Excerpt from Speeches on Parliamentary Reform, &C: Delivered During the Autumn of 1866, to the People of England, Scotland, and Ireland, at Birmingham, Manchester, Leed, Glasgow, Dublin, and London

Aeyes rested, but to the full extent of which they could scarcely reach It is highly probable that it might have been filled forty times from that vast number. Yes, and at this moment I am told that outside there is an audience far greater than that I now address whilst to-morrow morning there will be millions of an audience throughout the whole of the United Kingdom, anxious to know what has been done and what has been said on this 27th day of August in this great town of Birmingham. We are not here tonight to discuss the question of reform, because that is a question which We have already settled What we have to do is to discuss calmly our present position and our future work in reference to this great question. My honourable colleague has said that the bill of the late Government was one of singular moderation. It was also a bill - I speak now only of the Fran chise Bill - Oi a singular and most honest simplicity and that was the great reason that I felt it my duty, and that you felt it yours, to give it an honest support. I will just tell you how much and how little it proposed to give, or Would have given, to the working classes of this country and I think it necessary to state this because of the argument which I intend to raise upon it. The Government produced to the House of Commons a blue book, most elaborately compiled, and as far as I know, with the exception of one point, correct and trustworthy but they proposed to inform the House of the number of working men who are now upon the register, and what addition would be made to that number if the bill passed. I differed entirely from their estimate, which I believe to have been to a very great extent erroneous, and I think I produced facts in the House of Commons which sustained my opinion. Mr. Gladstone told us that at present there are on the borough registers in England and Wales working men to the number of He showed further that by the abolition of the ratepaying clauses, if there was no alteration in the �10 suffrage, there would be an addition of electors, who, he reckoned, would all be working men; and then he said that if the franchise was reduced from �10 to �7, there would be a further addition of 144, 000, all of whom he estimated as working men. Therefore he stated that when that bill passed there would be on the borough registers of England and Wales working men, of whom would be new voters added by that bill. I believe that estimate was made with perfect honesty by Mr. Gladstone, but that it was to a very large extent erroneous. I showed several boroughs, and I believe I might have gone through almost every borough in the United Kingdom, where the number of working men stated in the returns was at least double, and in many cases far more than double, the actual number upon the register. I estimated, also, that although the abolition of the ratepaying clauses might add new votes, it would be very unfair to expect that more than one-third, or of them - being ten pounders and upwards - would be of the class of working men. I said further that it was absurd to reckon that every man between �10 and �7 was of the class of working men, and I supposed that at least no more than two-thirds of them could be placed in that list. My estimate differed, therefore, from Mr. Gladstone's thus far. I said that of the now upon the register there were not more than the half, or instead.

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