The Sun.
London, England, 1852-11-03 00:00:00

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changes in the law• we have had ‘cfla
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Richard Roe" abolished. (A laugh.) .„w., sfenuloWe ,),,,i
6.(4,5)
more ancient sled venerable than Pro - 4 jiiiiiw
lawyer., with the modesty that eh iq..., 'lli-e
~. ".',
(laughter)—never asked for comport.. •
must be no cemnensation. (dear.)
holds office in a Free-trade country like
.e at
prepared to carry out Free•trade to its legitimaiionse-
quences—(hear, hear)—to advocate Free-trade, to argue
in favour of Free-trade—(hear, hear)—not to sneer at "the
Manchester School," but to put themselves to the Man-
chester School to learn their lessons, (Rear, hear.)
We must be able to present before the world a Govern..
meat which, when it meets foreigners, as it does in its
foreign relations, shall be able to show them the reason.
why we ',are Free-traders, and to lay before them, with,
industry and pertinacity, from ye ;r to year, the fruits
of Free-trade in this country. (Hoer, hear.) Could an
quietly
ambassador bo better employed than in conveying
to the, Ministers of foreign States with whom.
we ar© in frit-4611y relations, the statistical traits of Free-
trade in this country? (Hear, hear.) Ocuid anything
he more convincing to a Treasurer. a Chancellor of the
Exchequer abroad, than if the Chancrfler of the Ex-
chequer in England took care that he should know that
the revenue had impro‘el rather than fallen off is con-
sequence of Free-trade? (Hear.) But how can you ex-
pect the Chancellor of the Exchequer to do this so long
as ho is adherine ta the opinion he has always ex-
pressed that Free-trade is sure to cause a great falling
off in the revenue? (Hear, hear.) You must have a
Governrneet not only ttvowing itself in favour of Free-

trade, but prepared, in every possible er;37,
mote the extension of the principle is ell its ra-
mifications and consequence's. (Rear, hear.) For
instance, I am v'ry much sneered at sometimes
because I couple with this question of Free-trade
the qtlesion of pacific relations with other countries. I
am told I am Utopian. Why, lam only doing a little
more practically what those who support Free-trade do
theoretically ; for I scarcely ever beard a good free-
trade speech but what the peroration is showing the con-
nexion between Free-trade and pacific relations. lam
only carrying Free-trade to its consequences when I say
it will have the effect of rendering nations more de-
pendent upon each other, and that they will therefore
be the more bound together by ties of amity and friend-
ship, as war most happity and beautifully expressed by
the Rev. Gentleman who asked a blessing to night, and
whom I always hear with pleasure (dear, hear). one
who has invariably devoted his powers of mind to the
advocacy of sound principles. (Hear, hear.) lam not
Utopian—l am practical ; I give a reason fur the faith
tnat is in me. (Rear.) I see Free-trade an accomplished
fact in this country, as the greatest commercial country
in the world,—l see that its example must be followed,
and that that example must lead to the extension of the
intercourse between this and other countries ; end I see
in that, not the Utopian realization of a dream, but I
see cause and effect (Rear, hear) ; and I say men
will be made peaceable because their interests will be
allied in the cause of peace. (Cheers.) Now, I only ask
you this in conclusion—to watch our proceedings in Par-
liament—(hear); and, as you come from all parts of the
kingdom, and I have no doubt have had a powerful voice
in the election of perhaps hundreds of members of Par-
liament, I hope that you will have your eyes steadfastly
upon us all-hear, hear); and if any of us falter, if any
of us seem disposed to palter with this question, and to
postpone its final and definite settleme from this short
session to another, that it may be mixed up with other
questions and be made the game of party, that you
should admonish us and keep us to our duty. (Hear,
he tr). It is with that feeling that I beg to propose as
a sentiment, " Health to the constituencies who have
returned Free-trade members to Parliament." (Great

cheerieg).
The CHAIRMAN then proposed " The Health of Sir
W. Clay."
Sir W. CLAY, M.P., was received with loud applauee.
He said, the toast which bad been given from the
chair was "The Constituencies which had returned
Free-traders to the new Parliament." They were, no
doubt, perfectly aware that the constituencies which
hal returned Free-traders comprehended, almost with-
out exception, every largo town constituency in the
United Kingdom. There was one doubtful exception,
to which he would not allude, but it was not very
remote from the place where ho was now speaking.
(Ileac, bear.) With that exe.eptioo, every great town
constituency in the kingdom bad returned Free-trade
members to Parliament. And those constituencies,
in no doing, had only pronounced and given voice to the
opinions and deep-seated convictions of the entire people
of this country. But what was to be the result of the
entire views of the people of Eaglaud being pronounced
in behalf of the principles of Free-trade? Why, those
results must flow from it to which his hon. friend had so
well alluded. He agreed with him that the time for ac-
tion was cone. The arguments in favour of Protection
had long since- been swept into that lumber-room where
were accumulated the exploded fallacies and forgotten
sophisms of the past. With regard to the men who had
used them, they were fast vanishing from their view; it
was becoming more and more difficult to meet with a
pure Protectionist. They would very shortly disappear
from view in the dim obscurity of distance. He was
going to say that they would " loom " obscurely in the
past, brit a great man had especially devoted that word
" loom," to what he denominated "great objects." Now,
he (Sir W. Clay) believed that nothing could be smaller
than Protectionist statesmen, and every day that passed
rendered them smaller still. They would soon teke
place in the imagination with these venerable persons
whom some of as still remembered—gentlemen with
powdered heads and pigtails, with knee-buelsles and
top-boots, and whose chief delight was, he believed, in
long whiskers. But if this was now the state of public
opinion, it was not always so. The time was not remote
when this great question first assumed its due importance.
There was a time, not remote, when one large part of
the people of England were ill-informed on the subject,
and a yet larger portion cold and indifferent. He could
himself remember when, some 15 years since, he pro-
posed to the House of Commons the repeal of the Corn
Laws, (Cheers.) Ho remembered that when he brought
forward that motion ho should have been well pleased to
obtain the encouragement and support of that great con-
stituency which then, as now, he had the honour to re-
present. He could cot obtain i:; teere vs: rya few who
gave him any encouragement or supeert. But what was
the fact now? There had recently *been loog and fierce
contests in that borough; there were five candidates,
and not one of them would nave dared to present him-
self to that, the largest borough constituency in the
kingdom, if a doubt had hung over the sincerity of his
devotion to his principles. One of the first men he
applied to at the commencement of that contest was
among the largest, if not the very largest, of the ship-
owners of this country—that class among whom Protec-
tionist principles had lingered longest. lle said, speak-
ing the views of one of those parishes which constituted
the port of London, " Give yourself no trouble, we
are all Free-traders." If this was now the state of the
constituency, to what was this blessed change mainly
owing? In his calm and deliberate oputies, it was
mainly owing to the men of Manchester, to the Auti-
Corn. law League, and to his hon. friend who sat near
him, whom he need not name, for his name had become
a household word. (Loud cheers.) It was the men
of the And-Corn Law League who had, by their well-
directed exertions, informed the ignorant, confirmed the
doubtful, given courage to the timid, and, at last, by
their unceasing perseverance, rendered those truths,
once perceived and contended for by the few, thehe pro-
perty of the world. (Cheers.) He rememberedt
it first
beginning of that League, the feeling with which
t
regarded, se who e t
the sneerers were not only Tories,
butwere afterwardsa
the sneers with which it wile mtcb
0, an among
opposite to Tories, some of whom. _ b
...
fitooawtebdiebintiots peoxweerrtiounpsonbatdhatgtivideen otfhepufirlstct ompointiloonn.
(Cheers.) They had persevered and triumphed, and
found the greatest compliment paid to them in
the imitation of their method of agitating by
their opponents. They said the Leegue distrfbuted
so many tracts, and they would distrieute so many
more hundred weights, and they might possibly have
succeeded, for heavier literature than Protectionist tracts
it had never been his misfortune to meet with. The
men of Manchester and the League bad set a glorious
example, and he hoped the people of Ragland would fol-
low it. It was from the battle-field on which they had
planted their victorious standards that the friends of
lawwhether League.
progress and constitutional reform must advance to far-
ther triumphs. (Cheers.) ~
The next toast was " The Anti-Corn-law League.
Mr. BRIGHT, who was called upon to speak to the
toast, was received with several rounds of cheers.etm
entille
said—Being called upon to respond to
, Au silence
like this., hold
feel myself in a very singular poseieatioewthaftetrls osn recurri'ng
to the proceedings of a meet,ingas,
n t among the 'sentiments
nearly four years ago, I fina
tht at of " the Memory,
of th
offered to that meeting, ,7
Iliad Antiseden-
nnt
—b t
or with acclamation—(a laugh)—but
fromuthis I know, that
we felt we had followed the vague. its Commence-
menti was
swre"faenvceieddinthmat"w'lle.
to its extinction,
it(Hoar, hear.) We recollected
it for the grandeur of its lineaments, for the believe-
of its action, for the portentous w -
lence warning which
it held out to the oppressor and the un) •
ust;
but ive never imagined that we should tee it again
3 living. combination, GS we have secn it
the last eight months, and as we see it by during
representa-
tives gathered within this hall to-night.its
Our opponents said that it was but (Hear, hear.)
League. Well, they are not the the ghost of the
who have been driven from h first body of people
t
(Laughter and cheers.) I take o field by a ghost.
that the manifestation of opinionleave, however, to assert
during the period of the
last few months, and
general election, has aeon
dark g the p' clod of the
eon such as to show, that if the
League was buried, its ,
spirit is still an existing and a
living spirit—(cheer
,)—a spirit that dare and does defy
any Cabinet that may exercise authority in this country
to touch againche,..,..y‘ the sacred question of Free-trade. (Loud
) If any man says that we were wrong in reor-
ganizing the League, let him for one merneut look at
the facts. Lord Derby, the notorious and unscrupulous
leader of the most intolerant of the Protection party—.
(hear, hear)—came into office. It isdifficult to say how
he came there. (A laugh.):l have heard of generals sur-
rendering with whole armies at discretion. I am not cure
that the leader on our side of the House did not surrender
without discretion. (Laughter.) Some say his staff was
disordered; some say his troops mutinied. Some felt
that they were almost as often led into the ranks of the
foe as led against them. (Hear.) But whatever be the
reason, somehow or other Lord Derby came into office.
We had Protection blasts, an, finall, Lord Palmerston
offered himself as the great trdumpe•eyr, and the walls of
the Whig Jericho fell at once to the groand. (Laughter
and cheers.) But having Lord Derby in office, the re-
presentative of a great, though a mistaken policy, we can
hear nothing of that policy. (Hear.) ) When the Reform
Ministry cone into office, everybody talked about re-
form; the followers of the Government were encouraged
to talk about reform. When Sir R. Peel came into office,
Gfor tiii temprorY regigotion Revell you ago, every.