The Express.
London, England, 1852-10-01 00:00:00

A MINISTER IN OXFORDSHIRE.

Yesterday we reported the fact that the President
of the Board of Trade had been addressing some agneet.
taral friends in the county which sends him to pares.
meat. The following is the speech of this gentemer, 4
Banbury:
The Right lion. J. W. HENLEY, M.P. said—To a fre.
be Buglishmen to meet a large and independent and
issatial body of his countrymen upon any great public
melon must be at all Omega matter of high gratiticatieu and
quhaaleietiesa cihnamneyeseuillo;irminyl;
pleasure ; but when, in addition to that, • meeting is collie'
to do especial honour to humble individuals like myself eel
my colleagues, then it becomes doebly • matter of gratifica-
tion, pride, and pleasure. (Cheers.) I ant not so weak as
igmuagie.
c 0.% tlgiaivteanty. itinfilivoirdcanual
°lea
us, any such an honour, but I know that we are inildoaa
for it to the cause with which we have been loug asse,
ciated—a c.ueo fur the sake of which many of us lose
made considerable surilloes of time, of case, of contort
and of everything that a man values m ost a cause, to up-
hold which I de not now appear for the first time borne
hundreds of my fellow-countrymen in this town--ace a
*Me which yet, by the blessing of God, as long as t lire
shall hope to see fluurish and be maintained. (Chem%)
hilion. friend who proposed this toast to your notice., by
your attention to many subject., and, among others,
le the opposition which we encountered at the loot dee-
ties. Vexatious a. that opposition was, lam sure ;t
was mainly so both to myself and my colleagues,
Idt-
cense we felt that fur no earthly purpose, end fir no
fair, honourable, legitimate cause, were you called from
your business and occupations at a time when it was tape.
Madly inconvenient to you, to enable you to show, !” yea
did, with an uanimity which-1 will not say was ant tape
expected, because I knew how an appeal would be r.
sponded to, but with all unanimity which I believe will 6)
much to teach the people of this county what the true
feeling of this county is and ham been ; and I hope it may
have the effect of preventing such vexatious proceedings in
future. (Applause.) As I before observed, upon any um-
lion a person who has the honour to represent le large
and independent county like this, must feel the highest
woe and gratitude in meeting such an assembly; but
for myself, personelly, I cannot but feel that I ham
other causes of thankfulness. I have heard the man.
nee in which the health of Lord perk: the leader of
the conservative party in the House of Lords awl ('rime
Minister of Mngland, has been received ; I have beard the
summer in which the health of Mr. Disraeli, the lecher of
the conservative party in the House of Commons—both of
them members of a government of which I have the honour
to be one—has been drunk by you ; and I cannot bet
feel that I have especial occasion, therefore, to expo,
you the deep sense of gratitude and high exultation I enter-
tain at seeing PJ large and so independent • portiou of my
countrymen assembled together to support and do justice
the principles of that government. (Loud cheers.) There
are special reasons why, at this time, I should feel that
pride, and I shall not hesitate to advert to them, because if
ever there was • period when the press of this country,
almost from one end of it to the other—some of it actually
in the hands of the parties who were not themselves able to
conduct the government of the country, and another, net
uninfluential part of it which generally delight to abuse
everything, even the proceedings at public dinner, and
public meetings—has united to uppose the government of
the day, it is the present. (Hear, hear.) To oppose i:,
and for what? Not for any act it has dope, hut became
it has what they call "no principles." Now, if I under-
stand anything of the feelings of the gentlemen assembled,
that government has received, and will receive, your
support became you believe it has principles. (Cheers.)
As this has been so much and so loudly insisted on—echoed,
I may say, from one end of the country to the other-1
shall, with your permission, if I do not trespass too long on
your time, endeavour to trace out a little what have hems
the principles of that great party with which I have the
honour to be associated, and what are, and will continue to
be, their principles to the end. (Applause.) It is not so
many years since but we remember the formation of that
great party. We have been told, indeed, at public meet-
ings, that the whole nation is for the Queen end the House
of Lord.; bat it is not so long ago that the House of Leeds
was threatened with en inundation, and some 411 or 50 Den
pests were introduced to control them. Public notice,
also, was given to the bishops to set their house in order.
Then at our meetings we did not hear so much of all
parties being of one mind about the Ilouo: of Lords.
(Cheers.) I rejoice to say that, for her Majesty and the
monarchy of this country there has always been but we
feeling, any party holding a different opinion on that sab
jut being so contemptible as to be absolutely beneath
notice. The exalted virtues of the lady who is now Queen
place her in a position that no person would for a moment
ques:ion. The institution of royalty itself receives midi-
nal strength in this country, where for no many cen-
turies it has flourished, from the lustre which she reflects
open it. (Loud cheers) The next subject in order. el eb
IM not follow with any halting steps, was the confiscation
et the ecclesiastical property of the country to secular pur-
eness. That was the next measure in order which the con-
servative party refused to have anything to do with. They
Ist their faces against it, and Lord le:rby left the govern-
stoat with which he was connected because he would sot
sanction that transaction, and would no; purchase the
support of the Irish priests and their nominees by being
party to 'fiche bargain. (Cheers.) I ask you, gentlemen,
is there no principle in that; and I ask you whether those
men who have so assailed us as having no principle have
lately conducted themselves in such a manse: as to give you
any warrant for doubting that, should another Lichfield-
house compact be entered into, they would be ready to join
it for the purpose of regaining power ? (Cheers.) The neat
question which followed, and which shook the then whet
reform government to its centre—the question which tint
fve the conservative party • tie, or • majority of one (I
orget which), in the Roues of Commons—was whether the
people of this country, by the aid of the state, should re-
ceive a religions or secular education. Now, I ask you is
that • question of principle, or is it not ? (Cheers.) Are
children to be taught that "the fear of God is the be-
ginning of wisdom," or are they to receive a merely secular
education, and be let loose to pick up their religious prin-
ciples where they can ? That was the first question
which shook the whig government and laid the founds.
tion for the accession of Sir Robert Peel to power. I sek
if that principle does not still Tannin in all its force, and
whether the same party who wanted to introduce it 12 or
14 years ago, are not now again ready to proceed with the
tame measure ? There is another queen°. which it is very
eouvenient for those parties to pass over in silence. What,
I wish to know, were their opinions with regard to the
mentosanev of the reformed protestant ehmeh in Ireland ?
lead the speeches of the late Prime Minister, Lord John
)ice sell, in the House of Commons in 1844 and 1845, upon
Mr. Ward's mottoes for doing away, or, as it was termed,
" dealing with " the Irish church, and tell me whether the
pseeean:who opposed those mojioes by their rotes and
wan rwere actuated by printiple or not ? (Cheers.)
ans not going to shrink from say of the great public
grassiess which are before the country. (Cheers.) I have
pm through those which ere of all time, and which ate
UM le be altered by this or that change of government.
no of all tint., and the men who have theca will
OISIS to the end, while those who have *them not lOU
be y nibbling end briugiag them 'forward but
it as they did the appropriation dame when out of
11.1111 asap when they flud they can hold power with-
we heat'imi inn of it. (Cheers.) What happened
1 The whip then proposed men great commu-
nal damps, and their propeoaki did, so doubt, lay the
Illnyallaeleserf all than dings Vida took place during the
asst saes years. Thee osmnsedal queetiona had never
be.thie country had= ben mode party questions. No
party bad ever lakes ben lewd ea those questions, but
nes sf balk sideo van henillenstly, according as their
Amines ma lodgment led thin The late Sir R. reeri
=7ll.wee GM that bounded as the country upon
4seuelene. They were the dust, is 1841, to make
Om ea eiNallorring cry. In 18W, when those erode-
Ma MOB is opposition, we heard a great deal, and
dog WOO all who trusted in them to believe that
aim MS something unholy in buying sugar which the
produen--that it was imelnioste and immoral.
-was that changed in 1846, when they sap.
411 'hies Is ilherling the very caesura
eissiellbhgetheineshlge demossen Surely, if it were
memil111141:irell webs tight in 1846, and men will
Os le Ihombror whether these gentlemen
IMO M Ile riaimillialt *my Nautilus& Dee
• rks yaps ISOM 41/It, nod siren ebeiges were effected in
Maw beam Or WO gentlemen, forming perhaps bur-
et*. mmeermitive party, who had held those
and unbroken from I•SX sad
MIL limp int a party, did not auddenlv, and
▪ mess tiara, tarn round on all they had rt
say that it was smug to do that wketi
1m lip they hai d.ehared to be right, but chose to sq.
~'W•oes so argument Of reasons to make us change our
*An. sad we wM to see the operation of those east
ninettres upon the sementaity at large before we P" colt,
morn to them ;"—becouse they, take that course, Prul".
*Unsound upon then" and say, ' They have no pritiriplce
Man be the ease, I do not know what a principle
(Chssre.) We have been accused before and sine: of thic
led have been asked what right had we to any share in the,
,
govevument. That is a question whteh I may almost say ha
been yelled out from one end of the gauntry to the oth
The government did not fall into our hands from any ela-
tion of our own. It was in the hands of what is Wed
" the liberal party," who, having a large niaieuitY in:11
House of Commons, wtainly, so strangely meneetd
affairs and so disgusted the nation—the same press mot
SOW abases us, mind you, abusing them quite as much c d
llMlStier.that on •• motion whieh they themselves. ac the
IlleMenelailnisent of the session, declared in the Qus74;
speech Mbe of the greatest consequence to the ed
of the station they were defeated. Raying not here
backward in 'blowing up tho raids which then 1,1*.;
veiled about a foreign invasion, at all reel. ,"!
not blowing it up, taking no means to lire:
alarm which was felt, and I believe justly felt, throe_
out the country, thou liberal gentlemen could eat
muster 150 men to support the bill which they ws l!
bring in. (Cheers.) But was that all ? They they
not even
but
uP
choose to try with a second measure, but actually
the Queen's business, and left the country to take ears
itself. According to their doctrine nobody was fed w
.ut`i,,
the government unless he had been in oMce bele! :eouoe'
so happened that po other men were in that newton
00. M. .
themselves—(a laugh)—therefore they left the eountry t
dilemma—either they were to continue in everle.4lll4 10. ,
union of the reins of power, or bit up the '
when they took a pet, or whenever they pleasel, and
~ %L.,
soy" There is nobody fit to take the governiden!.,"l7,.,.
he has not been in the government before. "
that is not a very convenient position for the country m
be placed in—(hear, hear)—thorefore we, who
nected with the largest body of members in the
hl `nsc of
Commons (some 200 strong), thoeght it to but,lacy