The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-18 00:00:00

Mr. LANG said that having been requested by the
Committee to give a toast which had reference to the
great occasion that called them together, he had felt it
his duty to comply ; he would state the toast to the meet-
ing, and would then claim their indulgence for a short
time whilst he offered them a few observations, which he
hoped would induce them to drink it with all the ho-
nours. The toast allotted to him was " Lord Mel-
bourne, her Majesty's Ministers, and progressive Re-
form." Up to a period in the late Session, when, in
Consequence of the vote upon the Jamaica question,
Lord Melbourne had been induced to declare that the
Ministers had not had that support from some of those
Who, upon other occasions had given it them, that the
Ministry had resolved to tender their resignations, very
faint .hopes had been indulged by those who, like the
present =eating,' bad always advocated steady and pro-
good to be accomplished.
gressive iteform, of any - great
-k should be recollected that the, excuse for doing no-
thing at the end of the late King's reign was,
that. the Court was against them, and they coul4
not move. At the accession of her present Majesty
brighter prospects seemed to open to us—the Court
was notoriously with us. We were then met by those
declarations of finality and intentional ascendancy of
a particular interest, which overwhelmed us with dismay,
and which, although many opportunities had offered,
had never been satisfactorily explained away. The
Ministry went on doing little, and apparently oaring
little, up to the Jamaica Question ; and what took
place then, and which had not inaptly been called " the
battle of the Petticoats," was so recent as only to require
from him, to say that the attempt to construct a Tory
Ministry having failed, the Queen made an appeal to
her old Ministers for support, which ended in the re-
appointment of Lord Melbourne and his colleagues.
He had ventured to predict on a former occasion, from
the altered tone of the Government, their adoption and
carrying through the Postage Bill—their declaration
that the Corn-laws and the Ballot should be made
open questions—that another and a better spirit had
been infused into the Government, which would in a
short time declare themselves. The change of mea-
sures had been followed by a change of men,
and when he looked at the men who had been
invited to take office, he considered it a
great subject of congratulation, for though they had
been well and much abused by the Tories, as might
naturally have been expected, he found that there was
not amongst them a Lord even by courtesy—
but that they were all men of sterling honourable cha-
raster, and taken from the ranks of the people. It
had been said by two Lords, whose apostacy from their
former principles was a disgrace and shame to them,
that the people must discard the House of Commons
from their consideration, as being no longer capable of
being of use, and must direct their attention and confi-
dence to the House of Lords, from whence for the
future all good things must arise ; but he oiled upon
that meeting to discard such insidious advice,,a.od still to
adhere to those who were part and parcel of themselves.
It was to. the people, and to those immediately ema-
nating from them, to whom they should direct their
views, and be ready at all times to give them an effec-
tive and vigorous support, when they found the Com-
mons " going a head" in support of the principles of
peace, retrenchment, and progressive reform. A