LIBEEALISM:
AH ADDRESS DELIVERED OCTOBER 22, 1878,
TO THE MEMBEES OF THE
BIRMINGHAM
JUNIOR LIBERAL ASSOCIATION
BY
R. W. DALE, ESQ., M.A.,

PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION.

(A REVISED VERBATIM REPORT.)

TWOPENCE.

PUBLISHED BY
THE BIRMINGHAM JUNIOR LIBERAL ASSOCIATION.
1878.

T> C.7.,

iitnior luteal %zmmtian>

LIST OF OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE FOR 1878-9.

president.
R. W. DALE, ESQ., M.A.

JOHN ALLDAY, ESQ.
VILLIERS BLAKEMORE, ESQ.
REV. H. W. CROSSKEY, F.G.S

ffitrc--}9rf<$trjriits". GEORGE DIXON, ESQ., J.P.
G. ST. CLAIR, ESQ., F.G.S.
SAM. TIMMINS, ESQ., J.P.

J. S. WRIGHT, ESQ., J.P.
CreajSurer.
MR. R. L. IMPEY.
Stonararr) Secretaries.
MR. W. B. VINCE. MR. J. S. REYNOLDS.

Committee.

MR. H. GRIFFITH (Chairman).
,, W. A. ADDINSELL.
„ J. ALLDAY, JuN.
„ F. ALLEN.
„ G. BASNETT.
„ W. COOK.
„ H. J. FARNOL.
„ J. M. FARNOL.

MR. W. J. S. GREEN.
G. GRIFFITH.
F. J. HEATHCOTE.
W. HOULSTON.
F. HUGHES.
J. F.1 VINCE.
G. WHITEHOUSE.
P. WHITEHOUSE,

OBJECTS.
The objects of this Association are to bind the Junior Liberals
of the town together, by providing means for social and political
intercourse, and to assist in the promulgation of Liberal principles.

A Suite of Rooms has been taken over the Birmingham
Restaurant, Lower Temple Street, for the daily accommodation of
the members, consisting of a Library and News Room, a General
Club Room, Lavatory, and other rooms.
The Subscription is ios. 6d. per annum, payable in advance.

LIBERALISM

Gentlemen,
We have reason to congratulate ourselves that most
of the leaders of the Liberal party in Birmingham are still in the
maturity of their vigour. Some of them have been engaged
in municipal and political conflicts for many years, but their
strength is unabated and their fire unquenched; there are no
signs of decay in their courage; their zeal is not cooled; their
loyalty to the principles of their party is as fervent as in the
days of their hot youth. And at the great meeting of the
Ward Committees last night, while I saw some men whose
grey hairs and furrowed faces reminded me that even the
heartiest Liberals must grow old, like the rest of mankind, I
saw a crowd of men who are in the very flower of their years,
and on whose resolute vigour we may confidently rely for
victories in the future as splendid as those which we have won
in the past. But, gentlemen, the room in which we are
assembled warns us that the life of the strongest among us is
frail and uncertain* In the death of Mr. Vince, the Liberal
party in this borough lost one of the ablest and noblest of its
chiefs; a man whose charming eloquence was of less value
to us than his stainless reputation — his unselfishness — his
courage, which no difficulties could subdue — his charity, which
no hostility could embitter. Within a very short time after
his death we sustained another loss not less severe. Mr.
Dawson was a man of rare genius, and through a long public
life he had used his brilliant powers in order to inspire the
masses of the people of this town with a generous passion for
the triumph of Liberalism all the world over. Neither of them
had even approached the limits of old age; they were struck
down at a time when we might have hoped that they were
capable of fifteen or twenty years' more work; and who can
tell where the stroke may fall next ? But even apart from
unexpected losses like these, there must be in a very few
years vacant places in the front ranks of the party, and you
and your contemporaries will have to fill them. There are
vacancies constantly occurring in the number of those who, if
* The address was delivered in the School-room of Graham Street Chapel,
of which Mr. Vince was formerly the minister.

they hold a less conspicuous position, and one of less public
honour, are not less essential to the permanent strength of
the Liberal cause. Their places will remain vacant unless you
catch their spirit, and are resolved to exhibit the same zeal
and devotion on behalf of Liberal principles. Therefore, when
I heard of the formation of this Association I received the
intelligence with hearty thankfulness, and the aspect of this
meeting fills me with strong confidence and hope.
You, gentlemen, will have to work together in future years
in the conduct of the public affairs of this town. In this
Association you will come to know each other; you will be
able to measure each other's strength and resources; you will
find out who are the men most fitted to put on Ward Com
mittees, and to make chairmen and secretaries of these
committees; you will learn who are the best men to send into
the Town Council and to put on the executive of the Liberal
Association ; and among you may be trained the men who,
fifteen or twenty years hence, may represent this borough in
Parliament. I understand from your Provisional Secretary that you
propose, if your resources permit, to have a news room, to have a
political library, to have lectures from time to time on political
subjects, and to have debates on questions which are of interest
to the Liberal party. It may seem that since you are all Liberals,
you will be all of one mind, and your debates will be dull.
But it must be remembered that the Liberal party is not one
which has no open questions. There are many topics on which
the Liberal party has not yet arrived at an unanimous judg
ment, and these questions need to be discussed by intelligent
Liberals, in order that conclusions may be reached in relation
to them that are in harmony with the general principles of
the party. This Association is intended to assist you in
forming definite convictions, and in acquiring the power of
stating and defending them. Let me remind those of you
who will constitute the active members of this Association that
now is the time for you to reach settled convictions. Someone
has said of abstract principles, that "in times of tranquility
they are not wanted, and that in times of confusion they are
not heard." But men who have not arrived at settled con
victions as to the broad principles by which the policy of the
nation should be guided and controlled are altogether unfit to
assume any responsible position in connection with any great
political movement.
I am not so unreasonable as to expect that all the members
of this Association will be able to accumulate extensive political

learning. But I plead to-night on behalf of the value and the
interest of political studies. I think that some, at least, of the
members of this Association might make themselves familiar
with the writings of the great economists, from Adam Smith
down to Professor Fawcett. I think that others should
endeavour to master the outlines of the constitutional history of
England, for depend upon it constitutional questions which were
fought out, and finally determined, as some of us supposed,
centuries ago, are likely to emerge in a new form, and an
acquaintance with the history of these questions is necessary
in order that we may deal with them intelligently. I also
venture to suggest that there are special historical topics which
should be investigated by all young men who are anxious to
take an intelligent part in political conflict and controversy.
For instance, take the history of the English Poor Law from
the time of Elizabeth to our own, or the history of the laws
affecting the tenure of land in this country, and I am quite
sure that the study of either will not only be found to be
useful and interesting, but will greatly augment the power of
those who pursue the study for dealing with questions of
modern interest. Perhaps it may be a crotchet of my own,
but I also venture to think that many young Liberals might
with advantage study the history of the Ecclesiastical property
of this country ; for there are few subjects on which pro-
founder ignorance is shown even by men who ought to be
competent authorities on the question. Might I also suggest
that instead of being satisfied with reading the kind of
histories with which all of us became more or less familiar
in our school days, you should endeavour to master the recent
political history of your country ? There are large numbers of
men under twenty-five who know hardly anything of the real
nature and progress of the great political movements which
achieved their triumphs within the memory of the older
generation. I venture to suggest, for instance, the reading of
such books as Mr. Molesworth's History and Harriet Martineau's
History of the Forty Years Peace. If you want to vary
your reading on the same topics, take the biographies of the
men who have occupied the position of Prime Minister of this
country during the last fifty or sixty years. In their private
letters, in the notes they made concerning public affairs at the
time those affairs were taking place, you will discover an
immense amount of information that will enable you to under
stand the real nature of the political crises through which the
country has passed. For those who care to pursue studies of
this sort still further, let me suggest what charming reading

they will find — I am sorry to say that for the last twenty-
five years I have not been able to enjoy very much of it, but
I did when I was of the age of" very many of those who
I see in this room — let me suggest, I say, what charming reading
they will find in the great speeches of the great political orators
who have controlled the public affairs of this country during
the last century. I mean the speeches of William Pitt, Charles
James Fox, Edmund Burke, Plunkett, Grattan, and Sheil.
And there are speeches of men still living, or more recently
dead, that will also reward the time and strength that may
be spent in the study of them — the speeches of Eichard Cobden
and the speeches of John Bright and Mr. Gladstone. If I
am not making too heavy a demand upon you, let me further
ask whether it is not wise for an Englishman to consider
the complexity of the foreign relations of this country, and
to endeavour to familiarize himself to some extent with the
social and political condition of foreign nations. It is my
impression that if such a book as Mr. Wallace's "Russia" had
been honestly read by those gentlemen who have taken a con
siderable part in the public discussions of the last two years,
a great deal of what they have said concerning Russia would
never have been uttered, and their whole attitude in relation
to recent European troubles would have been changed. Don't
imagine that the course of reading which I have ventured
briefly to sketch is altogether beyond your power. Anyone
who will try for five or six years steadily to follow a definite
line of study, will be amazed at the progress that he has made at
the end of that time ; and if you are ever to get through any
serious and solid reading remember that it must be done
now. I ask you to endeavour by these means to form definite
convictions on great questions affecting municipal and national
government. But, it may be said, if you are Liberals, you have definite
convictions already. That objection rests on a false conception
of Liberalism. Liberalism does not consist in a fixed and
unchanging creed. The very function of Liberalism is to
discover and settle new political territory. We are always on
the frontiers; ours is a beneficent policy of annexation. As
soon as new provinces of political truth are made secure, they
cease to be exclusively ours. The Liberal dogmas of a
hundred years ago have already passed into the Conservative
confession of faith. The Liberal heresies of fifty years ago are
now among the articles of Conservative orthodoxy. The
very men, and not their children merely — the very men
that stoned the prophets, are almost certain to build their

sepulchres. You, gentlemen, will not be true Liberals if,
twenty-five years hence, you are satisfied with the political
measures and the political expedients with which your fathers
would be satisfied to-day. We may give a rough and working
definition of a Liberal by making out a list of political
measures for which the Liberal party as a whole, or the
advanced members of it, are now contending, and saying that
a Liberal is a man who believes that it would be just and wise
for these measures to become law. But no such definition
of a Liberal that we can construct to-day will be of any use
fifteen or twenty years hence ; just as no such definition of
a Conservative that we can construct to-day will be of any
use fifteen or twenty years hence. Why, to-day it is one of
the "notes" of the Liberal party that it contends for the
extension of the franchise to the agricultural labourers. But
you don't imagine that this is going to be one of the "notes"
of the Liberal party five years hence. Before that time comes,
depend upon it, the Conservatives will have adopted that article
of our creed as they have adopted others. To-day, it is only
those of us who are regarded as almost revolutionary Liberals
who are committed to the disestablishment and disendowment
of the English Church; but within twenty or five-and-twenty
years the most moderate and respectable Conservatives will
have accepted that article of our policy too.
What, then, is the ultimate difference between a Liberal
and a Conservative ? To give a very brief answer to that
question, I may say that it is the first anxiety of a Conserva
tive to maintain the existing institutions of the country. He
has, what seems to me, a superstitious veneration for them.
That they exist to-day seems to him an unanswerable reason
why they should exist to-morrow. He values them for their
own sake. They are invested with something like a religious
sanctity. To change a single stone in the ancient structure
seems to him an act of sacrilege. On the other hand, there
is a bastard Liberalism which regards all the labours and
achievements of past centuries with undiscriminating contempt.
To quote the keen words of William Hazlitt, "There are men
who believe, because they knew nothing twenty or thirty
years ago, and began to think then for the first time in their
lives, that the rest of mankind were in the same predicament,
and never knew anything till they did." But the true Liberal
is of a more modest temper. He recognises in the existing
institutions of his country the venerable monuments of the
sagacity, the patriotism, the courage, and the sufferings of past
generations. That they have stood firm through so many

centuries, is to him a proof that they have deep and secure
foundations in the national life. And he knows that the life
of nations does not usually undergo sudden changes. In
ordinary circumstances, the morality, the intelligence, the
public spirit, the wealth, the social manners of one age, are
not very widely different from the morality, the intelligence,
the public spirit, the wealth, the social manners of its prede
cessor. And the institutions which give security and freedom
to the country in one age are therefore, in the main, likely to
give it security and freedom in the next.
But we, Liberals, believe that national institutions exist for
the nation — not the nation for the institutions. We believe
that the Crown exists for the country — not the country for
the Crown. We believe that Parliament exists for the people
— not the people for Parliament. And we further believe
that since the national life of England is undergoing vast
though gradual changes, the political organization of the
country must undergo constant revision and modification. A
century or two ago the population was scattered thinly over
the country, and great numbers of the people had neither the
intelligence nor the public spirit to care for the legislation
and general policy of the State. They spent their strength
in exhausting physical toil. They knew little or nothing
about the doings of kings and statesmen, and they cared
nothing. At such a time it was natural and inevitable that
the political fortunes of England should be under the control
of the Crown, the peers, the country gentlemen, and a few
great cities like London, Bristol, York, and Hull. But with
the development of our manufacturing industry, and the con
centration of great masses of the people around the factories,
the mines, and the mills, which were rapidly augmenting the
wealth of the nation ; with the growth of the intelligence,
energy, and material prosperity of manufacturers, merchants
and tradesmen ; with the immense change in the temper,
intelligence, and habits of the working people themselves — a
change produced by the changes in their social condition —
Liberalism maintained that the time had come for an extension
of the basis of political power; and the two great movements
for Parliamentary Reform, the first of which gave to the
middle classes in towns a vast accession of political authority,
and the second of which secured the franchise for the working
fopulation in all Parliamentary boroughs — these movements,
say, were the direct and necessary result of the application
of the principles of Liberalism to the new forms assumed by
our national life during the last century and a half. You

9
have been told, even if many of you are unable to remember,
how these changes were at first vehemently resisted by the
Conservative party. Your fathers — the men who met on
NewhaU Hill — were branded as revolutionists, as traitors to
the institutions of their country; and even those of us who
in later years, in times which some of you can faintly
remember, asked for a further extension of the franchise, so
that it might reach the hands of the great masses of the
working people of England, had to endure, in the struggle,
insult, slander, and contumely. But the Liberal party was
only recognising the great changes which had passed upon
the national life, and asking that corresponding changes should
be made in the political institutions of the country. Now that
those changes have actually been achieved, the Conservatives
themselves are delighted with the results of Parliamentary
reform. The question now before us is, whether the great
masses of the population in the agricultural districts of the
country have risen to a sufficient degree of intelligence, and
are inspired with enough of public spirit, to be wisely
entrusted, in their own interest and in the interest of the
whole nation, with political responsibilities. It is our convic
tion that they have reached a point at which it is not only
safe but necessary to confer upon them political power. As
soon as we discover among any class of the people a con
viction that they are receiving grave injury from the social
and political institutions of the country, and as soon as
they organise themselves in order to improve their condition,
we Liberals believe that the time has come to enable them to
give their opinions a constitutional expression in the great
council of the nation. We further believe that to invest
the agricultural population of England with political respon
sibilities, would greatly contribute to the development of
their intellectual and their moral life. To ask, therefore,
for an extension of the county franchise is, for the moment,
a sign and symbol of Liberal faith ; but I repeat, that five
years hence our political opponents will, in all probability,
have accepted our position, and that conflict will be for ever
won. Let me recur to our original principle. I say that our
principle is this — that national institutions exist for the sake
of the nation, not the nation for the sake of the institutions.
I have said, too, that the political institutions of this country
are the monuments of the sagacity, and patriotism, and suffer
ings, and heroism of our ancestors; but we can never forget
that they also perpetuate the memory of those periods of our

10
history in which certain classes in the State held a far greater
place in the national life than they hold now. I shall not
discuss to-night the question whether the social and political
importance of the hereditary aristocracy is still so great as to
justify the authority belonging to the House of Lords. That
question, remember, is altogether distinct from the question
whether it is desirable to have a second chamber. We might
have a second chamber not constituted of hereditary members;
but I am not anxious, and do not desire, to open that con
troversy to-night. I simply want to remind you that there
was a time when the wealth of the peers, and the influence
they exerted over their dependents, was so enormous that,
whether they had sat in Parliament or not, they would, as a
class, have had a decisive voice in the conduct of national
affairs. For my own part, I believe it was expedient that
the hereditary peers should have a House of their own. It
may be argued that their position in the country is still so
great, that their influence is still so vast, that it is desirable
to perpetuate their present power. That is a fair question for
discussion. But take one bench in that House. There was a
time when the authority of the Bishops was so great in this
country, that it was expedient that they should sit in Parlia
ment, where they could be publicly called to account for their
proceedings, and could be publicly compelled to defend them.
I think that a true Liberal in the time of William the
Conqueror, of Edward III., and still later on in our history,'
might, for many reasons, have fairly insisted that Bishops
ought to have seats in the national council. But I ask
you to consider, in the debates which you are going to
hold in connection with this Association, whether the position
which the Bishops hold in the political life of this country
at the present hour is such as to justify the continuance of
the prerogatives that were conferred upon them in other times.
Take, again, the whole group of laws which have contributed
to strengthen the position of the peers and great landed pro
prietors of the country — such as the law of primogeniture, the
law of entail, and all the laws which make it extremely
difficult to break up great landed estates. I have a conviction
that there was a time when these laws may have been wise
and necessary. There were periods in our history when the
great landed proprietors were the most effective check on the
unlimited use of the prerogatives of the Crown. There were
periods in our history when it was important to build up a
great and powerful class like that of the peerage in order that
the encroachments of the Crown might be restrained. But

11
do the aristocracy of England fulfil that function to-day ? If
they do not, then the reasons that existed for keeping their
great estates together — the political reasons which justified
legislation of the kind to which T am referring — have now
disappeared ; and however wise those laws may have been
four or five centuries ago, if the conditions of the country that
made those laws expedient have altogether disappeared, they
are expedient no longer. During the last two or three
centuries, we have relied mainly on the House of Commons
for the defence of the liberties of the people. It is becoming
a question whether the powers of that House may not have
to be enlarged, and whether new securities may not be
necessary in order to enable it to answer its ancient purposes.
Some of you are aware that the gentleman who intends to
honour this borough by becoming a candidate for its suffrages
at the next Parliamentary election, has recently been good
enough to come down to Birmingham in order that we might
make some acquaintance with him. He also went to Wolver
hampton, where he delivered a short speech last night, and
in that speech he told a story. He said that he had been
having some conversation with an American friend of his, and
that the American spoke of the present position and functions
of our House of Commons. Captain Burnaby said the
American used these words, "Your House of Commons used
to be a bulwark between the Crown and the people. It is
now, sir, a sympathetic hnk which unites the people to the
Crown." Captain Burnaby quoted these words with hearty
sympathy and approbation; and that he should have quoted
them in that spirit indicates the conception that he has
formed of the functions of a member of the House of
Commons. He does not appear to have discovered that
those words suggest constitutional questions of critical and
supreme importance. In our days the Crown has come to
mean the Ministers of the Crown. When we speak of the
prerogatives of the Sovereign, we mean the prerogatives which
are really in the hands of the Prime Minister of the country
for the time being. And if, therefore, we Liberals are some
times disposed to raise the question whether or not the
prerogatives of the Crown are being "pressed too far, let
it be clearly understood that we are not discussing the
conduct of that gracious lady who for forty years has
reigned over us. We are discussing the conduct and policy
of her Majesty's Ministers. Now, I want to know whether
it is the true function of the House of Commons to be a
sympathetic link between the supreme power and the people.

12
My conviction is, that no matter how the supreme power is
elected, and I am referring here for the moment to the Prime
Minister as constituting, practically, the supreme power in this
country, it is necessary that there should be, not a sympathetic
link, but a bulwark between him and the liberties of the country.
Imperialism, even when it rests upon a democratic basis, is as
perilous to freedom as Imperialism in any other form. Louis
Napoleon was made President and Emperor of France by uni
versal suffrage, but France was not free, simply because it had
power to elect its supreme governor. When you have elected
your supreme governor, you have to surround him with a system
of institutions that shall prevent him from abusing the powers
which the nation has entrusted to his hands. And it has become
a question whether the prerogatives of the Crown — or, in plain
words, the powers now exercised by the Prime Minister of
England — have not grown to a dangerous excess, an excess
needing new securities in order that the freedom of the country
may be preserved. We Liberals are prepared to investigate
questions of that sort without any superstitious reverence for
the prerogatives of the Crown. No such superstition will prevent
us from asking .that new securities may be granted for the liber
ties of the nation. Here lies the difference between the
Conservative and the Liberal temper. The Conservative is
naturally disposed to perpetuate that which exists because it
exists; we ask whether it is fulfilling the functions for which
it was established.
Liberalism, then, is not a fixed, unchangeable creed. It is
a living spirit. It consists of principles which in varying times
have various applications. Even within the last thirty years
a very great and remarkable change has passed upon the theo
retical views of the advanced Liberal party. In my early years,
and when I began to think about politics, one chief article in
the creed of extreme Radicalism was this — that the powers of
government, municipal and national, should be restrained within
the narrowest possible limits ; that government should do nothing
for us except protect us against force and against fraud. There
are some Radicals who still hold to that creed. Followers
of Mr. Herbert Spencer hold to it. That creed was a
revolt against a system of government which exercised con
stant repression upon the energies of the people. It was a
cry for freedom. But Radicalism has gradually come to discover
that with political power in the hands of the people, municipal
and national government may contribute very much to the
positive development of national life. We still hold fast to the
great principle, that so far as the industry of the country is

13
concerned, it will prosper most if it is left unfettered, but we
say that in many directions the interference of Government,
national and local, may very greatly contribute to the national
advantage. We think, for instance, that when men come to live
together in great towns like this, it is indispensable for the
sake of the health and safety of the community that some
kind of restraint should be placed upon the independence and
eccentricities of individual inhabitants. If a man goes to
live on Cannock Chase, out of sight and out of hearing of all
mankind, he can build his house very much as he likes ; he can
drain it or not as he likes ; but if he comes to live in New Street
or Bull Street, all his neighbours have an interest in the way
in which his house is built and drained. We, therefore, contend
that municipal authority has a right to interfere with his freedom
in these matters, in order to secure the health and vigour of
his neighbours. In my early days extreme Radicals would have
looked with extreme jealousy upon proposals to legislate minutely
on such matters as these to which I have just referred. Some
of you may remember an essay by Mr. Spencer, in which he
illustrates the miserable failures on the part of municipal authori
ties in attempting to legislate for sanitary purposes. It is one of
the most entertaining essays ever written. In describing the ex
traordinary dodges to which the depravity of human nature will
resort in order to evade and escape wholesome laws, he shows, and
shows conclusively, that the attempt to improve by legislation
the sanitary condition of the people, has often ended in inflicting
far worse evils than this legislation was intended to remove.
But it does not follow that because one doctor treats a patient
so unwisely as to aggravate his disease, therefore all doctors will
make the same kind of blunder. Legislation of this sort must,
in its early movements, be tentative. Grave mistakes are sure
to be made ; we can learn only by experience.
Modern Liberalism also recognises the possibility of con
tributing, by public institutions and b}r legislative action, to the
free development of the intellectual life of the people. We
have been eager for the establishment of museums and galleries
of art; we have been eager, too, for the establishment of a
system of national education, believing, quite apart from the
interests of the individual which are involved in the intellectual
culture which we are able to afford him, that in a complex
state of society like our own it is a peril to the whole community
for large masses of the nation to remain uninstructed. These
are modifications of the details of the Radical creed of
thirty-five or forty years ago. There are still Radicals who
object to Government undertaking the business of the post

14
office, and the management of the telegraph lines, and who look
forward with dismay to the possibility of placing the whole
of the railway administration of the country under the
control of a Government department. Now, all these questions
are questions which you, gentlemen, in this association will do
wisely to discuss.
Before I close I should like to say a few words about the
feelings you should cultivate, both in relation to your opponents
and to your friends. Try to understand the strong points in the
case of your political opponents. Do not assume that all Con
servatives must be either knaves or fools. There are knaves
and fools on both sides. We ought frankly to acknowledge
that there is genuine patriotism among our Conservative fellow-
countrymen, though we believe that from the inevitable necessi
ties of their position they are certain to ignore the changes
which the changing life of the nation renders necessary in its
political institutions. They underestimate the importance of the
claims of those classes that are rising to the possession of new
power. They are always fifty years, or, at least, twenty-five years,
too- late in the policy which they propose for the adoption of the
nation ; and, we think, that by the necessities of their position,
by the force of their political tendencies, not from any malice
in their hearts, they are likely to be mischievous and unjust in
their public and political measures. The strife will sometimes
become fierce When a man's blood is hot, he is apt to say hot
things. But if men call you hard names, that is no reason why
you should fling hard names back again. It is bad enough to
have mud thrown at you, but to take mud in your own hands
and fling it back, is a worse thing still. I ask you, therefore, to
endeavour to cultivate, in relation to your political opponents, a
generosity and a courtesy worthy of honourable men — the
generosity and courtesy which the personal excellencies, the in
telligence, and the public spirit of very many of them justly
demand at your hands. And, amongst yourselves, let there be
a generous consideration for differences of opinion. Where com
mon objects are honestly sought, men ought not to be impatient
because the details of the policy which is adopted by the party
may not always commend themselves to their own judgment.
You and I care for the triumph of our principles ; we are not
anxious for our own personal importance to be recognised. Let
me say, after an experience of the political life of Birmingham
extending now over twenty-five years, my deliberate conviction
is this, that influence in our party, wherever it exists, has been
won by legitimate means, — has been won by the intelligence
of those who have wielded it, by their earnest, laborious, and

15
unselfish services rendered to their principles and to their party.
If any man wants to rule in the Liberal party in Birmingham,
let him understand that he must first serve, and serve in obscure
positions ; he must do a great deal of work of which the public
will hear nothing; he must spend a great deal of time in toil
that wiU make no appearance in the newspapers, and for which,
now and then, he may be snubbed by his own friends.
It is by the way we bear the snubbing of our friends that
our loyalty to our principles is best tested. If a man bears
snubbing in the service of Liberal principles, he is a man that
can be trusted with positions of honour. It is, therefore, emin
ently desirable that a few little troubles should sometimes occur
in the conduct of our party affairs, that we may know the fibre
of which our friends and comrades are made.
We have been reminded by our chairman that Birmingham
has a great place in the Liberal party of this country. I ask you
to preserve for it the great place which your fathers have won.
Remember that your country is greater than your party. Cherish
for your country a fervent and passionate loyalty. Remember,
too, that England has been made what she is, not merely by her
princes and by those who in successive centuries have administered
the Government, but by those who, from the earliest periods of
our history, have maintained an incessant and sometimes appar
ently hopeless struggle with those who commanded supreme
political power. It was the martyrs of freedom that contributed
to make England what she is; the men who languished in
prisons and died on scaffolds, as well as those who sat in the
councils of the Crown. You and I are the heirs, not of the
men who wielded the political power of the country "in high
places, but we are the heirs and representatives of those who
laboured and suffered in obscurity in order to defend the liberties
of the EngUsh people. But it is not enough for us to boast of
our ancestry and to sing that —
"We 're the sons of sires that baffled
Crowned and mitred tyranny ;
They defied the field and scaffold
For their birthright — so will we."
The work which you and I have to do is not of the romantic
sort that finds its way into national histories. We have to master
the principles by which the policy and legislation of our country
ought to be directed and controlled; we have to diffuse those
principle's among our friends and neighbours and fellow-citizens ;
we have to give our time and strength cheerfully and unself
ishly to secure for those who share our convictions the

16
control of the municipal life of the town; we must be ready
when the time comes to occupy municipal office — not for the
sake of personal distinction, but that we may be able to render
public service; we must take our full share of the labour which
is necessary to retain for Birmingham the proud distinction
of being the most Liberal borough in the country ; and in all
our work we must endeavour to suppress personal vanity and
personal ambition, and to strive heartily and enthusiastically
for the unity and vigour of the party to which we belong,
and the triumph of the principles for which the party exists.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 01397 0331

T. H. LAKINS, PRINTER, NEW EDMUND STREET, BIRMINGHAM.