LORD CARNARVON AND MR. BRIGHT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6001, 10 February 1881, Page 6

LORD CARNARVON AND MR. BRIGHT.

Earl Carnarvon writes a long letter to Mr. Briyht, in reference to a speech of his upon the aristocracy and the land laws, in which he says : —" You are pleased to tell us that the House of Lords cannot be a permanent institution in a free country ; but as you have appealed so largely to 'history,' I may remind you that it has already lived its centuries, exceeding in duration even the House of Commons ; that it is inseparably intermingled with some of the proudest memories of the English nation—of her greatest statesmen, captains, lawyers, Churchmenand that though it has been often threatened by orators not inferior to yourself, it has outlived their denunciations, as I hope it will outlive yours. You have often preached a crusade against 'aristocracy,' whether as a class or a principle ; but the class will probably long survive both you and me, and all the generation to whom your speecli was addressed ; and the principle in its best sense is as true a part of nature and as indestructible now that the world is old as hen it was young. The desire to found a family, the pride in ancestral renown, the ambition to crown past with present honours, will be now, as they have been in all times, the noblest inducements to noble action, and if ever there was an assembly which, subject to the defects of all human institutions, was the goal and property of all the popular and democratic excellencies that have sprung into being under that constitution which you apparently desire to revolutionise, it is the House of Lords." Mr. Bright lias addressed the following reply to the letter of the Earl of Carnarvon:—"Rochdale, December 25, ISSO. Your letter of December S, which appeared in the London papers of yesterday morning, reached me last night. You comment on my speech of November 16, and find in it terrible blemishes which have not been discovered by its critics in this country. You condemn me for attacks on the Sovereign, the aristocracy, and the landowners. I have defended the monarchy. The defence is little needed in this country and in this reign. I have warned the aristocracy of the danger I wished them to shun. As to landowners, I have been one of the most prominent of the supporters of a policy so necessary for the countrj-. and so wise for them, that, had it been obstinately resisted, the great landowners of England and Scotland would long ago have been running for their lives as some Irish landowners are reported to be doing now. I will not reply at length to your letter ; it is enough to acknowledge the receipt of it. lam content to leave my speech and your letter to the judgment of the public.—l am, yours respectfully, John Bright. The Right Hon. the Earl of Carnarvon, Madeira."