REFORM DEMONSTRATION AT BIRMINGHAM.

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1470, 14 November 1884, Page 3

REFORM DEMONSTRATION AT BIRMINGHAM.

:t*IOTVB__ -i.SaCil OE M-l BRiaHT. A great R 'form demonstration was hald at Birmingham. An enonnouprocession with hinds and banners •mirclwi t'io'l r'-i *■■•*« P ri * ;i P li s**** ,wt ' to a fold outViilo tha to* si, and them h«-M miss actings, which were ad draped by vat-iou-i ne-.nbers of P-u-lia. maut and leading Liberals. A resolution wi-s passed strongly denouncing -th" H>u * :i of L >r*l_ tor rejecting the F ".vms is • Hill, .nd Billing for a curtail ik-u of the poweis it has often misused to *>•)*• >k* hostility, impe.il p;o»l ord-if, ail ivtii'd the progress ■> tlm l_rPi>l*3. 'Anwi-g the ban tiers borne by the pro e^ i mists were many dema iiling thai the House of Lv.'d. .1- --" ine.ud *d or -euded." The streets were crnwdod.by vast multitudes. In -the t-Vi ii ig *n im »i«-*uSe? nveting was h**lJ in Binrljy *I*H. afc whi(;l1 ad•druses 'v-.u-h delivered by Mr Bright aud M Gh-i..nb-I'laiu. Mr 13 i<ht siid the Tory majority in the H nt** of Lords was it .*v ,i..-. -ated by the same bitt.r hatted o: Liberal' administration and its measures of J tstioi* and £.**■-• l'»«n as in 1832. Who w -re th"St* P.-'f-s ? T lotkat th.-ra th y were very much like. or.hr men. ' Tluy were not taller, the>y were not stro.i ;«*r, ttiey md o--claim to I* Ctelled in jre learned. Th. bulk of them were not more accus tomad to business, and they hid K<*s sympathy than other men with their country 'nan. In some resneet.s tit.Wf*re peculiar, and the gnat bulk of the people would soy that in some respects they wj re greatly to bepnvied, •so many were their privileges — soi-in! and political. Tii.-y entered the Tempi*--•of H mor not through the Temple of Went, but through the sepulchres of tlieir ancestors. Whatever be the list, long or short, of f n.'ies or -of crimes whioh the Peer has committed, there is no punishment that -can be inflicted upon him, as there is by a constituency upon a member who neglects or betrays them. In point of fact, there is uo such thing as politica' death, bat with the Peer there is political immortality. It is not to be wondered at that this s r ate ■'' ''n-' v ahonid beget a condition of feeling which is uot favorable to p >pul i.r r r i's and to popular interests. Speaking •of some very unpleasaut and tr-m >'ejome people iv his dry, the psalmist says. " They are not in trouble as other men." Therefore, he says,, " Pride compasseth them about as a chai 1; they speak wickedly concerning oppression ; they speak loftily." Many of the Peers ■are the results — I had almost used a more unpleasant word about them — tout they are the results of one of the •darkest periods of our history * for I ■belive the one-half them were created and placed in the House of Peers betwpen the accession of George 111., in 1760, and 1830, which we may call the era of the great Reform Bill. They were, many of them, the spawn, the re suit of the plunder and the war I*,1 *, and th° corruption of tho.se dark iges of our country. Now let ns see wh it they have done, that is what the majority of the House of Lords has done, since the year 1830. They risked a revolution in the year 1832. For thirty years •frot.i the year 1815 to 18-40, they raised their rents l>y law, at the cost o* a periodic famine in the kingdom. They have rej.-L.-ted v crowd of Bills from Civ H >use of Commons and they have been especially hostile to anywise and just h*. ; .'isli.uiou for Iceland. . * . What would have become of this conn try if the Lords — the majority of th Lords— had ruled unchecked for tin last fifty years? By this time th" cou i try would have been enslaved oruiivd. or a revolution would hav< •swept them away, aud it might possib! have swept, even the venerated Mon archy itself. B-.-form of the House oLords was urgent and inevitable. Th' creation of new peers to pass th<* F'-m---chiae Bill would only g*-t rid o: th present dim-ultv. What was waute was the limitation ofthe veto. Shoul the people submit, or curb the nobles ir-' tbeir fathers curbed the Kings o ; i England ? While he would allow th- j Peers their present- powers during the first session of the Bill being submitter to them, he would absolutely preclude them f om. votiong it a second time. Mv:y people would think him to tolerant of the Peers 1 but he belived i: remedies which, while effectual, cause tha least disturbance.