. I am not speaking of 
 mathematics and classics ; those are the luxuries of culture. 
 I am speaking of the necessities of education — that persons 
 
1868. IV. BIRMINGHAM. 67 
 
 should learn to read and to write, to think and to do sums 
 in the ordinary rules of arithmetic, and have that general 
 common school knowledge which the faculties of almost all 
 children enable them to receive, but without any attempt 
 to give them those luxuries which may be reserved for 
 others. 
 
 I am afraid some of my friends will think that after all 
 I am not a great friend of education; but that would be 
 a great mistake. In all those public discussions in which 
 I have been engaged during the last twenty-five years I have 
 always argued that the ignorance of the people is the most 
 deplorable feature in our national character. I have argued 
 that if food could be cheaper, and trade more free, and industry 
 more regular, and wages higher, the result would be to raise 
 the mental condition of our population. I believe it has been 
 raised, and is being raised, and one of the signs that it has 
 been raised is that it asks to be raised still higher. We who 
 have had some little education ourselves, — though I am sorry to 
 say I have nearly forgotten all I ever had, — we, in endeavouring 
 to extend the means of education for the people, should go 
 on with what I would rather call a steady wisdom than with 
 such a precipitate and feverish action as may raise great 
 difficulties in our path. However, it is a most satisfactory 
 thing- that some of the church and sectarian differences are 
 gone, and that there is a recognition among the people that 
 more attention must be paid to the subject. I hope it will 
 be as much as possible local, and not unduly sustained by 
 either Government control or Government grants. I am sure 
 that the good which the people will receive will be greatly 
 enhanced in value by the self-respect created and the energy 
 developed among the people if they are allowed to a large 
 extent to do the work themselves. 
 
 I have said nothing of the deputation to Paris. The book 
 in which the reports have been published only reached me as 
 I was leaving home, and I have not had an opportunity of 
 
 F 2 
 
68 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 reading it, but from what I have seen and heard here I 
 must agree that such a visit must have been most useful 
 to those who were the envoys, as they have been called, from 
 the industry of England to the industry of the Continent. 
 I have nothing more to say, except to ask those who think 
 that I am slow and conservative to make such allowances 
 for me as they can. I am sure, whatever is offered to the 
 public and to Parliament that appears to me to be likely 
 in any degree to add to the intellectual and moral elevation 
 of our population, that I shall never be found unwilling to 
 give such a purpose my cordial and hearty support. 
 
 ^^ 
 
V. 
 
 LIVERPOOL, JUNE 3, 1868. 
 
 [The Welsh National Reform Association invited Mr. Bright to be present at 
 their Annual Meeting, to be held during Whitsuntide, at Liverpool. The 
 Chairman of the Meeting was Mr. W. Williams, a member of the Liverpool 
 Town Council, and the object of the gathering was to assist the progress of 
 Reform in the Principality, and in particular, the more equitable distribu- 
 tion of Parliamentary representation.] 
 
 In our school-days and from our school-books we learned 
 that Liverpool was a great seaport in the county of Lancaster ; 
 but our Chairman, notwithstanding, was not far wrong when 
 he described Liverpool as the capital city of the Principality 
 of Wales, for I understand there are not less than 60,000 
 natives of the Principality who are living in this town. I 
 am not sure that there is to be found a larger number than 
 this in any of the towns contained within the geographical 
 boundary of Wales. But further, I am told that this meeting 
 has in some degree a representative character, that*there are 
 men here from very many of the towns of Wales, and parti- 
 cularly of North Wales. But those from whom I got this 
 invitation told me, what Mr. Richard has already stated, 
 that there is among the Welsh people very great inertness 
 or inactivity in regard to political questions ; that they are 
 firmly convinced on all questions connected with their 
 churches and their religion, that in that one fact they are 
 
70 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. june 3, 
 
 capable of great organisation and great sacrifices, and have 
 achieved a great success, but in regard to political questions 
 they have seemed to think that in their comparatively small 
 country they had very little to do with the public affairs 
 of a great empire. 
 
 Now, I believe that it is essential for the greatest success 
 of a country that in every part of it all men should take a 
 real interest in national affairs, and that when great questions 
 come up for discussion and settlement, not only should the 
 voice of the people be heard in great cities but in small towns, 
 nay in every village, in order that a true result and a wise 
 decision may be arrived at. At this moment we have before 
 us a very great question indeed, one the like of which has 
 not come before the political people of England for their 
 judgment and their verdict for many years past ; and I hope 
 one of the results of the holding of this meeting to-night 
 will be that the verdict of the nation will not be given 
 without the voice of Wales being heard in it. The great 
 question is that of the destination, of the continuance or the 
 removal, of the Protestant State Church in Ireland. Now, one 
 would suppose that every Welshman would have been alive 
 to a question of this nature. Geographically you are nearest 
 to Ireland — at least of any portion of the southern part of this 
 island ; but, more than that, you have had an experience in 
 religion and Church matters more remarkable and more 
 thorough than any other portion of the people of Great 
 Britain has had ; and, apart altogether from the question of 
 Establishments, there can be no doubt that you have a strong 
 sympathy for justice, and as strong a wish that justice should 
 be done to Ireland as any other portion of the population of 
 Great Britain can have. 
 
 I need hardly tell you — for you have heard nothing and 
 read nothing on this subject without knowing it — that Ireland 
 has been governed by the Crown and the governing classes 
 in England for many centuries, and that, notwithstanding 
 
1868. V. LIVERPOOL. 71 
 
 this, notwithstanding an Act of Union passed sixty-seven 
 years ago, and notwithstanding the general impression 
 throughout the world that Great Britain and Ireland form 
 one kingdom, notwithstanding all this, there has never been 
 any real union between Great Britain and Ireland, and, indeed, 
 until lately, there has been no approach to good government 
 in Ireland. The rule of England in the country for three 
 centuries — I will go no further back — until a very recent 
 period was a rule through the Viceroy or Lord Lieutenant, 
 through the judges, and through the landowners. It was a rule 
 of Protestant and Political ascendancy with which the Irish 
 people had no sympathy, and against which the Irish nation 
 has perpetually protested. If they have had three hundred 
 years of government like this, they have had what was the 
 inevitable result, three hundred years of misery, of discontent, 
 of conspiracy, and of insurrection. 
 
 It was only about one hundred years ago, not quite one 
 hundred years ago, when the war was being waged between 
 this country and the American revolted colonies. It was only 
 then that the English Government consented to some relaxa- 
 tion of its cruel rule in Ireland ; and it was not until the year 
 1839, which seems but the other day to some of us, that any 
 single Roman Catholic, out of 6,000,000 Roman Catholics 
 then in Great Britain and Ireland, was permitted to take his 
 seat in the British House of Commons. Since 1829 there has 
 been a much more merciful and a much more just administra- 
 tion. But, notwithstanding this — and this was mainly the 
 result of improved representation in England under the Reform 
 Bill and of the advent of the Whig party to power — the 
 supremacy has been continued, and the sign and the symbol of 
 it has been the Protestant Establishment in Ireland. Now, 
 let me say here that the question really before the country is 
 not the question of State Establishments — this is not the 
 question which I am going to discuss ; it is not that to which 
 I wish you to give your attention ; it is a different question. 
 
72 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. june 3, 
 
 That may be ahead before us, but it has not yet come up for 
 discussion or settlement. 
 
 I am not prepared to say that there never was a time in 
 which it was not a noble idea to divide a barbarous country 
 into parishes, to establish in every parish, as far as times and 
 circumstances would permit, a learned and a religious man 
 with a view to train his neighbours in civilisation, in morality, 
 and in religion. I can conceive that it was a grand, a noble 
 idea many years ago that this 'should have been done ; but in 
 those times — or in that time — there was only one religion in 
 the country — I speak of England — and there was only one 
 Church. Under those circumstances, the plan might be good ; 
 certainly, the plan was possible ; but now circumstances are 
 wholly changed. The same thing may be no longer necessary. 
 The Christian Church in the United Kingdom is composed of 
 many Churches, and clearly the establishment of any one of 
 them must be in some degree an offence to the others ; and in 
 the judgment of many among the best and wisest men in 
 England it can only be injurious to the favoured Church itself. 
 As religion becomes more intelligent and more zealous, there 
 must evidently be the less room for any interference on the 
 part of the State. 
 
 But the question which is referred to in the resolution, and 
 to which I shall address myself, is one purely and wholly 
 political. Now, in the House of Commons, you know, and we 
 have been discussing the question for the last two months, a 
 majority — a remarkable majority — a majority amounting to 
 not fewer on one occasion than sixty-five votes — an absolute 
 majority of all the members of the House, supported Resolu- 
 tions which declared the necessity of the entire Disestablish- 
 ment of the Protestant Church in Ireland. But the Resolutions 
 had nothing, and that vote had nothing, to do with the 
 question of State Establishments. It had nothing to do with 
 that which moves you in Wales to disbelieve in the good of 
 •State Churches; its main principle and its purpose was entirely 
 
1868. V. LIVERPOOL. 73 
 
 political, and with a view to a great material advantage. 
 Now, whether a man accepts the principle of State Churches 
 as a wise one, or whether he rejects it on grounds in which you 
 would concur with me, you must reject the Irish Establishment. 
 Still more so on the principle of equal justice in the nation, on 
 the principle of what is best and what is beneficial for the empire, 
 we must in either case equally and emphatically condemn the 
 Irish State Church. Suppose it were proposed for the first 
 time to found a State Church in Ireland, is there one single 
 human being out of Bedlam — I doubt if there is one in 
 Bedlam — who would even suggest that the State Church to 
 be founded in Ireland should be of the Protestant Episcopal 
 creed ? Suppose you thought for the first time to establish a 
 State Church in Scotland, would any man say that the Church 
 to be so established should be the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
 which is in a very small minority in Scotland ? Surely no 
 statesman — I will not say statesman, for that gives a weak 
 impression, but I say — no man if he had to do what was 
 judicious, and had a heart to feel what was just, would propose 
 to establish an Episcopal Church in Scotland, or a Protestant 
 Episcopal Church in Ireland. Such a suggestion ought to 
 be scouted by all reasonable men. 
 
 In Ireland, notwithstanding the vast emigration which has 
 taken place from its shores, there is a population now of little 
 under 6,000,000 of persons. Of those 6,000,000, 4,500,000 
 belong to the Roman Catholic Church. Half a million, or 
 little more — I doubt whether more than a very little more — 
 belong to the Protestant Episcopal Church, and about half a 
 million belong to the Presbyterian Church. The census gives 
 us under 700,000 of Church Protestants, but we know that 
 when a Catholic is asked what is his Church by census 
 enumerators, he knows at once that the Presbyterian will 
 state that he is a Presbyterian, and that a Catholic calls 
 himself so, but that the other small sects who do not really 
 belong to either make this kind of answer, 'That when- 
 
74 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. june 3, 
 
 ever we go anywhere, we go to church,' and therefore they 
 swell the number of Churchmen to a point higher than 
 it would reach if the census were taken in the same strict 
 manner with regard to them both — with regard to Catholics 
 on the one hand and Presbyterians on the other. I am 
 not saying this for the purpose of exciting any ridicule 
 against the Church, but in order to show that I believe 
 I have fully estimated the actual numbers of those persons 
 in Ireland who have through religious motives any regard 
 for the Established Church there, when I put the number 
 down at half a million of the population. Now, if we 
 kneWj being these four and a-half millions, that this little 
 Church of half a million was planted among us by those who 
 had conquered our fathers, if we knew also that this little 
 Church was associated with everything that had been hostile 
 to our national interests and our national prosperity, and if we 
 knew further that it absorbed incomes amounting to not less 
 than 700,000/. or 800,000/. sterling per year, these incomes 
 being derived from national property amounting to probably 
 13,000,000/. or 14,000,000/. sterling, — I say, that if we were 
 of those four and a-half millions, let me ask every man of 
 you whether we should not feel that we have a just cause 
 of complaint, and that there is a national grievance in our 
 country that requires to be speedily redressed. 
 
 And here let me remind you of another thing, that the 
 position of the Catholics in Ireland is not like our own 
 condition either in England or Wales. In England time was, 
 and not very long ago, when all the people were Church 
 people. There was no nonconformity, the Church was not 
 imposed upon us by conquest, we were not driven from it, and 
 all the revenues, the clear revenues of the country, handed over 
 to our conquerors. For the most part we have withdrawn 
 from the Established Church ; our forefathers have quitted it 
 because they wished that in this manner they might have a 
 better opportunity of enjoying religious freedom and seeking 
 
1868. V. LIVERPOOL. 75 
 
 what they believed to be Christian religious truth. The 
 Church here is not to us a symbol of conquest, and although 
 we may think that the institution is not very useful in this 
 country, and least of all useful to those who are most attached to 
 it— although we may think this, yet we feel that we can wait 
 for whatsoever changes in regard to the Church time may 
 bring forth — changes which will be indicated by the growth of 
 intelligence and wisdom in the nation of which we form part. 
 I have said that this Irish Church is a great imperial question. 
 There are those who want to dwarf it into a sort of squabble 
 between partizans on one side and on the other. I hold it to 
 be an imperial question in this manner. It is a question of 
 the empire of union or of civil strife, it is a question of 
 strength or weakness to the nation ; and I can boldly assert 
 this, that I believe a majority of the people of England, of the 
 people of Wales, of the people of Scotland, and we know a 
 great majority of the people of Ireland, nay I believe every 
 thoughtful and intelligent man in the civilised world out- 
 side of these islands, emphatically condemns this Church of 
 Ireland. 
 
 Well, but who are opposed to us, and wish to make it 
 permanent ? I suppose I must describe them by a term which 
 is familiar to us. It is the Tory party in Parliament and the 
 country. But when any man, looking at the question for the 
 first time, and seeing who it is that opposes a State Church 
 in Ireland and who it is that supports it, imagines that it is 
 his duty to go with the Tory party, I would ask him to 
 recollect this fact — that this party has been opposed, so far as 
 we know at every time, to almost every measure of wisdom 
 and of justice that has been proposed in regard to either 
 England or Ireland. In 1 833, just after the passing of the 
 Reform Bill, there was a Bill introduced into Parliament, not 
 for the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland, but for its 
 diminution. You will not believe it even if I tell you, I 
 shall have to refer you to the Annual Register or to Hansard's 
 
76 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BBIGHT. june 3, 
 
 Debates, or to some of those publications in which all men are 
 supposed to believe, but in that little Church population of 
 Ireland, which I tell you is not more now than 500,000 or 
 600,000 persons — 100,000 families — a population scarcely 
 larger than the population of this great city in which we are 
 assembled, — that for that population in Ireland, in that par- 
 ticular Church set up there by the conquering power, there 
 were not less than twenty-two bishops receiving an income of 
 more than 1 30,000^. a year. There were all kinds of dignities, 
 the names of which I am not even familiarly acquainted with, 
 from bishops down to curates, and there were, I believe, from 
 1,500 to 2,000 clergymen, reckoning holders of benefices and 
 their curates. And the whole of those established there for 
 what purpose ? To teach a form of Protestantism to a popu- 
 lation not larger than the population of Liverpool. The 
 world elsewhere has no example, I will undertake to say, 
 of an enormity like that, and yet, when the Government of 
 that day brought in a Bill to reduce the numbers from twenty- 
 two bishops to twelve, there was a great outcry made against 
 the measure, and it was opposed — violently opposed — in both 
 Houses of Parliament, on one ground or another, though the 
 Bill ultimately passed. Some of those who supported it — and 
 I believe there were even some English bishops who supported 
 the Bill — for the most part supported it on the sagacious 
 principle that they might go further and fare worse. 
 
 Now, we have lately had a spectacle which is very exhilarat- 
 ing to my mind in one way, though I wish the cause had been 
 rather better — we have seen the archbishops and bishops of 
 the Church of England doing what is described in America 
 when they say a man has taken to the ' stump.' St. James's 
 Hall, a building in which many remarkable meetings have been 
 held, has been filled with ardent friends of the Established 
 Church everywhere, — not apparently of this Established Church, 
 but of the Established Church everywhere. It has been filled 
 with an audience of devoted admirers of Established Churches, 
 
1868. V. LIVERPOOL. 77 
 
 and the platform was crowded with archbishops and bishops 
 and dignitaries of the most august and imposing character. 
 So ardent were they in their cause, that when a very admir- 
 able gentleman, who occupies no less an office than that of 
 Dean of Westminster, began in a speech he made to approach 
 the question in a moderate and rational manner, he was 
 positively hissed down. I am only sorry he did what it 
 appeared to me he did, mistake his duty in finding his way 
 to this meeting. But what was this meeting about? I 
 have heard it described in various language. One gentle- 
 man said it was a meeting of trades' unions ; some one else, 
 not less ingenious or less accurate, said it appeared to him 
 a meeting of shareholders in a very lucrative concern, who 
 fancied by some possibility their dividends might be reduced. 
 Now, I have no objection to these important and dignified 
 persons coming before the public on platforms and discussing 
 public questions ; I wish they would do it oftener, and I wish 
 it had been their practice in past times. But I never heard 
 that they met in such numbers to discuss any great question 
 of public interest before. For the last two hundred years, up 
 to the end of the great war with France, this country was 
 almost constantly engaged in war. T never knew them meet 
 to promote peace and to condemn war. When the great 
 question of slavery agitated the country, though there were 
 some of them that gave their support to the right side on 
 that question, there was no combined and unanimous move- 
 ment in regard to it. When twenty- five or thirty years ago 
 we met — some of you who are here to-night, probably, in this 
 very building — to denounce one of the greatest iniquities that 
 ever assumed the form of law — the Corn Law — the arch- 
 bishops and bishops never for one moment deemed it their 
 duty to express an opinion upon the question, or, so far as we 
 know, to give it five minutes' examination. I have never 
 known them in England or Ireland, in the most calamitous 
 days of our modern history — I have never known them come 
 
78 ADDEESSFS OF JOHN BRIGHT. junk 3, 
 
 forward in any combined manner to expose the sufferings and 
 denounce the wrongs which were practised upon their poorer 
 countrymen ; but now, when they think — and in my opinion 
 they are mistaken in the presentiment — that their Church 
 in England is menaced by proceedings which are being taken 
 with regard to the Church in Ireland, they are all up in arms, 
 and one would suppose that the whole country and Christianity 
 were going at once to ruin. Suppose that a foreign Power 
 were to come to England and take from them all the ecclesias- 
 tical revenues of the English Church and hand them over to 
 the bishops and clergy of a small and unimportant minority, 
 and make that the garrison for holding this country in 
 subjection to that foreign Power, what would those arch- 
 bishops and bishops say in a case like that ? And yet that 
 is precisely the position in which the Established Church 
 of Ireland stands before all the world, and in the support 
 of which those eminent and dignified persons come violently 
 forward. 
 
 Now, what is it that we propose to do ? So far as I 
 am concerned, I should be sorry to join any political party 
 that was about to do a real injury or a real injustice 
 to any portion of the people. We propose — Mr. Glad- 
 stone in his Resolution proposed — ^the House of Commons, 
 by its great majority, has resolved — to place the Episcopal 
 Church — the Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland, in this 
 position — a position familiar to you. You have been in this 
 position for a long time, you know exactly its hardships, 
 its grievances, its advantages, and its glorious successes. We 
 propose to put the Protestant Episcopalians of Ireland in 
 exactly the same position that the Welsh Free Churches are 
 in now, — in that position in which the Wesleyan Churches 
 and in which the Free Churches of Scotland are ; and also, 
 I may say, it is the same position in which all the 
 Protestant Churches, the Episcopalian included, are in Canada, 
 in the Australian colonies, and in the United States of North 
 
1868. V. LIVERFOOL. 79 
 
 America. But we propose to give them this advantage, 
 which you have never had, to leave them in possession of all 
 the churches wherever they have a congregation that will 
 keep them in repair, and of all the parsonage houses belong- 
 ing to those churches where there are congregations who will 
 support a minister. You have had to build on your hill-sides 
 and in your valleys in Wales all those churches and chapels of 
 yours which we see in travelling through your lovely country. 
 In Scotland the churches and manses of the Free Church have 
 been built within the last twenty-five years by members of 
 the Free Church. In England I need not tell you that half 
 the people of every creed who go to places of worship go to 
 buildings which have been erected by the voluntary offerings 
 of those who are not connected with the Episcopal Church. 
 If you go to Ireland you would find 5,000,000 Roman Catholics 
 who own scarcely any of the land, but who have been in 
 times past the poor, the naked, and the meanest in the land, 
 who have established for themselves chapels and priests' 
 houses and hospitals and schools, nearly, if not altogether, 
 sufficient for the spiritual wants of their people. Well, then, 
 w^e propose to deal thus with this Established Church of 
 Ireland. The Archbishops -and Bishops who met in St. 
 James's Hall cried out as if we were about to perpetrate the 
 grossest and most intolerable cruelty to which men have ever 
 been subjected. There are one or two facts connected with 
 that Church which are worth knowing. From Parliamentary 
 reports and returns, — documents which I believe may be 
 relied upon, — it appears that for thirty years — from 1833 to 
 1862 — there has been a sum of not less than 3,500,000^. 
 paid by the Ecclesiastical Commission for the churches and 
 glebe houses of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Well now, 
 during that time, or a rather longer time, — taken from the 
 beginning of this century, a period of sixty-seven years, — 
 the Roman Catholic Church has expended in voluntary con- 
 tributions a sum of not less than 5,000,000/. sterling. But 
 
80 ADDRESSER OF JOIiy BRIGHT. june3, 
 
 there is a further very curious statement — that for sixty 
 years previous to 1833 the whole sum contributed ly the 
 Protestant Episcopal sect in private donations has been not 
 more than 1 70,000/., or about 3000/. a year ; and it is be- 
 lieved now, and I believe it can be proved, that of late years 
 the Catholics of Ireland, of their own private voluntary 
 donations, have contributed not less than 200,000/. a-year 
 for their voluntary religious purposes. So, unless these poor 
 cripples of the Episcopal Church of Ireland are invalided by 
 State support — unless they are feebler, less zealous, and less 
 earnest than almost all the rest of the people of the United 
 Kingdom and the colonies of this empire, surely they can do 
 as much as others can do, and more and better than anything 
 that they have hitherto done. 
 
 Now, if this Bill should pass — I mean the Bill that 
 in the course of things, if the Parliament to be elected 
 in winter should take the same view as the Parliament 
 now sitting, will pass, what will happen with the Irish 
 Church ? These archbishops and bishops believe that chaos 
 will come again. Nothing of the sort. What will happen 
 will be this : — The Irish Episcopal Church would summon 
 what in America they call a convention. In other words, the 
 archbishops, the bishops, and clergy, and their congrega- 
 tions if they can bring them together, would send to Dublin 
 1,000 or 500 or any smaller number of thoughful earnest men 
 to determine on their future organisation of the Church. 
 When they come together they can settle all questions of 
 creed and all questions of discipline, and they will require, of 
 course, to originate what they call in the Free Church of 
 Scotland a Sustentation Fund — that is, a fund to which 
 everybody gives who is able and willing to give — a fund out 
 of which ministers are supported in remoter parishes and 
 districts where their congregations are too poor to support 
 them. Of course the rich congregations in Ireland would 
 be just as able and, I hope, just as willing to help the poorer 
 
1868. F. LIVERPOOL. 81 
 
 congregations as the people of Wales or the people of 
 Scotland. And when that is done there will be a free 
 Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland. Judging from what 
 the Protestant Churches have done elsewhere we need not be 
 afraid of the result. I said years ago that the abolition of 
 the Established Church in Ireland would afford in that 
 country one more chance to the Protestant religion ; it would 
 go forth with its free Bible and its truths, and, no longer 
 weighted by the intolerable burden of its connexion with the 
 State, it could offer its teaching in gentleness and Christian 
 love to the whole population of that island. But there would 
 not only be a change in the condition of the Episcopal 
 Church ; the whole condition of Ireland would be changed, 
 for ancient grievances would be redressed. Then strife 
 would cease, and justice would have become in Ireland a 
 guiding principle of the Imperial Parliament. I believe that 
 we should soon begin to have, and should ultimately have, a 
 united nation and a loyal people. 
 
 Now, Mr. Richard asked the question. Can Wales do 
 anything to help on this great movement? You are Non- 
 conformists in Church matters, you are Liberals in politics. 
 I know Members from Wales in the House of Commons, 
 some who are Liberals, and some who are not Liberals ; but 
 I believe they are all liberal enough to acknowledge this, 
 that you are generally Nonconformists in Church matters, 
 and that you are generally Liberals in politics. I recollect 
 one of those who are not on our side of the House telling me 
 that he thought generally ' the people of Wales were followers 
 of my friend Mr. Cobden and myself.* He meant of course, as 
 far as they studied political questions, that they inclined to 
 views which my lamented friend and I have held during the 
 last twenty or twenty-five years. You are a people capable of 
 great self-restraint, although you are said to be rather hot- 
 tempered. You are very industrious, very frugal, and very 
 orderly as citizens. The Judges when they go through Wales 
 
182 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. june3, 
 
 have almost nothing to do. I was lately at Dolgelly, when 
 her Majesty's representative the Judge of Assize came round, 
 in great style of course, with the sheriff and his friends and 
 followers ; there was the Judge with all his retinue and cook — 
 I do not know whether it is true, but a Welshman told me 
 that the Judges always bring their cooks with them — but 
 I think that there were only two prisoners, and they were 
 both tramps who had come from England. If you have all 
 these great qualities, if you are capable in other matters of 
 the remarkable organisation which you exhibit in religious 
 matters, surely you may do something in another field where 
 it is hardly less your duty to work than in that religious 
 field in which you are so eminent. Our great poet, in that 
 exquisite poem which his inspired genius has left us, has 
 described the Welsh as ' an old and haughty nation, proud in 
 arms.' The arms that you wield now are not such as your 
 forefathers wielded, but they are infinitely more effective and 
 infinitely more irresistible. You could not, in the times that 
 are passed, contend with the power of England ; but now you 
 may unite your power with the power of all men who love 
 freedom either in England or in Ireland, and you may, by a 
 significant addition to our Parliamentary majority, contribute 
 to the success of that great question which is now before 
 Parliament and the country. I know that the influence of 
 your landowners is great. I was one day conversing 
 with a Welsh farmer ; he occupied nearly i^oo acres of 
 land, and was a man of excellent character. When he 
 spoke of his landlord he always spoke of him as ' my 
 master.' I believe that he was not less independent than 
 other Welsh farmers, but the phrase struck me as rather 
 peculiar and somewhat unpleasant. I know not whether until 
 you have the Ballot you will be able to make head against 
 the power that is over you, but still, when I think of what 
 you have done in religious matters with your wonderful 
 organisation, of the way in which you have triumphed over 
 
1868. V. LIVERPOOL. 83 
 
 the oppressions of a hundred and fifty years ago, I think it is 
 not impossible that you should succeed even against this 
 power. Public opinion is less tolerant now, at any rate less 
 tolerant than it was formerly, of the coercion practised by 
 landed proprietors. It will become probably every year less 
 and less tolerant. I can conceive the time when no land- 
 owner in Wales will dare to expel a tenant for exercising 
 conscientiously his right to vote. The day will come when 
 there will be a morality in these questions so omnipotent that 
 a landowner will be thought as evil a man if he robs his 
 tenant of his vote as if he had robbed him of any article of 
 property which he possesses. 
 
 Well, I have confined myself to this first question — I quote 
 from a speech of a Member of the Government — ' It is the 
 question of the hour.' A general election is near at hand. 
 It must come between now and March ; it may come, and 
 probably will come, between this time and Christmas. There 
 are many efforts made to deceive the electors ; the present 
 First Minister is skilled in phrases, especially in phrases that 
 are calculated to deceive. More than twenty years ago he 
 condemned the Church of Ireland in language as forcible as 
 any that I could use, for he denounced it as an alien Church. 
 During the present Session, being himself in very difficult 
 circumstances, he has offered to the Roman Catholic bishops 
 of Ireland to endow for them, for the Roman Catholic Church, 
 a Roman Catholic University. Do not imagine that I am 
 condemning this proposition because it is made to the 
 Catholic Church. What I would do for a Protestant Church 
 I would do for the Catholic Church. I say that this Minister 
 condemned the alien Church many years ago. He under- 
 stands the question as well as any one of us. This Session 
 he has [proposed to establish by charter and to endow a 
 Roman Catholic University in Ireland. He has felt his way 
 as to whether Parliament and the country would tolerate his 
 endowment of the Church of Rome in Ireland; he has 
 
 G 2 
 
84 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jitne 3, 
 
 spoken contemptuously of the pittance of 40,000/. a-year 
 which is voted by Parliament for the Presbyterian ministers 
 in Ireland, and he and his colleagues have spoken of levelling 
 up, saying his policy was not to destroy, but to create. 
 How will you level up Ireland, if the Established Church is 
 to remain as it is, but by placing the Catholic Church upon 
 an equal platform in regard to the favour it is to receive from 
 the State ? What was the purpose of suggesting the miser- 
 able amount of the Regium Donum but to hold out to the 
 Presbyterians of Ireland the hope that, if they would be 
 quiet while another transaction was being done, they should 
 have their 40^00/. annual vote doubled or greatly increased ? 
 In point of fact this very Minister, who twenty years ago 
 denounced the Established Church of Ireland as an alien 
 Church, comes forward now, in his position of First Minister, 
 and offers to the Catholic Church with the one hand a great 
 bribe, and to Presbyterians with the other another great bribe, 
 on the sole condition that they shall allow him io continue 
 for ever the Protestant Church in Ireland; and then, after 
 making these offers to the Church of Rome, and finding that 
 Parliament is not in favour of them, he does his best to set 
 up the cry of ' No Popery ' to serve at the next election. 
 Why that ' No Popery ' cry has done much harm in time 
 past, but it never did so much harm within the last hundred 
 years to the Catholics as it has done to the Protestants. It 
 has prevented the Protestants of the United Kingdom from 
 being just to their Catholic countrymen, and I know no greater 
 harm that could be done to a people than by doing that which 
 shall make them disregard the first principles of justice. 
 
 Now I speak to you, Welshmen, who, inhabitants of this 
 town, are representatives of your brethren in the Principality, 
 you who have done so much for religious freedom, you who 
 made Christianity universal throughout your country; I ask 
 you to resolve upon this, — that nothing shall draw you from 
 your determination to grant as far as lies in your power 
 
1868. V. LIVERPOOL. 85 
 
 perfect religious equality in Ireland ; not equality with a 
 Roman Catholic State Church, but equality with a Protestant 
 Free Church in that nation — pure equality, in fact, on the volun- 
 tary principle. It is admitted by everybody that you must 
 aim at equality in Ireland. That is only political justice. But 
 it can be eflected only in one of two ways, either by endow- 
 ing and making a State Establishment of the Roman Catho- 
 lic Church, or by disestablishing the Protestant Church and 
 adopting the voluntary principle throughout the whole of the 
 country. It is for you to decide what you will do. I observe 
 among your Welsh members, and it is a very curious fact, 
 that more of them voted against Church-rates than on behalf 
 of anything else that is liberal. The reason is this, that 
 among Welsh populations Church-rates were a known and felt 
 grievance until they were abolished, and therefore your Mem- 
 bers took care generally to be in the House when the Church- 
 rate question was discussed, and a larger number of them voted 
 for the abolition of Church-rates than against any other nuisance 
 or evil that I am acquainted with. So, if you will go as near to 
 your representatives on this question of the Irish Church — feel 
 that to be your own grievance — you may depend upon it we 
 shall have a better vote in Parliament in the next Session 
 from the Welsh Members than perhaps we have ever had 
 before. I hold you, I bind you to this, that you are for 
 justice to Catholic and Protestant in Ireland, established on 
 the voluntary principle ; and I argue that you must have 
 this opinion, and that you will support it, because you cannot 
 sever Christianity from justice, and because you know and 
 feel that to do justice to Ireland and to Irishmen must be 
 to add honour and unity and strength to the Crown and to. 
 the people of this Empire. 
 
 (A vote of thanks having been passed to Mr. Bright, 
 Mr. Bright acknowledged it, and added) : — 
 I feel that if I were not so hoarse I should take the oppor- 
 tunity, in returning my thanks to you for your kindness, to 
 
86 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. june 3, 
 
 make one or two further observations. The gentlemen who 
 have moved and seconded this resolution have referred to the 
 fact that I have come to this meeting during the four or five 
 days of the Parliamentary recess. When I was first asked 
 to come down, as Mr. Rathbone knows, after having argued 
 the question with him, I wrote to him to excuse myself and 
 to decline. However, Welshmen appear to be more perti- 
 nacious than Mr. Rathbone, or perhaps he suggested the 
 next assault that was made upon my intentions, and a depu- 
 tation came to the House of Commons to ask me to com- 
 here. Now, the question is one of that extraordinary im- 
 portance that I did not feel myself at liberty to refuse to 
 come when it was represented to me that possibly the influ- 
 ence of this meeting might extend beyond the bounds of 
 Liverpool, and might reach some portions of the Principality 
 of Wales. One way in which I hold this meeting to be of 
 special importance is that I have heard what has been said 
 by the speakers to-night as to the great contest in which we 
 are engaged, and the desperate struggle which will be made 
 at the next general election. I have heard elsewhere of the 
 funds which are being provided by the friends of the Govern- 
 ment and the friends of the Irish Church. All this may be 
 quite true. I have asked myself what will happen in case 
 we should be defeated. It seems an extravagant question to 
 put, but, not to omit a regard for all sides of the question, 
 let us ask ourselves what would happen if we should be de- 
 feated. You know that in Ireland there are elements of 
 great disorder. There is a Fenian party of considerable di- 
 mensions and of great activity. Beyond them there is 
 a very large amount of what I may call tacit disloyalty; 
 beyond that there is a still larger amount of what I may call 
 serious discontent ; and beyond that even, among the Catho- 
 lic population especially, there is a universal dissatisfaction 
 with the state of things in Ireland, and with the course 
 taken by the Imperial Parliament. Now, nothing is more 
 
1868. V. LIVERPOOL. 87 
 
 plausible, hardly anything more reasonable, than to say to an 
 Irishman, * You cannot be well governed with a Parliament 
 in London to which you only send one member out of six 
 who meet there. Your 105 members from Ireland are sub- 
 merged, lost, absorbed in the mass of the members for Great 
 Britain, and the Imperial Parliament cares nothing for your 
 voice.' The persons of whom I am speaking, if addressing 
 an Irishman, would say, ' Your first business is to obtain a 
 separation from Great Britain and a Parliament in Dublin. 
 No one country can be impartially and wisely governed by 
 another country.' That is one plain argument offered to 
 Irishmen, and it has in it great force. Now, my opinion is 
 this, that if through a cry of ' No Popery,' or ' Church in 
 danger,' or any other cry, one result of the next election 
 should be to make it impossible in the coming new Parlia- 
 ment to disestablish the Irish Church, every man who has 
 used that argument to an Irishman, or to the Irish popu- 
 lation, would find his argument not only immeasurably 
 strengthened, but rendered almost conclusive ; and we 
 should find — I don't say more Fenianism, and more of that 
 kind of conspiracy which has exhibited itself occasionally in 
 a reckless form — but we should find in Ireland a far greater 
 discontent and a far greater resolution to achieve, if it be 
 possible, the separation of Ireland from Great Britain. I 
 have never said that Irishmen are not at liberty to ask for, 
 and if they could accomplish it, to obtain the repeal of the 
 Union. I am not now speaking to Irishmen, I am speaking 
 to a meeting composed mainly of persons residing in and 
 natives of Great Britain. I say that we have no right — I 
 am willing to say this anywhere — we have no right whatever 
 to insist upon a union between Ireland and Great Britain 
 upon our terms only. We have only a right to insist that 
 the United Kingdom shall not be severed if we are willing 
 to do full justice to the different nations of which it is com- 
 posed ; and, therefore, there is a question far more important 
 
88 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 than whether this man or that man shall be Prime Minister, 
 or whether a particular Cabinet^ shuffling and offensive as 
 this Cabinet is, or a more honest Cabinet which may succeed 
 it, should govern the country, — there is a question far greater 
 than whether this or that Cabinet shall be in office. It is 
 whether the people of England have raised themselves to 
 such a height of political intelligence and to such a sense of 
 political justice as to induce them to deal fairly and honour- 
 ably, and as they would like to be dealt with themselves, by 
 the Irish nation. Until I find that the people of England 
 at their next election shall decide adversely to justice to Ire- 
 land, I will not believe them capable of doing so. I will 
 hope and I will speak so far as I am able, and as opportunity 
 may be given me, in favour of the great measure which is 
 now before Parliament, /or I believe it to be essential to the 
 unity and the strength and the harmony of the United King- 
 dom ; and I believe that, instead — to take the language of 
 the present Prime Minister, offensive and impudent as it 
 was — instead of dimming the lustre of the British Crown, 
 that it will be regarded in history as one of the most 
 honourable events in the reign of the Queen, if under her 
 mild sceptre this United Kingdom can really be united, and 
 Ireland made as contented and loyal as any other portion of 
 the Empire. 
 
VI. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, OCTOBER 30, 1868. 
 
 [On this day Mr. Bright addressed his Birmingham constituents, with a view 
 to the General Election, the Proclamation for the dissolution of Parliament 
 and the calling of another having been lately Issued. The principal object 
 of the Meeting at which Mr. Bright spoke was to avow that it was the 
 intention of the Liberal organisation in the borough to secure if possible 
 all three seats for their candidates, and thus to nullify the purpose of ' the 
 Minority Clause.* The plan adopted was and has been successful.] 
 
 On Monday last I took the opportunity of giving you 
 a very imperfect sketch of the general policy of the Tory 
 party in national affairs during the last forty years. If you 
 will permit me to-night, I will endeavour to show you what 
 they have done to affect the interests and the convenience of 
 the people of Birmingham during the last two years. I was 
 not aware, until Mr. Jaffray spoke, that the leading candidate 
 of our opponents had referred to my votes on the Reform 
 Bill of last year in his recent speech, for I have not had time 
 to read the speech, and I was not aware of his charges until 
 Mr. Jafiray answered them to-night. I will give you one 
 fact. I will leave alone all the rest. Perhaps you are not 
 aware of this fact, that although the Act of last Session 
 contained no less than sixty-one clauses, there were left in it, 
 when the Bill passed, only four complete and perfect clauses 
 as the Government offered them to the House. Out of sixty-one 
 clauses, forty-one were materially altered, sixteen of them being 
 
90 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, oct. 30, 
 
 borrowed from Mr. Gladstone's Bill of 1866. Only four 
 passed as the Government proposed them to the House. I 
 will tell you what those clauses were. The first was the clause 
 which gives the title of the Bill ; the second was the clause 
 which disfranchised the boroughs of Lancaster, Yarmouth, 
 Reigate, and Totnes; the third was a clause imposing a 
 penalty if anybody corruptly paid the rates of any elector; 
 and the fourth was some temporary provision for the registra- 
 tion of some divided counties or boroughs. I should like to 
 ask you how that Bill would have been made worth one single 
 farthing if somebody had not voted against all the evil parts 
 of it as it first came before the House. 
 
 But I want to speak to you a little upon another part of the 
 Bill. I mean the clause or clauses which have caused so much 
 sufiering and irritation in this town. I have a note sent to 
 me to state that there have been no less than 15,000 summonses 
 issued in connexion with the payment of the rate made last 
 May, that not less than 5,000 warrants of distress have been 
 issued, and that it costs the parish at least 40/. a week, or at 
 the rate of 2,000/. a year, more than before to collect the 
 rates. It is a very curious thing that Birmingham has been 
 more hardly hit than any other borough in the kingdom by 
 this rate-paying clause, for the principle of compounding — 
 that is, of the landlord paying the rates of his tenants and 
 receiving a certain discount as compensation for that payment 
 — has been adopted for a longer period and to a greater 
 extent in the town of Birmingham, I believe, than in any 
 other in either England and Wales. If my friends below will 
 allow me to state one or two facts to them they will be able 
 to comprehend this question. Once for all, the Reform Bill 
 of 1832 adopted exactly the same principle as the Reform Bill 
 of 1867. I mean with respect to the question of rating. The 
 Reform Bill of 1832 refused the franchise to any occupier 
 whose rates were paid by his landlord, unless the landlord paid 
 the full rate. The Reform Bill of 1867 adopted precisely the 
 
1868. VI. BIRMINGHAM. 91 
 
 same principle. The Reform Bill of 1832 excluded by this 
 principle 94,000 occupiers of lol. and upwards ; but the 
 Reform Bill of 1867 excluded, in its first shape, not less than 
 476,000 occupiers who were under the 10^. value. Now you 
 will see why the Reform Bill of last year excluded so many 
 more than the Reform Bill of 1832. It was because the 
 system of compounding was almost universal below the value 
 of 10/., and above the 10^. value it was very partial and very 
 infrequent. The boroughs of England and Wales before this 
 Act was passed were 200 in number, and in 171 of them the 
 system of compounding prevailed — that is, the landlords paid 
 the rates of the tenants, and received back from the parish per- 
 haps twenty, twenty -five, or thirty per cent, in order to induce 
 them to pay the rates. There were only twenty-nine out of 
 the 200 boroughs in which the compounding system did not 
 prevail, but in 171 boroughs 476,000 occupiers below the 10/. 
 value would not have been admitted to the franchise if the 
 Bill had passed as brought in by the Government. As the 
 Bill came in, then, it would have excluded nearly all those 
 who have since been included. The 94,000 occupiers of whom 
 I speak as being originally excluded by the Reform Bill of 
 1832 were afterwards admitted by a single clause, which at 
 my motion and at my instance was inserted in the Bill called 
 the Compound Householder's Act of 1851. Many gentlemen 
 know quite well that under the operation of that little clause 
 in that Bill of 1851 several thousand electors were placed on 
 the electoral roll in this town of Birmingham. I represented 
 to Lord John Russell, who was then Prime Minister, the 
 grievance of the case. He at once consented to remedy it, 
 and Sir William Page Wood, now an eminent Judge, but then 
 the Attorney-General, drew up a clause which I moved. It 
 was agreed to without opposition, and passed through both 
 Houses without a division. When this Bill came in — I mean 
 the Bill of last year — the 94,000 had been admitted by the 
 Bill of 1 85 1. I asked the Government — that is, I asked the 
 
92 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 30, 
 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, now the Prime Minister — how 
 he intended to settle the question of the compound householder 
 above lO^. who had been admitted to the franchise. I said to 
 him, * Do you intend to insist upon this difference, that while 
 the compound householder above lol. value is admitted, those 
 of the same class below lO^. shall be excluded?' I added, 
 * This would be a monstrous proposition, to which this Parlia- 
 ment surely will never consent, and which the country can 
 never approve/ What did he say to me in reply ? I think I 
 have his exact words. He said that he would settle all this 
 comfortably enough, and that he would do equal justice. But 
 what he really meant was equal injustice to both classes, and 
 he had the audacity to say that he would repeal my clause in 
 the Act of 185 1 — a clause to which Lord Russell had consented, 
 which Sir W. Page Wood had drawn up, which had passed 
 both Houses without a division, and had given the franchise 
 to 94,000 electors who had been before excluded. The present 
 Prime Minister said that he would repeal that clause, so that 
 no compounder, whether above or below lol.j should have a 
 vote unless he paid the full amount of his rates. He said that 
 his conviction was that the third clause of Sir William Clay's 
 Act of 1 851 — that is, my clause — ^had been interpolated, and 
 that it was disapproved of by many high authorities in the 
 House of Commons. I recollect moving the clause, and, 
 curiously enough, the only person who raised any objection to 
 it was your late townsman, Mr. Spooner. He did not know 
 anything about the matter, and when he sat down the clause 
 was agreed to. It then passed through both Houses and became 
 law. Yet Mr. Disraeli proposed to repeal it. Now, this was 
 a most monstrous proposition ; but the difficulty was not 
 removed, because if that clause were repealed he was in this 
 position — that the Bill, while it pretended to be a Household 
 Suffrage Bill and to grant a great extension of the franchise, 
 was cutting off the votes of the 94,000 occupiers whom that 
 clause of mine had previously admitted, and at the same time 
 
1868. VL BIRMINGHAM.- 93 
 
 was excluding 476,000 householders under the line of 10^. It 
 was, therefore, not likely that the House of Commons would 
 agree to the Bill if it were in that condition and if it pro- 
 mised to have that result. 
 
 There were three ways out of this difficulty, and it is some- 
 times convenient to have several ways of getting out of a diffi- 
 culty. Mr. Disraeli might have had a pure household suffrage, 
 without any reference to rating whatever, which, of course, 
 would have been the best. He might, according to the motion 
 made in the House by Mr. Herbert, have extended the opera- 
 tion of my clause which operated upon the 94,000 so as to 
 include the 476,000, and justice would have been done ; or he 
 might have done another thing, which he afterwards agreed to 
 do, and which he did, which was to abolish the system of 
 compounding altogether, and which, I think, was the least 
 wise, the most harsh, and the most unjustifiable of the 
 different propositions offered to him. How was that to be 
 done? I dwell upon the facts, in order to deal with the 
 statements which I have seen made in the speeches of our 
 opponents, which show one of two things — either that they 
 know nothing about the matter, or are very careless of the 
 truth. Mr. Hodgkinson, the Member for Newark, was one of 
 the speakers on the Bill. He was on our side, and was anxious 
 to give no vote against any part of the Bill, because we were 
 wishful that in some shape or other the Bill should pass 
 through Parliament, and he gave notice that as the Govern- 
 ment would not take any other mode of enfranchising the 
 people, they must insist that the system of compounding 
 should be absolutely and at once abolished. What was said 
 when that was proposed? I will tell you first what Mr. 
 Gladstone said. I understand that our opponents and their 
 orators in the borough and the newspaper writers lay the 
 blame on Mr. Gladstone and the Liberal party for the 
 abolition of compounding, and for the infliction of so much 
 suffering and hardship upon a great many thousands of the 
 
94 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 30, 
 
 cottage occupiers in Birmingham. This is what Mr. Gladstone 
 said when Mr. Hardcastle made his proposition : — 
 
 * My Hon. friend offers us, at the expense of an economical and social con- 
 venience — at the expense, at any rate, of foregoing an economical and social 
 advantage — he offers us, instead of an extension of the franchise which we 
 conceive to be limited and imequal, equivocal and dangerous, as tending in 
 many parts to corruption, — he offers an extension of the franchise which is 
 liberal and perfectly equal. I am sorry, in deference to what seems an unwise 
 judgment of the House, that it is necessary to interfere with a system of com- 
 position which exists throughout the country. I must choose however the 
 lesser of the two evils.* 
 
 Afterwards, on another occasion, when Mr. Gladstone made 
 a proposition to discuss the question, he used these words. He 
 said, — 
 
 * 1 have deprecated it all along, and have consented to it as I would consent 
 to cut off my leg rather than lose my life— on the principle of choosing the 
 lesser evil.* 
 
 Well, what was the greater evil ? It was that there should 
 be no enfranchisement ; and but for Mr. Gladstone's opposition 
 to that Bill, supported as it was by me and the great bulk of 
 the Liberal party, that clause might not have passed^ and you 
 whom I now see before me, and 39,000 and more outside this 
 building, within the limits of our town, would have been still 
 knocking at the doors of a Reformed Parliament and asking 
 for admission there. The Government — Mr. Disraeli is the 
 Government — and a party by which the Government is 
 supported are solely responsible for that part of the measure. 
 That harshness would never have been inflicted if the settle- 
 ment of the question had been left in the hands of the Liberal 
 party ; and I believe I may say with confidence, that if ever 
 the grievance is remedied, it will be remedied not by the Tory 
 but by the Liberal section of the House. Are you aware of 
 the fact^ which I repeatedly stated in the House during these 
 discussions — let every working man who is now about to be 
 or who is really enfranchised^ and who is about for the first 
 time to exercise his vote, let him bear this in mind — that the 
 
1868. VI. BIRMINGHAM. 96 
 
 Bill, until that compounding clause was abolished, would have 
 had this strange effect. In the town of Sheffield, a 8,000 
 householders under 10/. would have been admitted to the 
 franchise, because there the system of compounding never 
 prevailed; while in Birmingham, not less noted for its zeal for 
 freedom, deserving no less renown for its services to the 
 Liberals of England than Sheffield, 36,000 under 10/. would 
 have been absolutely disfranchised. The Bill as proposed 
 would not have enfranchised in all England and Wales more 
 than 118,000 voters in boroughs. The Bill, when that 
 amendment was added and that proviso agreed to, enfran- 
 chised four times as many as the Bill was originally intended 
 to enfranchise. 
 
 If I had come here and had said to you, ' We are a very 
 unlucky party in Birmingham, there is an election at Shef- 
 field, 28,000 persons under 10/. excluded by the Reform Bill 
 of 1832 have been admitted by the Bill of 1867, whereas 
 in Birmingham 36,000 under 10^. excluded by the Bill of 
 1832 are equally excluded by the Bill of 1867,' I will not 
 ask you what you would have said, but what do you think 
 Mr. Lloyd would have said? Surely he would have said, 
 and with no little truth, that if I had not made my protest 
 against such a scandalous thing I was not worthy to repre- 
 sent the interests of the unenfranchised people of Birmingham. 
 But in the attitude of the Government, and as the case stood 
 in the House of Commons, it was absolutely impossible for 
 any Reformer to prevent the abolition of the system of com- 
 pounding during the last Session of Parliament, although it has 
 been an extraordinary grievance in many places, and in none 
 has it been a greater grievance than to the population of this 
 town. Mr. Gladstone, in one of the remarkable speeches 
 which he has recently delivered in Lancashire, referred on one 
 occasion to this subject, and said that in his opinion one of 
 the first things Parliament would be called upon to attend to 
 would be the unsatisfactory condition in which the payment 
 
96 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 30, 
 
 of rates and the possession of the franchise were left. 
 If I were a working- man in Birmingham who found myself 
 troubled with this new nuisance, I would trust rather to the 
 sagacity, the love of freedom, the generosity, and justice 
 of Mr. Gladstone than to any qualities of any kind that 
 have been exhibited in connexion with Reform by the 
 Tory party. 
 
 I understand that some of those gentlemen who go round 
 to enthusiastic meetings in favour of the Irish Church and a 
 variety of other nuisances tell some of the electors that there 
 was a Committee appointed last Session, on the motion of 
 Mr. Ayrton ; that I was a member of that Committee ; that 
 I attended a very few times, and took no interest in getting 
 passed any recommendation having for its object a remedy 
 for this grievance. Now, listen for a moment. Mr. Ayrton's 
 Committee was appointed to consider the whole question of 
 rating. But this was only a small portion of the enquiries 
 which it undertook. I consented to be on the Committee, 
 and so long as I could do anything I gave my vote in favour 
 of Mr. Ayrton's propositions, which would have suggested 
 a report to remedy the grievance. I believe there was not 
 a single member of the Tory party who voted with him, and 
 we were out-voted by them. I hope I have shown you 
 clearly the difficulty of the circumstances under which that 
 grievance was forced on you ; that the Government and the 
 Government party only are responsible for it ; that without 
 Mr. Hodgkinson's clause, without the abolition of compound- 
 ing, in the then attitude of the Government, one of two 
 things must have happened — either that the Bill must have 
 been wholly lost for the Session, or the great bulk of the 
 householders below lol. — 476,000 of them — must have re- 
 mained without enfranchisement. I did all I could for your 
 sakes in the matter, and have done all I can since, with a 
 view to inform public opinion, and when any rational and just 
 remedy is proposed to the House of Commons I need not 
 
1868. VI. BIRMINGHAM. 97 
 
 tell you that if you send me there I hope to be there to 
 support it. 
 
 Now, having disposed of that preliminary matter, you will 
 give me your attention, I am sure, while I touch upon another 
 point on which you have also been specially hit by the 
 Government and the Tory party in reference to the question 
 which is involved in this resolution. Parliaments in this 
 country are not a new institution, as many of you know. 
 You may look back to your fathers, grandfathers, and great- 
 grandfathers for many generations before you would be able 
 to fix your eye, or your finger, or your minds upon the man 
 who lived and laboured in England when Parliament was first 
 established. Six hundred years are a long time, and if a 
 thing has been found very useful, and, on the whole, very 
 good for six hundred years, I am not so much in favour of 
 change as to wish to get rid of it. But during all that time, 
 whenever the king or any other lawful magistrate has issued 
 his writ to any constituency to return representatives to Par- 
 liament, it has been understood that the return should be made 
 by the majority of voices freely given by that constituency, 
 and that the return should be void if it could be proved that 
 any man was returned to Parliament by a minority. I once 
 sat for seventy-three days on a Committee for the purpose 
 of discovering whether the man who had a minority of votes 
 for the Dublin election should not sit as the Member. He 
 alleged that the man who had the majority had a number of 
 corrupt and personated votes, and that, therefore, the minority 
 was really the majority; but no man ever came before Parlia- 
 ment or a Committee of the House of Commons to claim a 
 seat on the ground that he had only polled a minority of 
 the votes. There is no case of that sort which has been 
 maintained, and until lately no such device has been imagined 
 by any man who is acquainted with freedom and the true 
 mode of preserving it. 
 
 What do you do at the nomination ? You lifted up your 
 
 H 
 
98 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, oct. 30, 
 
 hands just now in answer to an appeal from the Chairman 
 to say that you would like to have the nomination outside. 
 Well, I did not lift up my hands for that ; for you must bear 
 in mind that it will be in the month of November, and you 
 will have to stand for I do not know how many hours. The 
 Mayor will have to listen to something which only half-a- 
 dozen people about him will hear, and the Town Clerk will 
 have to read something for about half-an-hour which nobody 
 will understand, and then, with five candidates you will have 
 ten movers and seconders, and five candidates might take us 
 — except for the fact that nobody can hear, and therefore the 
 eloquence will be cut short — all through the day of nomi- 
 nation. I suppose our Chairman will say that I have no 
 business to say this, but I should like you to know all the 
 facts of the case before you come to a decision as to what 
 should be done in a matter of such importance. Now if we 
 have the nomination outside, which in fine weather would be 
 very pleasant and very grand, I dare say nearly every elector 
 in Birmingham will go there — ^perhaps 35,000 men. It will 
 be certainly a magnificent sight. The Mayor will put before 
 you the names of the different candidates, and you will have 
 to hold up your hands for each candidate as he is named 
 to you, and the Mayor will have to decide which three 
 candidates out of the five have the majority. He will declare 
 that A, B, and C are duly elected, and then possibly — I am 
 not sure of it — but possibly somebody will ask for a poll. 
 But when you hold up your hands, is the Mayor to say to 
 you, ' You must only hold up your hands for two ' ? Here 
 we are, three candidates on the Liberal side, and under the 
 present circumstances, the law suggests that you should only 
 hold up your hands for two of us, though the law does hot 
 say anything about the holding up your hands for two 
 only. Your right at the nomination is as it was before the 
 Act passed, and you will be permitted to hold up your hands 
 freely for the three candidates of your choice. Why is it 
 
1868. ri. BIRMINGHAM. 99 
 
 that a poll is granted for the day after? Simply for this, 
 to prove whether the show of hands did really express the 
 opinions of the constituency. The candidate who has the 
 minority says, 'I have canvassed all the borough and have 
 got a great number of promises, and I believe if we go to 
 the poll that I may still have a majority, therefore I am not 
 satisfied with the show of hands, and, Mr. Mayor, 1 demand 
 a poll ; ' and the poll is accordingly granted. And how is 
 it that one of you electors, being only allowed to vote for 
 two candidates at the poll, can correct or in any way prove 
 the propriety and the truth of the demonstration at the 
 hustings ? Is it not quite clear that our ancient constitution 
 is entirely departed from, and that the innovation which was 
 passed last year is directly in the teeth of all the principles 
 in this matter which have governed our electors for six 
 hundred years past ? There are, I believe, seven counties now, 
 or divisions of counties, which are empowered to send to 
 Parliament three Members each, and there are also six 
 boroughs, five of which are to return three Members, and the 
 City of London is to return four, but in all these cases, except 
 in that of the City of London, where one elector may vote 
 for three, he can only vote for two. If this principle is a 
 good one, why not have it all over the constituencies? Is 
 the general policy of the great boroughs so much distrusted 
 that it is necessary to cripple them ? Let us suppose that we 
 are to adopt the principle throughout all the constituencies, 
 what would happen in places where there is only one seat ? 
 I presume, if the minority is to be represented, that the 
 majority is to be got rid of, or else you must have that sort 
 of two-faced man who can suit two parties and look two 
 ways at once ; though he would hardly be able to go into 
 both lobbies at once in a division in the House. And what 
 are you to do in boroughs where there are two Members, 
 and two seats. Clearly, if you give one to the minority the 
 borough is neutralised, and is in the position of many boroughs 
 
 H 2 
 
100 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 30, 
 
 of which we now speak with a sort of pity or contempt. It 
 would return one man to say ' aye/ and another to say ^ no ; ' 
 and therefore, the borough would count for nothing, and 
 politically it might just as well be extinct. 
 
 But what was the object of this distinction? It was first 
 suggested in the House of Commons by a gentleman whom 
 I have had occasion to speak of here before. But I will 
 repeat nothing of which he may complain. I believe that 
 he is not only dissatisfied with the course which he took 
 then, but that he has repented in sackcloth and ashes ever 
 since. I speak of Mr. Lowe. When the Bill was first going 
 through the House of Commons the clause which Mr. Lowe 
 proposed was not exactly like this minority clause ; if possible, 
 it was a still more absurd proposal. It was one which I have 
 already discussed here two or three years ago. He proposed — 
 in this borough, for example — that every man should have three 
 votes, and that he should give all his three votes to me, or 
 divide them among myself and my colleagues, or give them 
 to Mr. Sampson Lloyd. What would have been the result ? 
 It would have been just this : that if Mr. Lloyd had been the 
 only candidate on the Tory side, and supposing that he could 
 poll 10,000 votes in Birmingham, if every one gave him 
 three votes he would really record 30,000 votes, and, therefore, 
 although he was a candidate who only had 10,000 supporters 
 out of 40,000, he might come in even at the head of the poll. 
 That, I think, I once described as reminding me very much 
 of a donkey race, where the last donkey is declared to win. 
 But what did Mr. Lowe say about it when he moved his 
 proposition ? It was this : he was complaining of the demo- 
 cratic and popular character of the Bill, and he said, ' All 
 our other arrows have been shot; not one remains in the 
 quiver; so that if this does not hit, there will be nothing 
 left but one simple uniform franchise, to be intrusted to and 
 left in the hands of the lowest class of society.' Now, when 
 iihat was debated in the House of Commons it was strongly 
 
1868. VL BIRMINGHAM. 101 
 
 opposed by Mr. Disraeli in, I think, one of the strongest, and, 
 I will say, the most sincere, and therefore the best, speech 
 he delivered during these discussions. I opposed it strongly, 
 as you know, and many others did, and it was rejected hy a 
 vote of 314 against 173 — a majority of 141 against it. Well, 
 then, when the Bill went to the House of Lords you know 
 what became of some clauses there. The House of Lords has 
 this, to my mind, very foolish habit — when it really cannot 
 do a great deal of mischief, it seems to delight itself in doing 
 a little. They dared not reject the whole Bill, and so they 
 picked a few holes in it, and made it a little worse, and pre- 
 tended to do something against the popular cause ; and Lord 
 Cairns (the Lord Chancellor) moved another resolution, which 
 was passed as it now stands. And what did he say about it ? 
 He said it would represent the minority in a borough, which 
 would include the most intelligent portion of the constitu- 
 ency. If it be true that to be most entirely wrong during 
 a whole lifetime of political action is to prove oneself the 
 most intelligent, then there are many of our opponents whose 
 intelligence cannot be called in question. In the Lords this 
 was the result, that the clause was carried by a majority of 
 142 against 91, being a majority of fifty-one in favour of it. 
 When the Bill came down again to the House of Commons, 
 and we were asked to agree to the amendment, we had on 
 our side that evening a majority of not less than fifty votes, 
 and all the amendments of the Lords, except this, were dis- 
 agreed to and rejected. The Government had no influence 
 whatever, because they had no help from our side of the 
 House ; but when the amendment respecting the minority 
 clause came under consideration, although Lord Derby had 
 denounced it as unconstitutional and said that its mischief 
 could only be limited by the area of its operation, and although 
 Mr. Disraeli had denounced it in stronger language, yet, in 
 order to pass that which the Lords had sent down, Mr. Dis- 
 raeli brought up the whole tail of his supporters, and, joined 
 
102 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 30, 
 
 by forty or fifty men from our side, who ought to have known 
 better, passed this odious and infamous clause. It is not a 
 matter of the slightest importance as regards the two parties 
 in the country. The minority clause will not at present, and 
 I believe it will never seriously affect the balance of power 
 in the House of Commons. As yet, as far as I am in- 
 formed, it is probable that the Liberal party will gain some- 
 thing from that clause, but it may have a very grievous 
 effect in places like Liverpool, where no one knows where 
 the majority lies. Each side will bring two candidates for- 
 ward, and one of the two twos will be left out ; but when it 
 is clearly decided where the majority lies, unless the majority 
 is very large, as I hope it will be in Birmingham, it will 
 put an end to contests altogether, and these large constitu- 
 encies will become as sleepy and dead as some of the county 
 constituencies, which are under the thumb of the landlords. 
 
 I am surprised, very much so, that our two opponents in 
 their peregrinations through the town should have expressed 
 themselves in favour of this clause. It seems to me that 
 the vanity of these gentlemen is of a very peculiar character. 
 One of them will find his ambition highly gratified if he can 
 enter Parliament as the inferior and minority member for 
 Birmingham. The vanity of the other is no doubt amply 
 satisfied by being permitted to appear as a candidate. But 
 if these men, or one of them, does get by any possibility a 
 chance of creeping in through the clause, he can succeed 
 only by crippling and emasculating one of the greatest and 
 one of the foremost of the constituencies in the empire. I 
 do not understand how any elector of Birmingham, unless his 
 politics are of the most rabid, blind, and unreasonable Toryism 
 and Orangeism, can on any pretext whatever support men 
 who have publicly avowed their approbation of this clause. 
 But one of our rivals has expressed a hope that it may be 
 widely extended to other constituencies. 
 
 Every man of you comes to this election with one hand tied 
 
1868. VI. BIRMINGHAM, 103 
 
 behind his back. Every man of you, but for this clause, would 
 have voted freely for three candidates, and you would have 
 carried your men to Parliament with a triumphant and un- 
 doubted majority. Even with this clause you are fighting 
 doubtless a successful battle, but it is a battle in which you are 
 obliged to incur the large costs of an election, and to need- 
 lessly sacrifice the labour of hundreds and thousands of your 
 fellow-townsmen. No man doubts the opinion of the con- 
 stituency of Birmingham. I recollect a deputation coming 
 up last year on this very question of three members. It 
 was discussed whether the borough should be divided with 
 two members for one part and one for the other. I said, * I 
 do not suppose it makes very much difference whether it is 
 divided or not as to the character of the member returned.' 
 And one of your townsmen, a member of the deputation, said, 
 * If you go to the sea, anywhere you like, and take up a 
 spoonful of water, it will be salt ; ' and he added, ' if you will 
 return any member from any district in Birmingham you 
 like, he will be a Liberal.' But there are electors among 
 you — and I think in your canvass you ought to make use of 
 this argument — there are electors among you, probably a 
 few thousands, who will vote for candidates willing to sup- 
 port a clause which actually deprives every elector of Bir- 
 mingham of one-third of his voting power, and may deprive 
 him of much more, because, if you happen to see returned 
 one Tory and two Liberals for Birmingham, you have only 
 one real voice in the House, and therefore two-thirds of your 
 political power will be destroyed. I do not speak of this as 
 a matter of party. I think if I were asked to stand as a 
 candidate for a place which was generally considered Tory, 
 and was asked to come in under this minority clause, it 
 would give me a feeling of disgust that I can hardly put 
 into words. I would not stand or sit for such a place on 
 any terms, or go into the House of Commons and get up to 
 address the House as the representative of the constituency 
 
104 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 30, 
 
 of Birmingham, when I knew that I only represented a 
 small portion of the constituency, that never had the right 
 to have a voice, and never would have had but for the de- 
 testable trick or wanton innovation put by the House of 
 Lords into a Bill for the reform of the House of Commons. 
 Manchester is in the same difficulty; Liverpool is in the same 
 state. In London the constituency can only vote for three 
 members instead of four, as their ancestors have done. I 
 hold that clause to be the most outrageous heresy against a 
 popular representative system which was ever propounded in the 
 Legislature. I do not care whether it has the support of aged 
 statesmen, or dreamers, or of men who fashion political theories 
 in their closets, I say that it is a fraud on the great constitu- 
 encies. I say further, that it is the duty of every Liberal 
 elector to represent to every candidate who supported that 
 clause his own opinion of its wrong, of its unconstitutional 
 character, and of its injustice, and to urge him by all the 
 arguments he can bring to bear upon him to recant his 
 opinions and to vote for the abolition of that clause. There 
 were great men — men for whom personally I have great 
 affection — who voted for that clause. I hate the clause no 
 less for that, and I think I have the right to say that it 
 should be the duty and is the duty of every Liberal consti- 
 tuency — I do not say to cashier men for one error they may 
 have committed, but to urge them in a friendly and earnest 
 manner to consent to the abolition of that clause on the first 
 opportunity when it shall again come before Parliament. 
 Do not let us have any new-fangled ideas. The fancy fran- 
 chises we kicked to the winds ; the minority clause, which 
 ought to have come, not from the honest representation of 
 the people, but from Bedlam, or a region like that, should 
 have the same treatment. If the men at Birmingham want 
 to know what freedom is, let them look back to the lives 
 and histories of their forefathers. They knew how to lay 
 foundations, broad and deep : it is for you to protect those 
 
1868. ri. BIRMINGHAM. 105 
 
 foundations and to build wisely upon them. There is not 
 one of the great fathers of English freedom who lived two 
 centuries ago, who, if he had been in the House of Commons, 
 w^ould not have said ' No ' as emphatically as I did to this 
 odious clause. Seeing it — seeing now, that in this hall and 
 this constituency, we have no power to-night to put an end 
 to this clause or to repeal it — seeing that it must be tolerated 
 as it best may until the power that made it shall again un- 
 make it, let us not forget that we have a duty in regard to 
 it. Every Liberal throughout the United Kingdom is ask- 
 ing, 'What is Birmingham going to do with the minority 
 clause ? ' If every part of the sea is salt, if every district and 
 every ward of the constituency in Birmingham is Liberal, do 
 you, by united action, by hand and voice, and heart and vote, 
 tell the House of Commons and the whole country that there 
 shall never go, with your consent, in spite of all the machina- 
 tions of these dreamers and schemers of minority representa- 
 tion, — that no member or representative of the Tory party 
 shall, with your consent, enter the House of Commons as the 
 representative of this town. And the more this is known 
 throughout the country — the more this is felt in the House 
 of Commons — ^the more certainly you may take this comfort 
 to your hearts, that by this election — great and transcendent 
 triumph as we believe it will be — ^you will put an end shortly 
 to this odious infringement of your liberties, and add one 
 other great and permanent security to English freedom. 
 
VII. 
 
 EDINBURGH, NOVEMBER 3, 1868. 
 
 [On this day the freedom of the city of Edinburgh was presented to 
 Mr, Bright by the Lord Provost, Mr. W. Chambers, the eminent publisher. 
 In the speech accompanying the action, the Lord Provost made allusion to 
 the necessity of supplementing Parliamentary reform by ' the promotion of 
 a comprehensive scheme of national education, without which,' said Mr. 
 Chambers, * all blessings are nugatory.'] 
 
 My Lord Provost, although I have had a long experience 
 and much practice in public speaking, yet there are times when 
 I feel myself to be overmatched by the duty of the hour ; and 
 this is one of those occasions. I do not expect to be able to 
 say exactly what I think, or all that I think ; but I may say, 
 with the most heartfelt sincerity, that I am under deep obliga- 
 tion to you, and to the Magistrates and Town Council of 
 Edinburgh, for the honour you have done me, and to this 
 audience for the kind reception which 1 have met with this 
 morning. Last week one of my acquaintances asked me what 
 was intended by the freedom of the city, whether there was 
 anything in it that was useful or valuable, any privilege or 
 right that a man could care for. I told him that, as I under- 
 stood, there was nothing in it which could be put into the 
 scales and weighed, nothing that could be measured by rule ; 
 but there was something in it much more precious, if rightfully 
 considered, than silver or gold. There was the free oflPer of 
 their approbation by the authorities and by the population of 
 the most intelligent and renowned city in the United King- 
 dom to me, who had been for more than twenty-five years 
 
VII. EDINBURGH. 107 
 
 labouring assiduously in what I believe to be the public 
 service. I assured him, as I assure you, that after the 
 priceless value of the approbation of my own conscience, 
 there can be nothing- that I value so much as the approbation 
 of the intelligent and thoughtful among my countrymen. 
 
 In the resolution of the Town Council, out of which the 
 proceedings of the day have sprung, there are phrases which 
 almost make me blush, and to which I find it difficult to refer. 
 I am there described as an orator and a statesman. Now, 
 more than thirty years ago, when I was very young indeed, 
 in my beginning to think about public aflPairs, in reading the 
 prose writings of John Milton, I found a passage which fixed 
 itself in my mind. This passage time has never been able to 
 take from my memory. He says, * Yet true eloquence I find 
 to be none but the serious and hearty love of truth.' And I 
 have endeavoured, so far as I have had the opportunity of 
 speaking in public, to abide by that wise and weighty saying. 
 So far as I am able to examine myself, during the thirty years 
 that I have been permitted to speak at meetings of my 
 countrymen, I am not conscious that I have ever used an ^ 
 argument which I did not believe to be sound, or have stated 
 anything as a fact which I did not believe to be true. I have 
 endeavoured, further, always to abstain from speaking on 
 subjects which I had not examined and well considered, and 
 perhaps it is because I have endeavoured to attend to these 
 rules that what I have said has met with some acceptance, and 
 perhaps in some quarters has been influential with the country. 
 As to the title of statesman, I may say here what I said many 
 years ago in the House of Commons, that I have seen so much 
 intrigue and ambition, so much selfishness and inconsistency 
 in the character of many so-called statesmen, that I have 
 always been rather anxious to disclaim the title. I have been 
 content to describe myself as a simple citizen, who honestly 
 examines such public questions as affect the public weal and 
 honestly offers his counsels to his countrymen. 
 
108 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. kov. 3, 
 
 The resolution refers to services which I endeavoured to 
 render long ago to the cause of free trade. It is about twenty 
 years ago since that question was supposed to be settled; it is 
 so long ago that I believe the young men — the men from 
 twenty to thirty years of age — in this day are for a great part 
 almost entirely ignorant of the tremendous struggle which was 
 necessary in this country before we could make free trade a 
 fact. In a sentence, I may say that I worked at it for seven 
 years, for five years almost without interruption^ and that 
 I did nothing else but work for free trade during these years, 
 being in alliance, as you know, with one of the most remarkable 
 men that our country has ever produced, and one of the best 
 men that any one now living has ever known. When I look 
 back to him whose name must ever be foremost in any history 
 or record of that struggle, when I consider his remarkable 
 industry, his wonderful sagacity, his enlarged information, the 
 combined force and gentleness of his character, his most 
 persuasive speech, when I look back upon his transcendent 
 merits, I confess I am amazed that it took all his powers, 
 and the energy,, the labour, and the resolution of thousands 
 besides, to repeal the Corn Laws. I say I am amazed that 
 on so clear a question it should be necessary to make so 
 great an effort in order to bring Parliament and the people 
 to comprehend their true interests. 
 
 There is a sentence which I recollect in a letter, I think, 
 that was written by the celebrated Mrs. Somerville, which 
 ought of itself to have abolished the Corn Laws, but which 
 did not. But I dare say it heljped to form opinion on our side. 
 She says : — 
 
 * Surely as much food as a man can buy, with as much wages as a man can 
 get, for as much work as a man can do, is not more than the natural, inalien- 
 able birthright of every man whom God has created with strength to labour 
 and with hands to work/ 
 
 Nothing can be more simple than these words, nothing 
 more true, nothing more conclusive. It is a complete and 
 
1868. yiL EDINBURGH. 109 
 
 unanswerable condemnation of a law which had been passed by 
 Parliament. This law for thirty years made periodically an 
 artificial — not a real — famine in the country, and it required 
 the greatest agitation — moral agitation, political agitation — 
 that this country has ever known, an agitation which was 
 backed by the most terrific famine which has visited any part 
 of Europe during the last five hundred years, before it could 
 be overthrown. Now, when we look back to the history of 
 that contest, if I had been one of those who supported that 
 law, I think it would have made me ask myself whether it 
 were not possible that my method of examining public ques- 
 tions was not wrong, and whether I might not be just as 
 wrong upon many other things as I had proved to be in my 
 judgment about the Corn Law. I am one of those who have 
 never believed that there is anything very mysterious in the 
 art or knowledge of politics ; and that what we call states- 
 manship — honest statesmanship — is not an abstruse and dif- 
 ficult branch of knowledge. Most of us, when we come to 
 consider a public question, are able to strip it of all the things 
 which do not really belong to it and get at the pith and 
 kernel of the matter. I think that our intellects are so much 
 on a par, and that, as a whole, we are so anxious to act 
 honestly and rightly, that on almost all occasions we may 
 be able to come to an early and a wise agreement as to 
 the course which the public should pursue. In the course of 
 my political life there have been several great questions 
 which have interested me, and on each of which I have been 
 astonished that I found myself at variance with so many of 
 my countrymen, and I have not been less delighted afterwards 
 to find that, by-and-by, we all seemed to agree; but, unfor- 
 tunately, the agreement came, occasionally, too late, and the 
 misfortunes, which had been perhaps foretold, or which were 
 inevitable, happened, and it was only after the misfortune that 
 we were able to agree as to what ought to have been done. 
 There is a question in which I took a great interest some 
 
110 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 3, 
 
 years ago, and in which any number of Scotchmen have 
 taken a great interest for the last hundred years. It was one 
 discussed in Parliament very much from 1853 to 1858. I refer 
 to the government of 150,000,000 people in India. It is a 
 subject of great importance, especially to the more comfort- 
 able and wealthier classes ; for there are hardly any of their 
 families who have not sent some members out to make their 
 fortunes in that distant country. Now, fifteen years ago the 
 Government of India was the most extraordinary Government 
 in the world, — I should say^ the most remarkable Government 
 that ever had been in the world. It was called a double 
 Government. It consisted of a number of directors of an 
 extinct trading company, a company that was always bank- 
 rupt. The directors, who were bred in corruption, and who 
 practised it during their tenure of office, and who, in point of 
 fact, may be said to have lived upon it, neglected everything 
 they ought to have done except the collection and expendi- 
 ture of taxes. And to that curious Government was added 
 a Minister of State, who was appointed to control the said 
 directors. He allowed them to do nearly everything evil that 
 they liked to do, and he added to their evil-doings some other 
 evil-doings of his own. To a system like this there were 
 numbers of persons in this country — thousands^ perhaps 
 millions — who assented. They imagined that it was possible 
 to go on governing a country containing 150^000,000 of 
 people, composed of more than twenty nations and speaking 
 twenty different languages, of different religions and different 
 ways in every particular, under such a system. I have heard 
 a Cabinet Minister of repute speak for five hours, not only in 
 defence of that system, but make a speech which was a glowing 
 eulogium of it, while he implied that everybody who proposed 
 a change was to be considered an intermeddler, for that no one 
 ought to call the system into question. Within five years after 
 that speech was made, there came a change ; for it may be 
 said, as was said in the olden times, that when they planted 
 
1868. VII. EDINBURGH. Ill 
 
 and builded, and were married and given in marriage, that 
 the flood came — in his case it was the Mutiny — and swept the 
 thing away. Still, although it swept much away, it did not 
 establish everything that was necessary, and, in my opinion, 
 the future of that great country is still neglected by what 
 we call statesmen, since its future is almost wholly unpro- 
 vided for. 
 
 I will not go further into that subject, but will step on to 
 another question, in which we all take an interest, some of 
 us a very painful interest, and that is the Eastern question. 
 When this country thought it necessary to go into deadly 
 conflict with Russia — I shall not argue the matter, I do not 
 profess to argue about anything to-day, because this is not a 
 place in which controversy is desirable — but if we look back 
 to that time, we must feel that the action of the public was 
 adopted under the influence of much ignorance, prejudice, and 
 passion. Probably there is not one man in a thousand in 
 Great Britain or Ireland who could stand at this table and 
 give any decent, connected, rational, intelligible narrative of 
 the events that brought about that war, or the facts on which 
 it could be justified. I always said myself that no country 
 justice— and there are many of them who are not very par- 
 ticular — would send any man to gaol for three months on 
 evidence such as the people of England — I beg pardon of a 
 gentleman in Glasgow who writes to me on the subject, and 
 who objects to the term England when we are speaking of 
 the United Kingdom, — on evidence such as that on which the 
 people of Great Britain and Ireland went into that unhappy 
 struggle. The result was that 250,000 men were killed or 
 died during the conflict ; that hundreds of millions of treasure 
 created by the industry of the nations who were engaged 
 were squandered ; that the armaments all over Europe and 
 this country have been maintained at a higher rate ever 
 since ; that in this country we have found our military expen- 
 diture increasing by 10,000,000^. a year — and 10,000,000^. in 
 
112 ADDliESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 5, 
 
 twenty years comes to 200,000,000^. — besides the money spent 
 on the war itself. But this is not all. We find that the 
 difficulties are as great as ever ; that Russia is stronger than 
 ever, for Russia has manumitted her serfs, and that Turkey is 
 not stronger, but weaker, despite the efforts made to save her. 
 
 There is however one pleasant thing to think of, and that 
 is that the tone of the Foreign Office is greatly changed. 
 Not long ago I read a little speech which was made by Lord 
 Stanley to a deputation from the Peace Society, and the 
 other day, at a dinner given to the American Minister, the 
 noble lord made another speech, which was framed care- 
 fully on the model of the speeches which my wise friend 
 Mr. Cobden and I made years ago. I do not blame Lord 
 Stanley for his language ; I rejoice in it. I rejoice in thinking 
 that the old traditions of the Foreign Office are being for- 
 gotten, or are allowed to go into oblivion, and that even there, 
 where I am afraid sound principles are long in finding a 
 resting-place, we are beginning to be more rational than 
 our grandfathers were, and than we ourselves were twelve 
 years ago. 
 
 There is yet another question that has interested us greatly. 
 I refer to the war which for four years ravaged the States 
 of America. Now, there, if we could have divested the 
 subject of things that did not belong to it we might all 
 have agreed about it, whereas we greatly disagreed. Many 
 of the influential papers in London, some in Glasgow cer- 
 tainly, and probably in Edinburgh, held opinions, and 
 advocated them, that were different from mine. The rich 
 classes, and even the middle classes to a great extent, seemed 
 to me to lose their heads on that occasion. Now what an 
 extraordinary thing it was, that nearly four years after the time 
 when we had put down insurrection with the most relentless 
 hand in India, we should immediately take the side of a great 
 insurrection which intended to break up a free nation — and, 
 a nation of our kinsmen — an insurrection which made war 
 
1868. VII. EDINBURGH. 113 
 
 against the freest and cheapest Government in the world, 
 an insurrection the very basis of which was a perpetual 
 establishment of human bondage. If we could have been 
 persuaded that the Americans were not arrogant and insolent, 
 that they were not becoming so great a power that they might 
 be led to meddle with the politics of Europe — if we had not 
 been assured that it was better for us that a great people 
 should be divided and suffer from perpetual quarrels and 
 difficulties on their continent — if all these false and immoral 
 considerations could have been stripped from the facts, if they 
 had been seen as they really were, if the pith and kernel of the 
 situation had been kept before you, there is not an English- 
 man, not a Scotchman, not a Christian man in the whole 
 world who would have said he hoped that the insurrection 
 would succeed. And now at this hour — I am not sure it is 
 not the very day on which we are met — there is going on 
 over the whole of these States a great contest like that which 
 we are approaching, when the Executive Government for the 
 next four years will be determined by the vote of thirty-five 
 millions of people. Let us hope — I hope — that the result of 
 this great verdict may be to give continued power, and with 
 the power I hope there may come continued wisdom, to that 
 party which has been in favour of freedom, and which did 
 what was done to restore the union of that great country. 
 
 In your observations, my Lord Provost, you refer to the 
 subject of Parliamentary Reform. I shall say but a sentence 
 or two upon that, for perhaps it may be necessary to refer 
 to it at another meeting in the course of the week. But if 
 men had considered the true nature of the question we should 
 not have fought so long about it. There may be here many 
 persons — I hope there are — who belong to the Conservative 
 political party in this country. I know many of them for 
 whom I have great respect, and with whom I can discuss 
 this topic with the greatest freedom, and sometimes, also, 
 with advantage. But in a country like this, which has had 
 
 I 
 
114 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 3, 
 
 Parliaments for six hundred years; when England was, 
 as I have often described her, the mother of Parliaments, 
 when we had established them over the United States 
 of America, when we had spread them over Australia and 
 at the Cape of Good Hope, when we advocated the establish- 
 ment of Parliaments and Constitutional Governments in all 
 the States of Europe — it was surely a childish idea that a 
 Parliament could "be said to represent the country when five 
 millions of the people were wholly shut out from the franchise. 
 The facts were so clear and the meaning of the facts was so 
 important that one would suppose that every man, by what- 
 ever he called himself as a party man, would have looked at 
 them and said, ' This cannot last as it is ; we had better con- 
 sider it fairly, and we must eifect some settlement which will 
 be satisfactory to the nation.' The facts and arguments were 
 such that the reason of the case bore down everything which 
 was opposed to it. But nothing was done, till the cry went on 
 more loudly and more strongly till at last everybody listened 
 to it, and at last everybody capitulated. At this moment we 
 are all agreed that there was a necessity for a wide extension 
 of the suflPrage ; we have got rid of a great obstacle to the 
 consideration of other questions, and I hope we have removed 
 such a cause of difference as will never again embitter public 
 discussion in this kingdom. 
 
 There is yet one other matter which I shall not presume 
 to argue, and this is the question of Ireland. We feel, all of 
 us, whatever be our opinion as to specific remedies, that there 
 is a certain weakness in the Government of the United 
 Kingdom, and that this weakness is the condition of Ireland 
 and the state of opinion in that country. Of the fact there 
 can be no doubt. It is not my opinion only, but is the 
 opinion of the members of the present Government and of 
 their supporters, and of people of all religions throughout 
 the country. It is not confined to the Presbyterians of Scot- 
 land, to the Protestants of England, or to the Catholics of 
 
1868. yiL EDINBURGH. 115 
 
 Ireland. Every thoughtful, honest, and Christian man 
 throughout the United Kingdom would he glad if he himself 
 could be clear about the mode by which that state of things 
 might be changed. Five years hence, or ten years hence, 
 what will it seem, this great question? People will look 
 back upon it just as we look back now upon free trade, or as, 
 in fact, we are beginning to look back on Parliamentary 
 reform. We are all agreed that the ugly hobgoblin which 
 used to frighten some people is no object of terror at all, 
 but a very respectable sort of creature. So with regard to 
 the Irish question. If we got rid of prejudices and false 
 notions about Protestantism and Popery, notions which really 
 have nothing whatever to do with the subject, and simply 
 look back at the pith of the matter, if we divested it of those 
 things which are mere delusions of the past, we should all 
 agree that it is necessary to adopt and carry out the practical 
 policy which has been sanctioned in the Parliament which is 
 now expiring, and which many persons confidently believe 
 will be sanctioned by the Parliament which is about to be 
 created. I am sorry to see that some of our friends in 
 England are insisting that if you do a certain thing in 
 Ireland you must therefore do it in England; that an 
 English Act will follow inevitably from an Irish Act. Now 
 I venture to predict that within ten years, when anybody 
 looks to what has been done in Ireland in order to find 
 arguments as to what should be done in Scotland or England, 
 you will find our friends making this answer. They will turn 
 round and say, 'No,' in the language of the lawyers, 'the Irish 
 Church is not a leading case.' In point of fact Ireland is a 
 special case, and you have no right whatever to argue that what 
 was necessary in Ireland will be even expedient in England. 
 
 And now with regard to another Irish question — that of 
 the Irish land. Here is a matter of great difiiculty, one 
 which, no doubt, before long the people of the two kingdoms 
 will be asked carefully to consider. If the land of Scotland 
 
 I 2 
 
116 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 3, 
 
 were in the hands — almost all of it — of proprietors of the 
 Roman Catholic religion, if they were absentees and in a 
 sense foreigners, if they gave none of their tenants leases, 
 if they never expended money in any permanent improvements 
 on a farm, I would like to ask you what would be the kind of 
 content which would prevail among the agricultural population 
 of Scotland. It would be that kind of content which we 
 call discontent. You would have a state of things in Scotland 
 which would cause an incessant agitation until the Imperial 
 Parliament had found some mode of remedying the grievances 
 complained of. 
 
 You have, my Lord Provost, mentioned a question in which 
 I know you take great interest, and that is the freedom of the 
 Press. I referred to that the other day in speaking to my con- 
 stituents at Birmingham, and I said I thought that the change 
 which has been made within the last few years with regard 
 to the laws affecting the Press was a change so valuable, and 
 productive of so much good, that I scarcely knew anything 
 which had been done in our time that has exceeded it. There 
 can be no doubt that through the whole of the United King- 
 dom, by the abolition of all the taxes on the Press, there was 
 set agoing at once, everywhere and intensely, a process of 
 education, which I believe is more important than almost 
 all other processes of education throughout the kingdom ; for 
 I believe that a free Press is just as necessary for political 
 liberty as free air is for our natural lives. The question of 
 education, to which you have also referred, is one to which 
 I suppose all men now — and I hope all women — are turning 
 their attention. It is a question which is rendered difficult 
 because we will not take it up on its own merits. We have some 
 of us — I have not, but I have found a very great number of 
 people who have — a very stupid idea that it would be wrong 
 to teach and give a child reading and writing and the ordi- 
 nary — what shall I call it — machinery of knowledge, unless 
 we can at the same time give him the religious opinions 
 
1868. VI I. EDINBURGH. 117 
 
 which we ourselves hold ; and not only the religious opinions, 
 for there is not much difference in religious opinions, but 
 very often all the unessential details which Churches all over 
 the world have built up into their different systems. But 
 it will soon be put to the people of the United Kingdom 
 whether this question can be solved by us, as it has been 
 solved elsewhere. It has been solved throughout the free 
 States of America ; and throughout the Southern States, 
 which have recently become free, it is also being solved. It 
 has been solved in Canada, in British North American pos- 
 sessions. It has been solved in the Australian colonies, and 
 it is solved in many of the States of Europe. We have done 
 so many things, that after all I hope we shall begin to feel 
 that we can do even this. Considering our position, and 
 how much we have been in advance of other countries in 
 other respects, I believe it to be a most discreditable fact that 
 we have had less attention paid to the education of the great 
 bulk of the people of this nation within the last hundred 
 years than in almost any other Christian or civilised nation 
 in the world. It is a wery great discredit to the governing 
 classes of this country, and it is a very strong argument, 
 which I felt myself at liberty always to make use of when 
 I urged that the governing power should no longer remain in 
 the hands of a class, but that it should be transferred by 
 Parliamentary Reform to the great bulk ;of the nation. Well, 
 after having said all this, to what does all I say come? It 
 comes to this, that there is no great mystery in these political 
 questions ; that if we will get rid of what, if we examine them, 
 we know to be prejudices ; if we will get rid of attendant 
 circumstances, which really have nothing to do with the real 
 question at issue, we shall find that every real question is a very 
 simple one ; and that if we put it to the standard of common 
 sense and common morality, the people will not find it difficult 
 to be of one accord and to do all that can be done by legislation 
 and administration in order to improve their natural position. 
 
V 
 
 116 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. kov. 3, 
 
 The chauges that have occurred have been great changes. 
 I heard a gentleman talking of them this morning, who said, 
 * There is no use disguising the fact that we have been pass- 
 ing through and are even now passing through a revolution.' 
 It is quite true ; but a revolution of such a kind as history 
 will be glad to dwell upon. If we find during the last twenty 
 or thirty years how good these changes have been, surely 
 our nerves ought to be a little strengthened, so as to be able to 
 venture even on considering the wisdom of other changes. If 
 those changes are, on the face of them, sound and necessary — 
 as those of which I have been speaking have been — we ought 
 surely to have the courage to look them fairly in the face, 
 and not, by immediately rousing party-spirit and heat, 
 treat them as if some of our countrymen were offering some- 
 thing dangerous or hostile to the interests of the people. 
 The century in which we live, the middle of which we have 
 passed, is one which has been remarkable for the eventful- 
 ness of its changes, and so it will be regarded in all future 
 time. There is a great battle going on at this moment, and, 
 without exaggeration, we may say that it is a battle with 
 confused noise, although it is not a battle which the prophet 
 described as ' with garments rolled in blood.' There is a 
 confused noise throughout the country, from John O'Groat's 
 to Land's-end. All over Great Britain and over Ireland 
 men are discussing high questions — questions which are to 
 affect the unity of the Empire, our own condition, the con- 
 dition of the posterity that are to follow us, and to colour 
 all the narratives of the future historians of this kingdom. 
 Let us then in this battle of discussion bear our part; let 
 us avoid heat and passion as much as we can ; let us strip 
 from all these subjects that which does not belong to them ; 
 let us grasp with all our might the true meaning of them; 
 and let us honestly endeavour to find a true solution for what- 
 ever difficulties beset the path of the nation. I am thankful 
 beyond what I can express, when I review my political life, 
 
1868. VI L EDINBURGH. 119 
 
 that I have been permitted to bear some part in changes the 
 results of which will act, I trust, beneficially for ever ; and 
 I am permitted to be thankful, and to thank you and the 
 magistrates and council of your renowned city, and all those 
 at this meeting, for the approbation which you have given 
 of my labours and for the signal honour which you have 
 shown me to-day. 
 
 ->K- 
 
VIII. 
 
 EDINBURGH, NOVEMBER 5, 1868. 
 
 [On this day Mr. Bright was elected an Honorary Member of the Edinburgh 
 Chamber of Commerce. Mr. George Harrison, Chairman of the Chamber, 
 in congratulating Mr. Bright on being thus elected, stated that the Chamber 
 had elected only three Honorary Members — Sir John Sinclair, the dis- 
 tinguished Scottish economist, in the last, and Mr, Gladstone and Mr. Bright 
 in the present centuiy. In the evening Mr. Bright addressed an audience 
 of working men, and on a vote of thanks being offered him for his pains in 
 acceding to their invitation during a contested election, made a brief speech 
 which concluded his addresses on this occasion. The speech printed here is 
 that which was addressed to the working men,] 
 
 I KISE for the purpose,, first of all, of expressing how greatly 
 I feel indebted to the gentlemen of the Edinburgh branch of 
 the Reform League and of the trades of Edinburgh for the 
 kindness with which they have prepared and presented to me 
 the addresses which have been read. I do not accept those 
 addresses as in any way binding those who have presented them 
 to an approval of all the course of my political life. I accept 
 them merely as tokens of the belief of those from whom they 
 come that whether we have agreed, or whether on some 
 occasions we have differed, they at least believe that I have 
 acted honourably and conscientiously, as far as I know, for the 
 best interests of the country. 
 
 It is about ten years since I last spoke at a public meeting 
 in Edinburgh. Some who are now present were doubtless 
 present on that occasion, and they will feel with me that in 
 
VIII. EDINBURGH. 121 
 
 the ten years that have passed much has happened, and much 
 has heen changed. At that time the Government presided 
 over by Lord Derby was in office, and was engaged in 
 attempting to prepare a Reform Bill for the coming Session 
 of Parliament. That Reform Bill was framed upon the 
 principle that the Ministry would not consent to what the 
 Government of that day called ' any degradation of the 
 franchise.' They would have no lowering of the barrier at 
 which people were to be admitted to the vote. The Bill failed, 
 as it deserved to fail, and the Government were expelled from 
 office, as they deserved to be expelled. Coming down to 
 eight years after this — to 1866 — the party of whom I have 
 spoken, being the Government of ten years ago, objected to a 
 Reform Bill introduced by Lord John Russell and Mr. 
 Gladstone, and resisted it on the ground that they were not 
 willing to consent to such a degradation of the franchise 
 as should admit householders in towns who were occupiers 
 at the value of 7^. at least to the vote. They succeeded in 
 defeating the Bill, and the Government resigned, and the 
 same gentlemen immediately came into office, and though 
 they had been sensible that any degradation of the franchise 
 would be almost the ruin of the country, that its degradation 
 to a 7^. rental was so perilous an experiment that they dared 
 not consent to it, in the year 1867 they undertook to ' degrade 
 the franchise ' to the level of the householder. 
 
 The words ' degradation of the franchise,' as you know, are 
 not mine. I am using the language of those gentlemen in 
 order to express what I believe will be found, instead of a 
 degradation of the franchise, to be a great elevation of the 
 people. We have got, then, and we need not exactly discuss 
 how it has been effected, what may be called a popular and 
 democratic — in fact, a Republican representation, so far as 
 the boroughs of the United Kingdom are concerned. The 
 principle of popular representation in Parliament, as it is 
 adopted in the colonies, and in the States of America, has 
 
122 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, nov. 5, 
 
 been conceded. Several boroughs have been disfranchised 
 because they were small ; towns have been erected into new 
 boroughs because the towns were large ; counties have been 
 divided because they were populous, and the general principle 
 has been admitted that we should make some approximation 
 to the distribution of seats according to the population of the 
 constituencies. Besides this, everybody can see that another 
 question is coming forward for settlement — one which possibly 
 may not excite so much interest in Scotland as in England, 
 Wales, and Ireland. It is, however, one which is closely 
 related to the representation of the people. This is the great 
 question of the ballot. 
 
 The fact is — and I do not say so with any expression of 
 scorn or with any feeling of triumph — the aristocracy of 
 England which so lately governed the country has abdicated, 
 and its most boastful leader, Lord Derby, its chief, in its 
 name, and for it, has capitulated to the people. One hundred 
 and eighty years ago there was a revolution in England. The 
 revolution of 1688 had this effect. It stripped the monarch 
 of absolute power, and, pretending to confer it upon the 
 nation, conferred it mainly upon the nobility. The Bill of 
 1832, combined with the Bill of last year, gave us another 
 revolution. Power has not been taken from the Crown and 
 given to the nobility, but it has been taken from the nobility 
 and has been given henceforth and for ever to the people. 
 The form of aristocratic power yet remains. In every country 
 the possessors of great wealth are likely to have power. I am 
 not complaining of this. But I am stating a fact, which must 
 be plain to all. But although the influence of wealth is great, 
 the spirit of the country has changed, and the centre of power 
 has been moved. We are, in fact, — do not let us attempt to 
 conceal it from ourselves, — standing on the threshold of a new 
 career. Being there, we need no longer have recourse to the 
 arguments which we have often heard from platforms in times 
 past, such indeed as I sometimes have been ready to use. 
 
1868. VIII. EDINBURGH. 123 
 
 There is no longer a contest between us and the House of 
 Lords ; we need no longer bring charges against a selfish 
 oligarchy; we no longer dread the power of the territorial 
 magnates ; we no longer feel ourselves domineered over by 
 a class ; — we feel that denunciation and invective now would 
 be out of place ; the power which hitherto has ruled over us 
 is shifted. We now have to appeal to you, to address our 
 arguments to you, to couple facts — if we are capable of doing 
 so — with wisdom, and, if we may, to counsel you, so that you 
 who are now part of the government of the country may show 
 in the acts which you do the wisdom which you have learned. 
 The fate of this great nation is in the nation's hands : come 
 weal, come woe, the responsibility of the future must rest with 
 the mass of the people; for they are now admitted, at least 
 within the boroughs, to a large share of representation, and 
 thereby of political power. 
 
 But all is not done. There are some matters which have to 
 be adjusted; for to confer the franchise is only to give 
 every man a key by which, if he is wise, he may unlock the 
 treasures which are open to a well-governed people. This 
 very Reform Bill, so extensive and so remarkable as it is, has 
 still many deficiencies. I do not intend to go into details to 
 show what must be done in order to bring the county franchise 
 into greater harmony with the borough franchise. These 
 are details that must come up before long for discussion 
 before the people, and before Parliament; but there is one 
 point to which I will refer, which I have indeed already 
 mentioned, and this is the shelter of the ballot. I see in the 
 papers a speech by a gentleman for w^hom all who know him 
 must have the highest and deepest feeling of respect. I refer 
 to one of the candidates for the city of Westminster, Mr. John 
 Stuart Mill. No man is more fair in argument than Mr. 
 Mill, no man is more willing to admit the force of anything 
 that an opponent offers for his consideration; but it is not 
 necessary that we should believe that Mr. Mill can know 
 
124 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. ^ov. 5, 
 
 every question better than everybody else — and, in saying 
 that, I say no more than he would be most willing to allow — ■ 
 but in a speech which Mr, Mill made within the last two 
 days to some of his constituents, he says that he opposes the 
 ballot. He thinks — I do not quote his words — that public 
 duties should be performed publicly; that by and by there 
 will be morality and power enough to put an end not only to 
 corruption, but to compulsion ; and he compares the free and 
 open exercise of the ballot to the duty of a judge in a court of 
 justice which is open to the public eye. It appears to me that 
 the comparison is not a good one. The judge in open court 
 has no compulsion brought upon him ; he is independent ; the 
 Crown, which appointed him to his office, cannot remove 
 him ; he is not expected to deliver a judgment in accordance 
 with any feeling that he may have, but one which is wholly in 
 accordance with well-known and recognised rules of law. If 
 instead of stopping at the Bench, Mr. Mill had gone into the 
 jury-room, he would have found that the jury, which is just as 
 important in this country in a trial as the judge, does sit apart 
 from the public eye, and more than that, that it is considered 
 a gross violation of confidence if any juryman should convey 
 to the public a knowledge of what has occurred in the jury- 
 room. I am not able to accept these glowing pictures of the 
 immediately improved morality of the people. If it be wise 
 not to bring in the ballot because men without it will become 
 strong enough not to need it, it might be equally wise to 
 dispense with the judge and jury and the police; for (who 
 knows ?) at some time — it may be remote — men may become 
 strong enough in virtue, honest enough in their hearts, not to 
 violate the written or the moral law, and judges and juries and 
 courts of justice may no longer be required. 
 
 I look at the condition of things in this countr}^ and in 
 Ireland, where, as you know, a county contest is little less 
 than civil war ; in Wales, where all the people, with scarcely 
 any exception, being Nonconformists in their religion and 
 
1868. VII I. EDINBURGH. 125 
 
 Liberal in their politics, have hardly any opportunity of 
 expressing their own opinions, and hardly any influence in 
 their county representation. I look again at all the great con- 
 stituencies of the kingdom which have been created under this 
 Bill, and I am forced to conclude, as the new machinery of 
 electing a Parliament comes into working, that it will be 
 proved to every man, who is in favour of public order at our 
 political contests, that the ballot is absolutely and indispensably 
 necessary to secure order as well as liberty. 
 
 There is another question which is now before the public 
 which has received much consideration, and, I believe, a wise 
 verdict from the people of Scotland. That is the Irish policy 
 of the Liberal party in the late Parliament. We are about to 
 try a great experiment, one of the most notable experiments 
 ever attempted by any Government, or by any Parliament — 
 we are about to see whether we can win over the affections 
 and sympathies of a discontented and almost hostile people by 
 one grand, generous, and wise attempt to do them full and 
 complete justice. It is unnecessary in Scotland to point out 
 how much an alien Church is necessarily a root of bitterness ; 
 your history teaches you all this in a more marked manner, 
 perhaps, than it has been taught to any other country. I feel 
 that I need only refer to the appeals which have been made to 
 you by the Liberal candidates throughout Scotland to gain 
 your thorough and hearty consent to the great attempt to 
 establish perfect religious equality in Ireland. 
 
 But there will be another question by no means without 
 its difficulties when this question of the Church of Ireland 
 is settled, and that is with regard to the ownership and 
 tenure of land in that country. You know nothing of this 
 matter in Scotland from your own experience. Although 
 you have the misfortune to have the land of your country 
 in very few hands, still the men who own it have been not 
 a little alive — as Scotchmen are generally supposed to be 
 — to their own interests. They have conducted their business 
 
126 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 5, 
 
 as landowners upon principles altogether unknown in Ire- 
 land. They have granted leases of reasonable duration, and 
 I believe have given good encouragement to their tenants. 
 They have expended their own capital on the erection of 
 buildings, and in the making of certain permanent and 
 necessary improvements. The Scotch farmer entering upon 
 his farm could carry on his business with some hope of 
 success. But you are in a very different position from the 
 Irish. In Ireland the land really is not in the possession of 
 what I may call native proprietors, or natives of the country, 
 to any large extent. It seems to me to be an essential thing 
 for the peace of any country that its soil should at least be 
 in possession of its own people. I believe that in Ireland it 
 will be necessary to adopt some plan — and I believe there is 
 a plan which can be adopted without injustice or wrong to 
 any man — by which gradually the land of Ireland may be, 
 to a considerable extent, transferred from foreign, or alien, 
 or absentee Protestant proprietors, to the hands of the 
 Catholic resident population of the country. I anticipate 
 that until something of this kind is put into process of 
 operation, we shall not find such tranquillity and content in 
 Ireland as we would wish to see. But in speaking of the 
 Irish land question, I may say one word about the land 
 question in the United Kingdom. Perhaps many of you 
 are not aware that from year to year, from ten years to ten 
 years, the owners of land in the United Kingdom are becom- 
 ing a smaller and smaller number of persons ; that the laws 
 which we have in this country, having been based and sup- 
 ported by the territorial powers, are laws whose express object 
 it is to maintain great estates in the hands of great families, 
 and to make the land not of Ireland only, but of Great 
 Britain, a monopoly in the possession of a few. And the 
 purpose of all this is that these great families by the pos- 
 session of vast estates may possess and wield great political 
 power, and remain, as they have been until now, the great 
 
1868. VIII . EDINBURGH . 127 
 
 governing party and power within this realm. But if you 
 look seriously at facts, you will see that certain forces are 
 constantly operating which tend to the accumulation of land ; 
 and that certain other forces tend as certainly to its dispersion. 
 Those which tend to its accumulation will easily suggest them- 
 selves. Some men think it wise, and certainly agreeable, to put 
 their property into land. Some people feel like Dr. Johnson, 
 who advised a friend of his to take a walk of two miles before 
 breakfast, and said, if possible, it should be upon your own 
 land. Others like investments in land because they like to 
 dabble in agriculture ; others because the investment in land 
 in this country gives a certain social influence which repays 
 them for the moderate rate of interest which they receive. 
 On the other hand, you will see that there are also influences 
 which assist the dispersion of landed property. For instance, 
 a man may wish to have an investment in English land, which 
 pays him three per cent., put into American land, which will 
 pay him seven per cent. ; or he finds it expedient to get rid of a 
 portion of his estate in order to procure capital for his son ; 
 or he may have been unfortunate in some monetary speculation, 
 and therefore may find it necessary to sell land ; or that 
 which happens to all men happens to him — his life comes to 
 an end, and then the property may possibly need to be sold. 
 Thus you will see that nature has provided certain forces 
 which tend to the accumulation of estates in land, and certain 
 other forces which tend to their dispersion ; and I maintain 
 that the true policy of the Government and of the law — the 
 just policy of the law — is to leave all to the forces of nature, 
 whether they induce the disposition to accumulate or bring 
 about the necessity of dispersion, to their unrestrained opera- 
 tion. Thus when laws are made by which men who wish 
 to buy property will be able to buy it, some in large and 
 some in small quantities, the monopoly which exists in this 
 country will be brought to an end. 
 
 I do not propose that there should be any law by which 
 
128 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 5, 
 
 estates should forcibly be cut up and divided among families. 
 I would leave the owner, the man in possession of the estate, 
 perfect freedom to decide whether he will leave the property 
 to one, or divide it among the whole of his children. The 
 law of division maintained in France and in many countries 
 of Europe is believed by most people in those countries to 
 be a good law ; but it appears to me to be contrary to the 
 principles of political economy, and I prefer the operation of the 
 law as it exists in the United States of America, which rejects 
 the law of France and rejects also our law. But I conceive 
 that before long it will be the duty of the people of England, 
 of the electors of England, and of Parliament to remove from 
 the Statute-book what is called the law of primogeniture, to 
 allow land where it is left by a person who makes no will to 
 be justly and equally divided by the law as property other than 
 land is now divided, and that the present practice of entails 
 and settlements should be limited to persons who are living 
 when the deeds are made. I believe that it is not a wise 
 thing to sacrifice the public interests to family pride or to 
 the notion that you must build up great families who are to 
 have great resources, only that they may exercise a paramount 
 authority in a free country. 
 
 There is another question which has been discussed a good 
 deal of late, which at least twice a year to some people, and 
 every day to most people, is of some interest. This is the 
 question of Government expenditure. The people of the 
 United Kingdom have carried the burden of heavy chains so 
 long, that they have become used to them, and almost seem 
 to think that the chains are part of their natural limbs. 
 We are paying now, this very year, taxes amounting to 
 70,000,000/. sterling. I wish I could show you what 
 70,000,000 or even what i ,000,000 means ; but I have never 
 found a man who could comprehend the meaning of a million. 
 Out of these 70,000,000/., 26,000,000/. go to pay the interest 
 on the debt contracted by wars which have been waged by 
 
1868. VIII . EDINBURGH. 129 
 
 this country between the time of William III and the time of 
 the Russian War. These wars have seldom been undertaken 
 for any purpose whatever in which the whole people of this 
 country had a real interest. Your fathers having waged the 
 wars^ spilled the blood and spent the treasure, it comes on us, 
 their children_, and on our children and their children, to pay 
 the interest for an enormous debt. But we are not content 
 with this burden. We have learnt so little by the past, that 
 we are paying this year, I think, rather more than an equal 
 sum, rather more than 26,000,000/. from the fear that there 
 may be another war, or that we may be induced again to meddle 
 in some great European contest. We are maintaining an 
 army and a navy at a cost far greater than at any previous 
 period in time past, although we have confessedly— I quote 
 the words of Lord Stanley, the Foreign Minister — a sufficient 
 guarantee that we have altogether abandoned the ancient 
 theory of the balance of power, and that we do not intend 
 henceforth to use the sword in any question in which the 
 honour and interest of England are not distinctly involved. 
 
 This year, I think, the army cost about 15,000,000/., and 
 the navy over 1 1 ,ooo,coo/. Let me tell you how many there 
 are of every kind of soldier and half-soldier in the country. 
 If I am not mistaken, there were voted 140,000 men for the 
 army, for the navy 60,000, making 200,000 regular and 
 permanent troops, which we have been told are absolutely 
 necessary, so necessary that the Government that preceded 
 this present Government were most negligent of the defences 
 of the country in maintaining less. Of the militia there are 
 128,000 men, of the Volunteers 162,000. In Ireland there 
 is a police force, equal in training and armament to any 
 troops, of, I believe, rather more than 12,000 men. Then 
 there is, as you know, a considerable force of police in all our 
 great towns, and in nearly all the counties. Take them 
 altogether, they make a very formidable sum. These persons 
 are withdrawn from industry to what is supposed to be 
 
 K 
 
130 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, nov. 5, 
 
 necessary defence, and you need not wonder tbat the sum 
 which we pay is as large as that which I have described, to 
 say nothing" of the loss to industry. Let me further illustrate 
 what I am saying by calling your attention to Ireland. 
 There have been at times, and certainly not long ago, 30,000 
 soldiers in Ireland. I do not know how many there are at 
 this moment, but if they are not there they are somewhere 
 else, and I dare say somewhere where they are not wanted. 
 But we have in Ireland, besides, the 12,000 armed police 
 which I have mentioned, an army which is paid for out of 
 the taxes of the United Kingdom. The system of the 
 Government of Ireland, of which the Tory party is en- 
 amoured, is one which requires this great military force in 
 order to keep Ireland contented, or if it fails in that, to keep 
 it from the constant exhibition of rebellious tendencies. If 
 I were one of the Conservative party — I use the term as it is 
 used in the Tory newspapers — if I were one of that party 
 I really should be ashamed to talk of Ireland : I should feel 
 that if there be a spot on the earth^s surface where my prin- 
 ciples have had full play, it is in that unhappy country. The 
 territorial magnates have had all the power there, an Estab- 
 lished Church has been supported by all the authority of 
 Great Britain ; the magistrates in the country in great 
 majority have been of the Protestant persuasion ; everything 
 has been upheld there which the most resolute Tory could 
 desire to see. But with what result ? That policy has been 
 followed, as it must be everywhere and inexorably, by wide- 
 spread discontent, and a resolution on the part of the people 
 that they will shake themselves free from such a Government 
 if at any time the power of Great Britain is not strong 
 enough to control them. 
 
 And now let us look at the facts in a reasonable manner. 
 "What does the 26,ooo_,ooo/. spent on the army and navy 
 mean ? It means something equal to the debt of 800,000,000/. 
 sterling which our forefathers spent in folly and wrong, and 
 
1868. VIII. EDINBURGH. 131 
 
 the interest on which your taxes pay. It means that there 
 is virtually another sum of 800,000,000^., the interest of 
 which you are paying in taxes in order to keep up a great 
 army and a great navy. And when ? not only in a time of 
 profound peace, but when no country in the world menaces 
 or distrusts us ; when there is not a cloud in the sky ; when, 
 if ever there was a time at which the United Kingdom may be 
 said to be in tranquillity and peace, the time at which I am 
 speaking is that time. If you look back over the history of 
 England from the time of the Revolution — from the time 
 of William III to the end of the Russian War — you will 
 find that almost every war in which we have been engaged 
 was based on the utter folly and absurdity that this nation is 
 called upon to maintain the balance of power in Europe. I 
 hope that we have abandoned that policy and given up that 
 delusion ; that we have got free from that aberration, and 
 are at last in our right mind. May we not, then, calculate 
 that if we keep out of the former hallucination, if we retain 
 that sound mind, if we for the next 50 years, or 100 years, 
 resolve to maintain our present policy of not meddling in the 
 affairs of Europe, that we shall be at least as free from wars 
 in 100 years to come as we might have been in the 100 years 
 that are passed. If that be so, if there be any hope of it, — 
 and I believe there is. — I ask why we should go on paying 
 26,000,000/. sterling a-year for the cost of an army and a 
 navy? 
 
 I quoted a passage yesterday from perhaps the foremost 
 name in English political history — from John Milton — I may 
 now quote another. He describes these charges for war as 
 draining the veins of the body to supply ulcers ; and so from 
 your veins, from the sweat of your brows, from the skill of 
 your brains, and the industry of your hands, from that which 
 you have worked for to furnish your houses, to clothe your 
 families, to supply their wants — from all these this 26,000,000/. 
 is gathered up, not once in 100 years, but every year, to sup- 
 
 K 2 
 
132 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. not. 5, 
 
 port the army and navy, to maintain and keep up a policy 
 which we have utterly abandoned. If you read the papers, 
 which tell us nearly everything — I find they sometimes tell us 
 things that do not happen — you will find they say something 
 about the West Indian and North American fleet ; something 
 about the Pacific squadron ; and something about the naval 
 force of Her Majesty in the China seas; something which 
 has happened to ships of war on the coast of India, or at the 
 Cape. Then you hear of Lord Clarence Paget, as here, or 
 there, in some part of the Mediterranean, with a prodigious 
 fleet. You hear further that there is always a great Channel 
 fleet which is necessary for our home protection. But there 
 is no necessity whatever for these fleets on our coast, or for 
 traversing every ocean as they do now. There is no other 
 country that finds it needful to have great fleets and squa- 
 drons everywhere. I do not know whether it is a dream, 
 or a vision, or the foresight of a future reality that some- 
 times passes across my mind — I like to dwell upon it — but I 
 frequently think the time may come when the maritime 
 nations of Europe — this renowned country, of which we are 
 citizens, France, Prussia, Russia, resuscitated Spain, Italy, 
 and the United States of America — may see that those vast 
 fleets are of no use ; that they are merely menaces offered 
 from one country to another ; that they are grand inventions 
 by which the blood is withdrawn from the veins of the people 
 to feed their ulcers ; and that they may come to this wise con- 
 clusion, — they will combine at their joint expense, and under 
 some joint management, to supply the sea with a sufficient 
 sailing and armed police, which may be necessary to keep the 
 peace on all parts of the watery surface of the globe, and that 
 those great instruments of war and oppression shall no longer 
 be upheld. This, of course, by many will be thought to be 
 a dream or a vision, not the foresight of what they call a 
 statesman. Still, I have faith that it will not be for ever 
 that we shall read of what Wilberforce called the noxious 
 
1868. VIH. EDINBURGH. 133 
 
 race of heroes and conquerors ; that what Christianity points 
 to will one day be achieved, and that the nations throughout 
 the world will live in peace with each other. How much 
 can w^e spare of that 26,000,000/. ? I think one-half of it 
 was considered enough thirty years ago when the Duke of 
 Wellington and Sir Robert Peel were in power. Heavy 
 taxation always is unequal, for when the burden is heavy the 
 powerful classes are always endeavouring to shift it from their 
 own shoulders on to those of somebody that is weaker. It 
 is impossible to say how great would be the gain to the com- 
 merce and manufactures, to the shopkeeping and distributing 
 interests, to artisans and labourers throughout the country 
 if one-half of these 26,000,00c/. could be saved. There 
 is not' a man or a woman in England that would not reap 
 some advantage from such a change. If this wide extension 
 of the suffrage does not bring the people to consider these 
 questions, and cause them to urge in Parliament greater 
 wisdom and greater economy, I shall be greatly dissatisfied 
 with its results. 
 
 In the address which was given to me a reference was 
 made to another question, not less important than any of 
 those I have mentioned. That is, the question of education. 
 I presume that in Scotland, where you have had more edu- 
 cation than we have had in England, you are in favour of 
 having more still ; for education is one of those things of 
 which the more extensively it is spread among the people, the 
 more a people demand. In England we are superior to other 
 nations in some things : we have great personal freedom ; we 
 have a press that can write almost anything it likes ; we have 
 a platform on which men may speak freely; we have great 
 success in manufactures ; we have immense superiority over 
 almost all countries ; but it is singular that in the education 
 of the people, of the working classes, of those who live by 
 wages, we are much behind very many of the civilised and 
 Christian nations of the world. We have any number of 
 
134 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 5, 
 
 churches and colleges, but we have a great scarcity of schools. 
 I sometimes compare the state of things in New England 
 with the state of things in Old England. New England 
 began to be colonised about 250 years ago : the very first 
 colonists who landed on its shores established at once a 
 system of education. From that day to this that system has 
 not only constantly flourished, but it has been constantly 
 extended and gathered strength, and now the population of 
 New England is descended from no less than eight genera- 
 tions of skilled and intelligent men and women. In this 
 country, as we all know, unhappily, there are at least some 
 millions whose forefathers for eight generations have been 
 entirely deprived of all education whatever. You may ima- 
 gine — you cannot imagine — the difference between two people, 
 one which has been educated for 250 years, and another which 
 has been almost entirely shut out from education. Only last 
 night, when I came to Edinburgh, I sat by a lady who has 
 not long ago returned from America. She was a lady of 
 your country. She spoke with delight . of what she had seen 
 there with regard to education, and with pain and sorrow at 
 the neglect of it which is shown by the population of the 
 United Kingdom. She said that nobody would think of 
 speaking of any class, as we speak, as being partially, or large 
 portions of them as entirely, uneducated. There is a possi- 
 bility — and we shall find it out, our children will see it, I 
 hope — that the millions of this country who have not been 
 educated — for you can see the fact in the countenances and 
 lives of many — will hereafter have, if not a large, at least a 
 reasonable and necessary culture. I frequently used an argu- 
 ment in favour of a wider suffrage to the following effect : — 
 I said that this great neglect was the fruit of the government 
 of the country by a small section or class ; that if we were to 
 transfer the power from the small section and extend it over 
 the nation, the instincts and sympathies of the nation would 
 at once demand that a wide and thorough system of, at least, 
 
1868. VIII. EDINBURGH. 135 
 
 elementary education should be speedily extended to every 
 part of the country. I have dwelt on three great topics. I 
 had no notion that the mere passage of a Suffrage Bill would 
 content everybody; for, after all, there is not much differ- 
 ence in holding up your hands at the hustings and going in 
 to have your name put down on the poll-book unless some- 
 thing is to follow. That something, I hope, we shall all 
 consider carefully and wisely, and that in all our future 
 proceedings we shall bear in mind that upon every one of 
 us, as electors, there is a great and solemn responsibility. 
 The three great questions before us are these : — The mono- 
 poly of the land, which I believe to be the cause of great 
 and serious evil. It drives vast numbers of the rural popu- 
 lation into the towns, where sometimes they are not wanted. 
 It subjects the rural population over wide districts of terri- 
 tory to the rule of one man, as you know ; and it keeps the 
 rural population back in the condition — I speak of the 
 labourers — ^which they were in for a hundred years ago or 
 more. Rents have risen, the incomes of the landed pro- 
 prietors doubled, trebled, and quadrupled — aye, in some cases, 
 increased tenfold. What the labourers were at one time they 
 remain, not altogether, but very much the same as they were. 
 Let us protest against the monopoly of the land. I hope that 
 we shall have the united voice of all the free constituencies in 
 the country before long demanding of Parliament that there 
 shall be such a change made as brings the truths of political 
 economy and the law of justice within reach of all. 
 
 Next, there is an enormous expenditure, and in some 
 things onerous inequality of taxation. I had this morning 
 the opportunity of meeting the members of the Edinburgh 
 Chamber of Commerce, and I took occasion to tell them 
 how great a credit it was to them that so far back as 
 the year 1820 they had presented an admirable petition 
 to Parliament in favour of the principle of free trade, and 
 I suggested to them that they might find it to be their 
 
136 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 5, 
 
 duty to endeavour to get what I call a free breakfast- 
 table — to get rid of the heavy duties upon tea, coffee, and 
 sugar. The expenditure of the country might easily be 
 reduced so much as to allow a reduction or repeal of these 
 duties. The equalisation of certain other duties — T refer to 
 the legacy and succession duties — might go a considerable 
 way towards the means for extinguishing these duties. You 
 may rely upon it, that if the people say that these taxes are 
 unnecessary and unjust, and if the people protest against 
 them, and resolve to get rid of them, you will not find the 
 slighest difficulty in finding a Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 who will do the work. 
 
 The last of the three questions is the existence of ignorance, 
 of almost hopeless ignorance, among the poorest classes of the 
 people. It is not an extraordinary thing that notwithstanding 
 our great industry, our wonderful machinery, our world-wide 
 commerce, and the great wealth of the country^ there should 
 be found so large a mass of pauperism in the kingdom. I 
 read the other day a speech made by a member of the House 
 of Commons, and a member of the present Government, or 
 who was until the last Session. The Secretary of the Poor 
 Law Board expressed his apprehension that the pauperism of 
 the country was increasing so fast that it would be nearly as 
 bad as it was some thirty years ago. I think there must be 
 something very rotten if such a result occurs. Since I have 
 taken a part in public affairs, the fact of the vast weight of 
 the poverty and ignorance that exists at the bottom of the 
 social scale has been a burden on my mind, and is so now. I 
 have alwaj'^s hoped that the policy which I have advocated, 
 and has been accepted in principle, will tend gradually but 
 greatly to relieve the pauperism and the suffering which we 
 still see among the working classes of society. I have no 
 notion of a country being called prosperous and happy, or 
 of being in a satisfactory state, when such a state of things 
 exists. You may have an historical monarchy decked out in 
 
1868. yill- EDINBUEGU. 137 
 
 the dazzling' splendour of Royalty ; you may have an ancient 
 nobility settled in grand mansions and on great estates ; you 
 may have an ecclesiastical hierarchy, hiding* with its worldly 
 pomp that religion whose first virtue is humility; but, notwith- 
 standing all this, the whole fabric may be rotten and doomed 
 ultimately to fall, if the great mass of the people on whom 
 it is supported is poor, and suffering, and degraded. 
 
 Is there no remedy for this state of things ? If Govern- 
 ment were just, if taxes were moderate and equitably imposed, 
 if land were free, if schools were as prominent institutions in 
 our landscapes and in our great towns as prisons and work- 
 houses are, I suspect that we should find the people gradually 
 gaining more self-respect ; that they would have much more 
 hope of improvement for themselves and their families, that 
 they would rise above, in thousands of cases, all temptations 
 to intemperance, and that they would become generally — I say 
 almost universally — more virtuous and more like what the sub- 
 jects of a free State ought to be. The solemn question as to the 
 future condition of a considerable portion of the labouring 
 classes in this country cannot be neglected. It must be 
 known and remedied. It is the work upon which the new 
 electoral body and the new Parliament will have to enter. 
 It is a long way from Belgrave-square to Bethnal -green. It 
 is not pleasant to contrast the palatial mansions of the rich and 
 the dismal hovels of the poor, the profuse and costly luxuries 
 of the wealthy with the squalid and hopeless misery of some 
 millions of those who are below them. But I ask you, as I ask 
 myself a thousand times, is it not possible that this mass of 
 poverty and suffering may be reached and be raised, or taught 
 to raise itself? What is there that man cannot do if he tries ? 
 The other day he descended to the mysterious depths of the 
 ocean, and with an iron hand sought, and found, and grasped, 
 and brought up to the surface the lost cable, and with it made 
 two worlds into one. I ask, are his conquests confined to the 
 realms of science ? Is it not possible that another hand, not 
 
138 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 of iron, but of Christian justice and kindness, may be let 
 down to moral depths even deeper than the cable fathoms, 
 to raise up from thence the sons and daughters of misery and 
 the multitude who are ready to perish? This is the great 
 problem which is now before us. It is one which is not for 
 statesmen only, not for preachers of the Gospel only — it is one 
 which every man in the nation should attempt to solve. The 
 nation is now in power, and if wisdom abide with power, the 
 generation to follow may behold the glorious day of what we, 
 in our time, with our best endeavours, can only hope to see 
 the earliest dawn. 
 
 ->K- 
 
IX. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, NOVEMBER 10, 1868. 
 
 [On November lo Mr. Bright addressed a deputation of the Birmingham gun- 
 makers. The object which these manufacturers had before them was to 
 criticise the action of the Government in establishing manufactories at 
 Enfield and elsewhere, and generally to condemn the policy of Government 
 in undertaking such commercial or industrial operations as can be carried 
 out adequately and safely by private enterprise.] 
 
 If we were to judge by the advertisement under which this 
 meeting has been assembled, we should conclude that it was 
 one not only of a peculiar character, but that it had reference 
 to private, or sectional, or trade interests, rather than to the 
 great interests of the country. But I understand that they 
 by whom this meeting has been convened have no intention 
 whatever of urging upon their present or their future repre- 
 sentatives any course in regard to any particular trade or 
 industry which shall not be consistent with the true policy of 
 government and the true interests of all portions of the people. 
 I say this because if it were otherwise I could be no advocate 
 of such a trade or such an industry; nor would I undertake 
 to plead its cause at this meeting or to this constituency. The 
 speech which has been made by our Chairman comprehends 
 probably the pith of all that can be said upon the practice 
 which has roused the feelings of the particular trade by which 
 this meeting has been assembled. I am not minutely ac- 
 quainted, as you may suppose, with the details of that trade, 
 
140 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BlUGHT. nov. 10, 
 
 or with the course which the Government has taken with regard 
 to it, excepting so far as I have heard it occasionally discussed 
 during various sessions of Parliament. 
 
 I have always been of opinion that it is a great mistake for 
 the Government to undertake the character of manufacturers ; 
 I believe it is so with regard to the building of ships ; I believe 
 it is so with regard to the manufacture of clothing for the 
 army; I believe it is so likewise in the manufacturing of guns ; 
 and I recollect that, so long ago as forty years since, a Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons passed a resolution which 
 seems to me to include nearly all that can be said upon this 
 matter. In the year 1828 a Committee of the House of 
 Commons reported thus : — 
 
 *The Committee are not disposed to place implicit reliance on the argu- 
 ments which have been urged by some public departments against contracts 
 by competition and in favour of work by themselves ; the latter plan occasions 
 the employment of a good many officers, clerks, artificers, and workmen, and 
 not only adds to the patronage, but to the appearance and importance of 
 a department. Nor can the Committee suffer themselves to feel any pre- 
 judice against the contract system. By reference to some instances of failure 
 they believe that most cases of failure may be attributed to negligence or 
 ignorance in the management of contracts, rather than to the system itself.* 
 
 Now, if I were to put into one sentence my opinion upon 
 this matter, I should quote the sentence which I find in a 
 speech, — the most able speech on this question, I suspect, ever 
 spoken in the House of Commons by my, and your, lamented 
 friend Mr. Cobden. On the 22nd of July, less than a year 
 before his death, he delivered a speech, from which this is an 
 extract : — 
 
 * This is the principle I have always advocated, that the Government ought 
 not to be allowed to manufacture for itself any article which can be obtained 
 from private producers in a competitive market, and if we have entered upon 
 a false system in this respect, we ought, so far as possible, to retrace our 
 steps.' 
 
 Now, if all the speakers to-night devoted their attention 
 exclusively to this topic, they would not be able more 
 thoroughly to examine the whole question and explain it 
 
1868. JX. BIRMINGHAM. 141 
 
 more clearly than is done in this speech. And possibly it 
 might be worth the while of all the artisans of Birmingham 
 who are interested in this question to obtain copies of this 
 very small pamphlet, and to distribute it among such members 
 of the new Parliament as shall come in their way in the course 
 of the next fortnight, with the view to giving them full 
 information on the question. Ever since I have been in 
 Parliament I have held the opinions which are proclaimed in 
 that speech, and on all occasions when there seemed any 
 possibility of doing anything in that direction I have acted 
 upon that opinion. 
 
 You must however bear in mind that that which you com- 
 plain of is merely a very small branch of the whole question. 
 The expenditure of our Government is excessive in every de- 
 partment, and wherever it is excessive there grows up rapidly 
 a powerful interest which is not in harmony with the 
 interests of the people. Every man who lives on the public 
 expenditure, whatever be his services, comes naturally to have 
 an interest — a personal interest, which, if he is not very 
 careful, takes sides against the interests of the tax-payer. 
 We have in this country, out of our expenditure, our 
 military expenditure only — I mean on the sea and land forces 
 — we have a taxation amounting to more than 26,000,000^. 
 per annum. There live upon that 26,000,000^. so vast a 
 body of men— men looking for better wages, better salaries, 
 higher promotion, that they form necessarily a most powerful 
 influence, acting constantly upon the Executive, and against 
 the interests of the taxpayer. And I can assure you that the 
 House of Commons, hitherto, seems to be wholly incapable 
 of contending with this power. In point of fact, many 
 of those who have seats in the House are interested in this 
 expenditure ; and if you will follow the manner in which the 
 expenditure is determined on and the estimates are pro- 
 posed, you will see how difficult it is for three members for 
 Birmingham, or for thirty, to make much difference in this 
 
142 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGUT. koy. 10, 
 
 matter. The heads of departments — the Horse Guards for 
 the army, the Admiralty for the navy — bring forward certain 
 proposals with regard to expenditure, which are laid before 
 the Cabinet, but the public are never heard at the Horse 
 Guards or at the Admiralty. Men are there who are certainly 
 heard^ men whose heads are filled from morning to night 
 with the grandeur, the glory, and the extent of the Services, 
 but most of them do not appear to have any idea that it is 
 of the slightest importance that money is spent or saved ; 
 for they do not seem to know that a tax taken from the 
 people is so much taken from their comforts. I am not 
 charging them with having any ill intention towards the 
 English people. But they are out of all contact with the 
 people; their minds are filled with their own oflSces, their 
 own duties, their own responsibilities ; they are surrounded 
 by an atmosphere which shuts them altogether out from 
 hearing the complaint of the taxpayer. Thus, looking only at 
 what they conceive to be their own duty, they have no motive 
 to set any limit to the amount of expenditure which they 
 are prepared from year to year to recommend to the Cabinet. 
 
 When these propositions come from the Army and Navy 
 Departments of the Cabinet what happens there? It does 
 not need to have been a member of a Cabinet to know what 
 happens. It is this. The saving of the public money is 
 hardly anybody^ business. The head of the Army Depart- 
 ment, the Secretary of War, and the First Lord of the 
 Admii-alty, these are men who probably have only recently 
 been put into their offices. Until tliey were put there they 
 knew nothing about them. They have to depend upon what 
 is said to them by those below them. The Cabinet^ as a 
 whole, is disposed greatly to leave each particular department 
 to the head of that department, and we all know that in the 
 House of Commons, with its mob of generals, and colonels, 
 and admirals, and captains, and the friends of such, it is far 
 more easy to work the Parliamentary machine by a lavish 
 
1868. IX. BIRMINGHAM. 143 
 
 expenditure of money than it is to procure, or to promote, 
 or to insist upon any due system of economy. They make 
 things easy by what is called greasing the wheels. I re- 
 collect, only last Session, speaking to a very eminent member 
 of the Conservative side of the House about the policy of 
 the Government, and he said that their policy was to make 
 the thing work by giving a little money all round. The 
 observation was made especially with reference to that policy 
 for Ireland which they ventured apparently to propose, but 
 which afterwards they not only shrunk from, but denied that 
 they ever had proposed. Well, when the Cabinet has deter- 
 mined upon certain estimates they are laid before the House, 
 and the House always accepts them. I believe there is no 
 man now in the House of Commons who ever remembers a 
 time when an estimate was refused. I do not mean that a 
 salary of 300/. a year has never been struck off, but I mean that 
 any considerable, any sensible sum, that any estimate that could 
 be felt and was connected with the military services has never 
 been struck out by the House of Commons. The House cannot 
 go into the details. Suppose I were to get up and endeavour to 
 go into the particulars of some of these military votes. You 
 would read that the Secretary of War, or the Secretary of the 
 Navy, or the First Lord of the Admiralty has risen to answer 
 me. Sometimes I have heard what I considered a flat denial 
 of facts, and an answer which I have known to be untrue ; 
 but if there was not a flat denial, there would be details given 
 and opinions of ofiicers connected with the Services uttered, 
 and a general muddle of everything, and the House naturally 
 — I am not blaming the House for it — would take the 
 opinion of the head of the department on matters of detail 
 rather than the opinion of a non-professional, independent 
 and critical member, such as I might happen to be. 
 
 Let me give you an illustration. When I went into the 
 House of Commons one of the most notable members there 
 was a man whose name deserves to be held in lasting remem- 
 
144 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 10, 
 
 brance — I mean Joseph Hume. Mr. Hume was in Parliament, 
 I suppose, for nearly forty years, and he devoted himself with 
 the assiduity, the industry, the minute investigation, the 
 power of work of ten ordinary men to this very question. 
 But though I dare say there might be some wrong things 
 which he prevented from being done, and some good things 
 which he recommended should be done, no one was more sen- 
 sible I believe than he was that at the end of his long career, 
 with all his measureless services of intention to the people, 
 the actual result of his labours was almost nothing at all. 
 The fact is, the system of our Parliament is such that the 
 Estimates, whatever they are, as a rule are always agreed to, 
 and that more and more of the taxes — which means the hard 
 earnings of the people — are put year by year into that bottom- 
 less and insatiable pit into which so many hundreds and 
 thousands of millions have heretofore been cast. I have not 
 referred to any figures in preparation for this meeting, but 
 I suppose that within the last twenty years or little more 
 the expenditure of the country has risen by nearly 20,000,000/. 
 per annum. I suppose that since the time when the Duke 
 of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel were at the head of the 
 Government — a few years after the passing of the Reform 
 Act of 1832 — the military expenditure of the Government 
 has been doubled; and all this when the foreign policy of 
 the country has been reformed and changed, when we do 
 not pretend to undertake to settle all the afiairs of Europe, 
 when we are told continually that Her Majesty's relations 
 to other States are of the most amicable nature, and there 
 is not so much as the slightest cloud in the sky. The 
 military expenditure grows notwithstanding. I believe that 
 it is bigger this year than it ever has been before in time of 
 peace, and, unless there is a formidable outcry, it will grow 
 bigger and bigger every year. The Services are always asking 
 for more. You remember the complaint against Oliver Twist 
 was that he asked for more. But then Oliver was badly used. 
 
1868. IX. BIRMINGHAM. 145 
 
 In this case they who are always asking for more are not 
 badly used, are always active, are always working on the 
 Government, and meeting the Government at every turn. 
 The members of the Government as they move about West- 
 minster meet people connected with the army and the navy 
 and the civil service every hour of the day. The whole power 
 of these expectant services is brought to bear incessantly upon 
 the Government ; and if there is no power on the other side, 
 what course is the Government likely to take? Of course, 
 it will yield to the force which is incessantly brought upon 
 it, and you, the uncomplaining people, work under heavier and 
 heavier burdens, till at last you may be roused to a sense of 
 intolerable oppression, and may bring about some terrible 
 political catastrophe. 
 
 What is wanted is an entirely new system, and I will in 
 a few sentences tell you what that system ought to be. In 
 future the formation of the Estimates should no longer be left 
 to be determined by the Admiralty, the War Office, or the 
 Cabinet. There ought to be an honestly chosen committee 
 of the House of Commons. The House pretends to hold the 
 purse of the nation — it does so, indeed, but its own hand is 
 always in it. Surely, instead of having 650 gentlemen, who 
 for the most part knew nothing about the matter, to determine 
 these claims, all the Estimates should be referred to a fairly 
 selected committee of the House of Commons, and that com- 
 mittee ought to go into the consideration of the whole matter, 
 to hear opinions, to take evidence, and make a report with 
 regard to every important item in the Estimates which it 
 presents to the House. For the first ten or twelve years after 
 I entered the House of Commons I took great interest in the 
 Estimates. I sat very near Mr. Hume, and I did what I 
 could to aid him in his efforts on this subject ; but I found 
 out that it was all in vain. In fact, there is no greater delu- 
 sion imaginable than that any single member of Parliament 
 can make any sensible difference in the public expenditure. 
 
 L 
 
146 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 10, 
 
 You often hear complaints that members do not examine and 
 criticise the estimates. I have read newspapers which make a 
 great point of finding fault with me. They are fond of saying, 
 ' Why does he not, instead of declaiming against the expendi- 
 ture in the Birmingham Town Hall, attend the committees 
 of the House and fight the Estimates ?' The man who tells 
 you that is either a knave or a fool. Mr. Hume fought the 
 Estimates for forty years, and they always grew, even in his 
 hands, and the fighting cannot be done in the House of 
 Commons under the present system. So conscious is nearly 
 every one of this that at present, in committees of the House, 
 when the Estimates are before it, scarcely anybody attends 
 to listen or criticise except the representatives of the army 
 and navy, and their criticism almost always goes in favour 
 of increasing rather than of diminishing the expenditure. 
 But we should not accept what the Horse Guards say or 
 what the Admiralty says, or what the Cabinet says, but we 
 ought to have an honestly chosen committee of the House 
 of Commons, to whom these matters should be referred, 
 and that committee should recommend whatever changes it 
 thinks proper after taking evidence upon every point. I am 
 of opinion that the time is coming when the people of 
 England will begin to discover that this question is of very 
 grave importance. Seventy millions a year of taxes — 
 70,000,000/. a year. I got a letter to-day from somebody ; 
 I have not brought it with me. It is from a gentleman 
 who has read what I said the other day at Edinburgh. He 
 tells me that I do not know anything about 70,000,000, 
 for I do not know correctly how much 1,000,000 is. He 
 sent me a calculation of how many bank-notes it would take, 
 one piled on the other, and pressed down. He infers that 
 it would reach as high as the Monument. But there is a 
 simple way of understanding the matter. If you will take 
 these 70,000,000/., and think what it comes to in ten years — 
 700,000,000/., and in twenty years 1400,000,000/.; 700,000,000/. 
 
1868. IX, BIRMINGHAM. 147 
 
 since I first stood on this platform, to speak to you about 
 Reform, — where did the 700,000,000/. come from, think you — 
 you men, with your skilled hands or with your great and 
 untiring" industry, and other men, your employers, with their 
 capital and their skill ? Why, surely, out of the industry 
 of the United Kingdom. The 7o_,ooo,ooo/., the 700,000,000/. 
 of the ten years, have been expended, and every single 
 sovereign of the mass that was not expended on the true 
 needs of the country was a sovereign wrongly wrung from 
 you, which, had it remained with you, would have added 
 sensibly to the comfort of your families and of your children. 
 Bear in mind, too, that the pressure of taxes is always felt 
 most heavily by the poorest of the people ; the rich are never 
 ruined, and they rarely even suffer sensibly from taxation. 
 They may pay so much in the pound of income-tax, or so 
 much upon a house-duty, but there remains always what 
 gives them abundance of food, clothing, and shelter ; but the 
 pressure upon the great body of the people — those whose 
 living is their labour and their wages — is much heavier, and 
 upon the poorest of them it is absolutely crushing and de- 
 structive. It lessens the means of employment because it 
 absorbs capital, and it lessens the rate of wages because it 
 diminishes profit. It therefore necessarily lessens the manu- 
 facturing power and narrows the commerce of the country. 
 
 The Governments of Europe are pretty much all alike, and 
 they will all come probably, unless they reform, to the same 
 fate. At this moment there is scarcely a Power in Europe 
 which does not extract from the people the utmost farthing 
 it can get. Take the case of France ; if you were to trace the 
 course of that Government from 1815 till now, you would find 
 its history is constant deficit, constant increase of taxation, 
 constant accumulation of debt. There is no jeopardy so great 
 to a monarchy as that which arises from a constantly growing 
 debt and a constantly extravagant expenditure, and perhaps, 
 when one is in a mood which is half vindictive and half 
 
 L 2 
 
X48 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. noy. 10, 
 
 hopeless, one may take some consolation from the fact that 
 every Government which heedlessly wastes the means of its 
 people is sowing the seeds of its certain destruction. 
 
 I have been a little struck as I looked over your news- 
 papers to find that this subject has occupied certainly very 
 little, perhaps no space at all in the reports of the speeches of 
 our opponents. One of the candidates for the inferior position 
 of minority Member for Birmingham complained, on a recent 
 occasion, that I had not read the speech of his colleague in 
 the candidature, and that I had not, as I was in duty bound, 
 undertaken to answer it. The fact is I am too busy in these 
 days to dwell very much upon works of fiction. The speeches 
 of Mr. Lloyd are what I would call dull fiction, and the 
 speeches of his colleague, though not less fiction, are certainly 
 of a rather more sparkling and sensational character. But 
 I turned this morning to the papers that I might have an 
 opportunity to-night of satisfying our friends that I had at 
 least read what was reported, even if I might fail to answer 
 it. I find, however, that the reporter gave more prominence 
 to the speech of the chairman than to the speeches of the 
 candidates. It was a disappointment to me, though I have 
 no doubt he exercised a sound discretion. Now, the chair- 
 man was Mr. Councillor Lowe, who, I suppose, being a 
 member of the Town Council of Birmingham, must be a man 
 at least of certain standing and repute. This gentleman 
 appears to believe in the hobgoblin he sets before us. He 
 talks in the most moving terms to his audience. He says, 
 ' Never go back from the bulwarks of your civil and religious 
 liberties,^ and that I presume is the Established Church of 
 Ireland. I do not believe myself that the Established Church 
 was ever the bulwark of our civil or religious liberties 
 either in England or Ireland, but I wish Mr. Lowe the next 
 time he speaks would tell us — because, you must remember, 
 the hobgoblin that he sets before us is the Church of Rome — 
 I wish he would tell us where the Church of Rome in Eng- 
 
1868. IX, BIRMINGHAM. 149 
 
 land gets all its converts from. I do not know that I have 
 met with more than one or two Nonconformists who have 
 left the Church of their fathers and gone over to Rome, but 
 I constantly meet with men who, having been brought up in 
 the bosom of the Established Church of England, are now 
 within the fold of the Church of Rome ; and you all know — 
 you all read the papers, and you all know — that there is 
 scarcely a week, and never a month for years past, that you 
 have not heard of some person of eminence, or of wealth, or of 
 family, or of culture, or of standing in some way or other, 
 who has not left the Church of England and gone over to 
 Rome. Even the families of the households of the hierarchy 
 are not free from the invasion of the power of Rome. What 
 would you do — what would you think — what would the general 
 of an army think if his sentinels were deserting, if the 
 regiment upon which he particularly relied was constantly 
 going over to the enemy ? At least he would not have the 
 effrontery to say that his regiment was the especial bulwark 
 of his cause. 
 
 May I ask you why it is — and if you, gentlemen, do not 
 answer the question, I will try and answer it — why it is that 
 this melancholy fact is so? In the Established Church of 
 England and Ireland — but I will confine myself to England, 
 because I suppose those gentlemen would not care much about 
 Ireland if they did not fear about England-s-in the Church 
 by law established, and I suppose by the Canons of the 
 Church, every clergyman is a different order from the laymen 
 of his own Church, and from you, and such as you and 
 myself, who are Dissenters. He enters the Church, it may 
 be, at three and twenty years of age, and he is told that he 
 is in a certain way higher and better than other men. The 
 orders into which he enters are indelible. To enter into 
 holy orders is a great thing, but when once done cannot, I 
 believe, in this country, be undone. A man in orders is not 
 allowed to come to Birmingham and enter into one of your 
 
150 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 10, 
 
 trades, and if you were to return him to Parliament the doors 
 of the House of Commons would be closed against him. He 
 is a man different from other men, and taught that he is so, 
 and as among the clergy there is at least as large a proportion 
 of men with human frailties as in other classes of the people, 
 the clergyman necessarily feels himself elated, elevated, dis- 
 tinguished from others. Even the humility that ought to 
 belong to his order and his calling is scarcely able to keep 
 him from those failings. He argues that what the Church of 
 Rome believes, for the most part, or in some sort, is to be 
 defended from the Prayer Book, and thus step by step he 
 wanders out of the state of mind in which he originally was, 
 until he gets into one in which he cannot be satisfied or 
 contented, except he advances further and lands in the 
 Church of E/Ome. Do not imagine that in saying this I am 
 attacking unfairly any member of the Church of England, 
 or that I mean anything that is unfriendly to the Church 
 of Rome. We are not discussing theological questions here. 
 I am however endeavouring to show cause for that strange 
 tendency towards Rome which has been witnessed of late 
 in the Church of England, and to point out to you how 
 it is — ^for you know that it is so — that the Church of 
 England, as far as its clerical ranks are concerned, is not just 
 now a bulwark against the inroads of Rome. 
 
 Our friends are not very fair in the speeches to which I 
 have referred. They do not keep to accurate statements. I 
 should say that this is a very mild way of putting the case. 
 They deny, for example, that which I stated here, and that 
 which you know to be true. They deny that the grievous irrita- 
 tion which is felt by so many of the occupiers in Birmingham 
 was caused by the head of the Conservative party, and in- 
 sinuate that it was the work of the Liberal party in Parlia- 
 ment. I forgot the other night, when speaking upon the 
 point, to quote a passage (of which I can now only state the 
 substance) from a speech made by the present Prime Minister 
 
1868 IX, BIRMINGHAM. 151 
 
 at the time when Mr. Hodgkinson moved the abolition of the 
 system of compounding in or for the payment of rates. 
 Mr. Disraeli, to the utter astonishment of those who sat 
 near him and of all his followers who came in afterwards, 
 said that Mr. Hodgkinson's proposition met the view of the 
 Government, that in point of fact it was their original policy, 
 and he added, that if they had been master of the situation 
 (which meant that if they had got their own party into a 
 sufficiently tractable condition) they would have proposed it 
 originally to Parliament. And yet these gentlemen go about 
 to meetings in your town and state that which I know, and 
 which they ought to know, to be utterly untrue. 
 
 They have another grievance just now. I think that I 
 ought to be held, politically at least, to be a person of almost 
 stainless character, because I find that when they have anything 
 to say to the working men about me they generally go back 
 to rather more than twenty years ago. I could not go back 
 nearly so far if I were speaking about them. They tell the 
 working men of Birmingham that I was one of the opponents 
 of the Factory Act. Well, if it were true that the Factory 
 Act was all good, and that the opponents of it were all wrong, 
 it still would not be wondered at that I — who was myself 
 concerned in the trade which was to be mainly affected, 
 1 who represented the great city of Manchester — it would 
 not be wondered at much if I took in some degree a one- 
 sided view of that question. I do not pretend to infallibility; 
 but this is a fact which they never care to tell you — that 
 when that Bill was introduced into the House of Commons, 
 about the year 1845, at a time when the manufacturing 
 interests of the country were assailing the Corn Law with 
 constantly increasing force of argument, it was thought a 
 very lucky thing that a Protectionist Parliament should be 
 able to assail the manufacturers through the Factory Bill. 
 When Sir Robert Peel was in power, on the first great vote 
 which made it apparent that that Bill was going to pass, 
 
152 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. not. 10. 
 
 the whole Protectionist party, joined by some of the Whigs, 
 voted against us and against the Government of Sir Robert 
 Peel ; the Protection party for the reason I state^ and the 
 Whigs for a reason that was no better — ^that they might join 
 some of Sir Robert Peel's supporters in worrying him. And 
 now you will probably be surprised to hear — I have no donbt 
 that our Conservative-Liberal-Constitutional candidates will 
 be surprised to learn — whom, I believe in that very year, 
 I found with me when I went into the lobby against the 
 Factory Bill. I am not positive as to all the men, I speak 
 merely from memory, and I have made no recent reference 
 to the particulars, but I believe I was in the same lobby 
 with Lord Derby and Lord Chelmsford, then both in the 
 House of Commons, with General Peel, with Sir J. Pakington, 
 and many other leaders of the Conservative party. Perhaps 
 it was bad company, but at least I think the supporters of 
 those gentlemen now ought to admit that, if they have nothing 
 since then to lay to my charge, my character will at least 
 bear comparison with these eminent chiefs of their party. And 
 bear in mind, too, that the great party which on that occasion 
 voted for that Bill, voted in the same Session of Parliament 
 to keep your loaf small. They had not much affection for 
 the working man when with one vote they diminished the 
 size of his loaf, and with another vote they lessened the 
 number of hours during which he was permitted to earn it. 
 Why, as to short time, there is no man in England who has 
 ever been moreinfavour of short-time work than I have. My 
 own hours of work are sometimes far too long, and I believe 
 that is true of the great majority of the people of this 
 country, but I believe that if the Government of England 
 had been in past times prudent, economical, and just, and 
 even if it were to become so now, every man in England 
 might have his daily labour lessened by not less than two 
 hours without the slightest diminution of his comforts. 
 But the argument of our opponents, the tenour of their 
 
1868. IX, BIRMINGHAM. 153 
 
 speeches, the whole course of what they say to the constituencies 
 in their canvass, seems to me consistent with the pitiable and 
 mean condition in which they are. They are seeking to enter 
 Parliament not by the open door of the Constitution of Eng- 
 land, but to wriggle in by a crevice, and it is nothing to be 
 surprised at that in their meetings they should descend to 
 arguments which are consistent with the position to which 
 they aspire. Down here they say they are Liberal-Conser- 
 vatives — I am not sure whether it is Liberal-Conservatives or 
 Conservative-Liberals — they take the garb of the Liberal 
 party as far as they dare, but on their way to Westminster, if 
 they go so far, there will be an entire transformation, and the 
 Liberal-Conservative at Birmingham — so liberal that he does 
 not know where his Conservatism is going to — when he gets 
 to Westminster and to the floor of the House of Commons 
 will be found sitting among the real old true blue Tories. 
 Look at their desperate condition. The other day the Rating 
 Clause became their great test. Was it not in the old Reform 
 Bill ? and was not Lord John Russell in favour of it ? Most 
 happy are they when they can find Lord John Russell in any- 
 thing wrong. Now they are all for household suffrage, pure 
 and simple, without any test whatever. One of them is 
 against the law of primogeniture. I am against the law 
 of primogeniture ; but I will undertake to say that when 
 this man gets to Westminster, if he gets there, he will 
 take his seat among those who hold that the law of primo- 
 geniture is the foundation not only of the House of Lords, 
 as an independent portion of the Constitution, but really 
 of the whole Constitution itself. 
 
 Then, I suppose to make way with some other men who are 
 able to see all round them, he is also in favour of what he calls 
 a permissive ballot. Well, I do not know what the permissive 
 ballot is. We have heard of the Permissive Bill. It is diffi- 
 cult to say whether the great and good object which this 
 measure professes to further is likely to be helped by it, and 
 
164 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, not. 10, 
 
 the diflSculty is increased by the permissive character of the 
 Bill. But the permissive ballot I do not understand. What 
 we want is the ballot. We do not want that any man should 
 go to Parliament for us who should speak with hesitating 
 voice upon a great subject like that. Compare them with us. 
 We are not beating down anything ; we are not coming down 
 week after week, to one meeting after another, and offering 
 something more ; we are not like a trader behind a counter 
 who asks his customers, ' Is there anything else that you would 
 like ? ' we are not yielding one principle after another, for this 
 simple, this miserable object, that, without reference to the 
 public service or to our own consciences, we should be sent up 
 as members for Birmingham to the House of Commons. No ; 
 and more than that, we do not go about the town applauding 
 a clause which has cut off one-third of all the power of every 
 elector of the town of Birmingham. Is it not amazing that 
 there should be in Birmingham as many men as would fill a 
 small room who would listen with patience to two candidates 
 who tell them that they are delighted that one-third of the 
 voting power of every man is cut off, and that they think it 
 very fair ? Mr. Lloyd says that until some other mode can be 
 devised of representing minorities — that is, of letting men go 
 into Parliament in the name of a constituency which is not 
 willing to send them there — unless some other mode can be 
 devised, he thinks this mode is very fair, and he shall support 
 it. I am thankful to say that I have not gone down so low as 
 that yet. I stand before the constituency with whatever may 
 be known of me during a political life extending nearly to 
 thirty years. If my opinions are not sound in your view j if 
 my public life has not been faithful to my own convictions 
 and to your interests ; if you think you can be better repre- 
 sented, it is your duty to make a change. Whatsoever you 
 decide of course will be absolute law to me, and from your 
 verdict there will be no appeal. You know what the circum- 
 stances were under which I first came here. You know as 
 
IX. BIRMINGHAM. 155 
 
 much as any people know of what I have done, or endeavoured 
 to do, in the ten years since I came here. Next week, this 
 day week, your verdict will be passed upon me ; upon Mr. 
 Dixon ; upon all those gentlemen who are for the first time 
 candidates for your suffrages. Let me beg of you to consider 
 the gravity of the occasion, the greatness of the principles for 
 which we contend, the grandeur of the triumphs that we have 
 already obtained, and the glories of the future to which your 
 country may look forward. And let the man who speaks for 
 Birmingham in the House of Commons be one who shall 
 speak for those great principles which are essential in every 
 country for the happiness of its whole people. 
 
 -m- 
 
X. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 21, 1868. 
 
 [On December 9 Mr. Disraeli^s Cabinet resigned office, and Mr. Gladstone 
 undertook the formation of a new Administration. It was thought that 
 Mr. Bright should take part in the Government. He accepted the office 
 of President of the Board of Trade. On the vacancy which was created 
 by his acceptance of office, and his reappearance before his constituents on 
 December 21, he was returned without opposition.] 
 
 I THINK it is about five weeks to-day since I was permitted 
 to stand before you as a candidate for your suffrages at the 
 recent general election. On that occasion you were pleased 
 to elect me as one of your representatives, and all three of us 
 were elected, as you will remember, by an enormous majority 
 over our opponents. At that time I had, I beg to assure you, 
 no expectation and no intention of putting you to the trouble 
 of reconsidering your choice, nor of giving you the opportunity 
 of cutting short my political existence. It was a dream that 
 I had in my youth — I suppose it must have originated in the 
 thraldom of my school-days — that as I advanced in life I 
 should find myself more at liberty and less under the control 
 of circumstances or of the opinion of others. I find that was 
 altogether a dream, and that the longer I live the less I seem 
 to be my own master. I find myself from year to year 
 becoming more of what I may term almost a bond-slave, and 
 my masters becoming from year to year more numerous and 
 
X BIRMINGHAM. 157 
 
 more exacting. The proof of all this is that I am here to-day, 
 and in a new character, one which I had never expected 
 to assume, and one which I have assumed with extreme 
 reluctance. 
 
 Since we met five weeks ago great changes, as you know, 
 have occurred. A Government which ought never to have 
 been a Government — a Government which had the boldness to 
 say that it might take its place alongside of the best Govern- 
 ments this country has ever had — has suddenly vanished. It 
 was a strange Government, It was built upon the fraud of the 
 Session of 1866. It lived during the Session of 1867, doing 
 that which in the preceding Session it had declared would be 
 destructive of the constitution and the monarchy; it pro- 
 longed a lingering existence during the Session of 1868 by 
 threatening a dying Parliament with an appeal to a dead 
 constituency. And now so entirely has it disappeared that, if 
 the leaders of Constitutional Associations and the frantic 
 clergy who have taken so much interest in the recent general 
 election were to go to Downing-street and look for it, they 
 would not find a trace of its existence left. The subsidence, of 
 course, of one Government necessitates the formation of 
 another, and Mr. Gladstone was called to office by, doubtless, 
 the willing voice of the Queen, and by the approbation of a 
 vast majority of the people in the United Kingdom. Mr. 
 Gladstone, soon after he proceeded to the formation of his 
 Administration, asked me to join him in the Government. I 
 have reason to know that he made that proposition with the 
 cordial and gracious acquiescence of Her Majesty the Queen. 
 As you know, I had very strong grounds for refusing to 
 change my seat and place in the House of Commons. The 
 arguments which were used to induce me to do so were 
 based entirely upon what was considered best for the in- 
 terests of the great Liberal party and for the public service. 
 I was obliged to admit that on looking at those arguments 
 from such a point of view, they were not easily to be answered. 
 
158 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 21, 
 
 On the other hand, I could only offer arguments of a private 
 and personal nature, though I had believed them to be un- 
 answerable. But when the private and the personal came to 
 be weighed against the apparent public reasons, the private 
 and the personal yielded to the public, and I surrendered my 
 inclination, and I may say also my judgment, to the opinions 
 and to the judgment of my friends. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone told me that he did not wish me to accept 
 any office that was inferior in importance or in emolument to 
 any held by any one of his colleagues, and he proposed that I 
 should accept the position of Secretary of State for India. 
 Now, very many of my friends have urged in past times that 
 I should undertake this office, and not a few have expressed 
 regret that I have not accepted it now. In a sentence, there- 
 fore, I think it right to explain why I took the course which 
 led to my declining such an important post. You know that 
 twelve years ago, just before I came here, I suffered from an 
 entire breakdown of my health, which cut me off from public 
 labours for about two years. The Indian department, I believe, 
 is one of very heavy work, and I felt I was not justified in 
 accepting it unless there were great probability of some 
 useful result which could not be accomplished under any other 
 chief of that office. I still retain the opinion that the views 
 which I have expressed in times past — especially in the year 
 1858, when the India Government Bill was passing through 
 Parliament — are sound, and that the time will come when it 
 will be necessary to apply them to the Government of India. 
 But I believe that public opinion is not sufficiently advanced 
 to allow us to adopt them ; and that if I had taken that office 
 I should have found myself unable to carry into effect the prin- 
 ciples which I believe to be right with regard to the govern- 
 ment of India. At the same time I will confess freely that it 
 did not appear seemly for me — and that I should have been in 
 a wrong place, holding the views which I have held from my 
 youth upwards — if I had connected myself distinctly with the 
 
1868. X BIRMINOUAM. 159 
 
 conduct of the great military departments of the Indian 
 Government. Looking, therefore, at these points, I felt it my 
 duty to decline the proposition ; and I said that if I was to 
 accept any seat in this Government, I should prefer to take the 
 office of President of the Board of Trade. In that office I may 
 do a little good, and, perhaps, I may prevent some harm. At 
 least it will not, I hope, so burden me that I may be unable 
 to take a part in the discussion of the great questions which 
 must come veiy speedily before the House of Commons. 
 
 Having said thus much, I must ask you to consider that, 
 although I stand before you in a new character, I have not 
 the smallest intention of getting rid of my old one. I hope 
 the time has arrived in this country — it has only recently 
 arrived — when a man may, perhaps without difficulty, act 
 as an honest Minister of the Crown, and at the same time 
 as an honest and devoted servant and counsellor of the people. 
 But I shall have to ask your patience, and to ask your lenient 
 judgment of my conduct in regard, it may be, to questions 
 which I am not now able to specify, but which must soon 
 come on for consideration and discussion. A Cabinet, as you 
 know, is composed of some fourteen or fifteen members of 
 the two Houses of Parliament. The questions which the 
 Government itself may propose, and the questions which may 
 be submitted to Parliament by others, will require to be dis- 
 cussed and consulted upon by members of the Cabinet ; and 
 you are aware that unless there be harmony among the mem- 
 bers of any Administration, there must necessarily be failure 
 and disaster. It is therefore possible that in seeking the 
 maintenance of this harmony the members of the Adminis- 
 tration may appear at times to take a different line from that 
 which they have taken when unconnected with the Govern- 
 ment. If there should be any such occasion — if any one of 
 my constituents should find that I have at any period to come 
 been in a lobby different from that in which at some former 
 period I have been found, let him practise such patience as 
 
160 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 21, 
 
 he can ; for he may understand this, that until I say I have 
 changed my views, those views remain unchanged, and that 
 the different course which I may be compelled to take must 
 be interpreted not as one which affects principle so much as 
 time and opportunity, and that I have had to make a tempo- 
 rary concession to the necessity of maintaining harmony of 
 action among the members of the Government. I must ask 
 you to look always at general results. If I should remain 
 in office one session, two sessions, three sessions, or more, 
 look at the close of each and observe whether the general 
 result of the administration and legislation of the country, 
 under the leadership of the present Prime Minister, is such 
 as to justify you in giving your support to the Government 
 of which he is the head, and then I think I shall have fair 
 ground for asking that you should not withdraw your confi- 
 dence and support from me. 
 
 This Government which has now been formed is the 
 express representation and creation of the great intelligent 
 Liberal party in the three kingdoms. The first question 
 to which the Government must necessarily apply itself is 
 that which was put to the constituencies at the recent elec- 
 tions — the question of the Irish Church — and on that ques- 
 tion you have returned a verdict which no man living can 
 mistake. I shall not enter into any argument about the 
 Irish Church. The time for argument has passed ; the time 
 for action — and thorough, earnest action — ^has arrived. But 
 looking at the verdict and the means by which it was ob- 
 tained, I will say one word with regard to what happened 
 at this recent election, for that mode of ascertaining the 
 l)opular view on this important question has, to me, its sad 
 and its dark features. In this town, where the majority was 
 so enormous, the difficulty was not so great ; but if you 
 survey some of the counties, and a very large number of the 
 boroughs throughout the kingdom — I ought to confine my- 
 self very much to England and Ireland, for Scotland may 
 
1868. X. BIRMINGHAM. 161 
 
 be to a large extent excepted from this charge — you will find 
 the exercise of the constitutional right of creating a Parlia- 
 ment has been accompanied by much that every lover of 
 freedom and public morals must regret and condemn. We 
 have had tumult in many boroughs. Those twin demons, 
 discord and drink, have run riot in the streets of many of our 
 towns, and among the poorer classes of voters there can be 
 no doubt that bribery to a great extent has prevailed. There 
 has been treating to a still greater extent, and throughout 
 both counties and boroughs there has been in many cases a 
 relentless compulsion which has deprived thousands of elec- 
 tors of the free exercise of those rights to which they were 
 entitled by law. The whole picture, as I surveyed it from 
 day to day in the newspaper reports, was scandalous and 
 frightful. It was utterly humiliating, and every one of us 
 should ask himself whether it is possible to find out a remedy 
 for such a state of things. It seems to me that very much 
 of our electoral system as it has come down from old times, 
 times very different from these, is barbarous and no longer 
 tolerable. I never, for instance, can understand why it 
 should be necessary in all times to have what we term the 
 ceremony of public nominations. It is all very well on an 
 occasion like this, when we are all agreed — when we are not 
 so numerous, that we cannot meet under a roof where there 
 is room for everybody, when good-humour is in everybody's 
 countenance, and when everybody is willing to listen ; but 
 in most of our elections the process is of a very different 
 character. The two political parties are more equally divided ; 
 they are marshalled by their leaders ; men are brought in 
 from surrounding villages and districts ; a class which is not 
 familiar with peaceable transactions is often there by invi- 
 tation ; signals are made from one side of the platform and 
 from the other ; and what are called the speeches at nomina- 
 tions are not speeches at all, but simply attempts to scream 
 out a few words or sentences in the ear of a neutral but 
 
 M 
 
162 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 21, 
 
 anxious reporter. The result is this, that the day of nomi- 
 nation is a preliminary skirmish to the general battle of the 
 morrowj and that when men meet face to face, some of them, 
 I am sorry to say, frequently are a little excited by means 
 which are not derived from the passions of a political 
 contest. Under such circumstances, a number of skirmishes 
 occur in the crowd ; and before the day is over a very con- 
 siderable portion of the population of the borough is ready 
 at any moment to do battle with some other portion which 
 is supposed to differ in opinion or in party spirit from it. 
 Then there comes the open voting and the open poll, and 
 from hour to hour the excitement grows, and as the time 
 nears when the race is about to be decided, even in boroughs 
 so well conducted as this, and where the balance is so over- 
 whelmingly on one side, even in our principal streets scenes 
 occur which the day after every one of us looks back upon 
 with regret. 
 
 My notion is, that if in one of your large wards, which 
 now contains just as many electors as there were electors of 
 Birmingham ten years ago, you hold the elections for your 
 municipal council without the trouble and turmoil, and con- 
 flict and farce of public nomination, it might be easy to 
 arrange that all our elections for Parliament might be con- 
 ducted on the same principle, with an enormous gain to the 
 true interests of freedom throughout the country. 
 
 Again, with regard to the mode of voting to which refer- 
 ence has already been made, I am very glad to tell you that 
 when I went up to London last week I found, I was going 
 to say, hardly anybody, professing to be a Liberal on the 
 Liberal side of the House of Commons who was not in favour 
 of the Ballot. They who had previously been in its favour 
 have been strongly confirmed in their views by recent trans- 
 actions, and some important persons, who heretofore have 
 withheld their countenance from it, freely admit that what 
 they have seen of late has entirely changed th^ir opinion. 
 
1868. X. BIRMINGHAM. 163 
 
 and that they believe that with our present wide suffrage — 
 I do not know why it should be more just in one case than 
 in the other — the adoption of the Ballot is not only proper, 
 but inevitable. 
 
 There is another matter, as we are Americanising our in- 
 stitutions, about which I wish to say a word. That very 
 foolish phrase, you will remember, was adopted by the friends 
 and partisans of the late Government, who themselves last 
 year took the greatest step which has been made in such a 
 direction during our lifetime. But, as I was going to ob- 
 serve, there is a rule in the elections in some American States 
 which is found to be very useful — that on the day of the polling 
 in the cities the public-houses are closed. My own opinion 
 is, that such a rule would tend greatly to the tranquillity 
 of our towns, and would, probably, tend to promote that 
 clearness of intellect which is so very necessary for rightly 
 exercising the privilege of the franchise. But matters have 
 at last come to this point, that it is absolutely necessary that 
 public attention should be called to the whole subject of our 
 mode of election, and that Parliament will not fulfil its duty 
 to itself or to the country unless it takes the matter up with 
 a thorough determination to apply to the evils to which I 
 have alluded the best and speediest remedies of which they 
 are capable. Surely, if Parliament is the guardian of free- 
 dom, of justice, and of public morals, it is desirable that it 
 should not have its origin in transactions such as were wit- 
 nessed in the recent general election. 
 
 And now, what other question is there that, in your opinion, 
 as a great national question, requires early attention ? (Seve- 
 ral voices — ' Ratepaying.') That question is not so much a 
 national as a local question. I was going to refer to another 
 point on which I spoke at the meeting previous to the late 
 election — the question of public and national education. I 
 believe that the more political power is removed from the 
 monarch, or the nobles, or a select class in a country, and 
 
 M 2 
 
164 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 21, 
 
 the more it is distributed among the people, although such 
 a reform is by itself a great means of education, that it calls 
 for more attention to the proper, complete, and universal 
 extension of education among the community. In all our 
 parishes throughout the kingdom there are organisations for 
 the relief of pauperism and for the punishment of crime. I 
 want to ask why, if these things are to be done by the public 
 will and by the fiat of Parliament, we cannot have at least as 
 complete and as widely-sustained an organisation, by which 
 all the children of our people shall be educated in knowledge 
 and self-respect ? This is a question which Parliament will, 
 no doubt, consider, and which the Government — any Govern- 
 ment, whether this or any other — cannot leave altogether out 
 of the catalogue of things which must be considered and must 
 be done. 
 
 There is one other — and it is the only other — great public 
 question on which I shall say anything now. This is our 
 large, and, as I think, our scandalous expenditure. Of course, 
 the diminution of expenditure is not a simple matter like the 
 passing of a particular Bill, or the repeal of some odious 
 Act of Parliament ; it is not a thing that can be done in 
 one Session, and by one stroke of the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer's pen. The reduction of our expenditure, to be 
 considerable and to be effectual, must be extended over 
 successive Sessions of Parliament. It will be necessary that 
 the Administration should entitle itself to the support of the 
 country, that it should from Session to Session exercise a 
 rigid economy, that it should sensibly lessen what I call 
 our gross and scandalous expenditure, and lessen in a cor- 
 responding degree the oppressive and intolerable taxation which 
 now presses upon the English people. Since that unfortunate 
 event, the war with Russia in 1854, the cost of the military 
 organisation in this country has increased, as you know, 
 enormously. But at the same time, the people have come to 
 the opinion that our ancient policy of interfering with the 
 
1868. X. BIRMINGHAM. 165 
 
 disputes and confusion on the Continent ought to be 
 abandoned. Even the late Prime Minister in his speeches, 
 when he wished to tell the people how good a Government 
 his was, laid special stress upon the foreign policy of Lord 
 Stanley, and the foreign policy of Lord Stanley was not to 
 meddle and muddle, and not to give advice where it was not 
 asked for, and not to take part in the confusion of the 
 Continent, but to have regard solely to the real dignity 
 and the true interests of this nation. Well, that is our 
 foreign policy to-day. It is that which I have always 
 preached from your platforms. It is that which was defended 
 elaborately by me in a speech in your own Town-hall, on the 
 very first occasion when I appeared before you as your 
 representative, and at a banquet to which I was invited. 
 What can be more foolish, what more worthy, not of sensible 
 men, but of lunatics, than that when we are abandoning 
 a policy of constant and incessant, of costly and sanguinary 
 interference, we should still find it necessary to add millions 
 and millions to our military expenditure, as if, instead of 
 becoming wiser in our foreign policy, we were every year 
 becoming more foolish than our fathers have been? Rely 
 upon it, that so long as Parliament exacts from the industry 
 of this people 70,000,000^. a year, there is no power on earth 
 that can raise your poor and suffering population from 
 its present position. The outlay of 1,000,000^., io,ooo,ooo<?., 
 20,000,000/. a-year makes a difference which no man can 
 calculate ; it withers up the chances of comfort and of hope 
 in hundreds and thousands of the homes of the poorest of 
 your people. 
 
 The other day, in Edinburgh, and afterwards here, I spoke 
 of a free breakfast-table. Now, the more I consider the 
 matter the more I feel convinced that the attainment of that 
 object is practicable, and that its attainment would be felt 
 to be an enormous relief to the great multitudes of your popu- 
 lation, because out of the 10,000,000/. of taxation that might 
 
166 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 21, 
 
 be remitted, three fourths at least would find its way into the 
 homes of the people ; and at the same time the remission 
 would stimulate our foreign trade to a very great extent by 
 stimulating the consumption of those articles which we receive 
 from abroad. It would give extended employment every- 
 where, by the diminution of the prices of .the articles from 
 which the taxation was remitted, and it would give a greater 
 power to consume to the whole body of the people. Let me 
 tell you this — I say it as a member of the Administration 
 which is just formed, and I tell you nothing here that is 
 a secret — that no Government is deserving of the confidence 
 and support of the people of this country which cannot carry 
 on the administration of the country in a manner which is 
 consistent with the dignity and the security of the nation for 
 a smaller sum than 70^00^000^. a year. 
 
 I have explained to you under what circumstances I have 
 become a member of the present Administration. Although 
 I did so with great reluctance, still, having taken the step 
 which was urged upon me, I hope I shall give such labour 
 and service to ofiice as may be in my power, and that 
 I may be a strength^ and not a weakness, to my colleagues. 
 But even more I hope that I may be a strength, and not 
 a weakness, to those great public questions in which you 
 and I in past years have taken so deep an interest. Let me 
 however advise you that Parliaments do not march rapidly 
 unless public opinion backs them; that the power of a 
 Government to do what is good for the nation is not absolute, 
 but that it requires to be backed up by the public will ; for, as 
 I have told you before, every Ministry that has existed or will 
 exist in this country finds itself immediately face to face with 
 powerful interests, which are always asking for more. The 
 military services, the civil services — all those classes whose in- 
 come is derived from the Exchequer — necessarily look for pro- 
 motion and the concession of larger means. If any one of 
 the present audience were placed in the same circumstances — 
 
1868. X. BIRMINGHAM. 167 
 
 if I were one of those persons — and in a sense I am tem- 
 porarily one of them, I could easily, I think, feel the necessity, 
 certainly the inclination, of asking for some advance in 
 position or salary. And you will find that those services, 
 now so powerful and so numerous, have their own newspapers, 
 under various names, which are supported by them, and which 
 advocate their interests, and what they deem to be their rights. 
 These rights however — if I do not take a distorted view of 
 them — are not consistent with those of the taxpayers in the 
 kingdom at large. The Government, therefore, requires all 
 the patience, and sympathy, and support which the great body 
 of the people can give them in their endeavours to reduce ex- 
 penditure and to lessen and equalise taxation. 
 
 I was told last night, or the night before, that I was 
 expected to say a great many things about what was going 
 to be done. If it were proper to say them, I should be 
 unable to say them, because, as you know, the Administration 
 has only just been formed, and its members have only once 
 met. There has been as yet no time to discuss and determine 
 any of those questions which must necessarily claim the 
 attention of the Government and of Parliament. My own 
 view of the future is this, that it is the duty of the Ministry 
 in the present Session of Parliament to settle finally, if 
 possible, the great question which was referred to the people at 
 the late general election, and not to encumber it with work 
 which ought not to be placed in competition with it. I propose 
 to myself to ask my constituents, to ask the public, and to ask 
 the whole Liberal party at the end of each Session, to form 
 their opinions of the course the Government shall have taken, 
 of the efforts it has made to do wisely and well, by the 
 general result of the legislation during the session. The future 
 will tell its own tale ; and this Government, like all preceding 
 Governments, must be judged not by what it says, or by what 
 it believes, but by what it attempts to do, and by what it 
 succeeds in accomplishing. 
 
168 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 21, 
 
 For myself, I have accepted what I know to be a position 
 of difficulty, if not, indeed, of peril. I feel that T have been 
 pushed into it by circumstances which I could not withstand, 
 and by the opinion, expressed in various ways, of a very large 
 portion of the Liberal party with whom I have been accustomed 
 to act. I think, therefore, that I have the right to claim some- 
 thing from the sympathy and something from the leniency of 
 my friends. I have not aspired at any time of my life to the 
 rank of a Privy Councillor nor to the dignity of a Cabinet 
 office. I should have preferred much to have rehiained in 
 that common rank of simple citizenship in which heretofore 
 I have lived. There is a passage of the Old Testament, which 
 has often struck me as being one of great beauty. Many 
 of you will recollect that the prophet, in journeying to and 
 fro, was very hospitably entertained by what is termed in 
 the Bible a Shunammite woman. In return for her hospitality 
 he wished to make her some amends, and he called her to 
 him and asked her what there was that he should do for her. 
 ^ Shall I speak for thee to the king,' he said, 'or to the 
 captain of the host ?' Now it has always appeared to me 
 that the Shunammite woman returned a natural answer. She 
 replied, in declining the prophet's offer, ' I dwell among mine 
 own people.' When the question was put to me whether 
 I would step into the position in which I now find myself, 
 the answer from my heart was the same — I wish to dwell among 
 mine own people. Happily, the time may have comcT— 
 I trust it has come — when in this country an honest man 
 may enter the service of the Crown, and at the same time 
 not feel it in any degree necessary to dissociate himself from 
 his own people. Some partial friends of mine have said that 
 I have earned all this by my long services in the popular 
 cause. They know not what they say. They would add 
 labour to labour, and would compensate a life of service by 
 a redoubled responsibility. I am sensible of the duty which 
 is imposed upon me as a Minister of the Crown. It is my 
 
1868. X. BIRMINGHAM, 169 
 
 duty faithfully to perform that which belongs to such a 
 position ; but I have not less faithfully to act as becomes 
 an honest representative of the people. I shall make 
 the attempt. There are many who believe the attempt 
 must fail. I hope that it will not fail. I will do all 
 that I can to make it succeed. And if I should find 
 that the two ofiices of which I am speaking are incon- 
 sistent or discordant, I hope at least that I shall be able to 
 discover which of them it is right for me to surrender. 
 
 I have done. I have spoken longer than I intended. The 
 position is one which is new to me and new to you, too, 
 and it is not without its difficulties and dangers. I thank 
 you heartily for the cordial reception which you have given 
 me to-day. You have, by the unanimity of your voice, given 
 your sanction to the step which I have been induced to take. 
 I accept my new position with this feeling, that the more 
 cordial has been that sanction, the more generous is your 
 approval of my action, the more am I called upon, by all 
 the high motives which can actuate ,a public man, to do 
 my honest duty, not only to those with whom I am associated 
 in office, but to you, my constituents, who, at this moment, 
 truly represent the great Liberal party throughout the 
 kingdom. 
 
XI. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 11, 1870. 
 
 [On this day the three members for Birmingham met their constituents. Since 
 his re-election on the acceptance of ofl&ce in Mr. Gladstone's Government, 
 as President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Bright had not addressed the 
 Birmingham electors. The occasion therefore was one of considerable public 
 interest, and it was supposed that Mr. Bright's speech would indicate in 
 some particulars what would be the policy of the Government.] 
 
 The resolution which you have just passed is one which 
 approves the general conduct of the Government during the 
 last Session of Parliament. As a member of that Govern- 
 ment I tender you on my own account, and I think I may 
 on behalf of all those with whom I am permitted to act, our 
 hearty thanks for that resolution to which you have so 
 unanimously agreed. I can only hope, and I am enabled not 
 only to hope but to believe, that if we shall be permitted to 
 come here at the end of another Session we shall also receive 
 on that occasion a like testimony of your approval. 
 
 You who are accustomed to come here to these our annual 
 assemblies will remember that it has never been my custom 
 to give you elaborate expositions of the measures which were 
 passed in the preceding Session of Parliament. We have 
 rather taken the course indicated by Mr. Radford. We have 
 looked very little behind, and we have kept our eyes steadily 
 before us. So now, with only two exceptions, I will say 
 nothing about the Session of Parliament that is past. The 
 
XL BIRMINGHAM. 17l 
 
 two questions to which I will advert for a moment have 
 already been mentioned since the commencement of this 
 meeting. Mr. Radford has mentioned them both, one being 
 of great local and the other of great imperial importance. 
 You will recollect that last year my honourable friends and 
 myself undertook before the constituency, as far as we had 
 the power, to amend the Reform Act of 1867, and to relieve 
 the great body of the ratepayers of Birmingham from a 
 grievance which had arisen by the abolition of the system of 
 compounding for rates. We have, I believe, faithfully acted 
 upon that promise, and the Bill which has been carried, al- 
 though it cannot undo the fact and cannot entirely remove 
 some irritation which still prevails, was yet intended to correct 
 the evil complained of. That grievance henceforth can no 
 longer exist. The other question of imperial importance is 
 that of the Irish Church. The constituencies of the country 
 spoke with a voice which everybody could hear, and, which 
 is not always the case, with a voice which everybody could 
 understand. In consequence a measure was introduced into 
 Parliament which I believe has been admitted to be by the 
 most able of its opponents one of the most complete Bills 
 which ever was presented to the House* of Commons. After 
 many nights' debate in both Houses of Parliament the mea- 
 sure became law and the work was done, but you will recollect 
 that, in the month of July, there was at one time some 
 difficulty in what is called * another place )' — it is not the place 
 to which my hon. colleagues and I go when we repair to 
 London, but it is a place of great antiquity, of great dignity, 
 and of great influence in this country. On a given night — 
 the date is not material — the atmosphere of the place became 
 charged with — what shall I say? — with dangerous matter. 
 There was more passion than is generally seen in that serene 
 assembly, and the passion went so far as to drive those who 
 occupied the benches of the place to the edge of a very ugly 
 precipice. Fortunately, there was time for the passion to 
 
172 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 11, 
 
 cool, and for the wisest to reflect ; and the first night after, 
 or the night but one after that, instead of this violent passion 
 and violent opposition to the measure of the Government, 
 the Bill, after mutual compliments and mutual congratulations, 
 was passed by the House of Lords. The Peers of the United 
 Kingdom on that night taught some people a lesson by 
 showing what they themselves, had learnt. But what was 
 the lesson? That no institution, however ancient, however 
 dignified, however grand in its historical character, can be 
 safe in this country if it permanently sets itself against the 
 convictions and the voice of a united people. A great deal 
 of wisdom was shown by the House of Peers. You must 
 consider that they are not placed as we are in regard to 
 questions of this nature. You must consider all which they 
 have been taught, and all which they have honestly believed, 
 and all which they have feared ; for under those circumstances 
 the friends of the House of Lords at least have something to 
 congratulate them upon. But there are people who say this 
 great Bill was a failure, and that it has really done nothing* 
 The fact is that it has done exactly what it was intended to 
 do. It has put all the Churches in Ireland on the same 
 footing before the law. There is no longer a Catholic 
 grievance in Ireland. There may be Irish grievances, but 
 there is no Catholic grievance. The Catholics stand now 
 before the law on this subject — and indeed, so far as I know, 
 with scarcely any exception, on every other subject exactly 
 where the Protestants stand. We therefore have swept away» 
 at once and for ever, everything that can fairly be alleged to 
 be a Catholic grievance. 
 
 But there may be, there seems to be, a general opinion that 
 there is another Irish grievance ; not a religious grievance, 
 but one which affects the North as well as the South. There 
 rises a cry from the whole of Ireland that the Government 
 and the Parliament should do something to place the social 
 condition of Ireland in a more satisfactory state than has 
 
1870. XT, BIRMINGHAM. XU 
 
 hitherto been seen. The land question is a very awkward 
 one. But it is not an impossible problem. I have often 
 travelled along a road and seen a hill a mile off that looked 
 very steep, and I wished I was on the other side of it, but on 
 coming to the foot of the hill the slope has been found to be 
 very gradual, and I have got over it without the difficulty 
 which I had anticipated. The Irish land question is not 
 indeed of so easy a kind. I have thought it a difficult ques- 
 tion for twenty years. During all that time I have had it 
 before me, and have considered it, and I am, I will say, if 
 you like, modest enough to confess that every time that 
 I get nearer the hill, and endeavour to discover how it is to 
 be crossed, it appears to me steeper and more difficult than it 
 ever did before. If they may be stated in a few sentences, 
 what are the circumstances of Ireland? The land of that 
 island is in the hands, as you know, of very few proprietors. 
 I suppose half the actual population of Ireland are cultivators 
 of the soil, and they are not only cultivators of the soil, 
 but, unfortunately, they are what are called tenants at will. 
 The owners for generations past, by their own admission, 
 with rare exceptions, which need not be mentioned, have 
 done nothing for the cultivation of the soil. They have 
 let the land at an auction rent, and twice a-year they have 
 received the rent. This has been the chief part of the duty 
 which the landowners of Ireland have performed to their land. 
 On the other hand, the tenants have done very little compared 
 with what might have been done ; but quite as much as 
 could be expected from people who had no security for any- 
 thing they might do. Thus the industry, the fortunes, the 
 home, the very life of the cultivating population have been 
 at the mercy of the owner of the land, or of the agent who 
 had the management of his property. 
 
 But there is something else. The owners are not of the 
 same nation as the occupiers. I think that Mr. Huxley, who 
 is a great authority, and I have no wish to dispute what he 
 
174 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 11, 
 
 says, denies altogether that there is any difference of race 
 between the people of Ireland and the people of England. 
 I hope that is true. I have always been of opinion that, if 
 there were a difference of race between them, the difference of 
 their condition arises a thousand times more from a difference 
 of treatment, a difference in their possession of political and 
 legal rights, than from difference of race. But the occupiers 
 and owners generally differ very much in religion, and although 
 there is no reason why a Protestant landowner and a Catholic 
 tenant or a Protestant tenant and a Catholic landowner might 
 not be the best of friends^ yet when there has been an incessant 
 war in Ireland for two hundred years between Protestantism 
 and Catholicism, you may be quite sure that something has 
 been done to poison the relations between the owner and 
 occupier of the soil. Then this proprietary right in Ireland 
 had its origin mainly in confiscation ; and as it was created, so 
 it was only justified by conquest. And as if the original 
 evil was not sufiicient, there was added to it a hundred years 
 of the most odious cruelty and persecution under the operation 
 of the penal laws. The original grievance has been made 
 ten times more bitter than it would otherwise have been by 
 the folly of the proprietary class, working as they did through 
 a corrupt Parliament in Ireland, and also through the govern- 
 ing power in Great Britain. 
 
 In Ireland, as I dare say nu)st of you know, agriculture is 
 not only the great industry, but, with some exceptions in the 
 North of Ireland, it is almost the only industry of the 
 country. There has been consequently in the struggle for 
 life and the means of living, such an excessive competition 
 for the occupation of land as has placed the occupier at the 
 mercy of the proprietor of the soil. Thus Ireland has passed 
 through a long experience of wrong, of hatred, and of 
 suspicion, even in some parts of civil war and that of the 
 bitterest character, till at last Parliament is called on, not 
 merely to give right and justice to the tenants, but to 
 
1870. XL BIRMINGHAM. 175 
 
 save the interests and protect the propert}'^ of the proprie- 
 tors. I do not know myself whether^ if I were an Irish- 
 man^ I should be more anxious for legislation as a tenant 
 than I should for legislation as a landlord. But I am sure 
 that it is absolutely necessary for the good of the United 
 Kingdom that we should, if possible, put an end to the reign 
 of discord in Ireland, and take away from us the disgrace 
 of maintaining order by an armed force of police and military, 
 seldom I believe falling lower than 30,000 men. I consider 
 this Irisli land question one of the greatest and most difficult 
 that ever has been considered by an Administration or sub- 
 mitted to a Parliament. My views upon it have been ex- 
 plained in this hall in past times, and it will not be necessary, 
 nor would it be right for me to go into details about the 
 matter, when probably before the end of next month what- 
 ever propositions the Government will submit to the House 
 of Commons will be fully explained to all the people of the 
 three kingdoms. But if I might say a word to people who 
 are apt to criticise very much everything which a Government 
 does, I do not ask them to approve beforehand, but I ask 
 them merely to give to the propositions, whatsoever they may 
 be, that conscientious consideration which, I believe, these 
 propositions have received and will receive from the members 
 of the Government. This is not a question for party. I have 
 no objection to party contests when the time is fitting for 
 them, but in the present condition of Ireland a party fight 
 would be an unpatriotic fight. It is not a question for class 
 and party conflict — it is one for conscientious patriotism, 
 a question which every man should consider, because the 
 prosperity, the peace, and the unity of the empire depend 
 upon its wise solution. 
 
 I have often spoken here and elsewhere upon the state 
 of Ireland. I have blamed the leaders of parties in the 
 House of Commons for what they have done or left undone 
 for Ireland. Three or four years ago, when the Habeas 
 
176 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 11, 
 
 Corpus Act was suspended, I blamed Mr. Gladstone, then 
 leader in the House of Commons of the Ministry of Lord 
 Russell — I blamed Mr. Disraeli, who was leading* the Op- 
 position — because they did not in some way or other bring 
 before the House propositions which should settle what is 
 understood to be the Irish question. But I knew that it 
 could not be dealt with fairly by an unreformed Parliament. 
 I laboured, as you know, much for Reform, for I had great 
 faith in a wider franchise and a free representation. The 
 Irish difficulty was to me of so complicated and gigantic 
 a character that I felt sure that it could never be dealt with 
 by the Parliament of the past. It seemed to demand the 
 will, the sense of justice, and the power which dwell only 
 in a nation. And now, when to a large extent the nation 
 is called into council, when every householder in every borough 
 has a vote for a representative in Parliament, I feel — it may 
 be that I am over-sanguine — that great results are sure to 
 follow from the legislature. The Imperial Parliament can 
 do just as much, by way of legislation for Ireland, with its 
 hundred Irish members, as an independent Irish monarchy 
 or an Irish republic could do, or as could be done for Ireland 
 if Ireland were one of the States in the great Confederation 
 of the West. I am not saying that it has done so or that 
 it will do so, but I say that the Imperial Parliament, with 
 a hundred honest representatives for Ireland on its benches, 
 can do all that is wanted. What has been done already ? 
 In conjunction with her representatives we have already 
 given to Ireland free churches and free schools, and I hope 
 before long that we shall give them free land and a free vote. 
 Ireland, as you well know, is not the most wealthy island in the 
 world, but we can buy from her all she wishes to sell at a 
 higher price than any other nation can give, and we can sell 
 to her all she wishes to buy at a lower price than any other 
 nation. We may fail, but I believe that we shall not fail. 
 Good and honest efforts generally succeed. We propose, then. 
 
1870. XI. BIRMINGHAM. 177 
 
 a new conquest of Ireland without confiscation and without 
 blood — with only the holy weapon of a frank and a generous 
 justice, which is everywhere potent to bring together nations 
 which have been alienated by oppression or by neglect. 
 From such a new policy we hope for great changes in Ireland. 
 We do not expect that Ireland is to be made a paradise, but 
 that it will be greatly altered for the better. It may seem 
 like the language of exaggeration when I quote the lines 
 of Pope in one of the most exquisite poems in our lan- 
 guage : — 
 
 *Then crime shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail. 
 Returning Justice lift aloft her scale; 
 Peace o'er the realm her olive wand extend. 
 And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend.* 
 
 This may appear like the language of exaggeration, but if 
 we are able to suppress conspiracy, if we can banish agrarian 
 crime, if we can unbar the prison doors, if we can reduce all 
 excess of niilitary force, if we can make Ireland as tranquil as 
 England and Scotland now are — then, at least, I think we 
 may have done something to justify the wisdom and the 
 statesmanship of our time. 
 
 But there are still some other topics, on two of which 
 I will touch as briefly as I can. One is that upon which 
 Birmingham has very recently taken its right position 
 and done itself so much honour — I mean public education. 
 I am sure there must be many here who will remember one 
 of the arguments or predictions that I made use of years ago 
 in advocating a wide extension of the franchise. I have said 
 over and over again, hundreds of times in private and many 
 times in public, that I thought three years would not elapse 
 between the election of a household suffrage Parliament and 
 a system of national education. My particular views upon 
 this subject were stated at length in a meeting which I 
 addressed just before the general election. At present the 
 most gratifying prospect is that there seems to be a general 
 
 N 
 
178 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 11, 
 
 tendency towards some arrangement which no party will 
 consider unsatisfactory. We are agreed upon this — whether 
 speakers or writers belong to one section or the other — that 
 there must be some means of instruction offered to all the 
 children of the people. Thus far we are unanimous. We are 
 not unanimous upon the manner, but the discussion which is 
 going on is producing that kind of unanimity out of which 
 it is possible to propose and carry this reform. Whether the 
 school shall be free or whether there shall be any compulsion, 
 and if so, whether it shall be of this kind or of that, are 
 particulars which are being sifted by the discussions which 
 are being carried on, — and there is nobody learns more from 
 public discussion than a member of Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment. We have seen all Governments learn a great many 
 things, and I hope that I, who have been so long a teacher, 
 may have the privilege of learning from my countrymen. 
 
 One thing gratifies me exceedingly. I think that the reli- 
 gious difficulty is diminishing in magnitude. Nobody proposes 
 that we shall insist upon teaching everybody the articles or 
 dogmas or creeds or the peculiarities of any particular sect or 
 Church. When I consider that as regards the boys and girls 
 of the middle class who go to day schools no thought is ever 
 taken whether they are to be taught religion in their schools, 
 I confess I cannot understand the extraordinary anxiety 
 which is felt that the working people alone should have 
 their children taught religion in a day school. It has always 
 appeared to me that one day in seven is felt to be sufficient 
 for such a family duty, and that the minister and the religious 
 associations of every place of worship are a sufficient organi- 
 sation for teaching religion in the sense which is meant by 
 those who say that education is of no value unless it be 
 taught alongside of distinct religious instruction. Every 
 child in every school may be taught these parts of religion — 
 the love of truth, the love of virtue, the love of God, and 
 the fear of offending Him; and I think that every right- 
 
1870. XL BIRMINGHAM. 179 
 
 minded teacher in every school in England will undertake, 
 so far as is in his power, to teach so much to all the children 
 under his care. The fact is, the denominational system was 
 one of those arrangements which are made because something 
 must necessarily be done, and no other course seemed possible. 
 But it is obvious that under the denominational system 
 nearly all the Government money necessarily goes to the 
 Established Church, because the Nonconformist Churches are 
 are not one Church, but several Churches, and they are not 
 united, and probably never can unite to form a great body 
 for educational purposes. Therefore, if you give ipoo,ooo/. 
 from the State for the purpose of education, the great bulk 
 of it necessarily goes to that one-half of the population which 
 is powerful and united, while the other half, which though 
 powerful is not united, will get almost nothing. But there is 
 ianother difficulty which those gentlemen who are fond of the 
 denominational system appear to me to overlook. One- third 
 of the people do not belong to any denomination whatever. 
 
 I am persuaded that as this topic is more fully discussed, 
 there will come up a demand for national education from 
 all the people. There is nobody more interested in the edu- 
 cation of his children than the working man. How much 
 of the grief of the later years of such men has arisen from the 
 ignorance and misconduct of their children ? Then as this 
 cry comes up from the great body of the people to the more 
 educated and wealthy classes and to Parliament, the religious 
 question will gradually become smaller and smaller, and we 
 shall be able to offer to all the children of the country a sound 
 elementary education, which will enable them to entertain 
 a feeling of self-respect, and will open up to them a much 
 better prospect in life than they can possibly have without 
 such an education. We who have pressed this matter for 
 many years, my hon. friend (Mr. Dixon) for example, who 
 has taken so prominent a part in it, may not see the results 
 of the change which is impending. The revolution which 
 
 N 2 
 
180 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 11, 
 
 will arise in the condition of the people from such an im- 
 provement is one of certain, although it may be of slow 
 growth. But even now I see, as it were with the eye of 
 faith, the great change which will be made in this country, 
 the prodigious advantage which will be given to the millions 
 who heretofore have been living in ignorance, and are unable 
 as yet to struggle upwards to the light. 
 
 There is only one other question to which I will call your 
 attention for a few moments. It is one which has been, 
 although it is very important, very feebly discussed by those 
 who have introduced it to the public. I refer to the commer- 
 cial treaty with France. All persons who call in question 
 the advantage of the treaty with France call in question, 
 although they may not suspect it, the freedom of trade. The 
 policy of free trade was discussed from the year 1838 to the 
 year 1850 — almost incessantly for twelve years. Many 
 persons now — many in this room — who were too young to 
 understand these discussions or take any part in them, do 
 not know how entirely the question was settled at the end 
 of that long debate by the judgment of the people. But there 
 is a sort of soil which grows only weeds ; and ignorance and 
 selfishness, wherever they exist, are the soil which is parti- 
 cularly favourable to the growth of the protection weed. But 
 then these gentlemen say that they are not raising the ques- 
 tion of protection, they are merely raising that of reciprocity. 
 Well, protection has an ill-name, there is a bad flavour about 
 it altogether. It was found out to mean that somebody was 
 robbing somebody else, and therefore people dropped the name 
 * protection,' and adopted the name ' reciprocity.' Our Con- 
 servative friends, as you all know, have changed their name 
 several times, and one always suspects a man who lives in 
 Birmingham under one name and has another when he goes 
 to Manchester, and a third when you find him in Leeds. I 
 should like to tell this meeting one or two things. France 
 is a great country, as you know, lying so near that you can 
 
1870. XI. BIRMINGHAM. 181 
 
 see it from some points of the shores of England. It con- 
 tains a very industrious and a very ingenious people. Our 
 trade with France during the last ten years^ from the nego- 
 tiation of the treaty in 1 860, has more than doubled. It has 
 increased more in these ten years than it did in the hundred 
 years before. Now what does this mean? It means that 
 a good many people in England have sold a great many 
 things to the people of France, and that the people of France 
 have bought a great many things from the people of Eng- 
 land. Now, if you find a man in England that has sold 
 something to France and bought something that he wanted 
 from France, he will tell you, so far as he is concerned, that 
 the treaty has been a very good thing indeed. If that be so, 
 and if this buying and selling extends to many millions, no 
 one can say, ' I have not the right to buy, and you have not 
 the right to sell.^ But if any person should say, * You shall 
 buy from me, and not from that Frenchman,' does he not, 
 if he insists that you shall not buy, also insist that you 
 shall not sell? What is it that you in Birmingham live 
 upon ? You do not live upon metals ; you work on metals, 
 on all kinds of metals, with an industry and skill hardly 
 equalled on the face of the globe ; but what do you do when 
 you have done your work on metals ? You sell the produce 
 of your labour and buy something which you can wear or 
 eat. Why should you not sell what you make to the French- 
 man? He, perhaps, wants something which nobody else 
 wants; he will perhaps give you more than any one else 
 will to get it. Why should any one stand between the 
 skilled British artisan and other persons and say, ' You may 
 work but shall not deal with a customer a few miles away ^ ? 
 The reciprocity man says, ' You may deal with the French- 
 man, only he must deal with you.' Unfortunately we have 
 only the making of our own tariffs. We cannot change others 
 except by negotiations like that of i860. Having got France 
 to make a large step in the progress of Free Trade, the people 
 
182 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 11, 
 
 turn round and abuse the Frenchman because he has not done 
 as much as we have done, and say we shall not deal with him 
 unless he will adopt Free Trade principles to the full extent 
 to which we have carried them out in this country. What 
 would they do to the United States when they levy a duty on 
 our goods which is at least three times as heavy as that which 
 France levies upon us ? The firm with which I am connected 
 sends goods to America which pay a duty of seventy-five per 
 cent. Every loo^. worth of such goods leaving Liverpool pays 
 on arriving at New York seventy-five pounds before it can go 
 into the city to be sold. The American people will put all 
 that right by and by. They are going through the process 
 of instniction such as we went through thirty years ago. 
 But is it proposed to put a tax upon American cotton and 
 American corn because the Americans put a heavy tax upon 
 our goods? Why, the thing is monstrous. It is only to 
 make one evil double, to make a trade which you carry on 
 under certain diflSculties a trade which shall be absolutely 
 impossible. I will tell you an anecdote about Birmingham. 
 There is a firm of manufacturers in this town who make 
 various kinds of machinery. I happen to know that before 
 the treaty they sold almost nothing to France. Since the 
 treaty, in the ten years they have sold no less than 70,000^. 
 worth of machinery^ the particulars of which I do not know, 
 though I know the general facts. They have seventy men 
 at least engaged every week, and have had for years past, 
 producing articles which are exported entirely to France. If 
 you have the treaty abolished, what becomes of the trade? 
 what becomes of the seventy men? what becomes of the 
 firm ? There are people who come down from Warwickshire 
 into Lancashire who say that these seventy men in Birming- 
 ham — and there may be, for anything I know, 700 or 7,000, 
 looking at all the firms in Birmingham — should have their 
 trade stopped ; that their skill shall be of no value ; that they 
 shall turn their industry to some other calling, which is, perhaps. 
 
1870. XL BIRMINGHAM. 183 
 
 already abundantly supplied with labour, and that the manufac- 
 turing- and commercial capital shall be directed into a different 
 channel, where there is perhaps plenty already employed. 
 No doubt the French duties are higher than ours, but look 
 what happened before the French treaty took effect. For 
 twenty years before that we were gradually reducing our 
 duties. We did not ask anybody to negotiate ; we thought 
 they would follow our example. Unfortunately for them, they 
 were not wise enough to do so. But what has happened 
 since 1 860 — since that treaty was negotiated ? I believe 
 there is not a country in Europe that has not reformed its 
 tariff in some manner or other and made some approaches — 
 in some cases small, in others greater — towards Free Trade, 
 either in its tariff or its navigation laws. The result 
 therefore of the treaty has been of great importance all over 
 Europe, and of the greatest importance to both England and 
 France. If ever you meet a gentleman who talks to you 
 about reciprocity, ask him what he wants to put duties upon, 
 because that is the question. Does he want to tax your 
 bread, or your cotton, or your wool ? What is it he wants 
 to tax? He cannot give anybody what he calls reciprocity 
 without taxing somebody else ; and when there are two per- 
 sons to be thought of, I think at least we should have as 
 much regard to the person who is going to be taxed as the 
 person who is going to profit by the taxation. 
 
 But you know perfectly well that when my lamented 
 friend Mr. Cobden negotiated that treaty he had more than 
 one object in view. He not only wanted to create a greater 
 demand for the industry of his countrymen and to extend 
 our manufactures and our commerce, but he wanted also to 
 make provision for future peace between the great nations of 
 France and England. Is there a man in this great assembly, 
 or in England, who will deny this — that from i860 to 1870, 
 the ten years during which this treaty has been in force, 
 there has grown up between France and England a sentiment 
 
184 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 11, 
 
 of friendship, a disposition to peace, and an absence of sus- 
 picion and of angry feeling, such as we have never seen 
 before? The negotiator of that treaty was not only the 
 friend of his countrymen, but the friend of all mankind. He 
 wanted every man to be honestly employed, to be honestly 
 paid, and to live in comfort in his own country. He wanted, 
 further, in order to carry out one of the great objects of his 
 life, to show that which I believe to be absolutely true, that 
 every step you make in the freedom of trade is a step in 
 favour of a universal bond of peace. 
 
 In conclusion, may I give one word of warning to the 
 working men of Birmingham and to working men every- 
 where ? You will admit, although there are questions, I have 
 no doubt, on which you and I may differ very much, that I 
 have never been afraid to give you your full share of political 
 power, and that I have spared no exertion for many years to 
 bring about that great change in your political condition 
 under which happily you are now living. I say, beware of 
 men who attempt to deceive you. If you will look back_, such 
 of you as can to your memories, others who cannot to books 
 and conversation, over the events of the last forty years, you 
 will find that there have always been some men in the country 
 who ought to have known better, and who ought to have 
 done better, but who have been ready to trail a red herring 
 across the path of the working men of England. There are 
 certain things which Parliament and a Government can do for 
 a people, and there are other things which no Government 
 that ever existed, or will exist, can do. You have now got 
 votes. Votes are power. I hope, judging from the pro- 
 ceedings of the Committee of last Session, and judging from 
 the temper of Parliament, that before there is a general 
 election, not only you, but every voter in every part of the 
 United Kingdom, will have the shelter of the Ballot. You 
 will have it ; whether it be this Session or next Session it is 
 not in my power to tell. 
 
1870. XI. BIRMINGHAM. 185 
 
 Mr. Radford said, if the Government had any leisure on 
 their hands they could do two or three other things. But 
 bear in mind that it is not easy to drive six omnibuses abreast 
 through Temple Bar. And, therefore, I cannot tell whether 
 during this Session there will be passed, or even offered to 
 Parliament, a measure of education such as you or I, or any of 
 us, would hope for. But that it will come soon is certain and 
 inevitable. That is worth your keeping your eyes upon. 
 Then there is the question of diminished national expenditure. 
 You know that last year there was a considerable reduction of 
 expenditure. We believe and hope that there may be a 
 reduction this year, and if you only keep your attention up, 
 and tell your members, and Parliament, and the Government 
 what you think upon it, it is quite within the bounds of 
 probability that you may have a gradual reduction for several 
 years. Government cannot strike off millions in a year, be- 
 cause you know that however wasteful may have been the 
 past proceedings of past Governments, it would create great 
 inconvenience and great suffering in many quarters if any 
 sudden change of such a kind took place. But you may rely, 
 I believe, on the honesty of the Government in this matter. 
 Always bear in mind that every Government, however honest 
 and however well-disposed, is most capable of doing what is 
 right when it has the full support of public opinion. 
 
 A friend near me speaks of the free breakfast table. That 
 is Mr. Baldwin's hobby. I cannot compliment him upon it 
 because it is mine also. The Malt Tax does not come into the 
 breakfast generally, but it shows that my friend is getting a 
 little nearer to me than he was some time ago. The free break- 
 fast table is by no means an impossible thing. I have never 
 been in the habit of recommending or proposing things that are 
 impossible. If we could get rid of the taxes upon the articles 
 which come to our breakfast tables, we should have a free 
 country as far as our ports and customs' duties go, with the 
 exception of things which many people think not necessary, 
 
186 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 11, 
 
 but injurious — such as beer, spirits, wines, tobacco. What a 
 magnificent thing it would be for every Englishman in what- 
 ever he traded all the world over, to say to all the world, 
 * Send everything which all mankind agree to be useful and 
 beneficial to the human race. Send them to any port in 
 England, and they will be received there without payment of a 
 farthing of duty.' I am speaking now, I may remind you, as 
 your representative. I am not speaking in any other capacity. 
 I am making no promises ; I am telling you what I believe to 
 be possible, and what the people of England will get if they 
 will examine it, comprehend it, make up their minds in its 
 favour, and let Parliament and the Government know what it 
 is they are thinking about. 
 
 There is another question which working men should bear 
 in mind, and to which Mr. Radford also alluded — the question 
 of free land in this country. It is coming on and is inevitable. 
 Within ten years — probably within five — ^it will be the great 
 question for discussion at all political meetings. I believe 
 that an alteration of the land laws of England, such as might 
 be made without lessening by sixpence the value of any man's 
 property, would do much to arrest that tide of pauperism 
 which is constantly flowing from the agricultural counties 
 into our great centres of industry. But when I have men- 
 tioned these things I am obliged to confess that they are not 
 all — that something more is wanted, although the law will 
 not eflPect it, and although its foundation lies beyond the 
 bounds of law. It is that which every man should consider — 
 I have considered it often and often with great seriousness and 
 with much anxiety during the thirty years that I have been 
 in the habit of discussing public questions. No Government, 
 no Administration, no laws, no amount of industry or com- 
 merce, no extent of freedom can give prosperity and solid 
 comfort to the homes of the people unless there be in those 
 homes economy, temperance, and the practice of virtue. That 
 which I am preaching is needful for all, but it is specially 
 
1870. XL BIRMINGHAM. 187 
 
 needful — most needful in some respects — for those whose 
 possessions are the least abundant and the least secure. If we 
 could subtract from the ignorance, the poverty, the suffering*, 
 the sickness, and the crime which are now witnessed among 
 us, the ignorance, the poverty, the suffering, the sickness, and 
 the crime which are caused by one single but most prevalent 
 bad habit or vice — the drinking needlessly of that which 
 destroys body and mind, and home and family — do we not all 
 feel that this country would be so changed, and so changed for 
 the better, that it would be almost impossible for us to know 
 it again ? Let me then, in conclusion, say what is upon my 
 heart to say, what I know to.be true, what I have felt every 
 hour of my life when I have been discussing anything which 
 affects the condition of the working classes. It is by the 
 union of a wise Government with a virtuous people, and not 
 otherwise, that we may hope to make some steps towards that 
 blessed time when there shall be no longer complaining in our 
 streets, when our garners shall be full, affording all manner 
 of store. 
 
XIT. 
 
 KOCHDALE, JULY 11, 1872. 
 
 [Some of Mr. Bright's friends residing in the Staffordshire Potteries resolved 
 to make him a present which should represent choice specimens of the best 
 art in the district. The works were selected from the manufactories of 
 Messrs. Minton, Messrs. Wedgwood, and Messrs. Copeland. The presenta- 
 tion was made at Rochdale, and in Mr. Bright's house, and was accompanied 
 by the following address : — 
 
 * We are delegated by your friends resident in the Staffordshire Potteries, 
 to ask your acceptance of these examples of the artistic productions of that 
 district, and of the cabinet in which they are contained. 
 
 * No such gift can adequately express the esteem and affection by which 
 the givers are actuated. We nevertheless hope that to you in your present 
 comparative retirement, as well as to your children, these objects may not 
 unworthily indicate the regard and admiration which your public and pri- 
 vate virtues have inspired. 
 
 * Having had the happiness of looking to you with unqualified confidence 
 as our gifted and fearless leader, our hearts beat high in unison with yours, 
 and in devout pride, as we review the peaceful but decisive victories which 
 have crowned the great struggles to which you have devoted your life. 
 
 * Sympathising with you in the abhorrence of every form of human bon- 
 dage, we rejoiced to find you acting up to the glorious traditions of the 
 anti-slavery movement, and aiding with youf powerful advocacy the cause 
 which, in a kindred community, triumphed in the emancipation of a long- 
 oppressed race. 
 
 *With equal pleasure we trace in broadest lines your influence in the 
 removal of those fetters which a perverse ingenuity had placed on our com- 
 mercial intercourse with other nations, the overthrow of the numerous 
 fallacies which have yielded to the logic of Free Trade, the abolition of the 
 Com Laws and the imposts known as " the taxes on knowledge," and the 
 repeal of those humiliating disabilities so long and so rigorously maintained 
 as penalties on the free exercise of religious convictions. 
 
 * And while we remember your share in the attainment of these results. 
 
XII. ROCHDALE. 189 
 
 we congratulate you on the legislative adoption of the theories you have 
 propounded, in the government of our Indian possessions, in the accomplish- 
 ment of household suffrage, and in the great remedial measures which have 
 been applied to Ireland. 
 
 * To have witnessed such achievements even as a passive spectator is no 
 small privilege. To have been honoured with a foremost position in initiat- 
 ing, impelling, and guiding each movement has been your pre-eminent 
 distinction. 
 
 * With such a retrospect we thank God and take courage ; nor can we 
 imagine any higher gratification which you can desire than to see the fruition 
 of your patriotic policy in the unexampled prosperity of your country, and 
 to find these changes accepted (and even— with amusing audacity — some 
 share in the merit of effecting them claimed) by those whose hostility had 
 to be combated at every stage until the final one was reached. 
 
 ' Remembering how little you have allowed yourself to be influenced by 
 any consideration other than the conviction of right and duty, we never- 
 theless trust you will allow us to tender these grateful acknowledgments of 
 the services which you have rendered to us and to our fellow-countrymen, 
 and to assure you of our earnest desire that you may speedily be restored to 
 perfect health, to your place in the National Councils, and to the exercise of 
 those powers which have contributed so largely to the stability of society 
 and the prosperity of the nation.' 
 
 Mr. Bright was at the time slowly recovering from the serious illness which 
 compelled him to resign the ofiice of President of the Board of Ti*ade in 
 Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet.] 
 
 There are times probably in tbe experience of men wbo are 
 most accustomed to public speaking wben tbey find it difficult 
 to express wbat tbey feel. I have known such times before 
 to-day. To-day is one of those times. I thank you for your 
 kindness, for the honour you have done me, and for this 
 beautiful and costly gift — too good for the moderate size and 
 modest appointments of my house, but such as I must ever 
 value in a very high degree. This gift has a special signi- 
 ficance to me, both as to the persons from whom it comes and 
 the time when it is made. I think it is nearly thirty years 
 since I spent a day in your district. I visited it last in order 
 to attend a free-trade meeting with my dear and lamented 
 friend Mr. Cobden. Since then, excepting when passing 
 through the district, generally at railway speed, I have seen 
 nothing of it. Therefore, those who make me this gift are 
 persons of whom I have had, until recently, no knowledge 
 
190 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 11, 
 
 whatever, and I presume they know nothing of me excepting 
 in my public character. I may assume, therefore, as I assume 
 from your kind address, that my public course and labours 
 have met generally, not probably in all cases, but generally, 
 with the consent and approval of those whom you represent. 
 
 At the same time, I am deeply touched with the considera- 
 tion of the circumstances under which and the time at which 
 this gift is made. The idea was not formed when I was 
 actively engaged before the public, either as a member of 
 Parliament or a member of an Administration. I had not 
 returned with friends and associates from any fresh political 
 success. On the contrary, I was suffering from a severe and 
 protracted illness. It was at a time when it was not unlikely 
 that I should never again be able to return to public life. I 
 was enfeebled and prostrate to an extent known only to my 
 own family. And at that time your kindness and friendship 
 were awakened, and you conceived the idea of doing me this 
 honour and marking your approbation by this gift. I think, 
 therefore, that more than on ordinary occasions I have reason 
 to feel deeply grateful for the kindness you have manifested 
 to me. 
 
 The subjects mentioned in your address might tempt one, if 
 I were able to make it, to some review of the transactions 
 we have acted in, or have been spectators of, during the last 
 thirty years. Thirty years ago — and young men of this day 
 are scarcely conscious what those times were — at that time the 
 industry of this country was strangled by a relentless and 
 cruel monopoly. The population was confined for its main 
 article of food to the acreage and growth of these islands ; and 
 at every return of an indifferent or inferior harvest, famine 
 walked abroad through all the homes of the poorest portion of 
 the people. Now, I believe more than one-third of the popu- 
 lation, more than ten millions of men, women, and children in 
 the United Kingdom, derive their entire supply of the principal 
 article of human food from foreign countries. At the same 
 
1872. ' XII, ROCHDALE. 191 
 
 time, we find that everybody — even every man who was 
 opposed to us — has been a gainer by the change. Instead of 
 our consuming in times of bad harvests all the grain of this 
 country at high prices, at this moment in lands remote from 
 ours, and remote from each other, wherever the sun shines 
 and wherever the showers fall, there are harvests ripening, or 
 being gathered, shipped, and sent to this country for the 
 supply and sustentation of the increasing millions of our 
 people. And that strange and cruel monopoly was but the 
 centre, as it were, of a host of monopolies scarcely inferior to 
 it in evil. When we regard the West Indies and the supply 
 of sugar, every householder must know how much more 
 abundant, how much better in quality, and how much cheaper 
 in every way is the supply of that useful article through the 
 country. 
 
 Take another monopoly or restriction — that upon ships. I 
 mention this specially, because I remember that a great friend 
 of mine, and your representative, the late John Lewis Ricardo, 
 was the leader in the House of Commons of the movement to 
 abolish the Navigation Laws. We were told by the ignorant 
 simpletons who supported the then existing system that the 
 English flag would be extinguished. I recollect walking up 
 Parliament-street, in company with a procession of sailors, or 
 pretended sailors, who had been brought down to present a 
 petition in favour of the Navigation Laws. I asked one of 
 them what was the matter; and he said they were going to 
 present a petition in favour of the Navigation Laws. I said, 
 ' What harm will it do you if things are changed ? ' and he 
 said, * They tell us we shall have nothing better to eat than 
 black bread, the same as the Norwegians.' That was not a 
 more ignorant thing to ' say than their leaders had said. No 
 doubt they had been taught it by their leaders. What has 
 happened? Probably no interest in the country is more 
 extended or more prosperous. We have more numerous 
 fleets, with larger ships, and costlier cargoes. Our traders. 
 
192 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 11, 
 
 with familiar keel, are on every ocean and in every sea, 
 and they visit every shore. The mercantile marine of this 
 country never at any former period occupied a position so 
 high, when compared with that of other countries, as it 
 does at the moment at which we are assembled. 
 
 But our attention has not been given solely to material 
 interests and to the supply of food for the body. You have 
 referred in your address to questions which bear upon the 
 supply of food for the mind. No such change was ever seen 
 in one department of public affairs as may be seen with regard 
 to the public press. In the by-gone time to which I have 
 referred every piece of paper which was called a newspaper had 
 a tax upon it of lOO per cent. ; the paper- maker was also 
 compelled to pay another tax of lOO per cent. ; and there was 
 a duty of is. 6d. upon every advertisement which appeared. 
 These taxes came down chiefly from the days of Queen Anne. 
 They were intended to strangle, if not to suppress, news- 
 papers ; and they had that effect to a great extent. Now, I 
 believe, the newspaper property of the country is worth at 
 least ten times as much, it may be twenty times as much, as 
 when those taxes were in existence. Every man can have a 
 newspaper now for a penny a-day. Men see what is going on 
 all over the world, and almost, such is the swiftness with 
 which news is collected, in a moment of time. There is going 
 on, I have no doubt, a silent revolution in this country, by 
 the vast extension of information through the newspaper 
 press, which is permeating gradually through all ranks of 
 society. Every one who judges impartially must admit at 
 this time, if we look at the ability, the intelligence, and the 
 general morality with which the press is conducted and 
 written, that- it is superior — largely superior — to that which 
 we observed, those at least of us who were able to observe, in 
 the condition of the press thirty or forty years ago. 
 
 You have referred to one other question, the question of the 
 extension of the suffrage. We have had the Reform Bill of 
 
1872. XTL ROCHDALE. 193 
 
 1832 and that of 1867. The Bill of 1832 was a great Bill ; 
 but still it left two nations among" the people — a small 
 minority included, and a large majority excluded. The Bill of 
 1867, for which we all worked so many years, destroyed that 
 distinction, and made the people one nation, having authority 
 in one Parliament. The result was a great one, although the 
 Act is still imperfect, and although no doubt before long there 
 must be an increase of the franchise in counties, and there 
 must be a better distribution of seats. Still the Bill is power- 
 ful enough to reform itself, and to give whatever changes may 
 hereafter be found necessary. It was a result so great that it 
 immediately enabled Parliament to do what Parliament had 
 been totally incapable of doing in any previous time — to 
 establish in Ireland for ever complete religious equality, and 
 to bestow upon the vast body of the Irish agricultural peasan- 
 try and tenantry some real security for their property. No 
 doubt both measures will work greatly to the advantage of 
 Ireland, and in the issue it will be seen that Parliament never 
 did anything more wisely, or with a more just intention, than 
 when it passed these great measures of recent sessions. As to 
 the question of parliamentary reform, we have seen within the 
 last three days how much progress has been made. The 
 House of Lords, which seems to be almost the last refuge of 
 political ignorance and passion, has consented to the establish- 
 ment of vote by ballot, by which perfect security and inde- 
 pendence shall be given to every elector. They have unfor- 
 tunately insisted on a reservation, a reservation which shows 
 how little they know of the signs of the times, which must 
 infallibly create embarrassment, and contest, and party strife. 
 This might have been avoided, for they of all persons have 
 the greatest interest in dispensing with them. 
 
 There are two questions which are not matters of legisla- 
 tion, but which I should like to say a sentence or two about. 
 Your address refers to the question of foreign policy. The 
 most important fact with regard to the foreign policy of this 
 
194 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jult 11, 
 
 country" in our time has been the unhappy war with Russia. 
 I opposed it, as you know, and I was obliged to oppose many 
 of those with whom I generally agreed on other matters. 
 Yet, looking back for fifteen years, to that time, I feel that 
 I was never more justified in any political course which I 
 have taken than I was on that occasion. I thought the ob- 
 jects of the war were vague and indefinite, and that so far as 
 they were not indefinite they were altogether unattainable. 
 I put aside for the moment the question of Christian prin- 
 ciple ; but I was absolutely opposed to squandering the trea- 
 sure and shedding the blood of my countrymen on behalf of 
 a cause which nobody could comprehend, as was clear, be- 
 cause nobody was ever able to explain it. Last year, only 
 last year, we find the Government of this country — a Govern- 
 ment, I will undertake to say, as liberal, and sagacious, and 
 patriotic, whatever may have been their occasional errors, as 
 any Government we ever had — a Government in which Mr. 
 Gladstone is Prime Minister, and Earl Granville, who is 
 intimately connected with your district, is a most important 
 member — this Government consented, wisely and necessa- 
 rily, to surrender what I believe was considered the principal 
 result of the war with Russia — a surrender which ought not 
 to have been necessary, because that which had been enforced 
 upon Russia was what no independent and powerful country 
 would ever long submit to. 
 
 The other question is one to which you have indirectly 
 referred, the question of our policy with regard to the United 
 States. It is one of the unaccountable things in history that 
 people like ourselves — not the great body of^the people, but 
 Government, Parliament, the rich classes, and the most in- 
 fluential members of the press, or many of them — should for 
 a moment have taken sides with a rebellion whose sole object 
 and purpose was to perpetuate for ever the slavery of millions 
 of human beings. I did not counsel interference. I said 
 from the first, when the insurrection began, in a few obser- 
 
1872. Xn. ROCHDALE. 196 
 
 vation's which I made in the House of Commons — ' Leave 
 it alone ; the United States are powerful enough to over- 
 come all difficulties. I believe they will overcome this.' 
 My object was to counsel what at one time I called 
 a generous, and not an unfriendly, neutrality. I call you 
 to witness, and the whole country to witness, whether, if we 
 had pursued that course of generous neutrality, we should 
 not have escaped embarrassments, negotiations, concessions, 
 and humiliations to which we have been subjected for several 
 years past. I hope and believe that, in all probability, the 
 difficulties which have arisen will be terminated. I believe 
 that the conduct of the Government has been everything 
 which people could require in reference to this subject ; and 
 I sj)eak from personal knowledge of the most intimate charac- 
 ter when I say that no men in this country are more anxious 
 for all difficulties to be removed, and that the United King- 
 dom_, and the United States, should live together in perfect 
 amity, than the men who have the responsibility at the 
 present time of administering the Executive Government of 
 this country. In saying this, I hope no one will assume that 
 I am pretending to be wiser than my neighbours. There 
 are thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands, who during all 
 this same period have held the same opinions I have held, 
 and have recommended or wished for the same policy. But 
 they had not the same opportunity for speech and action 
 which I had. I have always felt that there were good men 
 in all parts of the country who sympathised with me, and who 
 would, so far as they had the power, give their warmest support 
 to the course and policy which I was engaged in pursuing. 
 
 Let us look for a moment, and only for a moment, at the 
 great change which thirty years have made. There are 
 countries which have gone through strange and sanguinary 
 revolutions, and have not been able to make changes so wise 
 and so wholly satisfactory. If those changes had not been 
 made, I will undertake to say that if the Com Laws had been 
 
 0% 
 
196 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 maintained, if there had been a power which could have 
 maintained them in their unrestricted and cruel character, 
 nothing less than anarchy and insurrection could have 
 followed. 
 
 •For men will break in their sublime despair 
 The bonds which nature can no longer bear.* 
 
 Yet all this has been done in this country with scarcely a 
 single hour's serious riot, and without, so far as I remember, 
 the sacrifice of a single drop of blood. I suppose there 
 is yet a party in this country which complains of everything 
 that we have said, and nearly everything that we have done. 
 They have obstructed everything, they have contested every 
 point, and they appear to be so ignorant and incapable of 
 discussing these questions and considering them, that they 
 may be said to be absolutely incurable. That party still 
 appeals, in all its ancient audacity, to the support of the 
 people. I think about the only consolation we have — and 
 it is one dictated by Christian charity — is that they may 
 partake, opponents though they have been — partake fully 
 of the good things which we have provided for them : for 
 as the sun shines and the rain descends alike on just and 
 unjust, so the blessings of a wise and beneficent legislation 
 are participated in, not more fully by those who have pro- 
 moted it than by those who have pertinaciously obstructed 
 it. I know not that there is more to be said. I have said 
 perhaps more than was necessary for an occasion of this kind. 
 I have only to thank you, as I do from my heart, for your 
 kindness, your wonderful kindness, to me. I hope, as you 
 have the opportunity, you will convey to those whom you 
 represent my feelings on this question and this occasion. I 
 know of no occasion on which I have felt myself under more 
 deep obligation to any gentlemen than to those whom I have 
 the privilege to address. At the same time, whilst I thank 
 you, and whilst accepting this magnificent present, I am 
 humbly conscious how little I have been able to do to merit 
 the signal honour which you have conferred upon me. 
 
XIIL 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, OCTOBER 22, 1873. 
 
 [On this day Mr. Bright addressed his constituents for the first time after the 
 serious ilhiess which attacked him in the winter of 1 8 70-1. He had just 
 before accepted the office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and 
 sought re-election from his constituents. The speech was made in Bingley 
 HaU, a building capable it is said of holding 20,000 persons.] 
 
 It is now nearly four years since I was permitted to stand 
 face to face with my constituents. I was, as you know, with- 
 drawn from public labour and from your service by a severe 
 and protracted illness. I have often regretted very much that 
 when my health failed I did not at once return into your 
 hands the trust that you had confided to me. My individual 
 judgment was overruled by the opinion and advice of my 
 friends. I was afraid that to retain my seat would in some 
 degree tend to impair that sense of responsibility which I 
 think should always attach to the position of a representative 
 of the people ; but if in any degree that has happened, I am 
 consoled by the thought that we have some compensation in 
 having witnessed the generosity and the forbearance with which 
 a great popular constituency can treat its representatives. 
 
 It is almost five years since I stood in this hall, and was re- 
 elected after having accepted office in the Administration then 
 just formed by Mr. Gladstone. I asked your sanction for the 
 step I had taken, and you freely gave it. Again, after the 
 
198 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 22, 
 
 lapse of five years, I have been induced, with much hesitation 
 and much difficulty, again to accept office in the same Adminis- 
 tration, and I have asked you again to sanction the step 
 I have taken, and you have freely and without contest 
 sanctioned it. I need hardly tell you that my heart is full of 
 thanks for this fresh manifestation of your confidence and your 
 good opinion. But standing here, after these five years, it is 
 impossible that one should not look back a little to what has 
 happened, not with the view of giving a catalogue of the 
 measures that have been passed, or with the view of entering 
 into enthusiastic laudation of the Administration which has 
 existed, but because it is worth our while to observe what are 
 the great principles that during the last five years have been 
 adopted and fixed irrevocably in the policy and legislation of 
 England by the consent of Parliament, and by the knowledge 
 and assent of the country. I say that these five years are 
 memorable years — that the Administration will live, and that 
 its measures will bear comparison with those of any Govern- 
 ment which has ever preceded it. 
 
 A few years ago it was thought an impossible thing to remove 
 an Established Church, and yet an Established Church — I 
 speak of the political institution only — an Established Church 
 has been removed, while the Church remains. And what 
 does that mean ? It m.eans that the property of that political 
 institution has been, to a large extent, recovered by the State ; 
 it means that a number of bishops have been removed from 
 the House of Lords ; and we have lived to be convinced, such 
 of us as were not convinced before, that a Church may exist 
 and religion may prosper without the support of the State. 
 At this moment we see in Ireland a Protestant Episcopal 
 Church in perfectly good health, and endeavouring honestly 
 to free itself from certain errors and things superstitious, which 
 it fancied it had been rid of three hundred years ago. But we 
 have established another principle during these years, with 
 regard to notions about the absolute ownership or sacredness 
 
1873. XIIL BIRMINGHAM. 199 
 
 of landed property. I am as mucli for fair dealing- with rich 
 people as with poor ones. I think something good has been 
 done when Parliament has shown that the rights, and interests, 
 and homes of the people are as sacred as certain absolute rights 
 of property that have been assumed to vest in the landlord. 
 As far as I can understand, in regard to Ireland, there is no 
 diminution of rent ; there is no insecurity in its payment. Nq 
 class in that country can be shown to have suffered by the 
 great measure which passed in the year 1870. 
 
 Another great principle has been established — that office, 
 authority, dignity, in a great service of the State which 
 spends ten or eleven millions a year, shall not henceforth be 
 bought by the rich to the exclusion of those that are less rich, 
 or are poor, and that promotion in the army is no longer to 
 be obtained upon the old, and I will say the corrupt, terms. 
 The corruption market is closed for ever in that department 
 of the public service. Unfortunately there is still a purchase 
 of office of the highest character in another branch — that of 
 the Church established. I was glad to see, a few days ago, 
 that a Bishop, who is very active in my county, condemned 
 this, and I think described it as a scandalous thing. I say 
 that it is odious in any function, but it is specially scandalous 
 within the organisation of a Christian Church. I sometimes 
 ask myself what would be said if it were proposed to be 
 introduced into the Wesleyan body, or among the Inde- 
 pendents or Baptists, or the Presbyterians in Scotland, or 
 even in the Catholic Church in Ireland. It exists only in 
 the Established Church in England, and I trust the time 
 will come when the members of that Church will regard 
 it in the light that it is regarded, I believe, by all persons 
 outside and unconnected with that Church. 
 
 There is another principle that has been established which 
 must interest many here, and that is that the franchise is the 
 right of the elector; that the employer and the landlord, 
 the creditor and customer, have no right to ask a man to 
 
200 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BlilGUT. oct. 22, 
 
 give his vote against the opinion and the conscience of the 
 voter. I was told lately that the Conservative editors spoke 
 in kindly terms of the Ballot when they won an election, but 
 that, when they lost an election, they turned and cursed it. 
 Whether we win elections or lose them, I am for the Ballot; 
 and I suspect that the longer it remains a part of our electoral 
 system the more impossible will it be to remove it. 
 
 There was another principle that was established that was of 
 value, and that was that the House of Peers should no longer 
 continue to be the highest court of justice in the kingdom. I 
 am not about to say a syllable against the manner in which 
 many eminent men have endeavoured to discharge the duty of 
 judges in that assembly, but I say it is better to have a 
 regular court, with regularly appointed and paid judges — a 
 court that sits for a much longer time during the year, and a 
 court that I believe will dispose of the business before it with 
 less delay and less cost than has hitherto been the case. There 
 is only one thing further that I would mention, and that is 
 the one that has been referred to in terms of great severity by 
 my friend Mr. Chamberlain, who seconded the resolution. 
 The StatCj that is the country acting through Parliament and 
 the Crown, has admitted its responsibility for the education of 
 the people by public grants, by public rates, and by the partial 
 application of the power of compulsion. The education of the 
 children of the country is henceforward to be provided for by 
 the State. That is a great principle, which has never been 
 adopted in this country before. I ask you to look at the 
 various points I have mentioned ; examine, if you can, their 
 importance, and then you will see what is the character of the 
 work that has been accomplished by one Parliament, under the 
 advice and under the direction of one Administration. 
 
 But I must dwell for a moment or two upon the last 
 question to which I have referred. I was not in Parliament 
 when the Education Bill passed. It was not at any time, so 
 far as I remember, submitted to the Cabinet whilst I was in 
 
1873. XIII. BIRMINGHAM. 201 
 
 the practice of meeting with my colleagues. I was a member 
 of the Administration, but I was withdrawn from it by illness 
 so severe that during months of that Session of 1871 I knew 
 nothing of what was taking place within the walls of Parlia- 
 ment. I could read no debate and no speech myself, and I 
 was too prostrate for it to be safe for any of my family to read 
 such news to me. I give this explanation, not for the sake of 
 saying that somebody else did it and I did not, but because it 
 has been said, and in a very important newspaper, that I was 
 one of those who were concerned in that measure, and had 
 given my assent to it. I think the original fault in the 
 whole of that Bill was in submitting to Parliament a great 
 measure on a subject which had not been sufficiently discussed 
 in public, and about which the public mind had neither been 
 fixed nor enlightened j and I am obliged to say, judging from 
 what I have heard since, that it appears to me that almost 
 everybody concerned in it was a little in the dark, and that 
 the measure as it came out from Parliament, and as it has 
 been worked, has somewhat disappointed nearly everybody that 
 was concerned in it. 
 
 I will tell you my opinion of the Bill in as few words as I 
 can, because I want you to understand that I am not speaking 
 here at all in the capacity of a member of the Administration, 
 but as one of the representatives of the electors of Birming- 
 ham. I hope I shall say nothing and do nothing which is 
 inconsistent with either character. The Education Bill was 
 supposed to be needed because the system that had existed up 
 to 1870 was held to be insufficient and bad ; and the fault of 
 the Bill, in my mind, is that it has extended and confirmed 
 the system which it ought in point of fact to have superseded. 
 It was a Bill — I speak of it as it passed, and combined with 
 the changes brought about by the Minutes of the Privy 
 Council which came into force with it — it was a Bill to 
 encourage Denominational education, and, where that was 
 impossible, to establish Board schools. It ought, in my 
 
202 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 22, 
 
 opinion, to have been a Bill to establish Board schools, and 
 to offer inducements to those who were connected with 
 Denominational schools to bring them under the control of 
 the Privy Council. The fact is, and it is notorious, that the 
 Denominational system in this country must of necessity in 
 the main be an Established Church system, because from the 
 parochial organisation of the Church — although it does not 
 include within its pale more than one-half of the church-going 
 people of the nation — ^yet by its parochial organisation and the 
 unity which this organisation implies — it can, of course, place 
 schools in every parish where the divided and many-sected 
 Nonconformists are unable to do so ; and the result, as we 
 have seen, is that the Nonconformists are aggrieved, and 
 justly aggrieved. I suppose there are probably thousands of 
 parishes in which there will scarcely be any schools except 
 Church schools to which the children of Nonconformists can 
 go ; and they must either in those schools receive the religious 
 education which is given, or shun or be withdrawn from 
 religious education altogether. A great deal has been said 
 about a certain clause of that Bill. It is a clause which 
 collects rates from all ratepayers — I speak now especially 
 of Nonconformist ratepayers — and applies those rates partly 
 to the support of Catholic schools, and very much more to the 
 support of Church of England schools, over which the rate- 
 payers have no kind of control whatever. That, I think, is an 
 evil principle, and one that should not be continued. But I 
 am bound to say that I do not think the clause, as left in the 
 Bill, was supposed to be capable of exciting the disapprobation 
 which has arisen on account of it. For myself, I have not 
 publicly in any public meeting discussed the subject since it 
 has come before the nation ; but I will say what I think with 
 regard to the question of education through the sects. I 
 believe that it is not possible ever to make it truly national 
 or truly good. The fact is, and I think we all feel it, that the 
 public do not take a great interest in Denominational schools. 
 
1873. XIII. BIRMINGHAM. 203 
 
 The Church cares nothing for Dissent ; and with regard to that 
 matter, Dissent cares just as little for the Church. The people 
 regard their schools as Church schools and Chapel schools ; 
 they do not regard them as public and national schools, and 
 as supporting a great system, in which the whole people unite 
 for a great and national object. Then, again, with regard to 
 the School Boards. I do not know that the Government of 
 that day were responsible for the mode of electing School 
 Boards. It was not certainly in the original memorandum of 
 the Bill which I was permitted to see ; but the mode of 
 election appears to me about the worst for purposes of general 
 and national education that could possibly have been devised. 
 When a contest comes for a School Board, the real question of 
 education seems hardly ever thought of; it is a squabble 
 between Church and Chapel and Secularist, and I do not 
 know how many factions besides. When the School Board 
 meets, there are the priest, the parson, and the minister, and 
 their partisans, but there is no free breeze of public opinion 
 passing through them. It is an unwholesome atmosphere of 
 what I would call sectarian exclusiveness, and sometimes of 
 bigotry, in which nothing can thrive. 
 
 And now with regard to one or two points which have 
 been much discussed, particularly that of the 25th clause. 
 Whatever is said about it in the country, I believe that there 
 are many worthy and honourable men on the opposite side of 
 the House to that on which I sit who would be very glad to 
 see some arrangement come to with regard to that clause ; 
 because, so long as this remains a matter of dispute, it is 
 obvious that whatever good can be got out of what I call an 
 insufficient measure, and therefore one not calculated to yield 
 great good, will be checked. It is desirable for every party 
 that something more like harmony should be introduced into 
 the public action in the great Education question. And 
 therefore, expressing only my own opinion, I say that I 
 believe there is a mode, and a simple and a just mode, by 
 
204 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 22, 
 
 which everything may be brought about that is now pro- 
 posed to be done under the 25th clause, and that is the repeal 
 of the clause. But with regard to the great question which 
 lies behind it, whether we are on the right track of a good 
 sound education for our children, under the Denominational 
 system or not, that must be left to further proof; for I admit 
 that multitudes differ from me and from you ; though I can- 
 not but believe that further experience and something like 
 failure will before long force upon Parliament and the country 
 a general reconsideration of the question. 
 
 In speaking of the five years, I have said nothing of the 
 minor measures, and I will say nothing of them. I have 
 said nothing about lessened taxation. I have not touched 
 yet upon one question which I think ought not to be passed 
 over, and that is the course of the Government in the settle- 
 ment of the dispute with the United States. Mr. Chamber- 
 lain, I think, referred to a speech made the other day by an 
 eminent member of the House of Lords, in which a noble 
 Marquis insisted that the Government which turned one 
 cheek meekly to the United States and another meekly to 
 Russia, had only a bold front for a savage African nation. 
 With regard to the savage African nation, I will undertake 
 to say that there are not fifteen men in this room more 
 anxious to avoid war with the African nation, or who will 
 be more disposed by all possible and reasonable pacific mea- 
 sures to adjust the troubles which have arisen on that conti- 
 nent, than her Majesty's Ministers are. The time may come 
 — and I trust before long — when Parliament, acting on the 
 opinion of one of its own committees, will consider that it 
 will be wise to withdraw absolutely from that coast. There 
 is no slave trade there to put an end to now. Trade flourishes 
 better where there are no forts than where they are to be 
 found. The country I am speaking of is one in which 
 English life is scarcely to be maintained, and I believe the 
 interest and the honour of Great Britain at some not distant 
 
1873. XIIl. BIRMINGHAM. 205 
 
 period will be best consulted by an entire withdrawal from 
 that coast. 
 
 But, as to America, they talk of this Treaty of 187a as if it 
 were a great humiliation to England. No ! The humiliation 
 was not in 187a; it took place between the years 1861 and 
 1865. Many of you met me in the Town-hall during the 
 period that elapsed between the years I have mentioned, and 
 we discussed the American question. If the Government of 
 this country had treated the United States with what I 
 termed a generous neutrality, if the rich people in this country 
 had not in the main sided with the insurrectionary planters 
 of the South, if the writers attached to many of our most 
 important newspapers had dealt fairly with their kinsmen on 
 the other side of the Atlantic, there would have been no dis- 
 pute between the United Kingdom and the United States. 
 But a dispute arose ; and what was it the duty of the Govern- 
 ment to do? To let it rankle and fester until it grew to 
 something that was grievous to both nations, and to the 
 world ? No. They took office when the question was manage- 
 able. They trod in the steps of a member of the previous 
 Government, the present Lord Derby, who had been Foreign 
 Secretary; for it was Lord Derby, and I say it to his honour, 
 who first of all admitted the propriety of arbitration between 
 the United States and England. Any one may say that the 
 terms were not settled, and that this Government conceded 
 too much. Well, I venture to say this — that twenty or fifty 
 years hence, when the pen of history narrates what has been 
 done with regard to this question, it will say that the treaty, 
 the arbitration, and the conduct of Earl Granville and Mr. 
 Gladstone and their colleagues, added a nobler chapter to the 
 History of England than if they had filled it with the records 
 of bloody battles. 
 
 I have asked you to look back a little over the time which 
 has passed since the last general election. It is worth while 
 now to look forward a little to the general election, which 
 
206 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, oct. 22, 
 
 in all probability will be upon us before the next twelve 
 months. Now, when the election of 1868 took place, five 
 years ago, there was an enormous majority in favour of the 
 Liberal party. Why ? I presume it was because the Liberal 
 party expected some work to be done. They req^uired it to 
 be done. The national mind had risen to the height of dis- 
 posing of certain questions. I should like to ask whether 
 that work in the main has not been done, and well done, too ? 
 I have found fault with only one measure ; generally the 
 public — I speak of the Liberal public — have found fault with 
 only one measure. Of course, our opponents found fault with 
 every measure. But, having come to this point, that a 
 Ministry which you in part elected — for I was a member of 
 it — has been doing for five years what you asked it to do, 
 and expected it to do, our friends of the Opposition come to 
 you and say, ' You had better discharge the workmen that 
 have been doing so well for you during the last five years ; 
 and more than that, you should engage the party that has 
 for five years done nothing but obstruct and resist those 
 workmen.' It may be a question whether you want anything 
 more to be done. Even if you did not, it would be advisable 
 to retain the servants that have done so well. But if you 
 want more to be done, then it would seem to me to be very 
 necessary to retain those who are willing to do something 
 rather than those who for five years past have done nothing 
 but obstruct. 
 
 Now shall I just mention two or three things which are 
 coming to the front? I will not go into fancy questions, 
 theories, or speculations, that we shall perhaps never have to 
 consider, but I will take one matter that must be interesting 
 to this vast meeting. We must be some thousands here 
 present, and there must be some thousands amongst us who 
 had no votes a few years ago. It was obvious, when the 
 borough franchise was brought down to the householders, 
 that the county franchise could not possibly remain where it 
 
1873. XIII. BIRMINGHAM. 207 
 
 was. That is a question that is every day becoming nearer. , 
 How near it is I will not say, because I am not able to say, 
 but it is a question that is intimately connected with another 
 not less important, and that is the redistribution of political 
 power. Let me ask you whether you would like our friends 
 in the Opposition to have the introduction of a Bill and the 
 arrangement of the clauses which would determine, if Parlia- 
 ment should sanction it, the number of members to be given, 
 for instance, to the metropolis, to Birmingham, Manchester, 
 Glasgow, and all great cities in the United Kingdom? I 
 would rather have it in the hands of men who have a sym- 
 pathy with the true and honest representation of the country. 
 I object to the Opposition coming in to deal with a matter 
 of this kind. 
 
 There is another question which Mr. Chamberlain and 
 Mr. Wright, I believe, referred to, which is the question of 
 the land. You know what has happened. By great efforts 
 we were enabled to free the produce of the land. I know it 
 was the opinion of my dear friend Cobden that the freedom of 
 the land would be as great a boon to the country as was 
 the freedom of the produce of the soil. It is a question of the 
 intensest interest to the working classes of the country. I 
 am delighted — as I hope thousands and thousands who have 
 no immediate connexion with them are — I am delighted to 
 see some movement and stir amongst the class of agricul- 
 tural labourers. But do not assume that it is in the power 
 of organisation, especially in a scattered class as they are, 
 to permanently and greatly raise the rate of wages. What 
 the agricultural class in this country requires is that the 
 land shall be made absolutely free; that there should be 
 steps by which the best, the cleverest, the most industrious, 
 the most frugal of the agricultural labourers should gradually 
 make their way to a better and a higher social level. That 
 can never be with land laws such as we have — land laws 
 which tend everywhere to the forming great estates and 
 
208 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 22, 
 
 great farms which are altogether beyond the reach or the 
 expectation or the dream of the agricultural labourer. That 
 is a question which will have to be dealt with very soon. 
 Last Session a Bill was introduced by the present Lord 
 Chancellor with a view to make more easy and more cheap 
 the transfer of land — of course, I mean by purchase. Other 
 Bills must be introduced before long on the question. The 
 question cannot sleep, and it is as necessary for the land- 
 owners themselves that it should be dealt with as it is for 
 the agricultural labourers to seek how they may better their 
 poor and abject condition. There are other laws which affect 
 land — the law of landlord and tenant, and the question of 
 the preservation of game. That is a matter which will have 
 to be dealt with, and with some degree of force, before long. 
 It seems to be monstrous that tenant-farmers should occupy 
 land, paying rent for it, and that they should not have 
 absolute property in all that lives upon the soil. 
 
 There are two or three other questions which I must just 
 refer to, which have been called workmen's questions. For 
 instance, there is one that was dealt with, or rather that 
 was attempted to be dealt with, last Session, with regard 
 to the law of conspiracy. There is another which is called 
 the Masters and Servants Act. There is another that has 
 reference to what is called molestation. I am not prepared 
 to say that Parliament would consent, or ought to consent, 
 with regard at least to two of these measures, to do every- 
 thing that has been suggested ; but I am of opinion that 
 with regard to all three of them, concession or alteration 
 may be made, which would be just to all other classes of 
 the community, and will be satisfactory to all reasonable 
 and thoughtful men among the working classes. 
 
 Then T come to the question of expenditure. The public, 
 I am sorry to say, during prosperous years have been so 
 much attending to their own personal expenditure, which 
 has greatly increased, that they seem to have forgotten the 
 
1873. XIII. BIRMINGHAM. 209 
 
 expenditure of the Administration. But the question of 
 expenditure is a very serious one. I have heard in the 
 House of Commons, from the leader of the Opposition and 
 from the leader of the Administration, condemnation in the 
 strongest language of the extravagant expenditure of the 
 country ; and it is for the most part, although not altogether, 
 in the military expenditure that the extravagance is most 
 witnessed. You will have by and by a Budget. There is 
 a Budget every year, and whilst we are at peace, and acting 
 like a rational and peaceful nation, the Budget generally, 
 on the whole, is rather a pleasant thing than otherwise. 
 Looking back to the Budgets which we had some years ago, 
 it may be that the Budget of the next Session may cause 
 interest, and I hope it may cause pleasure. I know no 
 secrets. There is one thing, however, which I can tell you. 
 The Cabinet secrets are not made up till November, and as 
 we are yet only at the 22nd of October, of course it is 
 impossible that I should be able to tell you anything, how- 
 ever much I might wish to do so. But this we all know, 
 that there are two questions which interest people when 
 they speak about the Budget, and the surplus, and the 
 diminution of the taxation. Some feel very sore about the 
 question of the income tax. I don't wonder at it. It is 
 most unequal, and it tempts men to great dishonesty. Then 
 there is the question of a free breakfast table — tea, sugar, 
 and coflPee. Well, there is abundant room here for the most 
 enterprising Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he has a surplus, 
 to gratify the people of the United Kingdom, but I am 
 in favour of leaving these matters in the hands — I am not 
 now speaking of the present Government, or of Mr. Gladstone 
 — in the hands of the Liberal party, and of a Liberal Ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 I have not touched upon certain questions about which 
 some men are interesting themselves. I agree with one 
 of the greatest men England or the world has ever produced, 
 
 p 
 
210 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 22, 
 
 when lie said, 'To know that which before us lies in daily 
 life is the prime wisdom/ and therefore I prefer to deal with 
 the questions which are in the front, which are coming near 
 to us, which the public mind is thinking- of, and discussing, 
 and settling, because the public mind often settles these 
 questions before they are discussed and settled by Parliament. 
 I prefer to deal with the practical questions that are before 
 us rather than to run into speculations on some grave ques- 
 tions which must wait their own time, their own time not 
 being certainly the present. I say then, looking at the 
 past, whom shall we trust? I am not about to compare 
 rival Ministers. I shall certainly not compare the First 
 Minister, the leader of the present Administration, with the 
 writer of the Bath letter. I would rather compare parties 
 than rival Ministers. Suppose, now, next year, when we 
 have a general election, the result throughout the United 
 Kingdom should be to continue a large majority of the 
 Liberal party, what will be the result? During the cur- 
 rency of the coming Parliament another chapter of great 
 and noble measures will be added to the Parliamentary 
 history of the time. Our policy is known — not every par- 
 ticular measure, not every particular clause, but the policy 
 of the Liberal party is known. It is before the public ; 
 it is not concealed ; it is no mystery. But what is the 
 policy of the Opposition? We were told the other day 
 that the leader of the Opposition was 'in a state of strict 
 seclusion,' and, but for that strange and unfortunate episto- 
 lary outburst we should have had no idea of the desperate 
 state of mind in which he has been. But still, if we ask 
 for the policy of the Opposition, all is impenetrably dark, 
 and all that we know is that nothing can be known. I 
 beg pardon, though ; I am wrong in that. We know that 
 according to the Opposition all the doings of the past five 
 years, and if you like of all the past forty years, are evil ; 
 but, as to the future, you will see when it comes. 
 
1873. XII I. BIRMINGHAM. 211 
 
 But let me tell you this — that the great statesmanship 
 which consists in silence and secrecy is not original — it is 
 a mere copy. Thirty or forty years ago — I recollect the 
 time very well — there was a great fever and mania of specu- 
 lation, and men went into every thing — they generally 
 came out with nothing. I recollect quite well the adver- 
 tisement of a Great Sunflower Company, and if anybody 
 had proposed so unsubstantial a speculation as the equinoctial 
 line, people would have taken shares in that. Now at that 
 time there was a very ingenious fellow ; if I could remember 
 his name I would try to immortalise him. He was a very 
 ingenious fellow, and he put out a prospectus. He was what 
 they call the 'promoter' of a great company, which was to 
 have a large capital, and a great number of shares, and great 
 profits. All this was to work a great invention — everything 
 was great about it, but what it was was a great secret ; 
 indeed it was so profound a secret that until all the money 
 was paid in nobody was to know what it was. Now that is 
 the Conservative policy at this moment. They have a policy 
 which they offer for the coming election, but it is a profound 
 secret. When you have all given your votes and returned 
 a Conservative majority, perhaps they will tell you what it is. 
 I mentioned forty years. Lord Salisbury referred to those 
 forty years in his speech. It is a difficult matter for one 
 of our Conservative friends to get over such forty years as 
 we have had in this country ; and during the whole of that 
 time the Liberal party has been in power; for when it was 
 not in office it was in power. Sir Robert Peel came into 
 office in the year 1841, and left office in the year 1846, 
 and his renown, the reverence which we pay his memory, 
 all that which his family now hold dear, he purchased by 
 wisely doing that which the Anti-Corn Law League for so 
 many years had advocated. The other day when the Earl 
 of Derby and Mr. Disraeli were in office, what did they do 
 but pass the very measure which you and I had discussed 
 
 P 2, 
 
212 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 22, 
 
 over and over again in your Town Hall? Therefore, as 
 regards the forty years that the Liberal party have been 
 in power, and have ruled in this country, I am entitled to 
 claim for them the merit and glory of the administration 
 and legislation of that remarkable period. The changes have 
 been great, I admit, but the improvements have been as 
 great as the changes. Look what a growth of content 
 there has been throughout the country ; look what a growth 
 of peace there has been, and of national prosperity and com- 
 fort among every class. If I could take all the men here 
 with grey heads, or all the men who have passed over sixty 
 years of age — and they are not a few — and were to ask them 
 to tell us what was the state of things when they were 
 twenty or thirty years old, they would be able to show that 
 this country has gone through a beneficent revolution in 
 regard to the condition of the great body of the working 
 classes. I believe all that has come from the long period 
 of peace and the changes that have been made in the legis- 
 lation of the country by the Liberal party. 
 
 I will tell you a little anecdote about this, and one which I 
 think will interest you. I have been reading lately a great 
 number of letters which were addressed to me by my dear 
 friend Mr. Cobden during our long friendship, and I have read 
 also a journal consisting of memoranda narrating what took 
 place in Paris, when he was there negotiating the Commercial 
 Treaty with France. He had to try to persuade the Emperor 
 Napoleon to follow the example of this country with regard 
 to the reduction of import duties, and the establishment of 
 something like freedom of trade. He told the Emperor how 
 great the benefits had been of the policy of Sir Robert Peel, 
 and how great was the regard and reverence felt for Sir 
 Robert Peel. The Emperor said that he should be charmed 
 and flattered if he could think it possible that he could do 
 things of a kind which would be so good for his country. 
 * But,' he added, ' it is very difficult in France. In England 
 
1873. XIII. BIRMINGHAM. 213 
 
 you make reforms, in France we make revolutions.' Now, 
 observe, the Emperor was a man who had lived in this country 
 for years ; he had watched the working of public opinion and 
 of our institutions from the retirement of his exile, and after- 
 wards for nearly twenty years he observed them from the lofty 
 stage of the Imperial throne ; and that was his judgment ; 
 that was the statement which he made to one of the foremost 
 Englishmen, representing much of English opinion, sent by 
 the English Government to negotiate with him the great 
 Treaty of Commerce. But I believe that there is not a 
 thoughtful statesman in any civilized country in the world 
 who would not join with the Emperor in expressing his 
 admiration of the manner in which the people of this country, 
 for the last forty years, have worked out such substantial 
 refoi*ms in their legislation, and our own experience brings us 
 to the same conclusion. 
 
 Those men are in error who tell you that nothing has been 
 done, and that all remains to be done ; those men are not less 
 in error who tell you that what has been done is evil, and that 
 it is evil to do anything more. What you should do is to act 
 upon the principles and the rules of past years, steadily ad- 
 vancing in favour of questions which the public has thoroughly 
 discussed, which it thoroughly comprehends, and which Parlia- 
 ment can honestly and conscientiously put into law. For my 
 part, looking back over these forty years, I feel some little 
 sense of content. But it does not in the least degree lessen — 
 on the contrary, it rather adds to and strengthens my hope for 
 the future. The history of the last forty years of this country, 
 judged fairly — I speak of its legislation — is mainly a histoiy 
 of the conquests of freedom. It will be a grand volume that 
 tells the story, and your name and mine, if I mistake not, will 
 be found in some of its pages. For me, the final chapter is 
 now writing. It may be already written ; but for you, this 
 great constituency, you have a perpetual youth and a perpetual 
 
214 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 future. I pray Heaven that in the years to come, when my 
 voice is hushed, you may be granted strength, and moderation, 
 and wisdom to influence the councils of your country by 
 righteous means, for none other than noble and righteous 
 ends. 
 
 ^K- 
 
XIV. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 31, 1874. 
 
 [At the General Election of 1874, Messrs. Bright, Dixon, and Muntz were 
 returned unopposed. There had been some talk of bringing forward a 
 * working man representative/ but the project, if it had been seriously 
 entertained, collapsed, and the proposed candidate went away to Sheffield to 
 assist in the candidature of Mr. Chamberlain, who subsequently took 
 Mr. Dixon's place in the representation of Birmingham.] 
 
 It is a little over three months since I had the pleasure of 
 meeting you, on which occasion you renewed the expression of 
 your confidence in me as one of your Parliamentary represen- 
 tatives. Since then, entirely unexpected by me at that time, 
 as. by you, there has occurred a dissolution of Parliament, 
 unforeseen and most sudden. With regard to its causes, I may 
 tell you frankly and honestly that those causes are set forth 
 most clearly in the address of the Prime Minister to his late 
 constituents; and when you have read that, you know as 
 much about it as is necessary for you to know — and more, as 
 much as can be known, and as much as I know. But sudden 
 and unexpected as the dissolution was, it did not find Birming- 
 ham unprepared, and if there be reaction anywhere, apparently 
 the infection has not spread to this great central city of the 
 country. You are not prepared to turn your backs upon the 
 policy of the last five years. You are not prepared to with- 
 draw your confidence from those who have been your represen- 
 tatives during that period, although, unfortunately, I have 
 
216 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 31, 
 
 been able to render you small service during that time. And 
 as you stand by the grave of the dead Parliament, I am sure, 
 whether you speak its funeral oration or you write its epitaph, 
 you will be willing to say that it is one of the best and noblest 
 of the Parliaments whose doings have made the story of English 
 history during many centuries past. But our opponents — if 
 it were not so they would not be our opponents — do not agree 
 with us ; but they are an unhappy party. Whether in or out, 
 they seem to me alike unfortunate. I have watched their 
 agonies for thirty years. During that time, according to 
 them, the Constitution has received some scores of serious 
 wounds, and several of those wounds, though it is curious to 
 say so, have been pronounced fatal. They say that we — that 
 is, the Liberal party — have disturbed classes and interests 
 unnecessarily, that we have harassed almost all sorts of people, 
 and have made ourselves very unpopular thereby. Without 
 doubt, if they had been in the Wilderness, they would have 
 condemned the Ten Commandments as a harassing piece of 
 legislation, though it does happen that we have the evidence 
 of more than thirty centuries to the wisdom and usefulness of 
 those Commandments. Well, I plead guilty to the charge 
 that we have disturbed a good many classes and a good many 
 interests, but then, in pleading that, I offer as the justification 
 that in no single case have we injured a class or interest, and 
 in every case we have greatly benefited the country. 
 
 We seem to have had lately a new period marked out for 
 us — the period of forty years. Lord Grey was a great 
 minister, who began the process of disturbance — I speak of 
 disturbance under the Liberal party. He, as you know, 
 greatly disturbed the borough-mongers. I recollect reading 
 the account of Lord John Russell's famous speech in intro- 
 ducing the Reform Bill, and some member — I forget now his 
 name, but I think he was not much of a borough-monger, if 
 at all — said, as he heard the speech and the gradual explana- 
 tion of that great measure, his hair stood on end. And what 
 
1874. XIY. BIRMINGHAM, 217 
 
 must have been its effect I know not upon that rich hanker at 
 Leeds, of whom, I think, I have once before spoken to you, 
 who said that if the members for Gatton and Old Sarum, or 
 any two of them, were transferred to Leeds he should dread 
 the tumult of Leeds elections, and he should think it necessary 
 to remove his bank, with his gold and silver, to some quiet 
 town like Pomfret. But then the result of the disturbance of 
 the borough-mongers was this — that the country was saved 
 from anarchy and civil war, and that the passing of that great 
 measure made the growth of the tree of freedom in this 
 country certain and perpetual. And not long after, we dis- 
 turbed another comfortable set of people. I mean those who 
 in that day were called the ' old corporators ' — the men who 
 were the oflScials of the corrupt and unreformed Corporations 
 of the country. These persons were busy mostly in all kinds 
 of jobbery for their own interests with the funds of the Cor- 
 porations. I am told that in one town not far from here, 
 the Corporation regularly sold the seats in Parliament, and 
 applied the money, under an economical and in some respects a 
 judicious plan, to the improvement of the town. What would 
 you think if the Corporation put up the three seats for 
 Birmingham in the market — in the political market — offered 
 some of those great contractors, Australian merchants, and 
 great landed proprietors, permanent seats in Parliament, as 
 members for Birmingham, if they would give you ten or 
 twenty thousand pounds a-piece, and then you were to apply 
 that money to some purposes of Birmingham improvement ? 
 Well, that was what was done, I am told, in a borough not far 
 from this town. But after the Reform Bill — the Corporation 
 Reform Bill— was passed, a new state of things arose, and we 
 have had since then, I think everybody must admit — taking 
 into consideration the state of the intelligence and virtue of 
 our population — we have had in all our great boroughs a very 
 admirable system of local and municipal government. 
 
 But the reformed Parliament went on with these disturb- 
 
218 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 31, 
 
 ances. The people of England heard the wail of anguish 
 from the West Indian colonies ; every breeze from the west 
 brought with it the sound of the torture and the sufferings 
 of near a million of the population. And the Liberal party — 
 for it was they who did it — they not only heard this, but 
 they resolved to abate the evil, and they did it in a manner 
 by which they offered what I will call lavish justice and 
 consideration to the planters, at the same time that they 
 extended perfect and complete mercy to the slave. And 
 by and by there came up another great question. Failing 
 Harvests, and failing trade, and a suffering people, created 
 a combination to abolish the hated system of Protection. 
 Trade was strangled, the poor were stricken with famine. 
 And then we disturbed lords, and dukes, and squires, and 
 farmers, and, I am sorry to say, not a few clergymen, who 
 were distressed and harassed to an alarming extent. One 
 duke, if I recollect aright, said that the country would not 
 be worth living in, and that they should go abroad. But a 
 Sussex peasant, not a distant neighbour, I suspect, of the 
 duke, asked, ' They bean't going to take the land wi' 'em, be 
 they ?' And the duke, as you know, did not go abroad. He 
 remained to the end of his life as much attached as ever to 
 his ancestral acres ; and now, doubtless, he sleeps tranquilly 
 in that small portion of his vast estates which is enough 
 finally for the great duke or for the peasant. Well, but the 
 dukes were not all. The farmers thought they were injured, 
 and Mr. Chowler — you recollect Mr. Chowler — said they had 
 more horses than anybody else, and knew how to ride 'em, 
 and they would rather ride down upon Manchester than upon 
 Paris ; but fortunately for that industrious, un walled, and unde- 
 fended town, Mr. Chowler relented, and Manchester was spared. 
 But five-and-twenty years have passed since that disturb- 
 ance, and the harassing of these great events, and where are 
 we now? Every duke, and lord, and squire, and parson, 
 ^nd peasant, and manufacturer, and merchant, and artisan. 
 
1874 XIV. BIRMINGHAM. 219 
 
 and labourer, and miner, and man and woman of every class 
 in this country, is happier and more content by the disturb- 
 ance. Out of the five-and-twenty years that are past, I 
 suppose the whole food of the people of this country for 
 about ten years has been imported from abroad. Trade has 
 extended to fourfold its then amount, work is far more plen- 
 tiful and more steady, as you all know : wages are from 
 twenty to fifty per cent, higher throughout the country, and 
 the farm labourer — a writer in the Saturday Bevietv not long 
 ago said that if the farm labourer is a son of agriculture, he 
 is a disinherited child — the farm labourer, abject and suffer- 
 ing, and neglected, is now finding that the beneficent shower 
 is even descending upon him. I have heard Mr. Disraeli in 
 the House of Commons, when claiming from Parliament 
 compensation for the land for the abolition of the Corn 
 Laws; I have heard him say that he would rest his whole 
 case upon the condition, that is upon the future condition, of 
 the agricultural labourer. Well, I met about a year ago a 
 man doing some work for my firm under a contractor; he 
 was looking rather weakly and ill, and I entered into conver- 
 sation with him, and asked him where he came from. He 
 said he was just recovering from an illness of many weeks ; 
 that he had only just returned to his work ; that he was a 
 native of the county of Buckingham, Mr. Disraeli's own 
 county. He said that when he was a lad, and that was about 
 thirty years ago, his father went to work regularly for the 
 wages of 7*. a week ; and he said further, that * When I left 
 Buckinghamshire wages had got up to ii5. ; and,^ he says, 
 ' I have heard lately that they are at 145.' Therefore, I say 
 that the disturbance that set free the industry of this country, 
 which doubled the wages of the humble labourer, amongst 
 whom Mr. Disraeli moves when he is at his country home — 
 that this disturbance is not to be condemned, but is one of 
 those great things for which we may take credit, and in which 
 we may glory. 
 
220 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 31, 
 
 Now, if there was nobody to speak but myself, and I were 
 able to do it, I migbt go through I know not how many 
 cases of the same kind. One or two I will refer to. Take 
 the case of the shipping interest for example. The great 
 shipowners were terrified because the Navigation Laws were 
 to be repealed, and it was said that your mercantile navy 
 would rot in your harbours, and your imperial navy would 
 have no support. What happened? But that was not all 
 that was said. I am not sure that I did not once before tell 
 you of the observation of a sailor to me upon this subject. 
 He had come down with two or three hundred to the House 
 of Commons to bring a petition to the House praying them 
 not to abolish the Navigation Laws. I walked up Parlia- 
 ment Street with this procession, and I entered into conver- 
 sation with one of these simple-minded sailors. I asked him 
 what he had been about, and he said he had been down to 
 the House of Commons ; they had taken a very great petition 
 against the repeal of these Navigation Laws. I said to him, 
 *What harm will it do you?' and he said ' I do not know 
 much about it myself, but they tell us that if the Navigation 
 Laws are repealed, we shall all of us never get nothing to 
 eat again but black bread, like them Norwegians.' That 
 was the absurdity which — I will not mention names — ship- 
 owners and active men of that agitation, taught these poor 
 sailors, who really, as you know, knew nothing about it. 
 But the result of the abolition of the Navigation Laws, and 
 the establishment of free trade, has been a prosperity abso- 
 lutely unconceived before by the shipping interests, in the 
 vastness of your mercantile marine, in the magnificence of 
 your ships. Now, there is not a sea, there is not a bay, there 
 is not a harbour, there is not a part of the watery surface of 
 the globe in which your magnificent merchant ships are not 
 sailing. And no doubt the shipping interest would be very 
 sorry to go back to the system which we attacked, and which 
 they upheld. 
 
1874. A' IV. BIRMINGUAM. 221 
 
 There is one point to which I must ask the working men 
 to pay particular attention, and it is the newspaper press. 
 The newspaper press thirty years ago was strangled by taxes. 
 They durst not do as they do in Paris — they durst not take 
 up newspaper editors and suppress newspapers from day to 
 day, as they pleased ; but they put taxes on [which strangled 
 the newspapers, and only dear newspapers could exist. The 
 paper itself had a tax upon it — the Excise tax — nearly equal 
 to the value of the paper. It had a stamp at one corner 
 absolutely exceeding the value of the paper. And then, 
 every advertisement at that time, although it was only a 
 line — ' Wanted, a Gardener ; enquire so and so * — bore a tax 
 of eighteenpence, which is three times as much as you now 
 pay the newspaper for the advertisement itself. And thus 
 the newspapers were to a large extent strangled and de- 
 stroyed — they could not come into existence, in fact. Now, 
 you will bear in mind, those of you who recollect what took 
 place, the first tax that came off was the advertisement duty ; 
 the next that came off was the stamp, and the last was the 
 excise upon paper. All the prosperous — not all, but many 
 of the prosperous papers of the country, were very much dis- 
 turbed and harassed; they were a harassed interest. The 
 Times grieved dreadfully about it. What a foolish business 
 it was when Lord Derby — the late Lord Derby — I think, 
 the most passionate and ignorant of political leaders — brought 
 the majority of the House of Lords to reject the Bill for the 
 repeal of the paper duty, after Mr. Gladstone had passed it 
 in the House of Commons. Surely, if there were a class of 
 persons in this kingdom to whom it was necessary to give 
 a true knowledge of facts and some kind of decent political 
 education, it was the Tory party. And they, apparently — 
 if I may use a Miltonic phrase — ' unconscious of their own 
 disfigurement,' and of their own ignorance, actually rejected 
 the means which we offered them of getting this great teach- 
 ing machinery for their benefit. 
 
222 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 31, 
 
 One more little thing— a small thing now it has passed. 
 For thirty years in the House of Commons men contested 
 the question of the Church rate. What did the clergy say — 
 not all, but a great many — but what did their friends in the 
 House of Commons say ? If you abolish the Church rate, 
 if you do not take from the Independents, the Wesleyans, 
 the Baptists, and all the rest of them, small sums to keep 
 up the churches, the churches will go to decay. It was a 
 scandalous imputation upon Churchmen. But what happened ? 
 A clergyman, speaking to me this very week about it, said, 
 * I believe there is not anybody in the kingdom who is any 
 worse for the abolition of Church rates, nor is there any 
 single church in the kingdom, I believe, that is more allowed 
 to go into decay than before Church rates were abolished.' 
 We harassed those persons a great deal at the time, but it 
 was for the public good, and it was for their good, and every- 
 body feels in every parish that there is greater harmony, 
 more of that which the Christian religion teaches, than there 
 was while that impost was continued. And now, passing 
 only to within the last Parliament, to that question of the 
 Irish Church — I am quite aware — I know it is true — that 
 many good men were disturbed and harassed by the course 
 which Parliament felt it its duty to take. I met in Ireland, 
 before the passing of that Bill, and just about the time when 
 the resolutions were agreed to in the preceding Parliament 
 in favour of the abolition of the Irish Church — I met with a 
 clergyman in Ireland, of the Established Church, to whom 
 I was talking upon this subject. He was very much dis- 
 turbed and very anxious. I had great sympathy with him, 
 for he spoke on the subject in a voice tremulous with emotion, 
 and he gave me this answer — and it was a sort of consolation 
 to him. He said, * I fear this great trial is come upon us 
 because of our unfaithfulness to our Divine Master.' Well, 
 my own impression is, that if ever there was a measure which 
 passed a House of Legislature conformable — undoubtedly 
 
1874. XIV. BIRMINGHAM. 223 
 
 comformable — to the precepts of that revelation which his 
 Divine Master has left us, it was the removal of the political 
 institution which went by the name of the Established Church 
 of Ireland. What has followed ? We have seen this — that 
 that Church is endeavouring gradually, and, I trust, success- 
 fully, to purify itself for the work that is before it ; and 
 verily the fields are white unto the harvest, and I trust that 
 within its folds the labourers may not be few. 
 
 And then we come to the last of those measures — the Irish 
 Land Act. The result has been, as far as we know, that no 
 landlord is injured, that the valiie of land has not fallen, that 
 all property in Ireland is more secure, and that agrarian crime 
 and outrage, as compared with a few years ago, have almost 
 ceased. 
 
 There is one other interest, and it is evidently that which 
 has been chiefly referred to in such sympathetic terms, that 
 we are said to have harassed, that is the publican interest. 
 Now, let it be borne in mind that the Licensing Act was not 
 an Act of any particular party. It was incessantly urged 
 upon the Government by gentlemen on the other side of the 
 House, it was supported by gentlemen on the other side of 
 the House, and it was a general Act of Parliament, in which 
 no party triumphed over any other. But we must not forget 
 that amongst the class of publicans there is what there is in 
 almost every other class, I am sorry to say — that which I 
 have termed a residuum. There are amongst the great body 
 of the publicans some men who are low in circumstances and 
 who are low in character, and to whom any legislation, how- 
 ever necessary, that tends to sobriety and good order must 
 necessarily be somewhat hateful. There is a larger, a much 
 larger class, I believe, to whom reasonable legislation in this 
 direction is not only not hateful, but to some of them, I 
 think, it must even be welcome. I do not believe that all 
 the respectable publicans in this country, with their wives 
 and families, wish that their houses should be kept open till 
 
224 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 21, 
 
 midniglit. I believe that any measure, any reasonable 
 measure, as reasonable men would judge in regard to this 
 trade, if it were advantageous to the public at large, would be 
 still more full of blessing to the families of the publicans 
 themselves. But Parliament is not desirous, is not likely, 
 nor is the Liberal party, nor is the present Government, to 
 deal unjustly or harshly with any body of men ; and I beg to 
 express my opinion — the publicans may not take it to be 
 worth much, but still I give it — that they are not wise, 
 even for their own interests, if they should say to the great 
 Liberal party, triumphing in the past, destined to triumph in 
 the future, ^ We deem you our natural enemy, and in all 
 election contests you shall feel the strength of our resentment.' 
 I have shown you, I think, that if we have made disturb- 
 ances, if we have made men anxious, if we have harassed class 
 or trade, trades have not suffered, and the good of all the 
 people has in reality been consulted. But what happens 
 with this unhappy party when they are in and we are out ? 
 They came in in 184 1, under Sir Robert Peel, with a majority 
 of 90 ; and in 1 846 they repealed the Corn Laws — not the 
 whole party, but 100 of them, with Sir Robert Peel and his 
 colleagues joining the Liberals, to do that great act of justice. 
 They went into Parliament pledged to the lips to the main- 
 tenance of Protection. Those poor Fantees, about whom 
 we are reading, who swear great oaths by the blue coat 
 of General Macarthy, buttons and all — even they do not 
 make more dreadful vows than did the Conservative members 
 to support the Corn Laws for ever. And yet within five 
 years under tbeir great leader and accomplished and able 
 statesman, now of historic greatness and renown, they were 
 obliged to turn round and do the very thing which we 
 advocated, and which they had almost sworn never to do. 
 And then, in 1866 — that is only the other day — you recollect 
 what they did; they said that the bill introduced by Lord 
 Russell and Mr. Gladstone for the extension of the borough 
 
1874. XIV. BIRMINGHAM. 225 
 
 franchise to "jL, and the lowering of the county franchise 
 to 12L or 14/. — I forget which — was a measure of a most 
 desperate and democratic tendency, and that it would give to 
 the working men the control over all the elections, and they 
 would be masters of the Parliament. Well, having by these 
 arguments and many others equally stupid — having destroyed 
 the bill and got rid of the Government, they came into office, 
 and in the very next year, in the very next session, whilst 
 three-fourths of the House were gone to dinner, the leader of 
 the House at that time, who now tells us we are harassing 
 everybody, consented to the extension of the franchise to 
 every householder in the boroughs, leading necessarily to 
 the extension of the franchise to householders in the counties 
 — and leading necessarily too to other things, some of which 
 are dim and indistinct at present, and which I need not 
 attempt to describe. If these men are in office you see 
 what they do — if they are out of office they employ their 
 time with unfriendly criticisms of what we do. And when 
 we have done anything, the public generally find it so good 
 that they never for a single moment dream of undoing it. 
 Progress, therefore, in this country, with freedom of dis- 
 cussion and freedom of the press — progress is inevitable, and 
 progress is disturbance. But the question is, if you go back 
 to 1830, and review the period to 1874, what do you find, 
 and what conclusion do you come to? It is a great mis- 
 fortune that young men are often least acquainted with the 
 history of our country which is nearest our own times. It 
 is not written in the histories that were read at school, and 
 most people are not old enough, as I am old enough, to 
 remember almost every political fact since the great Reform 
 Bill of 1832. I wish young men would read some history 
 of this period. A neighbour and friend of mine, an int-el- 
 ligent and accomplished clergyman — Mr. Molesworth— has 
 published a work, being a political history of England from 
 .the year 1830 — that is, from the first Reform Bill, until 
 
 9. 
 
226 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jai^. 31, 
 
 within the last two or three years — a book honestly written, 
 in which facts are plainly and, I believe, truly stated, and 
 a work which would give great information to all the 
 young men of the country, if they could be prevailed upon 
 to read it. 
 
 For the changes which have taken place the Liberal party 
 is responsible ; and if we have to bear the responsibility, if the 
 changes are good, we shall have the credit and the glory. I 
 would appeal to any man who is not incurably prejudiced or 
 hopelessly ignorant as to this fact, whether England at this 
 moment is not a country immeasurably better to live in than 
 it was thirty or forty years ago. Look at her commerce and 
 her industry ; look at her wealth ; look at the wages of her 
 people ; look at the progress of education ; look at the greater 
 security in the country ; look at the comfort there is spread 
 amongst the people, with largely diminished crime, and with 
 largely diminished pauperism. And we must ascribe this 
 in large measure to the course of policy which has been 
 pursued by the Parliament, and which has been indicated 
 and controlled mainly during the whole of that period 
 by the Liberal party. Another question is — What is 
 to be our policy now ? You have determined what it shall 
 be as far as you are concerned. For you have set the seal of 
 your approval to the opinions and conduct of your repre- 
 sentatives ; they have come down to you again, and you 
 have again expressed your approval and given your sanc- 
 tion to their conduct. We shall consent to, and we must 
 endeavour to make such changes as the public interest and 
 the public judgment require — not changes for the mere rest- 
 less love of change, but changes which are indicated by 
 reflection and experience. Our progress so far, I believe, has 
 been in the highest sense of the word strictly and truly 
 Conservative. - Henceforth let us proceed upon the same 
 rules, with the same wisdom, to equally beneficent ends. 
 -I have to thank you for this expression to me of the renewal 
 
1874. XIV, BIRMINGHAM, 227 
 
 of your confidence. For some years I have done little but 
 look on. There have been errors which I have .disapproved 
 and have condemned ; but, if the Government has made errors 
 — and no Government has lasted for five years that has not — 
 I say that, looking on it with impartiality, its virtues amount 
 to far greater measure than its errors. 
 
 It was my expectation within the last year that, when 
 there came this dissolution — and it was not expected so soon 
 — it was my expectation that I should have at that time to 
 write, not an address offering myself as a candidate, but an 
 addre^ of farewell and final thanks. T did not think it was 
 likely that I should ever again be able to take my place upon 
 this platform to address you thus or to speak in the House of 
 Commons. But I could not at this moment — it was impos- 
 sible at this juncture that I could take any other course than 
 that which I have taken in offering myself again to you, 
 if you chose to elect me. And though I am not strong to 
 labour as I have been in past years, yet still possibly I may 
 do something to promote the great interests of our country 
 and to guard the precious fruits of the many victories that 
 we have won. 
 
 qz 
 
XV. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 25, 1875. 
 
 [On this day the three members for Birmingham made their customary 
 appearance before their constituents. The meeting was to some extent 
 disturbed by the anxiety which certain of the Temperance party felt, and 
 which they sought to give effect to, by proposing a resolution that Mr. 
 Muntz had caused distrust among his constituents by his attitude towards 
 the Permissive BiU, The meeting however was indisposed to support the 
 resolution.] 
 
 Yet once again I must thank you for the kindness of your 
 reception, and for the resolution which you have passed. I 
 feel how little I deserve much of what has been said in my 
 favour J but you know, as I know, that if I have in any degree 
 neglected your interests and my duty, it has been from causes 
 which were altogether beyond my control. At these, our 
 annual gatherings, it has not been my custom to dwell much 
 upon the past. I have been content to let the past speak for 
 itself. What I have tried to do — what I have united in doing 
 with other men — I believe, has generally been that which 
 justified itself in the eyes and to the understanding of the 
 great body of my countrymen. And now I shall not go much 
 into the past, but shall ask you to come with me a little, 
 while I look upon the present, and endeavour to peer some- 
 what into the future. 
 
 Since I was here last great changes have taken place — 
 changes, not here, I am happy to say, but elsewhere — changes 
 
XV. BIRMINGHAM, 229 
 
 under which the political power exercised in Parliament has 
 been shifted from one side of the House to the other — changes 
 under which a new set of occupants are found upon the 
 Treasury Bench. It has been said very often within the last 
 year that the people — not the people of Birmingham, but 
 the people of the United Kingdom — were a little tired of 
 legislation and of great measures, and that they preferred, at 
 least for a time, to have rest and quiet. If too much has been 
 done, and if nothing more was to be done, there has been a 
 wonderful consistency in the action of the constituencies, 
 because they have discovered twelve gentlemen whom they 
 have placed on the Treasury Bench — whose special recom- 
 mendation is that they never did anything — or at least that 
 if they attempted to do anything, it was merely to prevent 
 their opponents from doing something. When this new Govern- 
 ment was formed, being somewhat, of an old stager in Parlia- 
 mentary matters, I was asked how I thought they were likely 
 to get on ; and I answered, with a simplicity which is com- 
 mendable, that I thought they would get on for a good while 
 pretty well if they would keep off politics. But let me remind 
 you that in two Chambers and under one roof in Westminster 
 there assemble about a thousand gentlemen, from all parts of 
 the United Kingdom, whose special object in coming together 
 is to talk politics. Therefore, it was not easy for the Govern- 
 ment altogether to keep off politics ; and, indeed, instead of 
 doing that, or attempting to do it, we were surprised to find 
 that they plunged almost at once into ecclesiastical affairs, the 
 most exciting and explosive kind of political matter. 
 
 Last July I was spending some time in the extreme north, 
 on the shores of the Pentland Frith. It was a much pleasanter 
 atmosphere than that of the House of Commons. But I was 
 obliged to pick up my information from the papers that came 
 down twice, or at most three times, in the week. I pictured 
 to myself what must be going on in Westminster, and it was 
 a surprising picture. There was the Duke of Richmond — a 
 
230 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 25, 
 
 solemn Scotch proprietor, though not a Scotchman — a man, I 
 should say, incapable of recklessness and of enthusiasm. There 
 was the Lord Chancellor, with his wig on, and his wisdom 
 under it, importing, as I thought, some Orange and North of 
 Ireland notions into the affairs of the Established Church. I 
 saw these two in one House, and the Prime Minister in 
 another, engaged in applying a match to every bit of gun- 
 powder they found in their way. First of all they dealt with 
 the Church of Scotland. In the Church of Scotland there 
 has been a thing which was called patronage — that is, the 
 appointment of ministers in the Church rested mainly with 
 the proprietors of the land. There was not much in it. It 
 was of no money value. In Scotland there has been none of 
 that remarkable corruption which has existed in connection 
 with Church patronage in England. But then we must not 
 forget what one of our poets has said of learning. He said — 
 
 *A little learning is a dangerous thing; 
 Drink deep, or taste not/ 
 
 And so the little patronage of Scotland was found to be most 
 dangerous, whilst the Committee of the House of Lords has 
 recently decided that the enormous and corrupt patronage of 
 the Church of England is a thing to be carefully guarded 
 from destruction. What the Parliament did was this — to 
 transfer the patronage in Scotland from the landed proprietors 
 generally to the congregations. They thought it would prop 
 up the Church, that it would add to its popularity — perhaps 
 make it as popular as the Free Church ; but they seemed to 
 forget that it was necessary to place the reliance of the Church 
 in the heart of the people, and by that means only could they 
 make it really and permanently popular. Well, the Church 
 appears, so far as I can gather, to be very much puzzled as to 
 how to deal with its new powers j but the Free Churches of 
 Scotland — the secessionists from the Scotch Church, the 
 United Presbyterian and the Free Churches — have decided by 
 a remarkably unanimous vote that the ecclesiastical affairs of 
 
1875. XV. BIRMINGHAM. 231 
 
 Scotland can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until the 
 Established Church of Scotland is disestablished and set free. 
 The result, then, of this is that the Government, by this 
 measure, have raised something like a new and a great question 
 in Scotland ; they have stirred the fire which, in all probability, 
 will no longer slumber ; and there is every likelihood that, in 
 the future elections for Scotland, the question of disestablish- 
 ment will come up as a great and main question before almost 
 every constituency in that kingdom. 
 
 But after dealing with the Scotch bill, there came the 
 English bill, and the English bill was not a bill of the Govern- 
 ment at all. It was introduced by the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury. Now, the Archbishop of Canterbury is a very moderate 
 man. Every Archbishop of Canterbury is a moderate man. 
 No man who was not believed to be a moderate man would be 
 elevated to that high office ; but, as an old friend of mine once 
 told me, he found the most reckless and dangerous things 
 were often proposed and done by very moderate men. Well, 
 the Archbishop brought his bill into the House. It was 
 nourished and cherished by the Lord Chancellor and by Lord 
 Shaftesbury. It was popular. It very soon passed the House 
 of Lords. It came down to the House of Commons, and in 
 the House of Commons it was found to be still more popular. 
 Now, may I tell you a little of my experience about the House 
 of Commons ? I never knew a House of Commons unanimous 
 and enthusiastic about a thing except at a time when it did 
 not know what it was doing and where it was going. I have 
 known it twice enthusiastic, and almost unanimous. Once, 
 when Lord John Russell brought in his Bill on the subject of 
 ecclesiastical titles amongst the Roman Catholics, the House 
 was enthusiastic and almost unanimous. The Bill passed by 
 enormous majorities. The Bill was of no use except to irritate 
 and exasperate. It was many years afterwards repealed by a 
 still more unanimous House, and everybody who agreed to 
 pass it, I presume, now wishes the matter to be forgotten. 
 
232 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 25, 
 
 Another time when the House was enthusiastic and almost 
 unanimous, was when it agreed to the declaration of war with 
 the Russian Empire. I was in the House when that declara- 
 tion of war was agreed to. I spoke against it and objected 
 to it. Well, what has happened since ? There was scarcely 
 a newspaper at that time that did not treat me with scorn, 
 and contempt, and insult, on account of the course I took. I 
 suffered much from public obloquy, and yet now I believe there 
 are very few men to be found who do not believe that the 
 House of Commons was foolish, and did a very unpatriotic and 
 evil thing. Well, but the Bill came down to the House of 
 Commons — I mean the Archbishop's Bill. It was very popu- 
 lar. The Prime Minister was very glad to have anything in 
 his hand that was popular. He tacked himself to the Arch- 
 bishop's apron, and the Bill passed the House. Well, what is 
 the charge of this Bill ? And I ask you citizens of this great 
 country, residents of this great city, surrounded as you are by 
 circumstances in connection with this question, which demand 
 your most serious consideration, what is it that this Bill 
 charges ? Why did it exist ? It is brought as a charge 
 against some thousands, I believe, of the clergy of the Church 
 of England that their conduct is lawless, and that they require 
 to be curbed. Now, who are these clergy ? I am not going 
 to make any ill-natured or unfair, indeed, I should say, any 
 attack at all upon the Church, but I am asking you to consider 
 the path on which you are invited to travel. Who are these 
 persons? Some thousands of the clergy of the Church of 
 England — men who know very little of the Dissenting minis- 
 ters — say that differing from Dissenting ministers, they are 
 gentlemen. They say they are the sons of gentlemen ; that 
 they have had the advantage of being educated at our ancient 
 universities ; that there they have been accustomed to associate 
 with the great wealth and the high blood of the peerage. 
 And they tell us that they are set over us by the State as 
 instructors in morals and religion. And yet their own friends 
 
1875. 
 
 XV. BIRMINGHAM. 233 
 
 — the archbishops and bishops and ministers of State — declare 
 that their conduct is so lawless that it is necessary to have 
 special legislation to keep them in order. There was a very dear 
 old friend of mine, the late Colonel Perronet Thompson, who 
 once said to me when there had been some talk somewhere of a 
 revolt of troops, that it is a very dangerous thing when the ex- 
 tinguisher takes fire. He thought there was not much chance 
 of the conflagration being put out. The Bill, then, undertook 
 to prove that our State instructors in morals and religion had 
 got into this condition of lawlessness that they required 
 special legislation to curb them. Things, then, are come to a 
 serious pass, and it behoves all men and all women who think 
 upon public questions at all to consider the position in which 
 we are now placed. We know there are special cases in which 
 there is special legislation. There is special legislation with 
 regard to publicans. They sell articles which promote unfor- 
 tunately disorder and crime, and even madness, and special 
 legislation is necessary ; there is special legislation for some 
 other businesses — marine-store dealers for one. Some years 
 ago there was special legislation for a small and brutal class of 
 men who went by the name of garotters. It is said now that 
 there will be some special legislation for persons who commit 
 crimes of violence, and particularly for men who are so extra- 
 ordinarily savage as to beat their wives. Well, all this may 
 be necessary — I do not argue whether it is or not, but there 
 is something far more dreadful than this, and that is when 
 you find men — thousands of them — upon whose consecrated 
 heads the hands of the bishop have been placed, for whom 
 it is necessary to have special legislation to punish or to 
 curb them. 
 
 Now in a great body like the Church of England there will 
 always be — there must always be — some considerable di- 
 vergence of opinion ; and it is on account of this divergence 
 that the Government have assisted to carry a new Act of 
 Uniformity. Just over two hundred years ago, there was a 
 
234 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 25, 
 
 great and celebrated Act passed, which has gone by the name 
 of the Act of Uniformity. Under it at least two thousand 
 men — the bulk of the learned and pious clergymen of the 
 Church of England, were ejected from that church. It was a 
 most blessed secession for the country, because no doubt it laid 
 the foundation of a party which has ever since in England 
 been the consistent friend of freedom and improvement in our 
 legislation. Under that Act the persons who were ejected 
 were those who were furthest from Rome. Under the Act 
 passed last Session, the persons who are to be restrained and 
 if possible retained, are those against whom it is charged — that 
 they are nearest and continually going nearer to Rome. Now, 
 there is a great disappointment — there must be to every 
 thoughtful and true man and woman in the Church of Eng- 
 land, and to many outside her, with this state of things-^ 
 because you know, all of you who have been accustomed to 
 read matters of this kind, you know quite well that one of the 
 great arguments in favour of the Established Church is that 
 it represses all zeal which tends to disorder — and not only 
 represses zeal, but that it is a bulwark against that church 
 from which our fathers separated themselves three hundred 
 years ago. They say that what the Church of England wants 
 is not zeal, but a gentlemanly conformity to it ; and they are 
 very angry now that, somehow or other, this zeal is creeping 
 into the Church. Well, it crept into the Scotch Church about 
 thirty years ago. At that time the fermentation was so 
 violent that the hoops of the hogshead gave way, and the 
 staves tumbled together, and there was an immeasurable 
 quantity of sound ecclesiastical liquor lost. The very same 
 thing is now happening, to a certain extent, in the Church of 
 England. I do not say whether the zeal is wise or not — there 
 is very much zeal that is unwise, and there is not very much 
 which is wise at all times. I do not say whether it is wise, 
 but I say that it is earnest, and conscientious, and probably it 
 is dangerous — but not so dangerous, perhaps, to the truth as 
 
1875. -ATF. BIRMINGHAM. 235 
 
 to the political associations connected with it. Again, it is 
 said^ and very fairly, and I do not object to those who say it, 
 that the Church of this country is a State Church — an Act of 
 Parliament Church, that, in point of fact, it is not only a 
 religious, but a political institution ; that it is as it has been 
 described by a member of the House of Peers of my acquaint- 
 ance, as a branch of the civil service, and that it must there- 
 fore obey rules. 
 
 If you want to hear about the very last utterance upon 
 that point — I mean about the obedience of the church — I 
 will read a few lines from the speech of a learned friend of 
 mine, delivered only the other day in the city of Oxford — 
 the Solicitor-General to the late Government. He was very 
 strong last year for this Bill^ and he is strong, I suppose, 
 or will be, for succeeding measures following in its track. 
 He says that if one set of priests — now listen to this — ^you 
 know I am a Nonconformist, and I endeavour to speak 
 gently of a matter of this kind, but Sir William Harcourt 
 said this : — 
 
 * That if one set of priests refused to conform, we shall find others, as we 
 have found before, who will obey the national faith.* 
 
 Now, he does not say who will obey their consciences, or 
 who will obey the law of God, as they read it, but who will 
 obey the national faith. Some years ago I recollect a some- 
 what irreverent wag suggesting, as a matter of economy, 
 that when our judges were too old to continue their duties 
 as judges effectively, they should be translated to the bench 
 of bishops. He argued that by doing so you would save 
 the pensions of the judges, and you would place a very 
 large amount of practical wisdom upon the bench of bishops. 
 I should not suggest anything of that kind, but my learned 
 friend the member for Oxford says we can have others who 
 will conform to the national faith ; we can turn out any 
 of those men who do not conform, and we can put others 
 in their places. I doubt if he will find it very easy to procure 
 
236 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 25, 
 
 pious and earnest and learned men to take these offices on 
 the kind of terms which he offers in this language which 
 I have quoted. I think he must have forgotten somewhat 
 the rock from which he was hewn, and he must be thinking 
 more of the profession to which he is now attached. No 
 doubt the members of that profession take either side of the 
 case. The brief comes from the plaintiff, or from the de- 
 fendant, and probably is equally welcome; the fee comes 
 from this side or from that, and it adds to the emoluments 
 of their professional services. And he may have thought the 
 positions in the Church — the position the most elevated and 
 the most sacred to which man can be called — that a position 
 of this kind can be taken by men, and numbers of men, 
 without caring in the least what it is that their conscience 
 teaches or what they believe to be truth, but that merely 
 for so many hundreds a year they will willingly accept this 
 office, and conform to what he calls the national faith. 
 
 It is quite true that the Government does order, and can 
 order, what shall be the uniform of the truth. It can deter- 
 mine — all your corporations can determine, everything about 
 the helmet hats and the truncheons of the police, and there 
 is no doubt whatever that as far as the dress and ceremonies 
 and position of the clergy go, it is in the power of Parliament 
 to make stringent laws, and to enforce conformity to the rules 
 which it shall lay down. But then, as you all know, by these 
 Acts of Parliament you cannot touch the hearts and reason 
 and consciences of men. The pulpits are free everywhere. 
 Your prayers are written and printed and fixed, but the 
 sermons are left to the judgment and conscience of the 
 preacher ; and you may rely upon it, that amongst the vast 
 number of the clergy of the Church of England any attempt 
 to bind them down in a sort of straight-waistcoat of this 
 kind, though it may appear to have a temporary success, 
 must ultimately and wholly fail. It is said that there are 
 about ijo,ooo ministers in the Church of England, and if 
 
1875. XV. BIRMINGHAM. 237 
 
 half the population in England and Wales are connected by 
 association and by affection with that Church, there are 
 10,000,000 of persons connected with it. Now, if it is to 
 be said that within the borders of the Church no latitude 
 is to be allowed — that any freedom of opinion and practice 
 is to be permitted outside only, then I venture to say that 
 the days of the Establishment are numbered. You may rely 
 upon it that zeal will not for all time sacrifice freedom, even 
 to keep the emoluments and dignities of a State Church. 
 
 I am not defending the new manners, and the new prac- 
 tices, and the new opinions. I have no sympathy with them 
 whatsoever. I could dispense with some things that I think 
 are superstitious in the Church, even upon the view of the 
 evangelical party ; and therefore I should be the very last 
 man to add anything to them, but I am endeavouring to 
 show you that the course which the Government has entered 
 upon, and in which Parliament, accepting their invitation, 
 has followed them last year, is a perilous course, and it is 
 worth while for the people of England — the religious people 
 of England — the people inside the Church quite as much as 
 those outside, to consider the matter very seriously, and to 
 ask themselves whether this vast question can any longer be 
 committed to the care, and disposal, and management, and 
 speeches, and votes, of the two Houses of Parliament. 
 
 But there are other symptoms which are troublesome, 
 and are even perilous, if they are not actually hopeless and 
 fatal. Now, shall I mention two or three recent incidents 
 which have struck me very forcibly in connection with this 
 question? You recollect that a short while ago a bishop 
 made an exhibition of himself, not favourable, as I should 
 say, in connection with the question whether a respectable 
 and worthy Wesleyan minister should have his name on a 
 tombstone with the word ' reverend ' before it. I told you that 
 I do not speak strongly, and I hope I never speak evil of 
 dignities — ^but my learned friend Sir William Harcourt, in 
 
238 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 25, 
 
 his public speech, alluding I suppose to this bishop, speaks 
 of him as a learned simpleton. Now, I would not use such 
 language ; I think what the bishop did, appears to be almost 
 naturally the outcome of his position and of the pretensions 
 of his order. He calls himself, or allows himself to be called, 
 a right reverend father, and yet, as for this Wesleyan minister, 
 though he assumes to be called so, he shall not have the 
 word * reverend' prefixed to his name on any tombstone in 
 any churchyard over which he has control. You read now 
 and then some of those beautiful epistles that are found in 
 the New Testament. You will find that St. Peter in speak- 
 ing of St. Paul speaks of him as our beloved brother Paul. 
 He never once, to my knowledge, uses the term ^ right rever- 
 end father.' Now, if the bishops — if this very bishop, who, 
 being learned, must know something, we may hope, of the 
 epistles, if he were moved by the same spirit by which Peter 
 and Paul were moved, is it not reasonable to think that he 
 would at least not object to give to this Wesleyan minister 
 any title which he thought it proper to assume for himself? 
 But I take this to be the case — I believe no harm of the 
 bishop, I know nothing of him — bishops are generally, so 
 far as I believe, excellent men, and are generally anxious to 
 do their duty in the best way that is open to them — but 
 it is an instance of that kind of arrogance which comes from 
 the sacerdotal spirit within the Church. It is a form of pre- 
 sumption which is born of privilege, that which does not come 
 from the pride of man, or from his dishke to his fellow-man, 
 but from the unfortunate circumstances in which he is placed, 
 and which breathe into him a mind and spirit, so far as I 
 can judge, which is wholly contrary to the mind and spirit 
 that was in the Apostle from whom I quoted. It is not 
 to be wondered at, when, as one of your poets says, your 
 priests assume to be 'sole vendors of the law that works 
 salvation,' — it is not to be wondered at that with these 
 privileges, with these endowments, these preferments, this 
 
1875. Xr. BIRMINGHAM. 239 
 
 constantly proclaimed superiority — it is not unreasonable to 
 expect that such things as this should happen, and that 
 they should despise men — humble and hard-working men — 
 whose labours have been abundantly blessed by Heaven, but 
 who seem to intrude into their privileged field. 
 
 Now, let us for one moment just survey this privileged 
 field. Is there order there, or is there confusion ? If it be 
 wrong to find such fault with those outside, might it not 
 be well and wise to try to arrest the mischief which is so 
 obviously spreading inside? I have shown you, and I take 
 it for granted that it may be assumed there is a widespread 
 strife between the clergy and the congregations, or else there 
 would be no pretence or necessity for the Bill of last year. 
 But there is also strife between the clergy and the bishops, 
 and there is great discord between the bishops themselves. 
 You have heard lately that a bishop, a man of eminence and 
 learning, has been in this country, from a far country, on a 
 message of justice and mercy, a message which I hope has 
 not been without its effect, for I trust that the statements 
 which are made of the manner in which he has been received, 
 and his case has been listened to, by Lord Carnarvon, the 
 Colonial Secretary, are not at all exaggerated. Well, this 
 bishop comes to this country, and he is invited by a clergy- 
 man of the famous city which my learned friend represents — 
 he is invited to preach ; but the bishop of that diocese im- 
 mediately issues an order that the colonial bishop shall not 
 preach in the church. What does the clergyman do ? In 
 perfect order, apparently, he submits at once, and the colonial 
 bishop is not admitted to his pulpit ; but the colonial bishop 
 hands the sermon he was about to preach to the clergyman, 
 and the clergyman reads from his pulpit the very sermon 
 which the colonial bishop would have preached, had he been 
 allowed to do so. Then another bishop forbids him in 
 another diocese, a metropolitan diocese, to preach there ; and 
 what immediately follows? I suppose the best known and 
 
240 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 25, 
 
 the most eminent clergymen of that diocese, though not 
 under the jurisdiction of the bishop, as it happens — though 
 still within, as I call it, the geographical limits of that 
 diocese — invites this very excluded colonial bishop to preach 
 in the Abbey of Westminster ; but the bishop, not wishing 
 to promote disorder, declines the invitation, and therefore 
 he does not preach.* I am told that another bishop has 
 signified his willingness that, if he chooses he can preach 
 in his diocese. You see brought to view the painful ar- 
 rogance with which one bishop treats the pretensions of a 
 Wesleyan minister. You see at the same time the sort of 
 charity there exists between some of the bishops of this 
 country and the bishop from Natal. You have at the same 
 time an instance of the order which prevails when a minister 
 accepts the mandate of the bishop, which excludes a colonial 
 bishop from a pulpit, but escapes from it in reality by read- 
 ing the colonial bishop's sermon, and the sort of uniformity 
 which there is in the Church of England, when the Bishop 
 of London will not allow the Bishop of Natal to preach in 
 his diocese, and the next great man in the diocese invites 
 him to preach there. 
 
 These grievances appear to have suggested the Bill of last 
 year. Sir W. Harcourt, in his speech at Oxford, says that 
 legislation of this kind should only be resorted to in a case 
 of necessity. He says, ' I am satisfied there is such a neces- 
 sity.' * In my opinion, the present condition of things in 
 the Church is simply intolerable.' He says, 'The remedy 
 may prove severe, but the disease is critical. I believe a 
 capital operation is necessary to extirpate the cancer, and 
 if we do not do it the patient will surely die.' I suppose, 
 therefore, that it is within the view of Sir W. Harcourt, and 
 those who go with him, to proceed with further legislation 
 in the same direction. The Public Worship Bill of last ses- 
 sion is mere trifling. It makes no alteration in the law. It 
 simply provides a new Court, to which the parishioners from 
 
1874. XV. BIRMINGHAM. 241 
 
 all parishes in England may go and lay complaints against 
 the Ministers. But it does not decide what is the law. It 
 leaves that to the judge who is or is soon to be appointed. 
 And it can deal only with vestments and millinery, with posi- 
 tions and with ceremonies. It cannot touch the sermons. 
 It may deal with the question of the light that comes from 
 the candles, but it cannot deal with the question of the light 
 which comes from the eloquence, the earnestness, and power, 
 and Godly sincerity of the man who preaches. Thus we are 
 brought face to face with this great fact, the fact which I 
 wish you to consider, and that is that the State Church, as we 
 have it now, is not and cannot be in harmony with the age. 
 I should like to ask you what there is that was established 
 in the reign of Queen Elizabeth that is in harmony with 
 the reign of Queen Victoria? The difference between the 
 times of the two Queens is enormous, and cannot be measured. 
 The arbitrariness, the absolute power, and the insulting as- 
 sertion of it, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, cannot be in 
 harmony with the moderation, the justice, the kindness, and 
 the sympathy which you have in the Queen of our own day. 
 But take the House of Commons of that day, and this day, 
 the difference cannot be calculated, cannot be measured. 
 
 I was reading only a day or two ago, a remarkable book 
 published lately, by an old friend of mine, Mr. Lindsay, who 
 was for many years in Parliament, and who in bad health out 
 of Parliament has employed himself in writing a history of 
 the merchant shipping and commerce of past ages. I was 
 reading a description of what took place in the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth. More than one-half of the shipowners and 
 especially those on the Southern coasts, were engaged in 
 piracy, and their ships were pirates or corsairs, for I scarcely 
 know the difference between them. In point of fact, it is 
 a most extraordinary thing in our history for the last 300 
 years, that a Church that was established in an age like that 
 should have been able in any way to continue itself in its 
 
 £ 
 
242 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan: 25, 
 
 ancient form until the time in which we live. But the Church, 
 whether we consider it as a political institution, or a reli- 
 gious institution, is greatly out of harmony with the times. 
 I will not complain, though I might complain, and it is a 
 strong argument in the case, that wherever you find the 
 Church of England powerful, there you find opposition to any 
 legislative or administrative reform most powerful also. In 
 our political life, we have received no service from the Church 
 of England as a body. There have been occasional, remark- 
 able, and admirable exceptions, but from the body of it 
 .we have received no service on all the great measures of 
 improvement which have so blessed this country during the 
 last half century. But if you look at it as a religious in- 
 stitution, what do you find ? You find at one end of it that 
 its payments, its salaries, are excessive and enormous. You 
 find at the other end of it that they are scanty and inade- 
 quate, and altogether a disgrace to a great national institu- 
 tion. You find further, that, contrary to what exists in any 
 other Government department, there is no such thing known 
 in it as promotion by merit. Promotion in the Church is pro- 
 motion through interest and through importunity. A friend 
 of mine not long ago — understand me, I am only now speaking 
 on behalf of numerous curates. I am not making a claim 
 on behalf of Nonconformists — the Methodist minister does 
 not trouble himself about that — I am only speaking with a 
 voice which will find an answer to-morrow in the hearts of 
 very many curates. A few years ago, within the last ten 
 years, a friend of mine had occasion to apply to the Lord 
 Chancellor of the time with the object of obtaining some 
 small preferment for a devoted and excellent minister, whose 
 circumstances were to the last degree urgent and pressing; 
 and the Lord Chancellor told him, as I understood — or his 
 patronage secretary, it might be — told him that he had on 
 his list about 700 names of curates and clergymen — ^that 
 is, ordained ministers — of the Church of England, asking 
 
1874. XV. BIRMINGHAM. 243 
 
 that they should have something from his, as they be- 
 lieved, inexhaustible stores of patronage ; and that all those 
 men believed their case to be as hard and their claim as 
 strong as the case and the claim of the poor minister for 
 whom my friend interceded. But further. Need I tell you 
 what I presume most of you must know, that half of the 
 livings of the Church of England are private property, and 
 that they may be and are often bought and sold in the open 
 or the secret market? We sell cotton on the Exchange at 
 Liverpool, you sell metals on the Exchange at Birmingham ; 
 but all over the country there is going on from day to day 
 a traflSc in the most sacred and the most solemn oflBce in the 
 Church of England. And, further, the clergy — and T think 
 this will be found the great difficulty — the clergy themselves, 
 when appointed, are freeholders and immovable. Unless 
 these be involved in some great scandal, there is scarcely 
 any neglect or any betrayal of duty which either the law or 
 the congregation can touch ; and notwithstanding all these 
 evils, and I should say that they are evils, and I should say 
 it with a stronger voice, and in a more resolute tone, if I 
 were a member of the Church — all these evils, great as they 
 are, have not been sufficient to quench zeal in this Church, 
 and at this moment, and more now than in any former time, 
 there are thousands of honest and conscientious men, whose 
 labours and whose sacrifices can never be estimated, and never 
 compensated in this life. 
 
 But then the great complaint is that the zeal, which is 
 not denied, is running in the wrong direction, that it is 
 carrying the clergy and some of their more simple-minded 
 followers in the direction of Rome, and we have a sort of 
 feeling that there is a great danger to the Church, and 
 the archbishops and bishops are stumping their dioceses in 
 defence of the Establishment. I saw, only the other day, that 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a speech which was admir- 
 able in tone — ^a speech which no one could read without 
 
244 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 25, 
 
 interest and pleasure — warned everybody who was at all 
 doubtful as to the wisdom of maintaining the establishment, 
 as to what would happen if the establishment was not main- 
 tained. They always point to that very old man, or to 
 his successor, who lives in the city of Rome. In fact^ Sir 
 William Harcourt says, ^I am of opinion that a Protestant 
 establishment is the only power that can effectually cope with 
 the organised forces of Rome.' He says, ' compared with its 
 powers of resistance I believe that the efforts of the voluntary 
 bodies are feeble,' and he says further, ' he must be a purblind 
 politician who does not understand that the residuary legatee 
 of disestablishment would infallibly be the Church of Rome.^ 
 Well, but then, unfortunately, we are in this position, that the 
 fort which was intended to protect and defend us has turned 
 its guns against us. But Sir William Harcourt says, in 
 answer to that, ' O, yes, you may change the garrison, but do 
 not blow up the fort.' But the fact is the garrison and the 
 fort are one and inseparable, and unless he can get rid of 
 some thousands of the clergy, and put in their places some 
 thousands of his friends the facile and changeable lawyers, I 
 know not how we can have a fort or defenders upon whom we 
 can rely. Let me ask you now, and there will be persons in 
 this meeting — I hope there are some — who may question very 
 much the force of what I am saying ; but I ask them to look 
 round. Take the Presbyterian bodies in Scotland or England ; 
 take the Wesleyans, take the Independents, take the Baptists, 
 take any of the smaller sects, of whom I need not in this 
 enumeration make account — do you find that the ministers of 
 these various bodies are constantly, in their ceremonies, in 
 their decorations, in their postures, in their sermons, in their 
 confessions, in their exhortations to their people — do you find 
 that they are gradually, or obviously, or rapidly going over to 
 Rome ? I have read, I always read with great interest some 
 of the transactions of the Wesleyan Conferences, some of the 
 transactions of the Congregational Union, and of the great 
 
1874. XV. BIRMINGHAM. 245 
 
 meetings of the Baptists ; but I never find in their speeches, 
 or in their reports or documents, an incessant complaint that 
 a certain percentage of their ministers and people are con- 
 stantly going over to Rome. It is only from the hierarchical 
 and prelatic church that there are converts made continually 
 to the Church of Rome ; and more, it may be said, and, I say 
 it without hesitation, that the Parliament is helpless in the 
 matter at present, and the people also are nearly helpless, 
 and I believe that the State bonds in which the Church is 
 bound cause the mischief, and at the same time cause the 
 helplessness that we have complained of. 
 
 A little more on this subject, and I will not trouble you 
 very long. The other day there was a meeting held in this 
 town, over which Lord Dartmouth presided — a meeting for 
 the defence of the Church. I have no objection at all that 
 those who love the Church should stand up in its defence, but 
 I think they should be a little better tempered towards some 
 of us who take different views. The Church, according to 
 their own showing, is a great national institution. We are not 
 an inconsiderable portion of the nation. We have a right to 
 fairly discuss it. We have no intention of doing anything 
 by violence. Our position is that all thoughtful people 
 should consider this subject. If they believe the Church is 
 not carrying them in the direction of Rome ; if they believe 
 it is a sound Protestant institution ; if they believe it makes 
 the people religious — well, then, let them preserve the Church ; 
 but if they come to a different conclusion, surely the people 
 and the Parliament are at Uberty to make whatever change 
 they think proper. This Church Defence Association re- 
 minds me of another meeting held the other day, with which 
 Birmingham was connected. There was a meeting of the 
 licensed victuallers in Salford, and a Birmingham man an 
 old friend of mine, if I may say so, because I have often 
 had the pleasure of seeing him on deputations, I mean^ Mr. 
 Wadhams — was the chairman of that meeting. But I find 
 
246 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 25, 
 
 that Mr. Wadhams and his friends take exactly the same sort 
 of course that Lord Dartmouth and his friends take. They are 
 very petulant, they are bad tempered, and they are apt to call 
 names. They say that the temperance people want to ruin all 
 the publicans, and it is a dreadful thing* that some should 
 propose — which is, perhaps, the next probable assault — that 
 public-houses should be shut up on Sunday. Surely, every 
 sensible man knows, and a great number of publicans know, 
 that the persons in England who would be most benefitted by 
 the closing of public-houses on Sunday are the publicans and 
 their families. These two bodies — Lord Dartmouth and his 
 friends here, and Mr. Wadhams and his friends, are in posses- 
 sion each of them of a monopoly — the one teaches morals and 
 religion about which they cannot agree ; and in the other you 
 have the undisputed, and the almost uncontrolled, right to 
 dispense to the people as much as they like of those articles 
 which I have described before,, as promoting disorder, and 
 crime, and madness to a very great extent. I am not assailing 
 the Church ; I admit much that may be said in its favour ; I 
 have admitted, and I assert, that there are thousands of ex- 
 cellent men who are at work in the various parishes in England 
 as ministers of the Church ; but then there would be thousands 
 of excellent men if it was not an Act of Parliament Church, 
 and I believe that every one of those good men would do just 
 as much good if he was a clergyman of a free church as he can 
 possibly do in his present position of being connected with the 
 State. I do not recommend this meeting, or any constituency, 
 that they should pledge their candidates to vote for the 
 abolition of the Established Church. I do not in the least 
 degree recommend or approve of any body of men who com- 
 plain that a Parliamentary or party leader is chosen who has 
 not formed the same opinion that I have upon this question. 
 This is a question which has not come near the front yet. It 
 is one of the gravest questions which a people has ever had to 
 consider. It is far more important and far more difficult than 
 
1874. JCV, BIRMINGHAM. 247 
 
 the question of the extension of the suffrage or even of the 
 redistribution of seats. It is a question that goes down deep 
 into the hearts of hundreds of thousands of good men and 
 women in this country, and you cannot by a sudden wrench, 
 make a great alteration of this kind. What you have to do 
 is to discuss it, like intelligent and Christian men, with fair- 
 ness to the Church, with fairness to its ministers, with the 
 sole object of doing what you believe to be good to your 
 country and to the religion which the country professes. 
 
 I have said nothing to-night about a point to which our 
 chairman referred — the condition of the Liberal party. I have 
 found, in my more than thirty years' experience, that a 
 political party somehow or other gathers itself up when 
 it is wanted, and by the time that it is wanted. And, 
 therefore, I shall not go into a discussion of the present 
 positiori of the Liberal party — conscious as I am that at least 
 we of that party have succeeded so far in implanting the 
 living seeds of a wise and just policy in the minds of the 
 people of England, that I believe there is no other party 
 in the country who can uproot that work which we have 
 done. 1 have said nothing, and it is not my intention to 
 say more than one sentence with regard to a fact which 
 startled and pained many throughout the kingdom during the 
 last two or three weeks. I refer to the abandonment by Mr. 
 Gladstone of the leadership of the Liberal party. They who 
 have seen him for very many years in the House of Commons 
 as I have — they who have sat with him, and seen him in the 
 counsels of the Cabinet — they only are able justly to estimate 
 the magnitude of the loss which the House of Commons and 
 the country have sustained by his withdrawal. I will say 
 nothing in answer to ungenerous things that have been said 
 of him. Of this I am well aware, that Mr. Gladstone, like 
 an old and a noble Roman, can be content with deserving the 
 praises of his country, even though some of his countrymen 
 should deny them to him. In conclusion, then, I am not 
 
248 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 asking you or your constituencies, or any party, or section of 
 a party, to plunge into a violent agitation for the overthrow 
 of the Established Church of England. 1 -think it would 
 be a great calamity indeed that a change like that should 
 come through violent hatred and angry discussion, that it 
 should be accomplished by a tempest which would be nothing 
 but the turmoil of a great revolution. I ask you only to con- 
 sider it, and I appeal not to you who may be Nonconformists^ 
 or who may not care about the Church, but I appeal to those 
 who do care about it, who do care as they say they do for 
 Protestantism and religion. I have offered to you to-night 
 my humble contribution to the discussion of the greatest 
 question of our time. If I am able to form any just judg- 
 ment upon it^ I should say that it will be a great day for 
 freedom in this country, and for Protestantism and Chris- 
 tianity, when we shall witness the full enfranchisei^ent of 
 the Church within the realm of England. 
 
XVf. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 28, 1875. 
 
 [On this day the Birmingham Liberal Association gave a conversazione in the 
 Town Hall to the four hundred who constituted the working committee of 
 of the Association, and to others. Mr. Bright took occasion to comment on 
 some of the causes which in his judgment brought about the reverses of 
 1874.] 
 
 On Monday evening last I was permitted to address a 
 meeting almost unequalled in its numbers and importance. 
 On that occasion I called your attention to what seemed to 
 me a great, indeed a solemn subject. To-night we are met 
 in greatly diminished numbers, but if we consider that the 
 400 to whom reference has been made are the popularly 
 elected representatives of the great majority of the 60,000 
 electors of Birmingham, I am not sure that this meeting is 
 not equal in importance to that which was held on Monday 
 last. 
 
 The report which has just been read by Mr. Baker does not 
 furnish to strangers all the information which you have to give. 
 He thought it was not necessary to teach you the exact con- 
 stitution of your own body. With your permission I should 
 like to state two or three facts to you about it. Inasmuch 
 as the gentlemen with ready pens, around me and below me, 
 in all probability will convey what I have to say to all parts 
 
250 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 28, 
 
 of the country, I asked my friend Mr. Harris to supply me 
 with the facts connected with this association, and he tells 
 me that the borough is divided into, I think, sixteen wards^ 
 that every ward elects its share of the general association, 
 and that at an open meeting, held every year, each ward 
 chooses twenty-four of its most trusted Liberals to join the 
 association's executive committee ; that the sixteen wards, 
 with the twenty-four members each, come together to 384 
 members, and that four of the executive committee for each 
 ward amount altogether to sixty-four. Then, at the first 
 meeting of the committee of the association four oflScers are 
 chosen, who, I presume, are chairman, deputy-chairman, 
 treasurer, and secretary. Then, also at the first meeting of 
 the general association executive committee, the committee 
 has the power of adding thirty to the number of those pre- 
 viously elected. The object of this is that they should be 
 able to select from all over the town persons who are likely 
 to be efiicient, and of great value to the committee, but who, 
 from not taking a very active part in the municipal affairs 
 of each ward, may possibly be overlooked by the elected body 
 of that year. The committee altogether comes to the number 
 of 473, but there is something easier to speak and pleasanter 
 to hear in giving round numbers, and, therefore, they speak 
 of this remarkable association as the Liberal Association of 
 * the Four Hundred.' To the 400 is left the selection of 
 candidates and the decision of all great questions of policy, 
 and, on appeal, of questions affecting the association. The 
 executive consists of four from each ward — that is, sixty- 
 four members, four officers, and the twenty who may be 
 elected by the committee itself, making altogether eighty- 
 eight — and the executive transact the business of meetings 
 and elections, and take the conduct of the ordinary affairs 
 of the association, carrying out the policy decided upon 
 by the 400. 
 
 Now, it is obvious to everybody that an association like 
 
1875. XVI. BIRMINGHAM, 251 
 
 this, elected so fairly and openly on such a popular basis, 
 and coming up every year from the constituency of the dif- 
 ferent wards, must be an association of the most powerful 
 character. It is perfect as a representation of the whole 
 community of the town — that is, of the Liberal party ; and 
 if its members are loyal to each other, and loyal to their prin- 
 ciples, it seems impossible that such an association should 
 fail of success in its great efforts. Mr. Muntz, Mr. Dixon, 
 and myself were at one time three of the candidates to whom 
 this association gave its confidence, and through their acti- 
 vity, and the loyalty of the great body of the electors, we 
 became not candidates only but your representatives. You 
 have looked over such faults as we have committed, and you 
 have looked favourably on such merits as we may be supposed 
 to possess. As for myself you have borne with much absence 
 on my part, and I may say we are all grateful for your kind- 
 ness and for the remarkable confidence which you have placed 
 in us. 
 
 Now the results of this organisation have been explained 
 in the report read by Mr. Baker. Everything that is of a 
 public character is political in Birmingham. Your munici- 
 pality encloses within itself the great spirit of the Liberal 
 party in the town. In your School Board elections you have 
 had a signal and memorable triumph ; and I venture to say 
 that when two or three years more shall have passed, and 
 when the work of your School Board has been observed, that 
 whether it may be criticised by friendly or unfriendly men, 
 it will be found that it has loyally done a great and signal 
 service to your community. It is a blessing to think, then, 
 that in all your municipal affairs, in your school board 
 affairs, and in your parliamentary representation, there is a 
 grand symmetry and consistency which is a great credit to 
 your community. But elsewhere, as Mr. Wright has said, 
 things have been different. There have been causes of this 
 defeat for which many persons demand an explanation. I 
 
252 ADDRESSED OF JOHN BRIGHT. jak. 28, 
 
 will not try to state all of them, but I will refer, at least, 
 to three, and that very briefly. A question about which so 
 much has been said — the question of legislation in regard to 
 public houses — no doubt has had a very serious influence. 
 The publicans are, as you know, in the possession of a privi- 
 lege conferred upon them by the Government, through the 
 magistrates. They have been the most prosperous class, if you 
 reckon their capital and their labour — undoubtedly the most 
 prosperous class in the country during the last three or four 
 years. I believe there is no ordinary property in the country 
 which has increased so much in value as the property in 
 public houses. And yet, notwithstanding this, there has 
 been a combination which I hardly like to describe as I feel 
 about it — a combination of the closest character, for the pur- 
 pose of sacrificing every public question and every honour- 
 able consideration of the public good to a low and sordid 
 interest (because in the midst of their prosperity there was 
 no injury done to them practically by any legislation) — to 
 the low and sordid interest of the worst class of publicans in 
 the country. And when I say of the worst class, understand 
 what I mean. Amongst the many thousands of publicans 
 there are a great number of respectable and honourable 
 men ; and perhaps many more than are supposed to be by 
 those who sometimes too fiercely assail them. But there is 
 another and lower class of whom one can scarcely say this, 
 and I am afraid that as in many other things so in this 
 combination of the publicans against the public interest, the 
 head of the great body is moved, and moved unfortunately 
 by the tail. 
 
 It is easy to see how the publicans influence an election. 
 The publican has his own vote, and he has a number of perr 
 sons not remarkable for sobriety — many of them not remark- 
 able for their intelligence or their anxiety to promote the 
 public interest, who frequent his bar parlour and spend their 
 evenings round his comfortable fire. With these it is easy — 
 
1875. XVI. BIRMINGHAM. 253 
 
 and no doubt this has been done to a great extent — to set 
 influences at work on behalf of the objects of the publican. 
 There are abundant cases in which that which, in a more 
 open manner, might be called a bribe may be given, and the 
 publican not only brings his own vote to the poll, but might 
 bring three, or six, or in some cases a dozen, to give their 
 votes with him, and with him, as I believe, and as he would 
 believe if he did not put his own interest against it, in 
 opposition to the true interests of the country. I do not 
 know how many — nobody knows how many — Parliamentary 
 votes have been affected by this ; but I have no doubt 
 that a very considerable proportion of the majority obtained 
 by the present Government was directly obtained from that 
 cause. 
 
 Then I come to another cause of defeat, which is one of 
 a wholly different character, and that is the divisions which 
 existed — the absolutely childish policy that was pursued in 
 many parts of the country, in many constituencies, by sections 
 or fragments of the Liberal party. Half-a-dozen men, or a 
 dozen, or twenty, or fifty, are possessed, not of one idea, but 
 by one idea. It may be a very good object that they wish 
 for. There is no end of the good objects which people wish 
 for that cannot be accomplished by the agitations and con- 
 tention of a year ; but these men come into a constituency, 
 and argue in this way : * We will force the candidate — he 
 may not be of our opinion, he may be as conscientious as we 
 are, and he has his opinion — but we will force the candidate 
 to this particular vote, although the constituency have never 
 expressed their opinion in its favour, but, nevertheless, he 
 shall vote with us, or we (this little section) will oppose him ; 
 and we will oppose him though our opposition be fatal, not 
 to him only, but fatal to the party with which we have 
 always been associated, or hurtful to interests in the country, 
 which may be a thousand times greater than the ideas by 
 which we are possessed, or even fatal to the object we have 
 
254 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 28, 
 
 before us.' I will take the temperance men, and a variety 
 of other persons who in some places have acted in this 
 way. I do not want to stir up irritating matters more 
 than is absolutely necessary, but I say that such men are 
 not qualified to take any wise part in politics. If the making 
 defeat absolutely certain were able to forward their views, 
 and to make them triumph it would be some consolation; 
 but the silliness of believing that it can forward their cause 
 is even greater than the silliness of the mode by which 
 they attempt to do it. 1 know perfectly well, from being 
 in the House of Commons all these years, what is the sort 
 of thing that members say, and what they do with regard 
 to questions of this nature. They never carry them to suc- 
 cess. I know no question in my time that has been carried 
 by any such tactics, and so long as men are resolute and 
 firm and honourable, and have any sort of independence, 
 you may rely upon it that no such measure will ever be 
 carried by these tactics. If you look over the boroughs of 
 the country at the last election, you will find that at least a 
 dozen of them, possessing twenty-four or twenty-five votes, 
 were lost by the mode of conduct which I have been 
 exposing and condemning ; and if you suppose that the 
 publicans, with a want of patriotism shocking to think of, 
 were the cause of losing an equal number of votes, you will 
 find whence comes nearly the whole of the majority of the 
 present Government. 
 
 Then there is another great cause, as I think, of loss. In 
 1 868 the elections went with a great sweep all over the 
 country in favour of a Liberal policy and of the Liberal 
 party. The new franchise had come into operation for the 
 first time, and the elections were so decided and so decisive 
 that it was common to hear men say, ' The Tories are done 
 for ever; here is a majority of a hundred or more. The 
 matter is so much decided now that really after all we need 
 have no apprehension again that the Liberal party will ever 
 
1875. XVI. BIRMINGHAM. 255 
 
 be in jeopardy.' They forgot then, and they forget now, 
 what are the permanent conditions, at least for the present 
 and for some time to come, of politics in this country. They 
 forget the solid power that is always opposed to the Liberal 
 party and to Liberal principles. They forget that almost 
 all the land of the country is in the hands of persons whose 
 interests are different from ours. They forgot that the 
 Church, which is established, as you know, in every parish 
 is nearly always on the side of the Tory party; and that 
 wherever a new church is built, be it in town or be it in 
 country, be it in any county in England or Wales, you will 
 find that that church is not a centre of political light, but of 
 political darkness, and that from it there comes no trace of 
 anything that is found to be Liberal in representation or 
 Parliamentary action, but entirely the contrary ; and the 
 Church is now as certain to be the centre of the propagation 
 of Tory principles as the public-house itself. 
 
 Li addition to this^ you have another cause (which I am 
 not about to complain of, because I believe it is in the nature 
 of things), that is, that some men become rich, and many of 
 them become what is called very comfortably off, and generally 
 the more wealthy a man is, with a balance at his bankers 
 and investments everywhere, the more timid he becomes in 
 all his political actions. Well, then, with this timidity 
 on high, and unhappily profound ignorance below, you may 
 fancy to a certain extent what a vast amount of solid re- 
 sistance there is to any proposition for any political progress ; 
 and then you should add ta all this that which I must men- 
 tion, though one likes not to treat of it, the enormous lying 
 in which our opponents from top to bottom of their organi- 
 sation, throughout their political speeches, and throughout 
 their press, indulged against Mr. Gladstone and his col- 
 leagues during the whole time that they were in office. 
 Depend upon it the time has not come in this country yet 
 when reformers can afford to rest on their oars. I recollect 
 
256 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 28, 
 
 in a beautiful poem of a very distinguished American, Mr. 
 Bryant, in an address to Liberty, he says, ' Thou must never 
 rest for thine enemy never sleeps ; ' and that is the state of 
 things here as it is in other parts of the world, and to all 
 Liberal men it ought to come home as a solemn duty, that if 
 there be questions which they believe require to be settled 
 in the interests of the great mass of their countrymen, they 
 ought to stand fast to their colours. They ought to march 
 together ; they ought to keep themselves wide awake, and 
 to urge on the course which they believe to be essential to 
 the welfare of the nation. 
 
 I believe that Birmingham is more intelligent, better in- 
 formed, and more mentally alive on political questions than 
 any other of the great towns of the kingdom. Its political 
 education began in the days of Dr. Priestly, it advanced 
 greatly during the agitation for the first Beform Bill, and 
 I would hope that during the last twenty years, in the 
 constant discussions we have had, and in some of which I 
 have been permitted to partake, the political activity and the 
 intelligence of the borough have not declined. A superior 
 organisation added to all that, does everything, and if the 
 boroughs throughout the country in proportion to their size 
 would adopt the organisation which you have here, my honest 
 belief is that it would take a very short time indeed to re- 
 cover throughout the boroughs the losses that were sus- 
 tained at the last election. 
 
 There is just one other point on which I must say a 
 sentence or two. I observed that at a meeting in Liverpool 
 the other day, some men who appear before the public as, 
 and perhaps are, working men, advocated the notion that it 
 is very important to have what they call labour representa- 
 tives in Parliament. If I am not mistaken — I am sorry I 
 have not the resolutions and the report of the meeting here 
 — but if I am not mistaken it was insisted upon that a course 
 of division, if necessary, should be forced upon the con- 
 
1875. Xri. BIRMINGHAM. 257 
 
 stituencies, with the view of in fact disarranging- the party, 
 unless what was called the working-class representative could 
 be returned. Now working men are like other men, and in 
 this respect men are very much like women. Every class 
 seems to be the prey of some delusion, or some false cry ; and 
 it is attempted to be shewn to working men that if they can 
 take out some man of their own, who has stood at the lathe 
 or dug in the mine, or who has handled the trowel, and put 
 him into Parliament, there is some special advantage to be 
 gained by working men. But if we were to have a Par- 
 liament composed of two classes — one working-men repre- 
 sentatives and one that are not representatives of working 
 men, it appears to me it would be one of the greatest cala- 
 mities that could happen in our representative system. If you 
 can find a man, let him be a first or second-class or third-class 
 passenger, possessed of intelligence and honesty and firmness, 
 and the kind of capacity which is required for discharging 
 parliamentary duties, then I say lay hold of him at once and 
 make him a member of Parliament. But as to this new 
 principle^ I understand that some working men say they 
 do not quite comprehend it, and they fear that the main 
 object of this new doctrine is that a few men who are 
 anxious to get into Parliament may get there upon it. I 
 will not say whether this is true or not. Many things that 
 I disapprove of are held and preached perfectly honestly, and 
 this project may be so too ; but, honestly or dishonestly, I 
 believe it to be a principle which is contrary to the true 
 interests of the country, and to the opinions of the wisest and 
 best men in it. What have we been doing for all these 
 years ? What have we asked you to help us to do from this 
 platform over and over again ? Surely, to work with us in 
 order that we might mould a nation out of classes. I 
 think that was a wise thing to do, and much more patriotic 
 than to endeavour to separate a nation into a variety of 
 sections, every one jealous of every other, 
 
 s 
 
258 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 28, 
 
 In our own time what has been done^ and who has done it? 
 Take 'the first Reform Bill. I will speak of a man who is 
 still living, aged and venerable^ though retired from active 
 political life. I mean Lord Russell. When neither middle 
 class nor working class men sent even a petition to Par- 
 liament for years, Lord John Russell, over and over again, 
 brought the question of reform before the unreformed and 
 corrupt Parliament, and kept it as well as he could before the 
 Parliament and the people. Take the case of Mr. Gladstone. 
 There is not time in this meeting, if I were to attempt it, to 
 sum up his magnificent labours on behalf of the working 
 classes, more directly than of all other classes, from the time 
 when he brought in his first budget until the time when he 
 completed, so far as he was permitted to complete it, his great 
 legislation for Ireland. Take the late Mr. Hume. Joseph 
 Hume was one of the most honourable, industrious, and 
 devoted men who ever sat in the English House of Commons. 
 For nearly forty years, I suppose, he devoted himself, night 
 after night, to promoting economy and the saving of taxes. 
 He kept one, two, three, or four private secretaries at a time, 
 and it is impossible to describe the amount of labour, far 
 beyoud that of the hardest working man in any trade or pro- 
 fession, which he endured in order that he might get together 
 all the facts which were necessary to prove his case and to 
 save public money, which he thought was being too lavishly 
 expended by the Government of the day. Then my old 
 friend Mr. Charles Villiers, the member for Wolverhampton, 
 a constituency which he has so well served, and which has 
 given him such continuous confidence — Mr. Charles Villiers 
 and my dear and lamented friend Richard Cobden were con- 
 spicuous in the House of Commons in leading the movement 
 there against the Corn Law. Why, I may tell you that during 
 the last year, 1874 or 1873, in one of the two last years, more 
 than 80,000,000^. worth sterling of food which previous to 
 the agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws was mostly 
 
1875. XVI. BIRMINGHAM. 259 
 
 forbidden to come in, — more than 80^000,000/. sterling", I say, 
 came into this country and was consumed. Half the working 
 men throughout the kingdom are now fed by food that 
 comes from abroad, which was prevented from coming to 
 us at that time, and that now comes in mainly in conse- 
 quence of the continuous, enlightened, and devoted services of 
 the gentlemen to whom I have referred. Take a late lamented 
 friend of mine. As we get older we seem to have almost more 
 friends in the other world than we have in the world wherein 
 we are still permitted to live. Take the case of Mr. John Lewis 
 Ricardo. He was a free-trader of the most enlightened kind, 
 and by him mainly the Navigation Laws were abolished, 
 and free-trade principles were applied to shipping. From 
 that time to this the growth and the prosperity of our 
 commercial marine have scarcely known a check, and it 
 has become one of the most marvellous things in the 
 history of the world. Last, but by no means least, I may 
 refer to the great and priceless labours of my friend 
 Mr. Milner Gibson in connection with the freedom of the 
 press. I cannot stop to tell you of the condition of the press 
 thirty or forty years ago. It was not absolutely forbidden 
 by law that you should have a newspaper, but by the taxes 
 the newspapers were so strangled that comparatively few could 
 live. Those that could live were very dear, and they were in 
 every way inferior to the newspapers that we have now-a-days. 
 With School Boards and the spread of education, and the 
 growth of knowledge amongst the young, the newspaper will 
 become a still greater agent for the spread of intelligence, 
 and there is no man that I know now who has done a 
 greater and more lasting service to the working classes of 
 this country than the man who was mainly instrumental in 
 striking off all the taxes upon the press. Not one of these 
 gentlemen was selected to represent particular classes. They 
 did not represent manufacturers, or cotton spinners, or workers 
 in metals, or coal owners. They were not called upon to 
 
 s 1 
 
260 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 28, 
 
 represent working- men. They were to represent the great, 
 and honourable, and true principles which had found a lodg- 
 ment in their own souls. I have the satisfaction^ of which I 
 never can be deprived, that I gave my humble service to most 
 of these principles, and alongside of these men ; but according 
 to the doctrine which is now preached, and the explanation of 
 iij although I have done some work in my time, I am by no 
 means to be called a working man. 
 
 What we want throughout the country amongst the 
 Liberal party — and if there be anything that the Liberal 
 party is good for, and will hereafter be good for, it is for the 
 great masses of the people — is intelligent union amongst all 
 classes of the party. We want perfect disinterestedness ; we 
 want, if we can get it, an absence of personal vanity, which is 
 the bane of political life. And we want, in addition to these, 
 earnest and combined work, and in these only, in my judg- 
 ment, are to be found the sources of permanent success. To 
 create a working men's section in the House of Commons or 
 in the constituencies is to destroy the unity and the momentum 
 of party, and to subject ourselves infallibly to the superior 
 tactics of our opponents. 
 
 I think I have said enough, but before I have done I may 
 say that I came here on Monday depressed and burdened. 
 The times are not exciting, nor are they favourable to any 
 clear indication to the mind of a speaker what are the topics 
 which he should treat or how they should be treated. I found 
 myself reluctantly driven, as the meeting approached, to the 
 consideration of the great question which I discussed at some 
 length on Monday evening. No one will believe, I hope, that 
 I have been actuated in that course by any wish to disturb 
 the unity of the Liberal party, or that I have any wish to 
 turn public indignation against the Established Church. I 
 spoke as I felt. I spoke with tenderness, with sincerity and 
 respect to the thousands who are doing religious work within 
 the borders of the Church of England. I threw out what 
 
1875. XVI. BIRMINGHAM. 261 
 
 I thought would be some seed to scatter over the land, to 
 give, as I said, some humble contribution to the discussion 
 of a question which cannot be evaded, a discussion which I 
 am not the first to enter upon, and to promote that which 
 they are most actively promoting who have the greatest 
 interest in letting it alone. 
 
 To-night I have dwelt upon questions that are nearer to us 
 — the conduct of Birmingham, its political association, its 
 grand political characteristics, the example which it offers to 
 the constituencies of the kingdom, and the manner in which 
 it does its own work. It asks and appeals to constituencies 
 all over the kingdom to follow its example as far as they may 
 be able to do it — to do their own work well, in order that the 
 country's own work may be done well. I said that I came 
 here dejected and burdened. I have felt an inexpressible relief 
 since I have been here. I have had pleasure in coming here 
 many times, but on no former occasion have I had a more 
 distinct and sensible feeling of satisfaction than on this occa- 
 sion. I have enjoyed the kindness of my immediate friends, 
 and have partaken of the sympathy of thousands of my con- 
 stituents. I feel with my colleagues — I am sure I may speak 
 for them as much as for myself — that we represent a noble 
 constituency, amongst whom is found a remarkable and grow- 
 ing political life, capable of being of great service to a great 
 nation, and I may for them, and for myself, say with the 
 utmost sincerity, that we are grateful to you for the kindness 
 which you have shown us continually, and for the constant 
 and animating confidence which you have hitherto reposed 
 in us. 
 
XVII. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 22, 1876. 
 
 [On this day the three members for Birmingham made their annual speeches 
 in the Town Hall, the chairman being the Mayor, Mr. Chamberlain, now 
 one of the members for the Borough. Apart from the interest always felt 
 at Birmingham in these meetings, an additional curiosity was felt on this 
 occasion, because it was rumoured that certain advocates of labour repre- 
 sentation had resolved to challenge, by an amendment, the usual vote of 
 confidence in the sitting members, in order to procure if possible from the 
 audience an expression of opinion which should be favourable to the views 
 which the promoters of this movement entertained. Some of the supporters 
 of the Claimant's cause also endeavoured to obtain a hearing. But the 
 audience declined to hear the speakers on both these topics, and rejected the 
 proposals which were offered almost unanimously.] 
 
 A PERIOD of twelve montlis has passed away since the last 
 occasion on which my colleagues and myself were permitted 
 to stand face to face with our constituents ; and during that 
 period there has passed away a Parliamentary Session which 
 may be described as a Session of small measures, and a 
 Parliamentary recess, or the larger portion of it, in which 
 we have had great discussions, in all parts of the country, 
 about the measures of that Session. I shall not dwell on 
 the subjects which have been so much discussed — subjects 
 I mean connected with the legislation of the past year — 
 and I shall ask you to forgive me if I do not touch upon 
 the question of the loss of the Vanguard, and if I pass over 
 the question of the Slavery Circular with one observation. 
 
XVII. BIRMINGHAM. 263 
 
 To me that topic is not so entirely easy as many of our 
 friends have supposed, but this question has always presented 
 itself to me when I have read anything, or thought anything 
 about it, Why could not the Government let it alone ? We 
 may hear, when Parliament meets, an answer; and I shall 
 not be sorry if it be satisfactory, to that question. Nor 
 shall I call your attention to the great Stock Exchange 
 transaction in which the Government has been concerned. 
 I recollect some years ago that the present Prime Minister, 
 in a speech which he made in the House of Commons, spoke 
 with contemptuous sarcasm of certain persons who bought 
 and sold shares, and called it progress : and it may be that 
 he has been engaged in buying shares, and perhaps calls 
 it statesmanship. I shall be glad, too, if, when Parliament 
 meets, an explanation of that transaction can be given which 
 shall be entirely satisfactory to the nation. 
 
 But there is one part of the discussion which has taken 
 place during the recess to which I shall ask your attention 
 rather particularly. You probably recollect that a very 
 eminent member of the Government — no less a person than 
 the Foreign Minister — spent a few days lately in the famous 
 city of Edinburgh, in which city he made three speeches — 
 one of them to the students of the University, to which 
 I need not further advert ; one of them to the Lord Provost 
 of Edinburgh and his friends, when they presented him with 
 the freedom of the city — o, speech that I thought sensible 
 and highly judicious. But the speech to which I wish to 
 advert particularly is the one which Lord Derby addressed to a 
 large meeting, said to be composed of 3,000 persons, who were 
 styled working men Conservatives of the city of Edinburgh. 
 Now, whether there were 3,000 present or not I know not ; 
 but I doubt extremely whether 3,000 Conservative working 
 men were there. For this I know — that when a general 
 election takes place in Edinburgh the Conservative working 
 men do not appear to be at home. 
 
264 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 22, 
 
 There are very few of you who have had the opportunity 
 of hearing a Conservative statesman make a speech to Con- 
 servative working men. If you had you would have perceived 
 the extreme difficulty he was in. He is obliged to deny or 
 to forget history, and his speech, for the most part, instead 
 of informing his audience, appears generally to be intended 
 to mislead them. If you read Lord Derby's speech — and 
 I hope you did — you would find that he made this obser- 
 vation. 'When people ask why should a working man not 
 be a Conservative ? I answer, why should he not ?' And he 
 went on to make this extraordinary remark : * Popular poli- 
 ticians,' — I do not know to whom he refers — I suppose he 
 does not refer to his own colleagues — they cannot be of the 
 popular politician kind — ' Popular politicians never gave any 
 man better wages or a better house to live in. They may 
 indeed profess to remove grievances of a kind such as the 
 law can deal with ; but where are those grievances with us ?' 
 Well, from this he obviously intended to say that, so far 
 as the working classes are concerned, one party is just as 
 good as another, and that you may be just as happy and 
 as contented with Conservative as with Liberal legislation 
 and administration. Then he went on to say that the work- 
 ing men at present have no taxes to pay unless on the articles 
 of tea, tobacco, and intoxicating drinks ; but h^ did not tell 
 them that thirty-five years ago there were more than 1200 
 articles on which taxes were levied, and that it was only 
 after three years of persistent agitation by the An ti- Corn 
 Law League, that the unpopular politicians began to remove 
 those taxes, and that when Sir Robert Peel adopted the 
 policy of reforming the tariff, every step that he made lost him 
 a portion of the confidence of the great party of which he 
 was then the leader and the Minister, and that when he 
 came to the greatest of all articles — viz., corn, your daily 
 bread — they quarrelled with him bitterly and vindictively, 
 and drove him from power ; and there was no obloquy 
 
1876. XVII, BIRMINGHAM. 265 
 
 and no insult which they did not heap upon his character 
 and his statesmanship. 
 
 Lord Derby says again, ' How is a working man situated 
 with regard to the distribution of political power? He 
 is master of the situation : his class can, if they choose, 
 out-vote all other classes put together, having under the 
 British Constitution, as it exists, supreme political power 
 in their hands. Why, on earth, should working men be 
 otherwise than conservative when that Constitution is con- 
 cerned?' Well, but in private life character is supposed to 
 go for something. If a man chooses a wife, or if a woman 
 is deliberating whether she should accept such a man as her 
 husband, or if you engage a servant, or an agent, or a trustee, 
 surely character goes for something in all these things. And 
 I have known it go so far — at any rate if I am not mistaken 
 in my reading of the police reports — that in a court of justice 
 it goes all the way between the six months' imprisonment 
 and seven years' penal servitude. Now, consider all that has 
 been done — the 1 200 articles of the tariff that have been swept 
 away, the change that has been made as to the importation 
 of corn. Let us look at that one question. Think of the 
 harvest we had this year. A very extensive miller told me 
 the other day that it was the worst harvest, he believed, 
 in this country for forty years, and that he had not ground 
 a single quarter of English wheat since harvest. If the 
 policy of these men had remained our policy now, the food 
 of half the people of this country would have been somewhere 
 beyond the sea, absolutely inaccessible to the people of Eng- 
 land. And it is the same with sugar. Who abolished 
 the monopoly in sugar? Who abolished the monopoly in 
 ships? Who abolished the monopoly in newspapers ? You get 
 one of your admirable papers for a penny every day ; whilst 
 when the Liberal party took the question in hand the news- 
 papers had ever}' day on every paper a stamp of fourpence, 
 and you did not get half so good a paper then, at the price 
 
266 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 22, 
 
 of sevenpence, as you get now for a penny, from which you 
 know what is going on all over the world every morning. Take 
 the commercial treaty with France, which has done so much 
 for commerce between these two countries — which has made 
 us more friendly and more peaceable than we ever were 
 before ; which has been the forerunner and the cause of many 
 other commercial treaties between European countries. That 
 commercial treaty was opposed by almost the whole of the 
 Tory party, led on with his utmost force by the present 
 Prime Minister of that party. 
 
 But now we will go to the question of political power 
 which Lord Derby has spoken of. He says that you have 
 political power in your hands, and you can outvote all other 
 classes. Well, it is not true. But if it were true, you have 
 not to thank Lord Derby for it. When the Bill of i856 
 was introduced by Lord Bussell and Mr. Gladstone, though 
 it only proposed to enfranchise in boroughs down to ^l, house- 
 holders, yet Lord Derby and his friends opposed it to the 
 very utmost, and Lord Derby himself moved or seconded 
 an amendment or amendments which were intended to de- 
 stroy the Bill, and the whole party voted for the amendment 
 which did ultimately destroy the Bill, and destroyed the 
 Government. And they destroyed the Bill because they said 
 that it was not safe to go down to a ^L franchise ; that 
 it would admit too many of the working classes; that it 
 would give them more power than would be safe ; and then, 
 having come back into power. Lord Bussell having re- 
 signed, this reactionary and obstructive party coming into 
 office, for no object in the world that I can see but in the 
 hope that they might remain in power for six months longer, 
 with the chance of whatever else might come — agreed to 
 a far larger measure than that which they themselves had 
 condemned as utterly destructive to the constitution of the 
 country. But then it is a fact worth observing, that, 
 with regard to this question of the franchise, at the present 
 
1876. XVII. BIRMINGHAM. 267 
 
 moment, the household franchise only extends to the 
 boroughs: it does not extend to the counties. Well, but 
 if there are 13,000,000 of people living in the boroughs in 
 the United Kingdom there are 18,500,000 that live in the 
 counties ; and in the counties working men have no vote. 
 
 You have landowners, of course. They have votes, and 
 they have great power. The farmers, if they have a rating 
 of more than 12I. a year, also have a vote, and all other 
 persons rated as high as 12I. a year; but I suppose there 
 are a hundred towns in the United Kingdom of nearly 10,000 
 inhabitants each in which there is no franchise lower than 
 that 12I. rating, and the 12/. rating is equal to about 16I. of 
 rental ; so that in your own town, and in all our boroughs, 
 every man who has a house and is rated for his house has 
 a vote, but in the other parts of the country not within 
 the limits of boroughs he must be rated at 12^., or pay a 
 rental of i^l. or 16^., before he can have a vote in the county. 
 Thus it is quite clear that this statement of Lord Derby is 
 not to be received without large exceptions. If you take the 
 borough members throughout the United Kingdom^ you will 
 find that there was a majority of Liberals of nearly fifty at the 
 last election ; but if you go to the counties you find there was a 
 majority of about a hundred of the Conservatives, and it was 
 that portion of the constituencies in which the working people 
 are excluded, by which the Conservative majority was returned, 
 and not by the boroughs, in which workpeople have votes. 
 
 Now, in this speech which I am criticising Lord Derby 
 went on to another question. He was anxious, apparently, 
 to find out if there was anything in the country which would 
 justify working men in being Liberal rather than Conserva- 
 tive, and he made this observation. He says: 'Great stress 
 has been laid by a certain class of politicians on the sup- 
 posed fact that only a rich man has a chance of becoming 
 an owner of the soil, and that is held up as one of those 
 wrongs which ought to be remedied before any poor man 
 
268 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 22, 
 
 should call himself a Conservative.' He says ' this is a great 
 exaggeration in fact,' and then he adds that 'it has been 
 asserted again and again — and even Mr. Mill and Mr. Bright 
 have endorsed the assertion — that the whole soil of the country 
 was divided among 30,000 proprietors.' And then he said 
 that he had been instrumental in procuring a return, 
 but which was not yet completed — I believe it is completed 
 with regard to Scotland — and he thinks that it will be found, 
 there will not be 30,000 but 600,000 proprietors in one 
 way or other permanently interested in the soil. Well, 
 everybody at the end of his life will be permanently, some- 
 where or other, in possession of the soil, and it would be 
 almost as reasonable for Lord Derby to have defended our 
 land laws on the ground of universal possession of land, on 
 the fact that everyone might expect to have a grave, as to 
 say that at present there is that kind of possession of land 
 by the people which is indicated by the statement which 
 he has made. And then he says, ' Why should we stop 
 here? What is the need that our law should stop here? 
 Why should there not be even far more proprietors than 
 there are T He says that no man who reads the advertise- 
 ments in the papers can doubt that there is land enough for 
 sale to meet all possible wants. And, he might have said, if 
 there had been no corn coming into this country this year, bad 
 as our harvest has been, still there would have been corn 
 to be bought by those who had the money and could pay the 
 price. There is a story, I think, of a French princess who 
 was very much astonished to hear, when there was some 
 revolutionary or riotous movement in Paris, of people clamour- 
 ing that they had no bread. She said, ' Why do they not buy 
 cakes ?' She saw plenty of cakes in the confectioners' shops. 
 He says, ^ If there is a desire to purchase land, why not form 
 companies to buy properties and to divide them?' And 
 then he concludes, 'My argument is, there is no obstacle 
 in our law to make its gratification impossible or difficult/ 
 
1876. XV 11. BIRMINGHAM. 2G9 
 
 Now let me ask your attention to this for two or three 
 minutes. Lord Derby is a man very superior to many of his 
 order and of his party. He has always been industrious ; he 
 is well informed ; he is not troubled with many prejudices ; 
 I am not sure whether he has strong convictions — I know 
 that on many things he has held Liberal opinions, but I 
 confess I am astonished that he should have dared to make 
 statements with regard to the land such as he has made, with 
 the knowledge that he ought to have, even to those un- 
 enquiring gentlemen who are called the 3,000 Conservative 
 working men of the city of Edinburgh, and that he should 
 have made these statements in that city and in that country, 
 where the monopoly of land is the closest, probably, of any 
 part of the United Kingdom. From this very return which 
 he has obtained, it turns out that 5,000,000 of acres 
 out of less than 19,000,000 in Scotland — that 5,000,000 
 acres, or considerably more than one-fourth of the whole of 
 Scotland, are in the possession of twenty-one persons — that 
 8,000,000 acres, which is not far short of one-half of all 
 Scotland, are in the possession of forty-nine persons ; that 
 14,560,000 acres, or more than three-fourths of all Scotland, 
 are in the possession of 583 persons. And if you were to 
 take all the square miles of all the estates, of all the farms, of 
 all the acres of the surface of Scotland, seventeen out of nine- 
 teen are in the possession of 2,583 persons ; and of the other 
 — his return shows that there are 132,000 proprietors, but 
 the whole of the rest of them — the whole of the rest of the 
 population do not possess more than the largest proprietor in 
 Scotland, and do not possess more than one-fourth of an acre 
 each. In point of fact, one proprietor in Scotland holds 
 nearly as much land as 3,000,000 of its population. 
 
 Now I want to ask you how this comes about? I have 
 given you Scotland ; I will give you a fact with regard to 
 Ireland. About a fortnight ago there was a letter in the 
 Times from Mr. Fitzgerald, well known as the Knight of 
 
270 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 22, 
 
 Kerry, a very respectable gentleman, whom I have had the 
 pleasure of meeting many years ago. Mr. Fitzgerald wrote a 
 letter to the Times in defence of the proprietors of land in 
 Ireland, who are being attacked, as you know, constantly on 
 the subject of tenure and the subject of rent ; and he says 
 that in Ireland there are 6^000 ^ proprietors and 600,000 
 occupiers. Well, if there be only 2,583 persons in Scotland 
 to seventeen -nineteenths of the soil, and if there be only 
 6,000 proprietors in Ireland, which is almost all the extent of 
 Scotland, it would appear that the statement which Lord 
 Derby says that Mr. Mill and I had endorsed cannot be very 
 far from the truth. But if we take England — England and 
 Wales — the acreage is about equal to Scotland and Ireland 
 united, and if in England and Wales land be no more divided 
 than it is in Scotland — I am not going to say it is not, 
 because I believe it is, owing to the greater population and 
 the greater wealth — but if the land in England and Wales 
 were no more divided than it is in Scotland, then seventeen- 
 nineteenths of the whole of the surface of England and Wales 
 would be in possession of 5,166 persons. And take the whole 
 proprietorship of Ireland as given by Mr. Fitzgerald, and take 
 seventeen-nineteenths of Scotland and the same proportion of 
 England, and it would leave us with 13,749 proprietors of the 
 soil in the United Kingdom. When we are talking of pro- 
 prietors of the soil we are not speaking of the man who owns 
 a few yards or a few roods or a quarter of an acre of land, 
 upon which his house stands ; but we are speaking of those 
 who are occupying and cultivating the land, or who are 
 letting it to others to occupy and cultivate ; and we are 
 speaking of the political power which has been for generations 
 the greatest in this country, which is enormous now, and 
 which, whenever it chooses to act in Parliament, in spite of 
 the household suffrage in your boroughs, bears down all your 
 
 * Mr. Fitzgerald understated the number of proprietors in Ireland, and 
 subsequently corrected his mistake. 
 
1876. XVII. BIRMINGHAM. 271 
 
 opinions and carries any measure which it thinks necessary 
 for its own interest. 
 
 Now, I must ask you a question, which it would be well if 
 Lord Derby would endeavour to answer. My question is — 
 is there not something strange in this partition of the soil I 
 have described to you ? Remember that property in the soil 
 is the most universal of any property in the country. You 
 cannot stand anywhere but that you are upon it. It is the 
 most solid of any property in the country ; the most certain 
 as a possession and an investment ; it is more desired by all 
 classes of people than any other kind of property in the country; 
 and it is the foundation of all other property, yet the people 
 — and I use the term advisedly — are shut out, and a handful 
 of men are the possessors, as I have shown you, of at least 
 seventeen-nineteenths of it. Do not suppose that I am 
 blaming any of these men. Not in the least; they have had 
 nothing to do with making any law, or, purposely, of any 
 custom which has led to this state of things. They are, in 
 their circumstances, living as honourably, and acting, pro- 
 bably, as well as possessors of property in any other station 
 of life. But I maintain that there is a cause, and that cause 
 is to be found in the state of our law, and in customs which 
 have arisen from and are supported by the law. 
 
 May I ask your attention to one argument that has always 
 appeared to me to have great force. Suppose there were no 
 law of Parliament to interfere with the possession of land. 
 You can see at once that there are natural causes which 
 promote acciunulation and natural causes which promote 
 dispersion. Of the natural causes which promote accumulation, 
 you would say, for example, the desire to possess land, which 
 appears to be universal, the certain security which it gives to 
 property and to investment, the social position which the 
 possession of land gives, more or less, in almost every country, 
 and the charm which there is in country life. Dr. Johnson, 
 I think, recommended everybody in delicate health to take a 
 
272 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 22, 
 
 walk of two miles every morning before breakfast, and he 
 added a very good piece of advice, if it could only be followed 
 — that he should take a walk on his own land. If there are 
 these forces of accumulation, there are also forces of dispersion, 
 and the greatest and the chief of these is death. The death 
 of the possessors, as a matter of course, in almost every kind 
 of property — and in this, if it were not for the law — would 
 tend necessarily in some degree to the dispersion of the 
 property. The extravagance of the owner, his folly and his 
 vice tend also to dispersion ; the desire for change of locality, 
 the desire for change of investment. Thus you see there are 
 natural forces at work which cause or promote the accumula- 
 tion of land, and natural forces which as certainly cause and 
 promote the dispersion of land. What we are arguing for is 
 this — that these forces should be allowed to work naturally 
 and freely, and that the law should not in any way interfere 
 with them, but that land should change just as easily, and 
 should go into the possession of other people by that change, 
 as any other kind of property which men possess. And the 
 result of such change in the law would be that land as a 
 whole would find itself always in the possession of that class 
 and those classes of the population which would do the best 
 for the land itself and for the people who dwell upon it. 
 
 I have read to you the statement of Lord Derby that, in 
 his opinion, there is no obstacle in our law to make the 
 gratification which comes from the possession of land either 
 impossible or diflficult. In answer to that I will read to you an 
 extract from a work by a lawyer quite competent to give an 
 opinion on this question, and I shall leave his answer as a 
 complete reply to the question of Lord Derby. The passage I 
 am just going to read to you I have extracted from a work 
 called ' The Social Condition and Education of the People in 
 England and Europe.' It was written twenty years ago, by 
 Mr. Joseph Kay, who is a Queen's Counsel, and most com- 
 petent to give an opinion on this question. He says : 
 
1876. XVII. BIRMINGHAM, 273 
 
 * These laws were passed, were framed, and have been retained for the ex- 
 press purpose of keeping the land in the hands of a few proprietors, and 
 depriving the peasants and small shopkeepers of any part of it and of the 
 influence which its possession confers, and of supporting a great landed pro- 
 prietary class, in order to uphold the system of aristocratic Government, and 
 to give greater strength and stability to the Crown. It may be stated generally 
 that these laws enable an owner of land, by his settlement or will, so to affect 
 his estate that it cannot possibly be sold, in many cases, for about fifty years, 
 and in some cases for sixty, seventy, or a hundred years, after the making of 
 the settlement or wiU.* 
 
 Perhaps many persons here may not be aware that this is 
 almost the only country in Europe, I may even say, the only 
 country in the world, in which laws of this kind prevail. 
 They exist to some extent in Russia, and in some parts of 
 Austria ; but in Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Nor- 
 way, Switzerland, Italy, France, and the United States these 
 laws are abolished; and every person there can sell or dis- 
 pose of his land during his own life. If he dies without a 
 will the law divides his land equally between his children. 
 The law does not there make one son rich and leave all 
 other sons and daughters poor. What would you think in 
 this country if any rich landowner, having say six children, 
 were to doom five of them to ignorance, to shut them out 
 from education, from the training belonging to their position 
 in life, and should give that training and education only to 
 one child? But it would be no more monstrous than that 
 he should shut them all out from his property, and give the 
 whole of it to the one child. And yet such is our law, such 
 is the custom of the country, based, I will say, upon the most 
 immoral principle which law has ever sanctioned. What we 
 ask is this, for freedom of bequest, not for a forced partition 
 of land. We ask that the land shall be the absolute 
 property of each succeeding generation of men. And what 
 are the results of our system? That our tenantry are less 
 independent probably than any other tenantry in the world ; 
 and our agricultural labourers, as you know, are and have 
 been the most abject and most hopeless class of our labouring 
 
 T 
 
274 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, ^tan. 22, 
 
 population. The repeal of the Com Laws did not leave them 
 untouched by its beneficent hand, for I believe that the 
 wages of agricultural labour throughout this country have 
 risen certainly more than 50 per cent, during the last thirty 
 years under the operation of that great change in the law which 
 the present Prime Minister and his party declared was to ruin 
 the land, and especially to beggar the labourer. But although 
 the labourer is better ofi" than he was then, still I am obliged 
 to admit what has been said of him by a paper that I 
 have never before had to quote with approval, I speak of the 
 Saturday Review — I recollect two or three years ago reading 
 an article in the Saturday Review on this question of the 
 land, and I noticed an observation in it so striking and re- 
 markable, that I could not forget it. The writer said that if 
 our agricultural system be a paternal system, our agricultural 
 labourer is its disinherited child. 
 
 But the country gentlemen and Lord Derby and his friends 
 are perhaps not aware of this fact — that refusal to come to 
 some just arrangement on this question induces men to turn 
 their eyes in directions some of which, in my opinion, are not 
 only erroneous, but perilous. I think the proposition that I 
 hear made that nobody should have any profit arising from the 
 growth in value of the land he possesses, or that there should 
 be a probate duty levied upon the land to the amount of 
 10 per cent., and that upon any man's death his property in 
 the soil — one-tenth of all his acreage — shall be taken and 
 divided amongst the peasantry of his neighbourhood, or 
 that we should have a law of equal partition, such as prevails 
 in many parts of Europe — I think these propositions come 
 naturally from our present law and the present state of things, 
 and to adopt any of them would only be going from one ex- 
 treme of error and of evil to another. And, therefore, I 
 repudiate the laws we have — the partition laws of some foreign 
 countries — those propositions to which I have referred — I 
 repudiate them all. I say there is a sound and a just principle 
 
1876. XVII. BIRMINGHAM. 275 
 
 upon which land should pass from one owner to another, by 
 which all men in each generation, possessing land, shall have 
 the power to deal with it as they like, and that the dead 
 man and the dead hand shall not declare for half a century 
 to come what shall be done with the estate. 
 
 But I must pass, in conclusion, to one other proposition or 
 statement of Lord Derby's, and which has been made by a 
 great many people — and this is, that the Liberal party 
 is without a policy. Our friend the Mayor has spoken 
 of this, and he hoped that somebody in this meeting would 
 be able to say something about the policy of the party. Now, 
 I have been rather disposed to think that our party has far too 
 much policy. Judging from the speeches of some of our friends, 
 and judging from discussions and resolutions at certain con- 
 ferences, I should say that at present we have far too much 
 policy — more than I ever knew us to have before. I should 
 like to suggest something for the Liberal party, and although 
 it may appear presumptuous in me to do it, I still think you 
 will admit that it is consistent with all we have been doing 
 in the past, and that it is not less excellent for the future 
 than that which we pride ourselves on having accomplished 
 in years that are gone. Has it ever occurred to you in Bir- 
 mingham — there is no great congregation could be assembled 
 in the kingdom more appropriate to put the question to 
 than this which I see before me — ^has it ever occurred to 
 you that during our lifetime, or for the last forty or fifty 
 years, the towns of the United Kingdom have not only 
 made the policy of the country, but have had the greatest 
 gain out of that policy as it has been gradually transferred 
 into law? In the Reform Bill of 18321 the towns got a 
 franchise of 10^., the counties got a franchise of 50^. I speak 
 of occupation. In the Reform Bill of 1867 the towns got 
 a household franchise, the counties got only a \2L rated, 
 which means a 16L rental franchise. 
 
 In 1835 the towns got one of the best measures that ever 
 
 T % 
 
276 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 22, 
 
 was passed by the English Parliament — that is, the Cor- 
 porations Reform Act — a most admirable Actj which gave 
 self-government to almost all the towns in the United 
 Kingdom. What has been the value of that Corporation 
 Act ? Look at your town. People complain that they have 
 rates. Of course they have ; but if they send good men to 
 their town councils, and have such men as you have for their 
 Maj^or^ you may rely upon it that you get value for that 
 which you have to expend. If you had no police^ and no 
 lightSj and no supply of water, and no gas, and no pave- 
 ment, and no drains, Birmingham could not exist. That 
 would be all. It would not merely make you uncomfortable, 
 but you actually could not exist. I say there is nothing 
 better in the world that I am acquainted with than the muni- 
 cipal governments of this country ; and if they do not always 
 turn out to be as good as we wish, it is because the people 
 who make them and administer them are not themselves quite 
 so good as we wish. But in the counties there is no Cor- 
 porations Reform Bill. Their rates and their powers are 
 administered by a number of country gentlemen who are 
 county magistrates. I do not say that they are not doing 
 often the very best they can. They do not admit a great 
 many persons into their number whom we think would be 
 very useful, and there are counties^ I am told^ in which 
 there is scarcely a single Nonconformist ever found upon the 
 county bench of magistrates. These country gentlemen exert 
 whatever powers they have, I dare say, as wisely as they 
 know how, considering how difficult it is to be always dis- 
 interested, and how most of us make many blunders in the 
 course of our lives. But I think the smaller towns and 
 villages in the counties which are not included within the 
 Parliamentary borough limits have as good a right to 
 municipal goverment as we have in the towns. 
 
 Take another Bill — the Education Bill of 1870. It was 
 a faulty Bill in some respects, and I am not sure that 
 
1876. XVIL BIRMINGHAM, 277 
 
 sometimes we have not, considering the almost insuperable 
 difficulties of the subject, been somewhat harsh upon those 
 who permitted the faults to pass. It might have been more 
 courageous to have rejected the Bill, and to have appealed 
 to the country to support a better Bill. The Bill has many 
 faults ; but, at the same time, it is doing, no doubt^ a good 
 work. But even this Education Bill — be it good or bad — call 
 it as good as its friends say it is— is confined almost entirely 
 to the towns. It does not extend over the country and rural 
 districts, and you will observe that nearly all the experiments 
 of legislation, and I must say, too, all the good things in the 
 way of freedom, Parliament gives far more readily to the towns 
 than it has, during our time at least, given to the counties. 
 With regard to the investments of tenants in their improve- 
 ments of the soil, how difficult is it to do anything ; with 
 regard to the game laws, how impossible to do anything what- 
 ever. The fact is, in the counties, the landlords — those owners 
 I have spoken of — are the real electors, and the tenant farmers 
 are the unreal electors, and the labourers and all persons whose 
 rents are under 15^. a-year, or not equal to a ill. rating, all 
 those have the door shut in their faces just as they used to 
 shut the door in your faces only a few years ago. What I 
 think we ought to consider is this state of things. The country 
 is in a condition of paralysis ; the towns are free, their suffrage 
 is free, their industry is free, their commerce, foreign and 
 domestic, is free ; but the country districts are in a condition 
 of paralysis. They have really no franchise, they have no free 
 representation, the soil — which is their great property, which 
 they till, and upon which they live — is held close bound in a 
 law-created monopoly, and whilst the smallest number of 
 I)ersons connected with the land — namely, the owners — have 
 absolute power in nearly every county to return represent- 
 atives to Parliament, by far the largest body, much larger 
 than the other two — much larger than the owner and occupier 
 — the labourer, is absolutely shut out from the franchise. 
 
278 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jak. 22, 
 
 I know what people will tell you ; they will give you two 
 reasons to which I must just advert before I finish. They will 
 tell you that if you give the franchise to the counties, and to 
 all the population, you must have a redistribution of seats. 
 Well, that is nothing to the purpose. We want very much 
 a redistribution of seats now. The electors of this borough 
 are, I believe, not far short of 60,000 ; but are you aware 
 of the fact that there are seventy members in the House of 
 Commons at this moment whose whole constituencies put 
 altogether are not more than 60,000 ? Therefore, you send 
 three members to Parliament, representing 6of>oo of the 
 industrious population of Birmingham, and they are met by 
 seventy members, who do not all vote against us, for a great 
 many of them vote with us ; still, for all that, these seventy 
 have not altogether a larger constituency than we have. So 
 that you see that the redistribution of seats is a necessity now, 
 and it will not be more necessary, but it will be more certain, 
 more sure to come_, if the franchise is extended to the counties. 
 Another argument is this — that the agricultural labourers do 
 not know much of politics. I am afraid to some extent that 
 is true. You recollect that I have been sometimes criticised 
 for using a Latin word to describe an unpleasant fact — the 
 word residuum. During the lol. franchise there was a re- 
 siduum in every borough that was often bad to manage. It 
 was ignorant, it was unprincipled, it was sometimes drunken, 
 it was often corrupt. Now, with the wide suffrage of house- 
 hold there is also a residuum, and the wider the suffrage, as a 
 matter of course to some extent, the larger will be the class to 
 which I have referred ; and, of course, in the counties, if you 
 give the franchise to the labourers, there will also be a re- 
 siduum. That is a fact we cannot get rid of. There is 
 a residuum in the House of Lords. There are lords who 
 are what are called out-at-elbows, bankrupt in purse, and 
 bankrupt in character ; but it does not follow from that that 
 the House of Lords as a body does not consist of men of great 
 
1876. XVII. BIRMINGHAM. 279 
 
 wealth and of high character too. And there is a residuum 
 in the Church. No one would more readily admit than 
 I do the high character, and the great services, and the 
 devotion, and the disinterestedness too, of a great portion of 
 the clergy of the Church of England, for example ; but there 
 are some very odd specimens amongst them. I will not men- 
 tion any names, but there is one somewhere in this neigh- 
 bourhood. If I were myself a Churchman, I should wish 
 that particular specimen of the residuum either got rid of or 
 converted. There is a residuum almost everywhere, and, so 
 there will be a residuum if you extend the franchise to the 
 county population, but it will every day be growing less, we 
 trust ; and at any rate, we shall find that the whole power of 
 the county representation, nearly throughout the three king- 
 doms, but more in England than in either Ireland or Scotland, 
 will not remain in the hands of a very small number of 
 persons that happen by descent or fortune — some it may be by 
 their virtues— to have become possessors of the main pro- 
 portion of the soil in the counties. 
 
 Then, I say, that the Liberal party having done so much 
 for the towns, might turn its attention to, and try to do 
 something for the counties. Why should not we enfranchise 
 the population of the counties, and give freedom to the soil 
 which they till ? It was a saying, that I have quoted before, 
 of my friend Mr. Cobden when discussing this question. He 
 said, — 
 
 * The men who come forward to deliver the land of this country, to make it 
 as free as its produce is free, will have conferred as great a boon upon the 
 country as wo of the Anti-Corn League have conferred by the abolition of the 
 Com Laws.' 
 
 Then, Lord Derby says, what is that which Liberals are 
 supposed to have and which Conservatives have not ? I will 
 tell him. I think the Liberals and the Liberal party, whether 
 you take its history from the Revolution, or whether you take 
 a shorter period within the memory of many of us since the 
 
280 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 time of the passing of the first Reform Bill, have shown a 
 sense of justice and unselfishness in their policy which has 
 never been shown by what is called the Conservative party. 
 I ask any man to show one measure that we, as a Liberal 
 party, have ever advocated or have succeeded in carrjdng 
 whose object or efiect has been private or class gain as op- 
 posed to the public interest. And now, if I propose to you 
 to move forward, having done what you have done for the 
 towns, with a view of doing something for the counties, what 
 we ask you is that you shall free the counties as you have 
 freed the towns ; that you shall free the men, and the soil 
 they cultivate. Here is a policy consistent with everything 
 that we have done in the past. It is a policy worthy of all 
 the hopes, and the high hopes, of a great party for the 
 future. 
 
 There are a good many working men here. They are not 
 like the working men in Edinburgh, found all away from 
 their homes at a general election. They are all here, and 
 they are all ready — they have been since I knew them — 
 ready to support members who have not betrayed or de- 
 serted them. I may appeal to you, the electors, who are 
 working men ; for it is to you that Lord Derby has been 
 speaking. I tell you that your own powers are dwarfed and 
 crippled by the paralysis which extends over the county 
 representation, and if you could only examine the question 
 fairly you would find that what I am asking you to undertake 
 is to strengthen and confirm your own powers whilst you are 
 extending your franchises and rights to your fellow-countrymen 
 in the counties. Give to the people who are now excluded 
 that freedom which the Constitution has given to you ; give 
 them the freedom of the soil upon which they live, and you 
 will invite them, — and with a cordial hand you will receive 
 them, — you will invite them to partake of that sublime justice 
 which injures no one, but is rich in blessings and in benefits 
 to all who are permitted to share it. 
 
xviir. 
 
 MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 2, 1876. 
 
 [The President of the Manchester Reform Club, Mr. Benjamin Armitage, 
 invited the members of the Club to a soiree at the Club-house in King 
 Street. Mr. Bright had agreed to be present, at first merely to a social 
 gathering, at which he might meet many of his old friends. But in 
 the interval between the issue of the invitations, and the appointed day, 
 certain events of serious significance had occurred in South Eastern Europe, 
 and, as Mr. Armitage said, something like an autumn session had been held 
 out of Parliament. Mr. Bright in the following address dealt with the 
 political situation.] 
 
 I FEEL oppressed when I think upon the difficulties of 
 the position in which I stand. After the observations which 
 have been addressed to the meeting, I am surprised to find 
 myself here, because, as you know, I have endeavoured for 
 a long time past to avoid attendance at public meetings and 
 public banquets of every description. But your president is 
 one of my oldest friends. I know, as you know, that he has 
 been associated with us in every good cause for many years 
 past, and how difficult it is to object to anything that he 
 asks us to consent to. I recollect, too, the services, the 
 character, and the long friendship of his venerable father ; 
 and when he did me the honour to ask me to come to this 
 meeting to-night, I felt that my objections — ^I suppose it 
 was a moment of weakness — ^gave way, and I consented to 
 come. I am really touched with the kind reception which 
 
282 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. - oct. 2, 
 
 you have offered me, and with the kind words which have 
 been spoken with regard to me. 
 
 This building is the Club-house of the Manchester Reform 
 Club. It is a building, therefore, I presume, in which we 
 are at liberty to discuss political questions. It is not an 
 agricultural dinner meeting, where it is understood that poli- 
 tics are forbidden, but at which politics — and often to us of 
 a very unsatisfactory kind — are generally spoken. We are 
 not forbidden here, even to look at matters from a party view. 
 We are a very formidable portion of the Liberal party of this 
 town and district, and therefore we have free liberty to dis- 
 cuss political questions to-night as we think best. Now, we 
 differ very much from our opponents on the question of party. 
 With us we have, as they have — but I am afraid not so per- 
 fectly as they have — the machinery of party. We devote 
 the whole power of our party machinery not to party but to 
 general and public objects; and if we cast our eyes back 
 during the time which some of us clearly remember, we shall 
 find, I think, that this is true, that if we have done anything 
 to extend political freedom it has been the freedom of all, as 
 far as we could extend it. If under our auspices religious 
 liberty has been in any manner extended, no man's religious 
 liberty has been in the slightest degree curtailed. If by any 
 measures which we have supported employment has been 
 rendered more constant and wages have been raised, it has 
 not been done or attempted to be done through the monopoly 
 of law or the monopoly of trade unions. It has been at- 
 tempted to be done, and has been done, by measures broad 
 and great, extending over the whole people, and whose bene- 
 ficent action has been felt, and, I hope, is now appreciated 
 by all. If the people are better fed by anything we have 
 done, no man has found his table barer or his cupboard less 
 furnished. I suppose at this moment if all the working men 
 and their families in the three kingdoms could be put in the 
 scales they would weigh some thousands of tons more than 
 
1876. XVIII. MANCHESTER. 283 
 
 they would have done thirty years ago. If the people are 
 better clothed by any of those measures, there is not one 
 more of them in rags. If they are better housed, there is 
 not one more of them without shelter, or sheltered only by a 
 hovel. If there are advantages of education greater than there 
 were, by means of schools and the circulation of newspapers, 
 those are advantages which have been extended broadly even 
 to the poorest and the lowest. 
 
 I was only a fortnight ago in the county of Durham, and 
 I had the opportunity there for two or three days of reading 
 a little paper published at Darlington, the Northern Echo — 
 a small paper, but admirably conducted. It has, I am told, 
 a circulation which at its present rate of increase must reach 
 or pass 20,000 copies each morning. Well, this little paper 
 goes for a whole week into the house of every pitman in that 
 county who chooses to take it in. It goes there bringing 
 him all the news, concisely put and accurately reported, from 
 all parts of the world; and he has in his pitman's house 
 the news just as early and as certainly as it reaches the great 
 ducal mansion of Baby Castle. - I think that is a great thing 
 to have accomplished for the people, and it is one of those 
 things which we have done. Now, if the people are more 
 content, if they are more satisfied with the legislation of 
 Parliament or with the general administration of the country, 
 this arises during the last thirty or forty years from measures 
 with which we have been intimately connected — measures 
 which we have never originated or promoted or carried with 
 reference to party objects, but with reference to something 
 greater and much higher and nobler — the general good of 
 the whole people. 
 
 If we have been able thus to interfere — as I trust, 
 honestly and with advantage — in home affairs, I would ask 
 whether at a time like this we are able entirely to close our 
 eyes to the foreign complications in which at this moment 
 unhappily we are somewhat entangled. The only people in 
 
284 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 2, 
 
 the country who have been able to close their eyes and their 
 ears are Her Majesty's Ministers ; and it has taken the voice, 
 almost the cry, of the universal nation to rouse them from 
 the lethargy in which they seem to have been living. But 
 some of my friends tell us that we should not be hard upon 
 them, because if there has been an error it is an error in 
 which both parties have participated — that the leaders of the 
 Tory party and the leaders of the Liberal party were alike 
 involved in the mistakes — I had almost said, and perhaps I 
 ought to say^ the crimes — of twenty years ago. Well, I 
 grant that both parties were concerned in the mistakes and 
 the crimes of that period, but the difference between the two 
 parties now is this, that the leaders of the Liberal party have 
 learned something, while the leaders of the Tory party appear 
 to have learned nothing. For myself — I say it most con- 
 scientiously — I have been glad to have been silent during all 
 these transactions. I wrote, as you know, some two or three 
 weeks ago, a letter to a friend of mine in Birmingham, which 
 was published ; but I have declined to attend some scores of 
 meetings to which during the last two months I have been 
 invited. In fact, my position on this question is one which 
 is very peculiar and very diflBcult ; for there are few men so 
 prominent as I have been in the politics of the country who 
 twenty years ago occupied the place and held the views 
 which I then held. 
 
 But though I have much difficulty in approaching the 
 subject, still I can say, as our president said on another 
 matter, that I have nothing to recant. Twenty-two years 
 ago, in the year 1854, as you know, I differed from the 
 Government of the day, and differed from what appeared to 
 be the vast majority of the people, on the question of the war 
 with Russia. I was overpowered, as you also know. Numbers, 
 and ignorance, and passion, were combined against me, and 
 I was of course outvoted and declared to be unwise and un- 
 patriotic ; and I know not the length of the list of unpleasant 
 
1876. XYIII. MANCHESTER. 285 
 
 adjectives that were used against me wLen discussing my 
 course and my opinions at that time. I do not know why 
 I differed from other people so much, but sometimes I have 
 thought it happened from the education I had received in 
 the religious sect with which I am connected. We have 
 no creed which monarchs and statesmen and high priests 
 have written out for us. Our creed, so far as we compre- 
 hend it, comes pure and direct from the New Testament. 
 We have no 37th Article to declare that it is lawful for 
 Christian men, at the command of the civil magistrate, to 
 wear weapons and to serve in wars — which means, of course, 
 and was intended to mean, that it is lawful for Christian men 
 to engage in any part of the world, in any cause, at the com- 
 mand of a monarch, or of a prime minister, or of a parliament, 
 or of a commander-in-chief, in the slaughter of his fellow-men, 
 whom he might never have seen before, and from whom he 
 had not received the smallest injury, and against whom he 
 had no reason to feel the smallest touch of anger or resent- 
 ment. 
 
 Now, my having been brought up as I was, would lead 
 me naturally to think that going 3,000 miles off, for it is 
 nearly as far as that by sea, to carry on the war with Russia 
 in the Crimea was a matter that required very distinct evi- 
 dence to show that it was lawful, or that it was in any way 
 politic or desirable. Well, I studied the blue-books with great 
 care. I had at that time the advantage of constant daily and 
 hourly communication with our lamented friend Mr. Cobden, 
 of whom I say not too much when I say that no man in our 
 time has shown greater sagacity than he did on this question, 
 and that no man was a wiser counsellor to a private friend, 
 as I was — to a government or a nation — than he was during 
 the whole course of his political life. Well, I came to the 
 conclusion — it was impossible that I could come to any 
 other — that the war of 1 854 not only upon the principles of 
 my sect, but upon the ordinary principles of all moral and 
 
286 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 2, 
 
 Christian men, was unnecessary, that it was impolitic, and 
 that it was unjust. I cannot tell you how many eminent 
 and leading men have now come to that opinion, but we have 
 had sufficient recantations within the last month or two from 
 go many persons that I need not introduce names here to 
 prove what I say. But the objects of the war, as they were 
 offered to the people at the time, were so extravagant that 
 now as we look back upon it we can hardly understand how 
 many could have become so much in favour of it. Some said 
 that Russia, with its great military power^ was going to 
 bear down upon all Europe and destroy the liberty of all 
 the nations of Europe ; some said that Russia was about to 
 take over to herself the government of 150^000,000 of people 
 in India and drive England out of that great territory ; some 
 said we went to war for the purpose of liberating Poland; 
 some said it was to prevent the Russian fleets from coming 
 from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean ; in fact, I know 
 not what were the reasons that were offered to thoughtless 
 and uninformed people to induce them to support Govern- 
 ment and Parliament in that unhappy war. They were suf- 
 ficient, and the war took place. 
 
 That it was disastrous, looking back twenty years, I think 
 all men must admit. I am not speaking now of the valour 
 of the troops, or of their failures in any contest in which 
 they were engaged; I am speaking of it from a far higher 
 point of view than that, and I say that it was a disastrous 
 war ; and to us now, looking back upon it, especially humi- 
 liating. I think that Mr. Kinglake says that more than half 
 a million of lives, first and last, were sacrificed in that war, 
 of which our share is supposed to be about 40,000. One 
 hundred millions of money were spent by us. I am not 
 speaking now of what other nations spent. I am not ad- 
 dressing other nations. The moment the war was over, 
 though there was a reduction of armaments, still our military 
 estimates remained, and have remained from that time to this. 
 
1876. XVIII. MANCHESTER. 287 
 
 at 10,000,000 sterling, or more, higher than they were before. 
 Besides this, we entered into commercial transactions with 
 an insolvent firm on the Bosphorus, to whom the people 
 of England advanced large sums which there is no hope 
 they will ever see again — to the amount probably of nearly 
 100,000,000 sterling; and it may be said, looking back to 
 these loans, that at this moment there is no iron-clad that 
 slumbers on the Turkish waters, there is not a musket, or a 
 tifle, or a bayonet, or a sword by which a Servian has been 
 killed in this war or the unarmed men and the hapless women 
 and children were murdered in Bulgaria, that was not pur- 
 chased and paid for by money borrowed from the credulous 
 people of this country. 
 
 But after all, when the war was over we were told that 
 two great objects had been gained. The one was that the 
 fleet of the Russians in the Black Sea had been so limited 
 that there could be no danger of its attacking Constantinople; 
 another that Russia's treaty rights and protectorate over the 
 Christian subjects of the Porte were abolished, or rather that 
 they were transferred to the concerted action, to a sort of 
 combination— of the Great Powers, under which Russia could 
 do no further mischief, and Turkey could be kept to some- 
 thing hke a humane and just action towards her Christian 
 population. Well, now, what has happened ? Fourteen years 
 after that war — in the year 1870 — the armies of Prussia 
 vanquished the armies of France. France and England had 
 garotted Russia in 1854-6; and having Russia down, had 
 forced upon her that particular clause with regard to her 
 Black Sea fleet; but the moment that Prussia had France 
 down and England was left alone, then Russia rose up and 
 said that she would no longer submit to a clause so unfair 
 to her, as she judged, and so humiliating. She announced 
 to Europe that the clause was at an eud, as far as she was 
 bound to regard it, and the Government of England, finding 
 it unavoidable, consented to the abrogation of the clause. Well 
 
288 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 2, 
 
 then, with regard to the transaction of removing the pro- 
 tectorate of the Christians from Russia to the Great Powers of 
 Europe, it should not he forgotten that Russia is on the spot. 
 Her territories are adjacent to those of Turkey ; her people are 
 of the same religious belief and profession as the Christians 
 of Turkey. They have had for generations a great sympathy 
 with them, and of course they were more likely to keep a 
 watchful eye over the aggressions^ insults, and oppressions 
 of the Turkish Government, and to be more capable friends 
 than any nation at a greater distance from them. But when 
 you put a matter of this kind into the hands of the six 
 Powers, what becomes of it? Whereas the Russian protec- 
 tion was a reality, the protection of the conjoint Powers has 
 been from that day to this only a sham. There has been 
 no protection. Russia has been kept out of the field by the 
 treaty. None of the six Powers was to meddle except they 
 meddled together, and thought the time had come to do 
 something. They never would have thought the time was 
 come to do anything. The object of the Government of 
 this country was to keep everything quiet, to keep the Turk 
 there on his throne^ the Sultan in his palace, the whole 
 system as it has been for ages, the suffering unregarded, 
 the cry unheard; and the concerted power of those great 
 Governments of Europe has been of no influence whatever, 
 and you have destroyed the only real protection which 
 existed and have not established anything valid or useful 
 in its place. 
 
 Eminent men who have discussed this question lately have 
 spoken on this point ; but there is not one of them that has 
 asserted that the powers have really supplied the protection 
 that was afforded by Russia before the Crimean War. The 
 people of England, however, since that time have learned a 
 good deal. They have learned a great deal very lately too ; 
 they have learned something slowly during the twenty years. 
 They have learned what nearly every people learns after a war 
 
1876. XVIIL MANCHESTER. 289 
 
 — that they had been befooled by their own passions and by 
 their rulers ; and during these twenty years we have gradually 
 come to the opinion that the cause after all was not worth 
 going to war for, that there was nothing in it that was 
 important for this country, and that nothing has been gained 
 by it. But now we have been learning more rapidly. We 
 have been hearing of an insurrection in a remote province 
 in Turkey for, I suppose, the last twelve months; we have 
 had also an announcement that the insolvent firm which 
 I spoke of on the Bosphorus could not pay its debts; and, 
 therefore, through the pocket, and through perhaps a nobler 
 mode of communication, the people of England have come to a 
 contrary opinion to that which they held twenty years ago, 
 and they not only now are willing to condemn the war of 
 that time, but are also willing to pronounce emphatically 
 against following the example of that time. In fact, I think 
 they have discovered that our old ideas upon the subject 
 were foolish, and that some of our own pretensions and 
 assumptions at that time were unjust and wicked. They 
 have found out that the dread that Russia, with her great 
 military despotism, was going to overshadow all Europe and 
 destroy constitutional government and freedom over the 
 whole continent, was a folly that no child even should have 
 listened to. They have found out, too, that the idea that 
 Russia was likely, if she got possession of Constantinople — 
 to make her way to India and overthrow English power in 
 that country, was a phantom that really had nothing in it ; 
 and I think they have found out also that the danger of the 
 possession of a free passage through the Bosphorus and the 
 Dardanelles by Russia was one which England need not be 
 afraid of. 
 
 The people of this country are probably not aware that 
 for three hundred years after the possession of Constantinople 
 by the Turks, no vessel— no vessel of trade even — was allowed 
 to pass from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. Turkey 
 
290 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 2. 
 
 for three centuries kept that passage closed, and it was only 
 by the pressure of the Russian power, about a hundred years 
 ago, that the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were opened to 
 ships from the Mediterranean. I should like to know upon 
 what ground we, who are 3,000 miles away, should insist — 
 that the Turks and ourselves combined should insist — upon 
 the closing of the passage between the two seas to Russian 
 or other ships of war. What have we been doing lately? 
 What has this very Government been doing? It has been 
 in a foreign country — in Egypt — endeavouring to purchase 
 great authority over, not a natural highway, not a highway 
 which Nature made, but an artificial highway which French- 
 men and French money for the most part made, in order 
 that we might run not ships of trade only but ships of war 
 also between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Surely, 
 if we thought it necessary and right to take such a course 
 as that, was it not just that the Russians, if they thought 
 proper, should have a passage for their ships from the Black 
 Sea to the Mediterranean, and that ships from the Medi- 
 terranean should proceed by that passage to the Black Sea ? 
 
 But what are we to do now? that is the question. 
 At this moment we are entangled with the treaty of 
 1856, and it is not easy I admit — I make the admission to 
 the Government and their friends — it is not easy to back 
 clean out of it, nor is it easy to tell exactly what to do in 
 it. One way is this — we might tear the treaty into a 
 thousand pieces and say, 'We were fools in 1854 and in 
 1856; we will be fools no longer.' We might in that case 
 leave Turkey to her fate. But then there are the negotia- 
 tions of the last few months, in which the Government 
 has been concerned, which Parliament has not condemned, 
 and which the public probably would not wholly and ab- 
 solutely condemn. If we cannot tear the treaty to pieces, 
 the question is, can we negotiate on new lines ? That appears 
 to me to be the only alternative. If the treaty remains, 
 
1876. XYIII, MANCHESTER, 291 
 
 and if we are to take some action with the other Powers 
 of Europe, — if the people of England have changed their 
 mind with regard to the policy of the country twenty 
 years ago, — then we ask ourselves, is it not possible for the 
 English Government to negotiate on new lines, on other prin- 
 ciples, and with a better policy? But then, unfortunately, 
 during the whole of the transactions of this year the Govern- 
 ment has been going upon the old lines. They did not perceive 
 that there was a great change in public opinion, nor did 
 they perceive that the Country had made a great error twenty 
 years ago. They are pro-Turkish during the whole of the 
 correspondence which has been published in the blue-books ; 
 they seem almost to have forgotten everything that they ought 
 to have remembered, and to have learnt nothing of that 
 which they ought to have given special attention to. 
 
 Hitherto they have gone upon this theory : ^ Preserve 
 Turkey as she is, if you can. Suppress every rising as 
 quickly as possible by Turkish arms — make peace somehow ; 
 and put an end to these things which threaten the peace of 
 Europe without any consideration of the interests of the 
 populations which are most nearly affected.' But whilst this 
 was going on there was another rising, and a very important 
 one — a rising of the people of England. The terrible cruelties 
 that have been committed — and but a very small portion of 
 them have been reported to us — have opened our eyes and 
 have touched our hearts. But whilst this rising was going 
 on, and whilst these events were being reported to us, the 
 Government seemed to hear nothing and to know nothing. 
 Their agents appeared to know little and to say little. 
 The fact is every Minister of England in Constantinople, 
 and every consul knows perfectly well that unpleasant 
 tidings from those parts are not welcome reading for the 
 Foreign Office. It was the same twenty-two years ago. We 
 then pointed out what was the state of things in the Christian 
 provinces of Turkey. We quoted from the Blue Books 
 
 u % 
 
292 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, oct. 2, 
 
 and from the reports of our agents and consuls how dreadful 
 was the condition of those provinces, and of the interior of 
 Turkey ; and that was very unpleasant matter for Lord 
 Palmerston and his colleagues at the time when the Russian 
 war was being discussed and when it was being fought. But 
 though the Government did not hear and did not speak, 
 others heard and others spoke ; and when they spoke — and I 
 say it with shame and sorrow — the Government, through its 
 chief, ridiculed what was said, and dared even to deny its 
 truth. 
 
 In the same manner there has been a feeling now in the 
 House of Commons that, when the question was treated by the 
 head of the Government, it was not treated with that serious- 
 ness which became so grave and so sad a question. There 
 has not been from him, so far as I have heard, one word of 
 hearty condemnation of those things which the nation uni- 
 versally condemns. There has not been, so far as I have 
 heard from his lips in Parliament, any warmer sympathy 
 expressed for the sufferers than there would have been if he 
 had heard that a sudden massacre had taken place of the 
 multitude of dogs which prowl about the streets of Con- 
 stantinople. Perhaps ambition, the greatest ambition, may 
 at length be sated ; and a man from a certain eminence may 
 look down with cold contempt on guilt, and on wrongs that 
 even he dares no longer to deny. But, now, what is the 
 position we stand in, and what action should this meeting, if 
 we were a public meeting — which we are not — what action 
 ought we to take ? It is obvious that the Government so far 
 is at variance with the nation. The Government is pro-Turk 
 still, and would, if they could, act upon the lines of the past, 
 which the nation has condemned. Observe the language of the 
 Prime Minister in speaking the other day of the Servian war. 
 It was not the language of regret. It was condemnation of 
 the most offensive character — a condemnation which evidently 
 sprung from his sympathy with the Turkish power. Take the 
 
1876. XVIII. MANCHESTER, 293 
 
 speeches of Lord Derby — more moderate, more argumentative, 
 more according to his character ; but still in those speeches 
 there was none of that hearty sympathy for the sufferers, or 
 condemnation for the Power that inflicted the suffering, which 
 I think would have been grateful to the ears and hearts of 
 the English people. 
 
 If you want to know what is the feeling of the Government, 
 you have only to look at the writings of the Government press. 
 I will not run over the list of their papers, for I am not ac- 
 quainted with a great many of them ; but if any man has read 
 through the columns of the Standard for many weeks past, or 
 if he has read the columns of their organ in this city, he will 
 find out what they believe to be the feelings and wishes of their 
 patrons, the Ministry of the day. And I am not surprised at 
 this, because it would be a matter of wonder if we found these 
 papers on any occasion taking the part of freedom and justice 
 to these, or to any populations. On the contrary, they heap 
 ridicule and contempt on the proclamations of change of opinion 
 and policy which more than a hundred public meetings have 
 announced to the whole world. The fact is that the nation 
 looks one way and the Government looks another. There has 
 been nothing like it in this country, I believe, since the time 
 of the Reform Bill, when the Duke of Wellington was 
 endeavouring to form an anti-reform government. There has 
 been no such demonstration against the policy of a Govern- 
 ment as there has been within the last two months. It is 
 a very curious thing that this Government came into 
 office with predictions that nothing was to be disturbed 
 and everybody was to be gratified. Nevertheless, a year 
 ago there were scores of public meetings condemning their 
 conduct with regard to fugitive slaves. There were far more 
 public meetings to denounce them then than there were to 
 find fault with all the matters which Mr. Gladstone's Govern- 
 ment had dealt with during the whole career of the late 
 Administration. And now twelve months later we find 
 
294 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 2, 
 
 ourselves in a perfect hurricane of condemnation of this 
 Government, which was to have put everything right, and 
 to have thrown the preceding Government into oblivion and 
 contempt. 
 
 Even a great many of our friends of the Established 
 Church who generally go with them — even the archbishops, 
 bishops, and dignitaries of the Church — have been as loud 
 and as strong in their language as the sternest Nonconformist 
 minister. There is not a class — we know not a class any- 
 where — that has not spoken out upon this question. I was 
 reading reports of public meetings the other day, and no 
 doubt many of you also read them, for the speeches made 
 upon this question have been admirable. Amongst them 
 there is the speech of Mr. Baxter at Montrose, and a speech 
 by an honourable relative of mine at Huddersfield. From 
 them one would expect excellent speeches on a question of 
 this kind, though some might fear perhaps that they would be 
 a little tinged with what is called a party view. But I found 
 in the same paper a speech by the Marquis of Bath. I hope 
 everybody read it. It is an admirable speech. I have 
 marked two or three paragraphs which, if you will allow me^ 
 I will read, because, coming from a peer of his high rank, not 
 connected with our party, but with the Government party, 
 anxious to say little that would be offensive to his leaders, 
 the speech is remarkable, and the passages strike me as doing 
 honour to his head and heart. He says — 
 
 * The voice of England had declared that, so far as she had the power to 
 prevent them, it should be impossible for such enormities to occur again. 
 Parties of all shades of opinion, and clergy of all denominations, had especially 
 distinguished themselves in the movement; and had, by resolutions and 
 memorials, urged the Government to make a clear and explicit demand that 
 Turkey should surrender all executive power in the disturbed provinces, and 
 that freedom and self-government be secured to the Christians/ 
 
 Then he says — 
 
 'They had also especial duties from the liabilities they took upon themselves 
 to protect the native Christians when they deprived them of Russian pro- 
 tection in 1856. Besides, it was not interference, but non-interference that 
 
1876. XVIII. MANCHESTER. 295 
 
 was really required. The English Government had but to withdraw its coun- 
 tenance and its support from the Turks, and Kussia would deal with the 
 question, and free its kindred races from Turkish despotism. Then, as to 
 opening the door to Russian aggression, he had such confidence in the strength 
 of his country that he believed if Russia was three times more powerful she 
 could do England no harm. Of this he was certain — if the alternative lay 
 between leaving the Provinces of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria at the 
 mercy of Turkey or letting Russia take them, let Russia have them, and God 
 be with her.' 
 
 One other passage I will read. Speaking of the necessity of 
 maintaining the integrity of the Turkish Empire, he says : — 
 
 *If by that was meant the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan and the 
 exclusion of any other European Power, all would be well ; but if by integrity 
 of the Turkish Empire the power of taxation, of spoliation, of oppression over 
 the Christians in those three provinces be maintained to the Turks, and if the 
 English Government could be held responsible for it, there would be an outcry 
 of national indignation against which no Government would be able to stand. 
 What was demanded was that the Christian population in the provinces of 
 Bosnia, Herzego\ina, and Bulgaria should have administrative independence; 
 that the taxation or tribute be moderate, and fixed beforehand ; that they 
 should be free both of the Turkish people and Turkish authorities, and that 
 the rulers set over them should be neither Turks nor Christians dependent on 
 the Turkish Government. Those were the demands of almost all men, the 
 only difference being between those who asserted and those who denied the 
 intention of the Government to carry them out. They were all — Whig and 
 Tory, Churchmen and Nonconformists — unanimous in that demand. Without 
 departing from a single principle he had held to all his life, he found that he 
 could stand there on a common ground with the most extreme and consistent 
 Liberal. The sympathies engendered in behalf of a common Christianity, of 
 a common humanity, rose superior to all the ties and obligations, all the 
 associations and traditions of party.' 
 
 It would seem, taking Lord Bath as the representative of 
 a large and powerful section of the community, that Minis- 
 ters alone, if they are so hard and unyielding — and their 
 press is with them, no doubt — are against morality and 
 freedom. They tell us — the writers in their press — that 
 England was as bad in the Indian Mutiny, and as bad on 
 a smaller scale on the occasion of the unhappy transactions 
 in Jamaica. But let me tell them that they supported those 
 enormities whatever they were, and they are only following 
 their own constant policy when they refuse to condemn the 
 
296 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 2, 
 
 infernal wickedness and cruelties that have been perpetrated 
 by the Turks. 
 
 We have had a speech lately from the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. He does not speak in so unabashed a manner 
 as his chief. To many thousands of Yorkshiremen who were 
 listening to him the other day he said that ' England leads.' 
 He said this most emphatically. But, up to this time, 
 during the whole of the spring, what England has done has 
 been not to lead, but to thwart, and in a certain way to 
 menace when they thwarted, the proposals of the other 
 Powers. If they did not intend it as such, the assembling 
 of an enormous fleet at the mouth of the Dardanelles neces- 
 sarily acted as a menace. 
 
 Let us lead ; I have no objection, if we can lead in a policy 
 of mercy and freedom. Let us dissolve partnership with a 
 power which curses every land that is subject to it. One 
 of our poets has said, and said truly — 
 
 'Byzantines boast that on the clod. 
 Where once their sultan's horse has trod. 
 Grows neither grass, nor shrub, nor tree/ 
 
 There is no doubt whatever that desolation and ruin are 
 lasting memorials of the Moslem power on the once fertile 
 shores of the Mediterranean. So our duty now, I think, is 
 clear. If we cannot wash our hands of this whole business, 
 if by reason of the Treaty of 1856, or by reason of the 
 negotiations of the past few months, it is impossible for the 
 Government to wash their hands. of this whole matter, then 
 I say that we ought to insist upon a new policy, and on that 
 policy and along its lines the government, if it exists, and acts, 
 and leads, ought not only to go, but resolutely to lead. It is 
 only as the voice of the country demands, it is only as the 
 finger of the country points. If they would do this even 
 now, if the speech of the Prime Minister the other day had 
 indicated that he had any sympathy with your views or any 
 sympathy with your principles in these matters, he might 
 
1876. XVIIL MANCHESTER, 297 
 
 have restored to himself probably the confidence of the nation. 
 But his speech had an entirely opposite effect. Of Lord 
 Derby's private opinion we have abundant evidence. We 
 have the speech which he made a dozen years ago, extracts 
 from which you have seen in most of the newspapers. 
 His opinions at that time, so far as I could gather them, 
 are precisely the opinions that I have held all along upon 
 this Eastern Question ; but Lord Derby is one of twelve 
 gentlemen who form the Cabinet and Ministers of the Queen. 
 It might be possible to have some sort of confidence in him, 
 and I am not without confidence in the wisdom of his 
 opinions; but my confidence is shaken when I come to 
 think of what he will do, and of the strength of his con- 
 victions. 
 
 But what are we to think of his chief? I say that the 
 speech which he delivered the other day at Aylesbury 
 was a speech of defiance to the people of England, a 
 speech heartless and cruel as respects Servia and Bulgaria. 
 There is a demand for an autumn Session. I believe nobody 
 is more opposed to an autumn Session than a member of 
 Parliament is ; but though it is full of inconvenience, still 
 the demand for it seems to me at this time constitutional 
 and wise. The Ministers are at variance, and the Prime 
 Minister in his speech defies the country. If there was a 
 dissolution now, what would happen ? I suspect the Ministers 
 would fear it greatly. They would be swept off the boards, 
 and in their place a new policy and a new Ministry would 
 be installed. I think the chief who made that speech — 
 a speech which I deeply regret, and I think by this 
 time he must also have regretted it — would by that public 
 opinion be swept from his pride of place and from his 
 place of power. Let him meet Parliament, or let him meet 
 the constituencies ; I am not afraid of what would be the 
 decision of the country. We regret, the country regrets, 
 our past policy with regard to the Turkish Question. We 
 
298 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 regret, the country regrets, the sacrifices of the Crimean War. 
 We are not now anxious to go to war to defend the Turk, 
 and we are not called upon, and do not intend to go to war 
 to attack the enemies of the Turk. We are at a long dis- 
 tance from that part of the world. It is no business of ours 
 to be sending ships and troops nearly 3,000 miles to effect 
 territorial changes in which we have no real and no direct 
 interest. If we left it to the course of nature — nature as 
 explained to us by historic facts — the question some way 
 would no doubt settle itself; but if we had a Parliament, 
 or a dissolution and a general election, the policy of England 
 would in my opinion be declared ; and I freely state to you 
 '^y judgment that we should have this solemn and ir- 
 revocable decision on the part of the people of this country; 
 that the blood and the treasure of England shall never 
 again be wasted on behalf of the Turk, that the vote of 
 our Government, the vote of England, in the parliament 
 of Europe, shall be given in favour of justice and freedom 
 to Christian and Moslem alike, and that the Ottoman power 
 shall be left hereafter to the fate which Providence has 
 decreed to corruption, tyranny, and wrong. 
 
XIX. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 4, 1876. 
 
 [On this day a meeting of the Liberal party was held in the Town Hall, to 
 consider the foreign policy of the Government. Mr. Bright made this the 
 occasion for delivering his annual address to his constituents, in company 
 with his colleagues, Messrs. Muntz and Chamberlain. The contemporary 
 allusions in the address refer to the Guildhall speech of the Prime Minister, 
 and to the mission of Lord Salisbury to Constantinople.] 
 
 I HOPE we all feel that we are met to-night under cir- 
 cumstances of some anxiety, and even it may be of some 
 public danger. There are great authorities^ authorities to 
 be found amongst leading public men, and authorities in the 
 public press, who tell us that we are, for some cause not at 
 all fully explained, upon the brink of that calamity which 
 men call war. Some of these authorities beseech us not to 
 say much about it. They tell us that ill-advised words may 
 precipitate the danger. "We must speak only in a whisper, 
 if we speak at all. They remind me of the advice that is 
 given by their guides to climbers amidst the snowy solitudes 
 of the Alps. They are told not to speak above a whisper, or 
 the avalanche of snow that is above them may descend and 
 overwhelm, not them alone, but the village that lies in 
 apparent security far below. And now, we are advised to 
 leave everything in the hands of her Majesty's Government, 
 who will take care, first of all, and above all, if they can, 
 
300 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, dec. 4, 
 
 of the peace of Europe, and, what is of not less consequence, 
 of the interests of this kingdom. 
 
 I sometimes have thought during the past year that her 
 Majesty's Government were rather too much in favour of 
 peace. They are in favour of peace, if not at any price, at 
 least at a price which some of us would scarcely wish to pay 
 for it. They are willing to sacrifice the interests, the happi- 
 ness, and the freedom of millions of the Christian population 
 of the Turkish provinces, and I am afraid they would make 
 another great sacrifice, they would sacrifice the fair fame and 
 the honour of this country in binding us in perpetual partner- 
 ship with the worst and the foulest Government known upon 
 the earth. But if our Government is so much for peace, 
 what is to be said of other Governments? All the other 
 Governments are also for peace. At this moment we have 
 no subject of dispute with the United States of America. 
 The justice and the magnanimity of this country have settled 
 every question of difference between our Free Colonies of 
 America and the mother country. If we come to Europe, we 
 find that we have no quarrel with our next neighbour, the 
 French nation. From the year i85o, when the great com- 
 mercial treaty was negotiated, we have had a constantly- 
 diminishing feeling of antagonism to France, and at this 
 moment there exists between the French people and the 
 English people a more durable friendship than we have known 
 in any former period in the history of the two nations. And 
 if you will allow me to give you in one sentence one fact, 
 you will see how great is the importance of that treaty to 
 which I have referred. You have seen to-day in the news^ 
 papers a letter addressed by the Chamber of Commerce of 
 Manchester to the Chambers of Commerce of France, and 
 from that letter you will find that, whereas, before the 
 treaty, the imports from France into this country were only 
 13,000,000/. sterling per annum, they now amount to over 
 46,000,000/. sterling, and that the exports from this country 
 
1876. XIX. BIRMINGHAM. ZOV 
 
 to France, which before the treaty were only 9,000,000/., 
 amount now to 27,000,000/. It is this increased trade 
 and communication 'which have been so advantageous in 
 promoting friendship between the French and the English 
 peoples. I was saying what is the state of things with 
 France, and I have no doubt if you go to the other countries 
 of Europe, to Italy, to Germany, and to Austria, you will find 
 the most perfectly friendly feeling to this country ; and, if we 
 go to Russia, we know that only lately the Ministers have told 
 us how friendly were our relations even with that nation, and 
 we have within the past fortnight a declaration from the lips 
 of the Emperor of Russia which shows, at least, that he is as 
 anxious to be friends with us as we are to be friends with him. 
 I ask you, again, how comes it, if our Government is so 
 deeply anxious for peace, and if all the other Governments of 
 Europe are equally anxious for it, that we are met here to-night 
 under the apprehension that we may be on the brink of war ? 
 Let us for a moment consider that question. The difficulty 
 has arisen, as you know, from differences between the Turk — 
 when I mention the Turk I mean the Government at Con- 
 stantinople — differences between the Turk and the victims, 
 or the children of the victims, of four centuries of oppression 
 in the Turkish European provinces ; and afterwards between 
 Russia and Turkey, because Russia sympathises with the 
 Christian population of those provinces. You know that the 
 Christians of those provinces are mainly of the same Church 
 and the same faith with the Russians. The Russians are 
 nearer, much nearer them than we are. They sympathise 
 with them ; they have sympathised with them for generations ; 
 and when those Christians rise in revolt it is contrary to 
 human nature that the people of Russia should not sympathise 
 with those of their co-religionists who are suffering from the 
 oppression of centuries. We are afraid of what Russia may 
 do to the Turk on behalf of those Christians, and we back 
 the Turks in opposition to the supposed designs of Russia. 
 
302 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 4, 
 
 Before the Crimean War, which very many of you re- 
 member, the Government of Russia had power under treaties 
 to keep a watchful guard over the condition of those Christian 
 provinces, and to remonstrate, if any injury was done to them, 
 or if oppression beyond a certain point was committed upon 
 them. After the Crimean War Russia was no longer permitted 
 to have that power, and it was supposed to have been trans- 
 ferred to the great Powers of Europe. But, in point of fact, 
 it was not transferred to anybody. If you would allow me 
 to read to you one of the clauses of the Treaty of 1856, 
 which has not been near so much commented upon as it 
 ought to have been in the public press, you will see that we 
 struck down Russia as protector of the Christians in Turkey, 
 but we put nobody in the place of Russia, and from that 
 time to this there has been no protection whatsoever offered 
 to that unhappy population. Now in the Treaty is this 
 clause : — 
 
 * Clause 9: His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, having in his constant solicitude 
 for the welfare of his subjects issued a firman (that is, a decree), which, while 
 ameliorating their condition without distinction of religion or race, records his 
 generous intentions towards the Christian population of his empire, and, wish- 
 ing to give a further proof of his sentiments in that respect, has resolved to 
 communicate to the contracting parties (that is, the other European Powers) 
 the said firman emanating spontaneously from his sovereign will.' 
 
 And then the Treaty goes on to say the contracting Powers 
 recognise the high value of this communication. It is clearly 
 understood that it cannot in any case give to the said Powers 
 the right to interfere, either collectively or separately, in the 
 relations of his Majesty the Sultan with his subjects, nor in 
 the internal administration of his empire ; and, therefore, 
 Russia being put aside by the force of that war, and nobody 
 being put in the place of Russia, you will see that there has 
 been no one to take cognisance of the oppression of these 
 unfortunate populations, and no one to remonstrate with the 
 Porte and to insist upon better behaviour towards them. 
 
1876. XIX, BIRMINGHAM. 303 
 
 Then comes the insurrection, spreading from one province to 
 another; then comes the excited sympathy of the Russian 
 people ; then comes the fear of England that something is 
 about to be done unpleasant to its ally and its great friend, 
 the Turk; and then comes the difficulty in which we find 
 ourselves. We are not to be supposed to enter into war, 
 or to be in any danger of it, with regard to any Power except 
 Russia, and with regard to Russia only on this ground, that 
 Russia insists that henceforth, in spite of the Treaty of 1 856, 
 in spite of the supposed interests of England, the Christian 
 populations shall have a friend. And if the concerted and 
 united Powers of Europe will not be that friend, then Russia 
 itself will undertake the guardianship of these people, as it 
 has done before. 
 
 But now, why is it that we are so alarmed about Russia, 
 because you know Russia is a long way from us? By the 
 Black Sea, from here, Russia is, I suppose, at a distance of 
 full 3,000 miles. "Why should we be so anxious about Russia, 
 and why so much alarmed about Turkey ? That is a point 
 on which I would wish especially to speak to you. Probably 
 all of you have not examined the map of these countries; 
 but many of you know that the capital of Turkey, Constan- 
 tinople, stands on the shores or banks of a strait called the 
 Bosphorus, and that the Bosphorus is a narrow passage which 
 leads from the Black Sea into a small sea called the Sea of 
 Marmora, and then another strait called the Dardanelles 
 leads from the Sea of Marmora into the Mediterranean. 
 Constantinople, standing upon that narrow strait has the 
 power if it choose, and if it had forts and guns sufficient 
 and people sufficient to man them, to command those straits, 
 and the Russian navy, the Russian ships of war, although 
 they are now free in the Black Sea, and Russia may have as 
 many as she chooses there, as England may have as many as 
 she chooses in her seas, the Russian navy is not allowed to 
 pass those straits in order to enter the Mediterranean. That 
 
S04 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 4, 
 
 is just the point upon which all this difficulty arises. Eng- 
 land imagines that some great danger will happen to her, 
 that she will lose her predominance in the Mediterranean, 
 so that her route to India may be molested, if Russian 
 ships of war should come through those straits, and, there- 
 fore, England is anxious to maintain Turkey in its 
 present position, that of holding the keys of those straits and 
 forbidding any portion of the Russian navy from passing 
 through the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Now you see 
 that England — I speak now of England as it has been, and 
 England as represented by the present Administration — that 
 England is afraid that if the Turk went out the Russian 
 would come in, and therefore we are driven to this dreadful 
 alternative, that we must support the Turk, with all his 
 crimes and with all his cruelty, and we must support too, as 
 we do practically support, the Mahometan religion through- 
 out the whole of that portion of the world. 
 
 About 700 years ago the people of this country, as history 
 tells us, joined the Crusaders, and went to Palestine for the 
 purpose of liberating the Holy Places from the possession of 
 the infidel and the Mahometan. And now what do we do? 
 We give the blood and the treasure of England to support 
 this Turkish Government. We give Bethlehem, Olivet, and 
 Calvary, to the Turk. We condemn to perpetual ruin those 
 vast regions which have become a wilderness and a desert under 
 the Turkish sceptre. We do all this for this simple purpose, 
 to prevent Russia passing any ships of war from the Black Sea 
 into the Mediterranean. Now that was the policy which 
 brought about the Crimean War in 1 854. I will not tell you the 
 cost of that war : you have heard it often. There is, however, 
 one point of its cost that I observe has not recently been 
 referred to, except in one or two papers ; but let every work- 
 ing man remember, and he can remember, if he is old enough, 
 that, whilst a loaf of a given size was worth 4^. in the year 
 1852, before the war, and before the probability of war, 
 
1876. XIX. BIRMINGHAM, 305 
 
 during the two years of the war it rose to sevenpence farthing 
 or more. Your supplies from Russia were, of course, cut off, 
 and your bread was scarce and dear. Now do not let it be 
 charged upon me that I am asking you to shrink from some 
 public duty because your bread will be dearer. But when 
 you are counting the cost and deliberating what has been 
 done and what should be done in the future, I say that you 
 are bound to take into consideration all the price that you 
 are called upon to pay for any given policy that may be 
 suggested to you. 
 
 Next comes the consideration of the failure in the results 
 of the war. Nobody, I believe, now is of opinion that Turkey 
 was permanently strengthened by it. Her decay has pro- 
 ceeded constantly and rapidly. We occasionally see unhappy 
 men who are afflicted with what is called a creeping 
 paralysis, a malady which seizes a foot or hand, which resists 
 all the power of medicine and treatment, which gradually 
 extends itself, laying hold of more and more of the body, 
 until at last the end of this terrible malady comes by the 
 death of the patient. Turkey has been suffering from creep- 
 ing paralysis for a century past, and during the last twenty 
 years the mortal disease has made rapid progress. There 
 is only one part in which it does not affect the strength of 
 Turkey, and that is its power to oppress and to do evil. I say 
 the policy of the war of 1854, looked back upon from this 
 time, was a policy of misfortune and of error ; and I should 
 like to ask you whether you conceive that it would be con- 
 sistent with wisdom and justice, or only with ignorance 
 and panic or presumption, that we should turn back to 
 that policy, accept it as if were good, and re-establish it 
 in the acts of England and our Government in the year 
 1876. 
 
 Now let us examine for a moment the root whence this 
 policy grows. I observed the other day — some day, I think, 
 only last week — a paragraph in a leading article of the Times^ 
 
306 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 4, 
 
 which I should like to read to you. There have been others 
 of the same kind, but this just occurred to me. It appeared 
 on November 30. The Times says: 'The interest we take 
 in the integrity of the Ottoman Empire has its origin and 
 end in our desire that the balance of power in South-eastern 
 Europe should not be disarranged.' Now, it is supposed, if 
 Russia had ships of war in the Black Sea, as she has, and if 
 they were free to pass into the Mediterranean, as they might 
 but for the .closing of the Straits, that Russia would be more 
 powerful in the Mediterranean (which, of course, she would ; 
 nobody denies that), and that there would be another naval 
 power added to those whose ships are now found in that sea. 
 If the Black Sea fleet came into the Mediterranean it would 
 be one fleet more in the Mediterranean. That is simple and 
 clear. At present Spain has ships of war in the Mediter- 
 ranean. France has a fleet there, and whenever she likes she 
 has a great naval fleet at Toulon, as you know. Italy has a 
 fleet there ; she is building now a very powerful, and to my 
 mind a needless ironclad, with a gun that is called a 100-ton 
 gun, which is to fire a shot of nearly a ton weight. I say 
 nothing of the wisdom or folly of such ventures ; but Italy 
 has a fleet in the Mediterranean ; Austria has ships of war 
 there ; Turkey has her ships of war there. I ask what would 
 happen — would the sky fall, or would the British flag bd 
 lowered or dishonoured, if even half-a-dozen, or ten, or two> 
 or three, as the case might be, Russian ships of war were 
 permitted freely to navigate those straits, not straits mad6 
 by Turkey, or made by England, but made by nature, and 
 intended, of course, to be a passage open to all the world 
 between those two great seas, the Mediterranean and the 
 Black Seas? It is a very curious thing, but it is worth 
 considering as a fact, that we who live here, so far ofi*, and 
 who have the biggest fleet in the world — a rather bigger 
 fleet, I believe, than all the rest of Europe put together — 
 are the only alarmists in this matter. Nobody cares about it 
 
1876. XIX. BIRMINGHAM. 307 
 
 except the English Government ; no people have the smallest 
 interest in it except the English people ; and I think it may 
 be shown that they have no real interest in it. Other nations 
 feel no panic about it, and have no idea of going to war to 
 support Turkey for any such purpose as to keep the Russians 
 blockaded in the Black Sea. 
 
 You see in the papers — and it is wonderful how well the 
 newspaper writers write about things which they do not 
 understand, or which, if they do understand, they seldom 
 attempt to explain. You see in the newspapers that our route to 
 India is supposed to be greatly concerned in this matter. Our 
 principal route to India now is^ as you know, through Egypt. 
 Passengers may go by the railway, or in ships which pass 
 through that wonderful canal which the energy of M. Lesseps 
 and which the money of Frenchmen made. I should like any- 
 body to tell me how the route to India will be interfered with 
 at all. I do not know exactly how many hundred miles it is 
 from Constantinople to the mouth of the canal ; but I should 
 think it must be 600 or 700 miles at least. But it is not 
 very far from Toulon, the first French naval port, to the 
 mouth of the Canal, and it is not far from Spezzia, the 
 Italian naval port, and, of course, if the Turkish people were 
 not in a state of decay, the Turks could put in jeopardy our 
 route to India; and it would appear that nobody ought to 
 live, move, or have his being anywhere within that portion 
 of the globe who has the smallest chance of lifting a finger 
 or uttering a word against anything which the English 
 Government may choose to do in the Levant. 
 
 There is one way of securing our route to India. This is 
 through an offer that M. Lesseps made to Europe many years 
 ago, that the Canal should be in the possession of the leading 
 Powers of Europe, and should by solemn treaty be kept in 
 first-rate order and always open to the ships of all nations who 
 should choose to pass through it. Instead of England buying 
 shares in the Canal with the idea of its being a route over 
 
 X 2 
 
308 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, dec. 4, 
 
 whicli we have some special right, let all the nations of 
 Europe have their interest in it. It would be a bond of union 
 between them, and it might in fact, in time to come, be the 
 cause of a more strict and generous and peaceable union of 
 Europe than we have seen exist at any time in the past. Would 
 the English fleet be any less powerful in the Levant if 
 the Russians could come that way? You know that the 
 Russian fleet can come now from the Baltic round through 
 the English Channel and into the Mediterranean through 
 the Straits of Gibraltar. That is a very long route indeed, 
 and is exposed to the perils of the sea, and it is much more 
 likely that they should wish to have, and perfectly, in my 
 mind, just that they should have, their natural right of passage 
 through these Straits, and that these Straits should be open 
 to all the navies of all the nations of the world. There are 
 some persons who now hear me who read newspapers forty 
 years ago. Carry your minds back to the year 1 836, and you 
 may remember that at that time a number of people, half- 
 lunatic and half- designing, in this country, got up a panic 
 about the invasion of our northern shores from Russia, from 
 the Baltic, through the Sound; and suggested, I presume, 
 that they had a design of conquering Scotland, and annex- 
 ing it, no doubt, to the Russian empire. The Baltic is 
 shut up for about half the year by frost. What happened 
 during the Russian War when the English fleet went into the 
 Baltic ? The Russian fleet did not go out of it, because it 
 could not; but took shelter behind the fortifications which 
 had been erected at Sveaborg and Cronstadt. They did not 
 come out to meet the English ships, and the English ships 
 did not dare attack them within those formidable defences ; 
 and yet forty years ago we were told that we were to have an 
 invasion of this country by Russia, and the Government of 
 that day actually added, on the strength of that panic, 5,000 
 men to the roll of the British navy. Wherever there is the 
 slightest panic on any matter of this kind, there absurd and 
 
1876. XIX. BIRMINGHAM. 309 
 
 extravagant acts are committed. We can make allowances for 
 children that are afraid in the dark^ but for a great nation 
 like this, without doubt in some respects at this moment the 
 most powerful in the world, to be shaken by these childish 
 and unreasoning panics, is a discredit and a humiliation 
 which we have to bear, unfortunately, before the honest but 
 astonished opinion of all other nations. 
 
 I have referred to the peculiar position of Turkey and of 
 Constantinople upon the shores of the Bosphorus. Let me 
 ask you now to look at the peculiar position of Russia on the 
 shores of the Baltic. Russia is a country that for its mag- 
 nitude, for the breadth and length of it as you see it on the 
 map, is more without navigable rivers running to the sea 
 than any other country in the woi-ld. Almost all its great 
 rivers run into the Caspian or into the Black Sea, and at 
 present the Black Sea is that one road by which they are 
 not allowed to emerge through the Straits of the Bosphorus 
 and the Dardanelles. If you go to the Baltic you find another 
 great sea, perhaps nearly as big — I do not know whether 
 it is as big or bigger— but another great sea, and the only 
 way out if it is through a very narrow passage, called the 
 Sound, a passage where the Danes until a few years ago 
 levied a toll upon all ships passing. The different nations 
 agreed to pay the Danes a sum of three or four millions to 
 abolish that toll, and to make the passage free. But Russia, 
 as you see, is shut up by frost on the Baltic for half of the 
 year, and when her ships come out they have to come through 
 this narrow passage. Now, I should like to know whether, 
 in that state of things, Russia would perpetually consent, as 
 she is blockaded by frost in the North, to be blockaded by 
 England through the hands of Turkey in the South, and 
 that from no portion of her vast empire should one of her 
 ships be able to pass during half the year on account of the 
 frost, nor any portion of the year from the other at the com- 
 mand of the Government of this country ? The thing seems 
 
310 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, dec. 4, 
 
 to me to be intolerable and impossible, and it cannot long- be 
 sustained. If we were in that position, what should we 
 do ? I have no doubt whatever that there would be a unani- 
 mous discovery on the part of all people in England that 
 we had a just claim to go through that natural passage ; 
 and, though I for one should be very much in favour of 
 negotiation, I am afraid that not a small minority — per- 
 haps a large majority — of my countrymen would be deter- 
 mined to enforce that claim by such means as came first to 
 their hands. 
 
 I have come to this conclusion long ago, and I throw it 
 before this meeting, and before such as may read the proceed- 
 ings of this meeting, that the Eastern Question, as it is called, 
 is not worth one single farthing to us more than this, that we 
 have an interest in freedom and peace everywhere. It is of no 
 consequence to us as a great political question, except as it 
 affects the admission of Russian ships of war from the Black 
 Sea into the Mediterranean. It is not the possession of Con- 
 stantinople. If you had ever been at Constantinople, you 
 would know that it is not a very formidable power. Con- 
 stantinople is not a great city on the wheels of caravans that 
 can be brought down to the mouth of the Suez Canal. 
 Constantinople is where it has long been, and where it will 
 long remain. Turkey is not a territory of such a kind as 
 would do us any harm if Russia had any portion of it. There 
 is not an intelligent man in Russia or in Europe who does 
 not know that the accessions of territory to the Russian 
 Empire during the last fifty years have greatly weakened that 
 Empire. At this very moment, when it may be that Russia 
 is about to enter into war with Turkey on this question of 
 the Turkish populations, are we not sensible, if we look at the 
 map, and see the advance of Russia in the direction of the 
 Himalaya mountains and our possessions in India, is it not 
 clear to us that every soldier that she has in all that vast 
 territory — and there are many thousands of them — that every 
 
1876. XIX. BIRMINGHAM, 311 
 
 soldier she has there is so much weakness to her now, when 
 she comes, as she may, unfortunately perhaps, come to have 
 a great and prolonged struggle with the Government at 
 Constantinople? Therefore we have no interest whatever 
 in the question of Constantinople, none whatever in the 
 question of territory. It is supposed we have an interest in 
 the exclusion of Russian ships of war from the Mediterranean, 
 and that is the pith and kernel of the whole thing, the soul 
 of the dispute which is suddenly disturbing the peace of this 
 country. 
 
 I shall be told, you know I have been told very often, that 
 things I have said on this platform are not English, and are 
 not patriotic. If I can show — and I am entitled to try to 
 show — that there is nothing in this question which affects the 
 interests of England, as your Government and some of your 
 press would persuade you, I say I can do no more patriotic 
 act on behalf of my countrymen than to save them from these 
 constantly recurring panics, and from the perils which such 
 panics bring with them ; because if I can dispel this terror, 
 if I can so strengthen your nerves that you will no longer 
 tremble at this hobgoblin, then I have done my little part 
 towards settling what is called this perilous Eastern Question 
 for ever. I would ask you whether what I suggest is just or 
 reasonable ? ' Oh, but,' many men will say, ' we have no- 
 thing to do with what is just and reasonable.' I had a 
 pamphlet sent me the other day, evidently from a man who 
 considers himself a great authority, and it stated that it had 
 gone through three editions. It says : ' What you call right, 
 national right, is national force. There is no such thing as 
 national right ; it is a question purely of price.' And some man 
 commenting on the speech I made the other day at Llandudno, 
 said it was all very well for a moralist, but it had very little 
 to do with statesmanship. For my part, I have no wish to be a 
 partner in any statesmanship which is dissociated from morals. 
 But I should like to ask you whether, if this thing be just and 
 
312 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 4, 
 
 reasonable from the view of morality, it is likely that we can 
 sustain the existing state of things ? If Turkey has suffered 
 from this advancing paralysis for twenty years past, do you 
 think that she will recover from it in the twenty years to come ? 
 Does not every man know that Russia is continously advanc- 
 ing on the path of civilisation ? There are glimpses even in 
 that despotic country of the approach of freedom to which 
 Russia has heretofore been unaccustomed, and we may rely 
 upon it that, whilst Turkey is constantly diminishing in 
 force, and Russia is constantly advancing, the time will come 
 —it may be ten years hence, or twenty years hence, and you 
 may have a war now and a war then, but it is written in 
 the book of fate, and no man can reverse it, that these pas- 
 sages will ultimately, and that not remotely, be open to all 
 the nations of the world. 
 
 And now let me ask you what other nations think of our 
 conduct in this matter. At this moment we have no promise 
 of assistance in any course we take that leads to war from our 
 next neighbours, the French. In 1 854 France went into the war 
 with Russia along with this country, not because France cared 
 one farthing about the question, but Louis Napoleon thought 
 it was of great interest to his dynasty to associate himself 
 with England in a great politiej^l transaction in Europe. At 
 this moment — well, I ought to have said I do not know 
 whether at this moment, for I see it is announced to-day that 
 there is a resignation of the French Ministry, but I speak of 
 it as if it still existed — at this moment France has — at least 
 it is to my mind — the most intelligent and the most honour- 
 able Government that I have known since I have been 
 accustomed to study French affairs. At the head of the 
 Republic is a man in whom all men trust, and that is a great 
 thing for the head of a State. I will not draw any com- 
 parisons between the head of the French Republic and the 
 head of the Administration in this country. Our true head 
 of the State, I need not say, is as trustworthy as the head of 
 
1876. XIX. BIRMINGHAM. 313 
 
 tlie French Republic, or as the head of any Government or 
 State of which we have any record in history. But the 
 Due Decazes, the French Foreign Minister, since he has 
 been in office, has conducted his department with a modera- 
 tion, a wisdom, and a sense of justice, I think, which could 
 not be excelled. But the French Government will take no 
 part with us in the pretensions which we may make about 
 this great question. Italy in 1854 — then the kingdom of 
 Sardinia — it was before a united Italy existed — Italy went 
 into that same war with us; but why? For a reason — I 
 will not say that it was a sound one, and I will not say that it 
 was not something which, to many minds, was justified by its 
 results; but I heard from the lips of Count Cavour, who was then 
 minister of the Sardinian kingdom, that they went into that war 
 because it was greatly to their interest to associate themselves 
 with England and France, from whom they expected in the 
 future some corresponding advantages. Germany, as you 
 know from the papers of the last day or two, is neutral in this 
 matter. We are one of the historic allies and friends of 
 Germany. Germany is Protestant as we are, and that has 
 something to do with our sympathy with Germany; and, 
 though we are all, I hope, in favour of as much religious 
 freedom as we can get, and as we can bear, still I believe 
 that the fact of the Protestantism of Germany makes the 
 alliance between England and Germany more likely and more 
 permanently secure. Then there is Austria. Austria has 
 great difficulties of her own. I have a great sympathy with 
 Austria, because for some years past she has made rapid and 
 remarkable strides in improved and constitutional government. 
 But Austria has no intention whatsoever of going into this 
 war on the grounds whereon we have been supposed to be 
 likely to go into it. The fe,ct is they have no interest in our 
 pretensions, and they do not feel sympathy with our demands, 
 and what I shall call our presumption, with regard to the 
 mediation. They have no interest in a perpetual blockade 
 
314 ADDRESS S OF JOEN BRIGHT. dec. 4, 
 
 of Bussia in the Black Sea ; they have no interest in dooming 
 vast regions under Turkish rule to a perpetual desolation, and 
 I believe they have none whatever in the question now dis- 
 turbing Europe that would induce them to go to war. Now, 
 I believe our true interest is no greater than theirs, and we 
 have only to examine this question, to take the map of 
 Europe, to look at the Black Sea, to look at the position of 
 Constantinople, to look at the mouth of the Canal, to look at 
 the state of the Baltic, to see how many fleets there are 
 already in the Mediterranean, and that the addition of one 
 small fleet more can make very little difference ; and under 
 these circumstances we shall come to the conclusion that 
 we have no interest whatsoever in the turmoil that has 
 been created, and that, unless we can in conjunction with 
 Kussia urge upon Turkey such reforms as are necessary, 
 our duty is to stand aside, and to leave the neighbouring 
 nations, and Turkey and Russia especially, to do what- 
 ever seems possible, and whatever they may think best 
 to do. 
 
 I do not in any case, as you know, stand forward as a 
 defender of those sanguinary struggles which continually, or 
 at times, take place amongst the nations ; but I know not 
 how in some cases they are to be avoided. There can be no 
 arbitration unless the parties to the dispute are willing. 
 There can be no arbitration between such a Government as 
 that which reigns at Constantinople and the suffering people 
 of whom we have lately heard so much. I only take con- 
 solation in the fact, viewing all these tremendous scenes and 
 frightful sufferings — 
 
 *That God from evil still educes good; 
 Sublime events are rushing to their birth. 
 Lo! tyrants by their victims are withstood. 
 And freedom's se^d still grows, though steeped in blood.* 
 
 Let us hope, let us pray, that the efforts that are being made, 
 
1876. XIX. BIRMINGHAM. 315 
 
 efforts that I believe are being* made as sincerely by the 
 Emperor of Russia as by the Government of this country — let 
 us hope that those efforts may be crowned with success, and 
 that the storm which has been created and which threatens 
 to rage around us may be put an end to, and that tranquillity 
 may again speedily prevail. Our Government has sent a 
 special messenger to Constantinople. Lord Salisbury is a 
 man of whom a good deal may be said against, and a good 
 deal might honestly be said in his favour. Perhaps that is 
 true of most of us. But, with regard to his policy at home, 
 I think I have observed in it for many years — and I have 
 watched him and sat with him for many years in the House 
 of Commons — what I should call a haughty unwisdom that 
 is unfortunate and mischievous. On the other hand — I have 
 seen in his conduct as Minister for India a great liberality 
 and disposition to do that which he believes to be just. 
 I can only hope that he leaves his unwisdom for home con- 
 sumption, and that when he arrives in Constantinople his 
 liberality, justice, and his strong intellect will have fair 
 play, and I hope he will do his country the highest ser- 
 vice and himself the highest honour by the duty he has 
 undertaken. 
 
 But the special ambassador has been to Paris, to Berlin, 
 to Vienna, and to Rome. He has seen the Due Decazes ; 
 he has seen Prince Bismarck ; he has seen Count Andrassy ; 
 he has seen Signor Melegara at Rome ; and they have heard 
 what he has to say. If he has been seeking for allies and 
 sympathisers, I suspect by this time he knows that he has 
 failed to find them. If he will act upon his own strong sense 
 he may do us great good. If he acts as the subservient 
 representative of his chief— judging his chief by his own 
 language — then I think he may do us a very serious ill. 
 Conferences are not always certain to lead to peace. In 1853, 
 before the Crimean War, there was a Conference at Vienna 
 held in August, and the Powers assembled were England, 
 
316 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 4, 
 
 Prance, Austria, and Prussia, to settle the dispute between 
 Russia and Turkey, and they agreed to a note, to an award, 
 to a piece of advice, which became historic and celebrated as 
 the Vienna Note. That Vienna Note was sent to Russia, 
 and the Emperor accepted it pure and simple. It was sent 
 to Turkey, and the Turk refused it. It was said, and said 
 I believe most untruly, that the Emperor accepted the Note 
 in a sense not intended by those who had drawn it. Well, 
 our Cabinet at that time contained no less than five members 
 who had filled the office of Foreign Secretary, and others who 
 ought to be well acquainted with diplomatic language of that 
 kind ; and what happened after all ? Turkey had been so 
 inflated and so excited by the fact that two big brothers, 
 France and England, were ready to come to her assistance, 
 that Turkey declared war against Russia, and then England 
 and France went into the war fighting on the side of the 
 Turk, who had rejected their advice and award, and against 
 the Emperor of Russia, who had distinctly and simply ac- 
 cepted it. A Conference, then, does not mean certainly peace 
 — I wish it did ; but if the Conference be not absolutely to 
 be relied upon, what have we to rely upon ? 
 
 We have two things that are very important to consider, 
 and they are the only two other points to which I will ask 
 your attention for a few moments. England, in this matter 
 has no ally. She had France and Sardinia in 1854, and, of 
 course, the Turk ; and now, if she went to war with Russia, 
 of course Turkey would be our ally. But we have no other 
 ally, and I do not see, myself, how England can carry on a 
 Continental war without an ally. We have been to France ; 
 but France says * no.' We have been to Italy, and Italy says 
 * no.' We have been to Germany and to Austria, and they 
 say ' no.' Our cause, in their eyes, is not so just and so 
 important, or it is not one in which they have so great an 
 interest as to induce them to lend us their sympathy or to 
 give us their support. Therefore, I look upon it that boasting 
 
1876. XIX, BIRMINGHAM. 317 
 
 at the Guildhall of how many campaigns we can bear before 
 we are exhausted, before the working men of England are in 
 the condition that they were in during the great wars in past 
 times — all that sort of boasting is greatly out of place. The 
 Prime Minister may be a great actor ; but it seems to me 
 that he plays always for the galleries. But we have some- 
 thing better to rely on than this, and that is on the better 
 knowledge of our people. The policy of. 1854, as I have 
 described it, is the policy of the Government now — a policy 
 which would lead us into war on behalf of Turkey and against 
 the Empire of Russia. We have had experience. Shall we 
 profit by it or not ? 
 
 I think I once quoted in this hall, or in some public 
 speech, a passage from the writings of an eminent French- 
 man, historian, and statesman, the late M. Guizot, which is 
 worth remembering. He says : * The people who can under- 
 stand and act upon the counsel which God has given it in 
 the past events of its history is safe in the most dangerous 
 crisis of its fate.' Well, are we not now full of the experi- 
 ence of the war of 1 854 ? If it were necessary, I could quote 
 authorities, one after another, who are strongly in favour of 
 the view which I am taking. The late Lord Aberdeen was 
 Prime Minister when that war was undertaken, and to the 
 last hour of his life probably there was no one event of his 
 life which he so greatly regretted. Sir James Graham, one 
 of the most capable men in that Ministry, First Lord of the 
 Admiralty during that war, said to me in the most frank 
 manner, ' You were entirely right, and we were entirely 
 wrong.* I might quote you the opinions, in his later years, 
 of Lord John Russell, who was a member of that Govern- 
 ment, and who, in writing since, has endeavoured to show 
 how impolitic that war was, and how it might have been 
 avoided. I might quote Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who 
 was the minister at Constantinople at that time, and who 
 himself then, unless he is very much belied, held with 
 
818 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 4, 
 
 enthusiasm for the Turk. You have read some of his letters, 
 probably, in the Times, during the last few months. You 
 see how he entirely gives up the whole of the policy which he 
 supported at that time. I might take you to the opinion 
 of one whose opinion the more I reflect upon it, the more I 
 value it, the opinion of my lamented friend, Mr. Cobden. 
 You know that he was at one with me in our objection to 
 that war. But if you want to know how he came to that 
 opinion, how he argued it, what reason he had for it, I must 
 commend you to turn back to two of the remarkable pam- 
 phlets which he wrote and published about forty years ago. 
 In a pamphlet which he published in 1835, entitled 'Eng- 
 land, Ireland, and America,' there is this passage. He says : 
 * "We have no hesitation in avowing it as our deliberate con- 
 viction, that not merely Great Britain, but the entire civilised 
 world, will have reason to congratulate themselves the moment 
 when that territory (that is, Turkey in Europe) again falls 
 beneath the sceptre of any other European Power. Whatever 
 ages must elapse before this, this favoured region will become, 
 as it is by nature designed to become, the seat and centre of 
 commerce, civilisation, and true religion. But the first step 
 towards this consummation must be to convert Constanti- 
 nople again into that which every lover of humanity and 
 peace longs to behold it, the capital of a Christian people.' 
 I have been so impressed during the last few weeks by read- 
 ing over again those pamphlets — pamphlets published when 
 Mr. Cobden was unknown to the public, when he was carry- 
 ing on his business in Manchester, when he was only thirty or 
 thirty-two years of age — pamphlets which I will venture to say 
 have nothing to surpass them in the whole political pamphlet 
 literature of this country — I have been so impressed with them 
 that I have taken steps along with some of my friends, to 
 have the one published in 1836, entitled 'Russia, Turkey, and 
 England,' reprinted, and I believe in the course of some 
 day this week it will be offered for sale, probably, at all the 
 
1876. XIX, BIRMINGHAM, 319 
 
 railway bookstalls and at every othei* shop which has cus- 
 tomers likely to require it. If I may advise the people of 
 England, now with an experience of forty years, and with 
 the experience of the war in the Crimea, I cannot point to 
 anytliing in the whole of our political history that will be 
 so healthful and useful for them to read as the pamphletft 
 to which I have referred. 
 
 One other appeal I must make to you. In this country — 
 thanks to what our forefathers have done, and thanks to some 
 things which we have done — we enjoy a large measure of 
 freedom : there is room for it to grow and become still 
 larger ; but it is large, and we enjoy it, and I trust we are 
 thankful for it. We are also, as I have aforetime said, in 
 some sense the mother of free nations. We have planted great 
 nations, free as ourselves, on the Continent of America, where 
 they have grown and become great ; we have planted them 
 in Australia, and they are gradually becoming great ; we are 
 planting them in South Africa. Our language, which has 
 become the language of freedom in all the world, is gradually 
 making its way amongst all the educated classes in India, 
 and the time will come, and I trust it is not very remote, 
 when there may be some kind of free institutions established 
 in that country. The lovers of freedom everywhere look to 
 us, the oppressed everywhere turn their eyes to us and ask 
 for sympathy and wish for help. They feel that they may 
 make this claim upon us, and we, a free people, not only do 
 not deny it, but we freely acknowledge it. Well, I put to 
 you a solemn question, a question which you must answer to 
 heaven, and to j^our children, and to your posterity. Shall 
 England, shall the might of England again be put forth to 
 sustain so foul a tyranny as that which rules in Constanti- 
 nople? a tyranny which is drying up realms to deserts, a 
 tyranny which throughout all its wide range of influence has 
 blasted for centuries past with its withering breath all that 
 is lovely and beautiful in nature and all that is noble and 
 
320 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, 
 
 exalted in man. I ask you, Mr. Chairman, I ask this meet- 
 ing of my fellow-countrymen, I ask every man in the three 
 kingdoms — and in this case I need not ask woman — what 
 shall be the answer given to this question? And I dare 
 undertake to say there can be only one unanimous answer 
 from the generous heart of the English people. 
 
 ->K- 
 
XX. 
 
 ROCHDALE, JANUARY 2, 1877. 
 
 [On this day, Mr. Bright having been invited to be present at the Anniversary 
 of the Rochdale Working Men's Club, and to deliver them an address, con- 
 sented to do so. It was a peculiarity of this Club that it was entirely self- 
 supporting, and independent of the patronage of richer pereons. Mr. Bright 
 took occasion to show what had been the material progress of the country 
 during the thirty years preceding the time of his address.] 
 
 I KNOW not how to thank you for the kindness with which 
 you have greeted me. It shows that the gentlemen who 
 waited upon me two or three weeks ago to invite me to this 
 meeting did not mislead me. They said it was many years — 
 I am told that it is ten years at least — since I was permitted 
 to speak in public before my fellow-townsmen, and that they 
 thought it would give pleasure to the members of the club, 
 and to others who might attend this meeting, if I were to be 
 present at it, and take part in its proceedings. I presume 
 they were not mistaken in that. I have received a greeting 
 which is the more pleasant to me because it comes from 
 those I have known longest, and it is one which I am not 
 likely to forget. 
 
 Our Chairman has entered a little into the details of the 
 institution on whose account we are assembled to-night. 
 The members of the committee who called upon me gave me 
 much information with regard to the Workmen's Club, 
 
322 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 2, 
 
 They convinced me that the object they had in view was 
 undoubtedly good. They showed me that the attractions 
 which the club offered to its members were innocent attrac- 
 tions ; they showed me, also, that the associations connected 
 with it are such as do not corrupt, and that amusement and 
 instruction are blended in such a manner as to make the 
 club very pleasant to those who are members of it. They 
 informed me, further, that they had, or were gradually 
 accumulating something of a library; that they had a fair 
 supply of newspapers ; that they had occasionally, indeed 
 frequently, lectures in their largest room ; and that they had 
 also discussions carried on with great freedom and great 
 charity, such as were likely to greatly aid in promoting the 
 knowledge of affairs and developing intelligence amongst the 
 members of the club ; and they referred to that point to 
 which our Chairman has referred — that they had attempted 
 to establish an institution which, whilst it did not absolutely 
 banish intoxicating liquors from it, is so arranged that it 
 is free from the most — what shall I call it ? — the most 
 dangerous of the temptations which are to be found in public- 
 houses. 
 
 I daresay you have heard something of a system of public- 
 houses which exists in Sweden, and especially in the town of 
 Gothenburg. My honourable friend and colleague, Mr. 
 Chamberlain, one of the members for Birmingham, in an 
 admirable speech a few weeks ago, explained that system. 
 He has visited Sweden, has seen it in operation, and could 
 tell us and did tell us much that was worth hearing about it. 
 But the Gothenburg system is good in this particular 
 especially, that the persons who manage the public-houses 
 have no interest in promoting the sale of intoxicating liquor, 
 and that therefore they do not encourage those who attend 
 the houses to drink ; and the man who goes in and drinks a 
 glass of water, or a cup of coffee or tea, or drinks nothing at 
 all, is just as welcome as the man who drinks a great deal of 
 
1677. XX ROCHDALE. 323 
 
 what is intoxicating ; and the result is supposed to be, and 
 really is, that men drink very much less in those houses 
 than they are accustomed to drink in public-houses, where 
 the landlord has the greatest interest in promoting the sale 
 of his liquors, and in having customers who drink as much 
 as they can carry away with them. 
 
 But when the committee called upon me they referred to 
 another point, and in a letter which Mr. Glaisher, who has 
 read the report, wrote to me a week ago, he referred to it as 
 one of great importance. He said that this club has an 
 advantage which the Gothenburg system has not. It has 
 what the Gothenburg has, but it has something more. It 
 does not urge its members to drink, it is glad when they do 
 not drink. The manager or steward has no interest in their 
 drinking what will intoxicate. But beyond that there is 
 another force in favour of temperance, and that is the public 
 opinion of the club. All the members of this club are not 
 known to each other, but a great number of them are known 
 to each other. They meet here on some night or nights in 
 the week, and the club becomes an association, a sort of 
 femily. There is an opinion amongst its members, and it 
 follows that the more respectable, the less disposed to drink, 
 the people who are highest in culture and character amongst 
 them, necessarily influence the opinion and practice of the 
 rest ; and thus there grows up in the club an opinion which 
 makes drinking degrading and odious, and suggests modera- 
 tion and temperance in all men. 
 
 You know what opinion does amongst us all. Whatever 
 we are that is good we owe in great measure to the opinion 
 of those with whom we associate. There was a time in this 
 country when men used to kill each other in duels. The 
 slightest quarrel might happen between me and some one on 
 this platform at this meeting — a foolish or a hot word might 
 have led to-morrow morning to an encounter which might 
 have been fatal to one or both of the parties. But now all 
 
 Y 2, 
 
324 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 2. 
 
 that — which was a general practice sixty to a hundred years 
 ago — is absolutely abolished, and a man would be considered 
 little better than a murderer who proposed to go out into the 
 next field and shoot the man who, only the day before 
 yesterday, was his friend^ because of some hot word that 
 had been uttered in conversation. Public opinion has put 
 down duelling. Public opinion perhaps may put down 
 intemperance. I hope the public opinion of the club may 
 have this effect : That it may gradually convince all the 
 members of the club that the club would be infinitely better 
 if nobody got drunk, if nobody ever took drink, if all its 
 members were moderate in the highest degree, or abstinent in 
 the highest degree ; and that this opinion may grow 
 and may do that which the Gothenburg system is not 
 competent to do, although it may do great good; it will 
 bring to bear the force of public opinion, which is often more 
 powerful than law, and change the habits, the low and 
 degrading habits, which I am sorry to say are not absolutely 
 unfrequent amongst any class of our population in regard to the 
 consumption of intoxicating drinks. I myself, as many here 
 know, am not in the habit of using these liquors at all. But 
 I am not in favour, any more than our Chairman, of a law 
 which shall say that no man shall partake of any of these 
 articles. I believe there are things which legislation can do 
 — first of all, to keep much better order in public-houses 
 than is now kept; and, secondly, to lessen the temptations 
 which are ofiered, not to working-men alone, but to all men, 
 to take more drink than they ought to take, and sink into 
 habits of intoxication and vice. Even when all that legisla- 
 tion can do is done, I would rely upon reason and experience 
 for carrying the reform still further. I believe, so far as I 
 can understand the working of this club, that it tends in that 
 direction; and therefore I think that I am not out of place 
 in being here to-night to say a few words in its behalf. 
 
 I was told a fact which I did not observe in the report — 
 
1877. XX. ROCHDALE. 325 
 
 that the average consumption of spirits, wine, and beer in this 
 club per week by the members who attend is about 3^. or '^\d, 
 per individual. It occurred to me when I went through the 
 club-house, and I have thought of it since, that if the members 
 of the club could diminish that average by one half, and still 
 more, if at some future time they could abolish it altogether, 
 and make the cost of it a contribution to the service of the 
 club, they could have a house twice or three times as large, 
 ten times more convenient and agreeable, and infinitely more 
 likely to do great service to the thousand, and I hope then 
 possibly it might be the two thousand, members of which it 
 might be composed. I mention this, not as finding fault in 
 the least, but merely throwing it out to the members of the 
 club as a suggestion as to what may be done to extend their 
 operations, to give greater influence to their association, and 
 to make the club not only a great source of good but a real 
 honour to the town with which we are connected. 
 
 Now we will go away from the club for a time. I am 
 not come here for the purpose of lecturing you or preaching 
 to you. I agree very much with an observation that I met 
 with the other day in a lecture by Mr. Ruskin — that there is 
 a good deal of the patronising style practised when men come 
 forward to address any of the labouring classes, or the work- 
 men, such as are members of this club. I should like to read 
 you an extract from one of his lectures to explain what I 
 mean. Mr. Ruskin is a great critic. He is a man who 
 writes beautifully ; he says a great many things that are 
 worth being remembered, and I must say — I hope he will 
 forgive me — he says a great many things that ought to be 
 forgotten. Well, Mr. Ruskin on a subject like this says :— 
 
 * Nothing appears to me at once more ludicrous and more melancholy than 
 the way people in the present day talk about the morals of labourers. You 
 hardly ever address the working-man upon his prospects in life without quietly 
 assuming that he is to possess at starting, as a small moral capital to begin 
 with, the virtue of Socrates, the philosophy of Plato, and the heroism of 
 Epaminondas.' 
 
326 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 2, 
 
 Now, these were amongst the very greatest of the men of 
 ancient Greece, and I think anybody who expects that is a 
 little unfair. He says : — 
 
 * Be assured, my good man, you say to him, if you work steadily for ten 
 hours a-day all your life long, and if you drink nothing but water, or the very 
 mildest beer, and live on very plain food, and never lose your temper, and go 
 to church every Sunday, and always remain content in that position which 
 Providence has placed you, and never grumble nor swear, and always keep your 
 clothes decent, and rise early, and use every opi)ortunity of improving yourself, 
 you will get on very well, and you will never come to the parish.* 
 
 I shall not follow the methods which Mr. Ruskin so amus- 
 ingly condemns. What I am here for to-night is rather 
 to enter into counsel with you than to lecture or to preach 
 to you, and I want to speak to you on points about which 
 working-men are very often forgetful. 
 
 Many of them — the younger generation no doubt — are 
 very ignorant about the change in the working-man's con- 
 dition during the generation with which I have been con- 
 nected, I mean during the last forty years. I venture to say 
 that there can scarcely be anything more worth while a 
 working-man's examining and comprehending than the change 
 which has taken place in the condition of his class. When 
 you speak of a working-man, you mean of course a man who 
 is accustomed regularly to some useful employment or work. 
 To be a man at all he must have food, and to be a healthy 
 man one would say that it was necessary he should have 
 a free market for the purchase of his food. To be a working- 
 man he must have materials with which to work, and it 
 would seem reasonable that he should have a free market 
 for the purchase of materials. More than that, as far - as 
 possible, he should have a free market for the sale of his 
 materials. A great many people in this country — I hope 
 a diminishing number — think that because other countries 
 do not allow us to send our goods into their market free of 
 duty, therefore we should not allow them to send their goods 
 to this market free of duty. They think two bad things are 
 
1877. XX. ROCHDALE. 327 
 
 better than one. They remind me very much of what it 
 would be if a man had got a sound box on one side of his 
 head and he was to go about complaining that nobody gave 
 him another sound box on the other side. 
 
 Now, we will go back for a period which I remember very 
 well, and which many in this meeting must remember. We 
 will go back to the year 1840. At that time there was great 
 distress in the country. The duties upon goods coming into 
 this country were almost beyond counting. I believe there 
 were at least 1,200 articles on which, by the law of England, 
 taxes were levied when the goods came into Liverpool, or 
 London, or Hull, or Glasgow, or any other of the ports of 
 the kingdom. Everything was taxed, and everything was 
 limited and restricted. Even bread, the common food of the 
 people, was taxed, almost more highly than anything else. 
 Now, you may imagine — nay, you cannot imagine— but you 
 may try to imagine in what kind of fetters all our industry 
 was chained at that time. And you may try to imagine, 
 but now in this day you cannot imagine, what was the 
 amount of pauperism, suffering, and abject misery perpetually 
 prevailing among the great body of the working-classes in 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 I shall only refer to two articles, and from them you may 
 learn what was the state of things with regard to others. 
 I shall ask your attention to two articles only, those of corn 
 and sugar. Up to the year 1846, that is, just thirty years 
 ago — everybody who is fifty years of age ought to remember 
 all about it very well — up to 1846 corn was in reality pro- 
 hibited from coming to this country from abroad, until our 
 own prices had risen so high by reason of a deficient harvest 
 that people began to complain and began to starve, and it 
 was let in at these very high prices in order in some degree 
 to mitigate starvation, and to make famine less unsafe. 
 Now, what was the quantity of com which came in last year ? 
 I mean in the year ending last September. It was some- 
 
328 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 2, 
 
 thing perfectly astounding. It is very difficult to make 
 anybody understand what I am going to say — but you know 
 what is meant in workshop language by a fifty-six, a weight 
 which takes a strong person to lift, and two of which take 
 a very strong man to lift. Two of these weights are one cwt. 
 Well, last year, between September, 1875, and September, 
 1876, there came to the ports of this country for the con- 
 sumption of the people of the United Kingdom 118,000,000 
 cwts. of articles of food, which were mainly prohibited 
 under the law as it existed up to 1846. That amount 
 in cwts. comes to 29,000,000 of quarters. These are some 
 of the particulars of it. Wheat alone, 53,000,000 cwt. ; 
 flour, 6,000,000 cwt. ; Indian corn, 34,000,000 cwt. ; barley, 
 8,000,000 cwt. ; oats, 11,000,000 cwt.; peas 1,500^000 cwt.; 
 altogether 118,000,00^ cwt., or 29,000,000 quarters. This 
 is a quantity of which we can have no kind of conception. 
 It is like telling us how far it is to the sun. We cannot 
 form any notion of it. Now, you must remember — it will not 
 want much argument to show you — that at that time, 40 
 years ago, markets were badly supplied and prices were very 
 high. People that were well off had their tables as well 
 furnished as now. Their loaf never dwindled and became less. 
 They were always well fed, plump in the cheeks, living many 
 of them sufficiently and most of them luxuriously. The 
 suffering was amongst the wages class. Misery most abject, 
 a permanent condition of starvation, all the consequences of 
 this dreadful system, pressed with more and more weight as 
 it came more and more down to the very humblest and very 
 poorest of the people. Well, what was it all done for ? It 
 was done under the pretence that it was necessary for the 
 protection of all our great agricultural interests. They did 
 not say much about the rents of landlords, because the land- 
 lords had passed the law, but the landlords' rents were the 
 first consideration. The second was the prosperity of the 
 farmers. These Com Laws were necessary in order that 
 
1877. XX. ROCHDALE, 329 
 
 they might be able to pay good rents. And sometimes they 
 even ventured to speak about the agricultural labourer, 
 although it was well known then and is well known now 
 that the agricultural labourer, under the influence of this 
 law, was in the most miserable condition of any of the various 
 classes of labourers into which the working-class population 
 of the country can be divided. 
 
 But that law destroyed your trade. You could not receive 
 corn from abroad, and your foreign customers, therefore, could 
 not buy from you, and whilst it raised the price of your 
 food it diminished the demand for your labour, and, as a 
 matter of course, lessened the wages you received for your 
 labour. Now I venture to say here — and one may say it 
 thirty years after the event ; one may now say things which 
 would have been probably hurtful to the feelings of some of 
 those who supported that law — in my opinion there is not on 
 the record of any other people at any time, much less of 
 any civilised and professedly Christian people, so astounding 
 a crime against the security of the Government itself, and 
 against the population it was called upon to rule, as the Corn 
 Law of 1 815, passed by the Imperial Parliament of this 
 country. If you could turn back to a year of abundant 
 harvests and low prices, like 1836, and then turn to the 
 years 1840 and 1841, when the harvests had been bad, and 
 when food was dear, you would find three things that would 
 appal you. First of all, that as prices were rising, as the 
 harvest failed, pauperism throughout the whole of the country 
 — amongst the manufacturing population, amongst the farm- 
 labourers — was constantly and steadily increasing, and not 
 only that, but that crime, and every kind of crime, was 
 increasing just about at the same rate. 
 
 It was in these times that Ebenezer Elliott, the Shefiield 
 poet — the Corn-law Rhymer — wrote his burning and scathing 
 condemnation of this law. Many of you here are no doubt 
 weavers employed in the cotton or woollen trade of this town, 
 
330 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 2, 
 
 and have read the touching" lines in which he is showing* 
 how the Com Law is striking here and there almost every- 
 body, blasting his prosperity and his hopes, and condemning 
 him and his family to daily suffering. He turns at last to 
 the weaver, and he says : — 
 
 * Bread-taxed weaver, all may see 
 What that tax hath done for thee, 
 And thy children vilely led. 
 Singing hymns for shameful bread. 
 Till the stones of every street 
 Know their little naked feet/ 
 
 And then looking upon the growth of crime, the conspiracies 
 that were constantly afloat, the insurrections which were 
 looked towards by people as a relief, he then addresses the 
 ancient monarchy of his country. He says : — 
 
 *What shall bread tax do for thee 
 Venerable monarchy? 
 Dreams of evil spare my sight; 
 Let that horror rest in night/ 
 
 He knew, and everybody knew who comprehended the cha- 
 racter and operation of that law, that if it should continue 
 to afflict the people as it did through thirty years of its 
 existence, there was no institution in this country, not even 
 its venerable monarchy, that could stand the strain that that 
 law would bring to bear upon it. But there was another 
 fact shown by the figures of that time — that not only pauperism 
 increased, and crime increased, but mortality increased. 
 Strong men and women were stricken down by the law, but 
 the aged and little children were its constant and most 
 numerous victims. I recollect, in one of those fine speeches 
 which the late Mr. Fox — I mean Mr. Fox who for many years, 
 as you recollect, and not long ago, was one of the repre- 
 sentatives of the neighbouring town of Oldham — T recollect 
 an observation, or a passage in a speech of Mr. Fox, spoken, 
 I think, from the boards of Covent Garden Theatre, at one 
 
-1877. XX. ROCHDALE. 331 
 
 of our great meetings, where he said, referring to the mor- 
 tality among the people, and the death-rate rapidly increasing 
 when the harvest failed, and when foreign food was pro- 
 hibited, ' The Corn Law is the harvest of Death as well as of 
 the landowner, and Monopoly says to Corruption, " Thou art 
 my brother."' 
 
 Under the Government of Sir Robert Peel, in 1846, the 
 law was repealed, and three years afterwards — in 1849 — all 
 the duties on these articles were taken off, except a shilling 
 per quarter, which has been more recently abolished. Since 
 this happened there has been no fall of rents throughout 
 the kingdom. In point of fact the prosperity of the country 
 has been so increased that the rent of land throughout the 
 country is now higher than it was when that Corn Law 
 was in existence, and the farmers, who were always com- 
 plaining during the existence of that law, have scarcely 
 ever been heard to complain in the least since it was 
 abolished. They complained for a year or two because 
 they had been greatly frightened, but there has never been, 
 I will say, within the last hundred years a period when the 
 farmers of this country have made less complaint to the public 
 or to Parliament than they have during the last thirty years 
 since the law for their protection was abolished. And what 
 happened to the labourer? The wages of farm- labourers have 
 risen on the whole much more, I believe, than fifty per cent, 
 throughout the whole country; and in some counties and 
 districts, I believe, the farm-labourer at this moment is 
 receiving double the wages he was when this law was in 
 existence. We ought to learn from this what a grand 
 thing it is to establish our laws upon a basis of free- 
 dom and justice. It blesses him who gives and him who 
 takes. It has blessed all our manufacturing districts with a 
 steadiness of employment and an abundance they never knew 
 before, and it has blessed not less the very class who in 
 their dark error and blindness thought that they could have 
 
832 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 2, 
 
 profited by that which was so unjust, so cruel to the bulk 
 of their countrymen. 
 
 Now we' will just turn for a moment to the article of sugar 
 — these are the great articles of consumption, and therefore I 
 deal with them. The sugar that supplied this country up to a 
 period a little after that when the Corn Laws were abolished 
 came mainly from the West Indies. A good deal came 
 from the East Indies, but I will refer now chiefly to the 
 West Indian colonies, Jamaica, Barbadoes, Antigua, and 
 others. A little before that time, between forty and fifty 
 years ago, the planters of the West Indies were in a very 
 peculiar condition. In the first place they cultivated the 
 sugar-cane by slave labour; they therefore stole the labour 
 by which they grew their crops. No doubt they kept their 
 negroes barely alive, but they paid no wages as we are 
 accustomed to consider wages. But they were not satisfied 
 with stealing the labour with which they grew their crops. 
 They asked the Parliament of this country to give them 
 almost the exclusive use of the English market, so that they 
 might sell their sugar here at a price much higher than they 
 could get in any of the other markets of the world. And 
 many of these planters being people of importance and 
 influence in this country and associated with our land pro- 
 prietors, and our land proprietors being in the same boat with 
 regard to bread, of course it was only natural that they should 
 be as kind to the West Indian planters at our expense as they 
 had been to themselves ; and thus, in addition to the curse of 
 a corn monopoly, you had the curse, a diminished, but still a 
 curse, of a monopoly of sugar. What was the result ? I will 
 take the year 1840. In that year this country imported from 
 abroad 4,000,000 cwt. of sugar, which cost 9,000,000^. Now 
 what do we import? Last year — I mean the year ended 
 in September — we imported 16,000,000 cwt., that is four 
 times the quantity we imported in 1840. But what did it 
 cost ? It did not cost four times as much as in 1 840. It 
 
1877. XX. ROCHDALE. 333 
 
 did not cost half as much, but instead of costing 9,000,000/., 
 as the 4,000,000 cwt. did, it cost 17,000,000/. If the 
 sugar we imported last year had been imported at the same 
 price, the monopoly price, as in 1840, the 16,000,000 cwt. 
 would have cost us 36,000,000/. instead of the 17,000,000/. 
 which it actually did cost. You see, therefore, that the 
 abolition of the protection upon sugar has just had the 
 same effect in degree that it had upon corn. The quantity 
 imported has been enormously increased, and the price has 
 been to an extraordinary degree diminished. 
 
 There are many ladies in this meeting who know — and I dare 
 say there are a great many husbands who know, too, as much 
 about these things as their wives — that sugar has lately risen 
 within the last few months, but till then it has been about as 
 cheap as flour. I recollect, at a meeting held in Surrey during 
 our agitation thirty years ago, that a gentleman stood up and 
 made a speech. He was a stranger. He stated that he was 
 well acquainted with sugar-growing in various parts of the 
 world, and said, *If you abolish the protection on sugar, 
 sugar will be as cheap as turnips.' It has not, I believe, been 
 as cheap as turnips, but it has been so cheap that it must 
 have added greatly to the comfort of families, and to the ease 
 with which many other things, fruit and so on, are made palat- 
 able, especially to children in families. But what has been 
 the effect, with regard to this sugar question, to those people 
 whose protection we took away? The colonies have been 
 on the whole more prosperous since than they were before. 
 We never have any petitions to Parliament now stating what 
 distress the planters in the colonies are in — freedom has had 
 just the same effect with regard to sugar that it had with 
 regard to corn. It has blessed us in our families in furnishing 
 this great article of food at a moderate and reasonable price. 
 I believe it has not been of the smallest evil to the bulk of 
 the population in the sugar-growing colonies. 
 
 Now having done with the question of imports, I must 
 
334 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 3ls.2, 
 
 just ask you to look at this matter from another side. You 
 ail of you know that if 1 18,000,000 cwt. of grain of one kind 
 and another, and if 16,000,000 cwt. of raw sugar — for I have 
 not dealt with refined sugar, and there is a large quantity of 
 that — if all these quantities come into this country — they are 
 coming now from many parts all over the world — somebody 
 must pay for them. You buy your sugar in the shop, and 
 the shopkeeper buys it from the wholesale dealer in London 
 or Liverpool, and he brings it from abroad, and payment is 
 made in the articles which the industrious and intelligent 
 workmen of England make, which find employment for all 
 your mills and manufactories of every kind. What they 
 make is sent out abroad to pay for those articles. What 
 must necessarily be the result? That there must be an 
 enormously increased demand for the labour of the workmen ; 
 and there has been that demand as you all know. I recollect 
 the time very well when every Monday morning there would 
 be from ten to twenty men and women coming to any factory 
 in this neighbourhood, and asking if there was a place open 
 for them, and wanting to be employed. That sort of thing 
 has been entirely changed. I wish that weaver were living 
 now who, when before a Parliamentary Commitee, some forty 
 years ago, said he always noticed that if there were two men 
 running after one master, wages always seemed as if they 
 were inclined to go down ; but when there were two masters 
 running after one man, he always noticed that wages were 
 inclined to go up. That was a sensible weaver, an observant 
 weaver; but there were many men in both Houses of Par- 
 liament forty years ago who did not understand so very 
 simple a proposition as that ; and it took about seven years' 
 lecturing and preaching and arguing before we could get it 
 into their — I will say their very dull heads. But now if you 
 look all over the country, I think you will see, all of you — 
 I mean every man of fifty years of age, and every woman of 
 that age, will see — that there has been a great improvement 
 
1877. XX. ROCHDALE. 336 
 
 in the conditiou of what I call the wages class, the class of 
 persons who get their wages every week or fortnight for a 
 week or a fortnight's work. 
 
 There is a book published in Liverpool, an almanack, called 
 the ' Financial Reform Almanack.' Its price is one shilling. 
 How it can be sold at that price is a marvel. I believe there 
 is no other book published in this country which will give 
 you so much information with regard to imports and exports, 
 to consumption, to everything that we use, taxation, ex- 
 penditure of taxes, matters of Government, pensions, and so 
 forth. I believe there is no other publication in the country 
 that is to be compared with the * Financial Reform Almanack ; ' 
 and every honest man who wants an honest Government 
 ought to have that book somewhere near, so that he can 
 apply to it when he wants information on any of these 
 questions ; and I do not know how to express my admiration 
 of the industry and the accuracy with which Mr. M' Queen, 
 who is, I think, the secretary of the association, has com- 
 piled this remarkable book. Two or three figures, taken 
 from this book, will tell you what I mean with regard to 
 the changed condition of the people. I go back to 1840, 
 and compare it with 1875. In 1840 — I will take the article 
 of bacon; bacon was not allowed to come in in those days 
 at all. Now the 32,000,000 or 33,000,000 of people in the 
 United Kingdom consume, not of home-grown bacon, but of 
 bacon that is imported, more than 8 lbs. weight per indi- 
 vidual, that is, an advance of 8 lbs. from nothing at all. The 
 consumption of butter has increased from lib. to 5 lbs. for 
 each individual ; of cheese, from 1 lb. to 5 J lbs. ; of potatoes 
 from nothing to 16 lbs. ; of rice from 1 lb. to 1 1 lbs. ; of tea, 
 from I J lb. to 4^ lbs. ; of sugar, from 15 lbs. per head to ^^ lbs. 
 per head ; of wheat flour, from 42 lbs. per head — and I believe 
 the year 1840 was a year of considerable importation because 
 the prices were high — it has risen from 42 lbs. in 1840 to 197 
 lbs. per head in 1875. ^ ^^^s has been brought about with- 
 
336 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 2. 
 
 out any violence, without wronging anybody. There is not a 
 human being in England who has a loaf less or a pound of sugar 
 less, or any of these things less by what has been done. There 
 was no violence, no insurrection, no bloodshed, no disorder, the 
 people have merely become more intelligent, Parliament more 
 intelligent, and statesmen more intelligent ; and all this has 
 been done by merely tearing up two or three foolish Acts of 
 Parliament, and allowing people their natural freedom to buy and 
 sell where they could buy and sell to the greatest advantage. 
 
 Forty years ago people were all talking about emigration. 
 Why do not the people emigrate ? people asked. There were 
 societies for promoting emigration. I read only two or three 
 days ago an article in the Tortnightly Review^ a review of the 
 life of the late Canon Kingsley, and I found he said that 
 thirty or forty years ago all thoughtful people were appalled 
 at the state of the country. They thought something was 
 going to happen, the state of the country was so bad. The 
 people suffered so much, they were so discontented, that there 
 would before long be a great catastrophe, like a general in- 
 surrection or revolution ; and people said, why cannot millions 
 go to a country where there is room for them ? The people 
 have emigrated, of course, as an active-minded people like 
 this always will emigrate. But emigration has not made 
 this great change. People are far more numerous in the 
 country now than they were then, and yet for all that, they 
 are much better off, there is much greater demand for labour, 
 and the rate of wages in every branch of labour is higher 
 than it was at that time. 
 
 I will leave this question of tariffs, and duties, and pro- 
 tection, and free trade, and ask the attention of the members 
 of the Workmen's Club to one or two other points, in order 
 to show the change in their condition. Look at what has 
 taken place in this country with regard to the means of 
 education and the possibility of rearing your children to be 
 intelligent young men and women as compared with what 
 
X877. XX. ROCHDALE. 337 
 
 existed at the time to which I have referred. Now nearly 
 everybody has a newspaper if he chooses to have it. I was 
 very much amused some two months ago when I was down 
 at the town of Kelso, in Scotland. It was one of the days 
 when everybody was expecting news from Constantinople. 
 I went into the market square of Kelso with a friend of mine, 
 with whom I was staying, and we called at a shop to get a 
 copy of the Scotsman newspaper, and I said, 'I never saw 
 such a sight as this before.' There was this large square, 
 quite a large space, and all round it there were groups 
 of men, three or four or five or six, standing together, and 
 somebody in each group reading a paper. The paper was 
 there at hand for everybody who wished to read it and who 
 wished to learn. That is a change which has taken place 
 merely by a change of law. At the time I have been speak- 
 ing of, the paper upon which a newspaper was printed had 
 a heavy excise duty upon it. As soon as the paper went to 
 the Observer office, or the Manchester Examiner^ or the Man- 
 chester Guardian office it had to go on to a Government 
 office and have a stamp placed on each paper, and every 
 stamp was charged 4^. Then when advertisements were put 
 in, the unfortunate newspaper proprietor had to pay 35. 6d. 
 for every advertisement. The charge for advertisements was 
 afterwards reduced to i*. 6d., and subsequently the duty was 
 abolished ; and now it happens that you can get a newspaper 
 every day for a halfpenny or a penny. Take the Evening 
 News published in Manchester, or the Manchester Examiner, 
 or the Manchester Guardian, or your paper here, the Observer. 
 Every paper of that sort cost 7^. then ; now it costs \d.^ or 
 id. at the most. These taxes were not levied for the sake 
 of bringing money into the public Exchequer. They were 
 put on mostly during the reign of Queen Anne, and the 
 object was to limit the number of newspapers, to strangle 
 them, to prevent the people having political information 
 and expressing their political views. And those taxes re^ 
 
 z 
 
S38 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 2, 
 
 mained until a few years ago, when the last of them was 
 abolished. 
 
 And now what an excellent machine, what an admirable 
 thing a good newspaper is ! Your newspapers are larger than 
 those — infinitely better; there are ten in the country for 
 every one there was then ; and what do they tell you ? Every- 
 thing. They are not for rich men only. The rich man gives 
 a penny for his paper or 3^. for the TimeSj which after all is 
 probably quite as cheap as any of the others from some pecu- 
 liarities of information with which it furnishes the public ; but 
 the rich man can get no more out of his newspaper than one 
 of you who pays a penny for it. What do you get ? If you 
 read within the last day or two what did you see ? In Canada 
 there is a strike of the engine drivers on the Grand Trunk 
 Railway — they are no wiser in Canada, it appears, than they 
 are here. If you cross the frontier to the United States, you 
 see an account of the most appalling accident that has ever 
 happened since railways were made, and you see a great dis- 
 cussion about the election of President. If you go a little 
 further south, you read about the division that exists in that 
 unfortunate country of Mexico. If you cross the ocean and 
 go to Australia, you hear that they are discussing the price 
 of wool, and whether one of the colonies shall continue its 
 system of protection, or adopt the system of free trade esta- 
 blished in another. If you cross the ocean to the Cape of 
 Good Hope (we see all this in the papers we buy for a 
 penny), you see, not all the discussions, but what is sufficient 
 for you, that are going on with the attempt to make a con- 
 federation of the South African Colonies. Then you go to 
 India, and even this very day — Socrates, and Plato, and 
 Epaminondas, and all the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans 
 had never dreamt of such a thing as you see to-day in your 
 newspapers — the account of the grand ceremony which took 
 place yesterday at Delhi, in Northern India, the proclamation 
 made that the Queen of England was henceforth the Empress 
 
1877. XX. ROCHDALE. 339 
 
 of her Indian dominions. Then if you go overland to Egypt 
 you read of something which is not pleasant about the 
 Egyptian debt. And then you go to Constantinople, and you 
 hear there that affairs are in a very critical position, and you 
 hear, what I am very glad to see and believe, that the policy 
 of our Government is more in accordance with the policy indi- 
 cated by the public opinion of this country than it was some 
 time ago. We must always bear this in mind, that the policy 
 with which our Government began their proceedings was 
 supposed at that time to be the policy of the nation. It was 
 the policy of t 856 and of the Crimean War. It was a policy 
 which I was not able to coincide with, and which I always 
 condemned very much, as you know. The Government began 
 that policy and they adhered to it, I think, some time longer 
 perhaps than after they ought to have abandoned it. I trust 
 now they have adopted a course more in accordance with 
 the opinions, and, I believe, with the true interests of this 
 country, than the past policy of England with regard to 
 Turkey. But, if you leave Constantinople — which I see 
 it is very difficult for you to leave — you read that the 
 English fleet has gone from Besika Bay to the Piraeus, which 
 is a port of Greece. You read that the Italians, with nobody 
 likely to attack them, are foolishly making 100-ton guns. 
 If you go to Paris you see discussions that are going on 
 between their Senate and their Chamber of Deputies, that 
 is to say, between their House of Lords and their House of 
 Commons, as to who shall have the absolute control of the 
 public purse. And all this you see every day in your news- 
 paper, so far as the editor can do it, accurately and truthfully 
 given, and all this in addition to the information, sometimes 
 amusing, often instructive, often grievous and afflicting, of 
 all that transpires in your own country. All this is brought 
 before you every morning, beautifully printed, and for a price 
 that when you have had it every morning for a week costs 
 you no more than a single quart of very poor beer. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 2, 
 
 But, then, the newspapers are only one element of instruc- 
 tion. Look at what has been done with regard to schools. 
 The bill of 1870 was a great measure, deficient in many- 
 parts, which, from its deficiency and incompleteness, has been 
 the cause of much dissension in the Country. But still it was 
 a great measure, and the future of it will be great. What 
 happens now every year with respect to education ? In the 
 parliamentary grants no less than i^^oopool. a-year are 
 voted for the school system of England, Wales^ Scotland, 
 and Ireland. Parliament, therefore, is anxious that the whole 
 population of the country should be educated, and it will be 
 the fault of the parents of this generation if the next gener- 
 ation is not much advanced beyond what we are jn the educa- 
 tion and culture which children shall receive. 
 
 I might tell you what science has done. You travel now 
 at the same rate as a royal duke. There are third-class 
 carriages by every train on some of the principal railways. 
 I do not mean to say that nobody but workmen go in third- 
 class carriages, because I recollect a story of a rich man in 
 this neighbourhood, who being asked why he travelled third 
 class said, ^ For a very good reason — ^because there is no 
 fourth class.' Turn now to the Post Office. You write a 
 letter, and put a penny stamp upon it. You receive a letter, 
 and your correspondent has put a penny stamp on it. I 
 recollect paying to the post-mistress in Bochdale, when 
 Mrs. Lee was post-mistress, a long time ago — and she was 
 not always very polite, I remember, when she was in a 
 huriy — paying no less than 2^s. for the postage of a single 
 letter from Leghorn, in Italy. The postage on such a letter 
 now would be 'z\d.^ or perhaps it might be 5^., as the letter 
 had many inclosures. Look at your telegraphs. By post 
 and telegraph every workman has opportunities and advan- 
 tages which our forefathers never dreamt of. You can inquire 
 whether work is scarce or abundant, whether there is reason 
 to move to this town or to that. These scientific improve- 
 
1877. XX. ROCHDALE, 341 
 
 ments are of great service to all classes, and they are of more 
 service to the workman than the workmen themselves have 
 fully understood. 
 
 There is only one other point to which I shall refer as tcy 
 changes in the law, and that is with regard to the extension 
 of the borough franchise. You know what a terrible thing 
 it was in prospect, how many people said we were going to 
 Americanise our institutions. They did not know what that 
 meant, but they used the phrase, and what harm has hap- 
 pened? They said that property would not be safe, and 
 how everybody would overturn everybody else. And what 
 has happened ? The most conspicuous fact throughout 
 the country is, that there is universal content in all the 
 borough population among those to whom the franchise had 
 been extended. At this moment there are no conspiracies. 
 Your workmen's club is not a political club to get up some 
 movement against the law or the monarchy. There is nothing 
 of that kind now. In time past, even those very persons who 
 were so much afraid of us did not hold their property and 
 their privileges by so secure a tenure as they have held them 
 since the passing of the law. Nay, the monarch of these 
 realms, popular as she has always been ; popular as she has 
 always deserved to be ; still, I will undertake to say of her, 
 I say it without hesitation, and without fear of contradiction, 
 that there were times within the last thirty years, and since she 
 came to the throne, when there was a great deal less of an 
 honest and true loyalty than is to be found in this country at 
 the present time. 
 
 And you have not only got the franchise, but you have 
 got the ballot to secure you from any compulsion with regard 
 to its exercise. I recollect a peer, whose name you would 
 know very well if I were to mention it, who went about in 
 a state of almost mental agony, saying, * If this Ballot Bill 
 be passed the whole influence of property will be gone.' But 
 what has happened ? The influence of property, so far as it 
 
342 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 2, 
 
 is a just influence, exists now, and is exercised now, and any 
 exercise which it had before the Ballot was conferred was an 
 exercise that it ought not to have had, and was a tyranny 
 over all those upon whom it was exercised. 
 
 But I want to tell the working-men of this workman's club 
 what some of them do not — at least what some workmen do 
 not appear altogether to appreciate or comprehend — that they 
 are now the full citizens of a free country, and that on them 
 a great responsibility is devolved. Is it not a grand history, 
 that of the last forty years ? Are not the changes such as 
 all of us may be proud of, that they have been effected with 
 so little, in fact with no disturbance ? You cannot point, 
 probably, to a revolution of violence in any country of late times 
 where there has been so much done of permanent good, in the 
 same period, as has been done for the people of this country 
 by the wise changes in our law. And yet^ I dare say, history 
 will not say very much of these changes. The fact is, history 
 busies itself with other matters. It will tell our children, 
 I dare say, of conquests in India, of annexation, it may be in 
 the Punjaub, of Chinese wars — wars which were as dis- 
 creditable to us as they have been unprofitable. It will tell 
 your children of the destruction of Sebastopol, and perhaps 
 it may tell them that everything for which Sebastopol was 
 destroyed has been surrendered, or is being now surrendered, 
 by an English minister at Constantinople. But of all these 
 changes which have saved the nation from anarchy, and an 
 English monarchy from ruin, history will probably say but 
 little. Blood shines more upon her pages, and the grand 
 and noiseless triumphs of peace and of wise and just legisla- 
 tion too often find but scanty memorial from her hands. 
 
 But now there may be those who will put this question 
 to me. Some of my critics to-morrow or the day after 
 will say, What has this to do with working-men's clubs? 
 Why talk politics to a meeting which is understood not to 
 be a political meeting? I have not been talking politics. 
 
1877. XX. ROCHDALE. 343 
 
 These questions which I have been discussing were polities 
 a few years ago when the contest was raging round us 
 whether they should be settled justly or not. Now they are 
 not politics, they are not matters of controversy, they are 
 naatters of history, and I am treating you to a chapter of 
 history. But then they will say, Why tell us the old story, 
 and go back to the Com Law and the Sugar monopoly? 
 They will say I wanted to glorify myself before my fellow- 
 townsmen because I had taken a humble part, with hundreds 
 of thousands of others, in carrying these measures. No, I 
 tell you the old story because there are many in this room 
 who are too young to have known much about it, and it is 
 a great and salutary lesson for the members of the workmen's 
 club, and for workmen everywhere to have spoken and read 
 to them. It tells them of freedom, and how freedom was 
 won, and what freedom has done for them, and it points 
 the way to other paths of freedom which yet lie open be- 
 fore them. 
 
 The workman of England now is no longer a human 
 machine, minding a spindle or a loom, or working at 
 the bench, or at the forge, or in the mine. He is not a 
 man only to make goods for export, but he is a man into 
 whom, by these changes, has been infused a new life, and 
 to whom is given a new and a wholesome responsibility. 
 Every voting working-man in England is now a ruler of 
 men, and a joint ruler of many nations, and it is worth while 
 for the working-men of England to look their responsibility 
 in the face. There are some further things which a wise 
 legislature may do for them, but the main thing to be done 
 for them must be done by themselves. There are many 
 teachers and many plans. Some say that co-operation will 
 save everybody. Well, co-operation in this town has been, 
 I believe, of remarkable advantage to those who have been 
 concerned in it. Co-operation in joint-stock companies affords 
 an easy mode for the investment of savings, and is^ therefore, 
 
344 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 2, 
 
 a very advantageous though new institution amongst us. 
 Some think that trade unions will set everything right. I 
 am of opinion that trade unions may be useful if they will not 
 depart from sound economic principles, and if they will not 
 interfere with the individual freedom of their members or the 
 freedom of those who have the employment of capital. I 
 recollect last year, or perhaps it was the year before last, 
 in some observations I made at Birmingham, I pointed to 
 the fact that there is no class of persons whose wages have 
 risen more in the last twenty years than the class of domestic 
 servants, and amongst domestic servants there are no trade 
 unions, no committees, no orators to expound their interests 
 and maintain their cause. A great leader in trade unions 
 set himself to answer me, and what was his answer? He 
 said the case of the woman servant is easily explained. It is 
 explained by the vast emigration of young women to foreign 
 countries, seeking there a better livelihood than they could 
 get here. They have diminished the supply and wages have 
 risen. He seemed to have forgotten that there have been three 
 times as many men who have emigrated as women, and if the 
 trade unions to raise wages were not necessary for the women, 
 certainly upon his own argument they could not be necessary 
 for the men. No, the great rise of wages has come from the 
 causes I have indicated, and if they have come from any 
 other cause, by limiting the number of persons to work in a 
 particular trade, and by controlling, and unreasonably control- 
 ling, as it has sometimes been, their employers, then that rise 
 of wages is not just, and is not permanently advantageous 
 to the whole people. It may be for a time advantageous to 
 the particular class by whom it is enforced. 
 
 I conclude what I have to say with only one other point, 
 and that is on the question of education. I believe that 
 workmen have need to be taught, to have it pointed out to 
 them, how much their own family comfort and the success 
 and happiness of their children depends on this — that they 
 
1877. XX. ROCHDALE. 345 
 
 should do all they can do to give their children such educa- 
 tion as is in their power. One of the American States is 
 the State of Massachusetts, and it is probably the most edu- 
 cated and intellectual. It has a system of general education. 
 Massachusetts was founded about 250 years ago. From that 
 time to this it has had a system — a very extended system — 
 of public schools. Eight generations of its population have 
 had the advantage of being educated in these schools. The 
 men who were driven from this country by the tyranny of 
 monarch and archbishop founded this school system — the men 
 of whom the poet I have already quoted speaks in these terms, 
 describing them as — 
 
 The Fathers of New England who unbound 
 In wild Columbia Europe's double chain. 
 
 Meaning the chain of a despotic monarchy and of a despotic 
 and persecuting Church. Suppose we had had in this 
 country all that time schools for the education of your 
 children, to what a position this country would have risen 
 by this time I 
 
 I want to ask working-men to do their utmost to support 
 the school system. Be it a school belonging to a sect, or be 
 it a school belonging to the School Board; if it be a con- 
 venient or a possible school for your children, take care that 
 your children go to school, so that Parliament in voting 
 2,500,000/. for purposes of education — 2,5oopoo/. to which 
 you subscribe by the taxes — shall have the cordial and 
 the enthusiastic support of the people in forwarding education 
 to the greatest possible degree in their power. Depend upon 
 it, if you support the school the school will compensate you. 
 You know I dare say, a passage, which is one of the many 
 striking passages which you may find in the writings of 
 Shakspere — where he says, speaking of children that are 
 rebellious and troublesome — 
 
 * How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is. 
 To have a thankless child.' 
 
346 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 I ask working-men, and I might ask it of every class to 
 a certain extent, how much of the unhappiness of families, 
 how much of the grief and gloom which often overshadow the 
 later years of parents come from what I may call the rebellion 
 of children against their parents' authority, and against the 
 moral law. If you will send your children to school, encourage 
 them in their learning, make them feel that this is a great 
 thing for them to possess, the generation to come will be much 
 superior to the generations that have passed, and those who 
 come after us will see that prospering, of which we can only 
 look forward to see the beginnings in the efforts which are 
 now being made. And more than this, besides making your 
 families happier, besides doing so much for the success of 
 your children in life, you will also produce this great result, 
 that you will do much to build up the fabric of the greatness 
 and the glory of your country upon the sure foundation of an 
 intelligent and a Christian people. 
 
XXI. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, JUNE 1, 1877. 
 
 [On this day Mr. Gladstone visited Birmingham at the invitation of Mr. 
 Chamberlain and the Liberals of the Borough, and delivered a series of 
 addi-esses on public topics. In the evening he was entertained by the Mayor 
 of the town at the Queen's Hotel. The following address was made by 
 Mr. Bright in response to the toast of the Borough members.] 
 
 I FEEL that I have no new phrases in which to tender 
 you my thanks for this most friendly reception. It is now 
 nearly twenty years since I was elected as one of your re- 
 presentatives. I was then absent from your borough and had 
 been for some time, from bad health, in a state of seclusion. 
 I need not return thanks, I think, for Mr. Chamberlain, be- 
 cause he is here. I may say of our colleague, Mr. Muntz, 
 that I met him in London yesterday, and that he expressed 
 to me his regret that he could not be here on account of a 
 family gathering of very peculiar interest at which he was 
 expected, and that he trusted that the kindness of the Mayor 
 and those who would be present to-night would accept that 
 as a sufficient apology for his absence. 
 
 It seems to me that in Birmingham there is a certain 
 strong appetite for stirring times. The great complaint of 
 Mr. Chamberlain is that nobody is active enough for him ; 
 and no doubt next week, after the great week which you have 
 experienced here, and which is just about coming to a close, 
 I am afraid he will be looking forward keenly to some 
 further political excitement. Mr. Chamberlain looks through 
 
348 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. june 1, 
 
 his eyeglass as if he was only waiting till I should resume 
 my seat, and then he will be able to answer this charge which 
 I have brought against him. But after all you have had a 
 great week in Birmingham, a week which will be remembered 
 by all your now existing population, probably to the very end 
 of their lives. You have had among you the most eminent 
 man of the statesmen of our country in this generation — the 
 most eminent man certainly that we have in Parliament or 
 have had for a very long period. You have had the greatest 
 meeting that has ever been held — I believe the greatest 
 political meeting within our time under any one roof, and 
 you have had what all the world will say is a great speech 
 upon a great and solemn question. You have received that 
 speech as it deserved, and now a million copies of it will at 
 least have been circulated throughout the homes of the 
 people of the United Kingdom. And when men speak and 
 their words go the following day multiplied a million times 
 to the homes of all the people, it becomes them that they 
 should speak with caution, and say only that which honestly 
 they believe and can affirm. 
 
 I should be glad if I could forget that I was at one 
 time hissed and hooted by mobs, and forget, further, a story 
 that I was burnt in ef^gj by those I was most anxious to 
 serve ; and, finally, that in consequence of the course I took 
 on a great public question I lost my seat in Parliament 
 for one of the first constituencies of the kingdom. But 
 I may recollect that^ after all, I never lost the sense, and 
 I have not lost it yet, that I did what was my duty to 
 my country under the trying and difficult circumstances in 
 which I was placed. There has been a great change in all 
 these years — a most extraordinary change; but a change, 
 perhaps, that was inevitable from the disappointments which 
 followed the policy of twenty-three years ago, and which 
 found expression — a complete expression — when the horrors 
 that have recently been enacted in the Christian Provinces of 
 
1877. XXI. BIRMINGHAM. 349 
 
 Turkey became only practically known to the people of 
 England. I think it may be said that if all do not actually 
 condemn the policy of 1854, perhaps I may say that almost 
 all do actually and deeply deplore it. For myself, I was then 
 active in a contest against an overwhelming tide of public 
 opinion. Now, I can afford to be, and think, perhaps, I ought 
 to be, tranquil and in some degree a spectator, for I see the 
 policy that I approve is successful and triumphant now. 
 
 I turn for a moment to what is a much pleasanter thing 
 for me to speak upon, and that is the effort which is about to 
 be made to improve the organization of the Liberal party 
 throughout the country from the example which has been set 
 by the constituency of Birmingham. In 1868, at the General 
 Election, the Liberal party had a majority of nearly or about 
 a hundred ; but a few years afterwards, in 1874, the Liberal 
 party were defeated by a large majority. How did this 
 happen ? There are many modes of accounting for it, but I be- 
 lieve one chief mode is this — that the majority was obtained in 
 the first election after the passing of the Household Suffrage 
 Bill ; that there was a general belief that hereafter the Tory 
 party was swept pretty much from the board and from the 
 field ; that a Liberal majority was permanently secured, and 
 that it was not henceforth necessary to take all the measures 
 which had formerly been taken for supporting the organiza- 
 tion of the power of the Liberal party in the various borough 
 constituencies of the kingdom ; and the organization fell into 
 decay. Then, there came upon that, as you know, the com- 
 bination of a very large class engaged in a particular trade 
 in the boroughs. You have 2,000 of them, I think, in 
 Birmingham alone. Two thousand give 2,000 votes, and 
 there can be no doubt that that combination was of such a 
 nature that not only those votes were secured, all, or nearly 
 all, for one party, but that every man connected with that 
 combination had the power, and as a body they exercised the 
 power, of inducing persons who were their constant customers 
 
350 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. j^ne 1, 
 
 and attendants at their houses to give their votes in the same 
 direction, and the consequence has been that in nearly all — 
 in a great number of the boroughs in which the majorities 
 had not been large, this combination of Trades Unionists — 
 nothing more, nothing better, revolting against a law which 
 the moral sense of the country believed to be necessary, that 
 combination had such an effect as to change the representa- 
 tion in a very considerable number of boroughs. 
 
 Then there were some others, I forget how many, but at 
 least a dozen, in which the Liberal party were divided, and 
 were running like hounds after two or three hares at a time, 
 that brought forward more candidates than there were 
 vacancies; for the party was divided, and at least a dozen 
 seats were transferred from our side to that of our opponents, 
 and by these means the change occurred which caused a 
 change of government and brought about that state of in- 
 action of which Mr. Chamberlain so much complains. 
 
 I do not believe so much in that inaction, and I do not 
 believe so much in what may be called the loss of political 
 feeling. Has there been no political feeling here during all 
 the time, and has there been none exhibited here this last 
 week, and was there no political feeling exhibited during the 
 whole of last autumn? And if there be a great question 
 brought forward before the people you may rely upon it that 
 the Liberal party is not only not dead, but it is not very sick, 
 and you will find it will soon be again restored to robust 
 health. Now, I wonder, looking back over the period to 
 which Mr. Gladstone has referred, I wonder that anything 
 good ever is done and anything liberal in the Parliament of 
 this country, because the Parliament is not a better Parliament 
 than most Parliaments that exist, when you consider what 
 are the constituent elements of the Conservative party in this 
 country and of the Conservative power. You know that 
 nearly all the land — three-fourths of all the land, I dare say 
 — in the United Kingdom is held by probably a smaller 
 
1877. XXI. BIRMINGHAM. 351 
 
 number of men than were addressed by Mr. Gladstone last 
 night. Well, but of all this land three-fourths of it, at least, 
 is constantly and steadily in a position to act on behalf of 
 the Conservative party. And, what of the Church ? If you 
 have 20,000 educated men, with comfortable stipends, settled 
 in all the parishes of the country in alliance with the land, 
 you know what influence they can have, and you know that 
 the influence of the clergy in as great a proportion as the 
 influence of the land is steadily exerted against all the 
 measures and against the principles of the Liberal party. 
 Now, seeing you have also the military service, persons who 
 live upon the taxes and revenue of the country, and a great 
 proportion of the professions, because you will find — I have 
 found, at any rate — that the bulk of the lawyers, and I am 
 sorry to say, as far as my experience goes, the bulk of the 
 doctors inclined very much rather to their rich than to their 
 poor patrons — you will see that the power of property and 
 the power of social position — all this is constantly ready to 
 support the Conservative party. If it has plenty of friends, 
 it needs no canvassing, it is always ready at the poll ; and 
 I say that it is absolutely a wonder that the Liberal party 
 in this country has been able to achieve the success and the 
 triumphs which have marked its career during the last forty 
 years of our lives. 
 
 Well, then, you come to this new scheme which has been 
 propounded in Birmingham of an organization throughout 
 the country. The question is, is it practicable? It is not 
 so practicable in every borough as in Birmingham, for you 
 have such a predominance of Liberal opinion here that it 
 seems when you undertake a great measure of this kind 
 as if your whole population went with you. But if you come 
 to other boroughs it is different, but still I believe there 
 are many, and, perhaps, I may say that in all the boroughs 
 some organization of this kind may be most beneficial and to a 
 large extent most effectual. I trust that the example which 
 
352 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. juke 1, 
 
 has been set by this constituency may be followed generally — 
 nay, universally — by all the populous boroughs of the king- 
 dom, and I think if it is so you will find a great and a good 
 result. You will stimulate, if you do nothing more, watch- 
 fulness and activity. You do not put forward a programme 
 of Liberal opinion. For my part, I am not much in favour of 
 programmes. Depend upon it, the way to successful political 
 action is not by having a great catalogue of either principles 
 or Bills. The course of events always shows what are the 
 measures upon which the public mind is running, and Minis- 
 ters and members of Parliament are moved as the public is 
 moved. All the questions which ought to come first do come 
 first, and nothing can prevent them from coming first, and 
 it is not necessary to give us a catalogue of political pro- 
 fessions and policy for the future. 
 
 Well, then, you have no programme ; it is a very good 
 thing, for you do not intend to dictate in the slightest degree 
 to any constituency which may be in this confederation what 
 kind of men they should choose for their candidates, nor 
 what shall be the political principles held by the candidates 
 or the pledges they shall be required to give. What you 
 want to do is to stimulate watchfulness and activity, and 
 intelligent and wise interest in the politics of the country. 
 There are questions which are coming very soon, and on 
 which I might say a word to the gentlemen here connected 
 with this confederation, of which my hon. colleague has been 
 elected chairman, that the attention of the confederation 
 should be turned to the counties. They have had no legis- 
 lation, no freedom ; they have not been dealt with as the 
 boroughs have been dealt with ; to use an ordinary expression, 
 they have been left out in the cold. Those who are looking 
 anywhere are looking to us who have delivered ourselves 
 from the tyranny of the past to hold out our hand and offer 
 to deliver them also. Your county franchise is in a miserable 
 condition. The great bulk of your countrymen, respectable 
 
1877. XXI. BIRMINGHAM, 353 
 
 as any in Birttiingham, who walk about the villages and little 
 towns, have no more votes than if they lived in Russia. I 
 am not quite sure whether they have as much political 
 freedom. All that must be put an end to. We do not want 
 to usurp all the political power in the boroughs. We want 
 the counties to have their share and to co-operate with us 
 in doing what is for the good of the entire population. 
 
 My first knowledge of Birmingham was of the meetings on 
 Newhall-hill. I was not there except in spirit. I was young 
 then, and I suppose some people would say foolish. If so, 
 I was foolish in a folly that has lasted now for more 
 than forty years. But I know that at that time such was 
 the excitement in my father's house that we began to take in 
 the Evening Mail, I think it was — that was an issue of the Times 
 newspaper three days in the week. We had never dreamt of 
 taking more than a weekly paper. Up to that time we took the 
 Manchester Guardian, price 7^/., published on Saturdays only. 
 Well, the Evening Mail at that time had magnificent articles, 
 which I am told some people connected with the Times have 
 since regretted. I read those articles to my father and 
 family in the evening. They were very stirring articles. 
 They gave me much information, and I date some portion of 
 my political activity to the influence of that paper in those 
 days. And I read there of your great meeting, and all the 
 country read of it, and all the country was stirred to its very 
 heart by what you did at that time. And what was done 
 was that the greatest measure that the English Parliament 
 has ever known was passed. 
 
 Many years afterwards I was permitted to come here as 
 one of your representatives, and what have you done ? Was 
 there ever such a series of meetings, so great, so unanimous, 
 held during the last twenty years as have been held in your 
 Town-hall ? To the best of my knowledge you have always 
 appealed to the constituencies and the country and asked 
 all to come forward and demand that the franchise should 
 
 A a 
 
354 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, 
 
 be extended and freedom offered to the whole population. 
 And this measure was one which a great many of those who 
 at last undertook to pass it had said would be absolutely 
 destructive of all that constitutes the greatness of the country. 
 The measure became law without any convulsion at all ; and 
 those who passed it, and whom I count our opponents, have 
 an idea that they are in power in virtue of that law. If that 
 be so, they cannot be very angry if we ask them to extend 
 the provisions of the law. 
 
 This week Birmingham is maintaining its ancient cha- 
 racter. There is no town in England at this moment that 
 occupies so great and so proud, and at the same time so 
 responsible a position as your town. You are foremost in 
 good works, and have been for many years past. Your Town- 
 hall is consecrated to freedom^ but your Town-hall is now 
 not one quarter large enough for all those who would come 
 to listen to a great speech on behalf of freedom. You now 
 call upon your sister cities and towns throughout the kingdom 
 to come forward and to join you in a great association, 
 in order that the opinion in England which is in favour of 
 freedom may act with full force by its full development ; 
 and I say, then, that we have a right to hope that from 
 this centre and heart of the country, as you are geo- 
 graphically and as you are politically — I say from this centre 
 and heart of the country there should go forth light and 
 warmth and heat^ which should be seen and felt in every 
 borough in the kingdom. And if it be so, and if you get 
 the answer which I anticipate from those sister cities and 
 towns, there is no measure that is good and noble, nothing 
 that is a measure of freedom and justice that you may not 
 carry; and you from this centre may influence as you have 
 heretofore influenced the administration and the legislation 
 that touches every portion of the great Empire of which we 
 form a part. 
 
XXII. 
 
 BRADFOED, JULY 25, 1877. 
 
 [An American citizen, Mr. G. H. Booth, who had been for many years a 
 partner in a firm of Bradford merchants, expressed a desire, on retiring 
 from business and returning to his own country, to present a statue of 
 Richard Cobden to the town of Bradford. He did not indeed survive long 
 enough to carry out his purpose in person, but entrusted the execution of 
 his plan to his partners. The statue, which was the work of Mr. Butler, 
 was set up in the town, and was entrusted to the care of the Bradford 
 Exchange. Mr. Bright was requested to perform the ceremony, of imveiling 
 the statue, and on this occasion delivered the following address.] 
 
 I MUST first express my thanks to Mr. Behrens and to the 
 gentlemen of the Chamber of Commerce for the address 
 which they have passed, and which has been presented to 
 me. I only wish I had any claim to such an appreciation ; 
 but I have the satisfaction of knowing that in some small 
 degree I have endeavoured to promote objects which are 
 applauded in the address, and I will not complain if my 
 friends have taken too favourable a view of what I have 
 done. 
 
 We are assembled here this morning to partake or to 
 engage in a ceremony which must be of importance to many 
 of you, and which to me has a very special interest. We 
 are met to do honour to the memory of a man whom I will 
 not hesitate to describe as one of the best and the noblest 
 
 A a :% 
 
356 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 25, 
 
 Englishmen of our time. Some poet^ whose name I do not 
 remember, has asked, 
 
 'Why need we monuments supply 
 To rescue what can never die?' 
 
 And I may say for myself that I have not been one of those 
 who are eager to promote the erection of statues and monu- 
 ments, for I have believed that there are few men so conspicuous 
 as to deserve them, and those who deserve them most certainly 
 require them least. But still we have before us on this 
 occasion what may be held to be the outward and visible 
 sign of something that men have admired and of some quali- 
 ties which have been highly attractive to them ; and the 
 sight of a statue like this promotes inquiries and causes 
 answers, and leads men to consider the qualities of the man 
 to whom the statue is raised ; and therefore I take it for 
 granted that it must in many cases be advantageous and 
 instructive to those who were not acquainted with the dis- 
 tinguished individual who is represented before us. 
 
 I have been asked, I presume, to take part, and the most 
 prominent part, in this morning's ceremony because of my 
 long and intimate friendship and my intimate personal rela- 
 tions with Mr. Cobden, which lasted, unbroken and undis- 
 turbed by a single jar of any kind, during the long period 
 of twenty-five years. When Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Wade 
 called upon me, and asked me to undertake this office, I felt, 
 and I have felt ever since, that there were two difficulties 
 in my way — first of all that I could make no speech to you 
 which would be adequate to the occasion; and secondly, I 
 felt that in saying what I should be obliged to say of my 
 friend who is gone, I might run the risk in some cases of 
 appearing to speak in terms of praise even of myself as 
 having been connected with him in much of his work. 
 However, I will pass over that, and hope that you will 
 judge me lightly if any such thought should cross any of 
 your minds. 
 
1877. XXII, BRADFORD, 357 
 
 I come to speak for a little while of my lamented friend. 
 You know, probably, that Mr. Cobden was not what in the 
 world's language is called high-born; that he did not enter 
 upon life with what are called great connections ; that he 
 was not surrounded by the appliances of wealth ; that it 
 could not be said of him that ' Fortune came smiling to his 
 youth and wooed it,' for he was bom, if not in a humble, at 
 least in a very moderate, farm-house, and of a respectable 
 and quiet and honourable family in the county of Sussex. 
 Of his school-days I shall say only this, that I suppose he 
 had no better opportunity of education in the school to which 
 he went than almost all boys of similar age throughout the 
 whole of Great Britain have now. He had no opportunity of 
 attending ancient Universities, and availing himself of their 
 advantages, and — I am afraid I might say — in some degree, 
 perhaps, of suffering from some of the disadvantages from 
 which those Universities are not free. When he entered into 
 life — I mean after he left his parents' home — he had no high 
 patronage to see that his path was cleared before him. He 
 came to London. He held a situation in an office and ware- 
 house, I think in Watling Street, and he entered immediately 
 into the pursuits of business, we may be sure with alacrity 
 and with intelligence. From Watling Street, by an accident, 
 it became his duty to come down to the North of England, 
 as the agent of the house of business in which he was ; and 
 in the North of England his observant and intelligent eye 
 discovered very soon that in Yorkshire or Lancashire — but 
 especially in Lancashire, with which he became more fami- 
 liar — there was a field where, by certain qualities which he 
 felt that he possessed, he would be able to make his way, 
 and be enabled to prosper. 
 
 He settled in Manchester when he was only twenty-six 
 years of age, about the year 1 830. His business was that of a 
 calico-printer. He had an excellent taste in design and in 
 colour. He had all the qualities, then, of a good man of 
 
358 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, july 25, 
 
 business — industry, intelligence^ sagacity, probity of the 
 highest kind — and, therefore, it is not to be wondered at 
 that his success was great and rapid. But then he had a 
 mind that was expansive and sympathetic, and he could not 
 be content with his ledgers and his business and his profits, 
 but his heart went out at once to the great population 
 amongst whom he lived. He looked around him and he 
 saw their condition and their wants^ and the first great 
 public question to which he turned his mind, as far as I am 
 able to gather, was the question of public and national 
 education ; and I know the first time that I became ac- 
 quainted with him was in connection with that question. 
 But he not only had this sympathy in regard to what he 
 deemed necessary for the instruction of the people, but he 
 found that their interests were greatly affected by what he 
 thought an unwise foreign policy on the part of the Govern- 
 ment and the country, and so early as 1834 or 1835 he 
 published a pamphlet under the title of ' England, Ireland, 
 and America' — a pamphlet, I venture to say, of such sagacity 
 and foresight that it has probably never been excelled by 
 any essay on politics in modern times. In this pamphlet 
 he dealt at considerable length with the question of Russia 
 and the question of Turkey, because at that time great efforts 
 were being made by some persons to create and to excite 
 jealousy on the part of England against the people of Russia 
 and the Russian Government — efforts which have not ceased 
 even to the day in which I am speaking. 
 
 I said that the first time I became acquainted with him 
 was in connection with the subject of education. I went 
 over to Manchester to call upon him to ask him if he would 
 be kind enough to come to Rochdale and to speak at an 
 education meeting which was about to be held in the School- 
 room of the Baptist Chapel, in West Street of that town. 
 I found him in his office in Mosley Street. I introduced 
 myself to him. I told him what I wanted. His countenance 
 
1877. XXII, BRADFORD, 359 
 
 lit up with pleasure to find that there were others that 
 were working in this question, and he, without hesitation, 
 agreed to come. He came and he spoke ; and though he was 
 then so young as a speaker, yet the qualities of his speech 
 were such as remained with him so long as he was able to 
 speak at all — clearness, logic, a conversational eloquence, 
 a persuasiveness which, when conjoined with the absolute 
 truth which there was in his eye and in his countenance — 
 a persuasiveness which it was almost impossible to resist. 
 Well, not long after this, there came up the question of the 
 Corn Law, for the skies had lowered and the harvests were 
 bad. In 1838 there was a considerable movement in Man- 
 chester, partly made by some private individuals, and partly 
 and most importantly by the Chamber of Commerce, and 
 an Anti-Corn-Law Association was formed, which ultimately 
 and soon became the now famous Anti-Corn-Law League. I 
 will not speak of the labours of that League. They are known 
 to some here. Those times by some are forgotten, and the' 
 League and its labours have gone into the past. Happily, its 
 results remaiuj and can never be destroyed. But for seven 
 years the discussion on that one question — whether it was good 
 for a man to have half a loaf or a whole loaf — for seven years 
 the discussion was maintained, I will not say with doubtful 
 result, for the result never was doubtful and never could be 
 in such a cause ; but for five years or more we devoted our- 
 selves without stint; every waking hour almost was given 
 up to the discussion and to the movement in connection with 
 this question. And there is one incident that to me is most 
 touching in connection with it, which I hesitate to refer to, 
 and yet feel I can scarcely avoid. It was in September in 
 the year 1841. The sufferings throughout the country were 
 fearful ; and you who live now, but were not of age to observe 
 what was passing in the country then, can have no idea of 
 the state of your country in that year. If you want to know 
 something of it, and in brief, I would ask you to possess 
 
360 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jult 25, 
 
 yourselves of a little volume just published by my old and 
 dear friend Mr. Henry Ashworth, of Bolton, called ' Recol- 
 lections of Cobden and the Anti-Corn-Law League.' You 
 will find in a portion of that book a description of a state of 
 things not only in all the towns, the manufacturing and 
 industrial towns of the country, but in the agricultural dis- 
 tricts for which it was pretended the protection of the Corn 
 Law was maintained. 
 
 At that time I was at Leamington, and I was, on the day 
 when Mr. Cobden called upon me — fot he happened to be 
 there at the time on a visit to some relatives — I was in the 
 depths of grief, I might almost say of despair, for the light 
 and sunshine of my house had been extinguished. All that 
 was left on earth of my young wife, except the memory of 
 a sainted life and of a too brief happiness, was lying still 
 and cold in the chamber above us. Mr. Cobden called upon 
 me as his friend, and addressed me, as you might suppose, 
 with words of condolence. After a time he looked up and 
 said, ' There are thousands of hous^^ in England at this 
 moment where wives, mothers, and children are dying of 
 hunger. Now,' he said, ' when the first paroxysm of your 
 grief is past, I would advise you to come with me and we 
 will never rest till the Corn Law is repealed.' I accepted 
 his invitation. I knew that the description he had given of 
 the homes of thousands was not an exaggerated description. 
 I felt in my conscience that there was a work which some- 
 body must do, and therefore I accepted his invitation, and 
 from that time we never ceased to labour hard on behalf of 
 the resolution which we had made. Now, do not suppose 
 that I wish you to imagine that he and I, when I say * we,' 
 were the only persons engaged in this great question. We 
 were not even the first, though afterwards, perhaps, we became 
 the foremost before the public. But there were others before 
 us ; and we were joined, not by scores, but by hundreds, and 
 afterwards by thousands, and afterwards by countless multi- 
 
1877. XXII. BRADFORD. 361 
 
 tudes ; and afterwards famine itself, against wliich we had 
 warred, joined us ; and a great Minister was converted, and 
 minorities became majorities, and finally the barrier was en- 
 tirely thrown down. And since then, though there has been 
 suffering, and much suffering, in many homes in England, 
 yet no wife and no mother and no little child has been 
 starved to death as the result of a famine made by law. 
 
 Now, if you cast your eyes over the globe, what is it you 
 see? Look at Canada; look at the United States^ whether 
 on the Atlantic seaboard or on the Pacific slope; look at 
 Chili ; look at the Australian colonies ; look at the great and 
 rich province of Bengal ; look on the shores of the Black Sea 
 and the Baltic; wherever the rain falls, wherever the sun 
 shines, wherever there are markets and granaries and harvest- 
 fields, there are men and women everywhere gathering that 
 which comes to this country for the sustenance of our. people ; 
 and our fleets traverse every sea, and visit every port, and 
 bring us the food which only about thirty years ago the laws 
 of this civilised and Christian country denied to its people. 
 You find it in Holy Writ that ' The earth is the Lord^s, and 
 the fulness thereof.' We have put Holy Writ into an Act 
 of Parliament, and since then of that fulness every man 
 and woman and little child in this country may freely and 
 abundantly partake. 
 
 After that great work was done, after the session in which 
 Sir Robert Peel paid that beautiful and most just tribute to 
 the services of my lamented friend — for you know that he had 
 suffered at the time from ill-health, which had caused his 
 absence for many weeks from Parliament during that most 
 interesting session — he proceeded to the continent of Europe, 
 and visited most of its principal capitals. In every city he 
 was received by the best men of that city. He was received 
 there as a statesman who had achieved a great triumph in 
 his own country, and who deserved to be received and ac- 
 cepted as a friend and brother by the friends of man in every 
 
362 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jult 25, 
 
 other country. He came back impressed with one great 
 feeling of sorrow that the armaments of Europe were so great, 
 and that the chances of war with great armaments were so 
 much increased. He thought our armaments much too large 
 and our taxes from that source much too heavy, and he wished 
 to undertake a movement to convince the people that great 
 reductions might be made. In that matter, I regret to say, 
 he entirely failed. The fact is the people were not sufficiently 
 instructed. They were terrified by the stories set before 
 them, sometimes by ignorant, sometimes by interested per- 
 sons, and his efibrt in that direction, as far as any immediate 
 action or result was concerned, was an entire failure. After 
 thatj and not long after, came another great political trans- 
 action, which greatly disturbed him, as you may suppose. I 
 mean the war with Russia — the Crimean "War. Turning 
 back to his pamphlet, one can understand the profound grief 
 with which he must have seen the policy of the country at 
 that time. He had warned it against such a policy; he had 
 hoped that it was impossible ; and yet in a moment of passion 
 and prejudice that war was undertaken. Speaking to me 
 about it more than once, he said, ' When the people are them- 
 selves in a state of frenzy, so that their reason seems to be 
 dethroned, it is useless to argue with them. We must wait 
 till there comes a cooler and more reasonable time.' He 
 looked on, sad and dejected, till the termination of the 
 strife. 
 
 After that, if you trace his great life and his works, you 
 will come to that question which has been referred to by my 
 friend Mr. Forster — the question of the French Treaty. Now, 
 that was a great work which Mr. Cobden performed, as it 
 were, of his own hand. He went to France,, communicated 
 with his friend Michel Chevalier, the eminent^ French econo- 
 mist, and put himself into communication with the Emperor, 
 who was most honest and very intelligent upon this question. 
 M. Rouher, the French Minister, was enabled to commence 
 
1877. XXII. BRADFORD. 363 
 
 negotiations, and through many months they went on, inter- 
 fered with by many obstacles, but by no obstacles in France 
 so great, I believe, as by some of the obstacles which came 
 from this country. But finally the treaty was signed, and the 
 triumph was achieved. I venture to say that there is no act 
 of any statesman's life that may be looked back to with more 
 unalloyed pleasure by him who did it, or by his friends who 
 stood by him and commended it, than that great act of the 
 commercial treaty with our neighbouring country, France. 
 
 There are persons who think that there did not much come 
 out of it. These are people who want the world to get on 
 much faster than it appears that Providence has enabled it 
 to get on. I saw the other day in that little book of Mr. 
 Ashworth's that he says no less than twenty-seven commer- 
 cial treaties between different countries in Europe followed 
 the treaty between England and France^ and if it were the 
 time or the opportunity now to give you the figures connected 
 with it, you would see that the traffic between England and 
 France in fifteen years had increased threefold, and that the 
 commerce between half-a-dozen of the principal nations of 
 Europe had increased also to an enormous extent. 
 
 Now we come to one other point which was a great grief 
 to my lamented friend; that is, the question of the Civil 
 War in America. You know how much he sympathised, I 
 will not say with the institutions^ but with the interests 
 of the United States. He visited that country twice during 
 the course of his lifp. He had made, as he made wherever 
 he went, many very earnest and very warm friends. He, 
 I think, was more broken down in heart and feeling by the 
 American War, perhaps, than any other man that I happened 
 to know at that time in England. He had thought that 
 there was a country spreading over a whole continent, and 
 that in that country would be perpetual peace. There was 
 no great army, there was no great navy; there were 
 no foreign politics ; America was the home of peace. 
 
364 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jtjlt 25, 
 
 But he had not calculated the effect of a vast calamity like 
 the existence of slavery in that country. Slavery was one 
 of those devils that would not go out without tearing the 
 nation that was possessed of it. But still he always believed 
 that the result of the war would be slavery abolished, and 
 the great Republic, still one and indivisible, henceforth, as 
 he had hoped it would be before the war, the advocate of 
 peace and the promoter of civilisation. Now, my friend did 
 not see the fulfilment of his wishes. It was a circumstance 
 somewhat significant, and very affecting to my mind, that 
 on the very day that President Lincoln and the Northern 
 forces entered the city of Richmond, and when in point of 
 fact the Slave Confederacy was vanquished and at an end — 
 on that very day — that very Sunday, the 2nd of April, in 
 the year 1865 — the spirit of my friend left its earthly tene- 
 ment, and took its way to another, and to him doubtless, 
 a brighter world. 
 
 I had been only a month before that sad day visiting him 
 at his home at Midhurst. It was a clear day in the early 
 March. We strolled out into the fields, and as we were 
 returning home he began to talk of his poor boy — his only 
 son — who died some nine or ten years, I think, before, and 
 turning round and pointing to the beautiful little church, 
 in a most lovely situation, he said, ' Yes, my poor boy lies 
 there and I shall soon be with him.' I little thought how 
 soon. Only a few days afterwards he came up to London. 
 It was a time when the question of expending large sums 
 on the absurd and monstrous idea of defending Canada from 
 the United States by costly fortifications was before the 
 public, and he came up to London with the intention of 
 speaking upon that question, and of pointing out to the 
 House of Commons the foolish and irrational course on which 
 they were invited to enter. He came up upon one of the 
 bitterest days of that month of March, and he was stricken 
 by cold — and fatally stricken. Only, I think; some ten days 
 
1877. XXn. BRADFORD. 365 
 
 afterwards his complaint became greatly aggravated ; and 
 on that 2nd of April of which I have spoken I was at 
 his rooms early in the morning, and remained with him 
 during some unconscious hours until the final close of a 
 life to which I felt myself, and have always felt myself, so 
 strongly attached. 
 
 One more picture of him. I attended his funeral at Mid- 
 hurst. He was laid in the same vault with his poor boy, 
 in which they are now accompanied by the remains of his 
 dear wife and the dear boy's mother. I attended, I say, 
 the funeral. Before we left the house, standing by me, and 
 leaning on the coffin, was his sorrowing daughter, one whose 
 attachment to her father seems to have been a passion scarcely 
 equalled amongst daughters. She said, ' My father used to 
 like me very much to read to him the Sermon on the Mount.' 
 His own life was to a large extent — I speak it with reverence 
 and with hesitation — a sermon based upon that best, that 
 greatest of all sermons. His was a life of perpetual self- 
 sacrifice. 
 
 I have lately been reading a new poem which has in- 
 terested me very much — a poem called ' The Epic of Hades.' 
 Many of you may never have heard of it. Most of you 
 may not have seen it. It is, as I view it, another gem 
 added to the wealth of the poetry of our language. In 
 that poem the author says — 
 
 *For knowledge is a steep which few may climb. 
 While duty is a path which all may tread.* 
 
 I think it will be admitted by those who know anything 
 of the life of Mr. Cobden that he trod what he believed to 
 be the path of duty, and trod it with a firm and un- 
 faltering footstep ; and when I look upon this statue which 
 is now before us, so like him, and so spotless, as was his 
 name and his character, I will say that I trust his following 
 of the path of duty will have many imitators in this district, 
 and that from this stainless marble, and from those voiceless 
 
366 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 lips, there may be taught a perpetual lesson to many gene- 
 rations of the intelligent and industrious men of this district 
 of our country. 
 
 But let me add, that this which you have erected to-day, 
 or which is erected in your midst, is by no means the 
 greatest monument that has been built up to him. There 
 is one far grander and of wider significance. There is not 
 a homestead in the country in which there is not added 
 comfort from his labours, not a cottage the dwellers in which 
 have not steadier employment, higher wages, and a more 
 solid independence. This is his enduring monument. He 
 worked for these ends, and for these great purposes, and he 
 worked even almost to the very day when the lamp of life 
 went out. He is gone ; but his character, his deeds, his 
 life, his example remain a possession to us his countrymen. 
 And let this be said of him for generations to come, as long 
 as the great men of England are spoken of in the English 
 language ; let it be said of him that Richard Cobden gave 
 the labours of a life that he might confer upon his country- 
 men perfect freedom of industry, and with it not that blessing 
 only, but its attendant blessings of plenty and of peace. 
 
XXIIL 
 
 BRADFORD, JULY 25, 1877. 
 
 [After the ceremony of unveiling the statue was over, Mr. Bright was en- 
 tertained at luncheon with many other guests at the Victoria Hotel, 
 Bradford, by Mr. Jacob Behrens, President of the Bradford Chamber of 
 Commerce. In answer to the toast of Mr. Bright's health, the following 
 address on Free-trade was delivered.] 
 
 I HAD no opportunity this morning — it was not the place 
 or the time — to enter into the consideration of any of the 
 subjects which were mentioned in the address which was 
 kindly presented to me by the Chamber of Commerce. As 
 a matter almost of course — seeing what are the pursuits of 
 the Bradford Chamber of Commerce — the question of Free- 
 trade was prominent in that address. I believe there is no 
 Chamber of Commerce in the kingdom which has done so 
 much — I am quite sure there is no Chamber that has done 
 more — than the Chamber of this town in the promotion of 
 Free- trade during the time that I have been interested in 
 it. And what they did in i860, and what they have been 
 doing in the recent negotiations with France, are known 
 better here probably than elsewhere ; but I believe the efforts 
 have been most efficient and most meritorious. 
 
 In France, as in every other country where you have to 
 meet an organised monopoly, you find the great difficulty 
 of making any progress ; but still I think Mr. Behrens will 
 
368 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jult25, 
 
 bear me out when I say that the difficulties at present 
 arising from the state of public opinion in France are very 
 much less than they were seventeen years ago, when the 
 treaty was negotiated. At that time it was said that if the 
 Emperor had not the power of making the treaty according 
 to his own constitution without reference to the Chambers, 
 the treaty would not have had a chance of being passed, 
 and I believe it was true. But now, in all probability — at 
 least there are strong hopes, I do not know whether under 
 the Government that now exists or its successor — but such 
 is the change in public opinion in reference to a treaty with 
 this country, that a fair treaty, a treaty at least equal to 
 the last, possibly somewhat better, may have a good chance 
 of passing the Chambers. If that be so, that is a proof 
 that one result of the treaty of i85o and the experiment 
 which has been made has been to loosen them in some 
 degree from the errors and the selfishness of Protection, 
 and to give them more correct views with regard to inter- 
 national commerce. 
 
 Now, we have in America, too, a tariff that is monstrous, 
 and if it did not exist other nations would say it is quite 
 incredible that a nation so intelligent as the United States 
 could have such a tariff. Then we have in some of our own 
 colonies — in Canada and at least one of the colonies of 
 Australia — tariffs which are great barriers against trade. 
 It is a strange thing that what to us is so evil should exist 
 in intelligent countries with so little protest, but in looking 
 over the journals that Mr. Cobden kept when he was ne- 
 gotiating the treaty, there was an explanation of it which 
 serves for all times and all countries. Discussing the matter 
 with the Emperor, the Emperor said, ' The difficulty is this, 
 the monopolists may be few. They may be a minority of 
 the people. Their interests are not to be compared to the 
 interests of the nation, but the monopolists are an organised 
 body. They are a disciplined army, and the people, the 
 
1877. XXIII. BRADFORD. 369 
 
 great consuming public, are only a mob.' Now, that was 
 exactly the state of things here, and when the Anti-Com- 
 Law League became disciplined and drilled, and instructed the 
 l)eople, and brought their battalions and armies of producers 
 into the field, then the monopoly was abolished. Well, it 
 is very difficult to get any such agitation up in France. 
 Their internal condition is one which I suppose would not 
 admit of an agitation such as that which we promoted, and 
 which was so successful. But in the United States, at any 
 rate, they might have it, only the organisation of the mono- 
 polists is so complete; and they have unfortunately a very 
 plausible excuse, that, having incurred vast expense in their 
 Civil War, and having a great debt and a heavy interest to 
 provide for, it is necessary to have heavy duties upon imports, 
 because that is the easiest way in which their revenue can 
 be collected. 
 
 But we need not go, I am told, quite so far as the United 
 States or Canada to find some trace of a lingering love for 
 Protection. I do not hear of it much now amongst the 
 landed proprietors, and even farmers I think have reconciled 
 themselves to their present condition ; but it is an amazing 
 thing, if it be ti-ue, that amongst some, even manufacturers, 
 there lingers a little love of the old evil and a little wish 
 to return to it. Manufacturers of some special kinds of goods, 
 which they think are interfered with, are afraid. As they 
 cannot sell so freely as they would like, they wish a law that 
 none of their countrymen should buy as freely as they could 
 wish. That, put in brief, is the idea which is running in 
 the minds, I am told, of some gentlemen. And I venture 
 to say, for this country now to return to Protection under 
 any form, to reciprocity, which means to a war of tariffs, 
 would be in reality to bar the progress of the world 
 and, I should say, to destroy our hopes of future peace. 
 If we look to Fi-ance, we see that Protection is becoming 
 weaker ; if we look to the United States, or consult any 
 
 Bb 
 
370 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 25, 
 
 intelligent American who comes to this country, we shall 
 find that there it has been shaken, and is tottering towards 
 its fall. 
 
 I suspect that the extraordinary distress — far greater, 
 tenfold, than anything we have endured in England for the 
 last two or three years — which has been felt throughout all 
 the manufacturing industries of the United States — almost 
 entirely might be attributed, if you were to probe it to the 
 bottom, to their mistaken system, to their protective system, 
 to their having misdirected so much capital, and to their 
 having, on the strength of their high tariff, promoted great 
 extensions of business which could not be permanently sus- 
 tained ; and now, with the help of both Houses of Congress 
 and of all the absurd promises of the protective system, they 
 are in a condition of suffering, I believe, more oppressive than 
 that which has been felt in any country in Europe, and 
 infinitely surpassing anything we have known at the same 
 period in this country. And at this moment you read in the 
 papers of terrible scenes which have taken place in some parts 
 of the State of Pennsylvania. These scenes, I believe, come 
 very much from the same cause — the vast inflation of their 
 iron industries promoted by the extravagant and, to foreign 
 trade, ruinous tariff. Then there comes the collapse. Then 
 there comes the necessity, from the impoverishment of the 
 capitalist, for the great fall of wages, and then the attempt 
 to resist the fall of wages by men who have had very high 
 wages for a long time, and who are brought down to some- 
 thing more moderate, and to something that may possibly 
 approach actual suffering, and there springs up a riot which 
 approaches even to the dimensions of a local insurrection — 
 one I should say of the most deplorable and discreditable 
 things that have happened in the Northern States so far as 
 my knowledge of their history goes. I believe that a great 
 deal of that, if it were traced back to its source, would be 
 found to have arisen from the results of the financial and 
 
1877. XXin. BRABFOUD, 371 
 
 fiscal errors which the people and the Government of the 
 United States have committed. 
 
 There is one point I wish to take a few minutes in 
 noticing. Some time ago I met with a very intelligent 
 gentleman from the city of Berlin, who was talking to me on 
 the subject of Free-trade. He held the same opinions which 
 the majority of us hold on that subject, and holding a very 
 strong opinion on the enormous armaments of Europe, he 
 said he thought we had been accustomed rather to discuss the 
 Free-trade question as a question of economics and of buying 
 and selling — of selling in the dearest and buying in the 
 cheapest markets, and giving to everybody the utmost he 
 could fairly get of all that the world and its industry 
 produces. But, he said, there is another great question 
 which has not been so much dwelt upon, and that is the vast 
 armaments of Europe. He thought if we could have a great 
 reduction, or the abolition, of the tariffs of the great powers 
 of Europe, it would, as a matter of necessity, bring about a 
 corresponding reduction of armaments and a cessation almost 
 entirely of all the causes which promote or permit of war. 
 Now, if we take the countries of France and England, in 
 which we have had this treaty, is there any man in this 
 room, or out of it in this country, who is at all intelligent — 
 is there any man who doubts that from the time of the 
 passing of that treaty the state of feeling between France 
 and England has been entirely changed, and changed in a 
 most wholesome direction? We all know that when the 
 Emperor agreed to that treaty he agreed to it with an honest 
 intention that the two countries should be united by com- 
 mercial relations. I saw him myself in an interview which 
 Mr. Cobden had with him, and in which I accompanied him, 
 just at the conclusion of the treaty. He put his hands to- 
 gether in this way (clasping his hands), and he said, ' What I 
 want is that the two countries should be so bound together by 
 their commercial interests that it should not be in the power 
 
 B b 2 
 
372 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jult25, 
 
 of any Government, or Sovereign, or statesmen to bring" 
 them into a state of war.' Well, the moment that treaty 
 passed, the feelings that had previously existed in England, 
 and which, I am sorry to say, an eminent statesman fostered 
 — immediately that treaty was passed we had a different state 
 of feeling, and so it has been ever since. 
 
 Suppose there were no tariff in France, and no tariff in Eng- 
 land, or an approach to that state, and imagine for a moment 
 that there were no other countries in the world but France and 
 England, it is clear that as far as they are concerned, their 
 interests being so much in common in trade, neighbours neces- 
 sarily dealing with each other, the maintenance of their arma- 
 ments would 1)0 an act of obvious lunacy, and it would become 
 absolutely impossible. The armaments would be disbanded, 
 and what would happen with reference to France and England, 
 supposing they were the only countries to be concerned, would 
 be that it would save them at least 40,000,000^. a year, and 
 it would save them the waste of time and labour of at least 
 750,000 men. Well, but passing from England and France, 
 and looking over Europe, who are the people w^ho dictate all 
 these things ? Public opinion first, of course, but sometimes 
 acting very irregularly and with laggard steps. The French 
 Government, the German Government, the Austrian Govern- 
 ment, the Italian Government, and the Russian Government, 
 here are five : we may almost put out of view the Turkish 
 Government, but they at least, according to their past ideas, 
 would not object to be without a tariff, as they do not seem 
 ever to have known anything about trade. The Spanish 
 Government makes six — seven with the Turkish. Well, 
 there wants the determination, say on the part of seven 
 Governments, with the support of their seven peoples, and if 
 it were possible to conceive that there could arise a potentate, 
 not powerful from the number of his legions, but powerful 
 from his honourable conduct, and his great capacity 
 and high morality — if there should arise such a man, who 
 
1877. XXIII. BRADFORD. 373 
 
 should be able to introduce to the Powers of Europe a great 
 theory like this, and to bring them to consent to put it into 
 practice, it seems to me that you might have a transformation 
 of this part of the world such as the wildest dreamer — I shall 
 be called the wildest dreamer, perhaps — has hardly pictured 
 to himself. And yet it does not seem an impossible thing at 
 all. We have done, so far as our tariff is concerned, almost 
 all that is necessary to be done for this great object which I 
 am pointing out. France has gone some steps towards it ; 
 other countries have done something towards it ; but some of 
 them are still extravagant and wild in the contrary direction. 
 I have asked myself sometimes whether it would not be 
 advisable for somebody in this country, whether the Asso- 
 ciated Chambers of Commerce, who, I am afraid, occupy 
 themselves very much in very small things, the mint, the 
 anise, and the cummin, forgetting the weightier matters of 
 the law — if it were advisable for the Associated Chambers of 
 Commerce to consider generally throughout the country some 
 great question like this, or if it were for the Cobden Club, or 
 for some specially formed association, to endeavour to obtain 
 in each of the capitals of Europe, in all the commercial cities 
 of Europe, a small committee, if it were only half-a-dozen men, 
 or three men (and I am not sure that one good man does 
 not make a very good committee on many occasions), but a 
 small committee of men thoroughly in earnest, who believe in 
 the practical universality of Free-trade for the promotion of 
 human interests, and who believe that if that doctrine were 
 accepted and carried into operation to the extent that I have 
 suggested, we should lessen the great armies of Europe, with 
 their, what shall I say? far more than 100,000,000/. sterling 
 every year wasted, and at least 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 of 
 men, with all their labour, wasted also, and at the same time 
 with perpetual risk of the breaking out of some gigantic 
 struggle which may drench with blood some of the fairest 
 provinces of the Continent. 
 
374 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIOIIT, jult 25, 
 
 I do not pretend, of course, that this is a small matter and 
 that it can easily be done, but I do contend that it is one 
 which it is worth while for all commercial men, all thoughtful 
 men, all cultured men, all Christian men in this country just 
 to give, if it were only a very little, their attention to. There 
 are young men who are looking out for something useful to 
 do. I am getting too old to take an active part in matters of 
 this kind. If I had been twenty years younger I should have 
 been glad to co-operate with such as would have been willing 
 to work with a view to bring about if it were possible some 
 small portion — making some few, it might be feeble, steps in 
 the direction which I have pointed out. And there are 
 possibly in this room amongst those whom I address some 
 who may at some future time, and that not distant, take part 
 in the work which would bless a suffering world, and which I 
 am quite sure it is necessary that some sensible and benevolent 
 and just-minded persons should undertake. 
 
 I am surrounded by dignitaries of the Chambers of Com- 
 merce, the President of your Chamber, and Mr. Whitwell, 
 who is a leading man in the Associated Chambers. I do not 
 know whether it is anything that they can do, but if they 
 could step out a little from the small but not unimportant 
 matters in which they have engaged themselves, I am not 
 sure that they could not make themselves a great power in 
 this country, and acting upon Chambers of Commerce and 
 corresponding bodies in other parts of Europe, that they 
 could not bring about an action that in course of time might 
 make a great change in this part of the world. The fact is 
 the world, as we are in it but for a very short time, does not 
 seem to go on very fast, and we must be satisfied if we can 
 only move it a little ; but the interests of all mankind are so 
 bound up in this question that it only wants that you should 
 dispel the sort of fog which intercepts their vision, when they 
 would come at once to see a promised land which was within 
 their reach, and a fruit such as they have never tasted that 
 
1877. XXIII. BRADFORD. 375 
 
 was within their grasp ; and if this view could once be 
 opened to the intelligent people in these countries of a con- 
 stantly growing intelligence, I have a confident belief that 
 the time will come, that it must come, that it is in the 
 decrees of the Supreme that it shall come, when these vast 
 evils shall be suppressed, and men shall not learn war any- 
 more, and God's earth shall not be made, as it is, a charnel- 
 house by the constant murder of hundreds of thousands of 
 His creatures. 
 
 ^K- 
 
XXIV, 
 
 BRADFORD, JULY 25, 1877. 
 
 [In the evening of the day a crowded meeting was held at the Bradford 
 Liberal Hall. An address was presented to Mr. Bright, in which allusion 
 was made to some of the measures with which his name has been associated, 
 and in particular stated that ' although a great change had taken place in 
 public opinion since the Crimean War, British interests and a spirited 
 foreign policy are made in some quarters still the shadowy and dangerous 
 pretext for departing from a strict and wise neutrality.* The Eastern crisis 
 is the principal topic treated of in the following address.] 
 
 I ACCEPT the address which has just been read by Mr. Salt, 
 and which has been presented to me on behalf of the Executive 
 Committee, and on behalf of this great assembly, I accept 
 it with a feeling that I have come far short of the flattering 
 and complimentary expressions which have been offered to 
 me, but I accept it also with a consciousness that I have 
 endeavoured to do something to promote the true and lasting 
 interests of my country. 
 
 The address has referred to several topics of great import- 
 ance, but there is one of them which is touched upon towards 
 its close which appears to me at this moment to require and 
 to deserve precedence over the others. It is the topic of the 
 foreign policy of this country at the present very critical 
 time in our history. We are the citizens of a very great 
 empire, such as has never before existed upon the globe. It 
 is an empire in which we cannot avoid having some pride. 
 
XXIV. BRADFORD. 377 
 
 and if we are sensible and wise, we cannot avoid saying that 
 there is not a small peril connected with it. We have wide 
 interests touching other countries in almost every part of the 
 globe. Being ourselves in Europe we occupy two com- 
 paratively small islands, with a dense population, with great 
 industry, with vast wealth, and with a great authority amongst 
 the nations. We have, I suppose, in different continents, 
 ten times the territory that we occupy in these islands. In 
 North America there is a territory subject to the Crown of 
 England ten times the measured space of the United King- 
 dom. In Africa there is a territory so large, that with the 
 recent annexation — of which one hopes, for the sake of our 
 character, that Russia will never hear — we have a territory 
 the boundary of which is not known, I believe, to any man 
 in the United Kingdom. In India we have a territory not 
 less extensive, and a population six or eight times that of 
 the United Kingdom. In Australia we have again a territory 
 probably ten times the measured space of the United Kingdom ; 
 and if we speak of islands which are subject to the sceptre 
 of the Queen, reckoning those that have been lately added of 
 the Fiji group, I am not sure that Lord Carnarvon, or any 
 of his subordinates at the Colonial Office, could make an 
 accurate return to Parliament of the number of islands that 
 are dependencies of the Crown. With this vast empire, 
 then, how great must be our interest in the cause of peace. 
 If we are at war, nearly half the world is at war, for England 
 cannot go to war but every territory over which England 
 rules is necessarily also at war with, for the time, the enemy 
 of England. 
 
 And yet, considering our vast interests and our vast perils, 
 there is always in this country — at least, so far as my re- 
 collection goes back — there is always a war party. It is 
 found in the press constantly. Unfortunately for the public 
 interests, there is hardly anything that tends so much to 
 enhance the profits of the proprietors of newspapers as a 
 
378 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 25, 
 
 stirring' and exciting conflict. We have a war party in 
 Parliament, and there are always men who sit there, and 
 though the great majority of them are on the side opposed 
 to that on which I sit, yet I sometimes think there are a 
 few even on our side whose language and whose conduct are 
 not strongly in favour of peace. And amongst the public 
 we know — everybody knows — that there can arise almost no 
 question of foreign policy in which we do not find people 
 unprincipled enough, unscrupulous enough, or ignorant enough 
 to wish that the military power and prowess of England 
 should be again displayed both on sea and on land. Fortu- 
 nately for us, this war party is not always powerful enough 
 to prevail, but it is always powerful enough, or at least 
 very frequently so, to disturb and to injure the true interests 
 of our country. 
 
 Now, I propose to ask you just for a little time to examine 
 the two policies which are before us. The one is the policy 
 of war, wherever there is a temptation to it, or an excuse for 
 it. The other is the policy of peace, so long as peace is 
 possible. Those are the two policies which are now before us, 
 and I shall ask you what is your opinion, and for which of 
 these policies you will give your vote and your voice. Let 
 us look back since the period of the last great war, the war 
 with Russia, which was carried on chiefly in the Crimea. 
 How many wars have there been in Europe, or wars amongst 
 civilised and so-called Christian nations during that period ? 
 I will go back to the year 1859, when there was a war 
 between France and Sardinia against the Empire of Austria. 
 Fortunately we took no part in that war. I recollect during 
 that time making a call, as I did not unfrequently, upon the 
 late Lord Aberdeen, who was Prime Minister four or five 
 years before the time of which I am speaking. Lord Aberdeen 
 was then an aged and a most experienced statesman. He spoke 
 to me of the war that was then in progress in the North of 
 Italy, and he said that when he was young there would not 
 
1877. XXIV. BRADFORD. 379 
 
 have been two opinions in England amongst statesmen or 
 public men of any authority as to the course which England 
 should take. He said all would have agreed that it was 
 necessary to take sides with Austria, and to declare war 
 against France, for fear that France by her success, along 
 with Sardinia, should obtain an influence in Italy, which 
 would disturb the balance of power, and be injurious to 
 British interests. But he added — and I recollect well the 
 solemnity and seriousness of his voice — * All that is changed, 
 and I hope and believe it has changed greatly for the better.' 
 Well, the year after that, and as a consequence of that war, 
 the districts or provinces of Savoy and Nice were disconnected 
 from the Sardinian kingdom, and were handed over to France 
 as compensation to the Emperor for the sacrifices France 
 had made in the war against Austria. This did not bring 
 us into war, but it brought us very near it, for our Foreign 
 Office at that time was communicating with all the Courts of 
 Europe in order to ascertain if there were not an opinion 
 like our own in Europe that would enable us to remonstrate 
 against and probably ;to prevent annexation of those two 
 provinces to France. Fortunately the other Powers did not 
 take the same view of the case. They would not join us in 
 any action upon it ; the matter was settled, and we escaped 
 the calamity of war. In 1864, that is, four years later, there 
 was war between Germany and Denmark, and there we ran 
 an imminent risk of war, for people said there was an old 
 treaty by which we were bound to defend Denmark, and I 
 am not sure that there was not ; but happily, somebody dis- 
 covered that the treaty was an old and musty document 
 — that in point of fact it was like some old and musty and 
 almost forgotten Acts of Parliament — and the treaty was 
 declared, like these Acts of Parliament, to be obsolete, and 
 therefore it was resolved that we were not called upon to 
 defend Denmark and enter into war with the whole of Ger- 
 many. Soon after this, only two years later, Austria and 
 
380 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 25, 
 
 Prussia, having so lately united against Denmark, quarrelled 
 between themselves. That was a war amongst the Germans, 
 rather having the character of a civil war, and we took no 
 part in that. 
 
 In 1870 there was war between Prussia and France. You 
 know the result — that France was vanquished, and that 
 Prussia became Germany. There were persons then who 
 advised that we should take sides. Some said that Belgium 
 was in great danger — some said one thing, and some another. 
 Eminent men said, ' If you are in favour of peace, as England 
 ought to be, you should declare war against that power by 
 whom war is declared.' That is, if France declares war 
 against Prussia, you should join Prussia in the interests of 
 peace, and declare war against France ; if Prussia should 
 declare war against France, then you should join France in 
 the interests of peace, and make war against Prussia. And 
 some said that Louis Napoleon, the Emperor of the French, 
 was little better than an usurper, and it would be well for 
 England to drive the family of the Bonapartes for ever from 
 the throne of France. Well, these people were very dis- 
 cordant, they only agreed in one thing, and that was, the 
 absolute unwisdom in discussing the point in question. 
 
 But during this time, too, there was another great war — 
 from i860 to 1865 — the civil war in the United States. 
 You remember what took place then. There was a war party 
 here ; some wanted to coalesce with the Emperor of the 
 French, to acknowledge the Confederacy of the Southern 
 States, to make slavery perpetual over those great regions, 
 and to enter into a fatal contest with the great power of the 
 North. If we had done it, it would not have succeeded in 
 establishing the Slave Confederacy^ for great as were the 
 armies in the North when left to themselves to fight the 
 South, if any Power in Europe had interfered, not the million 
 of men they had in the field, but another million of men 
 would soon have been in the field, and the result, whatever 
 
1877. XXIV. BRADFORD. 381 
 
 might have happened — whether the Confederacy was estab- 
 lished or whether the Republic was re-united — this would 
 have been certain, that the twenty or thirty millions in the 
 Northern States — and they would soon have been much more 
 than even thirty millions — would have been for generations 
 filled with a bitter hostility to this country, and the brother- 
 hood between that people and ourselves, for which we hope 
 and for which we pray, would have been postponed even 
 for many generations. 
 
 Well now, in these cases you see that war was avoided, 
 that we escaped its penalties, and I would ask you now — Is 
 there one single man in the United Kingdom outside Bedlam, 
 and I doubt if there be one inside it, who regrets the course 
 of neutrality which the people and the Government of the 
 United Kingdom pursued ? But there was one case in which 
 we took a different course, and that is the case of the war 
 between Russia and Turkey. In 1853 Turkey declared war 
 against Russia, and we, after advising the Turk to accept 
 a certain proposition of mediation and arbitration, which the 
 Turk refused, and which Russia accepted, took sides with 
 Turkey notwithstanding, and entered into a sanguinary 
 conflict with Russia. Now, if in 1853 we had advised the 
 Porte to concede the demands, to make a concession urged 
 upon them by Russia^ which was only to strengthen the 
 influence of Russia in defence of the Christian population of 
 Turkey, Turkey would have avoided that war, which was 
 the forerunner, it may be, of her destruction, and we should 
 have avoided the contest into which we entered; three- 
 quarters of a million of men, according to Mr. Kingslake — 
 more I think he puts it at— would have been saved from 
 slaughter or from death by toil and neglect and disease; 
 millions, I know not how many, perhaps something like two 
 hundred or three hundred millions of treasure, would not 
 have been wasted, and in all probability we should have 
 avoided a vast increase of the armies of the Continent which 
 
382 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july25, 
 
 took place after that war and as an immediate consequence of 
 it, and the many subsequent wars that have disturbed the 
 peace of Europe. It was a grand line that Milton wrote in 
 one of his grand sonnets, when he says, — 
 
 *For what can war but endless war still breed?* 
 
 and that war has bred indescribable loss and suffering to 
 several of the nations of Europe. 
 
 But at that time there was a great jealousy of Russia. The 
 judgment of the nation was disturbed, argument was of no 
 avail, facts that were true were disputed, passions were 
 excited, and the Government themselves, responsible to a 
 large extent for exciting the people, went into that disastrous 
 and, in my opinion, most unnecessary contest. But the war 
 party is always jealous of somebody ; it always hates some- 
 body. Forty years ago it was jealous of Russia, and at that 
 time to such an extent was the public afraid of Russia that 
 they believed that we in the North of England, and especially 
 those in the Eastern coast of Yorkshire, were in danger of an 
 invasion from the Baltic. Now we know that that was a 
 belief that should have established the lunacy of a man who 
 said he was sane and was not. And yet under that sort of 
 panic the Government of the time added 5,000 men to the 
 English navy, and then the public began to think that after 
 all perhaps they might be safe. Then this same war party 
 was jealous of France, and hated the French Empire and 
 everybody connected with the then Government of France. 
 That hatred lasted until the treaty of i860 ; since that treaty 
 that simple document, a document that the President of your 
 Chamber of Commerce and the President of a Chamber of 
 Commerce in France could have drawn up in a short time, — 
 there was nothing abstruse, nothing difficult, nothing 
 mysterious about it — that document alone has had the effect 
 of removing the suspicion we had of France ; and at the 
 present moment the Channel does not separate us, but unites 
 
1877. XXIV. BRADFORD. 383 
 
 us, and the trade from that empire and from England to that 
 country has increased so much that now you never find any 
 man who has any jealousy of France. Even the war party of 
 the press would seem, so far as France is concerned, to be for 
 the time put entirely out of court and suppressed. 
 
 There was another great suspicion that men had at one 
 time, and that was about the United States and Canada. 
 We know, everybody knows, that if the United States were 
 unjust enough, aggressive enough, and malignant enough to 
 invade Canada, that with their vast power, their 40,000,000 
 of population against the 4,000,000 of Canada, they could 
 easily pass the boundaries and occupy the whole Canadian 
 territory. No fortifications that we could raise or that 
 Canada could raise would prevent that result. But the 
 United States are not a country whose people are brigands 
 and buccaneers. They are a country which, except during 
 the time of their civil war, from the time of their establish- 
 ment as a free nation, have only been at war I think about 
 four years ; and as regards half of that time in one of those 
 wars they had at least as much justification as we have ever 
 had for any of the wars in which we have been engaged. 
 
 We come now to our own time, and the old influence comes 
 up again. The old sore is before us ; the old jealousy exists ; 
 the old peril comes round again, and we have to confront it 
 as best we may. The Turk, even by the acknowledgment of 
 his friends, has behaved very badly. He was brought for 
 trial, in some sort, before the Conference held at the close of 
 the year, — the Conference at Constantinople. The verdict 
 went against him, but there was no result, for there was no 
 European concert. I am sorry to say that the course 
 pursued by England, as represented by her Government, 
 made European concert absolutely impossible. And now it 
 might have been thought reasonable, that if we were not 
 willing to enforce the verdict we might at any rate have 
 stood aside and left Turkey to its fate. Russia has undertaken 
 
384 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jtjly25, 
 
 to enforce that verdict. I have nothing to say in defence of 
 Russia except this, that if the Conference was wise, if the 
 negotiation was a just interference, if the verdict of the Con- 
 ference was a righteous verdict, it seems only in accordance 
 with reason and with logic that somebody should enforce it. 
 And the Russians being upon the borders of Turkey, and 
 suffering, of course, more than we do from any disturbance 
 in the Turkish provinces, the people of Russia having a great 
 sympathy with the Christian population of Turkey, and that 
 sympathy having a great influence upon the Russian Govern- 
 ment, Russia therefore steps forward in accordance with the 
 common practice of nations, as we find in all histories of the 
 past. She steps forward to defend that Christian population, 
 and to put down evils and disturbances and oppressions which 
 had become intolerable in the sight of all Europe. 
 
 We might have supposed that our Government would have 
 been entirely neutral, but its neutrality is not exactly of that 
 perfect kind which I think it ought to have been. For 
 example, we say to Russia you must not touch Egypt — but 
 Egypt is at war with Russia — because Egypt is constantly 
 sending ships of war and troopships with soldiers to the help 
 of the Sultan. Russia, sensibly enough, not being anxious 
 to come into conflict with England, pledges herself that 
 Egypt shall be kept outside of the military operations in 
 which she is engaged. But, we say further, at least many 
 people say, I am not quite sure whether the Government 
 have said it in express language, but people believe they 
 mean it, that Russia shall not approach Constantinople. 
 But if Russia is not to approach Constantinople what is that 
 but to prolong the war and to give Turkey an inducement 
 not to make peace, and to shut out Russia from one of the 
 commonest rights of a belligerent ? For surely to take the 
 capital city of an empire or a kingdom at war, and to occupy 
 it, is the speediest mode of bringing that war to a conclusion. 
 Our Government now appears to hold, as far as it can, the 
 
1877. XXIV. BRADFORD, 385 
 
 doctrines and the policy of 1854. It adheres to what has 
 been called ' that ghastly phantom — the balance of power.' 
 
 That balance of power is a curious, shadowy thing, which 
 has brought us much evil. In 1 830, France, under Charles X, 
 captured Algiers and made herself possessor of a large tract 
 of country on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. At 
 that time it was said that France was making the Mediter- 
 ranean a French lake, and disturbing the balance of power. 
 Happily we did not go to war for it, and, as it turned out, ten 
 days after the capture of Algiers the King of France was a 
 refugee on the shores of this island, and from that time to 
 this Algiers has been a costly burden to the French people. 
 I do not doubt that in the forty-seven years which have 
 elapsed since that transaction France has spent 100,000,000/. 
 as the result of the possession of Algeria ; and it would be a 
 small estimate to say that it had cost more than 100,000 
 French lives. And France is not a bit stronger to-day ; the 
 balance of power is not in the smallest degree disturbed by 
 the conquest of Algeria by France. But what else has 
 happened ? 
 
 There is a new kingdom in Europe — the Kingdom of Italy. 
 Italy was composed of a number of small States, and by a 
 variety of transactions and circumstances, which I need not 
 describe, these small States have united under one Sovereign 
 and now form the Kingdom of Italy. And what is the 
 Kingdom of Italy doing ? Building a fleet. It is as foolish 
 as other kingdoms. It is building a fleet that is not in any 
 degree necessary, which is burdening its subjects with heavy 
 taxes ; and they boast of having an ironclad more powerful 
 than exists in any other country, and that whereas we possess 
 a gun that is called an 81 -ton gun, the Italians are putting a 
 gun of 100 tons on board one of their ships. Well, but is 
 this no disturbance of the balance of power ? Of course it is. 
 The little kingdoms of Italy had no power whatsoever in 
 Europe, and nobody asked their opinion upon any European 
 
 c c 
 
386 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 25, 
 
 question. The Kingdom of Italy^ as it takes in these small 
 States, becomes a powerful kingdom, and it is admitted into 
 the family of the Great Powers, and its advice is constantly 
 askedj and now you see from late paragraphs in the papers, 
 which may be untrue, and which I hope are so, that Italy, 
 having some aggressive propensities, coveting territory which 
 does not now belong to it, is anxious to take part with Russia 
 in order that, whatever scramble may take place at the end or 
 during the progress of this war, Italy may add something to 
 her dominions. But we have not thought it necessary to 
 interfere with the formation of the Italian Kingdom. No, 
 we patronised it ; we were in some degree responsible for it, 
 and we have never believed that the formation of the new 
 Kingdom of Italy, and the adding of a new member to the 
 powerful family of European nations, was injurious to Europe, 
 or in the slightest degree pernicious to the interests of this 
 country. 
 
 Then, again, you have had another disturbance of the 
 balance of power through the war of 1870, between Prussia 
 and France. What did that do ? It left France vanquished 
 and its capital in the possession of the German army, and the 
 great centre of power in Europe, which was supposed to rest 
 in Paris, has been transferred in the most open and admitted 
 manner to Berlin, the capital of Germany, There was a 
 disturbance of the balance of power in that case, and yet we 
 have never thought it necessary to alarm ourselves about it, 
 much less to go to war to prevent it. Now, I take it for 
 granted with regard to Constantinople — which is a terrible 
 bugbear to the war party — I take it for granted that if the 
 Russians should succeed in this war — and of that I give no 
 kind of opinion — that the determination of what shall be the 
 destiny and the government of Constantinople will be referred 
 to something like a General Council of the Powers of Europe. 
 Russia has over and over again proclaimed in every form of 
 words, and by every kind of solemnity of expression, that it 
 
1877. XXIV. BRADFORD. 387 
 
 is not her intention even to attempt to hold Constantinople. 
 The Russians have declared that they would not consent that 
 it should become the possession of any of the other Great 
 Powers of Europe ; but they have not shut themselves out 
 from the fair consideration with the other Powers of what, 
 consistent with the interests of Europe, shall be the future 
 condition and government of that great city. 
 
 Then there comes the question of the opening of the 
 straits. You hear continually the word ^Bosphorus.' The 
 straits, as you know, are narrow passages leading from the 
 Black Sea to the Mediterranean. I presume you are all now 
 acquainted with the geography of this part of the world, and 
 it is nearly all the good we get amongst the vast evil of war 
 tbat we learn something of geography. Well, these straits 
 run entirely through Turkish territory. They are very 
 narrow ; they are easily defended from either shore ; but 
 chiefly at the prompting, and in the supposed interest, of 
 England, the Russians, who possess large territories round, 
 or half-round, the Black Sea, are not permitted to send any 
 ship of war from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, or to 
 bring or navigate any ship of war from the Mediterranean to 
 the Black Sea. The straits are open to the trade of all 
 nations, and were opened by the Russians themselves a 
 hundred years ago, after they had been closed to the com- 
 merce of the world during three hundred years of their 
 possession by the Turk. Now, I hold the opening of the 
 straits to be absolutely inevitable, but under conditions which 
 the Powers of Europe will find no diflBculty, I believe, in 
 arranging. It would be easy to adopt what is called on the 
 railways the block system. There are two arguments against 
 the opening of the straits. The one is that the Turk, pos- 
 sessing Constantinople, might reasonably complain that if 
 they were opened a great fleet from Russia — they always 
 suppose it is from Russia — a great fleet from the Black Sea, 
 of ironclads, might anchor opposite Constantinople, and even 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jrLY26, 
 
 menace and bombard that city. Well, of course, such a fleet 
 could do it, as anybody of course can do almost any mischief 
 he takes it into his head to do. The other argument is this — 
 that tbe Russian fleet, coming from the Black Sea into the 
 Mediterranean, would not be very far ofi* the Suez Canal, and 
 might interfere with the trading traffic and the military traffic 
 between this country and our dependencies in India. That, 
 of course, Russia migbt do, just as Austria or Italy migbt do, 
 or France might do it. They all have fleets in the Mediter- 
 ranean, and if they chose singly to go to war with England, 
 or, by a combined operation, to resist us and to obstruct the 
 passage of the Canal, that would be a declaration of war 
 against England, and, of course, England would feel bound to 
 interpose to prevent any such obstruction ; but there is no 
 more reason to believe Russia would interfere with the Canal 
 than that France would interfere with it. The United 
 States have not overrun Canada ; the Mediterranean is not a 
 French lake ; the Russians have not invaded the east coast of 
 England from the Baltic ; there was no country in Europe 
 that, until these vile suspicions were aroused, was more 
 disposed to a perpetual amity with England thaij the great 
 Empire of Russia. 
 
 But one more observation upon this. I said that those 
 straits passed through Turkish territory and that you might 
 make provision that not more than one ship or two ships, 
 or whatever limited number was thought proper, should ever 
 be at one time in the straits between the two seas ; and 
 therefore the possessor of Constantinople, whether Turk or 
 Greek, or any other Power or people, would be free from 
 menace and bombardment from any fleet passing up or down 
 the Channel. But what do we do ? There is another narrow 
 channel that runs entirely through Turkish territory ; we are 
 shareholders in a joint-stock company which made it. You 
 know, of course, that the Suez Canal runs entirely through 
 Turkish territory. And what do we say there? We say 
 
1877. XXIV. BRADFORD. 389 
 
 there, that so important is it for us, for our trade, for the 
 supply of troops if need be for India, for the passage of our 
 ships of war, if it is necessary for them to be sent to India 
 — so important is this to our interests, that we are ready 
 to defy the world in arms to keep that Canal open for our 
 traffic. But surely the Canal from the Black Sea to the 
 Mediterranean, the straits which the Creator of the world 
 made for the traffic and service of the world, has as good 
 a right to be open to the world as the straits, the Canal 
 which was made by M. Lesseps with the money of his 
 French shareholders. 
 
 It seems only the other day to me that I heard Lord 
 Palmerston, when he was Prime Minister, in the House of 
 Commons declaring that this Suez Canal was a chimera — 
 it was a scheme that could not be completed, or could not 
 succeed if it were completed; that it would be no advantage 
 to England ; that England should have nothing to do with 
 it — none of its money should be spent upon it. Well, the 
 result was that it was all thrown upon France, and France, 
 stimulated by the hostility of the English Minister, poured 
 forth its money in vast sums, and under the wonderful 
 energy of M. Lesseps, the Canal was made — not only made, 
 but it succeeds and will pay. Not only so, but we have 
 become shareholders in it — not you and I, but our Govern- 
 ment, and it is considered to be of all parts of the world 
 that which at this moment we are the most bound to defend 
 to the very last extremity. Now the fact is with regard 
 to that Canal that I believe it is in more risk from the Turk 
 than from anybody else ; and I believe that all Europe would 
 gladly enter into any kind of reasonable compact to guarantee 
 its improvement, its being widened, and its being kept per- 
 petually open for all the mercantile and other navies of the 
 globe. I believe also that other nations, ourselves excepted, 
 would be quite willing to see the straits between the Black 
 Sea and the Mediterranean just as freely opened. They have 
 
390 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jtjly 25, 
 
 no kind of interest such as we pretend to have. Our interest, 
 to my mind, is purely visionary. Russia is not a nation, is 
 not likely to be for a long time a nation, that will have 
 great fleets to traverse the Mediterranean as we have; and 
 if she had a fleet there it would be no more hostile to us 
 than the now creating, growing fleet of Italy, or the now 
 existing formidable fleet of France. 
 
 And when I come to consider the position of Russia, 
 shut up as she is in the North, in the Baltic, by the frost, 
 her only entrance by the Sound, which is narrow ; that she 
 has no great navigable rivers running to the ocean — they 
 run to the Black Sea and the Caspian — I say that it is one 
 of the most unjust ideas, and one of the very wildest of 
 unstatesmanlike notions, that this country can perpetually 
 forbid a nation of 80,000,000 of people to find that access 
 to the main ocean which the Creator of the world made 
 equally for all His people upon the globe. 
 
 Now, may I be allowed to remark upon some recent 
 news which I think, whatever judgment we may form upon it, 
 must be admitted to be of a somewhat disturbing character. 
 I am not anxious in my observations to-night to attack 
 the Government. So far as I could find them taking a 
 com'se which appeared to me wise for the country, I should 
 be glad to offer them any support that I could give them ; 
 but I must say that their course has been one that has 
 seemed to me not so much of a clear and decided states- 
 manship as a course of constantly varying caprice. I think 
 they have damaged our own commerce and our own name. 
 About a year and a-half ago they astounded the country 
 by the announcement that they had become possessors of a 
 large number of shares in the Suez Canal. And they gave 
 twice as much for them as the Khedive, it is said, had 
 offered them at in other quarters. But I will not object to 
 a couple of millions here or there. I am not speaking now 
 of the waste or misapplication of our taxes, I am speaking 
 
1877. XXIV. BRADFORD. 391 
 
 of the policy. You know how that announcement was re- 
 ceived. The London newspapers, which really knew, I 
 suppose, nothing about it, announced it as the first step to 
 a great, spirited, and, as they hoped, triumphant foreign 
 policy. It was the first step towards the possession of all 
 the Canal, and probably to the possession of Egypt itself. 
 The Government did not deny that, in fact some things 
 they said led to that' conclusion; and yet afterwards we 
 were informed by an eminent Minister of the Crown that 
 it was little more than a commercial transaction which it 
 was thought would be advantageous to the country; that 
 we had so great an interest in the Canal that it would be 
 well that we should have a voice upon the directing board. 
 That is a matter of no great importance, and it is not one 
 upon which we need either greatly to applaud, or perhaps 
 to condemn, the Administration. 
 
 Well, by-and-by, what do they do further? They send 
 out Mr. Cave, a member of the Government, to Egypt to 
 look up the books and the affairs and the banking account 
 of the Khedive. The Khedive did not ask for Mr. Cave, 
 a member of the Government; he asked for a competent 
 clerk or two from the Treasury. They sent a member of 
 the Government out, and the result of that was to confirm 
 the impression that we had some special and overwhelming 
 interest in Egypt that would lead to some great transaction 
 at no distant period. And then we had speeches, as you 
 know ; speeches made by the most eminent Ministers ; 
 speeches which excited undue suspicion and hostility in 
 Russia, and speeches which excited in this country the ar- 
 dour of the war party and excited the alarm of the great 
 body of the people. Then we had the Conference at Con- 
 stantinople, and people say — it is denied, it was denied by 
 the Government, but people do say — that there were two 
 voices that spoke to the Sultan. Now, I have heard two 
 voices myself often that did not speak with any discordance. 
 
,392 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 25, 
 
 I recollect one of my boys being very much surprised when 
 I told him that, being- in the Highlands, I heard a man 
 shout and the echo answered in Gaelic. Well, but it answered 
 in Gaelic because the man spoke in Gaelic ; an echo repeats 
 what it has heard, and though there are two sounds and two 
 voices, there is only one thing said. The two voices which 
 spoke in Constantinople apparently did not say the same 
 thing. Whilst Lord Salisbury was endeavouring by all the 
 means in his power to urge the Turk to those most 
 moderate concessions which at last the Conference only 
 demanded, and with which Russia would be content^ and 
 war would have been avoided, the war party in this country 
 the war press, the war public men — that portion of the 
 public which I call the rowdy war party — and there are 
 rowdies amongst the rich as well as amongst the poor — 
 I say all that party was speaking with another voice, and 
 stimulating and encouraging the Turk to resist, and it has 
 brought the Turk to the catastrophe in which he now finds 
 himself. 
 
 Afterwards^ or about that time, we had the fleet sent to 
 Besika Bay. Well, there might be fair reasons for sending 
 the fleet to Besika Bay. I do not want to take advantage 
 of an act of this kind to bring charges against the Govern- 
 ment, but all I say is that whilst the press of this party 
 and the war party generally, and, I am afraid to say also, 
 some members connected with the Government — although 
 they had led us to conclude that the sending of the fleet 
 to Besika Bay was in some sort a menace to Russia and an 
 exhibition of the naval power of England, yet after all this 
 excitement had been created. Ministers come forward and 
 say that it really had nothing to do with these reasons, 
 and that the fleet went there merely because they thought 
 there would be some disturbance or insurrection in Con- 
 stantinople, and that it was necessary for the fleet to be 
 in the neighbourhood, for the purpose of taking care of 
 
1877. 
 
 XXIV. BRADFORD. 393 
 
 European people who might be there in that time of danger. 
 So you see that there is scarcely anything that is done by 
 the Government that is not misrepresented according to 
 their own statement afterwards. 
 
 Now I really think that I am justified in bringing this 
 charge against the Government — either they themselves do not 
 fairly understand the effects of the particular acts which they 
 recommend, and which they enforce, or that they behave in 
 a manner showing almost no confidence in the public opinion 
 of their country. I think that if they were to explain dis- 
 tinctly — they have opportunities every night in Parliament ; 
 they have opportunities every morning in influential organs 
 of the press — if they would explain distinctly when they 
 take any of these steps what is the meaning and what is 
 the extent of them, that then the public would not be dis- 
 turbed. What has been the case with these different acts? 
 Look at the records of the Stock Exchange ; how much 
 some things go up and other things go down ; and simple 
 people who are not behind the scenes are led on very often 
 in their purchases or sales or speculations, it may be to their 
 ruin. And see what takes place in your markets — in your 
 wool market, in your cotton market at Liverpool. All these 
 are affected by those various acts, and I maintain that the 
 commercial people of England — I am not now appealing to 
 Liberal merchants and manufacturers, I appeal to all mer- 
 chants and manufacturers, to all men who live by their 
 daily labour — and I say they have a right to call upon the 
 Government for a distinct enunciation of their policy. 
 
 Now, I admit with great frankness the difficulties of the 
 Government. The difficulties would have been very great if 
 our party had been in oflice. It would be unfair, it would 
 be unjust altogether — an injustice of which I am altogether 
 incapable — to bring against the Government indiscriminate 
 charges because they have not done everything wisely in the 
 great diflSculties which they have had to consider and en- 
 
394 ADDEESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, july 25. 
 
 counter. But they might certainly — at least I believe they 
 might— have tamed down what I call the rowdy organs of 
 their press. Look at the wild things that they have said. 
 They talk of Constantinople ; they talk of the Bosphorus ; 
 they now talk of Gallipoli — a little place just on the left- 
 hand side as you go up the Dardanelles. I was once very 
 near run ashore there myself. I only hope the Government 
 will not be run ashore there. Then they talk of Crete ; and 
 there has been almost a shower of pamphlets and of articles 
 in newspapers in favour of the seizure, or purchase, or an- 
 nexation — various terms by which it is understood that we 
 are to obtain possession — -of Egypt as the highway to India, 
 and govern it upon the plan on which we govern India. 
 I do not say that that might not be even an advantage to 
 those poor wretches, the subjects of our friend the Khedive; 
 but there is one consideration that these wild and crazy 
 people never for a moment look at. What do they think 
 would be thought in Europe if anything of the kind was 
 done ? Why this, first of all ; that having seized upon 
 something that we thought was useful for us, we leave the 
 whole of the rest of the Turkish Empire to be taken by 
 anybody who is strong enough to seize it. And what would 
 be thought by France ? France has^ as you know, a tra- 
 ditional regard for Egypt. I do not know whether it goes 
 further back than the time of the first Napoleon, when forty 
 centuries looked down from the Pyramids upon his armies, 
 but France has from that time always been endeavouring 
 to obtain what is called a strong interest with the Egyptian 
 Government. 
 
 I was talking the other day to a gentleman — a Frenchman, 
 and a very eminent Frenchman, who, when there is another 
 Liberal Government in France, which I hope may be soon, 
 will in all probability be an important member of that 
 Government. I put this question to him. We had been 
 talking about Egypt, and upon the language which was 
 
1877. XXIV. BRADFORD. 396 
 
 held by some people in this country with regard to it. I 
 said, * What would be thought in France if England were, 
 under any pretence and by any means, whether by force 
 or by purchase, or in any way to obtain possession of Egypt V 
 He said it would create the very worst impression in that 
 country, and his opinion was that no Government could 
 maintain itself in France which permitted such a measure 
 without the strongest protest and remonstrance, and whether 
 protest and remonstrance would be all it was not very easy 
 to determine. And all this for what ? That our ships may 
 go through the Canal to India. And there is no Power in 
 the world that has at this moment, as I believe, the smallest 
 disposition to interfere with it, but all of them have a great 
 interest — not so great as ours, but still a great interest — 
 in the perpetuation of the freedom of the Canal. 
 
 Now in this discord with regard to what should be done 
 there is one other consideration of great importance, and that 
 is, that England has no allies. I believe there is no country 
 in Europe at this moment that feels with us in regard to 
 these questions. We are alone in Europe, as I believe, with 
 regard to the Bosphorus, and with regard to the question of 
 danger as connected with the closing of the Canal. Amongst 
 other nations onr demands are felt to be unreasonable and 
 arrogant, and I confess I sometimes fear that if we pursue 
 this policy much further we shall stand the risk of some 
 European combination against us, and that we shall find 
 ourselves not triumphant but baffled. And when the final 
 settlement comes of this question, unless we can be moderate 
 and just, I suspect that there is great danger that we may 
 suffer a humiliation which not the nation only as a whole, 
 but which all of us individually, may be made severely 
 to feel. 
 
 Now what is our true policy ? I have pointed out to you 
 that a great many wars have taken place since the Crimean 
 War — unhappily have taken place — in which we have had 
 
896 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 3vm2^, 
 
 no part, though we ran in some of them great risks. None 
 of us now regret our neutrality and our pacific policy. We 
 violated that policy at the time of the Russian War, from 
 1854 to 1856, and now almost all of us repent that we did 
 violate that policy. I believe that the policy of neutrality 
 is the true and wise policy for this country. Not only is it 
 true in morals, but it is true in statesmanship ; and, in fact, 
 I would not dissociate at all what is true in morals from what 
 is true in statesmanship. I think that we mighty and that 
 we ought, whenever honest counsel is solicited — we ought to 
 give honest counsel, and that if the time should come — and 
 it may be remote — but if the time should come when the 
 Powers of Europe should ask us or ask themselves what 
 should be the future destiny of Constantinople ; should 
 the Turk remain there with circumscribed territory and 
 power, or should the Greek return to the possession of his 
 ancient seat of glory and of power, it would become this 
 Government, not with selfishness, not with this miserable 
 jealousy, but with honest and courageous advice, to join with 
 the other Powers in that settlement that would be best for 
 that region and best for the future interests and peace of 
 Europe. 
 
 I began by saying that we were a gieat empire. It 
 becomes a great State like this to set always to the world 
 a great and noble example. I quote a passage from a recent 
 speech of Lord Derby with a sentiment of the utmost admi- 
 ration and with the fullest concurrence. He said, * We must 
 always remember that the greatest of British interests is the 
 interest of peace.' Now at home what are we doing ? We 
 are advancing to the uttermost of our power — and it is a 
 difficult and a rugged process, after generations of neglect — 
 we are advancing as much as we can the education of our 
 people. We are promoting to the utmost freedom of their 
 industry, we are doing all we can to add to the comfort of 
 their homes, and the content and satisfaction of their hearts. 
 
1877. XXIV. BRADFORD. 397 
 
 Five years hence, if this matter be settled, and we do not 
 interfere, we shall all be delighted that we did not interfere. 
 Five years hence, if we do interfere, we shall lament for the 
 dead whose blood has been sacrificed, for the treasure that has 
 been wasted, for the added discord which we have brought to 
 Europe, and, it may be, for the humiliation of our statesmanship 
 and our military operations that we may have to undertake. 
 Let us, then, I say, turning to our foreign policy, be as wise as 
 we are endeavouring to be with our home policy. Let us try 
 to be courteous to all nations, just to all nations ; as far as 
 we can, getting rid of the jealousies that have disturbed us, let 
 us believe that whether it be the United States on the other 
 side of the Atlantic, or whether it be the great Empire of 
 Russia in the East of Europe, that there are good and great 
 and noble men in those countries ; that there is no disposition 
 whatever — as I believe there is none — to make quarrels with 
 this country, and to do no evil of any kind to us. Then, 
 great as our nation is, with its power apparent in every 
 quarter of the globe, great will be its influence for good, 
 and though the world moves on slowly — far too slowly for 
 our ardent hopes — to its brighter day, history will declare 
 with impartial voice that Britain, casting ofi* her ancient errors, 
 led the grand procession of the nations in the path of civilisa- 
 tion and of peace. 
 
XXV. 
 
 MANCHESTEE, SEPTEMBER 13, 1877. 
 
 [The new Town Hall at Manchester, huilt from the designs of Mr. Waterhouse, 
 was formally opened on this day. It had been hoped that the Queen would 
 have been present at the ceremony, but somewhat unexpectedly the hope was 
 disappointed. A very distinguished company was present, and Mr. Bright, 
 being one of the guests, was requested to respond to the toast of the House 
 of Commons.] 
 
 I BELIEVE this is the very first time in all my long 
 experience that I have been asked to speak on behalf 
 of the House of Commons, and I presume that I am asked 
 to-night because I have been so long a time a member of 
 that House. A friend of mine told me only a few weeks 
 ago that in looking over the list of members of the House he 
 found that there were not so many as twenty of them that 
 had been members of it for so long a period. If I were to 
 compare the House of Commons with this assembly, I should 
 say that the House in one respect had rather the advantage, 
 for in the House of Commons a man need not speak unless 
 he looks for and attracts, or, as we say, * catches ' the 
 Speaker's eye. He may sit — and many members do sit — most 
 comfortably for the whole Session, and on no one occasion 
 trouble the House with a speech. But here the case is dif- 
 ferent. When I had your invitation, Mr. Mayor, I felt 
 grateful that you remembered an old acquaintance and 
 
XXr. MANCHESTER. 399 
 
 friend. At the same time I felt that I should have come 
 to this banquet with much more courage, much less trepi- 
 dation, if I had believed that I should be able to sit through 
 our proceedings, enjoying that pleasant obscurity which is 
 denied to those who are called upon to address you. My 
 long experience has taught me, however, that the kind of 
 pleasure is not permitted to me at public banquets, so I rise 
 in obedience to an authority against which none of us dare 
 to rebel. 
 
 I suppose that the object of a toast is that it should bring 
 the persons toasted before the notice of those present, and 
 excite favourable wishes on their behalf. We wish, I presume, 
 health to the House of Commons, and I may be allowed to 
 express an opinion — ^and there are others here who can cor- 
 rect me if I am wrong — I should say that for some time the 
 health of the House of Commons has been but indifferent. 
 I mean if health is to be tested by vigour, and freshness of life, 
 and action. Some nine years ago I recollect, and since then, 
 that the House of Commons exhibited much life and much 
 freshness, and that everybody felt it to be a great assembly with, 
 great aims and the power of doing great work. But latterly 
 from some cause — and I do not blame the House of Commons, 
 for it is what it is by the fiat of those who sent it there, but 
 I only state the fact — the House now appears to have lost all 
 that vigour, and to be afflicted with a languor that is almost 
 distressing. If I were a medical man called in to give an 
 opinion, I should say from facts that are notorious that its 
 appetite seems to be feeble, and as I have heard a doctor say 
 in examining a patient, the tongue, if not actually foul, is 
 in some degree furred. Well, what does your family doctor 
 recommend when he finds some member of the household a 
 little under par or deficient in energy — a little borne down, 
 it may be, by the weary work of city life. Generally, he 
 thinks country air would be of advantage, and I am not 
 certain if the only remedy to which we can look, the only 
 
400 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. sept. 13, 
 
 change which will be of any benefit to that august assembly 
 about which I am speaking, will not be that under some high 
 medical authority it should be sent back to the country. So 
 much for the House of Commons. It takes up so much of 
 our time during six months of the year that the House 
 may be content if we talk about something else during 
 the recess, and I turn to the occasion on which we are now 
 met. 
 
 I agree with what has been said that this is really a 
 memorable day in this great city. I have on my left the 
 Lord Provost of Edinburgh. He says that he has attended, 
 as I believe that all Lord Provosts have a right to have 
 attended, a great many banquets, but he does not think that 
 he has ever before seen anything so complete and so grand 
 in that line as the banquet at which he has been present 
 to-night. On my right hand is the Lord Chief Justice of 
 England. I cannot well appeal to any higher authority 
 either as to law or fact, and he says that he thinks what he 
 has seen here to-night is absolutely complete. This banquet 
 then to-night stands distinguished among all the banquets 
 that any of us have ever seen or attended. To-morrow night, 
 I understand, these apartments will be filled by, I must say, 
 a much more brilliant assemblage, without saying anything 
 ofiensive of ourselves; and on the following day we are to 
 have, if our September skies will permit, a multitudinous 
 procession through the principal streets of the city. This 
 shows, I think, that all classes in the city hold it to be a 
 memorable occasion, and that we are engaged in something 
 which may hereafter be spoken of, as I hope it may be for 
 generations and for centuries, as a great thing to have been 
 done by the inhabitants of Manchester in these days. There 
 are two things shown by what has been done. We see what 
 a prodigious growth there has been of population and of 
 wealth in our time ; and it shows, also, what vast force 
 there is — force of liberality and force of generosity — in 
 
1877. XXV. MANCHESTER 401 
 
 freedom everywhere, and in municipal freedom wherever we 
 see it. 
 
 Fifty years ago, or less, I suppose, this town was governed 
 by an officer who went by the name of the Borough Reeve. 
 I never saw a Borough Reeve myself. I do not know in 
 the least what kind of person he was. He was something, 
 however, that we have now forgotten — something we must 
 admit to be very antiquated. He was the symbol of a 
 patronage which was in some degree humiliating to a great 
 town. In fact, he is now as extinct as that almost fabulous 
 bird the dodo. You may still find him, it may be, at 
 Madame Tussaud's or in the British Museum. But, instead 
 of having a Borough Reeve to govern the great town of 
 Manchester, under a very respectable Staffordshire squire, 
 you have now my hon. friend who sits in the chair — the 
 real, undoubted, and authoritative representative of the people 
 in this great city. Then, with regard to this edifice, it is 
 truly a municipal palace. Whether you look at its propor- 
 tions outside or its internal decorations, or to the costly 
 monument which is raised by it, there is nothing like it that 
 I know of in any part of the United Kingdom ; and I doubt 
 whether in any of the great and famous old cities of the 
 Continent of Europe there is in what they call their Hotels 
 de Ville, or what the London people call the Mansion-house, 
 any building equal in costliness and grandeur to this. But 
 then, after all, I am not sure that we may not run some risk 
 of being a little filled with vainglory at what has been done. 
 It is a weakness of men and of cities and of nations to be 
 vainglorious after something considerable has been accom- 
 plished. We are here to-night, standing in the centre of a 
 district more wonderful in some respects than is to be traced 
 out on the map in any other kingdom of the world. The 
 population is extraordinary. It is extraordinary for its inte- 
 rests and its industries, for the amount of its wealth, for the 
 amount of its wages, and for the power which it exercises 
 
 Dd 
 
402 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. sept. 13, 
 
 in its public opinion on and over the public opinion of 
 the nation. But still for all that, although the present and 
 past have been so brilliant, I cannot help thinking of the 
 fact, that the future is not without anxiety. Even, I may 
 say that the present is not without its clouds; 
 
 I have an anecdote in my mind with regard to this matter, 
 which I may relate here, for a friend of mine is now present 
 who many years was concerned in it. I suppose it must be 
 thirty-five years ago that my late friend, and your friend, Mr. 
 Cobden, and also my friend who is here to-night, Mr. Henry 
 Ashworth, and myself, were in Scotland on an expedition to 
 preach the doctrines of the Anti-Com-Law League, and in the 
 course of our journey we stayed for a night or two with the late 
 Mr. George Hope, of Haddington, who was one of the very 
 first agriculturists in Scotland. He took us to see a famous 
 ruin in that neighbourhood, which my right hon. friend 
 the Lord Provost is very well acquainted with — the ruins 
 of Tantallon Castle. It is the ruin of a stronghold that at 
 one time belonged to the famous and powerful Douglas 
 family. As I walked in among these ruins my friend Mr. 
 Ashworth stopped me and turned round with a look of sad- 
 ness and said, * How long will it be before our great ware- 
 houses and factories in Lancashire are as complete a ruin 
 as this castle?' I have thought of that many times. I 
 thought of it then with sadness, as I think of it now. One 
 thing is certain — if ever they come to ruin, they will never be 
 so picturesque as are the ruins of Tantallon Castle. I think 
 sometimes that we are not always aware of some of the 
 perils which beset us. We import, as you know, most of the 
 materials of our industry from distant parts of the world — 
 from Egypt, from India, from South America, but mainly 
 from the United States of North America. We use much 
 of it in this country for our own consumption. We export 
 a great portion of it to other countries — some of it to almost 
 every country in the world, and we have to stand in every 
 
1877. XXV. MANCHESTER. 403 
 
 country the competition of the industries of all their people. 
 We have also to overcome, if it be possible, the barriers which 
 foreign tariffs have erected against our trade; we are pur- 
 suing also a course at home which is not without its danger. 
 We have been for many years past, as you know, gradually 
 diminishing the period of time during which our machinery 
 can work. We are surrounded by combinations whose object 
 is not only to diminish the time of labour and the products 
 of labour, but to increase the remuneration for labour. Every 
 half hour during which you diminish the time of labour, 
 and every farthing by which you increase the payment of 
 labour beyond that which is the result of ordinary economic 
 causes, have exactly the same effect upon us, in the general 
 and unavoidable competition, as the increase of the tariffs 
 of foreign countries. Thus we often find, with all our 
 philanthropy in wishing the people to have more recreation, 
 and with the hope that many feel that the workman should 
 better his condition through his combinations, that we are 
 ourselves aiding — it may be inevitably and necessarily — but 
 it is a fact that we are aiding to increase the difficulties 
 under which we labour in sending foreign countries the pro- 
 ducts of the industry of these districts ; and we must not 
 forget that great cities have fallen before Manchester and 
 Liverpool were known, — great mercantile cities, on the shores 
 of the Mediterranean, the cities of Phoenicia, the cities of 
 Carthage, Genoa, and Venice. The poet says of Venice — 
 
 * Her daughters had their dowers 
 From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 
 Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers/ 
 
 But what are the lines with which he concludes— 
 
 ' Venice lost and won, 
 Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done. 
 Sinks like a seaweed into whence she rose.' 
 
 Therefore, when we are met in this magnificent hall to enjoy 
 the generous hospitality of the Mayor and his friends, and 
 
 Dd 2 
 
^04 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. sept. 13, 
 
 surrounded by the vast industries of this powerful district, let 
 us not for a moment imagine that we stand on a foundation 
 absolutely sure and immovable, or that we are not liable to 
 the dangers which have overthrown and overwhelmed the 
 great municipalities and cities and the prosperous industries 
 of other countries and other times. 
 
 May I refer to just one other question which the public 
 cannot well but think much about at this moment, and that 
 is the condition of things in the Indian Dependencies of the 
 British Crown. In India we have a vast territory and we have 
 a vast population. It is a country, notwithstanding, which 
 seems to me to have its perils for ourselves, and possibly the 
 errors we permit, or of which we have been guilty, may some 
 day or another inflict a very heavy penalty upon us. The 
 people live under a burning sun. But if you will give water 
 to the land, it will give almost all the fruits of the earth in 
 great abundance ; while, if you withhold the water, the 
 ground becomes baked almost as hard as stone, and the whole 
 country becomes a region of desolation and death. We have 
 there been doing a great deal of late, but we hardly do any- 
 thing except under pressure of some great emergency and 
 calamity. The calamity of the Mutiny overthrew the India 
 Company, and I hope from my heart that the calamity which 
 has overtaken part of India, and which stirs the hearts of 
 all the people in England, will have the effect of opening up 
 a new and better policy with regard to what is needful to 
 secure a continuous success to the agriculture of these vast 
 regions. Our Government made railways ; we have spent, 
 I am afraid to say how much, but very much more than a 
 hundred millions in making railways. They are of great 
 service, and many of them are profitable and pay the invest- 
 ment which has been made in them ; but when Government 
 undertook to promote railways they did it largely from the 
 idea that they would be of great service in a military point 
 of view, and that when they could move one regiment by 
 
1877. XXV. MANCHESTER. 405 
 
 railway it would be equal to three regiments which would 
 have to be marched on foot through the country. I am not 
 sure that we have not many more European soldiers there than 
 we had before the railways were made ; but it was because, 
 in my opinion, there was a military question involved in it — 
 which, of course, means the question of the safety of the 
 country — that money was expended to so vast an amount on 
 the railways and comparatively so little on works of irriga- 
 tion. Now, I believe, and I think that no man can doubt, 
 that however advantageous the railways have been, if we 
 had spent one-third of the money spent on railways on canals 
 of navigation and irrigation, the famines which during the 
 last few years have swept away, or are sweeping away, some 
 millions of the population, would not have occurred. The 
 condition of the people would have been immensely improved, 
 the production of the soil enormously increased, the traffic 
 between England and India in its supply of articles we 
 want would have been greatly enlarged, and its power fronl 
 its greater wealth of consuming the productions of our in- 
 dustry would also have been far, far beyond anything we have 
 hitherto seen. 
 
 Twenty years ago I paid a great deal of attention to Indian 
 matters, as some of my friends here know. At the time I 
 was very anxious that there should be more done for irri- 
 gation and navigation, but the railway interest prevailed 
 mainly because it was also the military, or, what you may 
 call the national, interest. Well, the railways have been 
 made. I think now that if the Government would undertake 
 in the course of the next six or ten years — it would easily 
 be done in that time — to spend about 30,000,000^. in the 
 making of canals for navigation and irrigation, they would 
 by the end of that tiiaoe have produced a change in India 
 such as very few persons can form any adequate conception 
 of. Just at the time when the Crimean War broke out Sir 
 Arthur Cotton, then Colonel Cotton, came down to Man- 
 
406 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. sept. 13, 
 
 Chester. My friend Sir Thomas Bazley and myself were 
 chiefly instrumental in bringing him down, — the members of 
 the Chamber of Commerce gave their assistance, and in the 
 Town-hall, in King Street, Sir Arthur Cotton gave us a 
 lecture. I have a book at home called ' The Indian Problem 
 Solved;' in it there is a map not very much larger than this 
 piece of paper, and on this map are placed a number of canals 
 according to the plan which Sir Arthur Cotton himself had laid 
 down. I believe it is calculated that the whole of these canals 
 might have been made for the sum probably of 25,000,000/., 
 certainly not more than 30,000,000/. sterling, which, after all, 
 is a mere bagatelle in a matter of this kind, because it is only 
 1,000,000/. a year in interest, and only three times as much 
 as was spent in that miserable Abyssinian War. If there is 
 some question of that kind. Parliament grants 10,000,000/. 
 or 20,000,000/., and the thing is done ; they say the honour 
 of the country is concerned. Can there be anything in which 
 the honour of the country is more concerned than this, that 
 we, whose fathers conquered India, with its 200,000,000 of 
 people — can there be anything in which our interests are 
 more concerned than, that we, their children, should, if pos- 
 sible, turn that bequest to the greatest account, and having re- 
 ceived, we know not how or why, that great responsibility, we 
 should endeavour, if possible, adequately to fulfil it ? Alms- 
 giving is often very good, but not always. Almsgiving now 
 is general throughout the country on behalf of the Indian 
 suflPerers ; let every man's purse be open as his heart is open, 
 and let him give ; but I tell him without the slightest hesita- 
 tion, that though what he gives will carry its blessing with it 
 now to some poor wretch in that distant country, still it will do 
 little for the future. What you want is a new and a wiser and 
 a broader policy, and that policy, I much fear, you will never 
 have from the Government of Calcutta until the people of 
 England say that it is their policy and must be adopted. In 
 the n^idst, then, of our present position, with this gorgeous 
 
1877. XXV. MANCHESTER. 407 
 
 banquet before us, in this magnificent hall, let us not forget 
 our responsibilities, let us not forget the perils we may have 
 to encounter ; but let Manchester, of the very foremost of our 
 great cities, let Manchester, as she has done in time past, 
 contribute her share to that wisdom which in all time is the 
 sure foundation of the permanent prosperity and of the true 
 grandeur of States. 
 
 ->K- 
 
XXVL 
 
 ROCHDALE, SEPTEMBER 25, 1877. 
 
 [On this evening Mr. Bright was asked to distribute the prizes to the success- 
 ful students of the Science and Art Classes, held in connection with the 
 well-known Co-operative Society of the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers. After 
 distributing the prizes Mr. Bright made the following address.] 
 
 Although it is expected that on an occasion like this there 
 should be a good deal said on education, yet I beg to assure 
 you that I am not about to make an education speech. We 
 are all, I think, very much agreed upon the long-disputed 
 question as to whether education for what are called the 
 common people be desirable or not. For my part I do not 
 care to discuss that question to-night, even for a moment, 
 and I may say that, on the whole, of late years I have found 
 the reading of what are called education speeches rather dull 
 and heavy work. But if we look back we shall find that 
 on this question, as upon most others, very remarkable 
 changes have occurred, and we now hold that to be whole- 
 some and good which in past times eminent men thought 
 to be almost wholly pernicious. 
 
 I found a curious passage in a very interesting work, 
 the ' History of the Colonisation of the United States,-* by 
 Mr. Bancroft. He is describing the government of the 
 Colony of Virginia about two hundred years ago-, and he gives 
 
XXVI. ROCHDALE. 409 
 
 an extract from a despatch or letter by Sir William Barclay, 
 the Governor of the Colony, to the Government, or, perhaps, 
 to the king, Charles II, at home. I will read you that de- 
 spatch just to show the distance that we have travelled since 
 that time. Perhaps we have taken much too long a time 
 to travel it. He seems to have been discontented with the 
 clergy of that day. We have not found them in this 
 country, except latterly, very enthusiastic, I am sorry to say, 
 upon the question of general education; but at present we 
 are all pretty much abreast and travelling in the same di- 
 rection, and, I trust, with an equal zeal. Sir William 
 Barclay writes thus. He says : — 
 
 ' The ministers should pray of tener and preach less, but I thank God there 
 are no free schools nor printing-presses, and I hope we shall not have these 
 hundi'ed years, for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects 
 into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best 
 Government. God keep us from both.' 
 
 Fifty years before that time, in the Colony of Massachusetts, 
 the Puritan Fathers, who created that State, had established 
 an admirable and general system of education, which has 
 given to the State of Massachusetts and its kindred New 
 England States an authority in North America and an in- 
 fluence far beyond what they would have had from their 
 numbers or from their wealth. 
 
 W^e will now come down a hundred years later— from the 
 time of the Virginian governor to the time of the great 
 Dr. Johnson, whom you will know chiefly as the writer of 
 a great and valuable Dictionary of our language. In one 
 of his writings he seems very much puzzled on the question 
 of education, and he says, 'concerning the portion of ignorance 
 necessary to make the condition of the lower classes of man- 
 kind safe to the public and tolerable to themselves,' that 
 ' both morals and policy exact a nicer inquiry than will be 
 very soon or very easily made.' He thought it was necessary 
 for what he called the public, by which I suppose he meant the 
 
410 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. sept. 25, 
 
 higher and richer classes, that there must be a large amount 
 of ignorance among what he called the lower classes — that is, 
 lower in the scale of wealth — in order that those lower classes 
 might be content in their position, and that the higher 
 classes might be safe from their suspicions and from their 
 attacks. Now, our object to-night is directed specially to 
 the question, and to the promotion of art and of science. 
 Let me tell you that there is hardly anybody who has had 
 the same opportunities, perhaps, of observation, who knows 
 less of art and of science than I do. I am not in the least 
 qualified to make a speech on a question of this nature. 
 Fifty years ago, when I was at school, people did not teach 
 much about art or about science. I was at school in 
 this town when I was a very small boy. After leaving this 
 town I was at no less than four of what were called very 
 respectable and sufficient boarding-schools in that day, but 
 I never heard anything there, to my present recollection, 
 about science, and very little about art. The last of the 
 schools I was at was the one with regard to which I have most 
 pleasant recollections, for it was situated in a very nice valley, 
 and by the side of a very pleasant river, and studies were 
 not forced upon us with undue harshness, but we spent a 
 good deal of time in birds'-nesting and fishing in the river 
 H odder, chiefly for trout, and frequently during the summer 
 months in bathing and swimming in one of the pools of 
 that pleasant stream. I did not get much of what was 
 called education. What I got was something — I had almost 
 said far better, for I got, I believe, whatever store of good 
 health I have had from that time to this. 
 
 But then, if one cannot understand science and art, one 
 can at least admire them and value them. You have read 
 poems, I have read many from which I derive intense pleasure, 
 but I could not comprehend at all how the poet had origi- 
 nated those pictures which he describes, and I could not tell 
 how it was, after having originated the pictures in his mind. 
 
1877. I XXVI, ROCHDALE. 411 
 
 he put the language together so beautifully to describe them. 
 I could not comprehend how it was done, but I could admire 
 the poem and read it and feed my mind and spirit with the 
 beautiful things which it placed before me ; and so with 
 regard to science, we may know veiy little of it, but we may 
 have a great appreciation of it, and of all those persons who 
 have advanced it and placed it at the service of mankind. 
 It is less than a year ago that I was in this room speaking to 
 the members of the working-men^s club. On that occasion 
 I went a little into history, and endeavoured to show how 
 great changes had occurred in the legislation of the country 
 during the last forty years, and how great was the gain from 
 those changes to all classes of the community. Now, suppose 
 we leave politics out of view altogether, but still keep to the 
 same period, and endeavour to point out a few things in 
 which great changes have been made, and in which scientific 
 men have made gains for the world which are not exceeded 
 by those which have been conferred by a more just and wise 
 legislation. We are in a magnificent hall to-night, but 
 what is there in it that is strictly new? The building 
 itself is very much like buildings that you may see in other 
 towns. It looks as if it were hundreds of years old from 
 the style of its decoration. That picture at the end (a re- 
 presentation of the signing of Magna Charta) speaks of an 
 event between six hundred and seven hundred years old ; but 
 there is something in this room that is entirely new and 
 modern, by which we are enabled to see all the beautiful 
 decorations of this hall and to see each other, and that is 
 gas, by which the room is lighted. It was only the other 
 day, comparatively, that there was no such thing as gaslight. 
 I rather think that the first time I went to Paris — I suppose 
 it must be forty years ago — that city was lighted by means of 
 ropes strung from the houses on this side the street to the 
 houses on that side, and between the houses there hung a miser- 
 able lamp, which, instead of enabling you to see, could barely 
 
412 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. sept. 25, 
 
 be seen. You may imagine what a great city like Paris or 
 London, or even what this moderately-sized town of Rochdale 
 would be if there were no gas, and you were lighted by 
 miserable lamps so far apart that they could scarcely see 
 each other, and the whole town were dim and dismal. It 
 is not longer than the lives of some persons, probably, in 
 this room since the first building in this country was lighted 
 with gas. I believe it was Soho Ironworks, in Birmingham, 
 and Mr. Murdoch, whose name has not gained the reputation 
 which many men by lesser services have obtained, was the 
 principal person in introducing gas as a practical gain to 
 the country. It was about 1812 that Westminster-bridge 
 was lighted with gas. Two or three years afterwards, so 
 astonishing was the advantage, London itself adopted gas 
 almost everywhere, and from that time it has spread with 
 great rapidity, and now all the great buildings and in our 
 towns almost all the houses are lighted with gas. It is 
 impossible to describe in language the amount of advantage 
 that this invention has been to us. We are indebted to 
 science, which these classes are intended to promote, for an- 
 other of those great advantages which we enjoy every night 
 of our life, and which we are enjoying to-night, lighting up 
 for us this beautiful hall. 
 
 It would be easy to go on step by step and show many 
 great advantages we have gained. Take the question of steam 
 navigation. What a wonderful thing that is^ and what a 
 wonderful progress it has made ! I may tell the young men 
 who are here connected with these classes that the person 
 who first put an engine on board a boat and made it pass 
 through the water without the ordinary power of sails and 
 wind was himself an operative engineer named Symington, to 
 whom immense credit is due for the invention. Now, I will 
 tell you a little of my own experience. In the year 1836, about 
 forty-one years ago, I went from Liverpool to the Mediter- 
 ranean, and when I arrived at the island and town of Syra 
 
1877. XXVI. ROCHDALE. 413 
 
 we were surrounded by the inhabitants in boats, just as some 
 of the early navigators were surrounded by the inhabitants of 
 the countries they visited. Steamships were scarcely known, 
 and for a long time we were detained afterwards in the city 
 of Athens, being unable to get away because there were no 
 steamers which could take travellers westward. It was two 
 years later that the Atlantic was first navigated by steam, and 
 some of you will recollect that in the spring of the year 1838 
 two steam-ships left this country to cross the Atlantic — one 
 on a Sunday and the other on a Monday morning. When 
 the Sirius came in there was the greatest excitement to see 
 her come steaming in pouring out smoke from her funnel. 
 The spectators knew that she had crossed the Atlantic, they 
 knew it was a great thing, and while the whole city of New 
 York was in excitement it was announced next morning* that 
 another huge steamer was also entering the harbour; and- 
 thus these two vessels, coming within a day of each other 
 from ports in England, at once for ever settled the question 
 of the possibility of the navigation of broad oceans by steam 
 power, and from that time to this the progress has been 
 rapid even beyond what could have been expected by the 
 most sanguine inventor of that day. There is one Company 
 now of which you have all heard — the Cunard Company — 
 which has, I believe, not less than fifty steamships. I am 
 told the Company have more than 1,000,000 tons of ton- 
 nage, and that they have more than 15,000 horse-power in 
 their fleet of steamers, and that after traversing the Atlan- 
 tic for thirty-five years they can say with a just satisfaction 
 that not a passenger nor a single letter has been lost by 
 any accident at sea to any one of their vessels. There are 
 other companies which I might mention. There is another 
 whose advertisements you see constantly in the papers — the 
 White Star Company. Their vessels make the passage from 
 Liverpool to New York and from New York to Liverpool 
 with a speed which is extraordinary, and with a punctuality 
 
414 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. sept. 25, 
 
 that almost approaches the punctuality which marks the 
 arrival of your express trains. A hundred years ago Cap- 
 tain Cook gained great celebrity from his navigation in 
 the Pacific and the South Pacific oceans. Now those seas 
 which he navigated with so much peril, and the accounts of 
 which were so marvellous when he returned, are traversed 
 by huge steamers every day of the year. Even the great 
 rivers of China are navigated by steam-boats built in this 
 country; and there is not a coast which is not visited, 
 there is not a harbour, there is not an ocean which is not 
 traversed by these proofs of human genius and power. 
 
 Now we come to another invention as wonderful, and 
 which has produced^ perhaps, as great results, and that is 
 the invention of the railway. I was looking in the Store 
 Library to-day at a map of the country, I was examining 
 one for another purpose a day or two ago, and there is quite 
 a new appearance upon the map. I recollect when there was 
 not a single one of those black lines upon the map that you 
 see now. At present the whole of Scotland and England 
 and the greater part of Ireland are almost covered by these 
 dark lines. They indicate where your railways run. But 
 in 1830 there were no railways for the carriage of passengers. 
 I was looking only yesterday at an old memorandum-book, 
 and I saw a note in it that on a certain day I had walked 
 from my house up to the railway station to see the train 
 come in from Manchester with its passengers. It was a 
 new thing the wonder of which to me has never ceased, 
 and I think the power, the speed, and the grandeur of these 
 great locomotive engines can never grow old, and that we 
 can never regard them without wonder and without admira- 
 tion. There are probably not many in this room who ever 
 went to London in a stage-coach, but in 1832, the first time 
 I went to London, I went outside a stage-coach called the 
 Peveril of the Peak, and it started from Market-street in 
 Manchester at eight o'clock in the evening — a four-horse 
 
1877. XXVI. ROCHDALE. 415 
 
 coach, admirably managed and horsed — and we arrived in 
 London at five o'clock the next afternoon. It happened to 
 be the very night when the House of Lords were discussing 
 the second reading of the great Reform Bill, and during the 
 14th of April — I think it was as we were travelling along 
 the road — some passenger observed something coming to- 
 wards us, but still in the distance, and we all looked with 
 great interest. We saw horses galloping and carriages 
 coming at a speed which would quickly have left behind 
 our coach if they had been going the same way. By-and-by 
 we found they were chaises with four horses in each chaise, 
 having two or three men inside, and they were throwing 
 out placards from each window. These were express chaises 
 coming from London, bringing the news to all the people 
 of the country — for there were no telegraphs then — of the 
 glorious triumph of popular principles even in the House of 
 Lords. I do not know how long it sat the previous nights, 
 but it was not till seven in the morning that the House 
 divided, and the second reading of the great measure was 
 carried by a majority of nine votes. It has alwaj^s been to 
 me a pleasure to think of the excitement this incident caused 
 among us coach passengers when we found what was the 
 business and the message of those gentlemen in the expresses. 
 Then, I say, we were twenty-one hours in going to London. 
 Now if you go from Manchester to London you are five hours 
 on the journey. We paid for our place on the coach for London 
 3^. 10*., I think ; now we go by first class for 25*. When 
 I left, the rain was pouring down, and I was outside the 
 coach, and the rain poured down for hours ; whereas now we 
 all go under cover and as comfortably as if we were sitting in 
 our own houses. This is a marvellous change, which we owe 
 entirely to science. In my opinion the debt we owe to the 
 engineers can never be repaid and never be over-estimated. 
 Take George Stephenson and his son Robert Stephenson, 
 Joseph Locke, Sir John Hawkshaw, Mr. Fowler, Mr. Har- 
 
416 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. sept. 25, 
 
 rison, and Mr. Brunlees ; and if you go to others concerned 
 in the wonderful changes in everything connected with metals, 
 take Sir William Fairbairn, or a very old friend of mine now 
 living — Sir Joseph Whit worth — one perhaps I should say 
 not surpassed as a scientific mechanic by any man living. 
 I say these men have rendered to their country and to man- 
 kind benefits which are not exceeded by those which have 
 been rendered by the most eminent or the most just states- 
 men in any country. If I had time I should say a word or 
 two for the directors and managers of our railways. They 
 are constantly attacked — often, in my opinion, most unjustly. 
 They are reviled often by writers in the press, but I say there 
 is nothing in the whole world, in my opinion, to compare 
 with the successful management of the railways of this 
 country, whether you consider their speed, or their comfort, 
 or their safety, or their cheapness, all that which they give 
 to the nation ; there is nothing in my opinion in the world 
 that can excel it. 
 
 Now, there is one other thing that is much more mysterious 
 and wonderful than any of these to which I have referred, and 
 that is the electric telegraph. The engineer can tell you a 
 great deal about gas, or a steamboat, or a locomotive engine, 
 but it is wonderful how little he can tell you about the power 
 which enables you to communicate through the wires. He 
 can tell you how it is done, and he can do it. I believe he 
 can no more comprehend it than you or I can. And it is a 
 mode of communication, as you know, not only over land, but 
 under the sea. By-and-by, notwithstanding the discords 
 there are in the world, you can imagine all the nations 
 brought into as free and constant converse and intercourse, 
 to compare very great things with small, as a number of 
 persons round a table. It is impossible to say yet to what 
 extent the telegraph will be used, and how much it will tend 
 to bring nations together and be a benefit to them in different 
 degrees and different modes. Take the Atlantic cable. I 
 
1877. XXVL ROCHDALE. 417 
 
 saw in the paper only to-day that one of the cables had 
 received between 3,000/. and 4,000/. in the course of a week, 
 and that another had received 1,500/, in the course of a day. 
 Imagine the number of messages which must pass under the 
 ocean a mile deep in the water — two miles, perhaps — for a 
 cable to pay 3,000/. a week to its proprietors. See how the 
 two nations are brought together. A great deal of that, in 
 fact more than to any other man living, is due to an estim- 
 able friend of mine, Mr. Cyrus Field. He was here only 
 two or three weeks ago, and I was discussing with him the 
 question of the ocean telegraph. He has spent almost all 
 his life — I believe he has traversed the Atlantic seventy or 
 eighty times — in connexion with his efforts in promoting 
 ocean telegraphs, and it is impossible to say how long it 
 would have been before we should have had an Atlantic cable 
 if it had not been for him, and impossible to measure the 
 amount of good he has conferred upon the United States, and 
 upon this country, and, by the success of the cable, upon all 
 the rest of the world, because now there are cables to almost 
 all countries. I had the pleasure to know, many years ago, 
 one of the chief of the original inventors of telegraphy. I 
 speak of Sir William Fothergill Cooke. The names, also, of 
 Professor Wheatstone, and of Professor Morse in the United 
 States, are names which must be for ever connected with 
 this great and wonderful discovery. But I do not know 
 when I might stop if I proposed to tell you of all the gains 
 we have had from science and mechanics. 
 
 Take the printing-press. The printing-press was formerly 
 a machine that printed but a few copies of anything in an 
 hour, but now it is a machine which prints thousands of 
 copies in an hour, and prints at the same time both sides 
 of a newspaper, and produces a newspaper so cheap, now 
 that the taxes are off, that every man may have it at a low 
 price every morning. There is hardly anybody in ordinary 
 work and ordinary wages who, if he has time to read a paper 
 
 Ee 
 
418 ADDEESSUS OF JOHN BRIGHT, sept. 25, 
 
 every day. may not have one at a very small cost. Your news 
 is brought to you also just as accurately and correctly as if you 
 lived in a palace or were the richest person in the land. If 
 you come to the science or the art, whichever you may call 
 it, of photography, that is entirely new. Many of us who 
 have lived a good while in the world have no portraits of 
 our parents. Our parents passed away to the future life 
 before this great invention was made, but now in every family 
 parents can have portraits of their absent children ; children 
 can have portraits of their absent parents ; we can have por- 
 traits, as no doubt most of us now have, of those who have 
 loved us, and whose features we shall see no more here. And 
 all this is brought into every home, not to the rich alone, 
 but to the poor everywhere, for science is not a respecter of 
 persons, but is good to everybody to whom it comes near and 
 with whom it deals. And there are other matters. There 
 is the invention we had not many years ago from the United 
 States — the invention of the sewing machine. I consider 
 that one of the greatest inventions of our times, and it has 
 given, I believe, very much higher wages to persons who are 
 employed in sewing and to sempstresses, and it has given 
 many among them, no doubt, an ease and comfort to which 
 they were strangers before. 
 
 At the last meeting at which I spoke I showed what poli- 
 tical changes had occurred, and I have now been endeavouring 
 to show what have been some of the scientific changes ; and 
 I want particularly to impress upon all the members of the 
 Co-operative Society, that this science is the most just and 
 beneficent of all the dispensers of good. It does not bring 
 these blessings to royalty only, or to an ancient aristocracy 
 only, or to rich people of any kind only, but it spreads 
 its blessings over all the people, and the humblest is not 
 excluded from them. Does not the gas shine with the same 
 brilliancy in one of your cottages as it does here ? Does not 
 the steam- boat take one of you, although you may be living 
 
1877. XXVI. ROCHDALE, 419 
 
 upon your six days' wages for your six days' work, and you 
 have not much to spare, — does not the same boat take you 
 as rapidly and as safely across the ocean as it takes some 
 man deputed by the Government of his country to some 
 great negotiation in foreign lands? Does not the railway, 
 on most of the lines at least, take the third-class passengers 
 at the same speed at which even royalty itself travels? 
 There are trains now, as you know, on many of the lines 
 (I know not whether on all), by which all persons go at the 
 same speed, and you see the Prince of Wales get out, or one 
 of his brothers, or some person that from his wealth or rank 
 you look upon as remarkable, but who has no special advantage 
 in this respect. Science as applied to railways has come 
 down to the humblest of the people, and has given them 
 advantages which are far greater than what it gives to the 
 rich, because the rich aforetimes had means of travelling 
 which the poor had not; and though it has increased the 
 power of the wealthy to travel, it has given to the poor a 
 power which they did not before at all possess. So of the 
 telegraphs. I will undertake to say that if any of you will 
 despatch a message from here to any part of the world you like, 
 however distant it be, it will go just as fast as if it was a mes- 
 sage sent by Lord Derby from the Foreign OflBce, or a message 
 from the private secretary of Her Majesty the Queen ; and 
 there is no possibility, as I understand, of one message over- 
 taking another. It is so with the printing-press, and it is 
 so with the invention of photography. You have your news- 
 paper as soon as the richest and most powerful, and it is printed 
 just as well, and it has all the news just as completely, and it is 
 served up to you in the morning as early as your breakfast, 
 and the rich can have no more. Even in the humblest cot- 
 tage there may be portraits of those who are loved and absent, 
 and there may be a little book in which all the members of 
 the family are represented, and which it is often pleasing for 
 the family themselves or for their friends to examine and to 
 
 E e ^ 
 
4^6 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. sept. 25, 
 
 admire. So that we find this, that science comes to us like 
 the air and light, and the warmth and sunshine and showers. 
 It is a gift of Providence freely to all His creatures. 
 
 Now, what is the object of these classes? It is to pro- 
 mote art and science. Art has much to do with decoration. 
 Science has much to do with some of those questions that 
 I have been touching upon. May I tell all persons here 
 who take the slightest interest in the Co-operative Society, 
 or in its science classes, or in its meetings, that although 
 few may be able to discover great things in science, yet 
 all may live to enjoy the gifts which science continually 
 is conferring upon us. To the young these classes must 
 be of great good. Mr. Willans has hinted, with a certain 
 regret, that the members have not increased as he should 
 have liked to see them, nor yet the number of members 
 who have studied in these classes and passed. The num- 
 bers that have passed may have been a little diminished, 
 perhaps, by a greater severity of examination. But that 
 does not excuse or explain that there has been no recent 
 increase in the number of those who have studied. Now, 
 just let me ask the young men here to consider how very 
 different is their position from that of their grandfathers. 
 Fifty years ago your ordinary working hours were rarely 
 considered less than twelve, and they were often more ; now, 
 the working hours of the general class of workmen are such 
 that you may get home and washed and take a book, without 
 the chance of its being soiled, soon after six o'clock, so that 
 there are several hours each night that you may devote to 
 some useful purpose. 
 
 I have wasted as many evenings as many of you, and I am 
 not pretending to be better than other people, nor am I going 
 to lecture you. We are all very much given to wasting our 
 time j but what I have said can be done, and if you would 
 go on from week to week, from month to month, and from 
 year to year devoting your time to some useful study, you 
 
1877. XXVI. ROCHDALE. 421 
 
 would be amazed and delighted at the amount of knowledge 
 you would acquire. There are many temptations for young 
 men. One person said to me as I was about to attend this 
 meeting that there were a great many of the young people here 
 would rather go to a dog-race, or pigeon-flying, or the gossip 
 of the bar parlour ; but the fact is, I believe the majority of the 
 people, and a very large majority, are decent and respectable. 
 Now, what are the advantages you possess ? In the library 
 of your building I am told there are 25,000 volumes of books, 
 there is a very handsome reading-room, and when I asked 
 whether it was well attended, I was informed that it was 
 often filled. Your society is called the Equitable Pioneers. 
 It is a quaint and curious name, but I do not care about that, 
 for there is not a young man in this room who would not 
 benefit greatly by associating himself with the Co-operative 
 Society for the purpose of gaining instruction. Within the 
 last year there have been no less than 37,000 volumes taken 
 from the library by readers. You have in your reading-room 
 twenty-seven daily London and provincial newspapers, you 
 have no less than thirty-three monthly magazines and 
 periodicals of that kind, and no less than nine times more 
 ponderous works published quarterly since the year 1857 — 
 twenty years ago. The Society has spent 2,600/. in books, 
 and 4,300/. in papers and periodicals. You have, therefore, 
 here the material for rearing up in this town a condition of 
 intelligence and instruction and morality such as your fathers 
 never possessed, and such as, I venture to think — I am sorry 
 it is so — that very few towns in England are so fully pos- 
 sessed of and blessed with as you are. 
 
 I believe there is nothing so likely to guard young men 
 from temptations and to make their homes happy — happy now 
 while young, and happy hereafter, if they should become 
 beads of families — as taking this very common advice which 
 everybody gives you, and which you find very difiicult to 
 follow, but which I beseech you to try to follow. Look at 
 
422 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 the heads I see before me, and strong heads that can do 
 anything — stonemasons, carpenters, mechanics, engineers, 
 weavers, spinners — every occupation there is in the neighbour- 
 hood. I see men who can work at all these trades so well 
 that nobody in the world can do them better, and if they 
 were to give a little of that energy and hardheadedness which 
 they give to their ordinary work to the pursuit of knowledge 
 in an evening, in twelve months' time they would find they 
 had travelled a long distance, that their difficulties had 
 become fewer, and that what had been hard work had become 
 a pleasure. I do not say that from Rochdale we should have 
 many great inventors ; but great things would be done. It 
 might remain, still, that you would never be rich, that you 
 would always find it necessary to work steadily and honestly 
 for your daily bread ; but you would discover that God has 
 given many of His best gifts so freely that the humblest are 
 not shut out from the blessings which He has prepared for 
 His creatures. I shall not take up more of your time but to 
 say that I feel it a signal honour to myself that so many of 
 you should have come here to listen to what must have been 
 a common-place speech upon questions of this nature ; but I 
 came here at the urgent request of your committee. The 
 Co-operative stores in this town have been a very great 
 benefit to the population. Whether that benefit shall increase, 
 be enlarged, and become permanent must depend, to a great 
 extent, upon the minds and hearts, the resolutions and efforts, 
 of this great assembly which I have been permitted to 
 address. 
 
XXVII. 
 
 ROCHDALE, NOVEMBER 7, 1877. 
 
 [A meeting was called at Rochdale on this occasion, in order that the in- 
 habitants of the town might hear Mr. Chamberlain, M.P. for Birmingham, 
 deliver an address on political organisation, and especially on the machinery 
 by which the town of Birmingham has been able to baffle the political 
 dishonesty which invented minority representation, and the unintelligent 
 pedantry which acquiesced in the expedient. Mr. Bright took the chair on 
 this occasion, and introduced the subject on which Mr. Chamberlain wa« 
 about to speak in the following address.] 
 
 I HAVE been invited by the Committee of the Liberal 
 Association to take the chair at this great meeting. I con- 
 sented to come here with readiness, knowing the good object 
 of the meeting, and knowing also that it was mainly for the 
 purpose of listening to a speech from my honourable friend 
 and colleague, Mr. Chamberlain. Mr. Chamberlain has, 
 I think, on more than one or two occasions presided at 
 meetings in Birmingham when I have been permitted to 
 speak there, and therefore I think it is not unfit that when 
 he comes to Rochdale, and for the first time, if it be agreeable 
 to you, that I should take the chair on this occasion, and 
 return to him the good which he has shown to me. I suppose 
 that you are fairly acquainted with the special object of the 
 meeting, which is to discuss and promote a better organisation 
 of the Liberal party, and, as far as we are able to do it, to 
 give some help to the general objects of that party. 
 
424 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGET. nov. 7, 
 
 You know of course that there are in the politics 
 of this country two great principles. The one calls itself 
 Conservative. I will not say what they have omitted to 
 say — what it is that they intend to conserve, but judging- 
 from the past they wish to conserve or preserve a great 
 deal which we have thought it necessary to destroy. The 
 other party is that to which I suspect the great bulk of 
 this audience belongs — that which calls itself the Liberal 
 party. And I need hardly tell you that the objects of 
 these two great parties are very different, and that 
 the conditions under which they act in the country are also 
 very different. The one — the Conservative — party appears 
 always, or most always, to be acting for a class. Let it be 
 a question of the franchise — in 183;^ they were horrified at 
 the extension of the franchise to 10^. householders, and from 
 183a to 1867 they resolutely opposed every effort to extend 
 the franchise and to give it generally to the householders in 
 the boroughs. In that year they did concede a measure 
 which they had always declared to be perilous to the country, 
 and they conceded it doubtless because it was impossible to 
 hold office, even for three months, at that time, if they had 
 continued to resist it. If this Conservative party comes to 
 legislate on any matters connected with religion its object is 
 always to aggrandise the State Church. The great Non- 
 conformist bodies, including one-half of the population of 
 England and Wales, are never reckoned at all in their 
 legislation, except it be to be insulted and injured. If they 
 are dealing with the question of what is called national 
 education, they endeavour by all the means in their power to 
 give the control of the public education to the ministers and 
 active associations connected with the Established Church. 
 If there be legislation in connexion with the land, they are 
 always endeavouring to continue as strict a monopoly as 
 possible in the soil of the United Kingdom, and they always 
 are, and have been recently, especially busy in transferring. 
 
1877. XXYII, ROCHDALE. 425 
 
 as far as possible, any taxes which have hitherto been paid by 
 property in land to the general public in the shape of those 
 taxes which press heavily upon and are r)aid largely by the 
 great body of the working classes. 
 
 Now, the other party — that which we feel satisfied in be- 
 longing to, the Liberal party — ^legislates always for the whole 
 people and for the general good. We bring no measures into 
 Parliament that are exclusively for the advantage of Non- 
 conformists. We have no idea whatsoever of dealing with 
 the question of education so that we shall give exclusive 
 privileges to the Nonconformist churches. If we legislate for 
 the land, or if we propose to legislate — for we have yet to 
 begin that legislation — we do it with the intention of making 
 land as free a commodity as any other of the commodities in 
 which our people may deal. There is one other difference 
 that I may mention, and that is that the Conservative party 
 is notorious for a constant resistance to every measure, or 
 almost every measure, which the intelligence and the necessities 
 of the country demand ; and not only for a constant resist- 
 ance, but, I am happy to say, in the long run for a constant 
 failure in their endeavours. On the other hand, the Liberal 
 party is notorious for its constant assault upon all the real 
 grievances which old times have left in our legislation and in 
 our administration ; and not only for a constant assault upon 
 those grievances, but a constant success in their efforts to 
 remedy them. 
 
 But there is a great difference in the condition of these 
 two parties, and that is really to a large extent the subject 
 which ought to be, and probably will be, discussed to-night. 
 The Conservative party has a solid and permanent organisa- 
 tion, to which I will refer by-and-by, which we do not possess, 
 and to which at present, in the shape at least in which they 
 have it, we have no claim. On the other hand, the Liberal 
 party is diffused and dispersed throughout the country ; and 
 unless there come a time of great suffering, which welds 
 
426 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 7, 
 
 us together, or some subject whicli excites temporary en- 
 thusiasm, we are broken into sections and fight our op- 
 ponents of the Conservative party at a great disadvantage. 
 Now, how much good we have done under these, to us, 
 unfavourable conditions of the conflict is a marvel to me 
 whenever I think of it. How much good the Conservatives 
 have resisted, and in how great degree they have failed 
 — how much good we have attempted to advance, and how 
 far we have succeeded, I say is one of the most wonderful 
 things in the history of late years in this country. To 
 you, I should say to our opponents, belongs shame and 
 humiliation ; to us a very high degree of satisfaction, and 
 a just pride, when we contemplate the results of the last 
 half century of the legislation and government of this 
 kingdom. 
 
 I spoke of their solid and permanent organisation. I will 
 mention one or two points which will make clear what 
 I mean. Take the question of the land. Only two or 
 three days ago I was turning over the pages of a publica- 
 tion known to many of you — the * Financial Reformer.' I 
 saw there a statement of the number of owners of land, 
 and the quantity of land owned by them in acres in the 
 various counties of England and Wales ; in fact, I think 
 in the United Kingdom; and I found it stated there that 
 one-third of the whole of the land of the United Kingdom, 
 being not less than 23,000,000 of acres — imagine that if 
 you can, I cannot — the size of a kingdom — not less than 
 23,000,000 of acres belonged to 955 men. That is, if you 
 were to draw a line across this hall and divide this great 
 audience into two bodies — on each side that line, there would 
 be as many persons present as there are owners of 23,000,000 
 of acres of land in the United Kingdom. 
 
 I do not object to anybody having a large estate if it is 
 honestly come by. I do not advocate any system of legis- 
 lation which shall deprive anybody of a single acre of land. 
 
1877. XXVII. ROCHDALE. 427 
 
 but I do advocate that land shall be divided a little more 
 equally amongst the great body of the people. I object to 
 laws which create and maintain a monopoly in this matter. 
 It is by that monopoly that one-third of the whole land 
 of the United Kingdom remains, for by the laws it almost 
 necessarily must remain, in the possession of fewer than looo 
 men or families. I need not tell you that these 955 persons 
 are almost entirely of the Conservative party. It is so in 
 Ireland, it is so in Scotland, and it is so in England and Wales. 
 There are many well-known and bright examples of a more 
 intelligent opinion, but the great majority of them are of 
 the Conservative party ; and through their power, and 
 through their influence upon their tenants, who, unhappily, 
 are subject and submissive, they exercise so enormous a power 
 in the county elections that the great bulk of the members 
 for the counties in England and Wales are representatives 
 of Tory opinion and give constantly Tory votes in the House 
 of Commons. Bear in mind that this great power over the 
 land and those dependent on it — for the population of the 
 counties is not represented — is a power which is always at 
 work, which is solid, that requires no canvassing, and which 
 brings a constant and increasing pressure upon the politics 
 of the kingdom. 
 
 Now, let us turn to another branch of our institutions — 
 the Church. I suppose there are in England and Wales 
 nearly, perhaps quite, 20,000 ministers, clergymen of the 
 Established Church. I reckon in this number all, from the 
 bishops who live in palaces to the curates, many of whom live 
 on a bare pittance, and in bare lodgings. These 20,000, more 
 or less, are themselves portions of this great institution of 
 privilege and monopoly, which ought to be an institution 
 solely for the advantage and for the promotion of the 
 Christian religion, but is to a large extent for the advantage 
 and the promotion of one great political party. Three or 
 four years ago a clergyman in the south of England wrote 
 
428 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 7, 
 
 to me and said that he thought that I was a little too 
 hard upon them, that they were not so exclusively Con- 
 servative as I thought they were ; that he was a Liberal, 
 and he knew a good many other Liberal clergymen. Well, 
 it would be a deplorable case, and it would be a dismal 
 institution, if there were not to be found a few men whose 
 intellects and whose hearts rose above the unfortunate cir- 
 cumstances in this respect in which they stand. But let us 
 take our own parish. I have had my home in this parish 
 for sixty years and more, and I have a fair memory of a 
 good many things that have happened in it and of the 
 people who have lived in it for nearly half a century, and 
 yet, on ransacking my memory, I have not been able to 
 remember more than one single minister of the Church of 
 England, a clergyman of the Established Church in this 
 great parish of ten or twelve miles square, with its i20_,ooo 
 population, — I say I have not been able to remember, to 
 recall to my recollection more I think than one clergyman 
 who has ever publicly been known to act with or sym- 
 pathise with the Liberal party in this district. I am 
 not sure whether our much-esteemed friend Mr. William 
 Molesworth is not the only clergyman of the Church of 
 England who has shown a real, constant, wide sympathy 
 with the population of this neighbourhood in its political 
 aspirations. 
 
 The other day I saw a report of a charge — I think it is 
 called — a speech, an address of a brand-new bishop^the 
 Bishop of Truro in Cornwall. He was telling them what 
 they ought to do, that is, his friends the clergy and the 
 devout and sincere members of the laity of Cornwall, and 
 the main thing which, as is reported, it appeared necessary for 
 them to do was to complete their organisation, to contend with 
 and, if possible, to suppress Dissent in that county. Cornwall 
 is the most religious county in England. Cornwall is one of 
 the great trophies left by John Wesley and George Whitfield. 
 
1877. XXVII. ROCHDALE. 429 
 
 And yet this new-made bishop, in the year 1877, when he 
 knows that half the population in England and Wales have 
 no connexion whatsoever with his Church, is arguing that 
 the g^eat thing they had to contend with, that which they 
 have — it means this if the word was not used — to supplant, 
 is the organisation and the position which Nonconformist 
 bodies have attained in that county. I think that is very 
 shocking, and that it proves beyond all question what a 
 tendency there is in an established Church to fight for the 
 Church rather than for Christianity, to fight for the su- 
 premacy of its own organisation rather than to look with 
 favour and with gladness at the Nonconformist and free 
 organisations which have been of such incalculable blessing 
 to the county in which the Bishop of Truro lives. 
 
 I might go on further, and show how the professions 
 unite themselves with the Conservative party. For in- 
 stance, the military profession, among whom 25,000,000^. 
 of taxes are spent every year. Of course I do not speak 
 with regard to the private soldier or the private sailor, 
 but am referring to those who hold oflficial and high 
 positions. Though there are many great exceptions, still 
 we all know that the great bulk of that influence is given 
 always to the Conservative party in the politics of the 
 kingdom. Then we come to one other profession — the pro- 
 fession of the law. There are many exceptions, of course, 
 as in the other case, but generally speaking, you will find 
 that the lawyers as a body at elections throw their influence 
 into the scale of the Conservative party. They are not 
 generally in favour of any reform ; and especially, as a rule, 
 they are not in favour of any reform of the law. The laws 
 of this country, in their complexity, in their entanglement, 
 in their costliness, are a disgrace to a civilised people. Two 
 hundred years ago Cromwell, who was no bad judge of these 
 things, said, * The law of England is a tortuous and ungodly 
 jumble.' But you might almost as well ask a spider to 
 
430 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. nov. 7, 
 
 give up weaving his web, or to destroy the web he has 
 woven, as ask the great body of lawyers to consent to the 
 simplification and purification of the law. There is one other 
 monopoly which I must not omit, and that is the monopoly 
 of the dealers in intoxicating drinks. My hon. friend and 
 colleague has paid a great deal of attention to these gentle- 
 men, and I have no doubt he can say much more on the 
 point than I can. I will content myself with saying that 
 they are a monopoly which in past times to a great extent, 
 and recently almost exclusively, have banded together^ not 
 only against reform of anything with which they and their 
 trade are connected, but against all political reform that 
 might be proposed by the Liberal party. 
 
 Now, we have in the country millions of persons who 
 have no interest in these monopolies^ or in any evil or 
 any grievance, whose only wish is to have good laws, 
 wise administration, just government in every part of the 
 country and over every class of people. But then, a good 
 many of them^ as we all know, unhappily are ignorant. 
 Many of them do not read much, and still fewer think 
 very much ; and upon them the constant pressure of the 
 land, of the Church, of the publicans, of the professions, 
 is brought; and of course a very large number of them, 
 having no interest whatever in any of these evils, at the 
 time of election will give their votes in favour of that which 
 they ought to despise, condemn, and war against. But, 
 leaving our opponents in the position which I think I have 
 described, we must not forget that we have some things 
 in our favour. We have grand principles, which make a 
 party strong. We have a constant growth of population; 
 we have a great expansion of trade ; we have the lessons of 
 time and of experience; and those give us strength and 
 enable us to win great and constant victories even against 
 the mighty powers which have been opposed to us. 
 
 But it is desirable that we should attempt some better 
 
1877. XXVII. ROCHDALE. 431 
 
 organisation of the Liberal party, and on some surer basis. 
 You know how little chance a mob has against an organised 
 body, whether it be an army or a body of police. A mob 
 has no concentration, no union, no directness in its efforts. 
 Even its passion fails to give it the necessary power, and 
 it is so to a large extent with a political party which is 
 disorganised, as the Liberal party has been to a very great 
 degree. Notwithstanding^ all this, much has been done in 
 our time, and there is a great deal in the future to which 
 we are looking forward. But there must be union. Unless 
 the country advances in freedom it is certain to go backward. 
 The powers which I have described are always at work — 
 their pressure is constantly felt. They are strong in Par- 
 liament and in the executive government, and they are 
 strong upon the press. They have powers which we have 
 not, and unless we organise with a view to resistance and 
 defence the country is sure to go back, and we may soon 
 lose some of the liberties we have gained. 
 
 I am speaking in a borough which, after all, with one 
 or two little slips, has done its duty well since the year 1832. 
 I recall to myself the names of the men who have had to 
 speak in your voice in the House of Commons, and on 
 every fitting occasion, to promote the principles you hold 
 dear — Fenton, Sharman Crawford, Miall, Cobden — and your 
 present member Mr. Potter. Let us then keep the flame 
 alive. Let us, if we can, be as we have been in the past, 
 an example to many other constituencies. I am honoured 
 with being one of the representatives of one of the foremost 
 constituencies in the kingdom. I consider it an honour to 
 be one of a constituency like this, so many of whom I am 
 now addressing, a constituency so well deserving the con- 
 fidence which the constitution places in them, and who have 
 so well endeavoured to promote good Government, and who 
 are now here for the purpose of listening to a speech from my 
 hon. friend and colleague. He has not been long in the House 
 
432 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 of Commons, he is — what shall I call him? — a juvenile member 
 of Parliament in comparison with myself. He was a small 
 boy, I suppose, when I first entered the House of Commons 
 in the year 1843, but outside the House he has done great 
 service in his own great town, and there, where he is best 
 known, he is best and most appreciated. I hope, in fact 
 I believe, I cannot have a doubt of it, that when he comes 
 before you to-night you will give him that warm and cordial, 
 nay, enthusiastic welcome which you owe to every man who 
 in a public position honestly and consistently works out, so 
 far as he can, good government and freedom for the popu- 
 lation of this country. 
 
 ->K- 
 
XXVIII. 
 
 MANCHESTER, DECEMBER 11, 1877. 
 
 [At this time Sir Arthur Cotton was on a visit to Manchester, and the Mem- 
 bers of the Indian Association in that city convened a meeting in the large 
 room of the Town Hall, with a view of hearing the opinions which Sir 
 Arthur entertained as to the means of preventing famine in India for the 
 future. Mr. Bright was invited to be present and to speak on the subject. 
 The new buildings of the Manchester Corporation were used for the first 
 time on this occasion. The allusion made in page 447 is to a speech in the 
 House of Commons on June 24, 1858. Speeches, vol. i. p. 35.] 
 
 I THANK you, as I ought, for the kind words which the 
 Mayor has spoken in my behalf, and for the cordial 
 reception which you have given me. It is to my mind 
 a very remarkable meeting. The place is remarkable, and 
 the occasion is in accordance with the place. We are in the 
 centre of this great city, which is the centre of a great 
 industry. We are here on the principal market or business 
 day of the week, and we have before us a very large number 
 of persons who on ordinary occasions are engaged with their 
 business, and are not meeting to discuss great social or 
 political questions. I ask myself this — ^What is it that has 
 brought these men together in this remarkable place at this 
 remarkable time ? Is it some common question which has 
 excited your enthusiasm or your interest, or is it some 
 question greater than any probably that has ever heretofore 
 
 Ff 
 
434 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 11, 
 
 been submitted to your attention ? We are here to discuss 
 matters interesting — intensely interesting — to the people of 
 England, if they knew their own interests, and intensely 
 interesting also to what we call our Indian Empire, which is 
 a country so vast that nobody has any acquaintance with the 
 whole of it ; a country so peopled that no census can give us 
 an accurate account of its populations ; a country which has, 
 according to the best authorities^ a population of 250,000,000 
 men, women^ and children, who owe directly and indirectly 
 some sort of allegiance to the Queen of this nation. 
 The population of India is five times the population of 
 the whole of the rest of the British Empire, and we may 
 consider for a moment how we came into this position 
 in India. It is not by the ordinary course of a long 
 succession that the Crown of England has power in India. 
 It is not that we have held India by centuries of undisputed 
 possession. Our power there is little more than a century 
 old, and the empire has been built up by means which I am 
 afraid have been instrumental in building up almost all great 
 empires^ by ambition, and crime, and conquest. We claim to 
 be now what is called the paramount power over a population 
 equal to one-sixth of the whole population of the globe, and 
 we hold this rule by a mere handful — shall I say, of English- 
 men ? — well, of men from these islands, backed by an army 
 of 60,000 British troops. With regard to revenues, we 
 receive something like 50,000,000^. year in India, which is 
 principally gathered from its people in the shape of taxes, 
 but which includes also a considerable sum procured from the 
 Chinese from a monopoly in opium. We claim the ownership 
 of all the land, and the Government fixes, for the most part, 
 what rent it chooses to receive ; which is generally, I am sorry 
 to say, the utmost it can compel. We impose taxes, import 
 duties, as you know, stamp duties, and some other duties ; 
 but, above all, we levy a salt duty, one which is highly pro- 
 ductive, but extremely oppressive, to the poor bitterly cruel, 
 
1877. XXVIII. MANCHESTER. 435 
 
 to gather which we send tbe tax gatherer into the humblest 
 liovel in that vast empire. But you must remember that all 
 this great population has no voice on its own affairs. It is 
 dumb before the power that has subjected it. It is never 
 consulted upon any matter connected with its government. 
 It is subject to the power that rules over it in a manner that 
 cannot be said of the population of any civilised or Christian 
 people in the world. We raise revenue ; we create patronage ; 
 we pay salaries and pensions, and we trade extensively with 
 the country. You have known, or at any rate you have heard 
 in past times of the riches of India. In fact, within the last 
 hundred years, whenever the word India was mentioned, there 
 was a floating vision of vast wealth passed before the eye and 
 the understanding. I recollect one of our poets — James 
 Montgomery, I think — begins a poem in these words : — 
 
 'Blow, ye breezes, gently blowing. 
 Waft me to that happy shore 
 Where, from fountains ever flowing, 
 Indian realms their treasures pour.* 
 
 And yet there is nothing in the world more clear than this, 
 that India is essentially a country at this moment of great 
 and abject poverty, and that the reputation of its wealth has 
 only been founded upon the fact that it is a country which 
 marauders have always found it easy to plunder. 
 
 In this country about which I am speaking there have 
 been famines of a destructive and appalling character, and we 
 are met here to-day for the purpose of discussing how those 
 famines have arisen, and whether it be within the power of 
 human benevolence and statesmanship to put an end to them 
 in future. England for the most part has taken no note of 
 those famines. India is a long way off. It was a very long 
 way when people went round by the Cape. It is far off on 
 the map, although by the wire you speak with it in a few 
 minutes, and you receive an answer in a few hours. But 
 England took no note of this distant country until there 
 
 F f 2 
 
436 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 11, 
 
 came the calamity of the mutiny, when England suf- 
 fered greatly, and passed through a great humiliation — 
 for it is a humiliation to any Government that its subjects, 
 and especially that its army, should turn against it. But 
 when the mutiny took place the East India Company fell. 
 If we had discussed India, or the character of the East 
 India Company, in the House of Commons twelve months 
 before the mutiny, the President of the Board of Control, or 
 what is now the Secretary of State for India, would have 
 delivered you a speech an hour long in praise of the wisdom 
 and success of the government of the Company. I took great 
 pains to show that these praises were not deserved, and I 
 urged for years that the Company should be abolished. When 
 the mutiny came in 1857 there was nobody to say anything, 
 or hardly anything, for the Company, and that famous old 
 institution tumbled over at once, and it had scarcely a friend 
 or a single element of power left in it. 
 
 We are now in view of another great calamity — the 
 calamity of famine — and I trust that we shall find that not 
 only Parliament but the whole people of England will be 
 willing to give a fair and honest attention to the ques- 
 tion that we are here to discuss to-day, and which must 
 before long be discussed in many parts of the country, and 
 also on the floor of Parliament. What are these famines? 
 Some of them you have never heard of, or if you have you do 
 not remember them. There was a famine in 1837-8, which 
 affected 8poo,ooo of people, 5,000,000 with great severity, 
 during which no less than 800,000 persons died of famine, 
 more than half as many again as all the men, women, and 
 children of this great city in which we are assembled, and the 
 people of England scarcely heard anything of it, excepting 
 now and then in a paragraph extracted from an Indian paper. 
 In 1 860-1 there was another famine. There were 13,000,000 
 affected, 5,000,000 suffered intensely. The mortality, as far as 
 I have searched for it, is not on record, but I do not think 
 
1877. XXVIIL MANCHESTER. 437 
 
 there is any reason to believe it was any smaller than in the 
 previous famine. In 1863 there came the famine in Bengal 
 and Orissa, and one quarter of the population died in some of 
 the districts. The total amount of the deaths was enormous. 
 Nearly the whole of the labouring population was swept away 
 over large districts of country during the pressure of that 
 calamity. In 1868-69 occurred the great famine in Raj- 
 pootana and the districts around it. One hundred thousand 
 square miles, or one-sixth of the whole area of the country, 
 was more or less affected by this famine, and 1,250,000 
 persons are admitted by the Government estimate to have 
 perished of hunger. In 1877, the present year, it is 
 estimated that more than 500,000 people, that is more than 
 all the population of this great city, have died, and 
 those who die, or the figures of those who died, do not 
 represent the whole calamity. There are multitudes who die 
 afterwards, who suffer and linger, who know never again 
 a day's good health, and whose names are not on the record 
 which tells us of the mortality of the famine. And then 
 there is the loss of cattle. It is enormous. The loss of cattle 
 in a country altogether agricultural of course must be the loss 
 of the principal source of wealth. 
 
 The loss of produce, the loss of revenue to the Government, 
 the loss of trade, all this is absolutely beyond calculation, and 
 if one could add all these losses together and show you how 
 much it was, you would find that all the money which Sir 
 Arthur Cotton proposes to have expended in the moments of 
 his greatest hope — or, if you like, his greatest enthusiasm — 
 would be a mere trifle to that which has been sacrificed by 
 these famines, which might probably have altogether been 
 prevented. Sir A. Cotton referred to the number of persons 
 supposed to have died. I was reading the other day a very 
 interesting pamphlet by Mr. R. Elliott, who has been a planter 
 in India, and is well acquainted with many parts of the 
 country. This was published several years ago. Mr. Elliott 
 
438 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 11, 
 
 said that within ten years more than 2,800,000, nearly 
 3,000,000 persons, had been proved to have died from famine, 
 and this year we have added to the number another 500,000. 
 Now, the question is. How long is this to go on ? What are 
 we to say of a Government which has all this passing under its 
 eye from year to year, and all that I have described within 
 the last ten or fifteen years, and makes no strong and resolute 
 effort to meet it? Look at its effect upon the Government 
 and upon the people. India is poor. Its taxation has almost 
 reached its limits; it is so high that you cannot turn the 
 screw a bit more. There has been very frequently and for 
 many years a deficit when the annual expenses are made up. 
 Bankruptcy is threatening the country. There is the loss of 
 credit to the Government ; and yet no Governor- General in 
 India with his Council, no Indian Secretary in London with 
 his cumbrous and burdensome Council, not one of these great 
 personages who are connected with the Government of India, 
 steps forward resolutely with intelligence and force and 
 courage to say that these great calamities, so injurious to 
 India, so perilous and humiliating to England, shall, if pos- 
 sible, for ever be put an end to. 
 
 Now we come to the question whether there be any 
 remedy. There are some misfortunes of such a nature, that 
 the moment you find the cause you find the remedy. If a 
 man suffers from hunger you give him something to eat. 
 I think Daniel O'Connell said, when some one complained 
 that his horse was starving, * Have you tried corn ? ' The 
 calamity which you hear of in India is that famine is there, 
 and that the famine arises from drought ; that there is a lack 
 of water, or at least a lack of water in the right place and at 
 the right time. There is always soil, and there is always sun, 
 and there is always rain ; but the rain does not always fall 
 when you want it, and it is not at the particular time just 
 as much or as little as you want it. But if you have soil, 
 and sun, and water, and human labour, you may have rich 
 
1877. XXVIIL MANCHESTER. 439 
 
 harvests throughout a great portion of India. Now that is 
 a very simple doctrine, which I suppose few people will 
 be disposed to dispute. But with the rainfall there is some 
 difficulty, because the rain comes down there sometimes in 
 profuse quantities. It does not rain, as we say here, cats and 
 dogs, but I suppose tigers and lions, or anything else you 
 may use as an illustration. But sometimes the heavens are 
 as brass, and there is no rain, not only for weeks but for 
 months. 
 
 Now, what is the remedy? Everybody has known the 
 remedy for centuries. If you had before you, as I have seen, 
 an ancient map of the presidency of Madras, you would think 
 there was no dry land for the people to live upon, the 
 map is so marked with tanks. You will understand that 
 what Sir Arthur Cotton means by tanks is not the sort of 
 thing we call a tank here ; but it is a large reservoir, some- 
 times of miles in extent, and like some of our greatest lakes. 
 Well, this map of Madras is marked out with these tanks 
 or reservoirs from north to south and from east to west, and 
 it shows that the rulers of the people of those ancient days 
 had just the same evil to contend with that we have, and 
 that they manfully did their best to subdue it. 
 
 Our Government knows perfectly well what is the re- 
 medy, but what do they do ? Whenever there is a famine 
 they begin to think about some manner of irrigating that 
 particular district. They generally wait until the horse is 
 stolen before they lock the stable door. I give you an 
 extract here. I quote from an interesting article in the 
 Fortmghtly Review by Colonel Chesney, who by many persons 
 will be admitted to be a great authority. He says, 'The 
 Ganges canal was the outcome of the great famine of 1833; 
 the new project in the Doab of the famine of 1861 ; the Orissa 
 works of that of 1866.' He says, ' Oude has escaped famine 
 so far, and in Oude no irrigation works have been con- 
 structed.' And then he goes on to say that the Indian 
 
440 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 11, 
 
 Government is very like a father who spends a great deal 
 on the doctor or the nurse, if his child is ill and ready 
 to die, but in ordinary times does not take the smallest 
 care of him whatever, or teach him anything* with regard 
 to the preservation of his own health. That is the policy 
 which the India Company in past times pursued, and which 
 the Indian Government is yet pursuing for the most part 
 with regard to that very large child it has the care of — 
 the 250,000,000 of people in our Indian Empire. Now, 
 I have given you the opinion of Colonel Chesney. I might 
 give you one or two others, but I will not trouble you 
 with quotations, for I do not think the question requires it. 
 Sir Charles Trevelyan, who is one of the most intelligent 
 men who have been connected with the Indian Government, 
 and who has been governor of the province of Madras, on 
 hearing a paper read by Sir Arthur Cotton, said he was satis- 
 fied that with a thorough system of irrigation famines would 
 be impossible in India. Speaking of what Sir Arthur Cotton 
 had done on the Godavery and Kistna he says, ' If all India 
 were treated in the same way, famines would be" impossible.' 
 Next I give you the opinion of Sir Bartle Frere, a very 
 distinguished Indian servant of the Crown, who has now 
 been sent out, as you know, as the governor of the South 
 African dominions of the Crown — the Cape of Good Hope. 
 He says: — 
 
 * It is the fashion to deny the facts regarding the results of the irrigation 
 works on which Sir Arthur Cotton^s calculations are based, but I feel certain 
 that the more they are tested the more clearly will it be seen that in no other way 
 can money be so advantageously expended with a view to future production 
 and cheap supply as in great works of irrigation and internal navigation/ 
 
 Now, I have given you the opinions of three persons. I 
 might keep you here an hour in reading the opinions of 
 men almost equally distinguished, and to the same purport. 
 So I take it for granted that when we have the judgment 
 of past Governments — I mean the ancient Governments of 
 
1877. XXVIII. MANCHESTER, 441 
 
 India ; the judgment of our own Government of India, 
 when a calamity occurs ; the opinion of Colonel Cliesney, 
 of Sir Charles Trevelyan, of Sir Bartle Frere, of Sir 
 Arthur Cotton, and I venture to say, also, the unanimous 
 opinion of all the intelligent engineers who are connected 
 with India, we must come to this one conclusion — that as 
 we have found out what is the malady under which these 
 people die, we have also found out the remedy by which 
 they might, if it had been applied, have been kept alive. 
 
 They say that Sir Arthur Cotton is an enthusiast. Well, 
 we have all been enthusiasts in our time, and the world 
 would be a dull world if there were no real and honest 
 enthusiasm in it. But Sir Arthur Cotton is not surpassed 
 by any man in the Indian service for long experience and 
 for great success in the works in which he has been con- 
 nected and which he has undertaken. He has broader and 
 grander views than some of his competitors, or some of 
 his fellow-officers, or of those connected with the Govern- 
 ment. But he knows that this is a great question, that 
 India is a great country, that 250,000,000 of people are a 
 great people; and therefore he thinks that a broader and 
 a grander policy is necessary. Why is it that the 
 Governor-General of India and his Council in Calcutta, 
 and Lord Salisbury, and those who have preceded him 
 as Secretaries of State for India in England, and his Council 
 — why is it that they regard this question with so little 
 favour ? They are always on the brink of bankruptcy ; the 
 Government wrings whatever it can from the people — it 
 takes every farthing it can get from them. It is admitted 
 that taxation cannot be carried to a higher limit, and yet 
 all that they get from taxation is not enough to spend, for 
 they spend more than 6,000,000/. or 7,000,000/. which comes 
 to them from the sale of monopoly opium in China. They 
 have spent all this for years past; and besides spending 
 that, they have incurred a debt, say of 100,000,000/. sterling. 
 
442 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 11, 
 
 Therefore they are always in terror of a bankrupt exchequer, 
 and they turn their backs upon anybody who proposes that 
 they should deal largely with any question, however im- 
 portant, if is requires that there should be a considerable or 
 a large expenditure. 
 
 Now the question, in my opinion, is very much too great 
 for the officials at Calcutta. You know that a new Governor- 
 General of India is sent out from this country about every 
 five years. As a rule, as far as my experience goes, these 
 gentlemen do not know any more than the majority of 
 their own class in society know upon this question. They 
 begin, the moment they are appointed, to read ' Mill's British 
 India.' I met — I do not know whether I have stated this 
 before in public, but I recollect meeting a Governor-General 
 with whom I was acquainted, just after he was appointed. 
 I met him at Euston Station in London, and I observed that 
 he had got a book under his arm, and was hurrying away. 
 I spoke to him and said, ' If I were in the habit of laying 
 wagers I would lay a wager that I could tell the name of 
 the book under your arm.^ Well, he looked surprised and 
 amused, and said, ' What is it ?' I said, ' I think it is 
 Mill's British India.' He said it was quite true. He was 
 beginning to read Mill, for he thought that as he was 
 going out to India it was necessary that he should, if pos- 
 sible, rub up the information which perhaps in the lapse of 
 years had passed from his mind. But when you come to 
 discuss with the officials in Calcutta the question of railways 
 there, they can open their minds to the large, and as they 
 consider it the necessary expenditure ; but the question of 
 railways, in their opinion, is a totally different one from the 
 question of canals, either for navigation or irrigation. 
 
 I think the question of railways is far more a question 
 for the English, as a power in India, than for the native 
 people in India. It is a great military question. It was 
 supposed that with one regiment they could do the work in 
 
1877. XXVIII. MANCHESTER. 443 
 
 maintaining order or suppressing insurrection with railways, 
 that would require three regiments when there were no rail- 
 ways, though since they have made railways the authorities 
 have half as many more men in India as they had when 
 there were no railways at all. So that with regard to 
 railways, whether they pay or not (and I am taking the 
 statement of Sir Arthur Cotton with regard to the State 
 railways that are being made, I have not examined the 
 figures minutely myself), whether they pay or not, such is 
 the fear of the authorities in Calcutta as to the peril con- 
 nected with their power in India, that railways must be 
 made for the sake of the permanence of that power, although 
 they may not be worth one-twentieth part of what canals 
 for navigation or irrigation would be worth in relation to the 
 true interests, comfort, and prosperity of the millions of 
 natives of the country. Why is it, if they have spent 
 T 00,000,000/., or 120,000,000/., and it is much more if you 
 add the debt — if they have spent all that upon railways— 
 and yet the vast bulk of India is not touched by railways at 
 this moment — why should they hesitate as to a policy which, 
 by spending one quarter of it, or 25,000,000/., within the 
 next few years, might redeem India from the disgrace which 
 attends it from this neglect, and might redeem that vast 
 population from the suffering which periodically assails it ? 
 
 .There are engineers in India — and where great works are 
 to be done great engineers are found — though we cannot 
 hope that Sir Arthur Cotton himself will ever again give 
 his time and labour to works of this kind in India, yet I 
 have no doubt there are other men, and not a few of them, 
 who would have the ambition to tread in his steps, and 
 who after their forty or fifty years in India might point to 
 works as grand as his, which entitle him not only to the 
 gratitude of the people of India, but to the high esteem 
 and the grateful consideration of the people of England 
 too. Thirty millions spent in this way, at the rate of 
 
444 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, dec. 11, 
 
 interest at which the English Government could borrow it, 
 would be only about 1,000,000^. per annum; and at the rate 
 at which the Indian Government could borrow, it would not 
 certainly be more than 2,000,000^. per annum. 
 
 Well, if these canals could be made, if this cheap navi- 
 gation could be provided — and recollect that the people of 
 India do not want to travel by express trains, their time is 
 not worth the expense of such travelling — they would be very 
 glad to go even at half the speed of an ordinary train in 
 India. Their produce, which is mostly what you call raw 
 produce from the soil, does not require to travel at twenty 
 miles an hour. They cannot afford to pay the cost of travel- 
 ling at such a rate. If canals for navigation or irrigation 
 were made upon some grand scheme determined by eminent 
 and competent engineers, you would find the produce of 
 nearly all the districts of India, all those not hitherto irri- 
 gated, would probably be doubled. Produce would be carried 
 cheaply to the coast, and it would be distributed in the 
 interior of the country, where there was partial scarcity, from 
 where there was great abundance, and the surplus would 
 come to this country and help to feed the growing popu- 
 lation we have amongst us. The fact is that England and 
 India would be both blessed by a policy of this kind. The 
 population of India would be redeemed from poverty, and 
 the population of England would have steadier and more 
 constant employment, and a steady and, I hope, satisfactory 
 rate of wages. But it is easy to say what shall be done. 
 Some gentlemen — for whom our friends below are now busy 
 with their fingers and their pens — some gentlemen who 
 direct leading articles in the newspapers will say, * How easy 
 it is to say this and that shall be done;' and they will begin 
 to point out difficulties, and show that these things are 
 doubtful in themselves, and if they are not, the obstacles 
 are such as at the present time, in the present condition of 
 the finances of India, the Government cannot overcome. 
 
1877. XXVIII. MANCHESTER. 445 
 
 I said just now, referring to the Government in Calcutta, 
 that these gentlemen have a terror of expenditure before 
 their eyes. I do not think half a dozen gentlemen in 
 Calcutta — and who, by the way, spend I believe half the 
 year at Simla — are capable of administering the government 
 for 200,000,000 or 250,000,000 of people. I think it is an 
 impossibility, which man in our present state of knowledge 
 and morals will never be able to overcome, to govern one- 
 sixth of all the population of the globe by half a dozen 
 officers from this country — ^governing a people who have 
 been conquered, and therefore must be less easy to govern ; 
 a people who are foreign, and therefore whose wants must 
 be less understood. There never was anything in the world 
 so monstrous as to believe that half-a-dozen officials in 
 Calcutta can govern one-sixth of the population of the globe, 
 comprising twenty or more different nations and speaking 
 twenty different languages; and yet this is what we ex- 
 pect to have done, and what many people have believed 
 has been well done by a Governor-General and half-a-dozen 
 eminent civilians in the city of Calcutta. I believe there 
 is only one person in India, so far as I have ever heard, 
 who is in favour of economy, and he is the Governor- 
 General. All the people with white faces, English, 
 Scotch, Irish, and so forth, are nearly all in the service of 
 the Government. I am not speaking now of the handful 
 of merchants, but all the civilians, engineers, military 
 men, everybody — they are all in favour of, and have an 
 interest in, patronage, promotion, salaries, and ultimately 
 pensions. 
 
 And then there is no public opinion which fights in favour 
 of economy. There are two sets of newspapers — those, first, 
 which are published by Englishmen, and these, being the 
 papers of the services, cannot, of course, be in favour of 
 economy. They assail me every time I mention India in a 
 speech, if it is even only in a single paragraph, and na doubt 
 
446 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 11, 
 
 they will do the same for what I am saying now. Then there 
 are the native papers ; and although there are a great many 
 published in the native languages, still they have not much 
 of what we call political influence. The Government officials 
 look into them to see if they are saying anything unpleasant 
 to the Government — anything that indicates sedition or 
 discontent, but never for the purpose of being influenced by 
 the judgment of the writers and editors. The actual press of 
 the country which touches the Government is the press of 
 the English ; and that press, as a rule, is in favour — and, of 
 course, generally has been in favour — of annexation of more 
 territory, more places, more salaries, and ultimately more 
 pensions. Now I may say of these salaries and pensions that 
 I believe there is no other service in the world, and never has 
 been, in which salaries have been so high and pensions so large 
 as those that have been given by the Indian Government, 
 whether under the East India Company or under the present 
 Government of the Crown. I may say further that their 
 military expenditure, that consisted only of the maintenance 
 of an army of 40,000 men before the mutiny, consists now of 
 an army of 60,000 Europeans, although the mutiny was 
 subdued, I believe, before a single fresh soldier had landed in 
 that country from this. 
 
 It may be said that I am no authority on this subject. I 
 admit it. I admit that the persons who are out there — 
 the Governor-General and his principal ministers, and officers 
 of the army — possibly they may all have opinions that are 
 more worth your considering than mine ; but I state these 
 facts, and I say that a Government put over 250,000,000 of 
 people, which has levied taxes till it can levy no more, 
 which spends all that it can levy, and which has borrowed 
 100,000,000^. more than all that it can levy — I say a 
 Government like that has some fatal defect which at some 
 not distant time must bring disaster and humiliation to the 
 Government and to the people on whose behalf it rules. 
 
1877. XXVIII. MANCHESTER. 447 
 
 I have nearly finished what I have to say, but I want to 
 make one reference to what took place nineteen or twenty 
 years ago when the Government of India was changed. At 
 the time when the second reading of the bill was before the 
 House — a bill I supported in every stage — I ventured to 
 address a speech to the House of Commons on the general 
 and broad question of our Government in India. I said then 
 that I did not believe, as I have said now, that a Government 
 in Calcutta could ever efficiently direct the affiiirs of that 
 country or legislate for it ; that it could not do its duty to 
 nations speaking twenty languages, comprising, as it is said, 
 now more than 200,000,000 of people — one-sixth the popula- 
 tion of the globe. I argued that it was necessary, and would 
 some time become imperative, that the Government of India 
 should be so changed that it should be divided into five or 
 six separate and entirely independent presidencies ; that by 
 that means the government of every district should be brought 
 nearer to the people ; that you would not have the Govern- 
 ment of Madras contending constantly with the Government 
 of Calcutta, and the Government at Bombay being unable to 
 do many things it would like to have done because the 
 Government at Calcutta w^ould not consent ; that if you would 
 divide the country into difierent presidencies, and make each 
 a separate and independent state in itself, with the manage- 
 ment of its own government, with its own Council, you would 
 bring the government home to the people. And while the 
 Government would necessarily or probably be much better, 
 you would teach the people of these presidencies to consider 
 themselves, as generations passed on, as the subjects and the 
 people of that state. 
 
 And thus if the time should come — and it will come — I 
 agree with Lord Lawrence that no man who examines the 
 question can doubt that some time it must come — when the 
 power of England, from some cause or other, is withdrawn from 
 India, then each one of these states would be able to sustain 
 
448 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 itself as a compact, as a self-governing community. You 
 would have five or six great states there, as you have five or 
 six great states in Europe ; but that would be a thousand 
 times better than our being withdrawn from it now when 
 there is no coherence amongst those twenty nations, and when 
 we should find the whole country, in all probability, lapse 
 into chaos and anarchy, and into sanguinary and interminable 
 warfare. I believe that it is our duty not only to govern India 
 well now for our own sakes and to satisfy our own conscience, 
 but so to arrange its government and so to administer it that 
 we should look forward to the time — which may be distant, 
 but may not be so remote — when India will have to take up 
 her own government, and administer it in her own fashion. 
 I say he is no statesman — he is no man actuated with a high 
 moral sense with regard to our great and terrible moral respon- 
 sibility, who is not willing thus to look ahead, and thus to pre- 
 pare for circumstances which may come sooner than we think, 
 and sooner than any of us hope for, but which must come at 
 some not very distant date. By doing this, I think we should 
 be endeavouring to make amends for the original crime upon 
 which much of our power in India is founded, and for the 
 many mistakes which have been made by men whose in- 
 tentions have been good. I think it is our duty, if we can, 
 to approach this great question in this spirit, and to try 
 rightly to discharge the task committed to us, as the Govern- 
 ment and rulers of the countless and helpless millions of that 
 country. If we seek thus to deal with those millions, and 
 men in after ages condemn our fathers for the policy which 
 for the time bound India to England, they may award praise 
 to us and to those who come alter us for that we have striven 
 to give them that good government and that freedom which 
 He who is supreme over all lands and all peoples will in His 
 own good time make the possession of all His children. 
 
XXIX, 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 13, 1878. 
 
 [The annual meeting of the members of the Borough of Birmingham was held 
 this year at a somewhat earlier date than usual, in consequence of the fact 
 that the session of Parliament began at an unusually early period. Mr. Bright 
 took occasion to dwell on the menacing appearance of affairs in Eastern 
 Europe, and to contrast the popular sentiment which led to the Crimean 
 War with the general determination of the English people to take no part in 
 the existing complicatioos,] 
 
 This meeting, as you know, has been called some days 
 earlier than was some time ago intended, and you know, also, 
 that Parliament has been summoned about three weeks before 
 the usual time. It is because Parliament has been summoned 
 so early that this meeting has been called so early. In ordi- 
 nary times the summoning of Parliament creates a consider- 
 able interest in the country, but, on the whole, I think it is 
 an interest rather of a pleasurable kind. On this occasion 
 the announcement that Parliament was to meet on the 1 7th 
 of January had the effect of creating great anxiety ; in some 
 cases I have heard it described as consternation, and in all 
 the centres of trade it has caused a certain depression which 
 has been sensibly felt. I am driven to the conclusion, at 
 which I think a large portion of the people have arrived, 
 that the cause of all this is not a fear of Parliament, but 
 a want of confidence in the Administration. We have been 
 passing through something like a crisis, and we have had 
 no decisive voice from the Government. In point of fact. 
 
450 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 13, 
 
 if one body of men has said that the Government has spoken 
 in a particular way, the next body of men that you meet 
 would tell you that the Government intended something 
 entirely different. Of one thing, however, we may be quite 
 sure, that the question which fills the mind of the people 
 at this hour, and which has filled it for a long time back, 
 is the great and solemn question of peace or war — and I 
 doubt whether it would be possible to submit to any people 
 a greater question than that. 
 
 There are many in this hall who remember a period, about 
 twenty-three years ago, when the same question was sub- 
 mitted to the nation which the nation at this moment is 
 considering, and that is, whether peace or war is the true 
 policy and the true interest of this people. At that time 
 the conclusion to which the people came was a conclusion 
 in favour of war. They followed a Government that, un- 
 wisely as I thought then, and as most people think now, 
 threw them into war. I think we may take some lesson from 
 that war. I read a short time ago in a very influential news- 
 paper — a newspaper which had supported the war of 1854 — 
 that it was a pity to go back at all to that question, that cir- 
 cumstances had entirely changed, and that men who were in 
 favour of that war might very justly and properly be against a 
 repetition of it. Now, for my share, I believe the arguments at 
 the present moment for war are as strong as they were in 1 854 
 —and in point of fact, as I believe the war then had no just 
 argument in its support, so I think that now there is no sound 
 argument that can be brought forward to induce this people 
 to countenance any entrance into the existing conflict. As 
 to not going back to the past, what is common with indi- 
 viduals ? Nothing is more common and nothing more wise 
 than to look back. One of our poets has said : — 
 
 **Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours 
 And ask them what report they bore to Heaven.* 
 
 And how does a man become wiser as he grows older but 
 
1878. XXIX. BIRMINGHAM. 451 
 
 by looking" back upon tbe past, and by learning from the 
 mistakes that he has made in his earlier years ? And that 
 which is true of an individual must surely also be true of 
 a nation with regard to its foreign policy. 
 
 At that time the public mind was filled with falsehoods, 
 and it was in a state which we might describe by saying 
 that il became almost drunk with passion. With regard to 
 Russia, you recollect, many of you, what was said of her 
 power, of her designs, of the despotism which ruled in Russia, 
 of the danger which hung over all the freedom of all the 
 countries of Europe. And the error was not confined to 
 a particular class. It spread, from the cottage to all classes 
 above, and it did not even spare those who were within the 
 precincts of the throne. It was not adopted by the clergy 
 of the Church of England only, but by the ministers of the 
 Nonconformist bodies also. The poison had spread every- 
 where. The delusion was all-pervading. The mischief seemed 
 universal, and, as I know to my cost, it was scarcely worth 
 while to utter an argument or to bring forth a fact against it. 
 Well, we had a war for two years, and we know what was 
 its result ; at least we know something of it We know 
 that the naval arsenal at Sebastopol was to a large extent 
 destroyed ; that the Russian fleet was sunk in the harbour 
 of Sebastopol. We know that when the treaty of peace came 
 to be negotiated in 1856, Russia was forced to consent to a 
 limitation of her fleet in the Black Sea, in order that she 
 might never in future have a fleet that could menace the 
 security of Turkey. Now, there was a certain cost that was 
 necessarily paid for these things. Some people consider that 
 the cost, when they are going into a war or when they are in 
 it, is not of much consequence. I take a different view. I 
 think the loss of 40,000 men in the prime of life, in their 
 full powers — 40,000 men killed in battle, dying from wounds, 
 dying from horrible maladies in horrible hospitals — I think 
 that is something, and I think the payment of 100,000,000/. 
 
452 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 13, 
 
 sterling — and that war cost us far more — is a serious thing for 
 a country where there are so many poor people and so many 
 families who live only to-day on the produce of the labour 
 of yesterday. But then the loss we suffered was a very small 
 loss compared to the whole loss. I saw the other day a note 
 in a work to which I will refer by and bye, which said that 
 90,000 Russians were buried on the north side of the city 
 of Sebastopol during that siege, and it was stated in the 
 House of Lords — I think by Lord Lansdowne during the 
 war — that up to the time of the death of the Emperor of 
 Russia — the Emperor Nicholas — 240,000 Russians had died 
 or been killed, and it is stated upon good authority that the 
 whole loss in men to the Russians during that two years' war 
 was not less than 500,000. So that by adding our loss, and 
 the French loss, and the Turkish loss, and the Sardinian loss, 
 Mr. Kinglake reckons that the whole cost of the two years of 
 that war was little if any less than 1,000,000 human lives. 
 
 Now, it cannot be wrong, and it cannot be unwise, that 
 we should look back and see what that war cost and what it 
 gained. The result of it was that Russia, for the time and 
 in that particular part of her empire, in the Crimea, was 
 vanquished, and a treaty of peace was agreed to at Paris in 
 the year 1856. Now I want to show you just for a moment 
 how mistaken were some of the opinions that were expressed 
 at the time. I will only give you two little extracts. In 
 February of 1854 the Times newspaper, which may be taken 
 to be a wide representation, a fair representation, of a vast 
 amount of opinion in this country, said — 
 
 *To destroy Sebastopol is nothing less than to demolish the entire fabric of 
 Russian ambition in those very regions where it is most dangerous to Europe. 
 This feat, and this only, would have really promoted the solid and durable 
 objects of the war/ 
 
 Now, Sebastopol was destroyed, and the Russian fleet then 
 existing was sunk by the Russians to bar the entrance to the 
 harbour of Sebastopol, and Russia was limited for the future 
 
1878. XXIX. BIRMINGHAM. 453 
 
 so that she should never have a fleet that could be a menace or 
 be any danger to Turkey. Well, the Tmes was not the only 
 authority which made a statement of this kind. There is a 
 work, published lately, to which I will for a moment refer — 
 that is, the third volume of the * Life of the Prince Consort.' 
 It is a book which I have read with intense interest, many 
 parts of it with a painful interest. It is a book which gives 
 you an exalted and, I believe, a true picture of the greatness, 
 and the nobleness of the character of the late Prince Consort. 
 It is a book to which no doubt her Majesty the Queen has 
 contributed the main portion of the facts and of the contents. 
 In this work she has built up a monument which probably 
 will last as long as our language of the greatness and the 
 nobleness of the Prince. I doubt not it will last longer than 
 any of those monuments of bronze or of marble by which 
 it has been sought to commemorate his name and his 
 character. 
 
 Well, in this book there are things I have said of painful 
 interest. I have seen some criticisms upon it which go the 
 length of saying that they think the book had better not have 
 been published now, as it is calculated to excite unfriendly 
 feelings to Russia. I have learned rather a different lesson 
 from it. I think it is impossible for anybody of intelligent 
 and impartial judgment to read the book through without 
 coming to the conclusion that the occurrence of that war 
 was an enormous error on the part of our statesmen, and that 
 we are bound now by all regard for our country utterly to 
 condemn it. I will give you just one paragraph from one of 
 the Prince's letters, or, rather, from a memorandum that was 
 submitted to the Government, I think in 1854. He was 
 referring to certain expectations held out to the House of 
 Commons by Lord John Russell as to what the war should 
 result in, and he says : — 
 
 * I find that the impossibility of allowing Russia to retain her threatening 
 armaments in the Crimea was one of the most prominent of these expectations 
 
454 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 13, 
 
 and the one which gave most satisfaction to the House. Now that vast trea- 
 sure and the best English blood have been profusely expended towards obtain- 
 ing that object, the nation has a right to expect that any peace contemplated 
 by the (Jovemment should fully and completely realise it/ 
 
 He admits afterwards during* the negotiations that the peace 
 was not such a peace as they would have wished to have had, 
 but it was a peace which was much better than continuing 
 the war with the complications there were then in Europe. 
 But what happened when you had destroyed Sebastopol, and 
 when the fleet was sunk, and when you had limited their fleet 
 in the future by the Treaty of Paris ? If you will step over to 
 the year 1871 you will find that the main article of the treaty 
 — the limitation of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, tlie 
 article to which the Russians were, I suppose, more opposed 
 than to any other, because they considered it was more 
 humiliating — that article was surrendered by our Govern- 
 ment and by other Governments of Europe — I will not 
 say actually without remonstrance, though I think I might 
 almost say so, but without any strong remonstrance, and 
 without anything like a blow ; so that everything has failed. 
 You destroyed a large number of lives, you spent the money, 
 and you disturbed the peace of Europe, and the end of it was 
 that nothing whatsoever was gained, because fifteen years after- 
 wards everything was relinquished, or nearly everything, for 
 which war had been waged. The Russian fleet is no longer 
 limited in the Black Sea. Turkey, for which you made war, 
 is not only not safe, but is in much greater danger than she 
 ever was before ; and it is obvious, front what we have seen, 
 that, in comparison with Turkey, Russia is just as powerful 
 as if the war of 1854 had never taken place, and at that 
 time we had, as you recollect, a great ally in the Emperor 
 of the French. 
 
 Now, I should like to tell you what sort of an ally he 
 was ; fortunately we have not one of that kind now. France 
 never was in favour of the war. The Emperor went into the 
 
1878. XXIX, BIRMINGHAM. 465 
 
 war, not because he cared about Tui*key or cared about 
 Russia, but because he wanted to associate himself with 
 respectable old monarchical institutions — with a respectable 
 old monarchically-governed country. He thought that some 
 things that had taken place in his career might be forgotten, 
 and that he would come out able to enter the very high 
 society of the sovereigns of Europe. Now what the Prince 
 says about this is as follows : writing to his uncle Leopold, 
 the late King of the Belgians, in December, 1855, he says, 
 * I really believe there is not a single soul in France who ever 
 gave himself the smallest concern about the maintenance of 
 the Turkish empire.' And he says further, in the year 1856, 
 in February, ' We know that England is hated all over the 
 Continent, that even in France it is the Emperor, and the 
 Emperor alone, who is with us body and soul;' and he 
 added, * Our position in the Conference' — the Conference pre- 
 ceding the treaty of peace — ' will be one of extreme difficulty, 
 for, except the Emperor Napoleon, we have no one on our 
 side.' Therefore, whilst we were fighting the despotism of 
 the Emperor Nicholas, we had as our principal ally the 
 despotism of the Emperor Napoleon, and we had none of the 
 sympathy of that great nation the French. More than 
 40,000 Frenchmen laid down their lives in the Crimea in 
 alliance with us for a cause in which they had no interest, 
 and in which their country had no sympathy. 
 
 At that time Europe was not with us, and, as you know, 
 Europe is not with us now. In 1855, in May, the Prince 
 says this : ' The Crimea was chosen by France and England, 
 forsaken by the rest of Europe, as thie only vulnerable point 
 of attack,' and he says further, in 1854, 'If there were a 
 Germany, and a German sovereign in Berlin, it [that is, the 
 calamity of this war] would never have happened.' There 
 is now a Germany, and there is a German Emperor in Berlin, 
 yet the war has not been prevented. You will see, therefore, 
 from this slight sketch that there is nothing but failure, 
 
456 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 13, 
 
 nothing but disappointment in this page of the history of 
 our country ; and I want to ask you to-night, and to ask 
 all those of my countrymen who may condescend to read what 
 I am saying, I want to ask them whether they are willing to 
 write such another page in our history — what shall I say ? — 
 shockingly terrible and bloody, and as utterly fruitless? 
 Forsaken by Europe ! We are forsaken by Europe now. 
 Germany is not with us, Austria is not with us, Italy is not 
 with us, France is not with us — w€ are alone. We only are 
 constantly meddling, constantly doing or saying something 
 which is supposed to be pleasant to the Turk, and which it is 
 hoped, some people say — which it is often hoped — may be 
 unpleasant to the Emperor of Russia. 
 
 Now I must ask you to consider for a moment why it is 
 that we are in this position, so different from the position 
 of the other nations of Europe. What interest have we at 
 the east end of the Mediterranean which the other nations 
 of Europe have not? We have only one point of interest, 
 and they have it too, only we have it in a greater degree, 
 and that is in the constant free maintenance of the passage 
 through the Suez Canal. We have a vast dependency in 
 India, and, therefore, in regard to military passage, and also 
 in regard to trade— we, I suppose, furnish nearly three-fourths 
 of all the shipping which passes through the canal-^we have 
 a greater interest in the canal being kept open than any 
 other country in Europe has. That, of course, I admit. 
 What a strange history has that canal. It is enough to 
 teach us that we ought to examine carefully the declarations 
 of great statesmen and Prime Ministers before we adopt a 
 policy which they recommend to us. I recollect hearing 
 Lord Palmerston denounce that canal. He condemned it 
 as a thing not only of no advantage, but rather to be 
 disliked by England ; and he did not believe, if it was ever 
 made, that it could be kept open. And he quoted, I think, 
 the opinion of a distinguished railway engineer with a view 
 
1878. A'AVA'. BIRMINGHAM. 457 
 
 to strengthen his argument. The consequence was that the 
 canal was made almost entirely by French money, through 
 the energy of M. Leeseps, who is a very eminent Frenchman, 
 and I am not sure whether a single share in that company 
 was held originally, or has been held from the beginning, by 
 any native of this country. 
 
 I maintain that all Europe is interested in the canal, and 
 all Europe would protest against any power, be it the Khedive 
 of Egypt or the Sultan of Turkey, or perhaps what is most 
 unlikely of all, the Czar of Russia, that took any steps to 
 prevent the free passage through the canal, or even dreamed 
 of doing so. As a proof of it, it is, I believe, well known 
 that all the Powers of Europe would be willing to combine 
 with us and with the French company and with France for 
 the purpose of declaring this canal not only a great national 
 or European but a great world's work, and that under no 
 conceivable circumstances shall any Power, or combination 
 of Powers, be permitted to interfere with it. M. Lesseps, 
 the French promoter of the canal, has over and over again 
 made suggestions of this kind. They have been made to 
 our Government, and I think it is a great misfortune, and 
 have always thought so, that that plan was not adopted, and 
 that the canal was not put in a condition of safety. I think 
 it is in a condition of safety now ; but I mean in a condition 
 of safety so clear and distinct and unquestionable that nobody 
 could make use of it for the political objects for which it has 
 been made use of lately. Now, why is it we cannot do this, 
 why is it that at this moment, when talking about the canal 
 in connection with Russia, that Mr. Cross in the House of 
 Commons, among the interests he specified as those which 
 England must maintain, mentioned this interest of the canal ? 
 I have heard a very eminent person on his side of the House 
 say, and acknowledge to me, ' As for the canal, I think that 
 of the two the canal is in i-ather more danger from Turkey 
 than it is from Russia.' All this arises from an ignorance 
 
458 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, jan. 13, 
 
 and, in some quarters, an ignorant jealousy of Russia. That 
 ignorant jealousy has existed in this country for forty years 
 
 I was reading the other day a book of singular interest 
 to me, the memoirs and correspondence of the late Senator 
 Charles Sumner, a Senator of Massachusetts, in the United 
 States. Charles Sumner was a personal friend of mine, and 
 he corresponded with me for many years. In looking over 
 his memoirs I came upon what I thought was a remarkable 
 passage, which you will permit me to read to you. It is 
 written in one of his letters from England in 1839. It was 
 just previous to that time that there had been so much ex- 
 citement in this country about Russia, and some people had 
 really so nearly approached to a condition fit for Bedlam that 
 they believed that the Russians were likely to come through 
 the Baltic and to invade the east coast of England, and they 
 persuaded the Government of that day — always too ready to 
 be persuaded on things of this kind — to add 5,000 men to 
 the navy in order that the panic might be put an end to. It 
 is like putting a plaster upon a sore. "When people get into 
 a panic of this kind they vote two millions or five millions of 
 money, five thousand men to the navy, or five thousand men 
 to the army, and then go to their beds and sleep soundly. 
 All there is in it is that next morning they have the tax- 
 gatherer, and they pay. At that time therb was living in 
 England a very eminent man, the late Lord Durham. ' He 
 was a member of the Reform Cabinet; he was one of the 
 members of the committee of that Cabinet who drew up the 
 first Reform Bill. He was a man of very Liberal views ; he 
 wished the Cabinet of Lord Grey not to give us a 10/. fran- 
 chise, but household franchise, and to accompany it with the 
 ballot. I will tell you what sort of man he was. He had 
 been ambassador at the Court of the Czar, at St. Petersburg, 
 and Mr. Sumner says this of him, — ' I ventured to ask him 
 what there was in the present reports with regard to the- 
 
1878. XXIX. BIRMINGHAM. 459 
 
 hostile intentions of Russia towards England.' ' Not a word 
 of truth,' he said, * I will give you leave to call me idiot if 
 there is a word of truth.' He said that Russia was full of 
 frieudly regard for England, and he pronounced the late Mr. 
 Urquhart, who died during the last autumn, somewhere in 
 the south of France, who was then going about the kingdom 
 preaching against Russia, a madman. Well, I have known 
 Mr. Urquhart in the House of Commons. I would not like 
 to say a word against him now that he is not here to answer 
 for himself, but this I may say without wrong, that he was 
 a man so possessed of certain notions that it was scarcely 
 possible to believe him in a condition for fairly reasoning 
 upon them. He believed that the Czar Nicholas managed 
 the whole world by his diplomacy ; he believed Lord Palmer- 
 ston was bribed by the Russian Government to sell the liber- 
 ties of Europe and the interests of this country to Russia ; he 
 believed — and I have heard him say it in the most positive 
 manner — that the war in the Crimea was waged, not to save 
 Turkey, but to place Turkey in the hands of Russia, and 
 that if we would leave Turkey alone, and leave her to fight 
 Russia alone, Turkey was perfectly safe, and Russia would 
 be easily and finally vanquished. These were the views of 
 Mr. Urquhart, which I believe he held honestly, for he de- 
 voted years of his life to preaching them, and Lord Durham 
 said that Mr. Urquhart, in preaching them, was acting like 
 a madman, and was utterly ignorant of the true state of 
 things in Russia. 
 
 No nation, I believe, has been in disposition more frieudly to 
 this nation than Russia. There is no nation on the Continent 
 of Europe that is less able to do harm to England, and there 
 is no nation on the Continent of Europe to whom we are less 
 able to do harm than we are to Russia. We are so separated 
 that it seems impossible that the two nations, by the use of 
 reason or common sense at all, could possibly be brought into 
 conflict with each other. We have India, and men tell you 
 
460 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 13, 
 
 that India is in jeopardy from Russia. I recollect a speech 
 made last session by Mr. Laing, who has been out to India 
 as Financial Minister, that was conclusive upon that point. 
 But there is one thing that Russia can do in India, and that 
 may be troublesome to us in another way, not in the way of 
 war or of conquest, but in the way of certain irritation and 
 trouble. You persuade the people of India by the writings 
 of the press and the speeches of public men in this country, 
 that we run great hazard from the advance of Russia, and 
 if you have enemies in India of course you feed their enmity 
 by this language, and you make them, if they wish to escape 
 from the government of England, turn naturally and inevit- 
 ably to Russia as the Power that can help them. The interest 
 of this country with regard to Russia in connection with 
 India is an unbroken amity, and I am sure that that un- 
 broken amity might be secured if we could get rid of the 
 miserable jealousy that afflicts us. 
 
 I thought some time ago that we were approaching, and 
 I trust still we are approaching, a better time. The present 
 Emperor of Russia is not the one with whom we made the 
 war. He is a man not given to military display. He is a 
 man whose reign before this war was signalised chiefly by the 
 grand act of the liberation of twenty millions of his people. 
 He at least was willing to forget the unfortunate past. He 
 consented that his only daughter, the loved child of his 
 heart, should marry the son of the English Queen; And 
 I thought that this was a great sign of a permanent recon- 
 ciliation, and a very blessed promise of a prolonged peace; 
 and although that has not borne in this political respect all 
 the fruit one could have wished for, still I am delighted to 
 believe that there is a great change growing, and a change 
 for the better, and a change which I believe will be accele- 
 rated by what will take place when this unfortunate war 
 comes to an end. 
 
 There are still the traditions of the Foreign Office. I once 
 
1878. XXIX. BIRMINGHAM. 461 
 
 expressed — I was very irreverent towards such an ancient 
 institution — the wisli that the Foreign Office might some 
 day be burned down ; and at least, correcting myself, that 
 if it should be burned down, that I hoped all its mad, and 
 baneful, and wicked traditions would be burned with it. But 
 these traditions still linger in the Foreign Office, and Lord 
 Derby — to whom they are foreign — endeavouring to fill that 
 eminent office, I believe with a true intention to serve his 
 country, and to do right — has been made the victim of the 
 traditions he finds in the office which he has filled for the 
 last four or five years. But I say the heart of the nation 
 is gradually changing. I met at dinner at a friend's house 
 in Salford only the night before last, an old friend of mine, 
 and he came up to me and said, ' Do you recollect me twenty- 
 three or twenty-four years ago ? You know I walked down 
 Market-street with you that day when you came out of the 
 Town Hall where you had been hissed and hooted and mal- 
 treated, and where you were not allowed to speak to the 
 constituents you were endeavouring to serve, and when you 
 were not allowed to pass down the street without gross 
 insult?' Well, now, a man may have an opinion in favour 
 of peace, and the ' dogs of war ' will scarcely bark at him. 
 
 But still we cannot disguise from ourselves the fact that 
 there is something of a war party in this country, and that 
 it has free access to some, and indeed to not a few, of the 
 newspapers of the London press. If there is any man here 
 who thinks the question of our policy doubtful, if there 
 is any man in the country who shall read what I say now 
 who is in doubt, I ask him to look back to the policy of 
 twenty-three years ago, and to see how it was then tried, and 
 how it succeeded, or how it failed. The arguments were the 
 same then exactly as they are now. The falsehoods were the 
 same. The screechings and bowlings of a portion of the press 
 were just about the same. But the nation now — ^and if nations 
 learned nothing, how long could they be sustained ? — has 
 
462 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jan. 13, 
 
 learned something, and it has risen ahove this. I am per- 
 suaded that there is a great difference of opinion as to Rus- 
 siaQ policy in the main, or Turkish policy in this war, and 
 men may pity especially the suffering on the one side or the 
 suffering on the other — for my share I pity the sufferings of 
 both sides, — and whatever may be our differences of opinion, 
 I think it is conclusively proved that the vast bulk of all 
 the opinion that is influential in this country upon this ques- 
 tion leads to this — that the nation is for a strict and rigid 
 neutrality throughout this war. 
 
 It is a painful and terrible thing to think how easy it is 
 to stir up a nation to war. Take up any decent history of 
 this country from the time of William III. until now — for 
 two centuries, or nearly so — and you will find that wars are 
 always supported by a class of arguments which, after the 
 war is over, the people find were arguments they should 
 not have listened to. It is just so now, for unfortunately 
 there still remains the disposition to be excited on these 
 questions. Some poet, I forget which it is, has said : — 
 
 'Religion, freedom, vengeance, what you will, 
 A word's enough to raise mankind to kill; 
 Some cunning phrase by faction caught and spread. 
 That guilt may reign, and wolves and worms be fed.' 
 
 * Some cunning phrase by faction caught and spread ' like the 
 cunning phrase of ' The balance of power,' which has been 
 described as the ghastly phantom which the Government of 
 this country has been pursuing for two centuries and has 
 never yet overtaken. ' Some cunning phrase ' like that we 
 have now of ' British interests.' Lord Derby has said the 
 wisest thing that has been uttered by any member of this 
 Administration during the discussions on this war when he 
 said that the greatest of British interests is peace. And a 
 hundred, far more than a hundred, public meetings have lately 
 said the same; and millions of households of men and women 
 have thought the same. To-night we shall say * Amen ' to 
 
1878. XXIX. BIRMINGHAM. 463 
 
 this wise declaration. I am delighted to see this grand 
 meetinof in this noble hall. This buildinof is consecrated to 
 peace and to freedom. You are here in your thousands, 
 representing the countless multitudes outside. May we not 
 to-night join our voices in this resolution, that, so far as we 
 are concerned, the sanguinary record of the history of our 
 country shall be closed — that we will open a new page, on 
 which shall henceforth be inscribed only the blessed message 
 of mercy and of peace ? 
 
 -M^ 
 
XXX. 
 
 ROCHDALE, APRIL 19, 1878. 
 
 [On this day Mr. Bright presided over the annual conference of the Sunday- 
 School teachers of the Association for Lancashire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire. 
 Twelve years before he had presided over a similar meeting. The con- 
 ference was held on both occasions in the Baillie Street Chapel, Rochdale. 
 On this occasion Mr. Bright delivered the following address.] 
 
 The longer I live the more I find the difficulty, for there is 
 great difficulty, in adhering to a good resolution. I had 
 made a resolution, if I could escape from the weariness of an 
 unprofitable session of Parliament, that I would carefully 
 abstain from attending or taking part at any public meeting 
 of any kind. Perhaps there is a cause and a justification for 
 my neglect of a resolution that I had strongly formed. When 
 my friend Mr. Pollitt and his friends called upon me and 
 asked me to take the position I now occupy I was weakened 
 in my resolution by the consciousness that this meeting would 
 be composed of men who are making, and have made, great 
 sacrifices for a noble and a holy cause. I knew that many 
 thousands of them gave up the calm and the rest of Sunday 
 for the service of the children of the less favoured classes of 
 our fellow-countrymen, and I recollected that I have never 
 shared in their labours and in their anxieties; and then it 
 occurred to me that if it were possible by my presence here 
 to give the smallest help and encouragement to labours 
 
1878. XXX. ROCHDALE. 465 
 
 so good, that help and that encouragement ought not to be 
 withheld. 
 
 This assembly represents, I understand, the teachers of 
 more than 400,000, perhaps nearly 500,000 children in the 
 Sunday schools in a district extending not far from this. I 
 know not exactly how many of the counties are included in 
 this district, but the teachers of 500,000 of our children 
 are a body of men from whom much will be expected, and to 
 whom much respect should be paid. In this town alone — I 
 speak of the town and a district within three or four miles of it 
 — there are more than fifty schools represented in this meeting, 
 more than 1,900 teachers, and more than 13,000 scholars ; but 
 if we were to add to these the numbers that are not in con- 
 nexion with this union, the whole number in this town and its 
 immediate neighbourhood would reach, I suppose, to much more 
 than 20,000 scholars, and the number of teachers of course 
 would be in proportion increased. One fact has been stated 
 to me which is very consolatory and, in some degree, remark- 
 able, that there never is any diflSculty in providing funds for 
 the great work which you are engaged in carrying on ; and 
 I am told that in this district of Rochdale and its immediate 
 circle, and in connexion with the schools which you directly 
 represent, more than 2,000/. per year is collected for the use of 
 these schools. And a very interesting explanation of this was 
 given me. ' There is no difficulty whatever in raising our funds, 
 for, in fact, our people are educated to give.^ I know scarcely 
 anything better than that men should be educated to give; and 
 it has always seemed to me that rich men, and men even of 
 moderate means — according to their means — who do not give, 
 miss one of the greatest pleasures of life, and one of those 
 paths in which men, if they are judicious, may be eminently 
 useful. 
 
 It is, I think, about twelve years since I was on this 
 platform, I suppose this identical platform, at a meeting 
 somewhat similar to this. On that occasion I referred to the 
 
 Hh 
 
466 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, apkil 19, 
 
 probability, and the hope, at least, that at some not remote 
 period we should have a general system of education 
 established by Parliament throughout the kingdom. Four 
 or five years after that such a system was established, not 
 precisely such as w^e approve, having, no doubt, considerable, 
 even great, faults, but still a great measure of service, the benefit 
 of whichj I believe, every day and every year, and through 
 all succeeding generations, the people of this country will 
 acknowledge to have been great. It occurred to me at that 
 time, and has often done so at other times, that under a general 
 system of common schools the labours of the Sunday-school 
 teacher would be lightened and the results of his labours 
 would be increased. I have asked whether there is any such 
 change observable in this district, and I am told, on what I 
 think is good authority, that such a result is observed, and 
 that the change is favourable ; that the children who come 
 into the Sunday schools read better than they did in former 
 years ; that many children of twelve or fourteen years of age 
 read as well as or better than scholars of twenty and up to 
 twenty-five years of age, the younger having had the ad- 
 vantage of attendance at the common schools which were 
 not in existence at the time when the older scholars were 
 young. I find also that the Sunday schools are not less 
 generally frequented : and that it is believed and admitted 
 that the labours of the teacher are in some degree lightened ; 
 for it is much easier, much pleasanter work for a teacher to 
 teach a young person or a child that is quick of intellect and 
 partly informed than one that is dull and has been left wholly 
 without cultivation. And the teaching which, in the one 
 case, is a labour that is wearisome, and from which men 
 shrink, is, in the other, a labour of love in which from day to 
 day they perceive the growth of the great and holy work in 
 which they are engaged. 
 
 Now I ask myself what it is that you propose to do in your 
 Sunday schools. The first thing is that your scholars should 
 
1878. XXX. ROCHDALE, 467 
 
 be taught to read well, and to understand well what they 
 read ; and if I am not misinformed, their chief reading is in 
 the Scriptures. They are taught the essential truths of 
 Christianity, which, although mysterious, are not many in 
 number. They are taught also Bible history, and they are 
 instructed in the moral teaching of the New Testament ; and 
 beyond this an attempt is made to bring to bear upon the 
 scholars all that we understand by civilising influences. We 
 say — that is not the expression I should use, but you say, 
 who are engaged in the work — give us the young people ; 
 you then give us the future church ; you then give us the 
 future social and public life ; you then give us not the 
 children as they are now, but the men and women of future 
 years ; you give into our hands to mould and guide even the 
 great nation of which we are a part. You try amongst the 
 scholars to teach them many things which probably in many 
 of their homes and amongst many of their ordinary associates 
 they would scarcely learn. You try to check rudeness, and 
 sometimes, I am sorry to say, you have to check what may 
 be called impiety of speech. You try to teach them to be 
 kind to each other, not to their brothers and sisters only, but 
 to their schoolfellows and to their parents. You endeavour 
 to teach the boys deference to each other, and you fail greatly 
 unless you endeavour to teach them gentleness and kindness 
 to the gentler sex. 
 
 There is much to learn, and in childhood it is marvellous 
 how much may be taught. I think Lord Brougham once 
 said that he believed men and women, boys and girls, learnt 
 more up to six years of age than they learnt in all their lives 
 afterwards. I do not know whether that is true or not, but 
 no doubt there is much to be learnt, and therefore much to 
 be taught. If you teach boys and girls to be gentle to and 
 amongst each other, you will teach at the same time probably 
 how wise and how good it is for them to be kind and gentle 
 to what we term the inferior animals, which are perhaps 
 
 H b 2 
 
468 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. apeil 19, 
 
 inferior in power, but not inferior in the highest right of 
 existence, that which they derive from the supreme Creator 
 and Ruler of the world. These creatures — dogs^ horses, 
 donkeys — I might mention other animals — are many of 
 them given us for our use and for our enjoyment. I think 
 there is no cruelty more odious or more base than that which 
 is practised upon dumb creatures, who cannot remonstrate, 
 and who cannot show any resentment to us. Now in my 
 opinion, in the management of a Sunday-school, where you 
 have persons, I suppose, all the way from five or six years to 
 twenty-five or thirty years old, on matters even of this kind a 
 Sunday-school teacher may do much, and he may rely upon it 
 that the kindness taught in youth affects and stamps the 
 character in after life. 
 
 There is another question that I would just glance at for 
 one sentence, and that is the question which has taken up 
 much of public attention for some years past — the question of 
 temperance. No one will deny, I think, that the cause of 
 temperance owes much to Sunday schools. I think the cause 
 of temperance is advancing in this country, although 
 intemperance prevails to so great an extent. But if it owes 
 much to Sunday schools it asks even more for the future. 
 The children ought to be taught that exhibitions of excess are 
 not exhibitions which should cause so much laughter as 
 sorrow ; and they should be taught also that which I should 
 say, perhaps, some millions of our countrymen have discovered 
 for themselves, that there is nothing but an increased safety 
 and increased profit in an entire abstinence from the consump- 
 tion of articles which, if taken freely, lead inevitably to 
 mischief. If the children whom you teach can read well and 
 think well, if they are reared to generous and kindly and 
 merciful sentiments, you will find that even in our public 
 affairs as citizens of a great country, your efforts, your efforts 
 as teachers in Sunday schools, will guide them into the 
 highest duties of their citizenship. 
 
1878. XXX, ROCHDALE. 469 
 
 Now, take the present time in which we are living — the 
 present hour, the present moment. We have, as you know 
 — all men and women capable of thinking must have at 
 this moment — a subject of great anxiety pressing upon them. 
 I shall not attempt to discuss it, because that would be 
 apart from the business of a meeting like this ; but I want 
 to ask you this. Do you think^ looking from the point of 
 the Christian work in which you are engaged, that the 
 common view of war is a wise or a Christian view? How 
 is it regarded? As a thing that is frequent, that is usual, 
 that is useful, and that is necessary. It comes as heavy rains 
 come, as a bad harvest comes, or some other natural calamity ; 
 and, in fact, if we read the history of this country, or of any 
 country, that is exactly all that history teaches us upon this 
 great question. History often forgets, and the people con- 
 tinually forget, how trivial and how insufficient is generally 
 the cause of war. And they forget also, until it is past, and 
 then even they seem soon to forget, its terrible results. Now 
 at this moment we are told by certain newspapers writers, 
 by many public men, and by some persons that we meet in 
 the streets, that a great portion or a considerable portion 
 of the population of Great Britain is very eager for war. 
 May I not ask you if persons of this class, if there be such, 
 are not in almost total ignorance of what it is they propose to 
 go to war for, or to obtain by war ? They have some vague 
 notion of national interests or national honour, which are 
 phrases that they have heard repeated hundreds of times, 
 but never once have known to be satisfactorily explained. 
 They are blind to its unspeakable wickedness, to its multi- 
 tudinous crimes, to its horrors and its sufferings. Now, if 
 our youth were instructed in these things, if they were 
 conscious that the carnage of war sends thousands of im- 
 mortal spirits unbidden to the unseen world, surely none, 
 in such ignorance as prevails, would urge it upon a govern- 
 ment. They would be, in point of fact, so enamoured of 
 
470 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BT^IGHT. aphil 19, 
 
 peace that a Government seeking peace would be able to 
 secure it. They would be so much against war that they 
 would be enabled to restrain any Government that, step 
 by step, might seek to involve the country in the calamity 
 of war. 
 
 The Sunday-school, as I have said, has done much, and it 
 may do more. I confess that when I look at its labours I do 
 not consider the teaching of reading to be in any way superior 
 in importance to the moral influence which it may bring to 
 bear upon millions of our population. I think the influence 
 of a good man or a good woman teaching ten or twelve 
 children in a class is an influence for this world and for 
 the world to come that no man can measure, and the re- 
 sponsibility of which no man can calculate. The school 
 then may do more. It may raise and bless the individual ; 
 it may give comfort in the family circle, for the blessing 
 the child receives in the school it takes home to its family, 
 and can communicate to the circle which it finds there. 
 It may check the barbarism even of the nation ; and if at 
 this moment it could give us all we may rightly expect of 
 it in the future, it might save us from the regret and the 
 sorrow which, as a people, we cannot escape, if another bloody 
 chapter be added to the annals of our times. 
 
 I must ask you to forgive me for the last observations 
 which I have made. I have referred to a question which 
 it is almost impossible to avoid speaking of, for it is im- 
 possible to avoid thinking of it at this most perilous hour. 
 I speak to you as to Christian men. If on Sunday last it 
 had been put, or if on Sunday next it could be put, to all 
 the Nonconformist free church congregations throughout 
 Great Britain, whether it were the duty or the interest of 
 this country to be involved in war or not, I have no doubt 
 whatsoever that throughout all those congregations, from 
 Caithness to Cornwall, there would have been a universal 
 and unanimous voice in favour of the preservation of peace. 
 
1878. XXX. ROCHDALE. 471 
 
 Lord Derby said not long ago that the greatest of British 
 interests was peace. Can it be possible that the Christian 
 men and women who are engaged in your holy work should 
 not coincide with him in that view? You are yourselves 
 the ministers, humble but earnest, of the Prince of Peace. 
 It is, therefore, within your calling, within your solemn duty 
 — even it may be your special duty on an occasion like 
 this — that you should express some feeling on this question ; 
 and if there ascends from your heart a prayer to the throne 
 of the Most High on behalf of your children and on behalf 
 of your nation, let it be a prayer that He may turn the 
 hearts of your rulers from thoughts of war, and bring them 
 to sentiments of mercy and of peace. When I think of the 
 illustrious lady who sits upon the throne of these realms, 
 when I think how bright in the main are the annals of 
 her reign — the one greatest blot upon them in our time^ 
 and until now, is the war of twenty-four years ago — ^let 
 us hope that our hearts may be spared the sorrow that must 
 afflict us, and the record of her reign be spared the addi- 
 tional blot which would be cast upon it if again the blood 
 of our countrymen should be shed in favour of a cause which 
 no man can distinctly define or describe, and in pursuit of 
 objects which no rational man in the world believes it is 
 possible for arms to obtain. 
 
XXXI. 
 
 MANCHESTER, APEIL 30, 1878. 
 
 [Pn this day a demonstration in favour of peace, and with the object of 
 criticising what appeared to be the tendencies of the Government in con- 
 nexion with the Eastern question, was held in the Free-trade Hall, Man- 
 chester, The meeting was very crowded, and was attended by many 
 delegates representing the towns in the neighbourhood of Manchester. 
 Mr. Bright opened the proceedings with the following address.] 
 
 We are met at a time, as most of us, I think, believe, 
 of great peril and of great anxiety. Our ears are filled with 
 evil rumours, and facts, ever- accumulating facts, from day 
 to day point to the near approach of war. Notwithstanding 
 this, we are constantly told by those who are the confiden- 
 tial advisers of the Crown, who are intrusted for the time 
 with the direction of our national afiairs, that they are 
 acting strenuously on behalf of peace. For my part I have 
 very.' little sympathy with efforts on behalf of peace which 
 lead naturally to war. Four-and-twenty years ago I remem- 
 ber a case not unlike this. Reading the other day in the 
 second volume of ^The Life of the Prince Consort,' I found 
 a statement which is very suitable for us to consider at this 
 moment. At that time Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was the 
 Ambassador of England to the Turkish Government at Con- 
 stantinople. He professed to be strenuous for peace, but in a 
 letter written by the late lamented Prince Consort to his 
 
XXXI. MANCHESTER. 473 
 
 confidential friend, Baron Stockmar, on the 27th of November 
 in the year 1853, three or four months before the war began, 
 he says — ' Lord Stratford fulfils his instructions to the letter ; 
 but he so contrives that we are constantly getting deeper 
 into a war policy.' 
 
 Now, it appears to me that, notwithstanding the strenuous 
 exertions of the Government, we are continually brought 
 nearer to the precipice and to the abyss of war. The First 
 Minister himself assured us, I think, on the very night of 
 Lord Derby's resignation, that there was nobody in the 
 kingdom more assiduous and ardent on behalf of peace than 
 were the members of her Majesty's Government. But not- 
 withstanding that, every step that is taken indicates a nearer 
 approach to war ; and if it be true that a man is held to be 
 responsible for the natural effects of his conduct, then it 
 may be held, and it must be admitted, that the Government 
 which, step by step, brings us nearer to war, and by steps 
 which do not exhibit the smallest disposition for peace, — that 
 Government must be held to be, in favour of war. If we 
 take the speeches and the acts of the Prime Minister for two 
 years past, if we consider this fact — that all the war news- 
 papers particularly point to him as the man in whom they 
 trust, that all that portion of the Tory party which we may 
 call the war section of it looks to the Prime Minister as 
 the represenative of their views, then surely we cannot be 
 wrong in believing that war is intended, and that it is near 
 at hand. 
 
 I observe that last night, in a speech delivered by a mem- 
 ber of the Cabinet to a great meeting at Bradford, this 
 extraordinary assertion was made — that a war party, a war 
 minister, was an impossibility in this country. I might 
 refer to that speech of Mr. Hardy's, which to my mind was 
 full of boisterous and reckless assertions, that had in it from 
 beginning to end scarcely a spice of anything like logic. It 
 was a speech which was no doubt, at least he thought so, suited 
 
474 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. apeil 30, 
 
 to the mental and political capacity of the Conservatives; 
 but it is a speech, in its boisterous recklessness and in its 
 want of logic, which I hope could not have been delivered 
 with approbation before any assembly of the Liberal party. 
 But what is it that two of Mr. Hardy's colleagues have told 
 us ? — that there is a war ministry and a war party; and be- 
 cause they would not longer serve under the one, or in respect 
 of this great question belong to the other. Lord Carnarvon 
 and Lord Derby have left them. You know Lord Derby in 
 this county — ^you knew his father before him — ^you know how 
 much he has been allied with the present Prime Minister for 
 the last five-and-twenty years ; you know — no, you do not 
 know, but you may imagine, to some extent, how much it 
 must have cost him to sever himself from his ancient col- 
 league, and, on this great question, from the party with which 
 he has been connected ever since he came into public life. And 
 yet so solemn did Lord Derby consider the crisis at which 
 we have arrived — so convinced was he that in alliance with 
 the Prime Minister all his efforts as Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs would be unable to keep us out of war, that he shook 
 off the dust from his feet against them. He went out from 
 amongst them, declaring by his act that he would not be in 
 any degree a participator in the great crime they meditated 
 against the true interests of his country. 
 
 But if Lord Carnarvon and Lord Derby have no confidence 
 in the Government of which they were members and in the 
 Ministry, how can they expect that we or the country at large 
 should have confidence in them?. Where there is no truth, 
 and where you have found out that there is no truth, there can 
 be no faith. I ask your attention to one or two facts which 
 I think will justify me in the observation I have made. Go 
 back to the meeting of Parliament; go on from that day 
 about a week, and you will find a notice of what was called 
 a vote of credit. A vote of credit upon the people, surely 
 enough ; a vote of discredit upon the Government. I took 
 
1878. XXX L MANCHESTER. 4.15 
 
 the liberty of asking in the House of Commons what was 
 the object of this vote — what was to be done with the six 
 millions? Are you going into a Congress — a Congress of 
 European Powers — with shotted cannon and loaded revolvers ? 
 But it was denied with something like indignation. The 
 very smooth-tongued representative of the Government in 
 the House of Commons gave us to understand that nothing 
 could be further from their thoughts — it was, in point of 
 fact, something of a vote of confidence. They asked that 
 Parliament should unanimously, or by a great majority, con- 
 sent to this vote, to tell the nations with whom they were 
 about to negotiate and assemble that they represented a 
 united Parliament, which represents a united people. But 
 nothing was further from their object than shotted cannon 
 and loaded revolvers ; and they went so far as to say that 
 probably very little of this money would be wanted. I am 
 not sure on one occasion it was not said that possibly even 
 none of it might be spent. Well, what happened ? Imme- 
 diately the vote was agreed to the spending began, and it 
 began in the most reckless manner. We heard from para- 
 graphs in the newspapers, in the main I dare say on this 
 matter not incorrect, that they were buying and ordering 
 hundreds of thousands of sandbags down at Dundee to be 
 used for fortifications. In Manchester they had taken a great 
 warehouse, and were packing hay for exportation for the 
 cavalry ; the limit of the price of horses for the cavalry had 
 been raised, and they were buying horses everywhere ; and 
 then immediately afterwards, although it is admitted, ad- 
 mitted by their own press, by their own officers, that Eng- 
 land has at this moment a naval power at sea exceeding that 
 combined of the rest of Europe, yet they bought three iron- 
 clads, two of which I believe belonged to Turkey, but which 
 Turkey could not take away during the war or which Turkey 
 could not pay for. The other is said to have belonged to the 
 Emperor or Government of Brazil. Now by this means, in 
 
476 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. april 30, 
 
 the course of less than two months, they had spent three- 
 and-a-half of the six millions, and so far as they dared 
 they have departed from the kind of smooth half-promise 
 which was given in the House of Commons that little, if 
 possible none, of this money might need to be expended. 
 
 Now we come to another question, the question of the 
 fleet. You know that the fleet was ordered to the Sea of 
 Marmora, and having got upon its way it received a tele- 
 gram which required it to turn back. If the forts of the 
 Dardanelles, as was expected, had fired on the fleet, and the 
 fleet had returned the fire, which it certainly would have 
 done, then there would have been an outward and distinct 
 act of war. The fleet came back — came back partly to 
 secure the continuance of Lord Derby in the Government. 
 It came back, and then, only a very few days afterwards, it 
 was sent with fresh orders for the Sea of Marmora. In spite 
 of the refusal of the Turkish Government to allow it to pass 
 the forts, the fleet passed the forts, and since that time has 
 been anchored here and there within the Sea of Marmora. 
 Now, I will not say that sending the fleet into the Sea of 
 Marmora was an act of war. Mr. Hardy says it was not, 
 and that they had a right to send it ; but, if they had a 
 right to send it, why did they ask for the permission of 
 the Sultan? Now, what was the pretence on which the 
 fleet was sent? I beg your attention to this when you are 
 considering the faith of this Government. Sir Stafford 
 Northcote, in the House of Commons, stated — I am not now 
 quoting exact words ; I am giving you the meaning of what 
 was said — that the purpose of the fleet going into the Sea 
 Marmora was to offer protection to the lives and, as far as 
 might be of course, the property of British subjects, of whom 
 there were a large number in Constantinople. I took the 
 liberty of asking them this question : ' Is the sending of the 
 fleet now into the Sea of Marmora of an entirely different 
 character from the sending of it there on the first occasion 
 
1878. XXXI. MANCHESTER, 477 
 
 when it proceeded partly on its way there but returned?' 
 and he answered that it was an act of a different character, 
 meaning, of course, that the first wa^ an act of menace — I 
 will not say of war, but an act of menace and a demonstra- 
 tion of force ; that in the second case it was merely for the 
 innocent object of protecting the lives and the property of 
 British subjects. 
 
 At the time nobody said it was not true, but no sensible 
 man believed it, because it was not necessary to send four 
 or six enormous ironclads to give such protection as might 
 be required, if any were required. But the fact is, none was 
 required. Even the English Minister at Constantinople, ready 
 enough to send telegrams to alarm us, had not intimated to 
 the Government that it was necessary for the protection of 
 the lives and property of Englishmen in Constantinople that 
 any English force should be near that city. And what is 
 more, there was not a single minister — I mean ambassador — 
 of any other European Power who had hinted at such a ne- 
 cessity to his own Government, and no other Power sent any 
 fleet to the Sea of Marmora. But what said the press? 
 All the war press, who speak the sentiments of the Govern- 
 ment, and especially of the Prime Minister, they all not only 
 admitted but exulted that the fleet was gone there, and was 
 gone there as a menace and demonstration of the power of 
 England ; and I believe there was not a newspaper in Europe 
 that dealt with this question or discussed it that did not come 
 to and express exactly the same conclusion. 
 
 But we have had a new reason given, and that was given 
 last night by Mr. Hardy. The fact is that members of the 
 Government for the last two years have scarcely ever opened 
 their mouths on this question without most distinctly con- 
 tradicting each other. Last night, speaking of the fleet, 
 Mr. Hardy said England had many subjects in Constanti- 
 nople, and if anything had happened to bring the forces of 
 Russia into Constantinople, it would have been necessary to 
 
478 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. apeixSO, 
 
 protect their interests. The fact is, the only reason for fear- 
 ing that the Russians should enter Constantinople was the 
 very presence of that fleet ; and nothing is more certain than 
 this, that if the Russian army had entered Constantinople, 
 or the English army, or the forces of any civilised and Chris- 
 tian power, the lives of British subjects or any other subjects 
 would have been just as secure as they would be and are in 
 London or in Manchester. Now last night was the very first 
 time that this has been given as a reason, and it is a reason 
 which has no more foundation in reality and in truth than the 
 other reasons to which I have already referred. 
 
 We come next to the question of calling out the Reserves. 
 We had then the resignation of Lord Derby, and we had at 
 the same time exactly the same smooth-spoken story in the 
 House of Commons. If you have read the newspapers with 
 any care you will have observed that from the beginning of 
 these diflSculties — I speak of the last two years — there has 
 been a great difierence between the tone often taken in the 
 House of Lords, especially when the Prime Minister has 
 spoken, aod the tone taken by the leader in the House of 
 Commons. Now, Lord Derby thought the calling out of the 
 Reserves was an important matter, followed as it was to be by 
 other measures which he was not then at liberty to indicate, 
 but with which he was acquainted. We come now to the 
 day when Parliament separated, on the i6th, that is a fort- 
 night ago. I was in the House that day, and heard the 
 leader of the House, again in the same tone — ' There was not 
 the least danger of anything; he did not apprehend anything; 
 things really did not look a bit worse than they had been 
 some time ago ; ' and there was a general feeling of a sort of 
 comfort in that sometimes disturbed, but always in matters of 
 this kind credulous assembly. 
 
 But what happened the very next day? The moment the door 
 of the House was shut and the key turned in the lock — on the 
 very next day, I believe, it was — you had that amazing and 
 
1878. XXXI. MANCHESTER. 479 
 
 alarming telegram from Calcutta or Bombay, that I know not 
 how many thousands of Mahometan soldiers from India 
 are to be brought to Europe for the purpose, I presume, of 
 fighting, it may be, against the Christian nation of Russia. 
 But when we asked them a short time ago to lessen their 
 military expenses in India for the purpose of enabling them 
 by a greater economy to abolish the duties upon your manu- 
 factures, the reduction of the armaments was said to be 
 impossible. But now to follow up this policy, this blind 
 and wicked policy, that is being done — for to-day or 
 yesterday some of these troops were to leave Bombay — 
 that had been done or was being done which had never 
 been contemplated by any Minister in past times. We 
 have a war just now going on, and it is rather a trouble- 
 some business, on the continent of Africa. Apparently 
 within a very short time the flames of war may be lit, and 
 lit by England alone, over two great continents. We shall 
 then be carrying on war, murder, rapine, all the evils which 
 are included in the word war ; we shall be carrying on this 
 dreadful game on three of the four continents of the globe. 
 Consider this, you Christian men who go to your churches 
 and chapels every Sunday, who carry your Bible or your 
 Prayer Book, who listen to those beautiful hymns, who 
 listen often to impressive sermons, who listen to earnest 
 prayers, who have within your souls emotions stirred which 
 too often slumber during the busy activities of the week. 
 So that all this country every Sunday is engaged in this 
 worship and this acknowledgment of Him who was called 
 the Prince of Peace, and yet you have a Government which, 
 on a question which not one of them can define, and for 
 reasons which they yet have never condescended accurately or 
 clearly to specify — ^you have a government that would lead 
 this Christian nation to sanguinary, murderous contests over 
 three great continents of the globe. 
 
 Sir Stafford Northcote, of course, in the House of Com- 
 
480 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. apeil 30, 
 
 mons knew at the very moment he was speaking these smooth 
 words to us, that he was about to allow the House to be closed 
 for three weeks ; and he knew at that moment that orders 
 had been sent out and were being executed for bringing over 
 many thousands of native Mahometan troops possibly and pro- 
 bably to take part in a war between this country and Russia. 
 Surely it would have been a right thing to tell us. What 
 is the use of the House of Commons ? We might as well — 
 and it would have saved a world of trouble — have lived under 
 a Government where there was nothing that is called con- 
 stitutional freedom. We might be living under the despotism 
 which we exercise in India, or under that much smaller 
 despotism which the Czar exercises in Russia. You have 
 a House of Commons which dare not ask, or if it does ask 
 is denied. I say it is humiliating to the House and insulting 
 to the nation. I say then that this Government is open 
 exactly to the charge which the late Prince Consort brought 
 against Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. Lord Stratford obeyed 
 his instructions to the letter — I am not charging him with 
 doing anything wrong — but everything that he did seemed 
 contrived so as to bring us deeper into a war policy. And 
 here, step after step, we see alarm, excitement, irritation, all 
 directly leading to war, taken by a Government which at the 
 same time tells us that, it is strenuously exerting itself in 
 favour of peace. 
 
 I must ask you to allow me to mention one other subject, 
 which is the subject of the proposed, but now suspended. 
 Congress. All were agreed at first that there should be 
 a Congress. Russia always accepted it. When it was first 
 proposed, this Government immediately accepted the pro- 
 position. Russia declared that her treaty with Turkey was 
 only a preliminary treaty, and she knew that there were parts 
 of it which, in all probability, might be condemned by some 
 of the European Powers, and that some alterations might be 
 necessary. But why is it, I ask you now, why is it that this 
 
1878. XXXI . MANCHESTER. 481 
 
 Congress is not being held? It is this — not that Russia 
 made any difficulty. She started no obstacle; Germany 
 started no obstacle ; Austria made no complaint ; Italy 
 was satisfied; France went in with the rest. This Govern- 
 ment only made the obstacle, and is itself the only Power 
 blameable for the postponement, and perhaps for the abandon- 
 ment, of the Congress. Until lately, you have observed, 
 in reading the papers, that British nnterests were the 
 things that we were concerned in. I recollect Mr. Hardy 
 last year, in the House of Commons, made a strong speech 
 about British interests. He asked, Who has given us any 
 mandate — have we any mandate from heaven to enter into 
 contest with the Government of Turkey ? He threw aside 
 altogether the idea that you could ever go into war, to any 
 small extent even, or the threat of war, for the sake of 
 liberating millions of population. The only thing, the great 
 thing for a great nation, was to look after its own interests, 
 and in our case our interests are British interests. 
 
 But what is the state of things now ? The British interest 
 cry has been abandoned. Now we are asked to go to war, 
 or to prepare for war, in defence of what they call European 
 law. Does anybody understand European law outside these 
 islands? Europe repudiates our European law. There is not 
 one of the Powers of Europe at this moment that accepts the 
 objection which we have made. There is not one of them 
 that has put the question to Russia, which Russia refuses to 
 answer in our sense; there is not one of them — Germany, 
 Austria, Italy, France — there is not one of them that is not 
 willing and anxious to go into the Conference on the terms 
 which Russia has proposed, and we — we who have the 
 Government always strenuous for peace — are the only Power 
 that objects to it. There has been a great effort to mystify 
 this question in the minds of the people, and you have found 
 great but cowardly newspapers turning round upon it. 
 Russia has all along proclaimed that she grants to others, 
 
 I i 
 
482 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. apeilSO, 
 
 and demands only for herself, full freedom in the Congress. 
 England puts it to Russia in a shape which indicates, as 
 Russia believes, that Russia is to come to the bar of the 
 Congress with its treaty, and to appear there, if not like 
 a criminal, ^t least as a suppliant, and on her own defence. 
 That is just the state in which the case rests at this moment, 
 and we who are strenuously seeking peace are insisting upon 
 the only present point of danger which may lead to war. 
 But if there should be no Congress, what then? Are we 
 to retire from the question, or are we to insist upon constant 
 menaces — menaces which must inevitably, if persisted in, 
 lead to hostilities ? Russia grants all that the rest of Europe 
 requires ; England is still the only obstacle : her Minister, 
 the Minister supported with enthusiasm by a large portion^ 
 at least, of the Tory party — her Minister is at this moment 
 the only real and great disturber of the nations. 
 
 But I ask you what are the grounds of this policy, and 
 I will tell you what is his own statement. He said in 
 the debate in the House of Lords on the night on which 
 Lord Derby resigned, that 
 
 * It became a matter for the consideration of her Majesty's Government at a 
 period like the present, when the balance of power in the Mediterranean is so 
 disturbed, and when the opportunities of rectifying that balance by the con- 
 currence of the Congress seems almost to have ceased, what steps should be 
 taken to countervail or prevent the mischief impending.' 
 
 Then he says — with an unparalleled audacity, I would say — 
 ' It was, therefore, in the interests of peace, and for the 
 due protection of the rights of our empire;' and he went 
 on to describe what the Government were to do. Now this 
 is the very first time I have heard of this statement about 
 the balance of power in the Mediterranean. It is a very 
 old hobgoblin, reappearing in a new character, and on a new 
 floor. 'At a period like the present, when the balance of 
 power in the Mediterranean is so disturbed ' — and his Govern^ 
 ment know, and all the authorities know, that we have a 
 
1878. XXXL MANCHESTER. 483 
 
 larger figliting- fleet than all the rest of the nations of Europe 
 combined ; and he then complains that the balance of power 
 in the Mediterranean is so disturbed. If I were a French- 
 man, or a Spaniard, or an Italian, or an Austrian, or a Greek, 
 or an Egyptian, or a Turk even, with some navy of more 
 or less power, I should say that the great disturber of the 
 balance of power in the Mediterranean was the British 
 Government. I do not know that anything has been done 
 to disturb the balance of power. Turkey had to guard the 
 Straits, and we broke through her guardianship. But the 
 Straits are reserved by the Emperor of Russia especially, 
 directly, and distinctly for consideration and settlement by 
 the Congress. Those nations I have spoken of, beginning 
 with Spain, going round the northern and eastern shores 
 of the Mediterranean as far as Egypt — they are the nations 
 who have the right to complain of the balance of power 
 in the Mediterranean being disturbed. 
 
 The real fact about the Congress is this — at least I think 
 it to be so — I think Lord Salisbury's despatch proves it, 
 the object of this Government is, if it be possible — by ne- 
 gotiations it is not at all possible, if it be possible even by 
 war — to restore Turkey, to attempt to sustain for the future, 
 as in the past, the independence and integrity of the Ottoman 
 Empire. If you doubt it, I will quote three lines from the 
 speech of Mr. Gathorne Hardy last night. You recollect 
 what Sir Henry Elliot said about the atrocities in Bulgaria — 
 they could make no difference in the policy of England ; 
 he said this with reference to something that had happened — 
 that the policy of a great country is not to be destroyed 
 by an incident however horrible or however disastrous. Of 
 those massacres and tortures the lowest account that is sup- 
 posed to be correct makes it that 12,000 or 15,000 men and 
 women were murdered in that country. This is called an inci- 
 dent, and it is an incident that has no kind of force or import- 
 ance, and indifference to it is made part of the policy of this 
 
 I i 2 
 
484 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. aprilSO, 
 
 country; but surely it is something when Christian men are 
 asked to go to war to restore a power and a government with 
 whom this massacre is not an incident once in fifty or a 
 hundred years, but is an incident of the usual policy of the 
 empire. If any man will come to the people of England 
 — ^the men and women of England — and ask them by general 
 vote. Are you willing to sacrifice your blood and treasure 
 to sustain that terrible oppression, that multitudinous crime 
 which we call the Ottoman Government? — I say that the 
 people of England would very soon dispose of any Minister 
 and of any Government who would put the question to 
 them in that naked form. 
 
 The fact is we have that celebrated, that famous, or, as 
 it may turn out, that infamous despatch, circulated lately by 
 Lord Salisbury almost the moment he came into his present 
 ofiice, that tells the whole story, which falsely misrepresents 
 in some cases, and condemns broadly throughout, the whole 
 of the treaty between Russia and Turkey. No doubt one 
 reason why this Government did not go into the Congress, or 
 why they were willing to escape it, was this. They knew 
 their objects were not the objects of the rest of Europe, 
 and they were in no sensible man's view at all British 
 objects. They knew that the Powers of Europe in Congress 
 would take no such view of that Treaty, would not permit 
 England or any Power that might by chance unite with 
 her to tear to pieces as waste paper the great instrument 
 of pacification between Russia and Turkey. It may have 
 its faults ; I do not deny it ; I should like to see a treaty 
 after a war that had not some faults in it that one was 
 obliged to condemn. But it does not signify to us if 
 Bulgaria be a few miles longer or shorter. It does not 
 matter to us that a tract of marshy ground, which is of no 
 real value, and which was given by France and England 
 to Roumania after the Crimean War, and which Roumania 
 did not pay for, and which in the eye of Russia she had 
 
1878. XXXT. MANCHESTER. 485 
 
 no claim to possess, should be demanded back by Russia ; 
 and if Roumania consents, as doubtless she will consent, it 
 does not matter to us, for we have no interest in it. But 
 there is not one of these questions which would entitle us 
 to kill the poorest cripple begging- on any bridge in England, 
 or to take the smallest coin from the labourer whose daily 
 sweat earns for himself and his family their daily bread. 
 
 The menace of war, if it has any object whatever, has this 
 — To bully Russia into agreeing to certain things, or else 
 to make war upon lier if she will not agree ; and those 
 things are these — ^they must be these or one of them — 
 To lessen the freedom of the Bulgarian people, or to sustain 
 the Turkish dominion in Europe. The great question before 
 England is not a party question. . It is a question for honour- 
 able men throughout the kingdom, whether they are willing 
 again to repeat the great war of four-and-twenty years ago, 
 spend 40,000 of their own countrymen's lives and hundreds 
 of thousands of others, and spend 100,000,000/. of their own 
 wealth, and 200,000,000/. or 300,000,000/. of the wealth 
 of others, for the purpose of bringing about a lessening and 
 a restricting of the freedom of the Bulgarian people, or of 
 preventing any other of the things which Russia and Turkey 
 have agreed to in the treaty which has lately been nego- 
 tiated between them. The lives of thousands depend upon 
 this — the comforts, not of thousands, but of millions, and 
 not the lives of some and the comforts of more, but the 
 honour and the unblemished conscience of the whole people 
 of the United Kingdom. 
 
 Now, one more point and I have done. You are asked 
 to do all this as a sacrifice to your terror of the Empire 
 of Russia. It is stated by one of the editors of the war 
 papers in London that war is inevitable and necessary. 
 'The world,' he said — I did not hear him say it; I am 
 telling what was said of him, and it was only a natural 
 conclusion from his views. He said, ' The world is not big 
 
486 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. apeil 30, 
 
 enough for the two empires of Russia and of Britain, and 
 it is necessary that the question should be decided once for 
 all which is the biggest, and to which the world belongs.' 
 Well, but Russia, after all, is a nation that would be very 
 friendly with us if we would let it. The Czar was so anxious 
 to cultivate friendly relations with England that he buried 
 in oblivion what he thought was a terrible injustice done to 
 his father, and he permitted the marriage of his only and 
 passionately-loved daughter with the son of the Queen of 
 England. Russia has 80,000,000 of population. Its influence 
 must be great in all its neighbourhood. As you know from 
 the maps, it is adjacent to those countries about which so 
 much discussion has lately taken place, and its influence is 
 inevitable, and permanent, and indestructible. We went into 
 the Crimean War twenty-four years ago, and had the assist- 
 ance, I think, of 100,000 French troops, who did not care 
 one single sixpence about the Ottoman Empire, but who 
 were led there by the Emperor, who was anxious to go into 
 a political transaction with a respectable political firm. But 
 what happened ? You had a great fleet in the Baltic. It went 
 out with great shouts of what was to be done, but came back 
 doing nothing, happily for this fleet and happily for Russia. 
 You had all your force in the Crimea, and it managed 
 to take possession, after a long siege, of one strong fortified 
 city ; but when the war was over, and the treaty was agreed 
 to, Russia was still a nation of 80,000,000 people or there- 
 abouts. Russia was still great and powerful, and has every 
 day since been becoming more so ; Russia was still adjacent 
 to Turkey; the influence of Russia upon Turkey and upon all 
 the neighbouring States remained pretty much as it was 
 before ; and all the sacrifices that we had made and that 
 the French Emperor, or rather the French people had 
 made — those sacrifices went for nothing. Russia was still 
 great, and geographically and providentially she must be 
 great; and Turkey was decaying and going down to that 
 
1878. XXXI. MANCHESTER 487 
 
 doom which Providence has decreed shall await all corrupt 
 people and all corrupt empires. 
 
 The unreturning brave, as Byron describes them, those 
 who went out there, and who did not come back, who were 
 left to the neglected graves in the Crimea — those you do 
 not see. You see here and there cannon put in some gentle- 
 man's park or in some town's market-place, to show what 
 was done by the valour of your troops before Sebastopol. 
 Nobody disputes the valour of your troops. I know no troops 
 that do not on occasion manifest great valour* The Russians, 
 the Turks, the Kaffirs — everywhere there is valour. There is 
 more of that commodity to be had in the world for eighteen- 
 pence a-day than of any other commodity that I know of. 
 There is nothing left for us then of that war but sad memo- 
 ries. All sensible men, I think, looking back now, wish that 
 it had been avoided, and that it had not been one of the sad 
 memories which this nation has to dwell upon. 
 
 I will make one more reference to a passage in Mr. Hardy ^s 
 speech last night. That refers to the purpose for which you 
 are wished to go on to the very verge of war, and probably 
 into war itself ; and I want to read it to you for the purpose 
 of showing you the shadowy and imaginary grounds on which 
 you are to bring upon your country this terrible misfortune. 
 He spoke of the Ministry of which he was proud to be a 
 member. Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon were proud to be 
 out of it. The day will come, and the hour draweth nigh, if 
 these people enter into this war, when every honest and intel- 
 ligent Englishman will be anxious to say, 'I had no part what- 
 ever in this policy, and was no supporter of the Government.' 
 But Mr. Hardy says of that Government that 'they were 
 not prepared to see a great shadow cast by other nations of 
 the world ' — that is, on this nation. A great shadow cast ! 
 Now, try to lay hold of that in your mind : you cannot lay 
 hold of it with your fingers. He says, — 
 
 * There might not be in that overshadowing immediate danger to England, 
 
488 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. apeilSO, 
 
 but, as Lord Salisbury well said' — I suppose in his famous despatch — *a 
 Turkey dismembered, pitiful and powerless, or rather a Power in the hands of 
 another Power, exercising dominion over a great part of the earth, presented 
 a danger through which England's interests in Europe might suffer.' 
 
 Now, observe : this was said, you know, to 3,000 or 4,000 
 hard-headed Yorkshireraen, and I presume it had some effect 
 upon them. I recollect in Lord Clarendon's ' History of the 
 Great Rebellion ' he gives an anecdote of a gentleman, whose 
 name I think was Mr. L'Estrange, who lived down in Kent, 
 and who raised a troop of soldiers for the defence of King 
 Charles the First. He describes him in this way : ' He spoke 
 to them in a manner peculiarly his own, and being not easy 
 to be understood he the more prevailed with the men of 
 Kent/ And so it is, in a manner peculiarly his own, boister- 
 ous, reckless, and illogical, and with language not easy to be 
 understood, Mr. Hardy did the more prevail with the men 
 of Bradford. No, I ought not to say the men of Bradford, 
 but what they call in softened phrase the Conservatives of 
 Bradford. 
 
 Regard the passage once more, and have some commiser- 
 ation upon your Conservative friends, whose sense has not 
 enabled them to detect the utter absurdity and nothing- 
 ness of this passage. ' They are not prepared to see a 
 great shadow cast by other nations of the world. There 
 might not be in the overshadowing immediate danger to 
 England, but, as Lord Salisbury had well said, there might 
 be a Turkey dismembered, pitiful, and powerless,* — by which 
 I suppose they intend in future, through their war, if they go 
 into it, to have a Turkey again which is not dismembered, 
 and which is not pitiful, and which is not powerless. 'A 
 Turkey dismembered, pitiful, and powerless, or rather a power 
 in the hands of another power exercising dominion over great 
 parts of the earth, presented a danger through which Eng- 
 land's interests and Europe's interests might suffer,' — not will 
 suffer, but might suffer — a distant, and a remote, and a 
 shadowy, and at best an imaginary evil ; and yet on this 
 
1878. XXXI. MANCHESTER. 489 
 
 ' perhaps ' ; it recalls to my mind the passage of one of our 
 poets. He says : — 
 
 * On this perhaps — 
 This perad venture, infamous for lies. 
 We build our mountain hopes, spin 
 Our eternal schemes/ 
 
 If we had Mr. Hardy's policy and that of his Government, 
 I fear we should rush into that enormous, that incalculable 
 crime, for which lano^uage has no word but one which con- 
 ceals its meaning — but a crime which involves a multitudinous 
 murder, the shedding of torrents of blood over many of the 
 fairest regions of the globe. I ask you here — it may not 
 be worth while to ask any Conservative here or outside : 
 there must be Conservatives so called w^ho vote for Con- 
 servative candidates, who have I trust some idea beyond 
 that of the mere superiority or success of party — there must 
 surely be Conservatives as there are any number of Liberals 
 who consider great national interests and great truths to be 
 superior to the demands of party ; and I ask them whether 
 they will be led in this career and to this terrible catastrophe 
 by a Minister — for I hold that I am not describing the policy 
 of the country — I am not even describing the policy of Parlia- 
 ment — I may not be describing even the secret wished-for 
 policy of the whole of the Cabinet — I am describing, as far as 
 I can gather it, the policy of a Minister, a Minister who for 
 forty years has never yet been known of his free-will or from 
 an earnest and liberal mind to say or do anything for the ad- 
 vance of any of those great measures of good and of freedom 
 which have distinguished the legislation of this country. 
 
 Will you, will the Conservative party even, seeing the 
 course taken by certainly two of the most eminent of their 
 party — Lord Carnarvon and Lord Derby — will they be willing 
 at the beck of one man to spread the flames of war over two 
 other continents — South Africa being already disturbed by 
 extensive hostilities between the native population and our- 
 
490 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 selves ? I do not think that when the people consider it more 
 — and eveiy day that passes and every week that conies enables 
 them to consider it more — I do not believe that they are 
 willing to accept the responsibility of vast bloodshed for 
 such a cause. 
 
 I stated the other day at a meeting at Rochdale which 
 I was permitted to address, that I thought if a poll were 
 taken of all Free Church and Nonconformist congregations of 
 Great Britain on a Sunday morning there would be a univer- 
 sal and unanimous vote in favour of peace. Let it not be 
 supposed for a moment that I wished to insinuate there were 
 no congregations of Churchmen and no Churchmen of the 
 Established bodies in Scotland or in England who are in 
 favour of peace ; but they, as you know, are more allied in 
 sentiment with the Executive than we are ; they are more 
 accustomed to be docile and to listen and to submit ; but 
 I suspect if it was put even to them there would be by no 
 means that unanimous vote in favour of the policy of the 
 Government, and of the war to which that policy leads, which 
 some persons might expect from them. Now my consolation 
 and my hope is in this, that the love of justice, as I believe, 
 the love of mercy and of peace, is not dead in the minds of 
 Englishmen. I wish that it may grow and may strengthen 
 from day to day, and that growing and strengthening it may 
 baffle a policy which is hateful in the sight of heaven, which 
 to my mind is profoundly wicked, and which I feel certain 
 beyond all possibility of doubt is a policy which is hostile to 
 and may, if persisted in, be fatal to the greatest and highest 
 interests of the Empire. 
 
XXXI r. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, APRIL 16, 1879. 
 
 [In consequence of the early meeting of Parliament the annual speeches of 
 the three members for Birmingham, generally made in January, were 
 postponed till the Easter recess. The address of Mr. Bright on this occasion 
 chiefly dealt with the Eastern policy of the Government and the prospects 
 of finance in India.] 
 
 I CAN assure you that if it be a pleasure to you to come 
 here again, it is at least an equal pleasure to me to be per- 
 mitted to stand on this platform and see again so many of 
 those who, during more than twenty years, have manifested 
 to me by so many tokens their friendship and their con- 
 fidence. But if it be a pleasure to be here, that pleasure is 
 mingled with some sadness and some regret, because, in 
 looking back to former meetings, I feel as if some great 
 change had come over us. In those meetings — in most of 
 them — we could rejoice at the progress of some great 
 principle, or that some great principle had been established 
 in some act of beneficent legislation. At this meeting the 
 most sanguine of us cannot find any cause for rejoicing or ex- 
 ultation. We have not one single great measure to point to 
 which has been the result of the deliberations of the existinsr 
 administration. We know that there is a Parliamentary 
 majority supporting a Cabinet with the usual number of 
 
492 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, apeil 16, 
 
 Ministers, but we find that the majority is powerful only for 
 resistance, and that the official advisers of the Crown appear 
 incapable to devise and the general body of representatives 
 unwilling to carry any of those measures which the people of 
 England have a right to look for from their Ministers and 
 from their Parliament. But it may be asked, ' What are they 
 doing?' for twelve Cabinet Ministers, meeting, as you see in 
 the papers, often two or three times a week, must be doing 
 something, and a Parliament with a majority of sixty in 
 favour of those Ministers cannot be wholly idle. 
 
 What the Ministers are doing is just this — nothing what- 
 soever that is useful at home, and everything that you can 
 imagine that is mischievous abroad. Since I have been in 
 Parliament it has always been a complaint with me, or a 
 matter of regret, that Cabinet Ministers spend far more time 
 in discussing foreign politics than in reforming home affairs. 
 If you go back a hundred years from now, as far as you have 
 an account of what the Cabinet was doing, you will find that it 
 was discussing how it could force the colonies of North 
 America to pay English taxes without being represented in 
 the English Parliament. That was the great policy of the 
 day. But, as you know, it entirely failed, and the thirteen 
 little colonies of that time have now grown to be one of 
 the most powerful nations of the globe. If you come 
 down twenty years later — eighty years ago — you will find 
 the English Cabinet constantly discussing how it might be 
 possible, with the help of all the resources of this kingdom, to 
 suppress the Bepublic on the other side of the Channel. Yet 
 now you see that the whole of that policy was a failure, and 
 that there exists at this moment, with the consent and 
 sympathy of almost all classes in this country, that once 
 dreaded monster a French Republic. And if you came down, 
 nearer to our own time, to twenty-five years ago, you will 
 find an English Cabinet discussing for almost two years 
 nothing but questions connected with the great contest 
 
1879. XXXII . BIRMINGHAM. 493 
 
 with Russia, carried on, as you remember, iu that part of the 
 Russian Empire which is called the Crimea. Well, there was 
 a partial success, as there was a partial success in the sup- 
 pression of the French Republic of 1789, and in the overthrow 
 of the Napoleonic Empire in 1815 — there was a partial 
 success in the Crimea. Yet that policy was rotten from the 
 beginning, and it has been followed, as you know, by an 
 entire failure. There is not a single thing that was obtained by 
 the Treaty of Paris as a result of the Crimean War that has not 
 been surrendered and entirely given up. You will see, then, 
 from these examples — and I might occupy your time the 
 whole evening with other examples — that the present, almost 
 always with regard to foreign policy, condemns the past, and 
 you may argue, as I venture to predict, that the future will 
 likewise condemn the present. 
 
 Now, what is the source of all the difficulties of which 
 we have been hearing so much for the last three years? 
 I want to show you what, to my mind, is a very evil policy, 
 and to point out what, in my view on these matters, is 
 a right policy; for unless the country understands what is 
 right and what is wrong in its policy, how can it control 
 the Government if the Government seeks to do wrong? 
 A great source of our difficulty lies in this, that many 
 people in the country, not all — whether a majority or not I 
 cannot say — have a great dread of Russia, not because they 
 think that Russia can touch England either by fleets or by 
 armies — there are none of them, I hope, so stupid as to 
 imagine that— but because they fear or suppose that Russia 
 has the power to disturb, and it may be to overthrow, the 
 great Asiatic Empire which is governed from this country. 
 Now, my view of the case is, that if it be fairly examined 
 it will be found that this chronic fear of Russia arises from a 
 long-held suspicion based upon a profound ignorance of almost 
 all the facts of the case. Let us reason together for a little 
 while on this point. You are an important section of this 
 
494 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. apeil 16, 
 
 nation, and you fairly represent, I have no doubt, to-night, 
 the interests of the vast bulk of the people. I have paid 
 constant and incessant attention to these questions. I have 
 had as good opportunity as any man of understanding them. 
 I have no interest apart from your interests, or the true 
 interests of my countrymen, and therefore 1 venture — I think 
 I may venture without presumption — to enter upon these 
 great and sacred topics which some people in Dovvning- 
 street think are to be kept for monarchs and statesmen 
 only. 
 
 I shall treat first the question of this anxiety and sus- 
 picion which we have about Russia. Afterwards I shall try 
 to show how unfounded and unnecessary it is. Whatever 
 may be said about the Crimean War or its results, of this one 
 thing there is no manner of doubt or difference of opinion, 
 that it cost this country, I will not say exactly how many, 
 but most people have estimated it from 30,000 to 40,000 
 lives, with from 80,000,000^. to 100,000,000/. sterling. Now, 
 our loss was probably not more than one twentieth of the whole 
 of the lives that were lost in that war, and it was not more 
 than one fourth of the money that was spent in the war. Now 
 we come down to three years ago, when this new Russian 
 and Turkish trouble began. I believe the war was only 
 avoided last year from two causes — one was the moderation of 
 Russia immediately after her triumph over Turkey, the other 
 was the course taken by the great Liberal party, by the Non- 
 conformists especially as a great portion of that party, and by 
 the foremost man among the statesmen of this country. There 
 are men who cavil now at the position which Mr. Gladstone oc- 
 cupies. I shall say nothing in his defence, but the posterity of 
 those who now slander him will be ashanied of the opinions and 
 of the conduct of their forefathers. But though we have escaped 
 war, we have had, as you know, fleets moving between the 
 Mediterranean and the Black Sea, moving and menacing in 
 great force ; and we have had reserves called out, as if some- 
 
1879. XXXIL BIRMINGHAM. 495 
 
 thing" dreadful was about to happen; and we have had 
 Indian troo|)s — a thing- almost unknown in our history — 
 brought into the Mediterranean with a view of carrying on 
 war against Russia ; and we have had votes of money which 
 it was said would probably not be spent, but which were 
 very suddenly and speedily spent. 
 
 But what has been the actual result? The result of the 
 Crimean War, of the American and of the French War, was 
 not more absurd and not more discreditable. The result 
 was this, that two English Ministers, special counsellors of 
 the Queen, went to Berlin. They agreed to everything, so 
 far as I can learn, that was of any importance, to everything 
 which Russia had agreed to with Turkey, except as regards a 
 particular province which Russia proposed to make wholly 
 free from Turkish rule, but which the English Ministers 
 acting in your name objected to. That province they cut in 
 two, and handed over half of it to the Turk. Now I believe 
 that will be held by the people of England, when they consider 
 the question fairly, to be a great blot upon our character and 
 our reputation. We have been in the habit of calling ourselves 
 the friends of freedom. We planted the American colonies : 
 they are a great free nation. We planted Canada : Canada 
 is a free country. We planted the colonies of Australia, and 
 you may see there the great young growth of nations that 
 are to come. We rejoiced when the colonies of Spain in 
 South America freed themselves from the dominion and the 
 tyranny of the mother country; fifty years ago we rejoiced 
 that Greece had become a nation; and, later than that, 
 we have been glad that Italy is free and united. Now, 
 during last year, 1878, we, the people of England, were 
 made to hand over a large portion of the Bulgarian popula- 
 tion which had been freed by the blood and treasure of Russia 
 to the odious government of the Turk. But that is by no 
 means all that we have been doing. We have entered into a 
 joint-stock company, and paid 4,000,000/. for shares in the 
 
496 ADDliESSES OF JOHN BlUGllT. apeilIG, 
 
 Suez Canal. Besides that, we have taken possession — not 
 by purchase or conquest, but by a system of persuasion and 
 bullying" and hiring — of a large island in the eastern part of 
 the Mediterranean ; an island which you may make anything 
 you like of, if you spend enough upon it. At present not 
 much has been spent ; but if the policy under which it was 
 taken from the Sultan is to be pursued, it may cost us very 
 dear indeed, before it becomes what we are told at some future 
 time it 'may possibly become. 
 
 Then we have undertaken to defend what is called Asia 
 Minor. If you look at the map of Turkey and Asia Minor 
 you will find that this includes all the territory between the 
 Bosphorus, on which Constantinople stands, and the Persian 
 Gulf, which stretches, as it were, on the one hand to Egypt, 
 and on the other down to the Persian Gulf. It is more than 
 1,500 miles in length ; and all this you have undertaken, by 
 what is called the Anglo-Turkish Convention, to defend, and 
 what would be even more impossible, probably, to reform. 
 Then you have seen, within the past few days, that there 
 is a new and distinct and additional muddle witlf respect to 
 the Khedive of Egypt. Now, there are a good many 
 people in London called bondholders, and there are some, 
 no doubt, in Birmingham. The bondholders in connexion 
 with the Khedive of Egypt may be put into two classes ; the 
 fools who lent the money, and the gamblers who have been 
 speculating in it since. It is said that France has more fools 
 and gamblers than we have in this matter, and that her 
 Government is very anxious to force the Khedive to pay up 
 to the French bondholders. We, not liking that France 
 should have a special interest there, go in also, although our 
 Government does not care much about the English bond- 
 holders ; but you observe our Government allows one of its 
 own officers to go there, and France sends an officer there, 
 and these two gentlemen offer to the Khedive to manage all 
 his money affairs ; and the Khedive, like a great many people. 
 
1879. XXXII. BIRMINGHAM. 497 
 
 does not like this kind of interference, and having read, as I 
 dare say he has read, what Sir Stafford Northcote, the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, I think within the last month, said, 
 — that the Khedive had a right — that it was within his legal 
 right — to get rid of those gentlemen, — he has considered 
 whether that was not a wise thing to do, and has dismissed 
 them both very suddenly. Now I take the liberty of ex- 
 pressing the opinion upon this matter, that the whole thing 
 from the beginning to the end has been a grievous and very 
 stupid mistake, and that the going into partnership with 
 France in the management of the affairs of a third country 
 is almost sure to lead to great trouble, to irritation, and it 
 may be to entire separation of feeling between the two 
 Governments and the two countries. Therefore, I would 
 have none of it. And now it is found out, as you see, from 
 the papers day by day, that there appears to be no remedy 
 for this. The proper thing for our Government to do is to 
 withdraw, and to allow the Khedive and his creditors to 
 manage affairs as well as they can. They could not manage 
 them much worse. They could not manage affairs much 
 worse than they have been managed in Constantinople. 
 
 We now come to this unpleasant business of Afghanistan, 
 of which also you must have read a good deal. With regard 
 to that war which is now being waged in Afghanistan, I 
 doubt whether there has ever been a war more — what shall I 
 call it ? — more deformed by falseness and by dishonour than the 
 war now waged with Afghanistan. It is a war conducted no- 
 toriously for annexation, whether annexation of a portion or the 
 whole of the country none of us know. I suppose that the 
 Government here will hesitate and give very indefinite orders, 
 and Lord Lytton and the people about him will go on and on, 
 and whether it will end in what military men call ' success,* 
 or whether it will end in what we shall call great discredit 
 and great calamity, it is impossible at the present moment to 
 prophesy. But if you take the map of Europe and Asia, you 
 
 Kk 
 
498 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. april 16, 
 
 will discover, from what I have said and from what you know, 
 that this country, on account of hostility to Russia and fear for 
 India, has undertaken to control or to reform, or to defend, or 
 to annex, or to advise — it has undertaken the responsibity for 
 almost the whole ground from the Gulf of Venice, all 
 round the Eastern Mediterranean to Egypt, to the Persian 
 Gulf, through Persia, to Afghanistan and the confines of 
 British India. Now, is there anything in the world equal to 
 this in folly and impossibility ? Who is it that has to do all 
 this but the 34,000,000 of people who inhabit the United 
 Kingdom ? Every man, whatsoever be his trade in Birming- 
 ham, whatever you turn to to-morrow to earn an honest 
 living for your families, every man of you has got one of this 
 vast population upon his back, and he must carry this 
 burden. You do not find that your colonies have sent you 
 either men or money. Canada has not; the West Indian 
 Islands have not ; Australia contributes nothing to the taxes ; 
 the Cape of Good Hope is merely exhausting your means. 
 The millions in India itself pay nothing. I am not saying 
 that it is not paying for Afghanistan, but for all between 
 there and the Gulf of Venice India pays almost nothing, and, 
 in point of fact, it is upon the shoulders of the 34,000,000 of 
 persons — men, women, and children — in the United Kingdom 
 that all this enormous burden which has been undertaken, 
 and which may lead to burdens far greater, which we know 
 not yet and which we cannot measure — I say it is upon them 
 that this burden has been cast by the policy which has been 
 adopted by the existing Government. 
 
 Now, what is this India — that is another point I would 
 especially ask your attention to — what is this India, about 
 which the United Kingdom and its population are called upon 
 to undertake such responsibilities ? The whole of this vast 
 Asiatic country is said to contain 240,000,000 of persons, of 
 whom 200,000,000 are under the direct government of the 
 English Crown, through the Governor-General, and 40,000,000 
 
1879. XXXI T. BIRMINGHAM. 499 
 
 or 50,000,000 are indirectly acted upon and controlled through 
 the medium of the native princes of the country. But what 
 is the condition of those 200,000,000 of people ? They are 
 poor to an extremity of poverty of which the poorest class in 
 this country has no conception, and to which it affords no 
 kind of parallel. They are over- taxed to a degrcj of which 
 in the worst days of taxation in this country you had no 
 knowledge. The licence-tax or the income-tax — let it be 
 called one or the other — goes down so low as to touch a man 
 of 10/. a-year — that is, four shillings a- week. You are in 
 the habit of hearing constantly that Russia is a despotic 
 country and the Czar the greatest of despots. Our Indian 
 Empire contains a population nearly three times as great as 
 that of the Russian Empire, and it is an Empire also that is 
 governed by a despotism — that is, a government which has 
 no representative institutions, and in which a few men with 
 some one at the top of them — an Emperor in Russia, in India 
 a Governor- General representing the Queen of England — 
 administer the whole government of the Empire. It does 
 not follow that because it is a despotism it should be unjust 
 or cruel. There are probably not two potentates in the world 
 at the present time more anxious that their ruling should be 
 just and merciful and beneficial to their populations than the 
 Czar of Russia and the Queen of England. I spoke just now 
 of the Governor-General of India. I think he has about 
 eight gentlemen sitting with him in his council, and they 
 determine pretty much everything that is done in that 
 country. They live for a portion of the year in Calcutta, 
 which is the capital of India ; but for the larger portion of 
 the year they live at Simla, a hill country, about 1,000 
 miles distant, where the climate is more favourable ; and 
 there, in a room that would be big enough if it were only 
 I a ft. square, they carry on the main operations of the govern- 
 ment of 200,000,000 of the Queen's subjects. Now, the 
 taxation, as I have said, is oppressive, and oppressive to such 
 
 K k 2 
 
500 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. apeil 16. 
 
 a degree that all the authorities in India say you cannot turn 
 the screw any more, and that if you do, something worse 
 than a deficient revenue may follow. Half — nearly half — of 
 the whole of the taxes, the net taxes of the country, is de- 
 voted to the support of the army. There are 1 20,000 native 
 troops, and latterly, owing to the war in Afghanistan, it is 
 said they have been adding 15,000 more to their numbers, 
 and there are 60,000 English troops, who are said to be 
 mainly kept there to watch the 120,000 native troops. But 
 there is a large Civil Service — that is, gentlemen who are 
 magistrates in various districts, and who collect the taxes. 
 There are among them men of great merit and of great 
 service,, and many of them, doubtless, have laboured hard. 
 But I suspect and believe that if an accurate account were 
 taken it would be found that the payments of salaries and 
 pensions which they receive are more than double the amount 
 which is paid to any equal number of persons similarly oc- 
 cupied in any other country in the world. To supply this 
 service about thirty young gentlemen from this country, after 
 passing through a collegiate examination, are sent out to 
 India to take places at salaries of 300^. or 400^. a-year, 
 which go on increasing, many of them, to 1,000^., 2,000^., 
 3,000/., and 4,000/. They come back home when they are 
 middle-aged, and they return to England a very much re- 
 spected class of men. 
 
 But at this moment India is pretty nearly bankrupt. There is 
 a deficit, and there generally is a deficit. The English Govern- 
 ment are proposing to lend them 2,000,000/. sterling without 
 interest. This loan is granted in much the same way as that 
 by which foolish people have supplied money to Turkey. 
 Such people have lent Turkey a great deal of money and 
 they receive no interest from it. And then the Government 
 is proposing to raise an Indian loan in London to the amount 
 of 10,000,000/. It is not legally guaranteed by this Govern- 
 ment, but the people who lend the money believe that if the 
 
1879. XXXII. BIRMINGHAM. 501 
 
 worst comes to the worst England will not see them unpaid, 
 and will in point of fact stand responsible for debts which 
 India may be unable to pay. This then is our position, 
 and I have described to you the sort of sacrifice that we are 
 asked to make on its behalf. But some one will say, ' But is 
 there no profit side ? Is there nothing to be said against this 
 unpleasant account you give us ? ' Yes, there is something 
 to be said, and I will undertake in a moment to say it. We 
 have with those 240,000,000 of people what some people 
 would call a great, but, considering the population, what is 
 really a very small trade. You must remember that this 
 country of India has been governed, very much of it, for 
 nearly 100 years by English rulers. It ought to have gained 
 immensely under our rule. But what is the trade we have 
 with India ? Our exports to it — that is^ all the manufactures 
 of every kind that we send to India, on the average of the 
 last six years — amount to 24,000,000^. sterling per year. 
 Now, 24,000,000^. is not 10 per cent. ; it is not one-tenth of 
 the whole of our export trade. Our export trade being, I 
 think_, last year and the year before 252,000,000^., the 
 24,000,000/. will be about 9^ per cent, on the whole amount. 
 The trade in India is more free — I think I may say more abso- 
 lutely free to us — than that of any other country in the world. 
 Now compare what we do with India with what we do with 
 other countries. To Germany we export 34,000,000/. a-year; to 
 France 28,000,000/. a-year ; to the United States 30,000,000/. 
 a-year. For the last two years things have been so bad in 
 America that the exports have fallen off to about 20,000,000/. ; 
 but to Holland, so small a country as Holland is, we export 
 20,000,000/. a-year ; and to so small a country as Belgium 
 13,000,000/. a-year ; and to that large country Russia 
 10,000,000/. a-year. These are the averages for six years, 
 but for the last two years Russia has only taken between 
 6,000,000/. and 7,000,000/. Russia, like the United States, 
 has what I should call a barbarous tariff. 
 
502 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, apkil 16, 
 
 Now the reason I give you these figures is this, — that 
 for all these other countries I have spoken of we are 
 not bound to any kind of responsibility like that which 
 rests upon us in regard to India. We do not keep special 
 armies for fear that our trade should be some fine morning 
 wholly taken away from us. Nine and a-half per cent, of 
 our whole foreign trade does not seem to me worth that 
 which it costs us ; if it cannot be had cheaper it would 
 be much better not to be had at all. I show you that 
 it is less than our trade with Germany, with France, and 
 the United States. It is only 4,000,000^. net above our 
 trade with Holland. It is somewhat more than double our 
 trade with Russia, Russia having a very high tariff*, and 
 India having almost no tariff" at all. Now what is the 
 profit upon 34,000,000^. in trade? It is not 24,000,000^. 
 If a shopkeeper sells a man los. worth of something over 
 the counter, the profit is not 20^. It may be 10 per cent., 
 or 20 per cent., or 30 per cont., but it is only a percentage 
 on the actual price of the article. Well, if you reckon a 
 profit of 10 per cent, upon the goods sent to India, and a 
 profit of 10 per cent, upon all that comes back, what will it 
 be ? It will not be equal to 5,000,000/. a-year. It has not 
 been anything equal to it of late. It has not been that amount 
 for years back, for nothing has been so bad as the trade with 
 India. Now for the sake of this trade, which, in favourable 
 circumstances, would not give a profit of more than 5,000,000/. 
 a year, or if you like to say I am exaggerating, double it and 
 call it 10,000,000/. for the sake of this trade you hold your 
 Empire in India. You hold it at a cost which is more than 
 double all the pecuniary benefits which you have acquired 
 by trade in all that vast possession. But, people may say 
 then, perhaps, *You will give up India,' and I should say 
 'No.^ I do not say anything of the kind, but I think 
 it would be worth while to become a little more rational 
 about it. 
 
1879. XXXIL BIRMINGHAM, 503 
 
 But I have not described to you the whole case. You 
 hear people telliDg you that Gibraltar is of great importance 
 on your way to India. Gibraltar is a place you hold 
 as the price of the perpetual enmity of Spain, which 
 you obtained by a fraud, than which there is no worse 
 in the history of Europe. Malta is another stopping- 
 place, where you spend — I cannot, I dare not guess the cost 
 to you. Then you have the Suez Canal, Perim, and Aden. 
 You have all these places on the route to India, but excepting 
 the thirty young gentlemen who find places there every 
 year, and the 24,000,000^. a year, so much there and so 
 much back, and a profit of 10,000,000/., or it may be 
 of not more than 5,000,000/., there is not a single result 
 which is beneficial to the 34,000,000 of the population 
 of the United Kingdom. Well, now, as to giving up 
 India. No, I do not propose to give up India; all I 
 propose is, that we should try to make the best of it and 
 not the worst of it, and shake ofi* the childish terror by 
 which we have been possessed. We have heard of a neutral 
 zone, or belt of neutral territory between India and Russia, 
 in Asia. I remember some years ago having a conversation 
 on this subject, I am not sure whether it was with Lord 
 Clarendon or Lord Granville, and the Duke of Argyll as 
 well, but they spoke to me about this neutral zone which 
 they were endeavouring to establish with Russia. My 
 opinion was asked about it. I said, 'It is a very good 
 thing under the circumstances, if nothing better can be 
 done ; but,' I said, ' it will be a great deal better for Russia 
 and England when there is no neutral zone and when these 
 two empires are conterminous.' Did you ever hear of 
 a neutral zone between the United States and Canada? 
 No. But when the United States, during the late civil war, 
 had a million of men in arms, she did not touch Canada. 
 Did you ever hear of a neutral zone between France and 
 Italy, or Spain and Portugal, or Russia and Germany? 
 
504 ADDBESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. apkil 16, 
 
 No. But why do these countries remain at peace ? Because 
 they have no interest in going to war. If there was only 
 a mountain ridge, or a stream, or a fence that one of these 
 country gentlemen that I so often see opposite me I dare say 
 could leap over on his hunter without the least difficulty — if 
 there was only a barrier like that between Russia in Asia 
 and Britain in Asia, there would be no difficulty in pre- 
 serving peace between Russia and the United Kingdom. 
 Surely two civilised nations can remain at peace. They re- 
 main at peace all over Europe. They remain at peace in North 
 America. They can remain at peace in Asia. Russia is far, 
 I would say, more accessible to us if we were disposed to 
 quarrel with her than we know India is to her. Then, 
 Russia has as great an interest in being absolutely at peace 
 on the borders of our Indian Empire as we have in being 
 at peace on the borders of her Asiatic dominions ; and if 
 this is not at once brought about, the difficulty does not rest 
 at St. Petersburg, it rests in this country, and it rests in 
 India. You know that in India the greatest power is in 
 the hands of the army, an army of 60,000 British soldiers 
 and their officers, and 120,000 native soldiers, with British 
 officers, who, according to the Zulu phrase, are not unwilling 
 to wash their spears. They are urging continually, either 
 actively or with a force which is not seen, but fully felt, 
 a policy in favour of annexation and promotion and all the 
 dignities which these Christian kingdoms give to their 
 military servants more than to any other. 
 
 But if we had got rid of this suspicion with regard to 
 Russia ; if Russia and England were as friendly as Russia has 
 always wished to be, and as I hope the majority of the Eng- 
 lish wish that they should be, we should get rid of this 
 anxiety. Constantinople would not disturb our dreams, Asia 
 Minor we should forget. The Euphrates Valley would no 
 longer haunt us. We should see the Persian Gulf on the 
 map without terror ; Egypt we should no longer fear. Cyprus 
 
1879. XXXIL BIRMINGHAM. 505 
 
 was a wealthy and interesting country in old times. I hope 
 it may become so hereafter, but not at the expense of the 
 people of England. One great result would be that we 
 34,000,000 of Englishmen, planting free countries all over 
 the globe, might find that we could go to bed and sleep in 
 peace even though Roumelia were delivered from the Turk. 
 I say this with regard to the nightmare about Russia. 
 Everything seems to me against it but our own indis- 
 position, it may be, to thoroughly study the question. Geo- 
 graphy is against it, all history is against it, all statesman- 
 ship is against it, all the conditions of power seem to me 
 against it, and I know not what arguments there can be 
 that can justify to the Government or people of this 
 country that chronic — to my mind almost insane — dread 
 of the designs and the power of Russia that for forty years 
 has exercised so great and so baneful an influence over 
 the feelings and the opinions of this country. I believe that 
 Russia would welcome the change. I do not wonder, how- 
 ever, that Russia does not show any great friendship towards 
 us. Look at the traffic she has in our manufactures. We 
 send her six or seven millions a year, and we bring from 
 her nearly three times as much. We take everything that 
 Russia can export, unless it be tobacco and spirits. We take 
 all free of duty in this country; but if we persist in being 
 constantly suspicious, ungenerous, and hostile to Russia, we 
 cannot expect but that such feelings will be returned. There 
 is nothing that tends so much to friendship as trade, and you 
 know perfectly well that friendship also tends very much to 
 trade. The one acts upon the other. If you are friendly 
 you trade all the more freely; if you trade freely, the more 
 friendly you become. In Russia there are 84,000,000 of 
 people. They grow all things that we want — or rather, nearly 
 all the things they grow we want. They grow corn, they 
 export hides, they export flax, they export hemp, and other 
 things which I need not describe. But if these 84,000,000 
 
506 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT, apeil 16, 
 
 had a tariff as free as ours — or a moderate tariff, say, ot 
 5 or lo per cent, on imports from England — the trade *of 
 this country with Russia would gradually and certainly in- 
 crease, and as it increased our suspicions of Russia would 
 gradually fade away, and the hostile feelings which Russia 
 necessarily has towards us would also rapidly subside, and 
 the blessed effects of trade, which some people call selfish 
 and low, but which God has made to be one of the most 
 beneficent influences among mankind — the great and blessed 
 effects of trade, I say, would put an end to the animosity 
 which has existed between these two great nations, and 
 enable Russia, and ourselves also, to diminish to a large 
 extent military expenditure, and to do what can be done to 
 promote a happier and more tranquil condition of things 
 throughout the continent of Europe. 
 
 I have said all that I intend now to say upon this matter, 
 and I have spoken, as you will observe, apart from what may be 
 called the party discussion of these questions. I have wished 
 to lay before you what, in my opinion, is the folly and the 
 mischief of our present and recent policy, and to show you 
 what may be called — or what I think — is a more excellent 
 way. You will observe that I have not assailed the Govern- 
 ment. I leave them to the retribution which awaits them. 
 They have played, in my view, falsely both with Parliament 
 and with the country. They have wasted, and are now 
 wasting, the blood and the treasure of our people. They 
 have tarnished the mild reign of the Queen by needless 
 war and slaughter on two continents and by the menace 
 of needless war in Europe; they have soiled the fair name 
 of England by subjecting and handing over the popula- 
 tion of a province which had been freed by Russia, through 
 war and treaty, to the cruel and the odious government of 
 the Turk. And beyond this they have shown, in my view, 
 during an interval of five years through which they have 
 been in possession of office and of power, that they are im- 
 
1879. XXXII. BIRMINGHAM. 607 
 
 becile at home and turbulent and wicked abroad. I 
 leave them to the judgment of the constituencies of the 
 United Kingdom, to which they must speedily appeal, and 
 to the heavy condemnation which impartial history will 
 pronounce upon them. 
 
 ->K- 
 
XXXIIL 
 
 LIMERICK, JULY 14, 1868. 
 
 [In the summer of 1868, Mr. Bright was the guest of Mr. Peabody, the well- 
 known American philanthropist, at Castle Connell in Ireland. As the opinions 
 which he entertained on Irish politics, particularly on the subject of the 
 Irish Establishment, were well known, and as the question was at that time 
 generally debated in view of the General Election which was at hand, an 
 invitation was given to Mr. Bright to a public breakfast in the Limerick 
 Athenaeum. Mr. Bright accepted the invitation, and delivered the following 
 address, which, printed in abstract only in the English papers, has been re- 
 covered for the present volume by the good offices of Mr. Crosbie, the Editor 
 of the * Cork Examiner.'] 
 
 When I accepted tlie invitation of my kind friend Mr. 
 Peabody to visit the banks of the Shannon I had no in- 
 tention, no expectation, of taking- part in any political 
 gathering. For the past five months — for generally five 
 days in each week — I have been obliged to attend political 
 meetings in the House of Commons; and very often, as 
 you know, from four o'clock in the afternoon till near, and 
 sometimes till after, midnight; and, therefore, you can ima- 
 gine how little, after that continuous service, any man would 
 wish to be plunged, immediately he escaped from London, 
 into any further political movement. But, I do not in the 
 least regret that I am here to meet you to-day, because I 
 think it may be useful — it generally is useful — to confer 
 together on great questions affecting public interests. And 
 
XXXIIL LIMERICK. 609 
 
 if I had any feeling that I was suffering inconvenience — 
 which I have not — it would be entirely overcome by the 
 extreme kindness with which you have received me. I thank 
 you for your welcome most heartily, and for the address 
 — only too full of praise of myself — which has just been 
 presented to me. 
 
 I come, as I hope you will believe, and as I hope those 
 will believe who do not agree with much that I am about 
 to say — I hope I come not in the slightest degree to 
 this meeting as a partisan. As you know, I am not a 
 Catholic, in the sense of any connexion with the Church 
 of Rome, nor am I a Protestant in the sense of any con- 
 nexion with the Established Church of England and Ireland. 
 I do not come before you with any pretensions to that 
 character of statesmanship which has been awarded to me, 
 but rather as a simple citizen — one of yourselves — to help 
 in discussing a question which at this moment is exciting 
 intense interest, not in Ireland only, but throughout every 
 portion of Great Britain. I may say — and I hope it is 
 without pretentiousness or egotism — that in my humble 
 way I endeavour always to speak publicly to my countrymen 
 as a preacher of political righteousness and justice. I believe 
 that it is in this way only that the unity, true glory, and 
 the happiness of States can be built up. 
 
 It is now about twenty years since I was, the only time 
 before this, in your city. I can see — and I have heard much 
 more than I have seen — that there is a considerable change 
 in some respects for the better in Ireland during the last 
 twenty years ; but it is not at all to be wondered at. When 
 I was here before, famine and pestilence had scarcely com- 
 pleted their melancholy duty. When I say duty, I regard 
 famine and pestilence as instruments appointed by Provi- 
 dence, to track the ignorance, the folly, and the crimes 
 of men. But since famine and pestilence in their fearful 
 forms have ceased among you, there has been an emigration 
 
610 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 14, 
 
 unexampled, I believe, from any modern nation and in 
 any modern time ; and the result has been that the popu- 
 lation of Ireland has been greatly thinned, and it is only 
 reasonable to expect and to believe that there should be 
 better and more constant employment for the popula- 
 tion remaining here, and a higher rate of wages than in 
 former times. If you recollect the contents of the Report 
 of the Devon Commission, which I think sat about the year 
 1845, you will remember that nearly one half the population 
 of Ireland at that moment were in a condition of absolute 
 pauperism. That is a thing which, happily, cannot be said 
 now of such a large proportion of your people. 
 
 But it does not follow that because by famine and pesti- 
 lence and emigration the population of the country has 
 been so thinned, that the remaining portion of the popu- 
 lation is in a better political condition ; it does not by any 
 means follow that there are no political causes of evil and 
 discontent which ought to be removed. At this moment 
 we sit here, not under what is called the British Constitution, 
 but during a suspension of it as regards this island and its 
 whole population; and indeed what is called the British Consti- 
 tution, so far as it affects personal freedom, has been I may say 
 for a time abolished. And one very deplorable circumstance 
 attending it is this — that in the House of Commons we have 
 now become so familiar with the suspension of the Habeas 
 Corpus Act in Ireland, that when the question is proposed 
 from the Treasury bench it is scarcely deemed of sufficient 
 importance to cause even a lively, I might almost say, a 
 momentary debate. I believe there are persons — I know 
 not whether there may not be some in this room; I know 
 there are not far from this city, persons who have suffered 
 imprisonment for many months, who have had no charge 
 brought against them, who have undergone no trial, against 
 whom there has been offered no evidence, in whose case 
 there has been no verdict, and in whose hearing there lias 
 
1868. XXXIII. LIMERICK. 511 
 
 been no sentence from the judge. If that be so, it seems 
 to me we are compelled to look a little under the surface, 
 and if possible to discover why it is that such a state of 
 things exists. Besides all this, we have, as you know, in 
 Ireland a great military force, a force altogether dispro- 
 portioned to any necessity there could be for it in a country 
 that was at once well-governed, prosperous, and contented. 
 
 I called the other day upon a gentleman near this city, 
 and he unrolled before me the map of the Shannon, and 
 I asked him what those little red circles upon the map 
 indicated? He said they were the jottings down of the 
 places which were Police Stations. I do not know how 
 many Police Stations there were, but on the banks of the 
 Shannon, as far as the map extended, there were probably 
 200 Stations, not of police with the ordinary truncheon, 
 as we have been accustomed to see police in England, but 
 an armed police which ought not to exist, and ought not 
 to be necessary in any free country. It has been admitted 
 in the House of Commons, during the past Session, and to 
 put it in the very mildest form, that there is a very great 
 sense of uneasiness throughout the country — a considerable 
 disturbance of the public mind^from the impression that 
 there is a wide distrust, if not an absolute hatred of England, 
 and of what is called English rule ; that there is, more than 
 this, what may be termed a dreamy looking to the West as 
 the future home of the people, or as the means of some change 
 and some relief. I judge from the cheers of some gentlemen 
 present and the reading of the address, that there are 
 those amongst us who disbelieve in any permanent recon- 
 ciliation with Great Britain, who think that the only true 
 and lasting remedy for Irish discontent is to be found 
 either in the repeal of the Act of Union or in absolute 
 independence. I merely ask that during the observations 
 I am about to make those gentlemen will listen to me 
 with this feeling — that the subject is so serious to all of us, 
 
512 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 14, 
 
 that he must be not a wise man who rejects arguments or 
 facts, honestly given, that bear upon this great national 
 question. 
 
 I am one of those who admit — as every sensible man 
 must admit — that an Act which the Parliament of the 
 United Kingdom has passed, the Parliament of the United 
 Kingdom can repeal. And further, I am willing to admit, 
 what everybody in England allows with regard to every 
 foreign country, that any nation, believing it to be its interest, 
 has a right to both ask for and strive for national independence. 
 But, then, we are not come, I hope not absolutely, to the 
 point at which that important question must be decided. 
 I am willing and anxious, if possible, to supplement that 
 fraudful, as I may call it. Act of Union by deeds of generosity 
 and of justice, which shall really unite the three kingdoms. 
 And I would offer to the Irish people that more durable 
 and solid independence which they may possibly think is 
 the portion of a great and prosperous empire, whose councils 
 and whose example would move the world to great and 
 noble ends. Some gentlemen will say that there has been 
 sufficient experience, and that my propositions are too late. 
 I have never said that they are not too late. I only propound 
 my theories as an experiment, and I do not want to force 
 any man to believe that I am wiser than he is in a great 
 question like this. But, standing here from that country from 
 whom you have suffered so much, I ask you to listen whilst 
 I propound theories which to my mind have a chance, at any 
 rate, of being useful to the three nations in time to come. 
 
 In travelling through this country, one may not accept 
 the dictum of your poet, that this is the * First flower of the 
 earth ,^ but, at any rate, I think a man cannot live in the 
 valley of the Shannon without believing that it is one of 
 the earth's very fairest flowers. Your climate is genial, 
 your people have at least as many virtues, so far as I know, 
 as other peoples have, and even it is admitted that their 
 
1868. XXXIII. LIMERICK, 513 
 
 failings lean rather to virtue's side. But it is impossible 
 not to feel that there hangs over the country something 
 like a shadow of the curse of past wrongs, and that there 
 are amongst you afflicting memories that will not sleep. 
 What I would propose, if it were possible for me to dictate 
 the policy of the Imperial Parliament towards Ireland, would 
 be to undo — absolutely to undo — the territorial and eccle- 
 siastical arrangements maintained during the past two or 
 three hundred years though I would do all this without 
 inflicting upon any living man the smallest act of injustice 
 in connexion with his personal interests in those territorial 
 and ecclesiastical arrangements. 
 
 The address which you have heard read refers to the 
 question of the land. I shall not take up your time with 
 any discussion on that subject. On several occasions — in 
 Dublin a year and a half ago, in Birmingham last winter, and 
 in the House of Commons during this Session — I have ex- 
 plained, at least in part, my views upon that question. My 
 purpose in legislating with regard to the land would be 
 gradually, but I hope also rapidly, to restore to the popu- 
 lation of Ireland — to the skilled farmers, or to those amongst 
 them who save money — to restore to them a proprietary 
 right in the soil of the country. But it should be done 
 through their own industry, and it should be free from the 
 slightest taint of injustice or of spoliation upon the present 
 proprietors of the soil. But as you have heard already, and as 
 we all feel, there is another question which is foremost for 
 the time. No man knows why this, or that, or the other 
 question comes up at a particular time to the front and 
 demands to be settled ; but the course of a wise politician — 
 whether elector, as you are, or Member of Parliament, as 
 I am — is necessarily to deal with that question which stands 
 first to be dealt with, and which the public mind is most 
 prepared to support in the settlement which is necessary 
 to be effected. 
 
 Li 
 
614 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jflt 14, 
 
 In saying a few words on the question of the Established 
 Church in Ireland I have a wish for a moment, if you will 
 forgive me for saying it, either that you were all away, or that 
 your number was doubled, and that the new-comers consisted 
 of an equal number of what I will call faithful, earnest, 
 Christian men of the Protestant Church in this country; 
 because I think they are the persons to whom argument 
 is necessary to be offered on this great question. If you 
 were five hundred of these faithful and honestly-minded 
 Protestants of whom I have spoken — and there are many 
 hundreds, and I hope many thousands of such in Ireland, 
 although they are quiet, and we hear little of them in this 
 contest — ^yet, if I had them here^ I should ask them several 
 questions, and wait their answers to them; and I think 
 I should ask questions which honest and Christian men 
 amongst them would find it very perplexing to answer. I 
 would ask them whether they now, looking back over the 
 dismal time of modern Irish history, approve of the eccle- 
 siastical arrangements made for this country by England 
 three centuries ago? I suspect there are very few faithful 
 and honest-minded Protestants in Ireland who would say 
 that they approve of those arrangements. I would ask them, 
 further, whether they think the present condition of the 
 country, in reference to that question, and to the public 
 opinion of the whole Irish nation — whether the present con- 
 dition of the country is satisfactory or not ? I have stated 
 in the House of Commons that although the Irish census 
 gives the number of nearly 700,000 Protestants in con- 
 nexion with the Established Church, making deductions 
 which are necessary in Ireland, far smaller deductions than 
 those necessary to be made in England, I am certain 
 that the number of those who attend places of worship in 
 connexion with the Established Church — men paying any 
 outward deference to religion in connexion with that Church 
 — will not be more than 500,000 persons. And those 
 
1868. XXXIII, LIMERICK. 615 
 
 500,000 persons have provided for them by the State — I 
 will put it much below the real amount, but certainly it 
 is more than 600,000/. per annum. At the time of the 
 introduction of the Church Temporalities Act, in 1834, the 
 whole of the revenues of the Irish Church were estimated by 
 Lord Althorpe at not less than 800,000/. a year ; and some of 
 them I think must have increased since, but there is a diminu- 
 tion of about twenty-five per cent, arising from the sale and 
 commutation of tithes, which occurred sometime afterwards. 
 I think, therefore, I am reckoning- below the mark when 
 I say the income of the Established Church will be about 
 600,000/. a year. But if the State were to provide with 
 equal profuseness for the other religious bodies of the popu- 
 lation of the United Kingdom, it would take an annual sum 
 of at least 36,000,000/. to provide for the families of the 
 three kingdoms religious services, with the same degree of 
 profuse generosity which has been, and is now, exercised in 
 Ireland. 
 
 These 500,000 persons — and I am merely using an argu- 
 ment which I have used before, but it brings the subject 
 home so much to a man's mind that I think I may repeat 
 it — these 500,000 persons are not more than the population 
 of Glasgow or Liverpool ; and what should we all say if the 
 State, for a population like that of Glasgow or Liverpool, 
 established ten or twelve bishops, with from 1,500 to :z,ooo 
 clergymen — some of them very highly, and generally all of 
 them well paid ? It would be quite clear to every man that 
 such a proposition could only spring from the brain of a man 
 who was in that state of excitement which must be on the 
 very brink of lunacy. If I had these gentlemen here of whom 
 I am speaking, I should ask them this — Whether, looking 
 to the present condition of Ireland and the present condition 
 of the Established Church, if they had to begin afresh, would 
 they make such arrangements as at present exist ? I should 
 ask them further — Whether they think the result of the 
 
 L 1 2 
 
616 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. jttlt 14, 
 
 ecclesiastical arrangements of Ireland has justified the prin- 
 ciple on which those arrangements have been based ? — 
 whether, for example, the Protestant religion has become in 
 any greater and more evident degree the religion of the 
 people of Ireland ? I should ask them further — Whether 
 they think the State Church in Ireland has done anything 
 to promote effectual union with England, or whether it has 
 not rather been a bar to that union? 
 
 There is one way in which the Established Church has 
 been a link of union with England. It has been one pre- 
 cisely as the army is or the police is. It has helped, no 
 doubt, to link a nation, always ready to rebel, with a nation 
 which did not intend that it should rebel successfully. But 
 I believe, if it were possible to write honestly the histoiy of 
 that Church as a political institution, it would be found 
 that it has had much to do with the tendency to rebellion 
 in Ireland. I should ask those gentlemen one other question 
 — Whether, looking over history, as long back almost as 
 you like, and looking over the whole of the civilised and 
 Christian countries of the earth, it is possible to find an- 
 other example of the state of things which has existed in 
 Ireland for some hundreds of years in regard to its ecclesi- 
 astical establishments? Let me tell you that I should not 
 put these questions to mere partizans, because they are not 
 likely to be influenced by argument ; nor would I put them 
 to Orangemen, whose blood seems always to be at a boiling- 
 point, and who are not capable of taking a rational view of 
 this question. Nor would I put it to any minister of the 
 Established Church — I do not say that there are many such 
 men — who, with his several hundreds a year, is careful only 
 of his income, and cares very little for his office — very little 
 for his people — and, if possible, still less for his country. I 
 would put it to none of these, but I would put it to the 
 thoughtful and Christian men, who have exactly the same 
 interest in right — the same wish to discover and promote 
 
1868. XXX III, LIMERICK. 517 
 
 it — as you or I have at this moment. And if I could find 
 five hundred such men, and put these questions to them, I 
 ask you, is it possible they could return any but one answer 
 to the case I had put before them ? It is clearly beyond all 
 dispute and contest — every man in Ireland, wliatcver his 
 religion, must admit it — that the Established Church exists 
 here, not by the will and by the love of the people, but by 
 the influence of a power which does not reside within the 
 limits of this Island. I regard it as you regard it, as all men 
 regard it who are outside the United Kingdom — in all the 
 countries of Europe and in all the States of America — I 
 regard it as a symbol of ancient terror, and not in any sen- 
 sible degree as a symbol of present peace. In point of fact 
 it may be said to be an institution which, more than all other 
 institutions that ever existed, wars against its own success in 
 the natural order of things. Because it so to my mind seems 
 to shock the sense of justice in every man outside of it, that 
 it repels and revolts every man. not connected with its creed, 
 and prevents him from receiving that creed. And at the 
 same time it stimulates the hostility of those whom it insults, 
 against the English power by whom it was established and 
 is sustained. Thus I argue, without fear of dispute or proof 
 to the contrary, that the Established Church in Ireland is 
 anti-Protestant by reason of its unnatural position, and at 
 the same time it is as much anti-English as it is anti-Irish, 
 because it makes it impossible that Irish people should be 
 in perfect harmony with England. 
 
 But although a great deal of this can and may be admitted 
 by many upright and honest-minded Protestants, and by 
 some of the clergy of that Church, yet I am sensible of this — 
 4ihat there is great fright amongst them at what they fear 
 is impending. Our great poet has spoken of that 
 
 *Fear of change that perplexes monarchs,' 
 
 and therefore it is not unreasonable to suppose that there is a 
 
518 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 14, 
 
 fear of change wliicli enters into many a quiet and comfortable 
 parsonage in Ireland^ and frightens many moderate and good 
 men living in them. I am told, on very good authority, that 
 there is a feeling amongst the Church party — I do not like 
 to use the word ' party,' and I withdraw it — ^but amongst 
 Church people who are simply, kind and good Christian 
 people who love their Church — that there is a feeling of 
 despondency coming over them since the great division in the 
 House of Commons, which appeared for the time to determine 
 the future position of the Irish Church. Seeing that, they 
 are afraid that their Church will fall away, and that the 
 Church of Rome will get what ^they call the ' upper hand.' 
 As far as the * upper hand ' goes with great majorities of the 
 population, there is not much to be gained by the Church of 
 Rome. But they seem to think this, further — and as you 
 are mostly, I presume, of the Church of Rome, I will not 
 hesitate to say it here — that the Catholics and the Catholic 
 priests will manifest a sort of arrogance, and they will begin, 
 of course, not a legal, but something like a social persecu- 
 tion. We need not be much surprised at these alarms. Their 
 fears are not absolutely unnatural. You know perfectly well 
 that people who have always gone on crutches have very 
 little faith in walking; and, further, that persons who have 
 been long connected, though not with evil intent, with an 
 unjust institution, may easily imagine that they will become 
 the victims of the injustice of others. My own impression 
 is, that these fears, though not unnatural to people in their 
 position, are absolutely groundless. Has it ever occurred to 
 you how very little any of us can see at all, and how very 
 confiisedly we see things connected with our own interests, 
 and how much our mental vision is impaired on many occa- 
 sions, so as to render our opinions worth very little ? And 
 when men seem to have their interests touched on a great 
 question like this, by Acts of Parliament and changes made 
 by the Legislature of their country, they naturally feel au 
 
1868. XXXIII. LIMERICK. 519 
 
 alarm, which those who are outside can scarcely comprehend, 
 and which the facts never seem to justify. 
 
 I have before me two scenes which have struck me strong-ly, 
 in this way, during my political life. Twenty years ago, as 
 you know, the great body of the landlords of this country — 
 and in saying ' this country * I speak of the United King- 
 dom — held the opinion that they would be absolutely ruined 
 if foreign corn were allowed to come in free. They thought 
 there would be no rents — and that would be a great calamity 
 to the receivers of rent ; that there would be no employment 
 and no wages, and that the country would become dependent 
 on foreigners, and that the glory of the English nation would 
 depart. What has happened ? We now receive nearly half 
 the food of our people from abroad ; and yet the land in 
 England is more valuable than it ever was; the rents are 
 higher ; the farmers have never, from that time to this, come 
 to Parliament to complain of their grievances — which is an 
 amazing fact! The labourers find better employment, at 
 better wages. All the fears of the landed proprietors were 
 absolutely groundless; and now, if you remind them of 
 them, they feel ashamed, and would willingly change the 
 conversation. 
 
 Another case in point is that of the newspaper press. We 
 laboured, many of us for a long time, to abolish the penny 
 stamp and the duty on paper; and the great newspapers 
 in London, the Scotsman in Edinburgh, and many others, 
 were against us. They said that the penny papers would 
 be merely made up of paste and scissors by matter stolen from 
 the respectable journals, and that the respectable journals 
 would be ruined by the competition of these inferior pro- 
 ductions. We have now ten times as many papers as we 
 had before ; and instead of this new class of papers being 
 inferior productions, they aire often quite equal to the old 
 ones, and I am not sure that their competition has not im- 
 proved those old ones. Any one who knows the statistics 
 
520 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 14, 
 
 of the United Kingdom knows that the actual saleable value 
 of newspaper property in this country at this moment is at 
 least ten times as much as it was before these restrictions 
 were abolished. 
 
 So, I am one of those who do not believe that the Estab- 
 lished Church of Ireland — of whom I am not a member — 
 would go to absolute ruin in the manner of which many of 
 its friends are now so fearful. There was a paper sent to me 
 this morning, called ' An Address from the Protestants of 
 Ireland to their Protestant Brethren of Great Britain.' It 
 is dated ' 5, Dawson Street,' and is signed by ' John Trant 
 Hamilton, T. A. Lefroy, and R. W. Gamble.' The paper is 
 written in a fair and mild, and I would even say, for per- 
 sons who have these opinions, in a kindly and just spirit. 
 But they have been alarmed, and I would wish, if I can, to 
 offer them consolation. They say they have no interest in 
 protecting any abuses of the Established Church, but they 
 protest against their being now deprived of the Church of 
 their fathers. Now, I am quite of opinion that it would be 
 a most monstrous thing to deprive the Protestants of the 
 Church of their fathers ; and there is no man in the world 
 who would more strenuously resist any step, even in that 
 direction, than I would, unless it were Mr. Gladstone, the 
 author of the famous resolutions. The next sentence goes on 
 to say, ' We ask for no ascendancy.' Having read that 
 sentence I think that we must come to the conclusion that 
 these gentlemen are in a better frame of mind than we 
 thought them to be in. I can understand easily that these 
 gentlemen are very sorry and doubtful as to the depths into 
 which they are to be plunged; but I disagree with them 
 in this — that I think there would still be a Protestant Church 
 in. Ireland when all is done that Parliament has proposed to 
 do. The only difference will be it will not then be an estab- 
 lishment — that it will have no special favour or grant from 
 the State — that it will stand in relation to the State just 
 
1868. XXXIII, LIMERICK. 621 
 
 as your Church does, and just as the Churches of the majo- 
 rity of the people of Great Britain at this moment stand. 
 There will then be no Protestant bishops from Ireland to sit 
 in the House of Lords ; but he must be the most enthusiastic 
 Protestant and Churchman who believes that there can be 
 any advantage to his Church and to Protestantism gene rally- 
 in Ireland from such a phenomenon. 
 
 But all these 500,000 or 600,000 persons will be just as 
 free to keep their Church as they are this moment, and just 
 as free to have bishops and archbishops as the Roman Catholic 
 Church in Ireland is at present. It is proposed to leave tliem 
 the buildings of the churches, and wherever there is a con- 
 gregation and minister who are willing to keep in repair 
 the building, to let them have also the dwelling-house 
 and parsonage-house of the minister — all those buildings 
 which you see, some of them so beautiful, in the country. 
 There are two between this and Castleconnell that look like 
 pictures, and are absolutely lovely in the landscape. It is 
 well called the Golden Vale ; and I should be very sorry to 
 come to Castleconnell at some future time and find absent 
 those graceful spires which now add so much to the beauty 
 of that landscape. But nobody pretends that that is going 
 to be the case. These churches and parsonage-houses 
 through the country have cost millions, but they will be 
 all left to the congregations so long as they will undertake 
 to keep them in repair. There is one change which is 
 really a change — and that is, that the State should take 
 into its control all the tithes of Ireland and all the lands 
 which are not attached as gardens, &c. to the ministers' 
 houses. I cannot and ought not to venture to say what 
 Parliament will do or what Government will do with those ; 
 but I am speaking of my idea as to what ought to be done 
 in this country in this crisis. It is a matter of no doubt that 
 Parliament will be willing to dispose of these funds and that 
 property in accordance with the general views and wishes 
 
622 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 14, 
 
 of the people of Ireland. They are funds to which Great 
 Britain has not and will not make any claim. The result 
 will be that the tithes now taken from the people will have 
 to be raised by the Church itself — that the rich congrega- 
 tions will for themselves, by contributing help to the poorer 
 congregations, have to do for their Church, what is done by 
 other congregations in many other parts of the world. In the 
 Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, 
 there are many churches, many schools, and many manses 
 for ministers ; and the rich congregations in Glasgow and 
 Edinburgh contribute towards the support of the poorer con- 
 gregations elsewhere, so that all the members of these 
 Churches assist in the support of their Church in the remotest 
 parts of the Highlands of Scotland. It is so in Canada ; it 
 is so in the United States ; it is so in Australia ; and it is 
 so in England under the voluntary system ; it is so in Wales, 
 and it is exactly so in your own Church in Ireland. 
 
 No man knows that he will live till to-morrow, except that 
 he knows that he has lived till to-day ; and he must take the 
 experience of all he sees round him, and all that he learns 
 from generations past, to guide him to an opinion on this 
 subject. And surely from such an experience as this our 
 friends of the Established Church may take comfort, and 
 believe that what is done by voluntary Churches in almost 
 every part of the world may be also done by a free voluntary 
 Church in Ireland. Our friends of the Church will have 
 great advantages given them if they thus act. They will 
 have power to control their organisation, free from Acts 
 of Parliament, and thus quietly regulate their own creed and 
 discipline. Strangled almost as they are at present, by their 
 connexion with the State, their Church would then be, if in 
 some degree a small, yet I believe a living, prosperous, and 
 strong religious institution in this island. There would then 
 be generated amongst them a grand bond of sympathy and 
 union which they do not now expetience. It would be a 
 
1868. XXXIII. LIMERICK. 523 
 
 sympathy and an union on the basis of their common love for 
 their Church, as a religious and not as a political institution ; 
 and instead of hearing, as we do sometimes now, the ravings 
 of frantic Orangemen, we should see the enlightened zeal of 
 Christian men, and women, and families, acting in the spirit 
 of a free and zealous Church. 
 
 These gentlemen say that were they few and scattered, the 
 disestablishment of their Church would deprive them of the 
 ministries to which they have become entitled, and compel 
 them to abandon their posts. But nobody has abandoned his 
 post in Scotland, or Wales, or Australia, or Canada, or the 
 United States, or amongst the Catholic people of Ireland ; 
 and I dare not in this audience libel the great body of the 
 Protestants of Ireland, as these men libel them when they say 
 they would not be able to maintain their ministers or their 
 churches. In my opinion it is a very poor faith which clings 
 to Government for aid; and they are but feeble ministers 
 who, declaring that Christ is the living Head of their Church, 
 are yet afraid to march under His banner. And I say farther, 
 that State patronage has made a terrible ruin of courage and 
 zeal in Ireland, if the members of the Established Church, 
 who pretend to love it so much when it is in bonds, would be 
 unwilling to support it when it was in freedom. 
 
 But whatever be the fears of these gentlemen of whom I 
 have spoken, I believe that the changes which they dread are 
 now unavoidable. The hour appears to have come ; and the 
 transition which many of us have looked for during all our 
 political life is now about to take place. The House of 
 Commons, by a majority of more than sixty, has during this 
 Session passed resolutions declaring that the Established 
 Church of Ireland must cease to exist as an establishment ; 
 and I believe it has in this only pronounced a sentence which 
 the new constituencies of the United Kingdom will confirm 
 by a still greater majority. May I ask you whether — and in 
 speaking to you I hope that my words will reach the utmost 
 
524 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. july 14, 
 
 limits of your island — whether you, as Irishmen have no 
 special duty in connexion with this question — whether your 
 counties will not make one supreme and stupendous effort in 
 this great coming crisis ? 
 
 Let me give you one word of warning. There are men 
 connected with your Church — not with the Protestant 
 Church — who endeavour to content their constituents by 
 giving a vote on a broad question like this of the Church, in 
 favour of the people, but who give their otherwise undivided 
 support to that party in Parliament which is in favour of main- 
 taining establishments and has pronounced emphatically 
 against religious equality. Let me exhort every Irishman 
 who cares for his country, to say that, in this great — this 
 supreme occasion — when the constituencies are to decide on 
 their candidates once for all, he will not put political and 
 constitutional power, by his vote^ into the hands of men who 
 will only give him an occasional vote in the House of 
 Commons, but who will side with the party that is wholly 
 hostile to him. 
 
 This is not a time for shams. The question before you is 
 real. How can you ask the people of England and Scotland — 
 many of them, as you know — how can you ask them to make 
 a sacrifice in which, when the crisis calls you forth, you 
 cannot share, because you cannot stand firmly at your posts 
 and do your duty? What we want is this. It would be 
 greatly to the interests of Ireland that this change now 
 impending, a change which I believe nothing can now pre- 
 vent, should be made with the overruling assent of the people 
 of these kingdoms. It would add greatly to smoothing the 
 operation of the change, even to those who are most fearful 
 of its consequences, if they found the almost unanimous 
 opinion of the three kingdoms in favour of this great change. 
 They would submit to it as having the voice and sanction of 
 a nation, and would not have to submit to it as a triumph of 
 ■ a party. In these great events there are some evils mixed 
 
1868. XXXIII. LIMERICK. 525 
 
 up, as there is in all political good. I have come here from a 
 conversation with a g-entleman who differs with me, who says 
 that party spirit and enmity which have been the bane of 
 Ireland will be greatly increased by this change. In my 
 opinion that is a mistake. I say the majority, released from 
 the indignity and insult of the present state of things, will 
 show, as they will feel, generosity and magnanimit}'- to their 
 fellow-countrymen. And I say, further, that the minority, 
 being free, as their Church will then be, from the charges 
 which every man may if he likes now bring against them, 
 will feel a new life in all political, in all social, in all 
 religious questions, and will feel the very ground on which 
 they tread firmer below them. 
 
 All Irishmen may then discover, whether they are 
 Catholics or Protestants, that they are Irishmen and the 
 people of one country, and may regard the Government here- 
 after not as the patron and favourer of a political Church or 
 sect, but as the Imperial ruler of a great nation. And 
 the time may come — I hope it may come ; I do not say it 
 will come, but I pray that it may — when Irishmen and 
 Englishmen and the people of Scotland may be alike anxious 
 — I will not say for political and military power, but for the 
 greatness, strength, and happiness of this United Kingdom. 
 
 In thinking of this great question there always comes to 
 my aid a feeling which I have had ever since I entered the 
 political field — a deep and abiding faith in justice. I believe 
 that justice may be called, of all things, the miracle-worker 
 amongst men. I believe that all men are to be reached by it, 
 and all bodies of men — the inhabitants of provinces as of 
 nations ; and there is nothing I believe more firmly than this 
 — that if there be a people on the face of the earth whose 
 hearts are accessible to justice, it is the Irish people. Even 
 now, I venture to say — and I would appeal to gentlemen near 
 me if it be not so — that the discussions during the present 
 Session of Parliament, with the prospect they hold out of 
 
526 ADDRESSES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 
 
 justice on a large question— whether they have not in some 
 degree softened the hearts of many men in Ireland — whether 
 there are not those who have hitherto despaired, but begin 
 now, in some moderate degree at least, to entertain a hope 
 that what they have feared as lasting injustice is now about 
 to vanish for ever from their minds. I believe it, and what 
 is more to the purpose, I believe that the people of England 
 and Scotland are at this moment preparing to tender you a 
 great offer of justice at the general election in November 
 next. 
 
 But the Irish people must help them with will and with 
 heart. There can be no great measure of this kind accom- 
 plished unless all concerned lend willing hands ; and there can 
 be no great act of national and historic reconciliation unless all 
 the parties hitherto opposed are willing to be reconciled. 
 We are met — your kind address has referred to it — we are 
 met in the city of the violated Treaty — violated, as I admit, 
 incessantly during almost two centuries of time. Let us 
 make a new treaty — not written on parchment — not bound 
 with an oath. Its conditions should be these — justice on the 
 part of Great Britain ; forgiveness on the part of Ireland. 
 It shall be written in the hearts of three nations ; and we 
 will pray to Him who is the common Father of all peoples, 
 and in whose hand are the destinies of all states, that He will 
 make it last for ever and for ever inviolate. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abebdeen, Lobd, on Italy, and cha- 
 racter of, 32 ; opiuions of, on Rus- 
 sian war, 317 ; on the war of 1859, 
 378; 
 
 Abyssinian war, cost of, 406. 
 
 Accumulation of property, motives for, 
 271. 
 
 Administration, general result of an, 
 to be watched, 160; of Mr. Glad- 
 stone, its five years' work, 198. 
 
 Advertisements, stamp duty on, 26. 
 
 Afghanistan, character of war with, 
 
 497- 
 Africa, annexation in, we hope Russia 
 
 will not hear of, 377. 
 Afirican nation, bold front for, 204. 
 Agreement, in opinion, comes after 
 
 misfortune, 109. 
 Agricultural class, what they want, 
 
 207. 
 Agricultural labourers, condition of, 
 
 in England, 273. 
 Agriculture, chief industry of Ireland, 
 
 174. 
 Aitken, Mr., on Kensington Museum, 
 
 64. 
 Alabama, action of, its character, 4. 
 Algiers, conquest of, in 1830, alarms 
 
 about, 385. 
 Alien church, Mr. Disraeli's phrase 
 
 for Irish establishment, 83 ; a root 
 
 of bitterness, 125. 
 Almanack, the Financial Reform, its 
 
 merits, 335. 
 Althorpe, Lord, calculations of, on 
 
 Irish Church, 515. 
 America, colonisation of, its origin, 
 
 30; second Ireland in, 53; dona- 
 tions in, for public purposes, 65 ; 
 
 will adopt free trade hereafter, 182 ; 
 
 treaty of 1872 with, 205 ; civil war 
 
 in, Cobden's judgment on it, 363 ; 
 
 tariff of, monstrous, 368 ; first steam 
 
 ships to, 413. 
 Americanising our institutions, a 
 
 foolish phrase, 163. 
 Americans, motives for wishing them 
 
 to be divided, false and immoral, 
 
 113- 
 Anne, Queen, newspaper tax in reign 
 
 of, and its motive, 337, 
 Arbitration, recommended by Lord 
 
 Derby, 205 ; how possible with 
 
 Turkey, 314. 
 Archbishops and bishops on the 
 
 'stump', 76. 
 Aristocracy, a pious banker on the, 32. 
 Armaments, reduction of, effects of 
 
 on industry, 372. 
 Armies of Europe, size of, promoted 
 
 by absence of free trade, 371. 
 Army, cost of in 1868, 129; purchase 
 
 in, abolished, 199. 
 Article, the 37th, its meaning, 285. 
 Ashworth, Mr. Henry, his work on 
 
 the Anti-Com-Law League, 360; 
 
 his reflexions on Tantallon castle, 
 
 407. 
 Asia Minor, undertaking to defend, 
 
 496. 
 Assembly, a scene full of passion in an, 
 
 T71. 
 Audacity, unparalleled, of Lord Bea- 
 
 consfield, 482. 
 Austria, its attitude on the Eastern 
 
 Question, 313. 
 Ayrton, Mr., Committee of, 96. 
 Avalanches in the Alps, 299. 
 Aylesbury, Speech of Mr. Disraeli at, 
 
 297. 
 
 B. 
 
 Balance of power, theory of, aban- 
 doned, 1 29 ; its effects, 385 ; a 
 
528 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 ghastly phantom, 462 ; in the Medi- 
 terranean, 482. 
 Ballot, not remote in 1867, 45 J 
 speeches against, and defence of, 
 49; necessity for, and Mr. Mill, 
 123 ; more than ever needed under 
 new Eeform Bill, 125 ; permissive, 
 an absurdity, 153; favour towards, 
 among Liberals, 162 ; attitude of 
 Conservatives to, 200; the advan- 
 tages of, 341. 
 Baltic, the Russian fleet in the, 308. 
 Bancroft, Mr., on American colonis* 
 ation, 30 ; on the Colony of Vir- 
 ginia, 408. 
 Banker, a pious, on the aristocracy, 
 23; rich, at Leeds, his alarms at 
 reforms, 217. 
 Bankrupt, India is nearly, 500. 
 Bar, the, its indifference to the source 
 
 of the fee, 236. 
 Barbarism, checks to, 470. 
 Barclay, Sir William, Governor of 
 
 Virginia, on education, 409. 
 Bath letter, the writer of the, 210. 
 Bath, Marquis of, his admirable 
 
 speech, 294. 
 Battle, great, going on in 1868, 118. 
 Bedlam, the minority clause ought to 
 
 have come from, 104. 
 Bequest, freedom of, the true reform 
 
 of land laws, 273. 
 Besika Bay, the fleet in, 392. 
 Birmingham, subscription of, in aid of 
 Lancashire distress, 10 ; action of, 
 as regards Reform, 18; action of 
 Tory Government towards, 89 ; in- 
 ferior and minority member for, 
 102 ; is all Liberal, as all the sea is 
 salt, 103 ; diminution of voting 
 powers of electors of, 154; attitude 
 of, on public education, 177; trade 
 of, with France, 182 ; not unpre- 
 pared, at a sudden dissolution, 215 ; 
 Liberal Association of, its constitu- 
 tion, 250 ; political activity in, 256 ; 
 conduct of, a theme for satisfaction, 
 261 ; an appetite for stirring tiines 
 in, 347 ; is politically one, 351 ; its 
 character and position, 354. 
 Bishop, a (of Manchester), condemned 
 purchase in the Church, 199 ; a, and 
 a Wesleyan Minister, 237. 
 Bishops, general attitude of, on pub- 
 lic questions, 77 ; of Irish Church, 
 number of, 515, 
 Blockade, question of, 4 ; system of, 
 
 at an end, 5. 
 Bondage, human, motive of Southern 
 insurrection, 113. 
 
 Bondholders, Egyptian, classes of, 496. 
 
 Boroughs, the, possess a Republican 
 
 franchise, 121; majority of Liberals 
 
 in, 267 ; small, cliaracter of, 29. 
 
 Boroughmongers, the, disturbed by 
 
 Lord Grey, 216. 
 Borough franchise, efiects of extend- 
 ing, 341- 
 Borough Reeve, of Manchester, his 
 
 existence, 401. 
 Bosphorus, the, description of, 387. 
 Boyhood, education in the speaker's, 
 
 410. 
 Bradford, its services to Free Trade, 
 367 ; speech of Mr. Hardy at, 473 ; 
 Conservatives of, what prevails 
 with them, 488. 
 Bread, rise in price of, during the 
 
 Crimean War, 304. 
 Breakfast-table, free, advantage of, 
 136 ; free, spoken of, at Edinburgh, 
 165. 
 Bribery, prevalence of, in 1868, 161. 
 Bright side of England, in what it 
 
 consists, 16, 17. 
 Bright, Mr. Jacob, his return for 
 
 Manchester, 39. 
 Bright, Mr,, once burnt in eflfigy and 
 
 hissed and hooted by mobs, 348. 
 British interests, a cunning phrase, 
 462 ; what we are told to look at, 
 481. 
 Broken haired *un, description of 
 
 Lord Derby, 43. 
 Brougham, Lord, on early education, 
 
 467. 
 Bryant, Mr., on Liberty, 256. 
 Buckingham, County of, wages in, 
 
 and their rise, 219. 
 Bulgaria, Sir H. Elliot on, 483. 
 Bulgarians, half of them handed back 
 
 to the Turk, 495. 
 Bulwark of liberties, what it is not, 
 
 148. 
 Byron, Lord, on the unretuming 
 brave, 487. 
 
 C. 
 
 Cabinet, inner, the character of, 35 ; 
 
 secrecy of, and the ballot, 50; of 
 
 1868, shufl^ling and offensive, 88; 
 
 the, and the departments, 142 ; the, 
 
 its constitution and working, 159. 
 Cabinet secrets, time of making up, 
 
 209. 
 Cairns, Lord, his amendment of the 
 
 minority clause, loi. 
 Calendar, Lord Derby a saint in that 
 
 of Conservatives, 47. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 529 
 
 Canada, soldiers in, and why, 54; and 
 United States, relative strength of, 
 
 383. 
 
 Canal, Suez, distance of Constantin- 
 ople from, 307. 
 
 Canals, in India, use of, 444. 
 
 Canterbury, Archbishop of, his bill, 
 231 ; Archbishop of, on Church Es- 
 tablishments, 243. 
 
 Capitulated, everybody listened and 
 at last everybody, 114. 
 
 Carnarvon, Lord, message of a bishop 
 to> 239; his quitting office, 474. 
 
 Cathedral, strong, in a Somersetshire 
 borough, 48. 
 
 Catholics, Boman, representation of, 
 18. 
 
 Catholicism, not only a belief in Ire- 
 land, but a patriotism, 31. 
 
 Cave, Mr., and the Khedive, 391. 
 
 Cavour, on war of 1854, 3^3- 
 
 Chamberlain, Mr , on education, 200 ; 
 on the Gothenburg system, 332 ; his 
 liking for work, 347. 
 
 Chambers of Commerce, functions 
 which they might fulfil, 374. 
 
 Chancellor, Lord, his ecclesiastical 
 patronage, 242. 
 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, the, in 
 Yorkshire, 296. 
 
 Changes, since 1832, character of, 29. 
 
 Character, its value in private life, 265. 
 
 Charles III, of Spain, 8. 
 
 Chesney, Colonel, on Indian canals, 
 
 439- 
 
 Chevalier, Michel, his association with 
 Cobden, 362. 
 
 Childhood, power of, to learn, 467. 
 
 Children, disobedience of, often the 
 result of bad education, 345. 
 
 Chowler, Mr., threats of, 218. 
 
 Christianity, what it points to, 133; 
 essential truths of, mysterious but 
 not many, 467. 
 
 Christians, Eastern, their sympathy 
 with Russia, 301. 
 
 Church, Christian, composed of many 
 churches, 72. 
 
 Church of England, disestablishment 
 of, a serious question, 247 ; will in- 
 clude varieties of opinion, 233. 
 
 Cliurch, the, difference of, in England, 
 Wales, and Ireland, 74 ; Protestant 
 Episcopal in Ireland, its condition 
 in 1873, 198; purchase in existing, 
 199 ; the, a residuum in, 279; the, 
 its alliance with the Conservative 
 party, 351, 427. 
 
 Church, the Established, feeling of on 
 Eastern Question, 294. 
 
 Church Defence Association, its tac- 
 tics, 245. 
 Church rates, grievance of, in Wales, 
 
 85 ; repeal of, and effects of, 222. 
 Cities, great, fall of, 403. 
 Citizen, simple, speaker says he is 
 
 content to be, 107. 
 Civil Service, the, of India, 500. 
 Civilising influences, induced in 
 
 schools, 467. 
 Clarendon, Lord, his History of the 
 
 Rebellion quoted, 488. 
 Classes, particular, great men do not 
 
 represent, 259. 
 Classes, Science, in Rochdale, 420. 
 Clay, Sir William, his act of 1851, 
 
 92. 
 Clergy, effect upon, of their orders, 
 
 150; lawless and to be curbed, the 
 
 charge of the Archbishop's bill, 232. 
 Clergyniau, story of, on Irish Church, 
 
 222. 
 Clergymen, some Liberal, 428, 
 Club, of working men in Rochdale, 
 
 323- 
 
 Cobden, Mr., and commercial treaty, 
 25 ; on condition of education in 
 Russia, 63 ; his labours for free 
 trade, 108 ; Lord Stanley framed a 
 speech on model of speeches of, 
 112; on government manufactories, 
 1 40 ; motives of, in negotiating the 
 French treaty, 183 ; on freedom of 
 land, 207 ; anecdote of, and the 
 Emperor Napoleon, 212 ; on reform 
 of the Engl^h land system, 279; 
 his wisdom and sagacity, 285 ; his 
 pamphlet on England, Ireland, and 
 America, and its merits, 318; on 
 his history and character, 359 sqq. 
 
 Cobden Club, the, a purpose which 
 it might fulfil, 374. 
 
 Cole, Mr,, his activity, 64. 
 
 Colenso, Bishop, in England, and re- 
 ception of, 239. 
 
 Colonies, English, use the Ballot, 49 ; 
 prosperity of, 333 ; send neither 
 men nor money, 498. 
 
 Colonisation, American, origin of, 30. 
 
 Commandments, the Ten, a harassing 
 piece of legislation, 216. 
 
 Commercial interests, bonds of peace. 
 
 Commercial treaty, effects of, 300. 
 
 Committee, an honestly chosen, of 
 House of Commons, wanted, 145. 
 
 Commons, House of, never enthu- 
 siastic and unanimous except when 
 it does not know what it is doing 
 and where it is going, 231. 
 
 M m 
 
530 
 
 1 N DE X. 
 
 Company, East India, fall of, 436. 
 Compound Householders, act of 185 1, 
 91. 
 
 Compounding, practice of, 91 ; restor- 
 ation of practice of, 171. 
 
 Conferences, effects of, 315. 
 
 Conference, the, if wise, its verdict 
 was righteous, 384. 
 
 Congress, the object of Government 
 in the, 483. 
 
 Conservative, who has the truest 
 right to name of, 326. 
 
 Conservatives, have changed their 
 name several times, 1 80 ; of Edin- 
 burgh, not at home at elections, 
 263 ; their treatment of Peel, 264 ; 
 their objects and organisation, 424. 
 
 Conservative party, should be ashamed 
 to talk of Ireland, 130; leaders of, 
 in a state of strict seclusion, 210; 
 attitude of, towards great measures, 
 224; its allies, 351. 
 
 Conspiracy, stimulants to, 52. 
 
 Constantinople, occupation of, by 
 Turkey, and consequences of, 289 ; 
 site of, 303. 
 
 Constitution, English, by representa- 
 tive government, 29 ; British sus- 
 pension of, 510. 
 
 Consumption, national, increase of, 
 
 335- 
 
 Converts to Rome, origin of, I48 ; to 
 the Roman Church, their origin, 
 244. 
 
 Cooke, S. W. Eothergill, his inven- 
 tions, 417. 
 
 Cook, Captain, his journeys, 414. 
 
 Cooks, judges take with them in 
 Wales. 82. 
 
 Cooperation, the hopes of, 343. 
 
 Corn, legislation on, 327. 
 
 Com Laws, effect of abolition of, 22 ; 
 extension of, would have induced 
 insurrection, 195 ; effects of repeal 
 of, on agricultural labourers, 2^^ ; 
 effects of the, 328, 9 ; effect of re- 
 peal of, 519. 
 
 Cornwall, a religious county, 428. 
 
 Corporation Reform Act, effects of, 2 76. 
 
 Corporations, reform of, 19. 
 
 Corporators, the old described, 217. 
 
 Cotton, price of, in 1863, 10. 
 
 Cotton, Sir Arthur, on Indian irriga- 
 tion, 405 ; on prevention of Indian 
 Famine, 437; his wide experience, 
 441. 
 
 Coach travelling in 1832, 414. 
 
 Counties, should have the suffrage 
 given to towns, 44 ; majority of 
 Conservatives in, and why, 267. 
 
 Country air, needed for the House of 
 
 Commons, 399. 
 Country gentlemen, effects of policy 
 
 of, 274 
 County franchise, necessity of ex- 
 extending, 352. 
 County, the, as opposed to the town, 
 
 its condition, 277. 
 Credit, vote of, its character, 474. 
 Crimean War, the, its origin and 
 
 progress, 381 ; losses of, 494. 
 Cromwell, Protector, on English law, 
 
 429. 
 Cross, Mr., on English interests in 
 
 the East, 457. 
 Cruelty to dumb animals, odious, 468. 
 Crusaders, purposes of the, 304. 
 Cunard Company, the, its operations, 
 
 413. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dale, Mr., on serious people and 
 politics, 15. 
 
 Dangerous matter, an atmosphere 
 charged with, 171. 
 
 Dardanelles the, closure of by Tur- 
 key, 290. 
 
 Dartmouth, Lord, his mutiny, 245. 
 
 Day-school, attempts to teach religion 
 in, 178. 
 
 Decazes, Due, his merits, 313. 
 
 Democratic, the act of 1867, 44. 
 
 Denial, flat, given often in the House, 
 which is known to be untrue, 143. 
 
 Denmark and Germany, war with in 
 1864, 379. 
 
 Denmark, king of, his difficulties, 34. 
 
 Denominational schools, little public 
 interest in, rates for, 202. 
 
 Denominational system, effects of, 1 79- 
 
 Denomination, one third of the people 
 belong to none, 179, 
 
 Degradation of the franchise, whose 
 phrase, 121. 
 
 Departments, expenditure of, 142. 
 
 Derby, Lord, when member of Sir R. 
 Peel's cabinet, 35 ; the Government 
 of, 36 ; criticism of a Tory journalist 
 on, 42 ; career of, 43 ; has not 
 changed his opinions, but his tactics, 
 45 ; in defence of free trade, 47 ; 
 a boastful leader, has capitulated, 
 122; the most passionate and igno- 
 rant of political leaders, 221. 
 
 Derby, Lord (2nd), recommended 
 arbitiation with United States, 205; 
 his speech at Edinburgh, 263 ; poli- 
 tical character of, 269 ; his speeches, 
 character of, 293 j merits of a re- 
 
I N BE X. 
 
 531 
 
 cent speech of his, 396 ; in the 
 Foreign OflBce made a victim to 
 tradition, 461 ; speeches on the 
 night of his resignation, 473 ; his 
 quitting office, 474 ; his resigna- 
 tion, and explanation on, 482. 
 
 Despotism, the, of the Indian Govern- 
 ment, 499. 
 
 Devon commission, report of, 510. 
 
 Difficulty, the religious, diminishing, 
 178. 
 
 Directors of railways, often attacked, 
 and unjustly, 416. 
 
 Discord and drink, twin demons, at 
 elections, 161. 
 
 Disestablishment, objects of in Ire- 
 knd, 78. 
 
 Disloyalty, tacit, its amount in Ire- 
 land, 86. 
 
 Dispatch, an infamous, circulated by 
 Lord Salisbury, 484. 
 
 Dispersion of landed property, natural 
 forces towards, 127; of property, 
 causes of, 272. 
 
 Disraeli, Mr., his invective, 43 ; his 
 skill in phrases, his denunciation of 
 the Irish establishment, 83 ; is the 
 Government, 94 ; opposed the mi- 
 nority clause, and afterwards carried 
 it, loi ; on compovmding, 151 ; 
 labourers near him, their wages, 
 219 ; on those who buy shares, and 
 call it progress, 263 ; his attitude 
 on the wrongdoings of Turkey, 292; 
 a great actor, but speaks to the 
 galleries, 317. 
 
 Dissolution, Birmingham not unpre- 
 pared at a sudden, 215. 
 
 Distress, commercial, ita wide-spread 
 character, 370. 
 
 Distribution of seats, according to 
 population, 122. 
 
 Disturbance by Liberal party, in 
 what it consists, 216. 
 
 Divine Master, the, and the Irish 
 Establishment, 223. 
 
 Dixon, Mr., on American inventive- 
 ness, 62 ; his labours for education, 
 179. 
 
 Dolgelly, English judge at, 82. 
 
 Domestic servants, wages of, 344. 
 
 Donkey race, cumidative vote like, 
 100. 
 
 Double Government of India, its 
 characteristics, 110. 
 
 Drinking, dissuadves from, 323. 
 
 Dublin, election committee on, sat for 
 seventy -three days, 97. 
 
 Duchies, Danish, the, 34. 
 
 Duels, practice of, obsolete, 323. 
 
 M m 
 
 Durham, Lord, on Russian designs, 
 
 458. 
 Duties, public, according to Mr. Mill 
 
 should be performed publicly, 124. 
 Duties, French, higher than ours, 183. 
 Duke, . the alarms of a, at free trade, 
 
 218.' 
 
 E. 
 
 East, policy of England in, 290. 
 
 Eastern Question, exaggerated im- 
 portance of the, 310. 
 
 Ebenezer Elliott, his verses, 329. 
 
 Ecclesiastical affairs, exciting and ex- 
 plosive, 229. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, House of 
 Commons enthusiastic about, 231. 
 
 Economy, unpopular in India, 445. 
 
 Edinburgh, Conservative working man 
 of, 263. 
 
 Education, difficulties in way of, being 
 removed, 59 ; low comparative cha- 
 racter of, in England, 60 ; must be 
 enforced and extended cautiously, 
 66; religious opinions with, 116; 
 the more it is given the more it is 
 asked for, 133 ; public and national, 
 its pressing importance, 163; pub- 
 lic, its importance, 177; bill for 
 national, its history and its faults, 
 201 ; the progress of, 344 ; Cobden's 
 interest in, 358 ; Sir William Bar- 
 clay on, 409. 
 
 Education Bill, the, its merits and 
 defects, 277. 
 
 Efforts, good and honest, generally 
 succeed, 176. 
 
 Egypt, pledge of Russia to keep out- 
 side of, 384 ; feelings of France 
 toward, 394. 
 
 Eighteenpence a day, plenty of valour 
 to be got for, 487. 
 
 Elector, franchise the right of, 199. 
 
 Electoral system, its character, 161. 
 
 Electric telegraph, uses and invention 
 of, 416. 
 
 Elizabeth and Victoria, difference of 
 their times, 241. 
 
 Elliot, Sir Henry, on the atrocities in 
 Bulgaria, 483. 
 
 Elliott, Mr. R., his pamphlet on India, 
 
 437. 
 Eloquence, defined by Milton, 107. 
 Emigration, origin of, in England, 30 ; 
 
 eftects of, 336. 
 Emperor, the French, his action about 
 
 the commercial treaty, 25. 
 Emperor, the (Napoleon), his opinion 
 
 about monopolists, 368. 
 
 % 
 
532 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Emperor of Russia, the, his reign, 460. 
 
 Engineers, services of great, 415; 
 value of, in India, 444. 
 
 England, no longer mistress of the 
 seas during the Russian war, 3 ; 
 Government of, on blockades, 6 ; 
 bright side of, no subject for poli- 
 tical speech, 16 ; true interests of, 
 the first consideration for English- 
 men, 37 ; in grave-clothes of the 
 middle ages, 37 ; once only one 
 Church in, 72 ; a gentleman from 
 Glasgow objects to name of, 1 1 1 ; 
 mother of parliaments, 114 ; what 
 must be done in Ireland, not there- 
 fore necessary in, 115; education 
 in, not on the level with other ad- 
 vantages, 133; in, they make 
 reforms, 213; owners of land in, 
 270 ; people of, have learned some- 
 thing since 1854, 288 ; the mother 
 of free nations, and her duties, 319 ; 
 in 1877, made European concert 
 impossible, 383 ; alone in Europe 
 with regard to the Bosphorus, 395 ; 
 feelings of the continent towards, 
 in 1856, 455 ; union of Ireland with, 
 how the Establishment helps, 516. 
 
 'England, Ireland, and America,' a 
 pamphlet of Cobden, 358. 
 
 Enthusiasm, use of, 441. 
 
 * Epic of Hades,' a gem added to the 
 wealth of English poetry. 365. 
 
 Equitable Pioneers, its library, 421. 
 
 Error, which says that nothing has 
 been done, but all remains to be 
 done, 213. 
 
 Establishments, discussion about, 71. 
 
 Establishment, the, archbishops and 
 bishops stumping in defence of, 
 243 ; abolition of, not a subject to 
 pledge candidates to, 246. 
 
 Establishment, Irish, character of, 
 
 514. 
 
 Established Church, as a political in- 
 stitution only, extinguished, 198 ; 
 advantages got by, in education 
 grants, 202. 
 
 Estimates, never refused, 143 ; new 
 system of framing the, suggested, 
 
 145. 
 
 Europe, governments of, much alike, 
 147; we should not meddle in 
 affairs of, 131 ; states of, land laws 
 in, 273 ; powers of, on the action 
 of government, 484. 
 
 European law, what it is, 48 1 . 
 
 Euston station, a governor-general at, 
 
 442. 
 Evening Mail, articles in the, 353. 
 
 Executive government, purposes of, 
 
 in 1872, 19-;. 
 Expenditure, government, burden of, 
 
 128 ; of government excessive, 141 ; 
 
 no single member can make any 
 
 difference in the, 145 ; refoim in, 
 
 necessary, 164; of Mr. Gladstone's 
 
 administration, 208. 
 Extinguisher taking fire, a dangerous 
 
 thing, 233. 
 
 F. 
 
 Factory Acts, history of, 151. 
 
 Faith, feeble, which clings to Govern- 
 ment, 523. 
 
 Famine, artificial in this country, 109 ; 
 in India, causes of, 437; duty of, 
 509. 
 
 Families, great, policy of building up, 
 128; troubles in, often arise from 
 defective education of children, 
 346. 
 
 Fantees, who swear by General Ma- 
 carthy's coat, 224. 
 
 Farmer, Welsh, his phrase about his 
 landlord, 82 ; condition of, since 
 repeal of Corn Laws, 331. 
 
 Farm labourer, wages of, increase of, 
 
 331. 
 
 Fenian party, its operations in Ire- 
 land, 86. 
 
 Field, Mr. Cyrus, his services, 417. 
 
 Financial Reformer, the, its informa- 
 tion, 426. 
 
 Fitzgerald, Mr., on land in Ireland, 
 269-70 and note. 
 
 Fleet, the, at the Dardanelles, a 
 menace, 296; its position in 1878, 
 476. 
 
 Forces, amount of, in 1868, 129. 
 
 Foreign office, dislike of, to unplea- 
 sant tidings, 291 ; traditions of the, 
 460. 
 
 Foreign opinion on Ireland, 54. 
 
 Foreign policy, chief event of, the 
 war with Russia, 194; that of this 
 country critical, 376. 
 
 Foreign politics, more considered than 
 home affairs, 492. 
 
 Foreign secretary, popular opinions 
 about, 1 1 ; place of, in cabinet, 36. 
 
 Fortnightly Review, the, on Canon 
 Kingsley, 336. 
 
 Fox, Mr., his speeches, 330. 
 
 France, treaty with, 24; feeling of 
 English towards, during Italian 
 war, 33 ; law of division of land 
 in, 128; taxation of, from 1815, 
 
I N D E X. 
 
 533 
 
 I47 ; commercial treaty with, its 
 effects, 180; in, they make revo- 
 lutions, 213 ; opinion of, in rela- 
 tion to Egypt, 394; not in favour 
 of the war of 1854, 454 5 S'"*^ *° 
 contain more fools and gamblers 
 than England, 496. 
 
 Franchise, the right of the elector, 
 199; degradation of, its meaning, 
 121 ; county, need of reform in, 
 123; the extension of, 280. 
 
 Free breakfast-table, not impossible, 
 185. 
 
 Free churches, in Scotland, their 
 opinion, 230. 
 
 Free church of Scotland, character of, 
 522. 
 
 Freedom, progress of, certain, 14 ; 
 of city of Edinburgh, what it 
 means, 106. 
 
 Free land, question of, coming on 
 and inevitable, 1 86. 
 
 French, Emperor of, feelings about 
 him, 9 ; people, popular ideas about, 
 34 ; treaty, Cobden's work in the, 
 362. 
 
 Frere, Sir Bartle, on Indian irriga- 
 tion, 440. 
 
 Free trade, progress of, 21; labour 
 required to achieve, 108, 
 
 Friends, of those who get older, more 
 are in the other world, 259. 
 
 Fugitive slaves, circular about, 393. 
 
 G. 
 
 Gaelic, the echo in, 392. 
 
 Galleries, Mr. Disraeli speaks to the, 
 
 317- 
 
 Gallows, the, a great preserver in 
 Ireland, 51. 
 
 Gaslight, use of, comparatively mo- 
 dern, 411. 
 
 Gentlemanly conformity wanted, it is 
 said, for the Church of England, 
 
 234- 
 
 Germany, resolution in, fears of, 35 ; 
 its attitude on the Eastern Ques- 
 tion, 313. 
 
 Gibraltar, fortress of, the history of 
 its acquisition, 8. 
 
 Gibson, Mr. Milner, on Cobden andl 
 the commercial treaty, 25 ; his ser- 
 vices to the press, 259. 
 
 Give, to be educated to, a source of 
 great pleasure, 465. 
 
 Gladstone, Mr., speech of, during the 
 American War, 1 1 ; at Manchester, 
 35 ; driven from office in 1866, 45 ; 
 
 his resolutions, 78; charged with 
 abolition of compounding, 93 ; his 
 sagacity, generosity, love of free- 
 dom, justice, 96 ; the formation of 
 his Government, 157 ; his abandon- 
 ment of the leadership, his merits?, 
 247 ; on the Rochdale Club, 323 ; 
 cavils at him, 494 ; has no wish to 
 injure Protestantism in Ireland, 
 520. 
 
 Glasgow, objections of a gentleman 
 of, to name ' England,' 1 1 1 . 
 
 Globe, the, on the cheap press, 27. 
 
 Gothenburg, licensing system of, 312. 
 
 Government, representative, in Eng- 
 lish constitution, 29 ; the, not of 
 statesmen, 53 ; should not do any- 
 thing, 60 ; should not manufacture, 
 140 ; the expectant services always 
 bear upon the, 145 ; change of, in 
 1868, 157; a, learns much from 
 public discussion, 178; constitution 
 of new, 229; can order uniform 
 only, 236 ; the difficulties of, in 
 1877, 393 ; a feeble faith clings to, 
 423 ; in India, its perils, 446 ; 
 members of, in 1878, contradicted 
 each other, 477 ; the, conduct of, 
 506. 
 
 Governor-General, the only person in 
 India in favour of economy, 445. 
 
 Governors-General of India, know no 
 more than others, 442. 
 
 Graham, Sir James, opinions o^ on 
 Crimean War, 317. 
 
 Grandfathers, we are more rational 
 than our, 112. 
 
 Greece, cession of Ionian islands to, 7« 
 
 Grey, Lord, his disturbance of the 
 boroughmongers, 216. 
 
 Grievance, an Irish, in 1870, 172. 
 
 Grievances, cause why speaker is be- 
 fore the public, 16. 
 
 Greasing the wheels, political, process 
 of, 143. 
 
 Guildhall, toasting at, its effects, 317. 
 
 Guizot, M., quotations from, 317. 
 
 H. 
 
 Habeas Corpus Act, suspension of, 
 
 in Ireland, 510. 
 Happiness, political, of a party, 40. 
 Harassing, the Ten Commandments 
 
 would have been, 216. 
 Hardy, Mr., his boisterous and reckless 
 
 assertions, 473 ; on British interests, 
 
 48 1 ; proud to be a member of the 
 
 ministry, 487. 
 
534 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Harcourt, Sir William, speech of, on 
 the Church, 235 ; on the state of the 
 Church, 240 ; on the Church of Rome, 
 244. 
 
 Heresy, the minority clause a, 104. 
 
 Hierarchy, households of, and the 
 Church of Rome, 149. 
 
 History, materials for the narratives 
 of, in 1 868, 1 1 8 ; of one's own times 
 little known, 235 ; what it is apt to 
 treat of, 342. 
 
 Hobgoblins, turn out after a time re- 
 spectable creatures, 115. 
 
 Hodgkinson, Mr., on compounding, 
 93 ; his motion for the abolition of 
 compounding, 151. 
 
 Hogshead, the bursting of the, 234. 
 
 Holy Writ in an act of Parliament, 
 361. 
 
 Home affairs, foreign politics more 
 considered than, 492. 
 
 Hope, Mr. George, of Haddington, a 
 great agriculturist, 402. 
 
 Horsfall, Mr., his motion on the Con- 
 gress of Paris, 3. 
 
 House ,of Commons, cannot contend 
 against interests of those who live 
 on taxes, 141 ; the speaker for the 
 first time returned thanks for, 398 ; 
 insults of Government to, in 1878, 
 480. 
 
 Householder, * degradation of the fran- 
 chise' to, 121. 
 
 Hume, Mr. Joseph, his career in Par- 
 liament, 144; his fighting the esti- 
 mates for forty years, 146 ; his ser- 
 vices in the House, 258. 
 
 Huxley, Mr., a great authority on 
 questions of race, 173. 
 
 Idea, one, possession of, a cause of 
 division, 253. 
 
 Idle class, not in the United States, 63. 
 
 Ignorance, a deplorable feature in na- 
 tional character, 67; among the 
 poorest classes, 136; aid of, to 
 Tories, 255. 
 
 Illness, severity of the speaker's, 190. 
 
 Imports and exports to India, amount 
 of, 501. 
 
 Incident, what is called an, 483. 
 
 Income-tax, faults of, 209. 
 
 India, effect of a speech of Mr. 
 Gladstone in, 12; government of, 
 once, described, 1 10 ; office of Sec- 
 retary of State for, offered to Mr. 
 Bright, 158 ; traditional policy of 
 governing, 158 ; condition of, 404 ; 
 
 true policy for, 406 ; wealth of, sup- 
 posed, an error, 435 ; cannot be 
 governed under the present system, 
 445 ; speaker's scheme for govern- 
 ment of, 447 ; taxation of, 499. 
 
 Indian empire, the interests of, 434. 
 
 Industry, loss to, in armies, 1 30 ; taxa- 
 tion levied on, 147; strangled by 
 monopoly, 190. 
 
 Irrigation, importance of, to India, 
 405 ; in India, effects of, 444. 
 
 Insurrection, how we put down in 
 India, and sympathised with in 
 America, 112. 
 
 Intelligence of some men is to be en- 
 tirely in the wrong, 101. 
 
 Intemperance, no one should have an 
 interest in, 323. 
 
 Interests, public, should not be sacri- 
 ficed to family pride, 128; de- 
 veloped by Government expendi- 
 ture 141 ; British, cry of, 481. 
 
 International law, its indefinite cha- 
 racter, 2. 
 
 Ionian islands, cession of, 7. 
 
 Ireland, parliamentary representation 
 in, before and after 1829, 18; Catho- 
 licism in, its nature, 31 ; condition 
 of, a necessary subject of considera- 
 tion, 51 ; reforms in, 52 ; second, in 
 America, 53 ; military forces in, 
 54 ; how it has been governed, 70 ; 
 a cause of weakness to united king- 
 dom, 114; religious equality in, 
 tenure of land in, 125; policy of 
 Tories in, and its results, 130 ; has 
 no longer a Catholic grievance, 172; 
 Protestant Episcopal Church in, 1 98 ; 
 landlords in, 199 ; owners of land 
 in, 270 ; a shadow over, 513 ; party 
 spirit and enmity the curse of, 525. 
 
 Irish, discontented and insulted, 55 ; 
 argument of, if Church be not dis- 
 established, 87. 
 
 Irish Church, abolition of, necessary 
 for just government of Ireland, 31 ; 
 hierarchy of, in 183.^, 76 ; revenues 
 of, 79 ; the first question before the 
 Government of 1868, 160 ; policy of 
 Government towards, 171; abolition 
 of, effects of, 222. 
 
 Irishmen, hostility of, causes for, 30. 
 
 Ironclads, purchase of three, 475. 
 
 Island, an (Cyprus), taken possession 
 of, 496. 
 
 Italy, freedom of, Lord Aberdeen on, 
 32 ; foolish expenditure of, on a fleet, 
 
 385. 
 Inventions, number of, in United 
 
 States, 63. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 535 
 
 J. 
 
 Johnson, Dr., advice of, on health, 
 127, 271 ; on education, 409. 
 
 Joint Stock Company, the Government 
 have entered into, 495. 
 
 Judges in Wales have but little to do, 
 82. 
 
 Jury, decides by a secret process, 49 ; 
 duties of, like those of voters, 124. 
 
 Justice, court of, and the ballot, 49 ; 
 equal, in Mr. Disraeli's language, 
 equal injustice, 92 ; the miracle- 
 worker among men, 525. 
 
 Kay, Mr. Joseph, his researches on 
 social condition in England and 
 Europe, 272. 
 
 Kelso, newspapers in, 337. 
 
 Kinglake, Mr., his estimates of loss in 
 Crimean War, 286. 
 
 Kingsley, Canon, on state of the na- 
 tion, 336. 
 
 Khedive, the, and the Government, 
 39 1 ; the rights of the, and the way 
 to deal with him, 497 ; muddle with, 
 496. 
 
 L. 
 
 Labour representatives, recommended 
 at Liverpool, 256. 
 
 Labourers, farm, little improvement 
 in condition of, 135 ; effects of free 
 trade on wages of, 219. 
 
 Labouring classes, condition of, can- 
 not be neglected, 137. 
 
 Laing, Mr., on Russian designs, 460. 
 
 Land, Irish, condition of, 115 ; trans- 
 ference of, to the population, 126. 
 
 Land, freedom of, its importance, 207; 
 compensation to, for loss of com 
 laws, claimed by Mr. Disraeli, 219; 
 division of, 209 ; division of, in 
 England, 426 ; in Ireland, legisla- 
 tion on, 513. 
 
 Land Act, effect of, in Ireland, 223. 
 
 Land laws, alterations of, the effects 
 of, 186. 
 
 Landowners, less able to use coercion, 
 83 ; becoming a smaller number of 
 persons, 126. 
 
 Land question, in Ireland awkward. 
 
 Land reform, projects of, origin of, 
 274. 
 
 Language of England, its extension, 
 
 319- 
 Lansdowne, Lord, his calculations, 
 
 452. 
 Law, barbarity of, in Ireland, 51 ; 
 
 English, Cromwell's jud.rement on, 
 
 429 ; European, the defence of, 
 
 481. 
 Lawrence, Lord, his opinion on the 
 
 future of India, 447. 
 Lawyers, gorged with patronage, 46 ; 
 
 their sympathy with Conservatism, 
 
 429. 
 Leading case, the Irish Church is not 
 
 a. 115- 
 
 League, Anti-Com-Law, its work, 359 ; 
 drilled the people, 369. 
 
 Leases, Scotch, have advantages, 126. 
 
 Lee, Mrs., the postmistress of Roch- 
 dale, 340. 
 
 Leeds, banker at, his alarms, 217. 
 
 Legacy and succession duties, equalis- 
 ation of, 136. 
 
 Legislation, power of, 324. 
 
 Lesseps, M., his offer about the Suez 
 Canal, 307 ; and the Suez Canal, 
 389 ; his suggestions witli regard to 
 the Suez Canal, 457. 
 
 L'Estrange, his kind of speech in the 
 times of Charles I, 488. 
 
 Levelling up, policy of, 84. 
 
 Liberal, as all the sea is salt, so all 
 Birmingham, 103. 
 
 Liberals, ask what Birmingham will 
 do with the minority clause, 105 ; 
 the policy of the, 279 ; their object 
 and organisation, 425. 
 
 Liberal-Conservative, what he is at 
 Westminster, 153. 
 
 Liberal party, has to do work, 206 ; 
 policy of, 2io; in what sense dis- 
 turbers, 2 16; responsible for changes, 
 but responsible for good, 226 ; ga- 
 thers itself up when it is wanted, 
 247 ; in Birmingham, how organ- 
 ised, 251 ; divisions of, a cause of 
 defeat, 253 ; its duty is to bring 
 about intelligent union, 260; its 
 historical functions, 265 ; not with- 
 out a policy, but has too much 
 policy, 2 75 ; organisation of the, 
 
 349- 
 
 Licensing acts, authors of, all parties, 
 223. 
 
 Lincoln, President, entered Richmond 
 on the day of Cobden's death, 364. 
 
 Lindsay, Mr., his work on merchant 
 shipping, 241. 
 
 Liverpool, probable effect on, by sud- 
 den panic in 1 863, 5 ; called the 
 
636 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 capital of Wales, 69 ; eflfects ^ of 
 minority clause in, 102 ; meeting 
 at, 256. 
 Lloyd, Mr., at Birmingham, 95 ; his 
 speeches dull fiction, 148; on mi- 
 nority representation, 154. 
 Loans of England to Turkey, 287. 
 London, bishop of, and bishop of Natal, 
 240. 
 
 London newspapers on the Suez Canal 
 shares, 391. 
 
 London press, eflPect of statements by, 
 12. 
 
 Lords, House of, on repeal of Corn 
 Laws, 22 ; when it cannot do a great 
 deal of mischief, delights in doing a 
 little, loi ; no longer fear of a con- 
 test with, 123 ; last refuge of politi- 
 cal ignorance and passion, 193 ; a 
 residuum in the, 278. 
 
 Lowe, Mr., negotiations with, in 1866, 
 46 ; absurd proposal of, 100. 
 
 Lowe, Mr. Councillor, his speech, 148. 
 
 Lying, enormous, of Tories, 255. 
 
 M. 
 
 Macarthy, General, oath of Fantees, 
 
 by his coat, 224. 
 Madras, old map of, 439. 
 Magistrates, administration by, 276. 
 Mahometan soldiers, thousands of, 
 
 brought to Europe, 479. 
 Malmesbury, Lord, and Lord Derby, 
 
 an inner cabinet, 36. 
 Malt tax, not often in a breakfast- 
 table, 185. 
 Man, powers of, if he lives, 137. 
 Manchester, represented by Mr. Jacob 
 Bright, 39 ; spared by Mr. Chowler, 
 218. 
 Marmora, Sea of, despatch of fleet to, 
 
 476. 
 Massachusetts, education in, 345 ; 
 colony of, its educational system, 
 409. 
 Master, term used by a Welsh farmer 
 
 for his landlord, 82. 
 Mayor, action of, at nomination, 98. 
 M'^Queen, Mr., his ' Financial Reform 
 
 Almanack,' 335. 
 Mediterranean, ships of war in the, 
 306 ; our policy in the, 456 ; 
 balance of power in the, 482. 
 Meetings, great, safety and use of, 
 
 53. 
 Men, influence of, if good, and of 
 
 women, 470. 
 Menace of war, its motives, 485. 
 Middle classes, no need that Govern- 
 
 ment should supply them with 
 education, 61. 
 Military, in India, increased since 
 
 railways were made, 405. 
 Military profession, its association 
 
 with Conservatism, 429. 
 Military expenditure, its annual 
 
 growth, 144. 
 Mill, Mr., on the Tory party, 42 ; 
 his character, and his opposition to 
 the ballot, 123; on land and its 
 owners, 268, 270. 
 Mill's British India, the first book 
 studied by a new Governor-General, 
 442. 
 Million, no man can comprehend the 
 
 meaning of a, 128. 
 Millions, five, could not be wholly shut 
 
 out from the franchise, 114. 
 Milton, his definition of eloquence, 
 107 ; foremost name in English po- 
 litical history, 131; his sonnet on 
 war, 382. 
 Miltonic phrase, * Unconscious of their 
 
 own disfigurement,' 221. 
 Minister, Prime, the only great dis- 
 turber of nations, 482. 
 Minister who does not do justice to 
 
 Ireland, his attitude, 56. 
 Ministers, the, close their eyes and 
 
 ears, 284. 
 
 Ministry, action of the, in 1879, 492. 
 
 Minority, return of member by, an 
 
 innovation on practice of six hundred 
 
 years, 97 ; if it must be represented, 
 
 the majority is to be got rid of, 99. 
 
 Minority member, candidate for office 
 
 of, I4«. 
 Minority representation, history of its 
 
 passage, 101. 
 Miracle-worker, justice is the, 525. 
 Misfortune often teaches agreement, 
 
 109. 
 Mob of generals and colonels and ad- 
 mirals and captains, 142. 
 Molesworth, Mr. William, his history 
 of our times, its merits, 225; a 
 clergyman with Liberal sympathy, 
 428. 
 Monarchy, dangers to, 147. 
 Monopolists, the, are organised, 368. 
 Monopoly, relentless and cruel, 
 
 strangled industry, 190. 
 Montgomery, James, his poem on 
 
 India, 435. 
 Morality, common, a standard in 
 
 political questions, 117. 
 Moslem, the rule of, its effects, 296. 
 Municipal elections, ease with which 
 made, 162. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 537 
 
 Municipal government should be ex- 
 tended to the counties, 376. 
 
 Municipal palace, the Town Hall of 
 Manchester, 401. 
 
 Murdoch, Mr., his invention of gas, 
 412. 
 
 Museums may be easily established, 
 64. 
 
 Mutiny, Indian, effects of, iii, 404. 
 
 Nonconformity, in England, origin of, 
 
 74. 
 Non-intervention, doctrine of, 32. 
 No Popery cry, whom it harms, 84. 
 Northcote, Sir Stafford, on sending the 
 
 fleet to the Sea of Marmora, 476 ; 
 
 his knowledge of the government 
 
 policy, 480. 
 Northern Echo, the, a daily paper, 283. 
 
 N. 
 
 Names, one person using different, 
 in different places suspicious, 180. 
 
 Najjoleon, Louis, why he went into 
 war with Russia. 312. 
 
 Napoleon, the Emperor, anecdote of, 
 212. 
 
 Nation, fate of, in hands of, 1 23 ; how- 
 alone prosperous and happy, 1 36 ; 
 moulding of, out of classes, a proper 
 aim, 257. 
 
 • National faith,' conformity to, 235. 
 
 Nature, forces of, should be allowed 
 their operation on land, 127. 
 
 Navigation laws, the, an anecdote 
 about, 191 ; repeal of, 220. 
 
 Navy, cost of, in 1868, 129. 
 
 Neutral zone between England and 
 Russia, 503. 
 
 Neutral vessels, proclamation regard- 
 ing, 3- 
 
 Neutrality, a generous, and not an 
 unfriendly, 195 ; of the Government 
 not perfect, 384 ; policy of, true and 
 wise for this country, 396. 
 
 Newcastle, speech of Mr. Gladstone 
 at, II. 
 
 Newhall Hill, meetings at, 353. 
 
 News, variety of, in a modem news- 
 paper, 338-9. 
 
 Newspapers, on watching the esti- 
 mates, 146 ; writers in, 307; history 
 of their emancipation, 337 ; advice 
 of, not to look back to the past, 450; 
 war, their language, 485. 
 
 Newspaper press, history of liberation 
 of, 192 ; emancipation of, 221. 
 
 New England, educational history of, 
 
 134- 
 
 Nicholas, the Emperor, his agreement 
 with Peel and the Duke of Welling- 
 ton. 35. 
 
 Nobility, revolution of 1688 in favour 
 of, 122. 
 
 Nomination, form of, 97. 
 
 Nominations, system of, unnecessary, 
 161. 
 
 Nonconformists, rarely go over to 
 Rome, 149. 
 
 0. 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel, on Catholic eman- 
 cipation, 18; his meetings in Ire- 
 land, 51 ; on a starving horse, 438. 
 
 Office, history of Mr. Bright's taking, 
 157 ; rule of an honest man in ac- 
 cepting, 168. 
 
 Old Testament, a passage of, 168. 
 
 Omnibuses, six cannot easily go abreast 
 through Temple Bar, 185. 
 
 Opinion, force of, 323. 
 
 Opium, trade of, in India, 434. 
 
 Orator, how a man becomes an, 107. 
 
 Orders, effect of, by law, 149. 
 
 Organisation of Liberal party needed, 
 
 431- 
 
 Ottoman Government, a terrible op- 
 pression, a multitudinous crime, 
 484. 
 
 Oxford, speech of Sir William Har- 
 court at, 235. 
 
 Paget, Lord Clarence, with a pro- 
 digious fleet, 132. 
 
 Palnierston, Lord, on war and com- 
 merce, 4 ; of a past generation, 32 ; 
 on the Suez Canal, 389 ; Mr, Urqu- 
 hart believed that he was bribed, 
 
 459- 
 
 Fame about Russia in 1836, 308. 
 
 Paper, duty on, 26. 
 
 Paralysis, creeping, Turkey in a state 
 of, 305. 
 
 Paris, Congress of, its action, 2 ; de- 
 putation of workmen to, 67 ; street 
 lighting in, 40 years ago, 41 1. 
 
 Parliament, always agrees to estimates. 
 144; a corrupt, in Ireland, 174; 
 powers of, in dealing with the Irish 
 question, 176; the dead (of 1868- 
 74), its merits, 216; a, of two classes, 
 its mischievousness, 257 ; its consti- 
 tution and colour, 350 ; war party 
 in, 378; can repeal acts which par- 
 liament has passed, 512. 
 
 Parliaments, English, not a new in- 
 stitution, 97 ; England the mother 
 of, 114, 
 
538 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Parliamentary duties, capacity for, 
 the test of fitness for parliament, 
 
 257- 
 Parliamentary reform, necessity of, in 
 
 1864, 29 ; urgency of, 113. 
 Past, we should look back on the, 
 
 450- 
 
 Party, one which obstructs and con- 
 tests everything, 1 96 ; the machinery 
 of, by Liberals devoted to public 
 objects, 282. 
 
 Parties, the two great, their several 
 objects, 424. 
 
 Party fight over Ireland, an unpatriotic 
 fight, 175. 
 
 Patriotism, in what it consists, 311. 
 
 Patronage in Church of Scotland dan- 
 gerous, 230. 
 
 Pauperism, increase of, 136. 
 
 Peace, the Government in favour of, 
 300 ; the greatest of British in- 
 terests, 396 ; of 1856, its conditions, 
 
 451- 
 
 Peace Society, Lord Stanley to, 112. 
 
 Peel, General, his opinion about Eng- 
 land, 10. ^ 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, leader of a party in 
 1 84 1, 21 ; his agreement with Em- 
 peror of Russia, 35 ; his opinion on 
 Ireland, 55 ; since government of, 
 estimates doubled, 144; his attitude 
 on the Factory Acts, 152; cause why 
 we reverence, 211; his financial re- 
 forms, 331 ; his tribute to Cobden, 
 361. 
 
 Peer, a, on the ballot, 341. 
 
 Peers, learned a lesson in 1869, 172. 
 
 Peers, House of, as a court of justice, 
 200. 
 
 Penal laws, Irish, modification of, 52. 
 
 Penal code, relaxed in Ireland, when, 
 
 Pennsylvania, terrible scenes in, in 
 
 1877, 370. 
 People, mass of, not properly educated, 
 
 60. 
 People's charter, an instalment of, in 
 
 the bill of 1 867, 44. 
 Perils, well to be aware of, 402. 
 Petition of Edinburgh Chamber of 
 
 Commerce in 1820, 135. 
 Photography, art of, its use, 418. 
 Pirates in Elizabeth's days, 241. 
 Poems, the pleasure of reading, 410. 
 Police stations on the Shannon, 511. 
 Policy of a country not to be destroyed 
 
 by any incident, according to Sir H. 
 
 Elliot, 483. 
 Political, everything public is, in Bir- 
 mingham, 251. 
 
 Political questions, no mystery in, but 
 much prejudice, 117. 
 
 Politicians, popular and unpopular, 
 264. 
 
 Politics, should be studied by all, 16 ; 
 nothing very mysterious in, 109 ; 
 when facts cease to be, 343. 
 
 Poll, reason for granting, 98. 
 
 Poor and depressed class, not in United 
 States, 6.^. 
 
 Poor law, reform of, 20. 
 
 Pope, lines of, n)ay seem exaggerated, 
 177. 
 
 Popular politicians, a phrase of Lord 
 Derby, 264. 
 
 Population of India, estimate of, 434. 
 
 Possession of the soil, every one at the 
 end of his life is in, 268. 
 
 Post, the reform in the, 340. 
 
 Postage, old rates of, 340. 
 
 Prayer Book, used to defend Romish 
 doctrines, 150. 
 
 Press, freedom of the, history of, 26 ; 
 London and county, on war in 
 1864, 37 ; freedom of, effects of, 1 16 ; 
 the, why there is always a war party 
 in. 377 ; in India, character of, 446; 
 the statements of the, as to the fleet 
 in the Sea of Mannora, 477. 
 
 Press, London, on war, 461. 
 
 Priestley, Dr., began the political edu- 
 cation of Birmingham, 256. 
 
 Primary education, all that govern- 
 ment needs to grant, 63. 
 
 Primogeniture, law of, should be re- 
 moved, 128. 
 
 Prince of Peace, school teachers are 
 humble ministers of the, 471. 
 
 Prince Consort, life of the, 453 ; the, 
 on England in 1856, 455 ;"the life 
 of, referred to, 472. 
 
 Princess, French, story of, 268. 
 
 Principles of speaker, admitted to be 
 constitutional in 1867, 44* 
 
 Printing press, improvements in the, 
 417. 
 
 Privilege produces presumption, 238. 
 
 Proclamation, the, before Russian war, 
 
 3- 
 Programmes, the speaker not much in 
 
 favour of, 352. 
 Progress, constant, of Liberal party, 
 
 40. 
 Promoter, the, of a company which 
 
 was a great secret, 211. 
 Promotion in English Church, how 
 
 obtained, 242. 
 Property in the soil, its character, 271. 
 Prophet, battle of 1868 not that of the, 
 
 118. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 539 
 
 Proprietors of land, what is meant by 
 
 the expression, 370. 
 Proprietjvry right, origin of, in Ireland, 
 
 174. 
 Protection, an ill name, and now under 
 
 an alias, 180; abolished by Liberals, 
 
 218 ; lingering love of, in England, 
 
 369- 
 
 Protectionists, attitude of, to the Fac- 
 tory Acts, 151. 
 
 Protectorate of Russia, transference 
 of, 287. 
 
 Protestants, Irish address from, 520. 
 
 Protestant religion, its prospects as- 
 sisted by the abolition of the Irish 
 Establishment, 81. 
 
 Prussia, education in. 63. 
 
 Publicans, have a residuum, 223 ; in- 
 fluence of, in election of 1874, and 
 how effected, 252 ; their union with 
 Conservative party, 430. 
 
 Public-houses, closed on polling days 
 in American states, 163 ; shutting 
 up on Sunday, eflFects of, 246. 
 
 Public opinion moves Parliament, 166; 
 on duelling and flrinking, 324. 
 
 Public Worship Bill of 1874, mere 
 trifling, 240. 
 
 R. 
 
 Race, no difference between English 
 and Irish, according to Mr. Huxley, 
 174. 
 
 Railways, European, effect of, on 
 blockades, 5 ; in India, how made, 
 404; growth of, 414; a mere 
 military question in India, 443. 
 
 Railway interest in India, its charac- 
 ter, 405. 
 
 Rain in India, its irregularity, 439. 
 
 Rate - paying clause, effects of, in 
 Birmingham, 90. 
 
 Rates, injustice of collecting, for de- 
 nominational schools, 202. 
 
 Rebellion, the Irish Establishment a 
 motive to, 516. 
 
 Reciprocity, cry for, what it means, 
 369 ; an alias for protection, 180. 
 
 Redistribution, the, effects of, 278. 
 
 Redistribution of political power, who 
 should do it, 207. 
 
 Reform, in 1867, alarms at, 41 ; made 
 in England, in France revolutions, 
 213. 
 
 Reform Bill, concession of, 18 ; alarm 
 of Tories at, 41 ; of 1867, changes 
 in, 89 ; Lord Derby's, of 1858, 121 ; 
 of 1832, a revolution, 122 ; of 1866, 
 its treatment by Lord Derby, &c.. 
 
 266 ; of 1832, the news of it, how 
 
 spread, 415. 
 Reform Bills of 1832 and 1867 com- 
 pared, 193. 
 Regiments, number of, increased in 
 
 India since railways, 443. 
 Regium donum, suggestion of increas- 
 ing, 84. 
 Religion, statistics of, in Ireland, 73 ; 
 
 differences of, in Ireland, and their 
 
 effects, 174, 
 Religious liberty, how understood by 
 
 Liberals, 282. 
 Rent, of land, since the repeal of the 
 
 Corn Laws, 331. 
 Representative, official life may bo 
 
 compatible with duties of, 169. 
 Republican, the representation is, in 
 
 boroughs, 121. 
 Reserves, calling out of the, 478. 
 Residuum, the, among publicans, 223 ; 
 
 the, in many classes of society, 278. 
 Revolutions, some on which history 
 
 delights to dwell, 118. 
 Revolution made in France, reforms 
 
 in England, 213, 
 Revolution of 1688, its effects, 122. 
 Revenues of India, amount of, 434. 
 Revenues of Irish Church, amount of, 
 
 515- 
 
 Reverend, title of, and a Wesleyan 
 Minister, 237. 
 
 * Rejected Addresses,' a passage in, 
 describes the Tory party, 46. 
 
 Richard, Mr., on Welsh people, 69. 
 
 Ricardo, Mr. J. L., his services on 
 the Navigation Laws, 191, 259. 
 
 Richmond, Duke ot^ described, 229. 
 
 Right, national, how explained, 311. 
 
 Rich men in Birmingham and Man- 
 chester, 64. 
 
 Rochdale, its representation since 
 1832, 431 ; and its neighbourhood, 
 Sunday schools in, 465. 
 
 Rock, from which Sir William Har- 
 court was hewn, 236. 
 
 Roman, like an old and noble, Mr. 
 Gladstone can deserve praise, 247. 
 
 Roman Catholics, voluntary con- 
 tributions of, 79. 
 
 Rome, Church of, the source of its 
 converts, 148 ; the very old man at, 
 244; Church of, alarms about, 518. 
 
 Rouher, M., his association with the 
 Commercial treaty, 362. 
 
 Royal family, their matrimonial al- 
 liances, 34. 
 
 Ruskin, Mr., on the patronage of 
 working men, 325. 
 
 Russell, Lord John, of a past genera- 
 
640 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 tion, 32 ; his speecli on reform made 
 a man's hair stand on end, 216 ; his 
 work for the Reform Bill, 258. 
 
 Russia, emancipation of serfs in, I4 ; 
 war with, its motives, iii ; in 1868, 
 stronger than ever, 112; surrender 
 of the object of Crimean War to, 
 194 ; ridiculous notions about, 286 ; 
 action of, in 1870, 287; Emperor 
 of, his declaration, 301 ; nature of 
 the geography of, 309 ; weakened 
 by its conquests, 310 ; jealousy and 
 dread of, 382 ; its attitude to Chris- 
 tian populations, 384 ; feelings of, 
 to England, 459 ; its policy and 
 purpose, 485 ; nature of the dread 
 of, 493 ; interests of, in friendship 
 with England, 505. 
 
 Russian fleet, the, in 1871, 454. 
 
 Russian War, origin of, 33 ; House of 
 Commons enthusiastic about, 232; 
 increased cost of services since, 164. 
 
 S. 
 
 Sacerdotal spirit, a cause of annoy- 
 ance, 238. 
 
 Sailors, petitioning for navigation 
 laws, 220. 
 
 Saint, Lord Derby a, in the calendar 
 of Conservatives, 47. 
 
 Salaries in India, 446. 
 
 Salisbury, Lord, his haughty unwis- 
 dom, 315 ; his circulation of an 
 infamous dispatch, 484. 
 
 Salt, sea is always, 103. 
 
 Salt tax, the nature of, in India, 434. 
 
 Sardinia, why it joined the war of 
 
 1854.313- . 
 
 Saturday Revieio, the, on agriculture, 
 219 ; on agricultural labourers, 270. 
 
 Schools, increase of, 340 ; common, 
 their relation to Sunday School 
 teaching, 466 ; their use in teach- 
 ing morals and manners, 467 ; power 
 of, over barbarism, 470. 
 
 School board elections, character of, 
 203. 
 
 Services, desire of the, for increase of 
 salaries, natural, 167. 
 
 Science, its services to all, 340, 418. 
 
 Scotchmen, reputed to be alive to 
 their own interests, 125. 
 
 Scotland, Free Church in, 79 ; knows 
 that an alien church is a root of 
 bitterness, 125; education in, 133. 
 
 Scotland, Church of, legislation on, in 
 1874, 230 ; effects of zeal in, 234. 
 
 Sebastopol, destruction of, its reputed 
 significance, 452. 
 
 Secession, the, under Act of Uni- 
 formity, most blessed, 234. 
 
 Sect, rehgious, with which the speaker 
 is connected, 285. 
 
 Sense, common, a standard in political 
 questions, 117. 
 
 Serfs, emancipation of, 14. 
 
 Sermon on the Mount, the best and 
 the greatest of sermons, 365. 
 
 Session of 1 866, debates in, 46. 
 
 Seventy millions, calculations about, 
 146. 
 
 Shadow cast by other nations, absur- 
 dity and nothingness of the phrase, 
 488. 
 
 Shannon, police stations on the, 511. 
 
 Shares, in Suez canal, pmrchase of, 
 
 390- 
 
 Sheffield, compounding not practised 
 in, 95. 
 
 Ships, restriction on, 191. 
 
 Ships of war of different nations in 
 the Mediterranean, 306. 
 
 Shunammite woman, the, her saying, 
 168. 
 
 Silliness of pledging candidates to 
 one idea, 254. 
 
 Simpleton, a learned, 238. 
 
 Six powers, protectorate of the, a 
 sham, 288. 
 
 Slavery, abolition of, 20 ; abolition of, 
 by Liberal party, 218; its effects 
 on a nation, 364. 
 
 Soil, owners ofj according to Lord 
 Derby, 267. 
 
 Somersetshire, a borough in, its cha- 
 racter, 48. 
 
 Somerville, Mrs., on Free Trade, 108. 
 
 Spain, policy of, about Gibraltar, 9. 
 
 Speaker, the, on the cheap press, 27. 
 
 Spears, to wash, a Zulu phrase, 504. 
 
 Special embassy of Lord Salisbury in 
 1876, 315. 
 
 Special legislation, need for, serious, 
 233- 
 
 Speculation, mania for, thirty or forty 
 years ago, 21 t. 
 
 Spooner, Mr., his opposition to Act 
 of 1851, 92. 
 
 Stael, Madame de, her definition of 
 happiness, 40. 
 
 Standard, the, its articles, 293. 
 
 Stanley, Lord, to a deputation of the 
 Peace Society, T12 ; confesses that 
 we have abandoned the balance 
 of power, 129; his foreign policy, 
 165. 
 
 State Church, said to be not a reli- 
 gious, but a political institution, a 
 branch of civil service, 235. 
 
I N D E X. 
 
 541 
 
 State Church, Irish, its continuance 
 or removal, 70. 
 
 Statesmen, old, their peculiarities, 7. 
 
 Statesman, no one would found a 
 State Church in Ireland now, 73 ; 
 a title to be generally disclaimed, 
 107 ; foresight of what they call a, 
 132 ; duty of a, in India, 448. 
 
 Statesmanship, not an abstruse or 
 difficult branch of knowledge, 109 ; 
 of silence and secrecy not original, 
 211 ; the, of buying and selling 
 shares, 263. 
 
 Steamships, the first across the At- 
 lantic, 413. 
 
 Stockmar, Baron, correspondence of 
 the Prince Consort with, 473. 
 
 Straits, the, our treatment of Turkey 
 in, 483. 
 
 Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, his pre- 
 sent opinions, 31 7 j his policy in 
 
 1853.473. 
 
 Stupid party, the Tories naturally a, 
 according to Mr. Mill, 42. 
 
 Suejc canal, the, runs through Turkish 
 tei-ritory, 388 j its remarkable his- 
 tory, 456. 
 
 Suffrage in counties should be as in 
 towns, 44; wider, argument for, 
 
 134- 
 
 Sugar, destruction of monopoly in, 
 23 ; legislation on, and consump- 
 tion of, 332, 
 
 Sultan, pledges of the, in treaty of 
 1856,302. 
 
 Sumner, Mr. Charles, on the Russian 
 War, 458. 
 
 Sunday, shutting up public-houses on, 
 246. 
 
 Sunday schools, their aids to temper- 
 ance, 468. 
 
 Sunilay school teachers, sacrifices of, 
 464. 
 
 Sunflower company, the, an adver- 
 tisement of, 211. 
 
 Sussex peasant, story of, and land, 
 
 '218. 
 
 Sustentation fund of Scotch Free 
 
 Church, 80. 
 Syra, the speaker at, in 1836, 412. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tanks in India, their nature and 
 
 uses, 439. 
 Tantallon Castle, its ruins, 402. 
 Tariff, of 1840, its articles, 327; of 
 
 1841, its character, 24. 
 
 Tariff in United States a cause of 
 commercial distress, 370. 
 
 Tariffs, foreign, and their equivalents 
 at home, 403. 
 
 Taxation, heavy, always unequal, and 
 why, 133. 
 
 Taxes, always agreed to in Parlia- 
 ment, 144 ; pressure of, most on the 
 poorest, and why, 147. 
 
 Tax-payer, complaints of, not heard, 
 142. 
 
 Teacher, his labours on Sunday, as- 
 sisted by common schools, 466. 
 
 Technical education, its meaning, 61. 
 
 Temperance, cause of, assisted by 
 Sunday Schools, 468. 
 
 Tenantry, condition of, in England, 
 
 273- 
 Tenants at will, Irish cultivators are, 
 
 173- 
 Tenant farmers, rights of, 208. 
 Third Class, why a rich mail travelled, 
 
 340. 
 
 Thompson, Col. Perronet, on the ex- 
 tinguisher taking fire, 233. 
 
 Times, The, on American War, 1 2 ; on 
 relief of the newspaper press, 221 ; 
 of Nov. 30 (1876) on the Ottoman 
 Empire, 306; has, it is said, re- 
 gretted the articles in the Evening 
 Mail, 353; on the destruction of 
 Sebastopol, 453. 
 
 Timidity, political, a cause of reac- 
 tion, 255. 
 
 Territories, extent of English, 377. 
 
 Tories, natural organisation of, 255. 
 
 Tory, rarity of, 28 ; none will go to 
 Parliament through Birmingham, 
 105. 
 
 Tory party, reverses of, their nature, 
 40; its Irish policy, 55; what it 
 opposes, 75. 
 
 Tory press, scurrilous vituperation of, 
 43. 
 
 Towns, small, fifty-six send members, 
 48 ; the, have made the policy of 
 England, 275, 
 
 Trade, with France, increase of, 181 ; 
 with India, profit of, 502. 
 
 Trade unions, effects of, on wages, 344. 
 
 Traffic, of livings in the Church, its 
 scandals, 243. 
 
 Transformation scene in 1867, 43. 
 
 Treaties after a war have always 
 faults, 484. 
 
 Treaty of 1856, clause in, 302. 
 
 Treaty violated, the city of the, 526. 
 
 Truro, Bishop of, his charge, 428. 
 
 Turf, morals of, fail under certain 
 circumstances, 57. 
 
542 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Turk, the, distance from us, 298 ; his 
 conduct, 383 ; Bulgarians handed 
 back to the odious government of, 
 
 495. 
 Turkey, in 1868 weaker than ever, 
 112; condition of, in 1876, 289; 
 in a state of creeping paralysis, 
 
 305- 
 Turks, assistance given to, against 
 
 Christians, 301. 
 Turnips, sugar, not so cheap as, 333. 
 Twist, Oliver, asked for more, 144. 
 
 U. 
 
 Ulcers, Milton calls charges of war, 
 
 131, 
 
 Uniform, Parliament can order, and 
 it only, 236. 
 
 Uniformity, Act of, a new, the Clergy 
 Discipline Bill, 233. 
 
 Union, repeal of, Irish have a right to 
 ask for, 87. 
 
 United States, at CongTess of Paris, 2 ; 
 criticism of London press on, 13 ; 
 attitude of, to technical education, 
 62 ; civil war in, opinions on, 112 ; 
 attitude of richer classes to, during 
 rebellion in, 194 ; settlement of dis- 
 putes with, 300. 
 
 University, Roman Catholic, scheme 
 to charter and endow, 83. 
 
 Urquhart, Mr., on Bussia, 459. 
 
 Utrecht, treaty of, 8. 
 
 V. 
 
 Valour, plenty to be got at eighteen 
 
 pence a day, 487. 
 Vendors, sole, of the law which works 
 
 salvation, 238. 
 Venice, language of poet on, 403. 
 Vienna note, the, history of, 316. 
 Villiers, Mr. Charles, his services to 
 
 free trade, 258. 
 Violated treaty, the city of the, 526. 
 
 W. 
 
 Wadhams, Mr., and licensed victual- 
 lers, 245. 
 
 Wales, Liverpool called the capital 
 of, 69 ; Nonconformist and Liberal, 
 81. 
 
 War, settlement of disputes by, 6 ; 
 from William III to end of Russian 
 Wars, based on absurdity and folly, 
 
 131 ; arguments for, not found to 
 be arguments when war is over, 
 462 ; evils of, 469 ; danger of, in 
 spring of 1878. 
 
 War of 1854, its popularity, 45 j criti- 
 cism of, 285. 
 
 War party, always exists, and why, 
 377 ; impossible in England ac- 
 cording to Mr. Hardy, 473. 
 
 Wars, prospect of, seldom for real in- 
 terest of the country, 129. 
 
 Weakness, Ireland a cause of, 114. 
 
 Wealth, possession of, will have power, 
 122 ; a cause of political timidity, 
 
 Weaver, the, before a parliamentary 
 committee, 334. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, on Catholic 
 emancipation, 52 ; his attitude to- 
 wards the Reform Bill, 293. 
 
 Welsh, description of, by poet, 82. 
 
 Welsh people, their feelings on poli- 
 tics and religion, 69. 
 
 Wesleyan minister, a, and a bishop, 
 
 237. 
 
 Westminster, Dean of, hissed down, 
 77 ; and bishop of Natal, 240. 
 
 Whigs, policy of, 21 ; afraid to be just 
 to Ireland, 56. 
 
 White Star Company, the, its busi- 
 ness, 413. 
 
 Wilberforce on noxious race of heroes 
 and conquerors, 132. 
 
 Working man, affection of the Tory 
 party for, 152 ; his interest in edu- 
 cation, 1 79 ; attempts to trail a 
 red herring before, 184 ; his po- 
 litical power according to Lord 
 Derby, 265. 
 
 Working men, the, of Birmingham 
 and Edinburgh, 280; weight of, 
 now and thirty years ago, 282 ; 
 change in the condition of, during 
 forty years, 326. 
 
 Workman, the, what he is now, 343. 
 
 Workmen's club, the, of Rochdale, 
 and its character, 321. 
 
 Workmen's questions, dealt with by 
 Mr. Gladstone's Government, 208. 
 
 Wright, Mr., on changes in Birming- 
 ham, 29. 
 
 Zeal, creeps into the church, 234. 
 
 Zone, neutral, use of, 503. 
 
 Zulu phrase, to wash their spears, 503. 
 
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