The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-16 00:00:00

Earl De Grey and Ripon and Sir Charles
Wood, M.P., on Public Affairs.

On Friday evening Lord De Grey and Sir Charles
Wood attended the annual civic banquet in the
Town Hall at Ripon, the Mayor (Mr. Ascough) in
the chair. After the usual preliminary toasts, Mr.
S. Swire (a Conservative) proposed " Her Majesty's
Ministers." (Cheers.)
Earl DE GREY, in responding, said he rose with
some hesitation to return thanks for the toast of
" Her Majesty's Ministers," in the presence of his
right hon. friend (Sir C. Wood), who was much
better entitled to speak on their behalf by his great
experience and the great part he had played in public
affairs in this country for many years. But upon
these occasions the first duty of any one of the
mayor's guests was to obey his mandates. It was
now more than six years since Lord Palmerston's
Government entered upon office, and that had, he
thought, reached the extremest term which had ever
been reached by any Ministry since the days of
Lord Liverpool ; and this year their policy had been
brought to the great and searching test of a general
election. Six years ago when Lord Palmerston
took office, it was after a general election, when
the verdict of the country was unfavourable to the
Government that then dissolved Parliament. This
year the Government had had to dissolve, not on
account of any adverse vote which applied to those
in office, but on account of that efflux of time
which had brought the Parliament almost to the
full period of its legitimate existence ; and without
entering into any nice statistics, or into any ques-
tion that might give rise to dispute, he thought there
were none who would deny that in that general elec-
tion the verdict of the country—not of any particu-
lar portion of the country, but of the country at
large—of the towns and of the counties, not only of
England, but of Ireland and Scotland also, had been
in favour of her Majesty's Administration. Well,
then, the Government were, he thought, entitled to
hope that the course which had been pursued during
those six years had been such as generally and on
the whole had commended itself to the deliberate
judgment of the people of this country. (Hear.)
The presentr were not times of political excitement.
We were happy here in England in not having our
horizon clouded with the slightest shade of political
discontent; but nevertheless the time through which
we had been passing had not been a time uneventful
in the history of the world, and the questions with
which the Government had had to deal had not been
questions devoid of delicacy or difficulty. On the
contrary,:on the continent of Europe and across the
Atlantic, other countries had during the last six
years been convulsed with wars and revolutions,
during which it had been the duty of the English
Government, without concealing their honest opi-
nions, to endeavour to maintain intact the peace of
our country, and while they had not shrank from
expressing these opinions which they were entitled
to form as to the acts of others, to restrain their own
action within the just bounds of that principle .of
non-intervention by which it was laid down that
every country should be left to settle its own affairs
for itself. It might and had been said that in the
great and tremendous conflict which had been raging
in the United States during the last four years, the
strict, and he might be permitted to say the unswerv-
ing and honourable neutrality which had been pre-
served, called for criticism, and had been critised by
both parties in the contest; but he did not know that
that was any proof that that neutrality had not been
perfectly honourable. He was rather inclined to
think that every honest man who preserved an honest
neutrality was likely to please neither party alto-
gether, yet he was confident that the voice of this
country at large had approved of the course of the
policy of Lord Palmerston's government in that re-
spect, and endorsed that principle so well embodied
in the despatches of his noble friend the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs. (Applause.) It had been
his (Lord De Grey's) duty on other occasions to
allude to the past history of that contest, and it was
pleasing on this occasion to be able to allude to its
termination. (Applause.) It undoubtedly was a
source of rejoicing to humanity at large that that
terrible and bloody contest should have been brought
to a close. He was convinced that the country gene-
rally rejoiced that that wide-spreading battle should
now have ceased to devastate the country of our
cousins across the water. (Hear, hear.) And now
we had only to wish that the labours of the Ameri-
can President to reconstruct and frame afresh the
government of the country, and to re-establish
peace and prosperity throughout the length and
breadth of that mighty continent, might be crowned
with success. (Hear, hear.) The people of England
had but one desire, and that was that peace and
prosperity might be established there again, and
that the many difficult and arduous problems which
had to be solved might be solved in a manner the
most conducive to the real interests and welfare of
the American peOple. (Cheers.) Lord Palmerston's
government had laboured during the last six years
to relieve the public burdens and reduce the taxa-
tion of the country, and he thought he might
appeal to the result of the financial policy
of his right hon. friend, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer in proof of the assertion
that he had been no unworthy pupil of his
great master, the late Sir R. Peel (applause), and
that he had not been unequal to the task of com-
pleting the great work begun before the time of Sir
R. Peel, but which no doubt, owing to his exer-
tions, was brought to great perfection by that dis-
tinguished statesman and minister, while it was left
to Mr. Gladstone to complete and establish on a
firm basis the financial policy of the country. (Ap-
plause.) Now, he (Lord de Grey) had only to say
that if the principles on which Lord Palmerston and
his colleagues had endeavoured to conduct the go-
vernment of this country had met with the approval
of those he was addressing and the country at large
—if they were satisfied that in foreign affairs while
they had preserved peace they had upheld the honour
of the country—that in financial affairs, while they
had reduced taxation and taken off burdens, they
had not diminished, but, he thought he might justly
take credit to the Government for having increased,
the efficiency of various branches of the public ser-
vice, no doubt greatly—that they had developed the
patriotism of the country in a manner which had
effectually increased the defences of the country and
placed her in a better position than she was a few
years ago to meet any possible contingencies of the
future ; if such had been the case, and if they had
therefore received substantial and unequivocal proof
of the approval of the country, he thought he could
assure them that during the course of the present
parliament it would be their constant endeavour to
advance in that course and to maintain the same
principles, and he believed if they readily adhered to
those objects which they had set before them from
the commencement of the present government, and
to the same course of conduct steadily and faith-
fully, they would find in future no diminution of
that approval which the gentlemen present had
been pleased on this occasion to accord to them.
(Cheers.)

Sir C. WOOD acknowledged the toast of " The
Borough Members," and in alluding to his recent
election there, he thanked the whole of the consti-
tuency from the bottom of his heart for the kindness
with which they had received him, and as to general
topics he really scarcely knew what there was left
for him to say. Upon political matters his noble
friend had entirely anticipated all he could possibly
say. Upon local matters he did not feel himself so
competent to speak as his colleague (Mr. Kearsley)
would have done had he been present. He could
only say that he entirely concurred in what his noble
friend had said. He believed upon the whole the
course the Government had pursued for the last five
or six years had met with the general approbation of
the country, and that the result of the last election
had proved that the course which the Government
had pursued had generally met with the approbation
of the country. (Hear.) With regard to foreign
affairs, everything had passed off so peaceably that
there was hardly a topic for a speech or for even an
article in a newspaper. He did not know that either
Fenianism in Ireland or the cattle disease in England
afforded any cause for great anxiety. He hoped by
the blessing of Providence that the last might be
mitigated so as not to press severely upon us ; and
as to the former he thought it ought rather to be a
cause for laughter than for fear. He might congra-
tulate the country on the general state of its pro-