The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-08-13 00:00:00

TM' STOUTtnibtirl OTIOTRVEIL

BANQUET TO HER MAJESTY'S
MINISTERS.

On Saturday evening the Lord Mayor of London
and the Lady Mayoress entertained Her Majesty's
Ministers, according to usual custom near the close of
the Parliamentary session, at a banquet in the
Egyptian-hall of the Mansion-house. The official list
of the guests included the Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone, M.P., and Mrs. Gladstone, the Earl and
Countess Spencer, the Earl and Countess of Kimberley,
the Marquis of Hartington, M.P., and a large number
of ladies and gentlemen of distinction.

The usual loyal toasts having- been proposed and
duly honoured, the Lord Mayor proposed the toast of
"The Army, Navy, and Reserve Forces."
Mr. Childers, M.P., responded on behalf of the
Army ; Lord Northbrook returned thanks for the
Navy; and Lord Methuen briefly acknowledged the
compliment oi behalf of the Auxiliary Forces.
The Lord Mayer then proposed the toast of "Her
Majesty's Ministers.'

Mr. Gladstone, who on rising to respond was received
enthusiastically, after some preliminary observations,
said: My Lord Mayor, we have now for fifteen months
—no very long time—been in charge of the affairs of this
great empire—a charge too weighty for human
strength ; for I do not hesitate to say that whatever
be exertions, nay, whatever be the capacity of any
Government, however favourably constituted, it must
be unequal to the enorrnoua calls that are made upon
it by the interests of this extended Empire. But, my
Lord Mayor, when I look back upon those fifteen
months, I feel that they have been a period, though
not long, yet of great, perhaps, in some respects of un-
usual, in some respects of painful interest, and that
they have not been unmarked either at home or
abroad. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Gladstone then alluded
to the difficulties with which the House of Commons has
had to contend during the past Session, and proceeded
to say :—Something, again, of what we have been called
upon to do has been the discharge of a duty most neces-
sary, but yet most painful—most painful to any
Government, especially painful to a Government which
professes the Liberal creed. because we have been
compelled by a sense of paramount duty to act for
the purpose of a temporary restraint of liberty in one
of the three kingdoms. My Lord Mayor, there is
no one amongst those of our Irish fellow-countrymen
who have denounced those measures who has more
deeply lamented the necessity whist' has led to them
than the members of Her *Majesty's Government.
(Hear, hear.) There is no one less likely to
mistake the true nature of those measures than we
are; for we know well that they have in them
nothing of a character essentially remedial—that
their necessary but humble and limited purpose is
to bring about a state of things in which measures
truly remedial may have scope to operate. And I
trust, my Lord Mayor, that it may be permitted
to us to add this year to the Statute-book
—I must not speak with too great confidence
of that which is still uncertain, and which
depends in a great part upon wills and judgments
other than our own—but I trust it may be
in our power to add to the Statute-book a law which
may have the effect of bettering the lot of millions of
our fellow-creatures in Ireland, of improving the rela-
tions of classes, of bringing the people into closer
union with the institutions of their country, and thereby
of contributing to that great work, the promotion ,
of the stability and the happiness of the nation to
which we are all, whatever may be our differences
of political opinion, sincerely and cordially devoted.
Such a measure, perhaps, though I fear it will
stand nearly alone, may leave not altogether un-
honoured the history of the Session of 1881.
(Cheers.) My Lord Mayor, it has sometimes
been a matter of complaint that Liberal Go-
vernments gave too much of their attention to
domestic legislation and did not allot a suffi-
cient portion of their time to foreign politics and
questions over sea. I do not think that charge will
lie against the Government which is now in office. It
has rarely happened that in the short period of fifteen
months a greater nunsber of subjects of difficulty and
of interest have addressed themselves—aye, have
forced themselves upon the attention of a Government
than those which it has been our lot to encounter. I
cannot, of course, look with unmixed satisfaction upon
events in different parts of the globe where we have
to record not merely the operations of peaceful and
skilful diplomacy—not merely the friendly correspon-
dence which obtains between the different portions of
this great Empire, but likewise miscarriages in more
than one part of the world which have had their his-
tory unhappily written in blood. Yet, my Lord
Mayor, I am thankful to believe that we have
been travelling at least on the way towards peace,
tranquility, and the promotion of the general
interest. (Cheers.) If it is our lot to read from day
to day accounts in part of actual strife, in part of
strife anticipated in that mountainous country which
borders on the north-western frontier of our Indian
empire, yet surely we must derive from this experience
some painful lesson.. We cannot but feel strength-
ened in our conviction that it was a serious; error to
break up into pieces that which three years ago existed
in that quarter of the globe, namely, an united and
independent Afghanistan (cheers) ; and to do that with
the result whicii has been most ingeniously recorded by
Sir Frederick Roberts, viz., the result of writing once
again in the heart of every Afghan in deep characters
the record of a bitter hatred of the English name.
(Hear, hear.) My Lord Mayor, I trust that whatso-
ever we may do will have no tendency to imprint
more deeply that painful record in the hearts of the
Afghan people, but that they will only have to recollect
from us indications of a desire for their peace, their
welfare, their independence, without jealousy, without
apprehensions, but with as much respect for their
rights as we desire them to pay to ours. (Cheers.)
My Lord Mayor, in another quarter of the globe
where we have had to face a difficult state of
things the Convention which is to establish peaceful,
and, I hope, permanent, relations between us and the
European community of the Transvaal has just been
signed. And, without too confidently reckoning upon
the future, one statement I feel it my duty, my plea-
sant duty to make—namely, this, that during a com-
plicated negotiation we have found on the part of the
trusted leaders of the Boer population with whom our
agents have been in constant communication nothing
but a loyal, a zealous and an intelligent deSire to knit
closely if they can the bonds of amity and goodwill
between those whom they represent and the Queen
whom they still desire to revere, and acknowledge the
relations which are now established between her and
them. (Cheers.) lam sure, my Lord Mayor, of this
—that there are no rival interests between us and
them. There is no reason why if a sense of justice
and right feeling prevail on the one side and on the
other they should not grow up under the shadow
and the external protection of this great and power-
ful empire, but with the enjoyment of most per-
fect freedom in the management of their own affairs
which under another name, but under no other limi-
tation, we practically accord to the people of every
colony of this empire now in the enjoyment of
responsible government. (Hear, hear). And I am
perfectly certain that our countrymen will never
think that we have forfeited any title which we may
possess to their confidence because, instead of paving
the way to this result through bloodshed and through
events which must have left behind them bitter and
painful recollections' we have sought—casting aside
every sentiment of false shame and false pride (loud
cheers)—to walk in the path which as we thought was
open before us, and to concede to them, without strife
and without bloodshed, the very thing neither more
nor less, which we should have been glad to concede
to them after the greatest military efforts and the
most brilliant military success. (Cheers). After
some reference to the course of events in Turkey
Mr. Gladstone observed :—But, in the ease of Greece
we have witnessed that which I think must fill
every mind with satisfaction—namely, a large and
considerable adjustment of territory, with the transfer
of men under the yoke of despotic institutions and of
an alien race to political fellowship with the people of
their own blood, under representative institutions,
under a stem of freedom greatly analogous to our
own, which has been accomplished, thanks to the
firmness of the Powers, thanks to the concert of
Europe, and thanks ultimately, I must say, te the good
sense of the Sultan of Turkey. (Hear, hear.) Under
these circumstances it has been accomplished, I might
almost say without an angry word, but certainly
without the shedding, or the apprehension of the
shedding, of one single drop of human blood.
(Cheers). Having so much to confess in regard to
the non-performance of much that we could have
hoped to have accomplished, we have also something
to be thankful for in regard to the progress which we
hope has been made towards the extension in the
East of Europe of those institutions and that method
of government and that mere natural union under one
government of races well adapted for the career of
civilization to which we must eventually look as the
foundation of all stable hopes of peace and prosperity
in that quarter of the world. (Cheers.) My Lord
Mayor, I have been warranted, indeed• com-
pelled, by the toast you have been good enough to give
and by the special nature of this occasion thus to run
over in rude outline some of the transactions which
have marked the interesting period eince the present
Government came into office. (Cheers.)
The toast of "The Houses of Parliament " having
been given,

The Earl of Kimberley, in returning thanks for the
House of Lords, remarked that if there was one cha-
racteristic more than another which distinguished that
Assembly it was the rapidity and efficiency with which
its transaction of business was accomplished, and that
with the smallest amount of talk. (Cheers and laugh-
ter.) The Lord Mayor had referred to passing events.
He should only express his conviction that the ifouse
of Lords, which had always known what was its dos
place in the legislation of the country, and which had
never forgotten there were other privilege 3 and other
interests besides those Which it directly represented,
would upon this, •as upon former occasions, prove
faithful to its high trust. (Cheers.)

The Marquis of Hartington, on rising to repond for
the House of Commons, was loudly cheered. He
said,—l believe it is usual on occasions of this kind
that, in proposing a toast, the proposer says everything
of a complimentary character which he can think of,
and that in responding to such a toast, the person on
whom that duty falls,while modestly disclaiming some
of the compliments that have bee,i showered upon the
institution which he represents, nevertheless succeeds
in appropriating the most substantial part of them to
himself. (Cheers andlaughter.) I have observ.ed that to-
night, warned pezhapa by some words which fell from
the Prime Minister, the Lord Mayor has not thought it
his duty to pass any very high eulogium upon the con-
duct of the present House of Commons during this
Session (a laugh) ; and I can assure you that I have no
intention upon this occasion of .claiming for that House
any greater credit than his lordship has been willing
to assign to it, or than you may be willing to confer Q:1
it. When the history of this Session is written it will
be found to be mainly a record of the achievements of
one man. (Loud cheers.) lam not speaking of the
possible results of the Session in after history;
because that none of us can know; but I speak merely
of the Parliamentary history of the Session; and
say it will be a record of the energy and the resolu;
ben—of the knowledge and the resource—with which
one !loan has conducted cue great measure through the
Rouse-_,of Commons under singular difficulties. .. .
I believe that no ouse of Commons has ever con-
_tainecl within its walls more men of great ability, of