The Sun.
London, England, 1839-06-01 00:00:00

law as when Mr. Perry was brought to trial for saying
that George 111. was unpopular—and Mr. Leigh Hunt
f:r saying George IV. was fat—(Laughter)—and o Sir
I'. Burdett for expressing—not perhaps in the best taste
—but when he expressed only a natural and honest in-
dignation at the proceedings at Manchester in 1819.
The law is precisely the same ; but if it had b n re-
modelled entirely, the Press could not have had
more liberty than it has enjoyed since Lnrd Melbourne
came into power.—(Cheers.) I give that as an instance
of the power of a good Administration to mitigate a
bad law ; now, look at the necessity there is for a good
Government to carry a good law into effect. In 1828
Lord John Russell carried a measure, which of itself is
a great distinction to him, but not his greatest ; for he
also carried the Reform Bill, and the purification of
our municipal institutions. I speak of the abolition of
the Sacramental Test as a qualification for office. Well,
a Noble Peer, the Lord Lieutenant of Nottingham-
shire, thought fit to re-enact the Test Act so far as the
county of Nottingham was concerned. I have already
mentioned his Grace the Duke of Newcastle ; and to
say truth, there is no life richer in illustrations of mis-
government in all its forms and branches than his. His
Grace replied to a communication from the Lord Chan-
cellor, that he had not recommended a certain indivi-
dual for the Commission of the Peace because he was a
Dissenter. Now, here was a law passed to admit men
to office altogether irrespective of their religious opi-
nions ; and a Tory Nobleman avows the resolution to
repeal that law. But it happened that we had at the
time a Whig Admistfation. What did they do ?
Why they put the Dissenter into the Commission, and
they turned the Tory Nobleman out of his Lieutenancy.
—(Loud cheers) Do you seriously imagine that un-
der a Tory Administration this would have been done?
—(Cheers, and cries of " No.") I shall always speak
with that respect which is due to the talents and per
sonal qualities of the Duke of Wellington ; and I have
no other feeling regarding him than one of pride that my
country has produced so great a man—(Cheers)—nor
can I feel anything but respect and kindness for Sir
Robert, Peel, whose abilities by none that have ever
been opposed to him will ever be slighted. Nor do I
imagine that they approve of the conduct of the Duke
of Newcastle. I believe the. Duke of Wellington would
as soon - have thought of running away from the
field of battle, as he would think of doing the
same thing in Hampshire, where he is Lord Lieu-
tenant. But do you believe they would have turned
the Duke of Newcastle out ? I believe not. As
Mr. Pulteney said, who was a keen political leader in
his day, parties are like snakes, whose heads are car-
ried on by their tails.—(Laughter.) It is impossible that
the Duke of Wellington should have discarded such a
great and influential Tory Nobleman ; unless, indeed,
he had determined to leave the Tories altogether, and
to throw himself for help, like Mr. Canning in 1827,
into the arms of the Whigs. I give you these two in-
stances—mere instances which I have taken from the
events of our own day, that you may see that when
the laws are exactly the same, there is all the difference

in the world between their administration by a Whig
or a Tory Government ; or in other words, that a Tory
Government would have half repealed the Test Aboli-
tion Act, while a Whig Government have half removed
all that is bad in the Law of libel.—(Cheers.) If this
be the case in England, in a healthy state of so-
ciety, how much more must it be so in the diseased
part of the empire—in Ireland. Take any man,
fkhatever his political sentiments may be, whether Re-
pealer, Precursor, or Orangeman, and he will tell you
that he does not think it of slight importance what
kind of Government they have. Go to any man in
that country, from O'Connell to Colonel Conolly, and
they will tell you that it is with them a matter of life and
death—that, in fact, every thing depends upon the men
in whose bands the Government is vested. I have
heard people say, what is the good of a Whig Govern-
ment—they have been hammering for four years at an
Irish Muncipal Bill, without ever being able to pass it
through the Lords. But would any ten Acts of Par-
liament make such a difference to Ireland as the change
between having Lord Ebrington for Lord-Lieutenant
and Lord Morpeth for his Secretary, and having the
Earl of Roden for Lord Lieutenant, and Colonel Max-

well for his Secretary ?—( Hear.) Ask the Irish Leaders
whether they will remain as they are. with Lord
Ebrington as their Lord Lieutenant, or whether they

gill have the Muncipal Bill, and any other three Bills
they may name, to purchased with the Viceroyalty of
Lord Roden, and they will at once answer, " Leave
us to the Government of Lord Ebrington, and you
may keep your Bills."—(Cheers.) The truth is,
that the more defective the Legislation, the more im-
portant is a good Administration ; just as the personal
qualities of a Sovereign are of more importance in des-
potic countries, like Russia, than under a constitutional
Government. If we have not in our statute all the

securities necessary for good Government, it is of
the more importance that the men who administer the
Government should be, in their feelings and by their
operations, an additional security.—(Cheers.) But we
are told that the Government is weak. That is most
true ; and I believe all that can justly be imputed to the
Government of blame is resolvable into its weakness.
But we are to consider what the nature of this weakness
is. Is it that kind of weakness which readers it a duty
to oppose the Government ? or is it that kind of weak-
ness which renders it a duty to support it ? Is it that sort
of weakness by which faults are committed which, when
they are found in a Government, it ought not to be
suffered to stand ? I mean intellectual or moral weak-
ness—the incapacity to discern, or the high moral re-
solve to pursue, the true interests of the nation. Such
was the weakness of Mr. Perceval's Government, when
'hey expected an invasion upon our shores from
Bourdeaux—such was the weakness of the Government
that sent out the wretched Walcheren expedition, and
starved the Duke of Wellington in Spain—whose only
strength was shewn in prosecuting libellers, who could
not describe too severely their misdeeds ; or in slaugh-
tering rioters whom they had driven to insurrection by
their own misgovernment.—(Cheers.) Is that the weak-
ness of the present Government ? I think not. They
are not deficient in intellectual or moral strength. On all
questions of difference between them and the Conserva-
tives, I hold them to be in the right, and I say that their
%veakness is not the weakness of incapacity. When I
see the difficulties with which they have to struggle,
and how manfully that struggle is maintained by Lord
Melbourne—when I see that Lord John Russell has
excited even the admiration of his enemies, by the
heroic manner in which be has gone on year after
year—when I see that, in the midst of weakness and
difficulty, and desertion, and sickness, and domestic
“ffliction, he has fought the battle of Reform, I cannot
say that the Government is intellectually :or morally
weak.—(Cheers.) I say that their weakness seems to
are to be of that sort which requires not opposition but
support. If I bad been permitted to consult my own
Inclinations, I should have kept aloof from this scene of
conflict. I know if you shall be pleased to send me to
Parliament, I shll enter an assembly very different from
that which I quitted in 1834—1 left the Whig party
united and dominant—strong in the confidence and
attachment of one House of Parliament—strong also
in the fears of the other. I shall return to find them
helpless in the Lords, and forced almost every week to
fight a battle for their very existence in the Commons.
Many whom I left bound together by what seemed in-
, dissoluble private and public ties, I shall now find
assailing each other with more than the ordinary bitter-
ness of political hostility ; many with whom I sat side
by side, contending through whole nights for the Reform
Bill, often till the summer sun broke on our undimi-
nished ranks from the other side of the Thames, I shall
row find on hostile benches ; I shall be compelled tc
engage in altercation with many with whom I Lad
hoped never to have a conflict, except in the generous and
friendly strife which would best secure the great com-
mon cause.—(Cheers.) I left the Liberal Government
strong enough to maintain itself against an adverse
Court—l see that the Liberal Government now mainly
rests for support on the preference of a Sovereign, in
whom the country sees with delight the promise of a
better, a gentler, a happier Elizabeth—(lmmense
cheering)—a Sovereign in whom we hope our children
and our grandchildren will have cause to admire the
firmness, the sagacity, and the spirit which distin-
guished the last and the greatest of the Tudors, tempered
by the beneficent influence of more humane times and
more popular institutions.—(Continued cheers.)
Whether Royal favour—never more needed, and never
better deserved—will enable the Government to sur-
mount the difficulties with which it has to deal, I
cannot pretume to judge. It may be that the blow
has only been deferred for a season, and that a long
period of Tory domination is yet before us. Be it so.
I entered public life a Whig, and a Whig I am deter-
ruined to remain. I use that word—and I wish you to un-
derstand that I use it in no narrow or contracted sense.
I mean by a Whig, not the subscribing to the contents
of a book, though that book may have been written by
Locke—or the approving of the conduct of any states-
man, though that statesman may have been Fox—or
adopting the opinions of any fashionable circle, though
that circle miry be composed of the finest and noblest.
spirits of the age. But I discern through the lapse of
centuries the conduct of this party—a party which,
though often depressed has never been extinguished.
I recognise them as a party, which, though tainted
with the faults of the age, has always been in advance
of the age—a party which, though guilty of many errors
and of some crimes, has the glory of being the best
promoter of liberty, and of civil and social improve-
ment ; and of that party I am proud to be a mem
bee. It was that party, who, in opposition to mono-
polies, stood up against Elizabeth—it was that party
who, in the reign of James 1., organized the first re-
gular Parliament opposition—who gradually advanced
the privileges of the people, and gradually drove back
the prerogative of the Crown. It was that party who,
under Charles 1., destroyed ship-money, and the Star
Chamber, and the High Commission Court—that party
who, under his son, Charles 11., carried the Habeas
Corpus Act—that party who effected the Revolution—
passed the Toleration Act—who broke the yoke of a
foreign Church in this country, and saved Scotland
from the fate of unhappy Ireland.--(Loud cheers.) It
was that party who reared and maintained the Consti-
tutional throne of Hanover against the hostility of the