The Express.
London, England, 1848-03-21 00:00:00

was Welkirerbet ereistema lately stationed there been
intended the Went 'Miss 1 He had undimmed they
were sad there by our focuien minister, to be placed at the
disposal of the Queen of Portugal. (Hear, hear.) And
there it would be seen, by the roman for which he bad
moved, they had lain mouth after month doing nothing.
Could anything be more demoralising, in each a climate and
close to such a city? (Hear, bear.) Those who had been
in Lisbon would admit that it was not the purest
of all spots in which to locate five thousand idle
men. (Haar, hear.) Su far from there being any exampla
tins in his statements, be believed there was a current joke
among the sailors, that one of the line of-battle ships had
gone reground on the beef bones which had been thrown over
her side. (Laughter.) Now, he contended that we had no
' right to tax the artisans and people of this country who con-
sumed the sugar, and coffee, and tea, for the purpose of
sending a fleet larger than the whole of the American navy,
to lie in the Tagus, at the disposal of the Queen of Purtugal,
and to do more harm than good. It might have been good
to send the fleet there. He took the argument fur whet it
was worth ; but if it was worth anything, why had the fleet
been eo suddenly withdrawn ? lie sometimes fancied that the
1 broadside he had fired from the free trade hall in Manchester,
' had dispersed them (Laughter.) (An bon. member,
" They're in Cork.") Well, he hoped they were better em-
ployed than they Lad been in Portugal. He now crone to this
important question; they were goiug to vote 7,500,0001. He
was perfectly prepared for it, he believed that fur that large
estimate government was no more to blame than the electors
or the conntry. (Hear, hear.) He would be very candid,
he had been the first to raise an outcry against it in Novem-
ber last, and he was censured in all quarters for his conduct.
lie would do ministers the justice so my, that he was cen-
sured on all hands, in the newspapers, among public men,
and everywhere he was told that he was wrong in
opposing increased armaments. But the very pie-
ties who had so censurer) him, were the very men,
when the ministers brought in their hill to turn
share round and call them a profligate ministry. In his
opinion ministers bad been exceeding? illused in the
matter. He took no blame to himself. In 1835, when our
navy was at the lowest, lie made his first appearauce in
public life by writing pamphlets spinet increased arma-
ments. But they now came to the quesion—how was the
money to be raised? (lieu, hear.) They were ins seri-
ous dilemma respecting it. It was proposed to do it by an
increased income tax, and he would say very frankly to the
country, that if the expenditure must be carried au, he
' would vote that it be paid by the men of 1501. a year and
upwards, rather than that the working classes should be
taxed an ither farthing. (Hear.) He believed that the masses
had no fear of invasion. They laughed at it. The p. assist
working at his plough, or the weaver et his loom, never felt
any alarm. It was the genteel and timid clones of the
country who wanted this protection, and he would say, if
they would have it, let them pay (or it. (Cheers.) But
what a lesson did the present state of Europe read to us as to
the result of these vast armaments ? Every post hreught
accounts of the march of revolution throughout Europe,
and the primary cause of all this was, no doubt, the heavy
burdens' the material suffering and oppressions of the people.
(Hear, hear.) It would have been better if a remedy
could have been bound other than revolution, but there
was no doubt but that the principal cause was the heavy
expense, particularly fur army, navy, and ordnance (Hear.)
There was in the United States a writer, Mr. Charles
Sumner, who had published a work to prove that the stand-
ing armies of Europe, vet 200,000,0001. a year, together
with the withdrawal of 2,000,000 of men is the fleece of
manhood from industrial pursuits, involving a loss of
60,000,000/. more. Two millions of people were alleged by
this writer to be absorbed by the monastic institutions, but
he (Mr. Cobden), wonted to know what difference was there
I, between keeping two millions of men idle, in red coats, and
keeping them In black ? They had equally to be supported,
the result was disaster to the finances, and such a state of
things must always lead to revolution. (Hear.) He was
anxious that they should take the matter in hand id time. lie
believed that greatdisasters threatened this country in financial
affairs. They talked of borrowing from the reserve bind.
Then they must borrow from the Bank, and then came
Bank disaster and a panic. He believed most of the panics
had arisen from the illicit intercourse carried on between the
Bank and the government. (Hear, hear.) Then they had
the danger of a bad harvest, for such an event was always
on the cards. He maintained that the danger of invasion
was not half so great as the danger to he apprehended from
a disordered state of the finances. Our present embarrass-
inertia did not arise from any falling eft in the revenue, but
from our inordinate expenditure. He wished that
honourable gentlemen would pluck up courage
against foreign foes, but also that they would
at the same time have courage to face our financial difficul-
ties. He had no fear whatever of invasion from without;
he did not think diet any one would assault us; but the
state of our finances afforded him ground for apprehensi. n.
If we could hffireime our strength in that department—it we
could only add to the number of prosperous people, at the
same time diminishing the number of our paupers and
sailors, we should be taking the best means of securing the
permanent welfare of the country.
Admital DUNDAS said he could not lose a moment in
noticing the statements which had been put forward by the
hon. member for the West Riding. respecting our squadron
in the Mediterranean. He held in his hand a letter from
Admiral Parker, in which, after quoting the observation Si
the hon. member, to the effete that the American consul had
criticised the discipline of our ships, the writer ;proceeded to
say, " The Amencan consul writes to say that he has had
no sort of intercourse with nor has he seen Mr. Cobden for
ten years." (Opposition cheers.) His (Admiral Dundee's)
gallant friend was also totally at a loss to know what ship
it was which had remained in Malta throughout the whole
of the boo. member's cruise to Sicily and back. lie did not
think the house would expect him further to defend the elm.
recters of Admirals Napier and Parker on the discipline car-
ried on on board their squadroas. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. COBDEN.—The gallant admiral says what is true—
that it is ten years since I was in Malta; but
it is also true that I never said anything else. (" Oh, oh,"
from the opposition.) It would be the last thing which a
man so notorious in his movements as I have been would
think of. (Interruption, and cries of Oh, oh.") I believe
that almost every town I visited was duly chronicled in the
newspapers. (Hear.) But I was in Malta in the winter of
1668 and the spring of 1857, and I again repeat what I have
said on the subject. Don't tell me of the characters of gal
last admirals—we have all got good characters, I hope ; but
I ask whether or no my (sets are correct ? (Hear, Lear.)
The American consul could not deny that he went in the
steamer with me from Malta to Greece, or that we were four
' days together in the same vessel. (Hear, hear.) We have
heard a great deal of the character of the two services.
I tell them that I look upon them in the mine light as I
would on any other profession ; they don't work for nothing,
as the seventeen millions in the estimates will testify, and
' their conduct forms as lair a subject for criticism as if they
were barristers or physicians.
Admiral DUNDAS said that he held in his band an
extract from the hon. member's speech in Manchester, and
the hon. member's words were:
' I was at Malta at the commencement of the winter, in the month
of November. While I was there one of our ships of the line arrived
from ecelmouth it had come direct: It had left England with •
mew of Mee bands, and as rived in the kerbour of Valetta with 999,
ems pews laving died on the panne. It went, ia I say, into the
barmier se voltam, and there it remained while I travelled from
Melte ft Nark" theme to Egypt and to Greece ; and when I returned
to Malta there we the vessel lying in the harbour of Valetta still.
Her aidstelltere bed gone on shore to live in the clubs, and the subs
see ant et tbe mew found the utmost difficulty is keeping up even
the __eon eta peewit*, to useful employment, in howling up the
sift rag akin them down again, and in scrubbing the decks.
w".
mtentuiTel'o"o it happened,
tont: Likze.r.ievre
Annorlesne onninner yobeur navy to be very cluck."
' In answer to this, the consul wrote to say, that he had not
' seen the him. =crater for ten years. (Hear, hear.)
Col. TYNTE said that a relation of his, is no was in the
navy, had returned on the previous night from Lisbon, and
had told him that the strict discipline of the squadron there
was the topic of general conversation.
Lord PALMERSTON said that he did not rise to defend
the British navy,—" the blood of Douglas could protect
itself." The high character which our navy had acquired,
and the brilliant discipline it had attained, and which was
never more remarkable than at the present moment, would
secure for it the respect and admiration of all whose know
ledge of it was not, like that of the hon, member for the
West Riding, confined to a period of ten eerie. (Hear,
and cheers.) With regard to the question more
immediately under consideration, he should not go over the
ground which had been so ably trodden by those who had
preceded him on both sides of the house, as to the reasons
which had led to that progressive augmentation in the
charges of the limey, which was observed and found fault
with by those who opposed the present vote. It had been
explained that this increase hail arisen partly from toe ne-
cessary supplies of stoats CODIUMed in the annual services
corresponding with the augmentations made from time to
time, and partly from the great and extraordinary
change which the introduction of steam as a means of
propulsion for vessels necessarily made in the character and
descriptioa of our vessels. But that increase, whatever it
I might be, was not greater than what had taken place in the
navy of France during the correeponding 'melee. And
when he was told that they were not to look at what other
nations did with their naval establishments, the answer was
given by the hon. member who bad just spoken. He had
repeated the arguments used in the French chamber
for the increase of their navy, but the common
sense of those arguments was, that the defensive
means of a nation even in time of peace must in
some degree be proportioned to the preparations of other
nations with whom there might be a chance of our coming
into collision. There was nothing offensive in that mode of
proportioning the defensive means of our nation to the pre-
parations of another, and it would have been bad policy if
we had taken no notice of the naval forms of the United
States, of France, and of Russia, the three great maritime
powers of the world. He imagined that neither in stores,
in sailing ships, or in steamers, had we gone
beyond what the necessary service of the coun-
try required. It had well been observed that
in defending the present vote, they should not rest their ar-
guments on a state of things which had arisen since the esti-
mates had been prepared. He was willing to admit the force
of that assertion ; but when he was Weed why it wafts that
our extended commerce required Mermaid an
f dence,
he must protest against the manner in which the hon. mem-
ber foe the West Riding had mid that our commerce re-
quired no protection from our naTy. gooier, beat.)
markets, and
Our
merchants were every day olsoking
everywhere that those were found British residents
flocked to the spot. There was hardly a place in
the commercial world in which British subjects did not
establish themselves, and being established they always
)(poked for protection at least from our naval force. There
was not a day in whit& he did not receive letters hem
various parts of the world, from British subject', complain-
ing bat they were neglected and exposed to oppres-
sion Gad ill-treattnent from the local authorities.
It was, therefore, not merely on account Ct. the "'ant of
our colonial lioepeetiOns, but of oar trade and ocaSaing that