representation may be amended; your complaint is just; and we will admit-somebody else." (Laughter and applause.) Now, Mr. Disraeli is a man who does what may be called the conjuring for his party. (Laughter.) He is what, amongst a tribe of Red Indians, would be called "the mystery man." (Renewed laughter.) He invents phrases for them-and one of the phrases, the last and the newest, is this lateral extension of the franchise. Now, Mr. Disraeli is a man of brains, of genius, of great capacity for action, of a wonderful tenacity of purpose, and of a rare courage. He would have been a statesman if his powers had been directed by any noble principle or idea. (Laughter and applause.) But, unhappily, he prefers a temporary and worthless distinction as the head of a decaying party, fighting for impossible ends, to the priceless memories of services rendered to his country-(cheers)—and to freedom, on which only in our age an enduring fame can be built up. (Loud cheers.) Now, what is meant by lateral extension? It means this: that all below £10 householders are not to be admitted. Well, the present law admits all that are above £10 householders, and therefore it can only include those not now included, a few men, inconsiderable in the whole number, who are lodgers, or who are brothers or sons of housekeepers whose names are already on the register; and therefore it is quite clear that this is a miserable pretence and a delusion, and an insult of the most glaring kind to the great body of the people.' (Loud cheers.)

Even at this distance of time, and when Lord Beaconsfield has passed away, it will be admitted that there are many truthful lines in the above portrait sketched of him by Mr. Bright. The close of the speech of the hon. member for Birmingham was very fine, and was received with almost a frenzy of enthusiasm. 'I believe the time is coming,' he observed-'nay, that we are upon its very thresholdwhen a large number of those hitherto excluded will be admitted, and we shall feel more than ever before that we are one nation and one people. Many of you have stood, as I have often stood, on the seashore, in an hour of quiet and of calm. No tempest drives the waves; the wind is but a whisper; and yet the

tide comes on as by some latent and mysterious power. The loiterers on the beach are driven from point to point as the waves advance, and at length the whole vast basin of the ocean seems filled to the brim. So on this question: there is no violence, nor even menace of force; but opinion grows, its tide moves on; opposition, ignorant on the one hand, insolent on the other, falls back; and shortly we shall see barriers thrown down, privilege and monopoly swept away, a people enfranchised, and the measure of their freedom full. You have honoured me this morning by committing this great cause in part to my keeping. I may defend it feebly, I may fall from the ranks before it is won, but of one thing you may be sure, I shall never betray it.' A subsequent speaker well described this address as a splendid oration.

At the close of the general election it was found that there was a Liberal majority of 77. Within three months, however, of this event the popular Premier had passed away. Lord Palmerston died on the 18th of October, 1865, being only within two days of completing his eighty-first year. By his death the chief official stumbling-block in the way of the introduction of a Liberal Reform Bill was removed.

In December, Mr. Bright again addressed a great meeting of the inhabitants of Birmingham on the Reform question, concluding his address as follows: 'I speak not the language of party. I feel myself

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above the level of party. I speak, as I have ever endeavoured to speak, on behalf of the unenfranchised, the almost voiceless millions of my countrymen. Their claim is just, and it is constitutional. It will be heard. It cannot be rejected. To the outward eye monarchs and Parliaments seem to rule with an absolute and unquestioned sway, but-and I quote the words which one of our old Puritan poets has left for us

"There is on earth a yet auguster thing,

Veiled though it be, than Parliament or King."

That auguster thing is the tribunal which God has set up in the consciences of men. It is before that tribunal that I am now permitted humbly to plead, and there is something in my heart-a small but an exultant voice-which tells me I shall not plead in vain.' Mr. Bright, in this speech, incidentally spoke strongly in favour of land reform and Church disestablishment for Ireland.

On the 3rd of the following month of January, Mr. Bright also addressed a Reform meeting at Rochdale. He remarked that he had seen a paragraph cut from an Indian newspaper, which, describing the immensely extensive household of a native prince, stated that there were hundreds of what were called prophesying Brahmins in his establishment; and he thus utilised this fact: A Brahmin is a Hindoo priest, and is of great authority. Now, I have no doubt whatever that there are prophesying Brahmins in the great Whig house somewhere, and I dare say

they are foretelling all sorts of evils that may come from the passing of this bill. I venture to foretell Lord Russell that their counsels, if followed, will be not only perilous, but I believe they will be fatal counsels to him and his Government. There are in an old poem that I read with great pleasure many years ago the Faery Queen-two lines which I think may teach us something in our present position—

"No fort so fencible, no wall so strong,

But that continual battery may rive."

I feel certain that the fort of selfishness and monopoly cannot be held for ever, and that the walls of privilege cannot through all time resist the multitude that are gathering to the assault. In all the nations of the world of this day, I believe the powers of good are gaining steadily on the powers of evil. I think it is eminently so in this country. Let us take courage, then. We are endeavouring by constitutional means to compass a great constitutional end; to make Parliament not only the organ of the will, but the honest and faithful guardian of the interests of all classes in the country. It is a great and noble purpose which we have set ourselves to achieve, but it is a purpose which cannot fail, if we are true to it and to ourselves.'

Parliament met on the 1st of February, 1866, but before the question of Reform could be proceeded with, two subjects of pressing importance occupied the attention of the House. These were the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland and the

Cattle Plague. Mr. Bright spoke at length on both these questions, but his observations with regard to Ireland we shall reserve for separate treatment. On the 12th of February Sir George Grey introduced the Government Bill for suppressing the cattle plague, whose ravages had become formidable and alarming. A long debate occurred upon the principle of compensating the owners of cattle which might be slaughtered under the powers of the bill for their losses. Mr. Bright said that in the present emergency he quite agreed in the absolute necessity, so far as farms were concerned, of enforcing a rigid isolation; but he differed from the proposal in the bill which left the power of widespread and indiscriminate slaughter to the local authorities. With compensation, he believed that the slaughter would be unnecessary and monstrous in amount. It was contrary to the principle adopted by Parliament on past occasions of public suffering to vote money out of taxes to remedy a misfortune of this kind; and it was a grievance which every taxpayer would complain of, if his money were applied to the compensation of well-to-do farmers and rich landowners who might suffer from the affliction. If that principle were carried out, it would tend to greater improvidence on the part of farmers than in past times. They would fancy that they were a class or order in the community which had especial claims upon the Housean opinion which, twenty years ago, was destructive of their independence and energy; and to encou