The Express.
London, England, 1866-08-02 00:00:00

[STAMPED, id. ADDITIONAL.]

thagmatest possible Osamu* to be associated with the
taut of " The Army and Navy." (Chines.)
The Loan Maros, after some introductory remarks,
said—My lords, ladies, and gentlemen, I invite you to
drink to the health of her Majesty's ministers, to Lord
Derby • and, in the language of the noble earl's favourite
poet, fask you now to listen to
The smooth-tongued chief from whose persuasive
Sweeter than honey, Bowl the streams of speech.
The Right Hon. the Earl of Ditain—My Lord Mayor, my
lords, and gentlemen, I rise for the purpose of expressing
very briefly, upon the part of myself and my colleagues,
the sentiments of deep gratitude which we entertain for
the honour you have paid us by your invitatimi to this
splendid banquet, and for the language—the flattering
language- in which you have proposed our healths, as well
as for the gratifying manner in which those healths have
been responded to by this distinguished assemblage. I
rise, my Lord Mayor, to return thanks on behalf of
her Majesty's ministers, but it is impossible for
me to pass over the personal allusion which has
been made by yourself to that humble part which I have
taken—that individual and personal service which I have
rendered in regard to my fellow-countrymen in the
county of Lancashire ; and you have also alluded to those
claims which you may think I have to be enrolled in the
ranks of literature. With regard to the first, all I eon say
is that it is impossible for any man having the ordinary
feelings of • ream and ocespying the position which I did
in that county, with which I am so closely allied by so
many ties, not to feel deeply interested in the welfare
of the inhabitants of that eouoty, and not to feel the
deepest interest likewise in the unmerited and well-
born* sufferings of my fellow-countrymen. Although I
did for a certain time give nay attention and my
attendance to the services of the committee which was
enlisted is that charitable work, I am sure much more
merit has been claimed for me than I have any reason to
be entitled to, because my attendants was PR'
sonal, and for • very short period in each west riirtereas
there were many who have been unnoticed who have
given their time, and minty more their labour, which
ti:Lu.ould ill afford, to that service in which I was
• prominent but by no means • working partner.
will not venture to say anything on the literary voli-
tion which your lordship has been kind enough to bring
forward. With reference to the compliment you have
paid me of my being " the smooth-tongued chief," I can-
not deny that I am approaching the age of a Nestor ;
and though it is quite true I have not seen three gene-
rations of men, I feel at the same time that if I am a
smooth-tongued chief, I am addressing you as a venerable
center. But, my lord, I rather turn from the compliment
you have been pleased to pay me to that which is of far
more importance at the present time—namely, the compli-
ment you have paid the government I have been charged
with the duty of forming. Great, however, as is the honour
done, I do not pretend for a tingle moment that it is con-
ferred upon us as an indication of political feeling.
On the contrary, I contend that on °wagons Me the
present the voice and language of party are, and ought
to be, altogether silent. Nay, more, I say that gatherings
of this kind have the peculiar happiness of being
the means of deadeuing the acrimonious feelings of
political warfare. They are the happy means of
bringing together men in different positions in Wo—
men occupying various political situations and holding va-
rious political opinions—and by social interchange leading
them, as I hope, to entertain more friendly and more kindly
feelings to each other than can be engendered and cherished
in the serinionyof party warfare. Cheers.) It has been the
time-honoured custom of your predeeoessesera, whatever their
political opinions, to invite once or twice a year to their
hospitable board the members of the government, whatever
their political opinions, and your lordship has only followed,
but followed most ably, in the steps of previous lord
mayors, by welcoming here in cordial terms, and in terms
I shall ever gratefully remember, the members of an ad-
ministration whose political opinions I fear are consider-
ably at variance with your own. (A laugh, and cheers.)
Well, then, what is the object of these meetings! It is
this—that you the representatives of the greatest cor-
poration in this kingdoni, that you the inhabitants of the
greatest, sty in the world, that you, whatever your politi-
cal opinions may be, meet on an occasion like the present
to express your sympathy with men who, from a sense of
public duty, take upon themselves the laborious and thank-
less duties of office. (Hear, bear.) That you welcome
them as fellow-labourer with yourselves in the public ser-
vice, and that by your approval you encourage them to prove
themselves by their acts and deeds worthy of that confi-
dence which has been placed in them by their sovereign.
(Cheers.) Every administration must have sues to be grati-
fied and encouraged by such a welcome and such a reception
as thin, but how much more gratified and encouraged
must be an administration which has taken upon itself
—nay, I had rather say had had thrust upon it—the
responsibilities of office under circumstances like those
under which I and my colleagues have accepted office.
(Hear, hear.) My Lord Mayor, we have been called
upon to undertake ofileal duties at a period in the sae
sion when we were naturally looking to the ordinary
retirement and relaxation from business, and, further,
at • time when we had no opportndity of proving by
ear acts that we were deserving of the confidence
and approval of the public. (Hoer, hear.) We have
been called upon to undertake duties for which we
were wholly unprepared, and, moreover, at a time when
the general coune of prosperity in this great country le
shadowed over by no inconsiderable drawbacks. (Hear,
hear.) We have at this time pressing upon us the
heavy pressure of commercial and monetary diffical lies,
and we have had, and still have to a certain extent,
though certainly mitigated, a pestilence amongst our
cattle herds and flocks, which has weighed down
in the severest manner the inhabitants of our
agricultural districts, and has in its remoter effects
produced in injurious effect upon the consumers of
agricultural produce. (Hear, hear.) We have also,
I regret to say, creeping upon us in an unmistakeable
manner that most perilous and dangerous disease, the
Asiatic cholera, which, after a coneiderable time, lie-
ge ing elsewhere, has at length burst upon this coun-
try in a manner which is unmistakeable, and which calls
for the most vigilant care and precaution. (Cheers.) I
do not wish to draw a dark picture of this country es
against what I have said. In spite of tie monetary pres-
sure, I believe that our oomme-os is extending—nay, the.
it was extending widely and rapidly. It is extending year
by year, and we are enlarging our resources and extending
our great wealth. I believe that never was a time when
there was more reward for labour, and when the working
clamors obtained a greater and fairer 'enumeration for their
labour than they do at present. We may also look for-
ward, under the blessing of Divine _Providence, for an
early and abundant harvest. Chief of all, we are by
God's providence exempt from that scourge of nations
—namely, scourge of war, which during the last few
months has devastated the fairest portion of Europe.
With regard to that war I will say nothing more
than that I look with deep interest to the changes and
results that may ensue from it to Europe. I believe that
the course the government has pursued will be generally
approved by the count:lT—by abstaining from taking an
active pert in favour, or against, one pewee or the other.
(Cheers.) If we saw the slightest prospect that our media-
tion—that our good offices might procure inestimable bleu-
lop of peace, we might be tempted to intervene, if asked
to do so, for the purpose of obtaining that inestimable
advantage, bat we had not thought it our deity =ached to
intrude our advice and counsels, or to offer our mediation,
or to interfere in mattes which, however remotely they
may touch the interests of this country, do not at
the present moment affect our honour or our interest.
It is with the greatest satisfaction we hear that pre-
liminaries have already been agreed upon between the
belligerence, which vrdl have the effect of restoring to
Europe that peace of which it stands so much in need ;
and no country in the world will so much tejoice at the
restoration of peace as England, the primary object of
whose ministers and statesmen, to whatever party they
belong, must be the preservation of that peace
which is essential to the extension of the vast com-
merce of this great commercial country. (Cheers.)
greater
Leate:iumhupb:cel trithinunikrainesbewe.llhieuvedwarthan, and no
which lam been accomplished within she last few days
in the renewed succeedul attempt to combine by the
electric telegraph the two great continents of England
and America, and more especially to combine ourselves
with that great American Republic with whom we have so
many ties in common--(theen)_with whom we
if not com have com-
munity of language, community of origin, .sad, -
munity of institutions, at least, community of principles
upon which those institutions are founded. (Cheers.) 'We
have every reason to wish for a permanent union betweea
I the two nations. At half-past one to-day I received a tele-
gram, dated this morning, from New York, informing me
of the safe arrival of a British vessel in that city yester-
day evening. (Cheers.) Now, I ask those connected
with the commerce and the great intermits of this
whheh
tmay bery,
acwtehhieeloiiekaNeforwarda:
dywoomork,anpbsLand reddonagm::y2hisdtheurn%ol, are
troec:
brought within not a week, a day, or an hour, but
almost within a minute's communication of each
other. (Cheers.) It is Impossible that I should pass
over this occasion without bearing my testimony to the
energy, perseverance, and enterprise, amidst all difficul-
ties and all diaciouragementa, which have for the second
time brought this undertaking to a nueoessful issue.
God
ligrannk
wthithciathsswe
,amoswy
bre::
mace:duly
eusetabuipoesuabtowneeonf
ameeces and Ragland, and may it keg continue to
unite the two peoples is the bonds of harmer
and affection. (Cheers.) I have said that this was no
occasion for entering upon any political discussion. I
will, therefore, abstain from saying one single word upon
the subject which has plated the present governineat in