THE Thames Advertiser. FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 1889.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XXI, Issue 6365, 29 March 1889, Page 2

THE Thames Advertiser. FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 1889.

In every part of the world where the English language is spoken the name of John Bright is as " familiar as a household word." Prom the time he entered the House of Commons in 1843 to the time of his death he was a consistent liberal, and was always' to be found on the side of the people. Associated with Cobdeu and Milner Gibson, he leaves a record of liberal measures behind him, he has made his mark in history and his , name will always be connected by historians with two of the greatest reforms of the century.—The abolition of the Corn Laws and the inauguration of the free trade policy, the two measures which have been mainly instrumental in raising England to the highest pitch of commercial greatness. He saw clearly that it was only a question of feeding the population at the smallest possible cost, and the natural advantages which England enjoyed in her coal and iron deposits could not fail to place her in the position of caring nought for the competition, of; ; any other people in the markets of the world, or for> that of all the peoples combined. The discovery of steam and its application to the transport of material by laud and sea has to some extent detracted from our supremacy, but that ; this is the case in nowise subverts the truth that Mr Bright and those who acted with him were" wise before* the fact." There are some of our readers who have heard the dead orator address vast assemblages in Birmingham or Manchester, they have sat, or stood, as was often a necessity, almost breathless, listening to the utterances of the greatest orator of his age. The sight was a wonderful one, before this one'man was often an assemblage of thousands of others, and not a sound was to be heard with- the exception of the one' sonorous voice giving utterance''to'the mo3t perfect sentences, exactly suited to tho purpose; they were intended to fulfil. At one moment convincing by close argument, and in the next raising his audience to enthusiasm for the cause he advocated... Then would arise from the vast audience cheer upon cheer, and such cheers as can only be uttered by an • Anglo-Saxon. No man who has not heard John Bright can form even an approximate idea of tho power to which popular oratory may attain, Oratorical powers are without doubt a ..gift of nature, they may be increased by culture, but produced from barren soil, never. The whole English speaking people who are educated in the history of the country of their origin will feci a pang of regret, at the death of tho great man—great by his oratory, but greater still by the honesty and earnestness of purpose which has controlled his actions during a public career of somo forty-five years. Many have differed with him, but his most bitter political opponent has never dared to whisper that John Bright throughout his whole career has been actuated by any but pure motives. ■ This is a record to bo envied by any man living,