No. XXXV.] APPENDIX. 375 



if we had known we should not have been successful. (Hear, hear.) But 

 despair was not the only cause of the defeat. There was a question which 

 would be tried by numerous petitions, viz. the one day's pay. This was a 

 very difficult question ; the one day's pay in some circumstances might, he 

 thought, be allowed and paid. He was advised that it should not be done 

 in Rochester in this election, and it was not done ; and to that trifle he 

 attributed a great deficiency in the votes. Numbers of men, again, were 

 compelled to vote as their masters wished, and not as they themselves 

 thought proper. He believed, if every voter had been free to vote as he 

 thought proper, three-fourths at least would have voted for the Conserva- 

 tive cause and not for the Liberals. (Cheers.) The parliamentary represen- 

 tation of the country had no doubt been considerably changed in the 

 present Parliament. For some years past the middle classes had princi- 

 pally been represented in Parliament, but now the working men were the 

 largest body amongst the electors. But in this city the men had been 

 compelled to vote as he had said, immediately against their own principles. 

 They had to vote in support of a party amongst whom was one man 

 Bright whose principles they all knew, viz. that he wished to get the 

 greatest amount of labour for the smallest amount of pay; and, again, 

 to receive the greatest amount of money for the smallest amount of the 

 necessaries of life. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Bright said that all dockyards were 

 useless, and it might come to pass that Chatham dockyard might be done 

 away with, in order that Mr. Bright might get the work put to tender 

 amongst his favourites in the North, and then the inhabitants of this 

 place would be left without anything but poverty and starvation. (Hear, 

 hear.) Now, it had been seriously impressed upon him to petition against 

 this return for the city of Rochester. He might have done so on safe 

 grounds. But he did not wish to disturb the peace of the city, and it 

 would have raised much ill feeling ; and he felt that the working of the 

 Act would be sufficiently proved by the fifty-four petitions which had been 

 sent up : by those the law would be sufficiently demonstrated. And he 

 would leave those masters who had not allowed their men to vote according 

 to their own wishes to be racked and tormented by their consciences. 

 (Hear, hear.) Those masters would be in constant fear that their men 

 would not be doing that justice which they would otherwise have expected, 

 and by that fear they would be tormented morning, noon, and night. 

 (Hear, hear.) Now he believed that the doctrines he had had the pleasure 

 of bringing before the city on many occasions would have their due weight. 

 The doctrines would spread and grow, and finally they would overthrow 

 the whole bulwark of Radicalism in the city. (Cheers.) 



Now what had they to look forward to, and what had they to fear ? 

 As Conservatives they had a large majority against any other body of men 

 holding contrary principles ; but when they brought against the Conserva- 

 tives all the eccentricities of character and opinion which the kingdom 

 contained, they found themselves in a minority. Who were the Liberals ? 

 That body was composed of people professing opposite kinds of religion, 

 who joined together for a time to overthrow one of the principles of the 

 Constitution. (Hear, hear.) There was a confusion which ran through the 

 whole country. This was demonstrated by the fact that they could not 

 walk in the streets of London without being in fear of the garrotter ; they 

 could not sit in their houses without being in fear of the burglar. This was 



