22 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
tion about breakings to the magistrates. The second reading
of the bill was the occasion of Byron’s first speech in Par-
hament, and it marks the beginning of his lifelong fight
against oppression.6
In speaking of his address, Byron says that he spoke “vio-
lent sentences with a sort of modest impudence, abused every
thing and every body and put the Lord Chancellor very
much out of humor.”7 He did not underestimate the serious-
ness of the riots, nor did he defend the rioters. He indicated
that the cause went deeper than the mere employment of
frames and displacement of so many workers. He laid the
blame at the door of the politicians, who were responsible
for England’s bitter policy of destractive warfare of the past
eighteen years, for it was this policy which destroyed the com-
fort and well-being of these men. His hope for settlement
of these riots was that any measure proposed by the House
of Lords would have had Concfiiation for its basis. He la-
mented that this body of men, who would debate for months
on a bill which would provide relief for a suffering popula-
tion, would hasten to pass a bill which provided the death
penalty.
He did not hesitate in Iiis defense of the people as a whole,
as well; and his interest in and sympathy for the oppressed
people of the land is apparent in the following statement:
You call these men a mob, desperate, dangerous, and ig-
norant. . . . But even a mob may be better reduced to rea-
son by a mixture of conciliation and firmness, than by addi-
tional irritation and redoubled penalties. Are we aware of
our obligation to a mob? It is the mob that labour in your
fields and serve in your houses . . . that have enabled you
to defy all the world, and can also defy you when neglect
and calamity have driven them to despair! You may call the
people a mob; but do not forget that a mob too often
speaks the sentiments of the people.8