The Telephone. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE POVERTY BAY STANDARD. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 273, 30 October 1884, Page 2

The Telephone. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE POVERTY BAY STANDARD. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30.

On Tuesday last we published a cablegram from London stating that the day previous an immense demonstration took place in Hyde Park on the Reform question, and that at a meeting, at which there were over 100,000 persons, a resolution was passed in favor of the abolition of the House of Lords. The action of the Peers in rejecting the Franchise Bill excludes 2,000,000 men from the rights of citizenship. That the Franchise Bill will ultimately become law is beyond all shadow of doubt. No power in the land can long successfully oppose the advancing wave of Liberalism. In connection with the Reform question we quote the following from a speech delivered recently at Birmingham by Mr. Bright, on the occasion of a meeting held at Bingley Hall, when a resolution expressing gratitude to Mr. Gladstone and the Government for introducing and passing the Franchise Bill, and strongly condemning the House of Lords for rejecting the measure was unanimously carried. In the course of his remarks upon the action of the Lords, Mr. Bright said :—

“ I should like to ask who and what are these Peers, who take upon themselves this authority ? (Cries of ‘ Nothing.’) To look at them, if you saw them entering the House or leaving it, you would observe that they are very much like other men. (Loud laughter). They are not taller, they are not stronger,

they have no claim, I believe, to bo called more learned. (Renewed laughter). We know that the bulk of them are not more accustomed to business, and we believe and we feel that they have less sympathy than other men with their fellow-countrymen. (Cheers). Now, in some respects they are peculiar—(‘ Hear, hear,’ and laughter)—and the great bulk of people would say that in some respects they are greatly to be envied. For example, the members of the House of Peers—the 500 persons or families—are reported to be owners of one-fifth of the whole of the land of the United Kingdom. (Shame). I do not in the least object to any man’s owning an estate which he has honestly come by. I would not deprive landowner or manufacturer, or merchant, or shopkeeper, or labourer of anything that is his, and I am not calling in question the legality of the ownership of all this land by the 500 peers, or peers’ families, whose claims we are now discussing. But, besides this, I see it is reported that the 500 peers are possessors of no less—l believe considerably more—than 4,000 livings of the Church of England. (Shame). If this be so, then it follows that the House of Peers among them can appoint, and do appoint in the main, several thousand teachers of the people in what are to be considered the highest things. Now, besides this, the House of Lords, or members of tnat House for the most part, are lord-lieutenants of counties. In that office they appoint almost all the county magistrates; the county magistrates administer justice widely —(no, no)—well, they profess to do it (laughter)—and, with some exceptions, we may believe that they honestly, in the main, endeavor to perform their duty. Well, beyond this, the members of the House of Lords—the great landowners, as you know—exercise a very powerful control over the county representation. There are counties in which the whole representation, without fear of contest, will be found to be in the hands of two, three or four members of the House of Lords. (Shame). They have another peculiarity which I ought not to omit to mention—that as great owners of land they are liable to a much lighter taxation—direct taxation upon land—than is the case with any other class of landowners in any European Kingdom or in the United States of America. (Shame). Now, I have spoken of the peers quite apart from the House of Peers. I have described them as they are at home, in their counties, and apart from the position they hold as members of a legislative assembly, and I must ask you if their condition on the whole does not appear to be one of singular advantage, and that many people might have reason, or suppose they had, to envy them ? I recollect in Milton’s great poem, ‘ Paradise Regained,’’ he speaks of a mysterious body of peers, and he describes them thus. He says :

" Regents, and potentates, and kings ; yea gods Of many a pleasant realm and province wide.” (Hear, hear.) And compared with the great mass of the people of the country, this is scarcely what I should call an exaggerated description of the magnificent position of the great body of the peers of England. (Hear, hear.) But now, when we come to their position in the House of Lords—because that is what we have to deal with—(hear, he.ir) — well, we call them, as you know the Upper House —(laughter)—pnd when a bill leaves the House of Commons it has gone up to the House of Lords, and if a bill comes from the House of Lords it has gone down to the House of Commons. (Laughter). Ido not know why that distinction is made. But now will you consider this fact; that the members of the House of Lords do not enter that House in any degree from any personal merit that attaches to them. (Hear, hear.) It is not because they have performed any good or great deeds that have recommended them to the favour of their fellow-country-men. It is not by the choice of or by the approval of their fellow men that they become members of the House of Peers and legislators for a great nation. It was once said in ages past —whether it was a dream or not I will not say—that the path to the temple of honour lay through the temple of virtue. (Hear, hear.) But the lawmaking peer, he never dreams that he is going to the temple of legislative honour through the temple of virtue—(laughter)—but if he does not know, we all know that he goes into the temple of honour through the sepulchre of a dead ancestor. (Laughter and loud cheers.) We

will go a little further. When he has once entered this temple of honour, you need not be reminded that he has gone there without nomination such as your own representative in the House of Commons must have—he has gone there without any contest with conflicting opinion in any constitutency—he has gone there without any cost of labor or of money to enable him to take his seat in the legislative assembly where he appears. (Shame.) You will recollect, however, that in his case there is no dissolution of Parliament. (Laughter.) Whatever be the list, long or short, of follies or crimes which he has committed, there is no punishment that can be inflicted upon him, as there is by a constitutency upon a member who neglects or betrays them—(shame)—and in point of fact there is no such thing as political death, but with the peer there is political immortality. (Loud laughter,) Well, it is not to be wondered at that this condition of things should beget a condition of feeling which is not favourable to popular rights and to popular interests. I was struck the other day with a few words I saw in one of the Psalms of old times. If you will turn to the 73rd Pealm you will find the words I am going to read. Speaking of some very unpleasant and troublesome people in his day, the Psalmist says, ‘ They are not in trouble as other men—(laughter)—neither are they plagued as other men—(renewed laughter)— therefore ’ he says, ‘ pride compasseth them about as a chain, they speak wickedly concerning oppession, they speak loftily,’ (Cries of ‘ True,’ and great cheering.) It becomes you to consider this fact, that every bill which becomes an Act or a law in this country, must pass through their hands and depend upon their vote. (Hear, hear.) Well, I have

given you a very brief sketch of what the peers are.”