The Express.
London, England, 1849-04-14 00:00:00

barracks raised in England, then farewell to the liberties
and privileges of Enalishruen. It was the maxim °four "ore-
fathers that there should be no war. Then came the war of
1793, theFreechrevolu•i nary war, that was sueoesied by ni
trust and excitement, and elmoat ittatiriecdon in our isountry,
owing to the pies Aire (althea war establishment. Fri m 1793
the barracks spread rt:sidly over the country ; and I am
sorry to ha
say that for the t twenty-five years they 'sentiment
spreading more rapidly than before. Now mark how the
war spirit generates the spawn of Its own cures, ; lON how
these barracks, brought forth by this war spirit, have brought
their evils with them. Why, the first outcry for finanaLi
reform stopped the expenditure of 100,0001. for barracks in
Birmingham. It was down in the estimates, and it was
withdrawn to make a show of concession. It was oily
withdrawn, and will he found there again the next
time you go to sleep. I attach es much importance is
any man to the preservation of order, and think you
cannot pay too high a price for It; and I repeat that,
troops have been necessary to keep order in large torus,
rather than have anarchy, I would say I would rather
have them than not ; but what I want to see is whether we
cannot do as our forefathers did, and as the Americans do
now, keep we peace w:V.ount ""!". t'727ase )
For mark me, they are the inlet expensive desmition of pc-
lice that you can keep up. Let us take stock. In Leeds we
have hone, foot, and artillery, a staff of offieers, a commo-
der and his aide deecamp, and the commander of the district.
Why you could keep five times the number of policemen in
your town for the same money. And when are our military
called out? Only in times of polities! excitement. We don't
want the troops to protect the town from the blackguard boys
who break windows; and it ia thirty or forty years sinew an
attack was made in your gist mills ; and in 1842, when the
country was disturbed by the great plug riots, not a thread
was disturbed from the enindle, and not a farthing's worth
cf injury done. (Applause,) Look at the effect of depend-
ing upon the military for preserving the public peace. Take
the case of Louis Philippe eighteen months ago. Who could
have supposed any government mom mfr than that of Louis
Philippe's ? I saw him about two yeas ago pass from his
palms to the Chamber of Deputies, between a double
line of soldiers armed, one line being regular troops and
the other national guards ; and yet with this fifty or a hun-
deed thousand troops at his command, what was the end? He
trusted to them instead of to public opinion, and they all fell
from him ham a pack of cards. (Applause) I wish that we
should look at this matter as a part of our financial reform
movement, end aircid the old vague party cries withnrt rea-
son for them. The reason why old agitations did not suc.
reed, Is, that the people were rot educated or taught what
they wanted, and the reason for their demands. This we
will now avoid, and in moving. like this, prepare our-
selves to learn what is better, and, taking warning by our
French end other continental neighbours, take a better way
for securing what we want. I will tell you candidly that I
consider the extension of the suffrage to be part of the plan
of financial reform. (Cheers.) I want to see more men en.
listed within the pale of the constitution, and interested In
keeping order ; and I want to see fewer men excluded who are
interested at particular times in creating a fear of disorder,
in order to obtain their political ends. I have always been of
opinion that the most conservative thing to do is to extend
the suffrage; beams. you give the surest guarantee of public
opinion in enmities you do, and avert the danger of the
stone overturning when you attempt to set the menial
pyramid on its apex instead of its base. (Cheers.) To pot
a stop to that increase of the army in the neighbourhood of
large towns, the best means would be a large extension of
the franchise. (Hear, hear.) I look upon the barracks in large
towns as more than an expense—as a great moral evil.
(Hear, hear.) Apply one test. Ask the value of land in the
neighbourhood of barracks. Wherever you plant a barrack
there a blight immediately falls people would rather go
into the neighbourhood of • prison or a cemetery than they
would carry their wives and children into the neighbour-
hood of a barrack. (" Hear, hear," and an exclamation, " I
have property unlet near the barracks.") Here is I gentle-
man who speaks feelingly, for he has property unoccupied
near the barracks ; and at is no doubt sensiely deteriorate.: in
value from that cause. People seem to shrink from proxi-
mity to a barrack, but would they do so from • police station ?
(" No, no," and " hear, hose.") Will any one tell me that
it is dangerous to trust the hard working mechanic, living
day and night in the pretence of his wife and children—these
men whom we trust in warehouses and mills, on whose
honesty we depend, and from whom we derive that upon
which we live—is It not safer to trust to them for the safety
and protection of our institution', than to depend upon those
armed men who live in the barracks of which we have been
speaking ? Well, gentlemen, I may have appeared to wander
wide from the question of financial reform ; but it is a wide
question, and if you will reduce your army and other es-
tablishments, you must alter your polity u regards Ireland,
ettisd,and the colonies, and your system of interforiog
People abr: ad lam free to admit that wan have some-1
' times been popular, but this I must my, that the people have
W ssepawer to make wars or to stop their going on. Nobody
seem to have remembered yet that we are an island.
We have not taken advantage of our insular position.
Sins the time that Nelson destroyed the combined
fleets of France and Spain at Trafalgar, we have been as safe
from attack as if we had been in the moon. (Applause.)
Yet after that we got involved in four or five hundred
millions of debt. Two little powers quarrsl in the River
Plate; and you have had far the last AU years a fleet of 2,000
men—a fleet large enough to protect all your commerce-7
lying between Monte Video and Buenos Ayres. We next
put the Queen of Portugal on her throne ; we had a fleet of
6.000 men in the Tague ; but as soon se I mentioned this In
the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, we found that they
were dispersed. (Applause.) We have had a hrge flee
running to and fro, carrying menages between the Neapo.
litsns and the Sicilians ; Just the same as if the Americans
had sent a fleet last year to carry messages between the
English government end Mr. Smith O'Brien. (Hear.) Now,
the reason of all this is, thatif they did not employ themselves
in doing mischief they would have no employment at all.
(Loud laughter.) Since we have been looking after them at
Malta, in the Tagus, and in Sicily, they have been so per-
plexed that I firmly believe that, by-and-by, the officers will
insist oa coming home and lying in Portsmouth harbour; for
it is utterly impossible for them to persuade the people of Eng-
land that they are doing good where they are. (Applause and
laughter.) I was ignorant of the gross nature of all this ex-
penditure until I war put upon a committee last year to in-
quire into the navy, end upon another this year to icquire
into the army ; and the chief good this does me is, that I am
learning my lesson while they think lam sitting idle. (Ap-
plause.) Another re nit of di...committees and the investi-
gation to which this fieancial reform agitation has given rise,
t' the exposure of the reckless waste and extravagance in our
dockyards. (Hear, hear.) But it perhaps is act to be won-
dered at that ships should be ordered by persons who
do not know what a ship should be, when every
two or three years there is a change in the
Lords of the Admiralty, one of whom is occasionally turned
out to make room for a fresh one. In the cam of the pre
sent Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr. Ward, he is a person of
great official aptitude, and he has performed his duties at the
Admiralty so well that I should have liked to have seen him
made Secretary of the Admiralty for life. Bat now he is ap-
pointed chief commissioner of the lonian Is'ands,and another
secretary will come who will have his lemon to learn, and he
will learn it at your expense. There is no remedy for this
but to keep your establishments as low as possible. 1" Hear,
hear," and applause.) We have raised this question, and
whet we have said Is not only telling upon the governors nt,
but upon other governments. There is not a meeting we
hold, but reports of what I say are transcribed into the Pads
melon ; are read extensively on the continent ; and if we suit
ceed in reducing our army, I believe it will be only contem-
poi aneously with reductions in other countries; and, there-
ten I look on these peace meetings, an them
financial reform meetings, with some complacency,
as being likely to prove a moans of diminishing the baron of
war. Gentlemen, I told you that I would talk to you in
a familiar and conversational way, and I am afraid I
have done usury inefficiently ; I have only, in conclusion,
to recommend that you will carry out the valuable angles-
time' of your chairman, and qualify yourselves by votes. I
am not afraid of the people ; but I should deceive you if I told
you that we would be able to carry any extensive reform in
the present constitution of parliament. If you want to ex.
mad the suffrage, I wk you to do so by qualifylog yourselves
fir votleg in the county. I advise you to follow the example
which has been set yon in the midland comities by .Mr.
Taylor and others. You cannot lay out 401. or 601. 'better
than by the purchase of a vote. As a means of reform, I
advhe any man, if ke hoe not a vote, dad if he has
the
means, to quilettk himself by purchasing • vote for
county. Ea ly should he do this when he does not m-
em a borong vote ; and if be Is a borough voter he should
min be =Um to gain a county frenchisit. And if this pro-
cess goes on, it will be the readiest means of carrying on
financial reform, which sooner or later will come, and I
hope it will come tranquilly • and that its program will not
be dammed up until the flo:rd come,, tearing away its hanks,
as on the continent, leaving everything in confusion and out
of its natural channel. (Mr. Cobden reamed his seat
amidst reiterated plaudits.)
E. BAINES, Ent., was greatly cheered on rising to pro
pose the second resolution, which, he said, he had much
plenum in moving. Mr. Cobden having made the speech to
his resolution, all he had to do was to express his hearty ap-
probation of it. and his hope that as Mr. Cobden had
pledged himself at Wakefield and he (Mr. Baines)
thought he might consider he bad again pledged himself
there—(" hear, hear," from Mr. Cobden)—to bring forward
lathe How of Commons year after year the important ques-
tions of arbitration, the non-interference with the quarrels of
nations, and the reduction of their armaments, he
aines) trusted all present, with the whole of the West
briNdital constituencies would pledge themselves to beck him
in year after believed
(Loud cheers of Gwent.) If they did
Ise, he fully believed that with such a leader and with musk
a esuse—or even any cause—they must succeed. (Chun)
bleolation ran as follows :
!fret In the deliberate opinion of this oisatiag, this OPPrioaft
11•011112 of taxation is caused by ALL unneeemery and extravagant ea.
posditure for the government and pomades of ear colonise; by a
him external policy which Inds to the malainamm of • large navel
sod wintery force, at bow add dread. and hy mem salnelhee••
I met and waste in the odulditasdas at toe puns =NM ml•
play in the depezonems at the mew, envy, atitrima, ma labile
weds fad eamilleg to tho Ira lc Ileilisonter NU.
Ity leaving to OM the ef own
the sweat of their ors _l4 no law-
beem.te Mind affair's:at lautest gem* at maw astkaaa,
ma by a arms ashram and eene4 fn all tamatos of adtpubtia
aartisa, it is pradiaale to rears, at to the euenditant of DU.
Amerman LIJCCOCH Noma the resolution.
Col. THOMPSON, M.P., came forward to support the
the resolution, and was received with enthusiastic and pro
longed cheering. He said—Mr. Chairman and gentlemen,
A period has been pointed out, not so lug ago either,
because to some of us it seems only yesterday, when our
establishments were thought to be great and magnificent,'
and were allowed by universe' consent to be sufficient for
our use and necessity. (Hear.) You have already made al
groat advance on one important point. You have got free-
dom to remise your own industry, end to bring back in ex-
change for it the products of other countries. (Hear.) There
is more to get yet—not on =ugh as it you had got nothing,