The Press.
London, England, 1856-11-08 00:00:00

Vittltal.

A CABINET COUNCIL will be held at the official
residence of I,lrd Palmerston on Monday next.

MR. H. DRUMMOND, M.P., at the annual dinner of
the Dorking Agricultural Society, yesterday week, in
reference to agricultural statistics, said .

This information could not be of the slightest value to
the farmer or anybody else; but the gentlemen merchants
wanted it, although he did not think it would do them any
good. They wanted to know this in order to bring foreign
corn into the market for their own advantage, as they
thought proper; but he maintained the farmer could not
tell them until he had thrashed his corn. It was all very
well for those scientific gentlemen who wrote pa is and
other voluminous matter about having agricultural returns,
or whatever they liked to style it, but they must be in-
formed that they could not get the information they sought
until the farmer had sold his crops. But he asked them
not to get frightened about it, but give the information re-
quired, for these fellows would have the returns whether
they would give them or not, and if they refused to give
them quietly, men would be sent about the country to
obtain the information, and the worst of it would be that
they would have to pay them, and therefore he thought it
was a " bad spec." (Laughter.)
After the distribution of the awards, Mr. Drummond
maintained that there was as much skilled labour re-
quired in the agricultural as in the manufacturing
districts:—

Ask one of the manufacturing gentlemen to draw with
the plough two straight parallel lines across a field, and he
could not do it; but give the plough to one of their clod-
hoppers, as they were called, and he would perform what
the Manchester gentlemen could not. Or ask the latter to
till the ground so as to make it produce a crop, and he
would be unable to accomplish it, but the other could ; or,
again, set the manufacturer to clip a sheep without cutting
the animal, and start one of those gentlemen with a pair
of shears, and the chances were that he would kill the
sheep before he had done with it. (Laughter.) The fact was,
that agricultural labourers were as much skilled labourers
as any other class, and as such he liked to see them
rewarded.

Mr. Drummond then briefly explained his notion of
foreign policy. He approved of intervention :
He thought that England m'ght have taken a good
course by telling the European sovereigns that they should
not treat their subjects in a way according to their fancy.
That this country would not stand quietly by and see des-
potic interference, no more than she would take part with
any blood-thirsty revolutionists.

With respect to the liberty of the press :

1004

As he had been speaking of the Emperor of the French,
he might just say that that individual had recently been
making war against the English newspapers, and although
he (the speaker) had seen many abuses made of the li-
berty of the press, he would say he would rather have it
exist with all its mischief than suffer it to be controlled
one iota. They must tell the Emperor of the French that
before he puts down the English press he must put down the
English people, for they should be fighting not merely for
their own interests but for the interests of all civilised
Leings in the world. He thought there was no man in the
House of Commons better able to direct the affairs of the
nation at the present time than Lord Palmerston, who was
the right man iu the right place.

TILE annual dinner of the Woodbury (Devonshire)
Agricultural Association was held on Wednesday
week at the Globe Inn. Mr. W. H. Peters, of Hare-
field-house, presided, and there was a large number
of the agriculturists of the district present.
"The Health of Mr. Palk, M.P. for South Devon,"
who was present, was cordially received.
Mr. PALK, in responding to the toast, alluded to
the high price of wheat of late years, and to the
sneers of the Liberal press against the agricul•
turist

There is an old adage, and a very true one, that before
you give advice to others you should be careful to wash
your own dirty linen at home ! Now, gentlemen, the
Timeit is always abusing—not abusing exactly—but always
criticising the agriculturists, and insinuating that they
know very little of their profession, and that they—the
Times—are very much better farmers than we are. Now,
the first thing in agriculture is to obtain manure for your
fields ; and one would think that in a country like this,
where the policy is that all the necessaries of life should
be as cheap as they can be possibly grown, every obstacle
in the way of agriculture should be removed, and every-
thing that can benefit agriculture should be carefully pre-
served by the country at large. Week after week we see
this sort of writing I have referred to in the Times ; but I
have looked again and again for powerful articles demand-
ing on the part of England commercial treaties with those
countries which supply manure. But if you come to cheap-
ness, I would ask you what good it would not do if guano
were just half the half the price; whether it would not
double the cultivation and increase the production of your
fields? But, if we are told that it is impossible to obtain
this boon from foreign countries, we say that the means of
proper sewage, and those sanitary measures which large
towns so intimately demand, are neglected, for at this
moment there are various plans for conveying the sewage
of London—where ? Not to the agriculturists, who would
turn it to advantage and make it the means of increased
production in our fields; but one engineer is proposing to
take it to Long Reach, and, as I understand, the tide
washes it to that place, and the tide which comes up the
Thames washes it back again, leaving it at the mouth of
the Thames, when, by proper regulations, that manure
could be chemically engaged, and be placed in a way to
he carried to your fields—perhaps the proper term is
deodorised—and it would thus become second only in
degree to guano, and would be of immense advantage to
you. Sir, when I see those things so essential to the
benefit of agriculture, which are poison to the crowded in-
habitants of London, and which could be made so valuable
on the fields, allowed to run waste, I cannot but think
that those criticisms who find such fault with agricultu-
rists should take a little trouble and wash their dirty linen
at home.

Mr. Palk then briefly reviewed the session, and vin-
dicated the conduct of the Opposition: it had been
conducted on great and patriotic principles. He ex-
pressed himself in favour of competitive examina-
tion, and of safe and constitutional progress. On
the question of foreign policy he was opposed to
intervention :

We have it from the mouth of one of the Ministers that
our relations with foreign countries are at this moment in
a very precarious state. On a matter which is so much
involved in darkness it would be impossible for me to say
much, but this much I lay down as a rule—that it is not
England's business, it is not England's policy, to meddle
with the affairs of our neighbours. We enjoy a free con-
stitution, where the press is unfettered, and where every
man may speak his opinion without fear or favour. We
possess a Church free from superstition, and in which we
delight. We possess a Queen whom we honour, and who
is herself a model of every virtue which can grace the
female sex. Let us deplore the fate of those who live
under a despotic Government, and whose hands and
speech are fettered and tied by soldiers and police. Let
us hope that the progress of civilisation and the blessed
truths of that Gospel which my friend here so earnestly
preaches will ere long dawn upon those benighted nations ;
but do not let us send the best blood of England, do not
let us send the yeomen and aristocracy that are our pride
to force our institutions upon nations that are unable and
unworthy to appreciate them; but let every nation wash its
own dirty linen at home. Let England's course be pure
and undefiled ; let her maintain civil and religious liberty ;
let her give the guidance of her press and the example of
her institutions to those who are willing to accept them:
but I do implore you, be not carried away by the thirst of
glory, or by the triumphs which your soldiers have so nobly
won, to mingle in the troubles and turmoils of continental
disputes, which to us are nothing. Let us keep clear of
all those quarrels, and, first and foremost, let every man
whom I now address bear this in mind, that although a
Liberal Government such as we now possess may be, in
the opinion of many, a guarantee of progress and of the
impro vet:tient of commerce and of agriculture, yet, if a
Minister is to. be %maintained in power solely by living in
hot water with our neighbours—by keeping fleets on the