The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-15 00:00:00

satisfaction on that measure—(hear, hear)—becauge
it shows the people of England are rising far above
the region of their prejudices, by which their judg-
ment would formerly have been obscured. Years
back we should have had all sorts of bugbears sent
into the world, and attempts would have been made
to persuade the people that Corfu was the gate of
the Adriatic, that the Adriatic W2S a part of the
Mediterranean, that the Mediterranean involved
the empire of the seas, and that the cession of the
lonian Islands would be the downfall of England.
(Laughter, and Hear, hear.) Ido believe there are
persons who conscientiously entertain a view of
things not very different from that, but they have
found themselves in a minority so small that their
voice has never risen above a pOlitical whisper. (A
laugh.) Mr Mayor and gentlemen, in the cession of
the lonian Islands a marked homage has been paid
to principles of justice, and we who have gone about
preaching to others that they ought to have regard
to national rights, feelings, and traditions, have by
the cession of the protectorate of the lonian Islands
shown that we are ready to apply in our own case
the rules and maxims which we advised them to
apply. There is no denying that the people of these
islands, with great differences of opinion as to time
and circumstance, did look anxiously forward to
reunion to their glorious and distinguished race ;
they did not imagine the position of that race to be
now such as to justify the immediate application of
those epithets, but they looked with affectionate in-
terest upon the deeds of their forefathers, and they
cherished the hope that a future not unbecoming or
unworthy of the brilliant past might be at some
time preserved to them. That was a sentiment which
it was wise and just in us to respect. They would
have been less than human if they had not
cherished it. I would ask what we should think
of some portion of the great English race
severed from itself, and not of sufficient
magnitude or independence, and lying in
some geographical proximity to ourselves, if they
did not entertain the same feelings of anxiety for
union with us ? It is a precisely similar case with
the lonians. The inhabitants of those scattered
islands could not possibly become a nation of them-
selves. Their fellow countrymen, however, had
become a nation, and a free nation, and nature would
have been done violence to if they had not desired
to be reunited. We conceded to that desire,and I am
convinced that the Government of Lord Palmerston
and Lord Russell, who were the authors of that
measure, though they took the lead of the sentiment
of their countrymen in the proposal, did not misin-
terpret that sentiment, and that if ever their policy
in that respect is challenged, it will receive the em-
phatic approval of the people of this country. I
won't refer by more than one word to the great
party conflict which took place at the end of last
session of Parliament. It is not a subject to which
we have any cause to refer with a sentiment of mor-

tificat'on. What is much more important in the
party aspect of it is this. I think the temper with
which it was viewed by the nation was a temper of
great wisdom and growing caution and circumspec-
tion, and that it was due to an opinion consolidat-

ing itself in the country that even to the strength
and resources which England possesses, and which,
as we welt and firmly believe, are sufficient to
enable her to discharge every duty; yet it would not
be wise for her to overlook a regard to the propor-
tion of means and ends, or to entangle her in en.

gagements which she might ultimately find herself
incompetent to fulfil. I turn now to a question
which was a subject of some portion of the commu-
nication which passed between us eleven years ago,
and an important domestic question—l mean the
repeal of the excise duty on paper. At that time
Manchester, not only through its very distinguished
representative,Mr Gibson, but also by the action of

many of its leading citizens, took a prominent part
in promoting that repeal. It was surely a
very natural movement. We had taken away
the duties upon glass and upon soap, we had abo-
lished the interference of the excise with every
other branch of trade which has no other pur-
pose than the production of useful commercial arti-
cles. The paper du►y alone remained. It was felt
that no principle could be urged for its retention.
On merely commercial grounds it was rig ht that it
should be repealed. The repeal of it, I may be per•
milted to say, was found to be no easy matter—
(laughter)—but though it was not an easy matter
it has been accomplished. I am only going to speak
of one, but a very important, portion of those re-
sults—the simply economical part of those reEults.

I have no doubt it will take a long time to develop,
but I adhere confidently to the opinion that it will
probably be found that fibrous materials—which
by the repeal of the paper duty have been coma
pletely emancipated from any interference of the
Excise in any industrial process—will, perhaps in
no very long time, be found to be applicable use-
fully to a multitude of purposes which never were
even so much as dreamed of, or if they were dreamed
of, could not be made the subject of practical prose-
cution as long as the paper duty continued in exis-
tence. But standing before a community which
entertained such decided opinions en that subject,
I must acknowledge the debt of gratitude which is
due to all the early promoters of the movement for

I the repeal in connection with the moral and politi
cal consequences which that repeal has had in re-
spect to its effects upon the public press. lam not
going to say ono word in disparagement cf the
public press of the country at any period of its
existence. My belief is that from the very first it
has been an organ of good immensely preponderat-
ing over the mischief. I mean now as it existed
three, four, five generations ago; in our time, as it
existed 20 years ago, it had reached to a position of
remarkable prominence and utility. The great
organs of the press, as you well know, are conducted
by some of the most accomplished minds of the
country—many of the articles written in those
papers before the repeal of the paper duty were
worthy of taking a place in the permanent literature
of England. I well remember being in company
with Sir Robert Peel not less than 30 years back,
when a question was raised about the author-
ship of " Jnnius." Yon well remember how
great a national as well as a literary sensation
was produced at the time by the publication of those
letters. In point of fact, the intense controversy
with respect to the authorship may enable us to
measure the importance of those letters as a political
phenomenon of the times; but when that question
was in discussion in private conversation the literary
merit of the letters themselves was also brought
under view, and I well recollect that Sir R. Peel
gave at once his opinion that the letters of
" Junius" were not as well written as the Tones.
It was a great thing to possess a press in which the
mind of the country was so ably and fully repre-
sented, in whieh public affairs and the conduct of
public men were so freely and incessantly canvassed
and discussed. That discussion is of inestimable
value to the country, and to none of more value
than to public men themselves. Certainly my own
view of the working of the press is, that upon the
whole, and for every domeatic question, it is nearly
perfect—not that there are no passions, prejudices,
or errors, but that with perfect freedom of discus-
sion, and with organs representing every section of
opinion, passions, prejudices, and errors neutralise
one another. But with respect to foreign policy you
can have no such unmixed a result or such unmixed
good, because when strong national sentiment arises
with regard to some question of foreign policy then
opinion in this country flows one way in a degree
which is rarely the case with respect to domestic
questions, and there is undoubtedly a great risk that
the press, partaking of the natural sympathies,
should lose a great part of its utility as a corrector
of error, and should inflame the very prejudices it
is deairable to correct and to remove. (Hear.) As
regards foreign policy the conductors of the press
themselves rtquire to test moral self command and
self restraint. As regards domestic policy it is a
marvellous institution, which its practical working
as a whole comes near to perfection ; but still it
cannot be denied that 20 years ego it was not the
press of the people—it could not be from the price
at which it was sold, it could not and did not convey
to the people constant, full, and impartial informaa
tioniwith respect to public affairs. It was the press
of the upper classes—it answered every intellectual demand
we could make. It was a press to a great degree of the
middle class, or of the upper portion of the middle class—
for them, too, it ,was a satisfactory institution—but this
genial and beneficial influence which it had for
,the mono-