The Sun.
London, England, 1855-06-28 00:00:00

LONDIN. THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 28, 1855.

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM:

MEETING IN DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

The third public meeting in support of the movement
for obtaining a thorough and searching reform in the
management and administration of all our public depart-
ments was held yesterday evening at Drury-lane Theatre,
when the crowded ktate of thp building, and the earnest
and enthusiastic demonstrations of the meeting indicated
the rapid rate at which the question is gaining on public
opinion. The chair was taken by Samuel,Morley, Eaq.,
asd uponthe platform we also observed Charles Dickens,
Esq.; W. Scholefield, M.P.; F. Mowatt, M.P.; Apsley
Pellatt, M.P.; A. J. Otway, M.P.; J. P. Murrougb,
M.P.; J. A. Wise, M.P.; Major Reed, M.P.; A. H.
Layard, M.P.; W. Tite, J. P. Gassiot, W. J.
Hall; G. Bishop, jun.; J. I. Travers, R. Ogilby, Wm.
Lister, B. Wilson, J. B. Allan, Wm. Cumming, Geo.
Moore F. Benno* D. Nicoll, J. P. Foster, T. Pollock,
W. Edgar, jun. ; Peter Graham, George Stagg, Forster
Graham, Rev. Robert Walpole, J. C. Datchburn, Fred.
Oetzmann, Clemt. George, J. A. Nicholay, J. Whit-
more, R. Michell, Jacob Bell, Joseph Harvey, j. Fen-
flings, R. L. Fennings, W. S. Burton, J. G. J. Greene,
J. W. Marshall, John Wade, Johns Yams, of Harwich ;
John Norton, of Lincoln ; Henry Railton, of Sniffle-
earth ; H. E. Hoole, of Sheffield ; W. Burnley Hume,
F. L. Slous, A. S. Ayrton, Johnstoun Neale, Col. Inigo
Jones, M. J. Higgins, Travers Buxton, B. L. Smith,
Dr. Bell, Dr. Price, Rev. D. Massie, W. A. Bethune,
A. Craig Gibson, T. Falvey, of Southampton, &c.,
The CHAIRMAN, in opening the proceedings, said—
Ladies and gentlemen, I am anxious not to occupy more
thair a very few minutes of your time—firot, because
an opportunity was afforded to me on the last occasion
of expressing my deep convictions on this subject ;
and, secondly, because there are other gentlemen
entitled to address you who will occupy every minute of
our allotted time. (Hear, hear.) I am anxio-Pie—Teliiie
I say a word or two on the general question, to make a
remark on some matters of a purely personal nature. It
will be seen that some statements which were made at
the former meeting have been seriously and hotly con-
troverted by more than one member of Parliament. I
am anxious to do justice to myself with respect to these •
statements without doing injustice to Mr. Lindsay, who
you may depend upon it will set himself right in the pro
per place—viz., the House of Commons. (Cheers.) Mr.
Lindsay feels as we all feel that as his statements have
been controverted in the House of Commons, it is in the
House of Commons they must be met, and I merely
mention it here, because the charge forms part of a gene-
ral accusation against the accuracy of our statements..
Now, we assert of ourselves that we are men who
are incapable of making a false stateinent, if we know
it. (Cheers.) We are quite sure that a bad cause
cannot be permanently bolstered up by false statements,
and we feel that a good cause, such as ours, requires no
such support. (Hear, hear.) The term " leaders" has
been applied to certain gentlemen connected with this
association, but as far as it refers to any one connected
with this association, the epithet is a misnomer. We
are merely a committee associated for the furtherance of
a cause in which we all take a deep interest, and in no
case looking to leadership for A, B, or C, or any other
person whatever. (Hear, hear.) Something has been
said respecting our having packed this building by.
means of tickets. The fact is that we meet here because
we could find no other place large enough to hold us, and
so great has been the desire of the public to hear what
we have to say, and to give force and momentum by their
attendance to our object, that of getting rid of existing
abominations in the public offices, that we found it ne-
cessary to issue tickets in order to insure comfort and
regularity for those who attended. (Hear.) We know
the name of every one present, and I am prepared to say
that never was there a more authentic representation of
thinking men—and I am glad to say of ladies also—as-
sembled on any occasion, or in furtherance of any public
object, than that by which I see myself surrounded on
the present occasion. (Cheers.) A goof deal has also
been said about the publication of the names of certain
members of Parliament in connection with our last meet-
ing. I was much startled to see the letters in the Times
on the subject ; and on inquiry from the secretary I
found that tickets were sent to every member of Par- :
liainent, and as they were marked "not transferable,"
d as all came in, the secretary concluded that the in-
vited parties had come. Seeing that Col. Freestun's—
who has made so much of this circumstance—card had
come in, it was not wonderful that the secretary should
imagine that he and some of the other colonels might be
skulking about the boxes. (Cheers.) All that can be •
said is, that they were put down because their tickets
came in. (Hear.) If I were asked why I am here to-
night I should say that it is because I love my country,
and because I tremble at the probability of ill recur-
rence of such a year as that which has just passed away.
(Hear.) I feel that as Englishmen we have received a
great affront at the hands of those on whom we conferred
great responsibility and power ; but I am told by some
that we should not disturb the question until the war is
over. My conviction is that if we don't get a change in
the state of affairs the war will never be over—(cheers)—
and that our countrymen will continue to be murdered in
thousands through the sheer, absolute neglect and incapa-
city of the men who have utterly failed us in the hour of
our need. (Loud cheering.) Further, I believe that no-
thing short of the most unmistakeable manifestation of
public opinion, or perhaps absolute revolution, will alter
the state of things of which we all complain. (Hear,
hear.) I am a firm believer in the doctrine that there
are limits to the endurance of a people ; and no doubt
revolutions have done wonders at times ; but we Eng-
lishmen know how to manage these things without revo-
lutions. We shall convey so unmistakeable an opinion to
Lord Palmerston, who now only knows public opinion
through the House of Commons, that if he does not con-
cede our just demands, his plaee and power will not be
worth a month's purchase. Let but such an idea get
into his lordship's mind, depend upon it we shall get our
own terms. There' has been a debate in the House of
Commons on the motion of Mr.Layard ; on the first night
of which time Government mustered up courage to threaten
resignation, but on the next Lord Palmerston, with won-
derful dexterity, which has been the theme of admiration
in all official circles ever since, adopted the amendment
of Sir B. Lytton, and at half-past one in the morning that
amendment was carried. almost without a remark. I must
confess that the result of that discussion gave me an im-
pression of the insincerity of Government, and con-
vinced me that if we for a moment relax our efforts we
shall get little substantial in the way of administrative
reform. (Hear.) Let it be understood that I am not
making an attack on the mere subordinates, the clerks
in the public offices. No doubt there is abundance of
evidence on this score, respecting gentlemen who go to
office leading bull dogs in a string. (Cheers and laughter.)
We hear a great deal of conversation about the state of
education among the working classes ; these facts show
what is the state of education among those who have no-
thing to do. (Cheers.) The fact is that these young
men sometimes come to office so miserably deficient that
the head of the office is frequently obliged to give them
a month's leave to learn to write. (Laughter.) The prin-
ciple upon which these appointments are made is as bad
as can be. What we want is a true sense of responsibility
in official people. Any one who has read the report of
the Sebastopol Committee must feel that the great ob-
ject with every witness was as much as possible to shirk
responsibility. (Hear, hear.) Nobody would admit that
everything had been his fault, and what we want to do
i 3 to get every one into a position in which he shall be
responsible. (Hear.) I should like to see business ma-
naged as it is in our large commercial towns, where
transactions are carried on quite as large as those with
which Government have to deal, but where you will find
that the head of each department is not a man who has
been placed there because he had an influential brother
or cousin, or some private friend, but because he had
served the firm faithfully through a long series of years,
had gone creditably through every grade, and bad made
himself thoroughly acquainted, not only with the prin-
ciples, but with all the details of the department at the
head of which he was placed. (Hear.) Such a man is
held responsible for everything that takes place in his de-
partment, and if all the appointments are not made at
his direct recommendation, no one would be allowed to
hold a situation a moment under his displeasure. Now,
I hold that it is a system like this that we ought to
have established in the Government departments. We
not only want men who have proved themselves compe-
tent in the three " R.s" as they are popularly called, but
who have proved themselves generally capable, and of
whom, we have a conviction that they will faithfully per-
form their duty. We want to hold out to the faithful
servants who have honestly done the public work for
years that they shall not be overtopped in the race for
promotion by successful lawyers or soldiers, who now
build their success upon making glib speeches in Puha.
ment. There are thousands of able men in the various
public departments who now have no chance, and who
look with beating hearts to the progress of this move-
ment, and to them we look as fellow-labourers in the
prosecution of the good work. Our object in short is to
put an end to all promotion by favour. We propose to as-
certain the state of the army, navy, diplomatic, and
civil service, by careful previous investigation, and by
the ensuing session of Parliament we hope to be
prepared to place before the house such a case as we trust
will lead to a reform in these various branches, and then
it will only remain for the constituencies of the country
to do their duty. (Hear.) I was lately favoured with one
of those curiosities of literature, a letter to a member of
Parliament, to one of his constituents,in which the latter
stated his wish to get a place in the Customs for his son,
adding that his family bad polled five votes for the mem-
ber at the last election, and that arrangements were being
made to secure seven or eight, if this little matter only
could be settled. (Cheers and laughter.) I am prepared
to express great sympathy with this anxious father, who
takes such care of his progeny, but at the same time I
feel that such practices are degrading to electors, are em-
barraiising to members, and I believe are confessedly a
nuisance to Government. (Hear.) We want to close all
these back doors, and to open abroad and wide gatein the
front at which all who have the proper requisites may come
in without favour or affection. We want to have the public
service of England open to the whole world of England,
and that no one who aspires to it should fail solely be-
cause he has not powerful aristocratic connexions to back
his pretensions. (Hear.) Then we want to get a new

class of men in the douse of Commons, for depend upon
it, until you get men there who do not care about being
Slack-balled by the clubs, and who are indifferent about
admittance into West-end drawing-rooms, we shall
never get what we want from th/i Legislature. (Hear.)
Let us have, say; a hundred such-men and then we may
have some hope of effecting beneficial alterations.
(Cheers.) -Look at the list of members at the prtient

•Moment: First,,there are the placemen, of course anxi-
ous to sunport the presentteeitne ; then the naval and
military officers, atleo' Willind:to Yet things remain as they
are ; and then thei lawyers,Whii—without meaning any
disrespect, to such as may .be p?esent—l may say know.
well the•value of a little snbserviency, and how a slash.
ing speech in favour of a,. Government often leads to re-
corderships, or perhaps the post 'of Attorney-General.
Add to •these 220 sous and brothers'-of peers, and the
marvel is that matters are not worse than oven they are
at present. We mean to hhve all this altbred. We cannot
hope to do it through:theagency of thee boroughs where
the family interests prevail, but we shall appeal to the
large.chnstituencies, and if they do not send the proper
men to Parliament there will be no use seeking for ad-
ministrative reforin.4 'We therefore pet4ievere in the
hope that the constituencies will be found faithful in the
day of trial. (Laud cheers.)
Mr. C. Droings next presented himself to the meet-
' ing, and was received with loud and protracted cheering.
He said he could not better express his sense of the kind
reception thht tad been awarded 'to hith by that great
assemblage, than by promising to compress what he
should address to it within the closest possible limits.
It was 'more than eighteen hundred years since therq
was a set of men who thought that they should
be he4r4 for much speaking: As they had Tprqfittid
by. the privilege very much since that time, and, .as lie
observed, they flourished at the present moment to a
surprising extent about Vestminster, he would do his
.best to avoid adding to the number of that prolific race.
The noble lord at the head of the Government, when
he wondered in Parliament, about a week ago, that
Mr. Layard did not blush for having stated in that
place what the whole
.country knew perfectly well
to be true—(cheers)—and what no one could by possi-
bility better know to be true than those distinguished
supporters of the noble lord who had the advantage of
hearing him and cheering him night after night when he
first became premier, namely, that he did constantly joke
at es time when this country was plunged in deep dis-
tress and disgrace—when the noble lord wondered so

much that the man of this age who had, by his earnest
and adventurous spint, done the most to distinguish
himself and it, did not blush for the tremendous auda-
city of having so come " between the wind and his

nobility," his lordship finished c%ith an airy period about
the private theatricals at Drury-lane Theatre. He (Mr.
Dickens) had some slight acquaintance with theatricals,
both private and public, and be would accept the figure
of the noble.lord. He would not, spy that if he wanted
to form a company of her Majesty's servants, he
thought he should know where to lay his hand on
the " comic old gentleman"—(loud laughter)—. or
that if he wanted to get up a pantomime
efficiently, he should know to what establishment
to go for tricks
,and changes, as also for a cDnsiderable
troop of superaumeraries, to trip up another in that con-
tention with which many of them were familiar, on
those and other boards, and in which the principal mat-
ters thrown about were loaves and fishes—(loud laughter)
—but he would endeavour to give the noble lord some
reasons for these private theatricals, and why, however
ardently his lordship might desire to " ring the curtain
down," there was not the faintest chance of these per-
formances coming to a conclusion. (Cheerg.) The rea-
...

son was that the public theatricals which the noble lord

was so condescending as to manage, were so intolerably
bad, the machinery was so cumbrous, the parts so ill
distributed, the company so full of " walking gentle-
men," the manager had such a large family and was so
bent on putting that family into what was theatrically
called " first business," not because of their aptitude,
but because they were his family; it was for these rea-
sons that they felt obliged to organise an opposi-
tion. (Hear, hear.) They had seen the " Comedy of
Errors" played so dismally like a tragedy that they
really cou'd not bear it, and therefore had felt themselves

obliged, in their own defence, to get uo "The School of
Reform"--r-hoping before the play was over to improve
the noble lord considerably. If he objected that they
had no right to improve him without his license, they
ventured to claim that right in virtue of his lordship's
orchestra, consisting of a vary powerful piper, whom
they always paid. (Laughter.) As this was the first
political meeting at which he (Kr. Dickens) had at-
tended, and as kis trade and calling was not associated
with politics, perhaps it might be useful in him to show
how he came to be there, since the reasons that had in-
fluenced him might be still. balancing in the minds of
other men. He wanted at all times and places sincerely
to do his duty by his countrymen. If he felt an attach-
went towards then], there was nolung disinterested or
rnerit.vious in that, fur never could he sufficiently ac-
knowledge the confidonce and friendship which they had
long placed in him. (Loud cheers.) But he had a sphere
of action which he could never change, nor overstep fur-
ther, nor for a longer period than that night; fur
whoever devoted themselves to literature must be con-

tent to do the public service by literature, for he could
not effectually serve two master& Within his sphere of

action, he had, however, endeavoured to understand our

•
social grievances, and to help to set them right. When
the Times proved its then almost incredible case, in re-
ference to the costly absurdities of that great labyrinth
of misplaced men and misplaced things which had made
England unable to find on the face of the earth an enemy
one-twentieth part so potent for misery and ruin as in
some things she had been to herself, he believed that the
gloomy silence into which the country fell was by far the
darkest aspect in which a great people had been exhibited
for many years, with shame and indignation lowering
amongst all classes of society, with little adequate expe-
rience i,f the general mind, or apparent understanding of
it in Parliament, with the machinery of government and
legislation going round and round, and the people falling
from it, and standing aloof as if they left it to its last re-
maining function of destroying itself, when it had se-
cured the destruction of 83 much that was dear to them.

When he said this he did believe, and he believed still,
that the only wholesome turn a state of affairs so mourn-

ful could possibly take was in the wakening up of the
people, the outspeaking of the people, the writing of the
people in patriotism and loyalty to effect those constitu-
tional changes which were necessary in the administra-
tion of their own affairs. (Cheers.) At such a crisis the
Administrative Reform Association arose, and at such a
crisis he (Mr. Dickens) joined it. He bad heard three
main objections advanced by the opponents of the move-
ment. The first was that the association proposed to
exert its influence thrcugh the constituencies over the
House of Commons. (Hear.) He admitted that it was so.
He had no hesitation in saying that he had not the small-
est possible amount of faith in the House of Commons as

it at present existed ; and he considered, therefore, that
the exercise of such influence was highly necessary for
the welfare and honour of the empire. (Hear, hear.)
Two hundred years ago, Pepys, writing of the political
abuses then prevailing in the House of Commons, said,
" Roger Pepys tells me that it is matter of the greatest
grief to him in the world that he should have been put
on this trust of being a Parliament man, because he says
nothing is done, that he can see, out of any truth or sin-
cerity, but all out of mere envy and design." Now, how
it came to pass that after 200 years—and especially so
many years after the passing of the Reform Bill—tlae
House of Commons had so little changed, he would not
stop to inquire. He would not ask how it happened
that bills that cramped and worried the people, and re-
stricted their enjoyments—(loud cries of "Hear, bear")
—passed so easily, and that measures conducive to their
interests were so very difficult to get through Parliament.
(Cheers) He would not attempt to analyse the confined
air of the lobby, and reduce to their_pritnitive gases that
deadening influence which there operated upon the me-
mory of the hon. gentleman who was so short time ago
a candidate for "our vote and interest," or ask who was
that secratorial figure ever flitting about them, and
whose blandishments were always so irresistible ; or
how it always happened that those personal altercations,
which involved all the movements and modifications of
Shakepere's Touchstone—" the quip modest, the retort
courteous, the reply churlish, the reproof valiant, the
countercheck quarrelsome, the lie circumstantial, and the
lie direct." (Laughter.) He would not stop to ask how
it was that such altercations always commanded immea-
surably greater interest in the House of Commons than
matters involving the health, the education, and the taxa-
tion of the whole peeple. He would not attempt to pene-
trate the mysteries of that secret chamber in which the
political Blnebeard strangled public questions, strictly
charging his last bride not to open the door, lest she
should too soon discover what would be her own probable
fate. He would not inquire into any of these matters, but
would merely put it to the practical experience, recent and
remote, of every one present whether the House of Com-
mons was not occasionally a little hard of hearing, a little
dim of sight, and somewhat slow of understanding; in short,
that sufficientlyinvalided condition that required very close
watching, and occasionally, at least, the application of
the sharp stimulant of popular agitation. (Hear). He
believed that, in order to preserve its real usefulness and
independence, tne people must always show themselves
watchful and jealous of it—to jog its memory, and keep
it awake ; or when it happened to take too much of the
ministerial narcotic, to shake it and move it about in a
friendly way, for the purpose of restoring its functions
to their healthy exercise. (Hear, hear.) Then it was ob-
jected that the tendency of this moment was to set class
against class. But did it do so ° On the contrary, its
tendency was to bring classes together, and to unite
them in harmonious action for the common interest.
He wished especially to avoid placing in opposition the
two words, aristocracy and people. He could well be-
lieve that each bad its peculiar virtues, and perhaps its
peculiar vices ; but he would elevate or depress neither
at the cost of a single vested right of either. (Hear.)
Instead of the terms aristocracy and people, he would
use the terms the governors and the governed—but
between these two bodies the association found a gulf in
11
which lay buried thousands upon thousands of the
bravest and most devoted men that even England ever
li.ad. (Hear.) It Ras to prevent the recurrence of in-
numerable similar evils of which that great calamity
_to

• which he now alluded was the crowning evil and the
consummation, and to bring together those two classes
that the association would seek to bridge over the in-
tervening gulf by a structure founded in justice and com-
mon sense. (Hear.) Setting class against class was the
' old cry which had always been advanced against every
attempt no reform abuses. He might illustrate it in the
present instance by the case of a gentleman who found
his house'in a state of complete disorder—his serrants
inactive to his interests and his wants, giving him stones
when he asked for bread, serpents when lie called fish
—sending dinners to the north when be ordered them
to be sent to the south, and by their wastefulness,
inattention, and negligence, making his ,house a scene
of scandal and of ruing-and whose Iniuse steward,
when told that all these things Amust be reformed=--
that the master would have his interests consulted,-
his wants attended to, and that he would keep no ser-
vants who did not perform their duties—held up his
hands in pious horror, rushed down to the servants' hall
and exclaimed, "Oh. our master is setting class against
class." (Cheers and laughter.) Then with regard to
the third objection, " that these administrative reform
fellows did not mind their own busbies;" it was because
they (lid mind their own business that they were 'an as-
sociation at all. (CheerS.) He observed by the parlia=
mentary debates—and there was this difference sug-
gested by those debates between the bulls of Spain and
bulls of Nineveh-:. (a laugh)—that whereas in tue Spa-
nish case the bulls rushed at the scarlet, in the Nineveh
case the scarlet rushed at the bull—(laughter)—he ob-
served in the parliamentary debates that by a curious
analogy there had been very much of the reproof valiant
and the check quarrelsome lately, shOwing conclusively,
iv his mind,-thef necessity of iidininistrative reform, by
whomsoever and howsoever it might be applied. (Hear,
hear.) He. could add two or three instances at the
'least which he knew to be true, liut which, he bad no
doubt, would be nevertheless contradioted=bnt that it
would be a work of supererogation to do so ; for if the
people et large were not convinced by what had taken
place that a case was made out for administrative 're-
form, they never could be, and never would be con-,
vinced. (Hear, hear.) There was, however, one ruling,
indisputable, and well-known story which so well
pointed the moral to the end which the association had
in view, that at the risk of incurring the wrath of St.
Stephen's he would mention it. Ages ago a mode
of keeping accounts in the Exchequer by means of
notched sticks was introduced. In the course of time
the celebrated Cocker'vras born and died, then Walk-
inghame, the author of the " Tutor's Assistant," and
a multitude of accountants, actuaries, and mathema-
ticians, who discovered and published means of ac-
count-keeping by ordinary arithmetic, far more ready,
and which, in their every-day transactions everybody
used—but official routine looked upon these notched
sticks tb9 part of the constitution, and the Exche-
quer account still continued to be kept by these willow
tallies. (A laugh.) But towards the latter end of the
reign of George 111. it occurred to some innovating and
revolutionary spirit to suggest the abolition of this bar-
barous custom, and immediately all the red tape in all
the public departments turned redder at the idea of so j

bold a conception, and it was not until the year 1826
that the custom of keeping these Exchequer accounts by
willow tallies ceased. In 1834 it was found that a large
accumulation of these tallies had grown up in course of
time, and the question arose what was to be done with
these old worm-eaten useless bits of wood ? They were
housed at Westminster. Common sense would have sug-
aested that they should have been given to some of the

poor miserable people who abounded in that neighbour-
hood for firewood ; but official routine could not endure
that, and, accordingly, an order was given that they
should be burned privately. They were burned in a stove
in the House of Lords, but the stove being overgorged and
overheated with them, set fire to the pinnelling of the
room, the pannelling set fire to the House of Lords, the

House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; and
the two houses were reduced to ashes. Architects and

builders were called in to erect new structures, and, al-
though, we were now in course of expending our second

million of money on the work, the national pig was not
yet over the stylpi and the little old woman,. Britannia,
was not home to-night. (Cheers and laughter.) He
thought they might reasonably come to the conclusion
that it was through the obstinate adherence to the anti-
.

quated rubbish, that time had outlived and rendered
useless, and which, if given to the winds would have
been harmless, that the destruction of the Houses of

Parliament was to be attribute'', and in the same way, if
this antiquated and useless routine in the administra-

tion of the public departments were retained, the result
would be a conflasmation somewhere or other. The broad

ground upon which the cause of the association rested
was public progress, and that in the public, as in all
private establishments, merit, without reference to
whether it was democratic or aristocratic, should be
the sole qualification for office. This object they sought
to promote, not by separating classes, but by unit-
int, together large numbers of all conditions of men, to
the end that they might themselves comprehend, and,
comprehending, impress upon others the common danger
and the oommon duty, and by keeping a vigilant eye
upon the skirniishers thrown out by the generals of
party to harass and confuse, take care that they did
not, in attacking the smaller defaulter, 100 sight of the
greater. He wished the directors could devise some
means of permitting intelligent working men to join the
Association on easier terms than subscribers of larger
resources. He was anxious to see a larger number of
that body connected with the movement, believing that
it would conduce to the common object, and the common
weal. (Hear, hear.) When Lord Palmerston was
asked for a day for Mr. Layard's motion, his reply was,
" let him find a day for himself." (Hear, and shame.)
I' the name of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he hath grown so great.
If our chairman (continued Mr. Dickens) will excuse me,
I would take the liberty of reversing the sentiment, and I
would say to the First Lord of the Trea.ui y, " It is
your duty, my lord, to leave no man to find a day for
himself. You, who take upon yourself the responsibi.
lity of governnient—you have aspired to it—who strug-
gled for it—who intrigued for it— and who, having got
it, hold it tooth and nail ; yours is the duty to take care
that no man is left to find a day for himself in this
country, with its seethings, its disappointments, its hard
working millions, its heavy taxes, its poverty, and its
sufferings. Woe to the day when a man shall have to
find a day for himself because the head of the govern-
ment has failed in his duty of finding for him a brighter
and a better one. Find you the day, First Lord ; make
the day ; work for the day beyond your own little time,
my Lord Palmerston, and history may then, but not
otherwise, find a day for you—a day equally associated
with the contentment of the loyal, patient, willing-hearted
English people, and the happiness of your royal mis•
tress and her fair line of children." (Cheers.)
Mr. T. M'CuLLAOII, after paying a'high compliment
to Mr. Dickens's speech, observed that monopoly was
growing old, its limbs were tottering, but its clutch was
as firm as ever. Something, in its voice, however, told
him that it felt its own weakness, and that it was con-
scious of its approaching end. Those who defended
Monopoly declared that they themselves were becoming
administrative reformers. He wished he could believe
that statement, but he was compelled to doubt it. (Cheers.)
The efforts of the administrative reformers were directed
not against the poor clerks, but against the heads of the
departments, and the civil staff of the chiefs, which they
thought required reforming. One minister was called
leader of the Lords, and another leader of the Commons,
but he should be glad to know how in the Parliament of I
1855 they had proved themselves fit for that office ? Let '
them look at the newspaper history of the last five months
in Parliament. Every one agreed as to the importance of
the educational question, however they might differ as to
the details, and they would feel that when Government
brought forward a measure on the subject it should
not be trifled with, and yet they all knew how it
had been treated. The Testamentary Jurisdiction
Bill had also been abandoned, and no one knew what
they intended to do with the law of partnership. The
bills on that subject had been prepared by the authorities
of the Board of Trade, and afforded in themselves a pal-
pable proof of the unfitness of those authorities for their
office. The head of the Board of Trade was a peer of
the realm, and the vice-president a son of Lord Radnor
—both very honourable men in their way, but hardly to
be considered as the proper men to preside over the
trade and commerce of a great country. (Hear.) The
bill they had prepared was a miserable mockery of legis-
lation, and afforded a practical illustration of the absur-
dity of placing men in a certain position, merely because
they belonged to the privileged orders. (Hear,) The
truth was, that so long as they had men to represent
them who trifled with their legislative duties, they would
have a Government that did not govern. Lord Palmer-
ston, who bad served 40 years in the House of Commons,
knew well how to bring a majority, so that without
they succeeded in modifying the Legislature, there
would be little chance of modifying the departments.
He had been asked would he put mere traders into
offices of high trust—would he give them to the men who
had brought the products of all climes to their shores,
and take them from those who trafficked in the taxes of
the country, and traded in the privileges of the people ?
(Cheers.) Having read a quotation from Lord Gren-
ville's correspondence, to show how the Whigs of that
day treated patronage, Mr. M'Cullagh proceeded to
say —lt was urged that they should not disturb domes-
tic questions until the question of the war had been
settled. But that was no excuse for men who had
introduced measures since the commencement of the
war, and now abandoned them, nobody could tell why,
(Hear, hear.) Had the foreign policy of the country
been properly conducted, he for one would have given
the ministers plenary absolution for all their sins of
minor degree, but he would ask, in the words of Lord
Lyndhurst, whether the course of our foreign policy
for the last two years and a half bad not been
to follow a phantom ship, which led us into quick-
sands and shadows, and finally vanished from our sight.
We had delayed our proceedings, waiting for the co-
operation of the despotic powers. (Question, question.)
It was the question. When the people remonstrated at
the delay, they were told that the administration was
conducted by persons of experience and skill, and that
everything might be safely left in the hands of the Go-
vernment. (Hear.) Ml... Gladstone had almost boasted