destructive. No one knows better how conservative and tolerant is public opinion in England towards traditional institutions, than Mr. Bright does; or how indifferent the nation is to attacks on an untenable practice and a bad law, until it awakens to the fact that the law or the practice is ruinous.

Mr. Bright's political opinions have not been adopted because they were popular. He was skilfully, and for a time successfully, maligned by Lord Palmerston, on account of his persevering resistance to the policy of the Russian War. But it is probable that the views he entertained at that time will find more enduring acceptance than those which Lord Palmerston and Lord Palmerston's colleagues promulgated, and that he has done more to deface that Moloch, 'the balance of power,' than any other man living. Shortly after the beginning of the Planters' War, almost all the upper, and many of the middle classes, sympathized with the Slave- owners' conspiracy. Everybody knows which side Mr. Bright took, and how judicious and far-sighted he was in taking it. But everybody should remember also how, when Mr. Bright pointed out the consequences likely to ensue from the cruise of the _Alabama_, he was insulted by Mr. Laird in the House of Commons; the Mr. Laird who launched the _Alabama_, who has been the means of creating bitter enmity between the people of this country and of the United States, and has contrived to invest the unlawful speculation of a shipbuilder with the dignity of an international difficulty, to make it the material for an unsettled diplomatic question.

There are many social and political reforms, destined, it may be hoped, to become matter of debate and action in a Reformed Parliament, towards the accomplishment of which Mr. Bright has powerfully contributed. There is that without which Reform is a fraud, the redistribution of seats; that without which it is a sham, the ballot; that without which it is possibly a danger, a system of national education, which should be, if not compulsory, so cogently expedient that it cannot be rejected. There is the great question of the distribution of land, its occupancy, and its relief from that pestilent system of game preserving which robs the farmer of his profit and the people of their home supplies. There is the pacification of Ireland. The only consolation which can be gathered from the condition of that unhappy country is, that reforms, which are highly expedient in Great Britain, are vital in Ireland, and that they therefore become familiar to the public mind. There is the development of international amity and good-will, first between ourselves and the people of our own race, next between all nations. There is the recognition of public duty to inferior or subject races, a duty which was grievously transgressed before and after the Indian mutiny, and has been still more atrociously outraged in the Jamaica massacre. Upon these and similar matters, no man who wishes to deserve the reputation of a just and wise statesman,--in other words, to fulfil the highest and greatest functions which man can render to man,--can find a worthier study than the public career of an Englishman whose guiding principle throughout his whole life has been his favourite motto, 'Be just and fear not.'

I have divided the speeches contained in these volumes into groups. The materials for selection are so abundant, that I have been constrained to omit many a speech which is worthy of careful perusal. I have naturally given prominence to those subjects with which Mr. Bright has been especially identified, as, for example, India, America, Ireland, and Parliamentary Reform. But nearly every topic of great public interest on which Mr. Bright has spoken is represented in these volumes.

A statement of the views entertained by an eminent politician, who wields a vast influence in the country, is always valuable. It is more valuable when the utterances are profound, consistent, candid. It is most valuable at a crisis when the people of these islands are invited to take part in a contest where the broad principles of truth, honour, and justice are arrayed on one side, and their victory is threatened by those false cries, those reckless calumnies, those impudent evasions which form the party weapons of desperate and unscrupulous men.

All the speeches in these volumes have been revised by Mr. Bright. The Editor is responsible for their selection, for this Preface, and for the Index at the close of the second volume.

JAMES E. THOROLD ROGERS.

OXFORD, _June_ 30, 1868.

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The Second Edition of these volumes is an exact reprint of the first, certain obvious errors of the press only having been corrected.

OXFORD, _Dec_. 21, 1868.

* * * * *

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

INDIA.

I. House of Commons, June 3, 1853

II. House of Commons, June 24, 1858

III. House of Commons, May 20, 1858

IV. House of Commons, August 1, 1859

V. House of Commons, March 19, 1861

CANADA.

I. House of Commons, March 13, 1865

II. _The Canadian Fortifications_. House of Commons, March 23, 1865

III. _The Canadian Confederation Scheme_. House of Commons, February 28, 1867

AMERICA.

I. The _'Trent' Affair_. Rochdale, December 4, 1861

II. _The War and the Supply of Cotton_. Birmingham, December 18, 1862

III. _Slavery and Secession_. Rochdale, February 3, 1863

IV. _The Struggle in America_. St. James's Hall, March 26, 1863

V. London, June 16, 1863

VI. _Mr. Roebuck's Motion for Recognition of the Southern Confederacy_. House of Commons, June 30, 1863

VII. London, June 29, 1867

IRELAND.

I. _Maynooth Grand_. House of Commons, April 16, 1845

II. _Crime and Outrage Bill_. House of Commons, December 13, 1847

III. _Employment of the Poor_. House of Commons, August 25, 1848

IV. _Rate in Aid_. House of Commons, April 2, 1849

V. _Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill_. House of Commons, February 17, 1866

VI. Dublin, October 30, 1866

VII. Dublin, November 2, 1866

VIII. House of Commons, March 14, 1868

IX. House of Commons, April 1, 1868

RUSSIA.

I. _War with Russia--The Queen's Message_. House of Commons, March 31, 1854

II. _Enlistment of Foreigners' Bill_. House of Commons, December 22, 1854

III. _Negotiations at Vienna_. House of Commons, February 23, 1855

IV. _On the Prosecution of the Russian War_. House of Commons, June 7, 1855

Letter of John Bright to Absalom Watkin on the Russian War

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INDIA

I

HOUSE OF COMMONS, JUNE 3, 1853.

_From Hansard_.

[The ministerial measure for the government of India was introduced by Sir Charles Wood on June 3, 1853. The particulars of the Bill were as follows: The Government proposed that for the future the relations between the Directors and the Board of Control should be unchanged, but that the constitution of the former should be altered and its patronage curtailed. It reduced the number of the Members of the Court from twenty-four to eighteen, of whom twelve were to be elected as before, and six nominated by the Crown from Indian servants who had been ten years in the service of the Crown or the Company. One-third of this number was to go out every second year, but to be re-eligible. Nominations by favour were to be abolished. The governorship of Bengal was to be separated from the office of Governor-General. The legislative council was to be improved and enlarged, the number to be twelve. The Bill passed the House of Lords on June 13.]

I feel a considerable disadvantage in rising to address the House after