Page:Item 6 1854.pdf/183

plunged. The opinion of the country on that war was all but unanimous, and England threw her heart and soul into that contest, believing that her interest and the cause of justice obliged her to do so. So long as the war lasted the people did their best, but now that the war had been concluded, they had a right to expect the burden to be removed from them, and he should feel it his duty to insist on the immediate removal of the war-tax [Hear, hear!]. He could not consent, he must add to purchase that removal by a loan contracted in time of peace or for a duty to be imposed which should press on the springs of industry or the investment of property, but should insist on the reduction of the income tax reducing the expenditure and cutting down the estimates; in a word, by giving the Chancellor of the Exchequer to understand that he must cut his coat according to his cloth [Cheers]. Since 1830 this country had been steadily progressing in a career of improvement. Religious disabilities were almost entirely removed, and there had not been an extension of the suffrage upon national and international principles. The harshness of criminal laws had been softened, and the education of the people had advanced. He trusted they had only temporarily suspended that career of improvement. The war had turned the attention of the matter from domestic questions to those other great questions that were fought out on the plains of the Crimea; but they could now devote their almost undivided attention to measures of international improvement and amelioration. He should feel it his duty to labour to the best of his ability to promote the policy alluded to. There were many amendments in the laws which might be advantageously carved out - an amendment as to laws of the land, reform in the statute laws, the criminal laws and other analagous(sic) measures. The extension of the suffrage must early claim their attention. As education was more widely diffused, so there would be year by year an increasing class of persons qualified to exercise the right of voting with advantage to themselves and the rest of the community [Cheers]. He had not come there to define the extent to which that suffrage should go, but only to point out those principles by which he should be guided. . . Many clerks, skilled artizans(sic) &c. were excluded from the franchise because they did not possess a peculiar kind of property. Some of them were not married and lived in lodgings, and had not, therefore, the right of voting which they might exercise with advantage and discretion. He had spoken of the war. His was the good fortune to be in the Crimea before the conclusion of peace, he having arrived there just one week after the fall of Sebastopol. He had facilities for visiting the armies of Sardinia and Turkey, and he must say, that to anyone who saw the four armies in active service together, there could be no question as to which possessed the superiority as to raw material; he meant as to the men who composed those -