Mr. Bright delivered a very characteristic speech on Dis- establishment
in Birmingham last Monday, on behalf of Mr. Broadhurst's candidature for the Bordesley division of Bir- mingham, and in answer to the remarks of the Tory candidate for Edgbaston, Sir Eardley Wilmot, on the subject of the Estab- lished Church. Sir Eardley Wilmot had, it seems, said that if the Disestablishers succeeded, the Cathedrals were to be closed and " to let " was to be placarded over the doors. And he called this a burglarious policy, and said that the party who adopted it should assume for their coat-of-arms a crowbar and skeleton- keys. On this representation of the policy of Disestablishment Mr. Bright passed unmeasured contempt. He said that there was no reason to expect, even if, after long and anxious delibera- tion, the policy of Disestablishment were adopted by the nation, any course at all more offensive or injurious to the Church of England than that adopted in the case of the Irish precedent. He referred to all the cases of Disestablishment in our Colonies and in the United States, and asserted that in no case had the prospects of the Church disestablished been injured ; and he believed that in many it had flourished better after Disestablish- ment than before ; bat he threw no inconsiderable doubt on the prospects of the movement, and intimated his strong belief that if ever it took place, though it must necessarily carry with it some measure of disendowment, great moderation would be shown, and that the property gained far national purposes would be applied to uses as important as those to which it is now applied.
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