described in hideous and hateful colours. What might be called the Botany Bay view of their countrymen would be got rid of, and a sense of greater justice and generosity towards the bulk of the nation would take its place. Having asked whether there were any ministers of religion amongst his audience, Mr. Bright closed his stirring address with this appeal :

'An eminent man of your country, the late Dr. Chalmers, in speaking of the question of Free Trade, and particularly of the struggle for the abolition of the Corn Laws, uttered some memorable words. He said he thought there was nothing that would tend so much to sweeten the breath of British society as the abolition of the Corn Laws. I believe now that there is nothing which would tend so much to sweeten the breath of British society as the admission of a large and generous number of the working classes to citizenship and the exercise of the franchise. Now, if my words should reach the ears and reach the heart of any man who is interested in the advancement of religion in this country, I ask him to consider whether there are not great political obstacles to the extension of civilization and morality and religion within the bounds of the United Kingdom. We believe these ministers, you, and I-we believe in a Supreme Ruler of the Universe. We believe in His omnipotence; we believe and we humbly trust in His mercy. We know that the strongest argument which is used against that belief, by those who reject it, is an argument drawn from the misery, and the helplessness, and the darkness of so many of our race, even in countries which call themselves civilized and Christian. Is not that the fact? If I believed that this misery, and this helplessness, and this darkness could not be touched or transformed, I myself should be driven to admit the almost overwhelming force of that argument; but I am convinced that just laws, and an enlightened administration of them, would change the face of the country. I believe that ignorance and suffering might be lessened to an incalculable extent, and that many an Eden, beauteous in flowers and rich in fruits, might be raised up in the waste wilderness which spreads before us. But no class can do that. The class which has hitherto ruled in this country has failed miserably. It revels in power and wealth, whilst at its feet, a terrible peril for its future, lies the multitude which it has neglected. If a class has failed, let us try the nation. That is our faith, that is our purpose, that is our cry-let us try the nation. This it is which has celled together these countless numbers of the people to demand a change; and as I think of it, and of these gatherings, sublime in their vastness and in their resolution, I think I see, as it were, above the hill-tops of time, the glimmerings of the dawn of a better and a nobler day for the country and for the people that I love so well.'

Speaking on the following morning at a public breakfast given to him at the Cobden Hotel, Glasgow, Mr. Bright reiterated his strong desire that Scotland should make itself felt in the great movement. He also referred to the mighty awakening in England; and with regard to his own prominent position in the agitation, said that it had been altogether unsought by him. He had no anxiety to be a leader in politics, or to be lionized in great cities; but from his youth upwards he had had a horror and a hatred of that which was unjust to the people. It was that feeling,' he observed, which led me to join one of whom I cannot speak without a faltering voice (Mr. Cobden) in that

great labour in which we worked so long together, the abolition of the monopoly in food; and now if I am engaged more prominently than some men may think I ought to be in this question, it is because I would wish to join my countrymen in striking down monopoly of a wider influence, and which when it is gone, ten or twenty years afterwards, all thoughtful and good men in the country will rejoice at as much as they now rejoice that the monopoly, the stupid and ignorant monopoly, of the landowners no longer limits the supply of food to a great people.'

We must reserve the remainder of Mr. Bright's speeches during this vigorous Reform campaign, together with our account of the Derby-Disraeli Reform Bill, for another chapter.

CHAPTER VII.

THE REFORM BILL CARRIED.

Mr. Bright's Reform Speeches.-An arduous Campaign.-He visits Ireland.Speeches at Dublin.-Reform Banquet in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. -Mr. Bright on the Inequalities of the Suffrage.-Lord Derby and his Party and the Reform Question.-Trades' Demonstration at Kensington.— Meeting in St. James's Hall.-Speech of Mr. Bright.-Forcible Pleas for Reform.-The Question pressing for settlement.-Mr. Bright's Defence of the Queen. He is himself misrepresented and slandered.-Reply to Mr. Garth, M.P.-Workmen's Address of Sympathy with Mr. Bright.-Reform in 1867.-League Demonstration in London.-Mr. Disraeli introduces the Government Scheme in the House of Commons.-The Resolutions being opposed, are withdrawn.-New Measure resolved upon by the Cabinet. Resignation of three of the Ministers.-Mr. Disraeli introduces the New Reform Bill. It is severely criticised by Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright. -Demonstrations during the Easter Recess.-Mr. Bright on Mr. Gladstone's Leadership-Reform League Meeting in Hyde Park-Mr. Bright on Voting Papers.-The Bill in the House of Lords.-Important Amendments.-Lord Cairns's Minority Clause.-It is warmly opposed by Mr. Bright. The Reform Bill passes.-Its general Character.

THE work upon which Mr. Bright entered in the autumn of 1866, and which was completed in the following year, in connection with the Reform question, was amongst the most arduous he has undertaken during the whole course of his political life. Putting out of sight the physical wear and tear, and the strain upon the nervous system, which so much travelling and the attendance of so many meetings involved, the speeches he delivered formed in themselves an extraordinary intellectual effort. To discover new phases of a subject which had been so freely and exhaustively discussed as that of Reform, and to put these phases in fresh and telling language, was a task which would have discouraged and embarrassed most men; but on examining these speeches now, after the lapse of fifteen years, we are struck by the variety of their arguments, the strength of their appeals, and the power of their eloquence. There has been no task accomplished by a living statesman which can be compared with that which Mr. Bright then achieved, save the wonderful and memorable campaign of Mr. Gladstone in Midlothian in 1879-80.

At the close of October, and within a fortnight of the delivery of his Glasgow address, Mr. Bright crossed over to Ireland. On

the 30th he was entertained at a banquet in the Rotunda, Dublin, and on rising to respond to the toast of his health there was the same exhibition of enthusiastic feeling which had greeted him upon every English platform. His address on that occasion we shall deal with in a chapter devoted to purely Irish questions. It will suffice here to state that he advocated a wider suffrage for the Irish people as one very potent means of leading to a redress of their grievances. On the 31st the hon. gentleman received a deputation from the Cork Farmers' Club, by whom he was presented with an address thanking him for his services to Ireland, and for his efforts to improve the condition of the occupiers of the land. In reply, the hon. gentleman said that the whole tone of society in England had been wonderfully improved by the change which took place in 1846; and he believed that if in England and in Ireland the laws of political economy were applied to land, they would find just as great a change from this point forward with regard to matters which were influenced by laws affecting land, as they had found in past times by the abolition of the laws which prevented the importation of corn. A change of Government might do something towards bringing about a settlement of the land question, but he believed what they had most to rely on was a change in the representation of the people.

Mr. Bright also attended a meeting of the working men of Dublin, held in the theatre of the Mechanics' Institution, on the 2nd of November. Mr. James Haughton occupied the chair, and an address of welcome was presented to the member for Birmingham, expressing the thanks of the working men of Ireland to him, and stating that the Irish people had no hope of relief from an English House of Commons as at present constituted. Mr. Bright, in his reply, showed the great importance of Parliamentary Reform to Irishmen. The existing representation was very unequal, for there were twenty-seven boroughs in Ireland with only 9,453 electors, while the county of Cork had 16,107 electors, and returned but two members. But that was not the worst, for many of these boroughs were too small for independence. The question of the ballot was of the greatest importance in Great Britain and Ireland, both in the counties and boroughs. Mr. Bright also dwelt upon the Church and the land questions, but his observations in connection with these subjects we reserve for the present.

In less than a month after leaving Ireland—that is, on the 20th of November, Mr. Bright attended a great Reform banquet in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. It was organized by the

National Reform Union, and several Liberal members of Parliament attended. This meeting was amongst the most striking and important held upon the question, and when Mr. Bright rose to address the gathering, he was received by the audience standing, their cheering continuing for several minutes.

Mr. Bright began by saying that the old taunt that the working men felt no grievance in the matter of Reform had been fully and satisfactorily answered. But now the critics turned round, and said that the middle class stood entirely aloof from the movement. He instanced what had occurred in Birmingham, Leeds, and Glasgow to the contrary; and added, 'But if there was any question on this matter, I would ask those gentlemen to come on this platform to-night. Here is the largest and finest hall in Britain, the largest and finest hall in Europe, I believe the largest and finest hall in the world, and yet this hall is crowded with persons to whom our opponents, I think generally, unless they were very fastidious, would admit the term respectable and influential. I doubt if there has ever been held in this kingdom, within our time, a political banquet more numerous, more influential, more unanimous, more grand in every respect than that which is held here to-night. Just now it was the fashion to flatter and to court the middle class, in order to set it against the working class. And there was no greater fallacy than to say that the middle classes were in possession of power. The middle class have votes, but those votes are rendered harmless and nugatory by the unfair distribution of them, and there is placed in the voter's hand a weapon which has neither temper nor edge, by which he can neither fight for further freedom, nor defend that which his ancestors have gained.'

The speaker proceeded to show the unequal distribution of the suffrage, pointing out that of the 254 boroughs in the United Kingdom there were 145 with a population of under 20,000 each, and 109 with a population over that number. But the boroughs under 20,000 returned 215 members, against 181 returned by the boroughs over 20,000. Those boroughs with over 20,000 inhabitants, having 39 members fewer than the boroughs under 20,000, were in this position-their members represented six times as many electors, seven times as much population, and fourteen times as much payment of income-tax as the larger number of members represented. Even in the boroughs, therefore, the representative system was almost wholly delusive, and defrauded the middle classes of the power which the Act of 1832 professed to give them. As to the