The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-12 00:00:00

Mr. Grant Duff, M.P., on Public Affairs.

Mr. Grant Duff, MX., addressed a meeting of his
constituents, at Elgin, on Thursday. After some
introductory remarks, the hon. gentleman said :
"I can still congratulate you, as I did two years
ago, upon the fact that the reins of power are in
the hands of a Liberal Government, but I do so with
less satisfaction than I felt then, because the advan-
tages which we have derived from those who at
present rule us have for some time past been rather
of a negative than of a positive kind. (Hear.)
"Yet allowances must be made for the feverish state
in which we have been kept by our relations with
America, for the chick which Liberal aspirations
have received in some quarters from what has
occurred there, and for the peculiar character
of Lord Palmerston, to whom the nation
seems to have made up its mind that
its destinies shall be confided until the curtain
falls upon his eventful history. (Hear.) I wish 1
could agree with those who think that the threats
from the other side of the Atlantic which reach us
by every mail are mere bluster ; but it really seems
as if the spirit of the old Mexican religion had
taken possession of the North, and that only in
human sacrifice could it see any virtue. (Hear.) 1
trust we shall do everything that can be done with-
out
dishonour to prevent a rupture. In the long
and difficult negotiations which have been carried on
about Poland, I see as yet nothing to find fault with.
Ministers would assuredly not have been supported
by the country in a more decidedly warlike policy.
I admit that if all that the Powers have asked
from Russia were granted by her, the Polish question
would be far from being settled; bat I have yet to
learn that that question is susceptible of any really
satisfactory solution. I know not what the Emperor
Alexander can do in this Polish imbroglio, except
to allow himself to be borne along by the stream of
events, and to re-echo the words of Lord Palmerston
—the most remarkable words, by the way, which I
ever heard him utter.—" There is no such calamity
as to be born to a heritage of triumphant wrong."
(Applause.) As regards Italy, I think it is hardly
doubtful that her affairs will once again, and that
ere very long, become of European interest. lam
not alluding to the Roman question. lam allud-
ing to the question of Venetia or, more properly
speaking, the question of the Quadrilateral.
The Quadrilateral is, as has been well re-
marked, the secret of Italy: As long as Austria
retains that strategic position, equally powerful for
attack and defence, so long will Italy be obliged to
keep up an enormous army, and to incur expenses
which must continually increase the disorder of the
finances. Ere long Victor Emmanuel will be forced
to go to war whether he likes it or not." (Hear.)
Referring to the resignation of Sir James Hudson,
he discredited the report that the substitution of
Mr. Elliot for Cavour's friend was a job. "I fancy,"
he said, " that the truth is something like this. Sir
James Hudson is, if I am not grossly misinformed,
a far more real out-and-out Liberal, a man much
more imbued with what one might loosely call the
modern spirit,' than most of the people with
whom, and under whom, he has been serving. As
long as Cavour lived, he felt that there was at least
one man in Europe with whom ho could act, and
with whom he agreed in his ultimate objects. But
since the death of Cavour he has felt ill at ease, and
I guess—for, remember, I ans only guessing—that
if the vaults of Santon's had not closed over the
great Italian, we should not now be lamenting the
loss of Sir James Hudson ; but he, being a man
very fond of having his time to himself, and not
oaring much for the routine duties of diplomacy'
when he saw that for the present he could do
.no-
thing for Italy, but must vegetate in dull Turin,
and meditate the old Greek saying, ' There is
no woe as to see clearly how all ought
to be done, and to be able to do nothing,
thought that his villa on the Lago Maggiore was a
great deal pleasanter, and was impatient to be away.
(Hear.) If Sir James Hudson was to go, Mr. Elliot
had undoubtedly the best claim, and will probably
do exceedingly well, as indeed he did when he was
at Naples." Speaking of the position and futurelof
the Liberal party, he said;—" Whatever import-
ance belongs to the past session was given to it not
by the action of the Government, but by that of pri-
vate members. A feeling has been for some time
growing and extending itself in the ranks of the
Liberal party that, although it may be well
that things should be as they are during the
lifetime of Lord Palmerston, a crisis must arrive
soon after his death against which it is right
to be prepared. It will not be the declining
strength of Earl Russell, it will not be the still
undecided politics of Mr. Gladstone, it will not be
the worn-out reputation of two or three old politi-
cal hacks, which will form the bond of union for
the Liberal party. We must take up the questions
which are really stirring to its depths the intellect
of the country, if we are to be anything else
than a worse kind of Tories, led by men of
somew at less honesty and somewhat more ex-
perience. Now, what are the questions which
are to the best spirits in the nation all and
more than that all that the great polito-economical
questions which succeeded the passing of the
Reform Bill were to the generation which was
then beginning to influence public affairs ? They
are questions which all run up to one source, and
that is the fundamental prineiples of religious liberty.
The feeling that, if we are to have a political future
at all, it must be in connection with these questions,
seems to have influenced many minds during the
last year's recess, for the session saw men who had
no connection with each other, and belonged to
different sections of the party, step forward with
proposals all tending in the same direction." The
hon. gentleman then referred to some of these pro-
posals—the Act of Uniformity, the Irish Church,
and the university tests—and called attention to the
remarkable speech delivered at the Catholic Con-
gress recently held at Malines by M. de Montalem-
bert. He concluded as follows The commercial
men of this country have come at length to know that
commerce has nothing to ask from Government, ex-
cept to be let alone. When will religious men
throughout the world learn that religion flourishes
best where it is least trammelled by the dangerous
protection of statesmen. (Cheers.) \Vho is to be
the Adam Smith of the Piety of Nations? Who are to
he the Brizhts and Cobdens of unfettered Thought ?
(Applause.) We ate passing, as I have said,t o a period
in which questions of religious liberty will have
unusual prominence ; but as the Liberal party
triumphs on each successive question, one more
subject will be removed from the sphere of politics,
one more step will be made towards the realisation
of that state of things which would long ago have
come about it men would only have obeyed the
sublime precept, Render unto Caesar the things
that are Caesars, and unto God the things that are
God's.'—Cheers."
At the close, Mr. Allan, corn merchant, moved a
vote of thanks.—Mr-
Taylor, who expressed satis-
faction with thelprevious career of the hon. member,
moved an amendment condemning his votes during
the last session in favour of the Prison Ministers
Bill and of the opening of the Edinburgh Botanic
Garden,.—On a division, the Chairman declared the
votes to be about equal.

WHO ARE THE FRIENDS OF THE BLACK MAN ?
A correspondent, signing himself "Traveller," in a
letter to us, writes :—" President Davis, in calling out
500,000 negroLs to defend their masters and their families,
offering them their freedom and 50 acres of land, shows
that he does not look on them as President Lincoln and the
Abolitionists do—but as if each was 'a man and a brother.'
In the North the negro is an outcast and a Pariah—Presi-
dent Lincoln advising them to be off;' meaning that they
should no longer annoy the Yankees, while the Southern.,
on the contrary, treat them as coloured gentlemen.' What,
then, will the mock emancipation societies de? Will they
still support the North and oppose the South—fighting, like
Poland, for its liberty—or will they, like men, when they
see their error, frankly avow it, and change their conduct?
This is what honest men would do—what the Buxtons,
Wilberforces, and Shaftesburys have done by eschewing
these mock meetings, but what the pinch-beck Emancipa-
tionists are not likely to do."

M. Delane, the husband of the only daughter of
Beaumarchais, the brilliant author of "The Barber of
Seville" and "The Marriage of Figaro," died recently at
the age of 95 years. The whole family of Beaumarchis arc
buried at Pere la Chaise, near the nameless grave of Marsha
Noy,