Let me tell that political incendiary Lord Derby that if his Order can only be upheld by depriving us of the Elective Franchise, that if his Order really requires this great sacrifice, this keeping the people year after year in dense ignorance, that if his Order can only be preserved by USURPING the privileges of the House of Commons, in order to perpetuate an odious and miserable Tax on Intelligence, I for one exclaim, Perish this Order.
And here let me contrast the coarse, censorious, anti-Reform Speeches of Lord R. Cecil, Lord B. Manners, Mr. Bentinck, and another Aristocrat whose “House” is quite as potential for evil, though not so ancient as some noble Lords. I allude to John Walter of Bear Wood, and Printing House Square, Member for Berkshire, and the chief Proprietor of the “Times.”
Reading their libellous and defamatory speeches, I thought of the dreaded advent of that day when plough boys should read and write, I mused on the countryman’s cry, “WAIT TILL US CHAPS HAS VOTES.”
Compare the “Oration” of Sir E. Lytton, with the well reasoned, logical speech of Mr. Gladstone.
“But when he speaks, what elocution flows,
Soft as the fleeces of descending snows.”
First of orators, and master of the arts of Rhetoric, Mr. Gladstone condescends to dress his arguments in no robe of tinsel finery, no specious, no glittering phrases are to be found, but a plain, common sense English speech that could not fail to make a deep impression on the House. How the Phantoms alarmists had conjured up were routed! How he scattered to the winds the hobgoblins the Terrorists had raised!
Sprung from the People, with them and of them, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is too noble minded and just to satirize the Poor because they are poor. I will quote his words:
“Sir.—I don’t admit that the working man, regarded as an individual, is less worthy of the suffrage than any other class. I don’t admit the charges of corruption from the Report of a Committee of the House of Lords. I don’t believe that the working men of this country are possessed of a disposition to tax their neighbours and exempt themselves, nor do I acknowledge for a moment that schemes of socialism, of communism, of republicanism, or any other ideas at variance with the laws and constitution of the Realm are prevalent and popular among them.” (Hear, hear.)
But I forget. The Field day is drawing near, and you will soon be in the thick of the Battle! [22]
“Yet once more let me look upon the scene;”