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 of the establishment of an occupying proprietary in Ireland. It was in the course of this speech that he enunciated the oft-quoted apophthegm, 'Force is not a remedy.' But he felt constrained, by the ineffectiveness of the ordinary law to check the increase of crime, to vindicate the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act (28 Jan. 1881). The Irish land bill, which followed, was largely the embodiment of the principles he had long advocated. At a banquet to ministers given by the Fishmongers' Company (28 April), upon the second reading in the House of Commons (9 May), and at the Mansion House (8 Aug.), he vindicated that measure, but he deprecated the extension of its principles to England. He approved the re-establishment of the autonomy of the Transvaal as a 'course at once magnanimous and just' (Letter of 23 March 1881). During 1879 and 1880 there had been signs of a disposition on the part of the conservatives to encourage a protectionist reaction under the name of the 'fair trade' or 'reciprocity' movement. This Bright combated in a number of letters extending through several years, which dwelt upon the improved condition of England since the introduction of free trade and the injurious consequences of protection to America.

Egyptian affairs had begun towards the close of 1881 to demand the attention of the ministry. A massacre of Christians took place at Alexandria on 11 June 1882, and the khedive's ministry were impotent. The English government was at first unwilling to intervene. There was a division of opinion in the cabinet. At last, on 10 July, Admiral Seymour received an order by telegram to bombard Alexandria [see ]. On 15 July Bright resigned the chancellorship of the duchy. There had been, he declared, on the part of his colleagues 'a manifest violation both of international law and of the moral law' to which he had refused his support. When a controversy arose in the columns of the 'Spectator' upon his action, he declined 'to discuss the abstract question' whether any war was justifiable, limiting himself to the proposition that this had 'no better justification than other wars which have gone before it.'

Bright's representation of Birmingham had in 1883 lasted a quarter of a century. A procession of five hundred thousand people congratulated him (12 June), and 'Punch' celebrated the occasion by a cartoon (16 June) entitled 'Merrily danced the quaker's wife, And merrily danced the quaker.' During 1883 projects for the nationalisation of the land, suggested by the works of Henry George, obtained great vogue in England. Bright remained steadfast in this, as upon other questions, to his early principles. To accept such a scheme as land nationalisation, he declared, in a speech at Birmingham on 30 Jan. 1884, the people of England must have lost not only all their common sense, but all reverence for the Ten Commandments.

His speeches by this time gave evidence in their delivery of impaired vigour. Upon the second reading of Gladstone's bill for the extension of the franchise, a measure Bright had for years eloquently advocated, he was compelled to rely upon his notes to such a degree that the effect of his argument was marred (24 March). One point which will long continue to provoke controversy he emphatically asserted, that 'the Act of Union is final in this matter' of Irish representation. During the debates on the government reform bill in the session of 1884 Mr. Albert Grey (afterwards Earl Grey) justified his amendment postponing the operation of the Franchise Act until after the passing of a Redistribution Act by an extract from a letter written by Bright to a Manchester association in 1859. In this letter Bright had said: 'I consider these differences of opinion on the subject [of the franchise] are of trifling importance when compared with the question of the redistribution of seats and members.' The point was taken up by the opposition, and in a speech at Manchester (9 Aug.) Lord Salisbury insisted upon the interpretation put by them on Bright's words. These, he argued, were a sufficient justification of the action of the House of Lords in throwing out the franchise bill which Bright had denounced a few days previously (4 Aug.) Bright had added that the remedy was to be found in the substitution of a suspensive for an absolute veto of the House of Lords (cf. Letter of 18 July 1884). He now declared that the interpretation assigned to his words of 1859 was wholly unjustifiable, and that 'no man had so repeatedly and consistently urged the dealing with the franchise first and with the seats afterwards' as he had (Letters of 30 Sept. and 9 Oct. 1884).

At the general election of 1885 Bright was returned for the central division of Birmingham, a newly created constituency, against Lord [q. v. Suppl.] by 4,989 to 4,216 votes. When Gladstone declared for home rule in 1886, Bright in his address to his constituents (24 June) refused to follow him. In returning thanks for his unopposed election (1 July) he