THE CAVE OF ADULLAM: SPEECH OF MR. BRIGHT ON THE FIRST READING OF THE REFORM BILL OF 1866.
Source.—The Times, March 14, 1866.
Why, Sir, the right hon. gentleman below me (Mr. Horsman) who said a little against the Government, and a little against this Bill, last night made an attack upon so humble an individual as I am. He is the first member of this new party who expressed by his actions his great grief. He retired into what may be called his political Cave of Adullam, to which he invited everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was discontented. He has long been anxious to found a party in this House, and there is scarcely a member at this end of the House who is able to address us with effect, or to take much part in our debates whom he has not tried to bring over to his party and his cabal. At last he has succeeded in hooking the right hon. gentleman, the member for Calne (Mr. Lowe). I know it was the opinion many years ago of a member of the Cabinet that two men could make a party; and a party formed of two men so amiable, so genial as both of those right hon. gentlemen, we may hope to see for the first time in Parliament a party perfectly harmonious and distinguished by a mutual and an unbroken trust. But there is one great difficulty in the way. It is very much like the case of the Scotch terrier which was so covered with hair that you could not tell which was head and which was tail. Sir, the right hon. gentleman, the member for Calne, told us that he had had some peculiar election experiences....
Now, the constituency which the right hon. gentleman represents nominally consists of 174 members, seven of whom are working men, but his real constituency is a member of the other House of Parliament who could have sent here his butler or his groom. Sir, I think that in one sense, looking on the right hon. gentleman as an intellectual gladiator in this House, we are much indebted to the Marquis of Lansdowne that he did not do that. I have said that I wanted to explain the particulars of this Bill, and to appeal to the good sense and the patriotism of the gentlemen opposite not lightly to reject it. I ask them not to take the disparaging description of their countrymen which has been offered to the House by the member for Calne, and the hon. member for Salisbury, who, I presume, from their association at the Antipodes, seem to take only a Botany Bay view of this subject, and of the character of the great bulk of their fellow-countrymen. Why, the right hon. gentleman said on one night, when I was not here, that I, even in the matter of the cattle plague, set class against class. I ask any man in this House: Is it possible to do a thing that is more perilous than that which is done by the right hon. gentleman and his Australian colleague, the member for Salisbury, viz., to make it appear that there is a gulf which shall not be passed by legislation, between the highest, the most powerful and the most numerous portion of the middle class, and the great body of the working people who are really the very heart of this great country? Now, is it not inconceivably better to show trust in the people, for of all the follies, all the crimes which individuals commit, that of constant distrust of their fellow-subjects, of all the citizens of their country, is about the wildest and the most foolish.