The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-11-21 00:00:00

LORD STANLEY AT LYNN.

Last week Lord Stanley addressed a numerous
meeting at Lynn, and in the course of his speech, his
lordship said :
On the subject of reform I was not anxious—l tell you so
fairly—to see the settlement of 1832 disturbed. I never en-
tertained those exaggerated appreherisoma winch some
,personsfeltin . .ntpot
„in tohfe
wirou, tem%
nbt thz y
ait.a inclinationyb andto
.lteeann-
rather to the prmiential than to the sanguine view of things,
soul whenever I see matters going, on tolerably well, as they
are—remembering that even molerately go d government
has been rather the exception than the rule in the past
history in the worl.l-1 am not disposed to alter them. But
it is as I have always said, public opinion that in the last
I'
, resort governs in England, and When public opinion has
I decided, as it unmistakably did, in favour of a large eaten.
ston of the parliamentary ft/umbrae. I for one accepted that
decision as conclusive. I felt sure then—and I feel even
more sure now—that any other course than that which we
adopted would have landed us in far graver perils thou any
width the most timid man can possibly anticipate from
the course we actually pursued. As to the imputation
which I think somebody may make, and which I therefore
answer in advance, that we carried reform in order to
preserve office for ourselves; nry answer is very simple.
It has been entirely by my own choice that I have passed the
greater part of my pnrliamentary file as a private member
of parliament. In 1850 Lord Palmerston offered me one of
the highest posts In his cabinet, mid, ten years later, Is
1865, Lord Russell, then with a majority of sixty at his back,
repeated the ounce offer in even more flattering terms. I de.
dined both those proposals, sot wishing to separate myself
from the p.olitical connection with which I hail always acted
I take no credit for find, hocause I tell you frankly that
an official life, with the responsi) ifities and duties which
accompany It, has not been peculiarly attrretive to me;
alOll li.sve a right to refer to all this as being tolerably good
evidente that I was not likely to be induced to take a course
which seemed to be inconsistent with the public interest
for a few months of precarious tenure of what is called
power. No doubt the decision which we had to take in
1801 was a grave one, and a man might be excused if he felt
a little anxious as to the result tof what we did, hut lam
bound to say that every month which has passed since the
/Worm Bill became law has lessened that anxiety, and con-
firms ine in the judgment that we did quite right. I cannot
say exactly what the composition of the New Bowie of Com-
mons will 1w; I cannot say very decidedly who will or who
will not have the majority ; but I think I may say that the
new parliament as ill be one in which extreme and re-
volatiorrary views are not likely to have many supporters.
As regards our foreign affairs, I think that the situation
and the prospect, so far as Eccolauist is concerned, are not
otherwise than satisfactory. Now that the American diffi-
culties are disposed of—aa they will he, provided only
which I do not the least doubt. the United States govern-
ment and Senate ratify the net of their minister—we have
not a single controversy or serious dispute with any nation
or government in the world. As to the future of Europe,
that is involved in tartness; there Is in the mutual jealousy
and in the watchful and antagonistic attitude of the great
military powers some cause for anxiety and uneasiness. No
doubt throe gigantic armameuts which exist everywhere 011 the
continent are in themselves Sources d.f danger; but cci Inrush
can see—and I have many opportunitiesfor seeing it—the feel-
ing is not desire for war, but dread of getting firto it; and as
it is not easy to make men quarrel against their will, and as
almost any difference may be peaceably arranged when the
parties on both sides desire that it may be so arranged, I
don't despair titan the storm which has been hanging over
Europe fur the last two 3-ears may still blow over. liar
rule, I think, ought to be, good-will towards all natio., and,
an far as we cart help, entangling alliances with none Mr.
Brooks, an elector—" John heights policy." Our insular
position requires an insular policy ; and, after all, if the
worst should come to the worst abroad, n e have a very
efficient ally to fall back upon—the British channel. Now,
gentleman, one word more, though I fear tic weary you.
Ni, no.) One word more I must say nuns foreign matters,
and that relates to the End. I am afraid that no one who
looks to that quarter of the world can doubt that trouble is
gathering there. It may wane quickly, Or it may be deferred,
for years, but come it probably will.
After referring to the condition of Turkey and Spain,
Lord Stanley proceeded :
Turning to home subjects, I confess tam almost bewildered
by the variety of questions upon which you may or may not
expect me to give an opinion. I have been asked in re-
ference to the Itef4 gill Bill of last year, "Are you prepared
to do away with the minority clause or to alter the rating
clauses i" My answer is, I think no have had eneogh if
parliamentary reiorm for care while. Arid whether the bill
he faulty or faultless, I am nut prepared to spared another
session in tinkering it over again.
I have been asked again, in reference to ntilitary matters,
whether I still hold the same opinions which I have formerly
expressed as to reforms if) the army, and especially as to the
purchase system. And to that I reply, I have been always
opposed to purchase, tkinking it an arouse—and I should en-
deavour to get rid of it ; bat I should prefer to do so by
gradual rather than by sudden and sweeping measures. And
I think it right to say that though I ash against the purchase
of commissions, thlnking that an abuse and a practical lib
convenience, I am not in fain hr of any such alterations as
should materially alter the class from which our officers are
taken. I want them to be Os a rule genthmen arr 4 educated
men, and I should be sorry not to are among them a fair pro-
portion of men good modal standing.
Well, I come now ton larger subiect, that of popular educa-
tion, or rather of popular school-teaching, which is a very
different airing, hut which, ice you below, I barn alWays
en-
cleavourent to prostate. It is admitted that the mount
system is defective, there are many parts of the country
Chit-hi it does not reach, and those are just the poorest
districts, sabers it is most a anted. I ant quite ready to sup-
port any reasonable plan by which that defect can be
remedied. I spook, of course, in what I am about to say,
only individually, anti not as pledging any tone but Myself ;
hut I think that in the first instance it would be advisable to
take aw..y the managummit of the 4:lineation:a department
from the Council-office, with which it has no natural connex-
ion and to ammint a minister tor that sole and special pur-
l), we. I think the next step would be to ascertain accurately
how far the ',resold provision for teaching is inadequate.
That is the point upon which, as many of you know, there are
the widest pessible divergencies of opinion And I should
not object to giving powers to tow its or to districts to rate
themselves if they should think fit for schn ol purreses. Further
thin that I see no necessity for going. I would riot alter the
present system s-hore Ills icor king well, strut I should de-
cidedly object to making, education compulsory.
Passing, front that, I endue to a Sabina Which touches US
all very nearly, and upon which there has been of late a
good tidal of )•ontroversy and recrimination into whieh I do
not mean to elder. I mean the subject of taxation and ex-
i.endit ure. I frilly that it has not been in the power
ot the present government to do in financial Mattel% what
we should have wished ; but I think I can filo w that in the
last two years we have had clreunistances to deal with of very
peculiar diniculty. Pu St of all, we had the gr at commercial
panic of May, toed, of which the effect has been tnit. and still is
felt hi idninSt every branch of the public revenue Instead of au
increasing revenue, II bleb has been the general rule ever
since the Crimean war, we have had to deal with a declining
revenue. Tint, of course, is only a teinrwrary evil, but
while it lasts it is an obstacle to financial is press:merits.
Then, again, we had the Abyssinian sear—a war *bleb was
undertaken reluctantly—a war as to entering into which we
had no option, but a war with shier I believe no one Buds
fault. The effect of it, however, has been to loring in a bill cot
between five and six million». And, lattlj, the last two years
have witnessed, as I have said before, througlamt the civilised
world an enornroas and exaggerated growth of military pre-
parations. Ido nor ray it is ollr duty to cony or to iiiiitatt.
hat I carry the arelinient Vim
far as this, that the circumstance that all your lie ighboltrs
are arming to the teeth is a fact which throws one addi-
tional difficulty in the way of reduction. As to our
system of taxation, I have said more than once hero, and I
repeat it now, that I loelieve it to be on the whole f dir and
just. I believe the balance between direct taxes which fall
in the main on the comparatively rich, and indirect taxes
which particularly affect the poor, is on the whole, very
evenly struck: and U you take into account our freedom
from the heavy burden of military conscription which, ex-
cept in this country, prevails throughout Emope, and which
is the great complaint of the continental pcaosiitry, I blank
it can he made out loeyond dispute that the English artisan
and the English labourer is, so far no public taxes go, more
lightly burthened than the workmen of any other great
European state. When I say nere lightly burthened I
mean, of course, in proportion 10 1110 earnings he can make.
There are, no doubt, financial details 1, Melt may be
amended. I think that whenever we have a surplus the
shilling duty on corn ought to disappear. I think insurance '
is still too heavily burthened ; and I shall be glad, whenever
the opportunity occurs, to see locomotion and the enjoy-
ment of labonr relieved from those taxes uhich now press
upon them. But Ido not contend, and I ilo not admit, that
any of these are very pressing grievances ; and I certainly
should not be prepared largely to increase direct taxation in
order to remove them.

I have been asked by a friend, to say something about the
state of pauperism in this country. Well, we have no
doubt a very large pauper class, and a large class only just
removed front the verge of 'lsomerism, and struggling bard
for a bare subsistence. That is a state of things which no
effort on our part ought to be wanting to remove ; but I
d.on't think you will diminish pauperi,m by taking off all
Indirect taxation, and I don't think you will have one pauper
the less ty making beer, brandy, and tobacco cheaper.
Neither do I think you will produce any material effect by
slightly reducing the cost of tea and sugar. 3115 ch nosy be
done by education, much by improved dwellings—something
by a judicious encouragement of emigra; ion in places where
the labour market is overcrowded, and something, also,
perhaps, by a more careful local administration of the poor-
law ; hut I tell you frankly that although I hope to see this
great evil of pauperism abated, I entertain no sanguine hope
of seeing it disappear.

_
It does not often happen that Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
Disraeli adopt the canine views— laughter)—but these states-
men have joined, one in proposing, and the other tin carrying
with some m e !odifications, a soon, by which £2 ~,000,100 of
permanent debt has been changed into temporary annuities,
and will consequently be paid off in twenty years. I think
that is a tunnel policy, and I should like, w hen opportunity
offers, to see it carried Wither. I think we owe it to those
who have gone before Us, and to those who may come after
us, to !hake some further effort for the relict of posterity.
This is a subject which the new Parliament ought seriously
to consider ; Mid any nninister or any government inclined so
to consider it will have any support.
I now come to a question which, during the last two years
Inns occupied a large—l cannot say, comidering its im-
portance, a disproportionately large share of public atten-
tion—l mean the state of Ireland. And first, let me say that
I think no one can doubt that a great improvement has
taken place (hiring the last twelve months. Fenianism in
Ireland may still exist. Ido not doubt that it exists as a
sentiment tin stole districto. hut as an active organisation,
apeaking my own individual opinion, I In not now consider
it dangerous Whatever the grievances which the Irish
themselves put forward, they fall tinder three heads—
nationality, land, and religion. Now, the desire for separate
nationality Is not one which I wish to treat with ridicule or
With emerald. I believe, for my 0.11 part, that the feeling
and desire for a separate nationality is a feeling that will
die out. the Lurid grievance, which Is the next branch of
the subject I take, seems to lane to have a 'nom definite origin.
In the last century the custom in Ireland was for landlords
to let out their estates for very long terms, and without
conditions for preventing sub tenancies and sub-divisions.
The result id this system was, that the tenant found it his
interest to create null-tenancies, and to bring upon the land
as great a manlier of peasant families as he could possibly
lind room for. His interest in an estate was sot perpetual,
and he did not care what happened In the remote future.
while the landlord, who hail a revisionary interest, was tied
by the laws which prevailed, and was unable to interfere.
The general result was that, instead of the well-paid and
, thriving tenantry whom you have inn England, a tenantry has
been created in Ireland, a large number of whom approach a
condition of pauperism.

After reviewing the relative positions of landlord
and tenant, and the effect he thought Mr. Mill's and
Mr. Bright proimsals relative to the holding of land
would have in the future, his lordship went on to
say :

As to a tenant right bill giving a tenant compensation for
permanent improvements which lie may make, should
support it, although I do not attach the importance to it
which Irish writers and speakers habitually do. I believe
such matters may be in general very well settled by private
arrangement. I know also that many of those who swell
that cry for tenant right do so ia order to attain an object
which they do not like openly to avow—viz.. perpetuity of
temue. Still, the principle of tenant right is just ; the only
difficulty lies in the details, which we cannot discuss here
As to the condition of Ireland, I do not think you ought to
judge of it by election speeches or local newspaper writing.
My recollection of that country extends over twenty-five
years, and I am convinced that, however much
there may still be to do, there is no port of the
British islands in which the comparative progress made has
been more rapt!. I do not certainly say that the condition
of the Irish peasant is all that you can wish, but I do say
that, coniparing his present state withhis state in the time
of Sir Robert Peel's government, he is now better paid,
better housed, better clothed, better fed, and better taught.
Now I come to what is called the religious question as it
affects Ireland. It is a very difficult suldect, hut I will try
and speak plainly upon it. In the first place I would ask you
to dismiss from your minds the fallacy that the religious riff-
feiences of Ireland have exclusive reference to the question
of the established elmrch. That is a way of looking at the
matter which certainly makes it a very simple one, lint it has
the drawback of tieing the reverse of accurate Suppose—
although it won't happen—that the disestablishnient and
disendowrnent of the Irish church were to take place next
year, do you think that all differences between the I ish
Prole, tants and the Irish Catholics so mid he removed by t hot
means it the very next day you would have the question

of education arise—in which the :itholics would be
found on one side, and the English liberals on the other
and when this question was disposed of, you would have
halfa-doxen more. The grievance lies deeper. You have
in Great Britain a state which, taking it as a whole,
is essentially Protestant Ido net use the word in
any narrow or sectarian sense, but I say that Great
itritain, considered in its influence on the mind awl
thought of the world, is essentially Protestant in its Idea-
and insiitutions. That is a fact which statesmen did
not create, and which statesmen cennot alter. on have,
tin the other hand, in Ireland 4,500,000 of the most arilent—l
won't say the most fanatical, because that is a terra of re-
pronch—but the most ardent anti dev..ted Catholics to be
found in Europe. i respect their devotion and their ad-
herence to thtir faith; but while the great difference which
exists between them and the Protestant still coutinues—
until it shah have been softened by time, by education, and
by the gradual growth of a kindlier feeling—l ass afraid
you must expect what I may call, to use the mildest term, a
state of imperfect sympathy between the Catholics and Pro-
testants of Ireland. I will take only one illustration of
what I mean You all recollect the reception given in
London to General Garibaldi as the great opponent of the
ten.poral power of the Pope. lam not expressing any
opinion upon that reception ; I only recal it as a fact ; aunt
I well recollect that in Ireland it produced all over the
country an explosion of illdigliaiioll aunt resentment. I
was not surprised at the fact, knowing the temper of the
Irish people but, I ask you, how would the removal of
the Irish establishment, if an incident lite what I have
mentioned occurred, prevent the feeling of the Irish
Penile being what it was with reiriril to it? It is said
that if you get mint of the Irish establishment you will at
once see a kindlier feeling between the Protestant
landlords and the Catholic tenaots. Well, will you?
I think the feeling will be the iither way. I think that
when the Protestant owner of the aid finds himself charged
with the whole hurthen of the support of the Protestant
church, he would most likely look out for a Protestant instead
of a Catholic tenant to help MIS is isstrilig the expense ; at
any rate, lie weerla most likely say to his Catholic tenant,
" If you want Catholic schools, and assistance for a Catholic
chapel, you must not look tome; I have got it y own institu-
tions to support. SIDI I Call give poi nothing." I therefore
fear that the brilliant notion of making Ireland of one mind
ii on religious matters by ilisendowing the Irish establish-
ment is not warranted in fact, and fear that if the thing was
done, the result would be the other way. You would pro-
duce among the siNi,ooo Protestants a feeling of bitter
humiliathin and resentment ; and remillect, their influence
is not to he meamred merely by their numbn., and I am
afraid at the same time that the satisfaction of the victorious
party would only lest as long as no subject of dispute turned
up and that r..t o.belay would not be for twelve months. The
first thing whi-h the new parliament will have to decide is the
question who Ls to be responsible la the conauct of national
affaii s. If the verdict goes in our favour we must try our
hands, and T think the language held by various members
of the present government is sufficient guarantee that the
present admilastration will do nothing of which Irish Pro-
testants will have reasonable ground to complain. If we are
061.1. ml—end I don't want to conceal the fact that some
people are sanguine enough to expect it—we must wait and
see what is proposed by those who will then have the initia-
tion iif affairs. In any cam it is probable that the Irish
chtireh contest will hen long inns: it will not en.] next year
or the year after, and it is not very easy to predict the precise
forni it will assume. My view of the matter is a very simple
one. lam for reform, not for destruction. There is Avery
wide difference between the two. I cannot go hack from what
I have said in public before and from what I think. I see in
the Irishchurehvarious things which are notdefensil de. I see
els., that those things are capable of amendment. I lie& to
the position of the Protestants of Ireland. Their's is a posi-
tion which deserves at our hands the greatest consideration.
England has placed them where they are, mid England has
made them what they are. They have the prescription of
three centuries in their favour. Then loyalty has been
tested ill times of disaffection. They deserve, I think, not
only justice, but generous treatment at our hands, and I for
one will do all I fairly and honestly can to maintain their
interests and their rights.

The noble lent answered several questions, and announced
his intention to continue to oppose the ballot. lie also
stated that he was opposed to the abolition of the law of
primogeniture.