The Express.
London, England, 1863-04-03 00:00:00

LORD PALMERSTON'S VISIT TO SCOTLAND

LEITH. TiOLSDAT NIGHT.

Lord Palmerston arrived here shortly after two
o'clock, and wesoonducted by the Provost over the OM docks,
and the various improvements seggested in the town and her-
hour were pointed out and described to his lordship. The
*obis visitor afterward' proceeded to the ecru Exchange,
where a large company assembled to meet him, and was
there presented with an address from the corporate autho-
rities of the town.

Lord PauteiterroN, in reply to the address, said—l am
deeply sensible of the kindness which led you to invite me
to this distinguished meeting, and which has prompted
those expressions of approbation and confidence which are
contained in the address that I have just had the honour
to receive. Nothing can be more gratifying to
those who are engaged in the public *orrice than
receiving expressions of approval on the part of the en-
lightened communities in the country, and where you, Mr.
Provost, in that address, and the municipality of the town,
point specially to those madame which in recent times
have tended to encourage the development of the pro-
ductive industry and the commercial enterprise of the
country, I mod feel that there is no community better en-
titled tosppreciateany benefits which may have been conferred
upon the country in that direction than the people of Leith.
I have been happy enough to receive strong and flattering
demonstrations of personal regard and approval of my gene-
ral conduct from those parts of Scotland which I have
minted before I came here. I received them on the banks of
the Clyde, and I should indeed have been mortified if I
bed not received them also on the banks of the
lath—(cheers)—and I em glad to find that
though the waters of the Clyde were warm and re-
fresbing, those of the Forth are equally so. (Cheers.) It
is cow, gentlemen, many long years since I visited the
town of Leith. The great features of nature remain as they
were. Your noble estuary is, as then, open to receive
every friendly visits, and open also for the departure of
your vessels to every quarter of the globe. That pliant
island lochkeitb still rises gloriously from the waters
of the Forth—your beautiful prospects are still bounded
by those picturesque hills of Fifeehire which are the
admiration of all. (Cheers) Your links are not perhaps so
crowded with golf players as they used to be—(loud cheers)— '
—because that game, I am told, has somewhat migrated to-
wards the north. Your sands, lam told, are not so much
trodden by the heels of the racing courser as they used to be—
(cheers)—but, then, they still are for pleasure and recreation,
and your noble waters afford equal advantage for health in
bathing. (Loud cheers and laughter.) These great features
of mature which you have it now in your power to offer, re.
main the rune. There is one lamentable exception. There
is that unhappy water of Leith—(cheers, and laughter)—
one might wish, for its sake, it were the waters of Lithe
—(renewed cheering and laughter)—that it might forget its
former glories and the happiness of its former days, bus
then, it is like "the last rose of summer—ilanghter, and
great cheering)—left mourning alone—All its lovely
companion—(namely, the old trading smacks)—now faded
sad gone." (Great laughter and cheering.) In the
days of which I speak, its muddy bottom was
covered at low water with a great accumulation of very
small and indifferent wooden ships. They are gone—peace
go with them. But though the great features of nature are
unchanged, I should hardly know again the Leith of my
former years. Whatever way I turn I face the results of
British intelligence, of ample and well-guided expenditure
of capital, of aerosol al and skilful perseverance; and your
town, which at that time could not rank high among those
communities which are placed by nature on the banks of
admirable estuaries, now deserves to be classed in the first
ranks of British ports. (Cheers.) I have traversed to-day
with the graded delight three splendid docks which of late
years have been the creation of your genius and your in-
dustry, and it is a proud satisfaction to the people of
Leith to know, that they have built the finest
dock for the reception of vessels and for their
:spire which exists in any port at lead of the
east coast of the kingdom. (Cheers.) You have a
dock 400 feet long, within 20 feet of being large enough to
receive even the Warrior and Black Prima, but large
enough to repair all the other ships of her Majesty's navy if
they should require, in consequence of any disaster, either
of tempest or of action, to come to your friendly port for
refitting or repair. Well, this is a noble work, and one
which should content ordinary men ; but I have had shown
to me a pine which you contemplate carrying into execu-
tion on a much larger scale, which will afford brim and
docks almost unrivalled except perhaps by the great towns
of Liverpool and London. (Cheers.) I trust you will be
able to accomplish this, and to your honour be it said that
all you have done, and I belie►e I may also smut, all you
are going to do, has been dose by the expenditure of your
own capital and industry, and therefore it is doubly ho.
nonrsble to you, and more advantageous it will be in the
end than if it had been the result of donations from other parts
of the empire. (Cheers.) Your worthy provost has adverted
to the muse which this and preceding governments have
punned in regard to the commerce of the country. Well,
there was a time when it was believed that the interest sad
the profit of the few was to be preferred to the interest and
the advantage of the many. When monopolies were hold
to be sacred things, not to be touched by the profane hands
of innovation, when exclusive privileges and protection
were considered to be the foundation of national prosperity,
I remember a very enlightened foreigner talking to me
upon the subject, and maintaining, and I was unable to con-
vince him of his error, that it was all very well for England
to counsel liberality of commerce and the abolition of
restrictions and protection, these being the ladder by which,
in his opinion, she had risen to greatness and prosperity, and
that we were acting a treacherous part to other
countries in advising them, before they had reached
our commerce, to cad away the means by which
alone we had reached that summit. Why, I told him—You
are taking the wrong end of your argument; these restric-
tions, which you ray were the means of our greatness, have
retarded its accomplishment (Cheery.) They have been
the obstacles which have prevented the earlier development
of the natural energies and resources of the country, and
you now, by persevering in following our steps in error, will
only be the longer before you arrive with us at that
summit of truth. (Loud cheers.) Well, gentlemen,
strong sad ancemsful in point of argument as those were
who advocated free trade and the unrestricted exchange of
commodities with other countries, so long was it before
practical men could be convinced of the truth. We were
told—This is all very well in theory, but we

are practical men ; you are theorists and idle
dreamers; practical men &loth are those who are capable
of judging of the effect of legislation upon human
affairs. Well, it has often and well been said that the prac-
tical man was the greatest theorist, only he was a bad
theorist ; that he founded his opinions upon the theory
which ha had based upon narrow education, and upon a
mistaken view of the foundation upon which theories ought
to met ; that those which he called theorists had founded
their opinion. upon a larger and more rational view of
things ; that they therefore were right, and that lie, conse-
quently, was wrong. (Hear, hear.) Great and obstinate
was the battle fought between those theorists and those
practical men, both commercial, and manufacturing,
and agricultural ; all thought that those theorists were their
' bitterest enemies—that their theories, if carried into practice,
would be the ruin of all the industry of the country, sod,
therefore, they resisted them, as it were, to the death.
Well, their resistance was vain, but their death was not the
consequence of their defeat. (laughter.) Look around in
every direction, traverse your agricultural districts, ice.,
those parts that you were told were to be left barren and
uncultivesed the moment that the country was to be
deluged by the importation of foreign corn. Wh►t errors
are often comprised in and imported by the mirapplicatiou of
a word, and because "deluge' is a word that conveys the
idea of a submersion of land by water, and the extinction
of life and property, the application of the word "deluge.'
to the importation of the staff of life created a pre-
judice in the trials of men, and they said,
For Heaven's sake duel bring upon us a second
"deluge" in the shape of imputation of the staff of
life. (Laughter and cheers.) Well, look is your agricul-
tural districts, see what new life has been inspired by the
competition which the abolition of the laws has produced;
how science has been brought to the aid of agriculture ;
machinery which never before was thought applicable to
the cairn, of the land has been largely sad most beneficially
introduced for the purpose. Ask now the owners end
the renters of land, and they will tall you, if you are now
capable of conviction, that they see their error, that they
would not have protection back again if it could be bestowed
up= them, and that they admit the advantages which have
accrued even to them by the extensios of the commercial
intercourse of the runts" with other OSiiOllS. (Load cheers.)
; The manufacturers rid, If you let is the geode's of foreign
industry nobody will bey oars, and we shall be reduced to
beggary. Why, every reduction which bad been made in