as not realized till twenty years
later. But he found time to examine other questions and to utter shrewd
opinions on the government of India and of Ireland, and to influence
English sentiment on the Crimean War and the War of Secession in the
United States. In advance of his time, he wished to develop
cotton-growing in India and so to prevent the great industry of his own
district being dependent on America alone. He attacked the existing
board of directors and preferred immediate control by the Crown; and,
while wishing to preserve the Viceroy's supremacy over the whole, he
spoke in favour of admitting Indians to a larger share in the government
of the various provinces. Many of the best judges of to-day are now
working towards the same end, but at the time he met with little
support. It is interesting to find that both on India and on Ireland
similar views were put forward by men so different as John Bright and
Benjamin Disraeli. Mr. Trevelyan has preserved the memory of several
episodes in which they were connected with one another and of attempts
which Disraeli made to win Bright's support and co-operation. Bright
could cultivate friendships with politicians of very different schools
without being induced to deviate by a hair's breadth from the cause
which his principles dictated, and he could treat his friends, at times,
with refreshing frankness. When Disraeli warmly admired one of his
greatest speeches and expressed the wish that he himself could emulate
it, the outspoken Quaker replied: 'Well, you might have made it, if you
had been honest.'

It was the young Disraeli who, as early as 1846, had attributed the
Irish troubles to 'a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and
an alien church'. It was Bright who never hesitated, when opportunity
arose, to work for the Disestablishment of the Church in Ireland and for
the security of Irish tenants in their holdings. A succession of
measures, carried by Liberals and Conservatives from Gladstone to
George Wyndham, have made us familiar with the idea of land purchase in
Ireland; but Bright had been there as early as 1849 and had learnt for
himself. Though at the end of his life he was a stubborn opponent of
Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, he had long ago won the gratitude of Ireland
as no other Englishman of his day, and his name has been preserved there
in affectionate remembrance.

In 1854, the year of the Crimean War, Bright reached the zenith of his
oratorical