The Press. — London, England, 1856-09-13 00:00:00

872 they abandoned comfortable homes for a promising, but passing shadow. These would gladly emigrate to the Cape on the same terms as the officers of the German Legion. The generosity of Great Britain is boundless to foreigners, but are you an Englishman? Halte•la I For you there is no bounty—for you no grants of land ! In making sacrifices to serve your country you only did your duty ! Be satisfied ! Conscience is your best reward, and " t o patrie cat reconitaissante." Court anti las4ion. Her Majesty the Queen and Royal Family con tinue at Balmoral. The Earl of Clarendon is the Secretary of State in attendance upon her Mikjesty. His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, with Lieut.-Colooel the Hon. J. ➢Macdonald, C. 8., left Balmoral on Monday. His Royal Highness con tinued his journey to town the following day. Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, her Serene Highness the Princess Amalie, daily visit,her Majesty at Balmoral. The Earl of Malmesbury has left Lowthor castle for Chiilingham Castle, near NVooler. The Earl and Countess of Ellesmere, the Earl of Yarborough, Viscount Hill, Hon. Rowland Hill, Mr. Edward Ellice, M.P., have been the guests of Mr. Baitllie, at Doehfour, North Britain. The Duke and Duchess of Beaufort have arrived at Badminton from visiting the Earl and Countess Howe at Gopsall-hall, Leicestershire. Lady Peel has arrived at Vichy, from a tour in Italy, and is expected to return from France early in the ensuing month. Lady Dover and the Hon. Leopold Ellis have arrived at Gowran Castle, Kilkenny, from London, after paying a visit to his Excellency the Earl of Carlisle, en route. Her ladyship will shortly visit the Duke of Devonshire at Lismore Castle. The Earl of Aberdeen has been entertaining a succession of visitors at Haddo-house, N. B. Valitital. THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE AT SHEFFIELD. His GRACE THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE, at the Cutlers' Feast, at Sheffield, last week, in returning thanks for his health, alluded to his late position in the Government as Secretary at War : Even now I will not he tempted to any vindication of myself, however desirous I may be to stand well with my countrymen. I will not be even tempted by the presence of my honourable and valued and most distinguished, and 1 hope he will forgive me for saying somewhat aggressive, friend who sits near me (Mr. Roebuck, M.P.). The time may come when I may be ready—ready I am, indeed, at this moment—when I may see fitting occasion even to venture upon breaking a lance with him. The time I think still more probably will cone when perhaps the publication of documents and the establishment of facts may induce even my honourable and learned friend to modify some of his—honest I am perfectly certain— opinions. Of this, at any rate, I anticipate you will all of you be convinced, that the long and determined silence which I have maintained for many months past has been dictated by other and higher motives than an acceptance of the blame which has been thrown upon me, or even an entire acquiescence in much of the selflaudation which is assumed by others. Gentlemen, I will only make this one further allusion to my recent oonnection with the Government of this country, that having resolved, from the hour at which I gave up the seals of that office, that I would go and visit our army before Sebastopol, to see for myself, for the clearance of my own conscience as well as for the purpose of acquiring that knowledge which I knew that neither I nor any other in this country possessed of an accurate description—having resolved to go there, in spite of the remonstrances of many earnest and sincere Mends, I have never felt up to this moment more than one regret, and that was that my companion, sometimes in the trenches, sometimes in visiting the hospitals, sometimes in wit nessing the various scenes which were enacted iu that camp, was not the chairman of the Sebastopol committee. Relieve me when I say so that that feeling was not dictated by the circumstance of t h e many 'nails of various saris and sizes winch occasionally whizzed about my ears, but from a very different feeling towards him and towards you as possessing such a member. It was, that he might have had the opportunity of witnessing the kindness I there ex perienced. The only word I will say in reference to my self is this—and I say it in the presence of various officers whose public services are attested by the decorations which adorn their breasts—that my thanks are due, and I now venture to tender them, for the uniform and generous kindness I met with, not only from every officer but every private in the army. The noble duke then briefly alluded to the state of our relations to America, anticipating no serious rupture from the simple differences lately occurring between the two countries. His grace then touched upon the present state of political feeling in Eng land THE PRESS. I believe there never was a time—at any rate within the memory of any one of us—when all party politics were at so low an ebb—when party differences so little influenced men as they do at this moment. And, gentlemen, I don't deny that this state of things may possess some advan tages. I speak feelingly when T recognise the fact that one isolated as T am in public life, and disconnected from every political party, is somewhat of a useless individual. But this absence of party feeling has this great advantage, that it is the season in which social improvements of all kinds may be greatly promoted, and when, as we see at this moment, men of various creeds and various political pro fessions joining hand and hand for the promotion of the education of the people. We have seen this year, notwith standing the existence of great differences of opinion upon other subjects, men on all sides endeavouring to attain one common end, and without any party feeling in the matter—that of the education of the people. Mr. DENISON, M.P., defended the conduct of the Duke of Newcastle : My noble friend the duke was in my opinion a moat efficient member of the Government, working like a thorough horse from morning to night—the most abused of any man in her Majesty's kingdom—grossly calum niated as I maintain he has been, and nothing but the page of history and future time will reveal the truth; but no considerations of policy will prevent me from saying that he was one of the best servants you could get—and, like other good men who have gone before him, he was made the scapegoat of a party. What he was not per mitted to carry out, his successors have, to my great satis faction and your joy, completed most successfully ; and I believe Lord Palmerston deserves the thanks of the whole country. 1 had nothing to do with the Government of which my noble friend was a member—l had nothing to do with the putting of Lord Palmerston into power ; but it appears to me that the man who does his work well —let him be Conservative, Whig, or Radical—ought to have our thanks. We want working men—we want the right men iu the right place. Mr. ROEBUCK, referring to the case of the Sebas topol committee, said : The noble duke has called me the learned and aggres sive member for Sheffield. I think that the noble duke has hardly followed the history of my doings with respect to himself. For once in my life—and it was a strange circumstance--I praised a man in the House of Com• mona. That man was the noble duke; and I must say there are friends at this table who said upon that occasion that, contrary to my wont, I was illogical, and that I ruined my cause by the praise which I bestowed. I made a promise then to the House of Commons which I intend to keep—that I would never praise a man again. I then stated what I really believed, that the noble duke had been made the scapegoat of his colleagues; that he was sincere in his desire to do all the duties of his office ; that he was industrious ; that he was sedulous for the benefit of the army; and that the army owed him a debt of gratitude. I said all this when the noble duke was not present; but it was my fate to rouse him and his colleagues as with a rattling peal of thunder when I moved for the Sebastopol committee. But was Ito blame for that? Did not the people of England, and did not the House of Commons, go with me ? I will put it to the noble duke if he thinks that I did not do my duty ou that occasion. Far be it from me to say where the blame lay, but blame there was. I pointed out where the blame did not lie, and I had hoped that that proceeding on my part would have been remembered. But the noble duke was driven from office. I am sorry for that, for I think he was a good and efficient servant of the Crown, and I think lie would have received great aid from the committee which I moved for had he remained in office. But the peculiar feelings of the noble duke did not allow him to retain his office, and others came in that I cannot say are his superiors. MR. BAXTER AT MONTROSE. MIL BAXTER, M.P., addressed his constituents this week at Montrose. The hon. member, before enter ing upon the proceedings of last session, gave his impressions of the House of Commons, and referred at some length to the loss of time in the session by the outrageously long speeches of the second-rate men of the house. It was, no doubt, one of the evils of free discussion, but he thought it had reached such an alarming height " as to call for the attention and reprobation of the public.", Mr. Baxter then explained his reasons for his different votes during the session, and reviewed the proceed ings of the house regarding several bills of minor importance. With respect to the peace, he thought the treaty a valuable one; but to insure its being properly realised, the Government must improve its diplomacy. He was in favour of a reduction of our armaments to the peace footing. On the American question he believed both Governments were to blame, but thought her Majesty's Government had acted with great wisdom in not dismissing Mr. Dallas. With respect to our future relations, he ob served:— I will now only express a hope that when another am bassador is sent to Washington—which however, proba bly, and for obvious reasons, will not be until the new President is elected—the Ministry will appoint a first class, a liberal-minded, and able man—one who sympa thises generally with the American people, and under• stands their institutions—not some employe or attache who has filled a subordinate office on the continent of Europe, but a politician of advanced ovinions, who will be accept able to the people of the United States, and whom they SdrURDAY, will consider a fitting representative of Great Britain There are many such men amongst us ; and without men. tioning the names of others well qualified to fill the office, I may point to Mr. Charles Villiers as a type of this class of persons to which I refer. When the Republic sends to us statesmen of such mark as Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Everett, Mr. Buchanan, and Mr. Dallas, we are expected with jus tice to select individuals of similar standing to represent British interests at the seat of its executive power. Mr. Baxter now came to the present state of Europe, and, like Mr. Roebuck, at Sheffield, last week, he anticipated a cataract of revolution. It was hopeless to expect peace or good government till the Bourbon dynasties of Spain and Naples were driven to share the exile of their relations. The Court of Madrid, politically and morally, was so abandoned as to deserve respect of none ; while Italy was in such a state of smouldering volcanic fire that a terrible eruption may be speedily ex pected:— You do not require to be told that every part of this land, with the exception of Sardinia, is at this moment groaning under a tyranny too terrible for description —too agonising to last. An immense military force alone pre. vents rebellion in Venetian-Lombardy; the Austrians, the detested Tedeschi, are also in Tuscany and the Legs. Lions; priestly rapacity, exaction, and violence have crowded more than ever the dismal dungeons of Rome, while perfidy, espionage, and horrible cruelty have reached such a height in Naples as 1 verily believe, if not checked by the interference of earthly potentates, will ere long bring down upon their perpetrators the consuming vengeance of Heaven. Now, the question was, bow far we were interested in this latent volcano, and under what circumstances would our interference be justifiable, if justifiable at all. Mr. Baxter was doubtful on this point : There is no one, I presume,who will dispute the sound ness of the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other States ; but it appears to me that there may be ei• ceptiona to this general rule—first, when the affairs of a neighbouring kingdom are in such a condition as seriously to threaten the peace of our own; and, secondly, when, as in the case of the slave trade, humanity is outraged by re. peated and continued deeds of cruelty and blood. On the first Sardinia, but certainly not England, might go to war with Naples. Before acting on the second we must be well assured that the dungeons of King Bombs are worse than those of Pope Pins, and that anything has occurred by order of the former mare revolting than the massacre of Ceceruacchio by the satellites of Austrian tyranny. For my own part L confess to a doubt lest, appalling as are the sufferings of State prisoners in the Two Sicilies, they are worse than those in other quarters where the fleet of Great Britain might not be able to act at the moment when the iniquity of the Amorites was full. It is certainly no part of our national duty and would be unmistakably Quixotic to act as kntght•errants in all parts of the world, either for oppressed men or oppressed nationalities; but, if tho- roughly convinced that such an exceptional state of things exists at Naples as renders it necessary for us to interfere for the sake of humanity, let us not waste words, nor time, nor letter•paper, but send such a fleet as shall surround the Island of Procida, open the gates of its hateful guard house, and set the prisoners free. AT THE COUNTY OF DURHAM AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY'S ANNUAL DINNER, last week, Mr. G. H. Spearman, in proposing the toast of the evening, " Success to the Society," alluded to the system of church leases, which he asserted retarded the agri cultural advancement of the county. In this view the parliamentary committees supported him. In the recent session, the act 14 and 15 Vict., chap. 104, having required amendment and continuance, it was referred to a select committee of the House of Com mons. That committee had reported that the subject of fines for the renewal of leases, while it is an impro vident system to the lessees, is an obstacle to the good management of the property and to its improve ment : They had therefore, he was happy to say, the authority of both Houses of Parliament upon this subject. Little had been done so far under the Enfranchisement Act, and, as it appeared to him, for this good reason, amongst others, that easy as it might be to come to an agreement with regard to the simple value of those properties, it was found to be by no means so easy to come to an agree. ment with regard to what constituted the interests of lessors and lessees. The committee expressed a hope that much would be done before 18.5 U in the way of voluntary enfranchisement, so as to render it unnecessary to resort to compulsion. He wished that might prove to be the case; but it was pretty nearly equivalent to an opinion that if voluntary enfranchisement should not have been carried out by that period compulsory enfran chisement should be had recourse to; and in this opinion he most perfectly coincided, because the public generally were interested as well as the lessors or the lessees, for every one ought to be managed to the greatest possible advantage, and no system of tenure likely to interfere with the management should be allowed to exist. But if every one in the kingdom were enfranchised, it would be neces sary, to do justice to the county of Durham, that there should be a reduction of the mortmain estates—of our great episcopal capitular establishments—to suchen extent as would render it merely sufficient to pay the fixed incomes of members of those establishments. He did not, how ever, say that the grievance of a considerable portion of the county being held in mortmain had not a countervail ing advantage iu its securing a fit and decent provision for the clergy. Ile did not advocate laying hands on the