The Sun.
London, England, 1852-11-26 00:00:00

house in Bond-street taken ? (Hear.) Did they remember
June, 1849, when there was a meeting at Drury-lane
Theatre, to receive the report of the Bond-street Associa-
tion, the Duke of Richmond in the chair. The Duke of
Richmond was very active here and there, and in fact all
over the country. There might be said to be " six Rich-
monds in the field." (Laughter.) The first resolution was
moved by a Cabinet Minister. These are the men who
never endeavoured to reverse free trade. He said he was
not one of those who wished Ministers to be obstinate in
details, but to be obstinate in principle. A man without
principle was dangerous. Only three months before the
corn laws were repealed Sir Robert Peel had spoken in
their favour. (" Hear, hear," from Major Beresford.)
What became of his character as a public man ? It was
not too late to retrieve the steps already taken. He
hoped the time would never cease when free trade
should be finally accepted as the policy of the country,
but should that be so this country would soon return to
its natural state—a weather-beaten island in a northern
sea. (Great laughter.) And who was the speaker ? No
other person than the present Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, the Earl of Malmesbury, who never did
anything to reverse free trade. (Laughter.) That was
seconded by another Cabinet Minister, who took a passage
from his friend Disraeli, who also took from other people,
and his friend quoted from him. (A laugh.) The cause
of protected and regenerated England must triumph.
He went on to show that the British Lion was a bold one
—he was not easily aroused, but when you did get him on
his legs, he was an awkward animal to put up. (Laughter.)
He was in mistake, he found, when he attributed this to a
Cabinet Minister. It was a Mr. Bosanquet. But there
was George Frederick Young, their great friend, who con-
cluded his address by saying—" Agitate, agitate, agitate."
(Hear.) So much for 1849. Let them follow them up:
(Laughter.) That assiduous gentleman, the Secretary for
the Admiralty, was everywhere. (A laugh.) They took
the Crown and Anchor on May 7th, 1850; there was a pub-
lic meeting, and the noble Duke of Richmond was again
in the chair, and the meeting was attended by the Earl of
Eglinton, Major Beresford, and poor Mr. Christopher—
(a laugh)—the Earl of Malmesbury, Mr. F. Mackenzie,
Lord J. Manners, Sir John Trollope, Mr. Paul Fosket, &c.
Now let them listen to this meeting. The chairman de-
clared that free trade had failed—he always said it would.
They must then tell the farmers to persevere. Mr. Booker
moved the first resolution. He need not read his speech,
as it was pretty much what it had been to-night.
(A laugh.) Here was his resolution—That the Free
trade policy had caused distress to agriculture and com-
mercial suffering, that it was fraught with consequences
most disastrous, and must prove fatal to public
credit, and endanger the Throne. This was carried
with great enthusiasm. Then there was the notorious
Chowler—(laughter)—and his famous horse speech. (Re-
newed laughter.) He would not read that speech. (Cries
of "Go on.") He said if the landlords would stick to them,
they would stick to the landlords. (Renewed laughter.)
Here, said the reporter, the whole assembly rose, and
cheered enthusiastically, and Earl Stanhope got up from
behind, and patted the speaker on the back. (Laughter.)
" We have nine-tenths of the horses in the country, and
men to ride them. We will protect her Majesty if she will
protect us. (Vociferous cheering.)"—(Laughter.) The
next resolution was one complaining of the indifference and
hard-heartedness of this house. It was moved by a gen-
tleman whom he saw present—Mr. E. Ball. He believed
it was the same gentleman. (Laughter.) Mr. Ball said—
and he spoke out, as he spoke the other night, honestly,
straightforwardly, and well, and if he (Mr. Osborne) dif-
fered from him, he felt for him and respected to the full a
man who advocated his opinions to the last ; he said—" It
was painful to speak in terms of disrespect of the landlords
and their offices. They had fallen, not through the League,
not through Sir Robert Peel, but because the aristocracy
had swerved from the path of their duty. Would any one
then tell him"—(listen to this and look at the hon. gentle-
man)—" a broken-hearted-man—(here his voice faltered)"
—(laughter)—" passing into a state of miserable poverty, that
he would yield to the threats of a demagogue like Cobden ?
They, the tenant farmers, would be prepared to take those
terrible steps which it was most frightful to imagine, but
which necessity was driving them to contemplate. (Tre-
mendous cheering, at the close of which a gentleman on
the platform proposed three groans for Peel, the arch-enemy
of the human species.)" These were the gentlemen who
had done nothing for protection. And were they to be
afraid for wounding the feelings of those who proposed and
acceded to "three groans" for the greatest man this country
has seen? (Cheers.) The evening was concluded by Lord
Eglinton, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who proposed a
vote of thanks to the Duke of Richmond for his many ser-
vices and constant advocacy of the cause of protection,
which was seconded by Lord John Manners amidst great
cheering. Such were the proceedings of the hon. gentle-
men opposite out of Parliament ' • and did honourable gen-
tlemen tell him th at they did not stand by and pat these
gentlemen on the back, thai the Duke of Richmond, Mr.
Ball, and the whole kit of them, would have done so, had
it not been agreeable to Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli ?
We must speak out ; we must not adopt the language
of diplomacy in order to suit the purposes of evasion.
When he heard the speech of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer the other night, he really began to think
that the right honourable gentleman had attempted
all along to reverse the policy of free trade in this house,
and that he had dreamed his errors ; but on looking over
the speeches of the right hon. gentleman, he again saw
what had actually been his course. He would not read
the right hon. gentleman's speeches ; he was ill, and they
might make him worse. But he must recal some of the
principal points. In January, 1846, he said—and let him
mark this—that the Ministry whom he was addressing was
an honest, upright, intelligent Ministry, whom it would be
matter of rejoicing to see in office to-day, for though he
often opposed it, yet he was at least confident of its sin-
cerity. The right hon. gentleman said—" Who does not
remember the sacred cause of protection,' the cause for
which Sovereigns were thwarted, Parliament dissolved, and
a nation taken in? When one looks at the Ministry, see-
ing of what they aro composed, one is hardly certain whe-
ther the future, of which they are thinking, is indeed
posterity, or only the coming quarter-day. Such was
the language of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in
January, 1846. On the 20th February, 1846, he made one
of his attacks on the late Sir Robert Peel. It was on
the occasion when he talked of the conversion of the
Saxons, in the time of Charlemagne, when he said of
Peel that "His life had been one great appropriation
clause;" and he concluded, " I believe the country will not
long endure this huckstering tyranny of the Treasury
bench,—these political pedlars, that bought their parties in
the cheapest market, and sold us in the dearest." The
right honourable gentleman never opposed free trade !
When an amendment was moved to the Address, he said
that free trade had had a fair trial, and he looked forward
to the time when it would be reversed. In 1847, he said,
"he believed free trade had failed." In February, 1850,
he expressed " his unqualified condemnation of free
trade." (Hear, hear.) The right • honourable gentle-
man had said that he never had made a distinct
motion for the repeal .6f the act of 1846. That was true.
But he took advantage of every circumstance to urge on his
party. Ho said, " I ask you to protect the rights and inte-
rests of labour generally—in the first place, by allowing no
free imports from countries which meet you with counter-
vailing duties ; and in the second place, with respect to
agricultural produce, to compensate the soil for the bunions
from which other classes are free, by an equivalent duty."
And yet the right honourable gentleman came to the house
in 1852, and with a face which he never saw equalled, even
in the theatre, and dared to Ray that he never moved for
the repeal of free trade. (Cheers.) So much for the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. But he went fur-
ther. He said Lord Derby had never done so.
Between the two, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the
safer man ' • certainly a discreeter man than the noble lord
at the head of the Government. What had been the
course of the noble lord ? The other night he affected to
resent what appeared to be a slight on his personal honour.
It was a gross affectation. (Loud cries of " Oh, oh.") He
would prove it, harsh language though it seemed. In 1849
the noble lord broke up the Government of Sir R. Peel.
" I had placed before me," he told the House of Lords,
"the choice of separating from my colleagues, or of sacri-
ficing my own individual opinion, and what I conceive to
be my own personal consistency and honour. I had to
consider the course which, in my opinion, my public duty
and my private honour required. I tried to school myself
into the belief that, under certain circumstances, the
interests of the country might require even the sacrifice of
r etsoorwp.h
hue
amrMtbiyy
lialso)tfriepnddgos
tohicoteoe exclaims,dnn.etol
u(stiaoortnu.yd”
leladmannedontt personal
babrilnegtomcoynscehtd(Letharoc
I,,tplwucbaolsui
would bring a man in his
" DidO h ,
hon.
"Shame," from the Ministerial
."gentlemen want any more proofs? Was
criesb
benches.) c h fs
.
not eve man satisfied at the
he could in Parliament, that
ofLand' it,e lord did everything
trines of free trade ? He did not to reverse the doc-
ant to hurt the feel-
ings of hon. gentlemen opposite,
but he must give one
more quotation, it was so apposite.(Laughter.)
from the celebrated speech whichthe lt was
noble I
the deputation of farmers who waited ord made to
on him at St.
James's-square. He said on that occasion—
" If there be but one district in which a suspicion is
en-
tertained that I am flinching from, or hesitating in,
advocacy of those principles on which I stood, in coni 311-
e
tion with my talented friend, Lord George Bentinck, i
authorise you, one and all, to assure those whom you
re-
present that in me they will find no hesitation, no flinch-
ing, no change of opinion. I only look for the moment
when it may be possible for me to use the memorable words
of the Duke of Wellington on the field of Waterloo (which
hMr. B. Osborne, be lieved he never said), and
Up Guards, and at'em.' "say,

Wa's there any member so young, so inexperienced in Par-
liamentary debates, as to believe what was e
nor
by the
tsradcol;
'ine'ehnds—
leeshagunceesll, onrorofhitshpeaErtxy,terker,etetpheattonreeitvhererse
the
policy ? They did more : they deceived their
among them a gentleman of high character—the,, Chancellor
hbieslicoevn'estillitu‘t:
of the Duchy of Lancaster. (Loud cries of
tMi
hon.ni s t e
gentlemanbench
couldes .)
have'
anygen
gone
ne
disgusted
that
mt
right
ents and addressed them as he had done, if had known
the views of Lord Derby? His address to them had been
sent to him (Mr. Osborne) by one of the right hon. gentle-
man's constituents, who had since then been
with what had taken place. Here it was :
"I accept office under the Administration of the Earl of
Derby, from a conviction of his sincere desire to reverse
that financial and commercial policy which has proved so
injurious to native industry and capital."
And now, he would ask the house, had he made out a case?
(Loud cheers.) Was the house, of opinion' that there had
been no attempt to get back protection; that the right hon.
gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had, from first
to last, in season and out of season, been consistent in this
particular, that he and his colleagues had been strenuous
in the endeavour to reverse the policy of 1846 ? (Loud
cheers.) The fact was that a cry was necessary. The cry
" Protection" was taken up, and these honest men, these
deluded farmers, were taken in. (Laughter.) What would
be their next cry? Perhaps invasion in a month or two.
He could not believe, and he was sure the house did not be-
lieve, that the course of the Government had been one that
would conduce to the cause of public morality. Although he
thought protection was now among the things which were
which right hon. gentleman called "exhausted" and "obso-
lete," was the house sure of this? Was the country sure that
these gentlemen were sincere ? Turn from that to the re-
markable speech made within the last fortnight by the
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to his constituents.
He said :

" At the time my hon. colleague and I offered ourselves,
there was a great struggle going on in this country, for the
maintenance of Protestant and Protectionist principles.
He did not know what connexion there was between the
two, except that they both began with " P." (A laugh.)
" I trust the constitution of the present Parliament is such
as to leave no doubt they will fully uphold and defend our
Protestant institutions; and, with regard to the other sub-
ject—protection—l have only emphatically to assure you
that I entirely adhere to the opinions and principles I have
always expressed. (Cheers.) I can see nothing in the pre-
sent aspect of affairs to alter my convictions that that which
is called the protective policy' is the true and wise policy
for the nation to adopt. . . . At the general election
I stated that if the Goveripient were unable to substitute

that protective policy, which woull. nOi--;x-c-oPT-1;;;Tin-