The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-30 00:00:00

try, and which have passed during the time I am sketch-
ing. (Cheers.) Well, then, after that we came to a very
quiet, and, I may say, an unsatisfactory time—'he Whigs
had settled comfortably into their places—they h ye, I be-
lieve, a motto which, however, they have not I nblicly an-
nounced, which is this, "A place for every man, and every
man in his place." (Great laughter and ch ere.) That means
of course, every man of their respectable party. (Laughter.)
After this time they became very much indisposed to go
further, and the satisfaction of the country with them gra-
dually diminished, their majorities in Parliament were re-
duced, and finally, they came to a general election in the
year 1841; bat nine years after the passing of that great
measure of reform, they were thrown out of office by the
constituencies, and a
.Parliament was returned with a ma-
jority against them little short of 100 votes. Now, at this
time there came another great change into sight, and an-
other new principle, though it has not been new within the
last generation or two. The 'principle of free trade was
brought before the public, very much in consequence of the
sufferings which arose from the bad harvests we had imme-
diately preceding the general election. It took from the year
1838 to the year 1846 to bring about that great change—
the abolition of the corn law. A Parliament was elected in
1841, with a majority of 90 pledged against the abolition
of that law. Sir Robert Peel was the great leader of that
great party, and having found themselves in Parliament
with this enormous majority, they looked down upon all of
us who were moving in that question, and considered that
they were absolutely sure to maintain that law and to main-
tain their places. Well, the result shows how much is to be
done by continuous, disinterested labour on behalf of a great
cause by appealing to the sympathies of a whole nation.
(Cheers.) In 1846, particularly at that moment, owing, no
doubt, to the failure of the harvest and the difficulties which
threatened from an impending famine in Ireland, this vast
majority melted away. Men who had pledged themselves
in every form of language to their constituents in 1841—who
had attended meetings to abuse the Free-traders
subscribed to newspapers to abuse them, found t.
power melting away, and their leader himself co'
the necessity of a change ; and a change took
change so great that all the members of the bona
mons, and I think the majority of the House of IA
lieved that to them at least the world was pretty nea
end. (Laughter and cheers.) I recollect a lad)

of mine sitting below the bar of the House of Lot a th
night when the Corn-law Repeal Bill was read .
time. It was very late, or rather early in the .rnin
when the division was approaching, and a lady sitt ,g ..tee
her, who was a connexion of some peer, spoke to the ?etre
he came out from the house. She said, "How will .•.go?
It was just before the division. Be pointed to the ock i

an agony of excitement, and exclaimed, "In 20

we shall be no better than dead men." (Laugh

cheers.) Now, then, tho corn law was abolished,
they had told the farmers—those terrified farmers,

landlords, who were almost still more terrified—l
sure that any of them would have ever found it o

country would have found that it was much better (

the people would have discovered that by some pow€ eey
could not imagine loaves and provisions, to the amo-aft of
twenty millions of pounds sterling per annum, had been
deposited in their houses for the sustenance and en-
joyment of their families; they would not have known
how it was all brought about, although we all know that it
was brought about by the repeal of a single act of Parlia-
ment. (Cheers.) It was not by a number of benevolent
ladies and gentlemen forming a society all over the country
and giving the people alms, but it was by the repealing of
an act of Parliament—by a simple act of justice—an act
which was so just that I scarcely ever heard a man deny its
justice except on something which they call political consi-
derations. (Hear, hear.) They say there were political rea-
sons why that great act of justice could not be done. I re-
collect meeting once with a very pious banker that I hap-
pened to travel with in the North of England, and he ad-
mitted it was very unjust that there should be a law to make
food scarce and dear, b'nt•he said "I accept it because I be-
lieve it necessary to maintain the hereditary aristocracy of
this country." (Laughter.) And, further, he said he
thought our greatness in the eye of the world depended very
much on the maintenance of the wealth, and the power, and
the display of the aristocracy:of England. (Laughter.) That
is exactly the sort of reasoning which people give ; weak-
minded men are attracted by reasons of that kind, and they
give you reasons now not a bit better for opposition to the
changes which many men wish to promote, and which doubt-
less, by-and-bye, will be effected ; and their results will
show that those who have opposed them were just as silly,
and just as little worth following as my traveller, the pious
banker. (Laughter and cheers.) But the question of the
corn laws was not all—there was the question of sugar, in
1840. It is not very long ago the single article of sugar in
this country cost, by reason of the monopoly, not less than
six millions sterling more than it would have cost if you
could have bought it freely in the market of the world.
Well, the fall of the corn monopoly, being the key-stone
of the arch, let down everything else belonging to it and
supported by it, and the sugar monopoly fell, and I don't
know how many others, such as those connected with
the supply of timber from abroad, and one still more
important— the monopoly our shipowners had the
abolition of which has been found to be injurious, I be-
lieve, to nobody, but greatly advantageous to the whole
country. (Cheers.) Well, then, when this was done the
course was perfectly easy for your Chancellors of the Ex-
chequer. It has been all driving down hill with Mr. Glad-
stone since then. Ile began with a tariff which had 800 or
1,000 articles—l am not sure that there were not even 1,200
articles in it on which duties were raised in our ports. When
the names were read of those which were to be abolished
there was a general laugh in the House of Commons; peo-
ple turned to each other and asked What is that ?" "Did
you ever hear of it ?" They were things people had never
heard of, but still heavy duties were levied upon them. At
present there are only 12 or 15 articles on which duties are
levied ; all the things which were formerly taxed came freely
into the country, and we have made a very great clearance
in that matter, and a revolution in regard to it more com-
prehensive and more advantageous to the country than pro-
bably has ever been made by any other Government within
the same time in the world. Ido not think that those who
were most active in promoting these changes could be re-
garded by certain people with much more confidence than
they were before, but still the changes were made, and they
had worked well for the nation. (Cheers.) Then we came
to the question of the treaty with France. I was born just
before the termination of that monstrous and wicked war
which was so long carried on with France; and the school
books of my time and of yours mostly, no doubt, were filled,
at least they contained insinuations against the French that
were not flattering to that people—(laughter)—and there
were representations on the stage, as I am told by those
who frequented the theatres at the time, to the same effect.
There prevailed a general feeling that there was some risk
to Englishmen if they became too well acquainted with the
French, lest by any possibility they should learn to believe
that the French were not the natural enemies of England.
(Hear, hear.) Well, my friend, Mr. Cobden—who, as you
know, is occasionally favoured with very abusive language
from the great instructors of the press—(laughter)—thought
that the Emperor of the French, and some persons who
were occasionally consulted by him, would be very glad to
have more intimate relations with this country, and he went
over to Paris, he sought and obtained an interview with the
Emperor ; he discussed these questions with him, and found
the Emperor not only most willing, but most anxious that
the people of the two countries should be introduced to each
other by the medium of extended commerce, (Cheers.) His
object was, for I heard him say so, that the people be-
ing thus knit together, it would not be in the Dower of
rulers and statesmen hereafter to enter into those frightful
struggles which, now we looked backed upon them, we
say have for centuries disfigured the history of the tv
nations. (Cheers.) There is another question, which ct• •••
tainly must possess some interest ; but with regard to t,
to which I have just adverted, I ought to say further, ..t
it was not, as was observed the other day by fur. M. C
son, at Ashton, one of our regular diplomatists, who effected

that treaty, it was done solely by my friend Mr. Colx.',;

(cheers)—and as the cricketers would say, he got if en-
tirely off his own bat—(cheers and laughter)—and I venture
to say that as long as the history of France and Englan 's
read, it will be road of him, that a simple statesman of t,
country, interested in its welfare, interested in peace .
tween France and England, interested in the spread of gr
and enlightened principles of commerce throughout th,
world, went over to Paris and there negotiated with th;
Emperor of the French a treaty which I believe to be th,.
most important document of the kind that has ever been
signed by the rulers of any two nations of Europe. (Loud
cheers.) From that I pass, , perhaps, to the last of those
topics that I shall touch upon, and that is, to another kind
of freedom in which no person in Parliament was more
actively engaged than Mr. M. Gibson, ➢lr, Cobden, and
myself, and that is the fredom of the Press. (Cheers.)
When you pay a penny for your admirable newspaper in this
town you are not conscious, perhaps, of what happened only
a very short time ago. The paper on which it was printed
say ten years ago, had a penny stamp upon it ; the paper
itself did not cost more, probably, than a halfpenny or three-
farthings, and therefore there was from 100 to 150 per cent
tax upon that paper, before my friend Mr. Jaffray could
touch it. I am speaking now of the stamp, but there was at
that time a tax of threepence, and afterwards of three-half-
pence per pound on the paper itself at the paper mill ; this
unfortunate article might have been the greatest of all nui-
sances, it was made out of the vilest rags and rubbish, and
then the Chancellor of the Exchequer put upon it a tax of
threehalfpence per pound. The moment it was sent to the
newspaper office it was necessary to send it to a Govern-
ment office to be stamped, unless the manufacturer had
stamped it previously ; and when this was done, if he put
into the paper an advertisement of a cook wanting a place
or a lady wanting a nurse, or a pupil wanting a tutor, if
the advertisement consisted only of a line, or three words,
or even one word, it was liable to a tax of Is Gd. Some people
at that time said we were a free country, and some said that
we had a free Press ; and in the House of Commons it re-
quired every kind of argument and every kind of fact, in
addition to ordinary facts and arguments, to induce the
house to make any change, and it required this argument
and this fact to convince the Chancellor of the Exchequer
that unless he would undertake to remove the duty there
was not a single thing he proposed to do that the house
would not oppose. (Cheeers.) By getting the Chancellor of
the Exchequer into a fix of that nature by absolutely wor-
rying him into this act of justice, and by the wonderful skill