The Express.
London, England, 1862-09-25 00:00:00

[Stamped, Id. Additional.)

be a vary Elaine' distribution of the henellte
of Providescs If agriculture had coupled with all them ad-
vantages an Overhearing .bare of the profits of industry.
(Bear, hear.) A from the condition of agriculture as a
trade it is insporeible not to consider its social condition,
and thaw relations of class to clue which are se intimately
bound up with OW whole of its Inactions and operations—
an overpowering evidence that whatever changes take plane
le the country, the older she grows, she does not grow
woke—(cheere)—thet those tiee which unite one class
to another do not with the lapse of years
become feebler than they were before, but on the
contrary it is our belief that the confidence of clam in elms,
of each one class in every other, is growing stronger and
stronger from year to year, and that the whole social fabric
which depends on the nubbin of all classes Is gradually ac-
quiring a broader, deeper, and firmer foundation. (Cheers.)
If it be true that the peanut of the farmer is not a pursuit
which has been attended with the realisation of sudden
sad enormous profits—if it be true that the wages
of the agricultural labourers are, as a general rule,
somewhat below those of the gains of the mechanise
and operatives of this country, the farmers are not exposed
to the reverses which we me at this moment with the
deepest feeling of regret woad overlies vary bra, of tho
maaufineuring dietriet, and which have totally paralysed
the band of iseaufacturing industry ; end the preset is not
seemed to the total lose of his employment from causes not
0* beyond hie own control, but which it was perfectly
koprealble for any men to foresee or to prevent. (Hear,
hear.) Gentlemen, it is a happy social coition in which you
and Wades being a happy social condition, it is a sound
seocromical condition. If it be true that great and brilliant
do not commonly attend your business, it is
eiTS;i:rue that tbedangerova element of gambling, which
enters of necessity into some descriptions of human enter-
is ost entirely absent from yours ; and it is also
midsrately and wthaa4, bat and
'en (Well Pittsplet per ore tles wal tbr,
intelligonos-of the classes oonnected with the cultivation of
the sod is increasing. (Cheers.) Bat, gentlemen, although
much has undoubtedly been done, still much more remains
to be accomplished. The whole subject of the application
of manure to the soil, the whole theory of what is termed
utilising those vast materials which are annually wanted,
and of making them available for the fertilising of the soil,
has yet to be carried out to perfection. Many metal disco-
veries I admit have been made, but many more remain to be
ma& It may ponably man strange if I were to use such an
a: prairies so that both agriculture and commones were still
in a state of infancy, yet it is perfectly. true that
go
muck remains to be gradually and steadily
emomplisbod, that eltbsugh, metapborioally speaking,
you have covered • good deal of gmmad, yet
them is a poet deal more to ouver, and we have yet many
more worm of wealth and many more means of producing
wealth to open out than at present exist, and I may also add
that many of those sources are, in my opinion, at the pre-
sent moment entirely unknown. Take, for instance, the ame
of the sewage of oar great town, and above all bike that of
London ; it would hardly be behoved, so extraordinary • tikes
is it, that up to this present moment it is uncertain whether
the enormous amount of wealth which is undoubtedly eon.
mined is that sewage am or cannot be realised, and the
most important quintkes of health connected with it are at
this moment involved. We are gradually, it is true, getting
towards a solution. For a long time we were content, in a
manner so slovenly as to be unworthy of any amount of
civilisation, to allow that groat mass of sewage, not only to
escape from our Lod, bat to poison the nobler of our rivers,
upon whichFleity Inaba& ; and it was only four years
ago when it Provldeeee to remind us of our duties by
causing old ether Thames to pre us notice otitis displeasure
by sending up one of the met abominable and protracted
stenches that ever mitered the smith] of mankind, that we
set about a work of legislation which involved the expendi-
tore of millions of money, but the consequence of which
will be that in all future times no part of that immense men
of sewage will hod km way into the river, but the Thames
. will become again what it was originally, a pure and hew
• tiful river. That great work is now almost completed, soli
very shortly the weasel sewage to which I have alluded will
be available to be experimented upon in older to see at
what met the deleterious particles can be separated and
• the fertillisiag properties applied to the soil. Without
presuming to pronounce any opinion upon the subject, I
cannot help feeling sanguine as to the results of those ex-
periments, and that eventually the sewage of London,
instead of being a means of poisoning the stream, will be a
fertilising agent of the greatest value. There are, however,
numerous other improvements in agriculture with which
you are extensively acquainted, and while you have reduced
W necessity for actual manual labour in the bald, you have
rendered amemary the employment of a higher and
more intel-t class than were formerly employed.
You have,mded, achieved great progress both in the
application of manure and the mode of cultivating the
ground. Great, however, as that progress has been, I believe
that still more remains to be achieved. It was cam
thought that the cultivation of land had reached its limits,
and no more could be obtained from it. It is perfectly
true that to some extent this will always be a corn im-
porting country, but at the same time you will recollect
that while we grow a great quantity of corn, the people have
now so incribsed in numbers that there is an mar-
moue demand for all kinds of esculents, which
the farmers find it profitable to grow, and, conaerently,
to some extent we do throw ourselves on foreign nations for
a supply of corn, and no doubt more or less we shall always
do so. At the same time this is fraught with good, because
while other nations supply us with corn our commerce is
extended ; and while, on the one band, there is an immense
saving of labour here, we strenkrthen those bonds of amity
and cordiality which should exist among all the nations of
the world. I believe you will, however, find that the pre-
sent products of the soil in this land have by no means
reached their maximum. At the same time, in no part of
W kingdom have enterprise sad skill been rewarded with
a more visible increase than in the principality of Wales.
(The right boo. gentleman resumed his mat amid loud
cheering.)
Several other toasts having been given, the meeting
separated.