MR. W. JONES'S REMINISCENCES OF THE HON. JOHN BRIGHT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9324, 29 March 1889, Page 6

MR. W. JONES'S REMINISCENCES OF THE HON. JOHN BRIGHT.

Mb. W. Jones, who gives a lecture tonight at the Y.M.C. Association on International Arbitration," was a friend of the Hon. John Bright (notice of whose death appeared in our cablegrams in yesterday's issue) of many years' standing. On being interviewed by a Herald representative regarding his reminiscences of Mr. Bright, that gentleman said : — ,

" My reminiscences of Mr. John Bright date back to my schoolboy days, when I recollect him giving me a lesson in enuncia lion in speaking ami reading, which has been of benefit to me through life. He commenced his career as a public speaker when quite a young man, on temperance platforms, and it was after the death of his first wife that he was induced by his friend, Mr, Richard Cobden, to join him in the great political campaign for obtaining the repeal of the Corn Laws. The history of that epoch is well known to every student of English history. There was a great difference between the two speakers —Cobden being a close logical or convincing speaker, whose ' unadorned eloquence' was the means of convincing Sir Robert Peel of the necessity for the repeal ot the Corn Laws ; Bright, on the other hand, was an impassioned speaker,and his fervid eloquence aioused the vast audiences of the English people to enthusiasm. Mr. Bright entered the House of Commons in 1843, and it was some time before he attained to his great position as a great Parliamentary tribune in that assembly. From that time to his decease Mr. Bright never lost the affection of the English people, although he espoused causes sometimes which were not popular, as in the time of the Crimean war, and also in his espousal of the cause of the Northern States in the American civil war. When in America eighteen months ago, in a private interview which I had with President Cleveland, I presented to him a letter of introduction from Mr. Bright The President asked me, ' When is our friend, Mr. Bright, coming to see us. Wo will give him a hearty ovation, as we are thankful to him for preserving the English people faithful to the cause of the North while other English statesmen sympathised with the South.' I replied that ' Mr. Bright disliked public ovation.' On returning to England I related the incident to Mr. Bright, and my reply ' that he disliked ovations.' Mr. Bright interjected, 'And you might have added disliked the sea too,' being averse to crossing the stormy Atlantic. Mr. Bright's last groat speech was delivered about two years ago in the city of Westminster on the occasion of my delivering a lecture on 'International Arbitration,' of which principle Mr. Bright had been a consistent supporter. Mr. Bright presided on that occasion, and at the close of my lecture spoke for fifty minutes, strongly denouncing the Egyptian and Soudan campaigns carried on by Mr. Gladstone, he having seceded from the Cabinet on hearing the news of the bombardment of Alexandria. This speech was reported by the leading London papers, and traversed the civilised world. It is a great satisfaction to me that Mr. Bright's last public utterance was in a cause which we both held dearthe cause of peace and good will. It is well known that Mr. Bright refused any honours or rewards for his eminent sorvices to his country, and when pressed by the Prime Minister to accept honours, he expressed his determination in the language of the Bible, which ho loved so well, ' I dwell among mine own people.' Some time ago a sensational cablegram was published about Mr. Bright, stating that on his deathbed (what was then supposed to bo his deathbed), he had 'tearfully' desired reconciliation with Mr. Gladstone. I know nothing of such an incident. Mr. Bright's sister and brother, Mr. Jacob Bright, had frequently endeavoured to alter his views on certain political matters, bub in vain. Mr. Bright, as a devout Christian, was of course desirous of dying at peace with all men, but as to desiring ' tearful' reconciliation with Mr. Gladstone, in his politics, as in his creed, John Bright died as ho had lived." <

MR. JOHN BRIGHT'S ELOQUENCE. From any speech which Mr. Bright ever delivered may be culled passages showing how grand was the eloquence he had at his command. We quote, as one example, the peroration of a speech delivered at the conference of the Peace Society in Edinburgh in 1853, because it is a gcod specimen of his power, and because it is appropriate to the subject on which Mr. Jones is to address the citizens of Auckland :—

Bub, speaking hero in Edinburgh to such an audience—ail audience probably for its numbers as intelligent; and as influential as ever was assembled within the walls of any hall in this kingdom—l think I may put before you higher considerations even than

that of property and the institutions of your country. I may remind you of duties more solemn, and of obligations more imperative. You profess to be a Christian nation. You make it your boast even—though boasting is somewhat out of place in such questions — you make it your boast that you are a Protestant people, and that you draw your rule of doctrine and practice, as from a well pure and undefiled, from the living oracles of God, and from the direct revelation of the Omnipotent. You have even conceived the magnificent project of illuminatiug the whole earth, even to its remotest and darkest recesses, by the dissemination of the volume of the New Testament, in whose every page are written for ever the words of peace. Within the limits of this island alone, on every Sabbath twenty thousand, yes, far more than twenty thousand temples are thrown open, in which devout men and women assemble that they may worship Him who is the " Prince of Peace." Is this a reality ? or is your Christianity a romance ? Is your profession a dream ? No, Jam sure thai your Christianity is not a romance, and I am equally sure that your profession is not a dream, It is because I believe this that I appeal to you with confidence, and that I have hope and faith in the future. I believe that we shall see, and at no very distant time, sound economic principles spreading much more widely amongst the people ; a sense of justice growing up in a soil which hitherto has been deemed unfruitful, and which will be better than all—the Churches of the United Kingdom the Churches of Britain awaking, as it were, from their slumbers and girding up their loins to more glorious work, when they shall not only accept and believe in the prophecy, but labour earnestly for its fulfilment, that there shall come a time—a blessed time—a time which shall last for ever—when " Nat : on shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more,"