The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-07 00:00:00

CHESTER.

A crowded meeting of the supporters of Mr. Raikes, the
Conservative candidate, was held at the Albion Ass3mbly-
rooms on Monday night. After some introductory speeches
Mr. Raikes addressed the electors. He said he had carefully
perused the speech delivered by his opponent, Mr. W. H,
Gladstone. He found it to be in imitation of the paternal
style, and characterised by tho same indistinctness of
outline. They were treated to a little of the usual decla-
mation upon the benefits of free trade. Free trade was car-
ried by the Irish famine, and by the unadorned eloquence
of the late Richard Cobden. Those gentlemen who are al-
ways pluming theemselves upon it were but the subordi-
nate agents in carrying out that policy, and he thought it
was scarcely fair to evoke from its grave the spectre of
Protection in order to deter supporters from coming round
one whose earliest instructor in politics, as the Chancellor
of the Exchequer knew, was a Freetrader before the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer ever was. Then they had some re-
marks instituted in regard to the French Treaty, which
amounted to a comparison between Providence and the
Chancellor of the -Exchequer very much in favour of the
latter, and he thought those remarks reflected more credit
upon the filial piety of Mr. Gladstone than upon his good
sense. There followed one or two words about reform, and
he confessed for his own part he could not altogether fol-
low the speaker through them. It appeared to amount pretty I
much to this—that Mr. Gladstone will vote and will not
vote for a very wide extension of the suffrage. He came to
another subject.whichhe approached with great reluctance,
and with which he should wish to deal with the greatest
moderation. He referred to the appearance among them
in the capacity of electioneering speaker of her Majesty's
Chancellor of the Exchequer. He respected the Chancellor
of the Exchequer in that position. He admired his splendid
abilities. Ile believed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
had always believed himself to bo actuated by public spirit,
and he was further deterred from expressing his full feel-
ings on this subject by the memory of his father, whose
friend Mr. Gladstone had been. But he wouldnot be driven
from his post or deterred from his duty by the openly ex-
pressed displeasure of ever so great a Minister. As to the
political propriety of a Cabinet Minister interfering in such
a matter, he was able to quote, not his own words, but
those of a member of her Majesty's present Government.
They were aware that an election is now proceeding in
Westminster. The friends of one candidate had the folly and
absurdity—the committee of one of the candidates for West-
minster had the rashness—to invite the co-operation of a
Cabinet Minister, and from that Cabinet Minister, through
his secretary, they received a fitting and dignified rebuke.
He informed them that though he sympathised with the poli-
tical opinions of their candidate, he felt that as a member of
her Majesty's Government ho was unfitted to interfere by
giving his vote in any election. The letter was written un-
der the instructions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and, furthermore, it bore on its face the signature of Wil-
liam Ewart Gladstone. (Cheers, and a voice, " Don't hurt
him.") The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them
what the present Government had done, and replied to the
assertion he had made touching the non-existence of a Go-
vernment in England. But they all knew it was not the
mere existence of the Government ho called in question,
and it would require more than the eloquence of the whole
official pack, from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the
Inspector of Schools, to satisfy them that the function of a
Government is to sit with folded hands, and intrust the
duty of directing public opinion and the task of initiating
national legislation to a little knot of parliamentary irregu-
lars, who might be called the Bashi-bazouks of Liberalism.
However, he told them there was a Government, and that
that Government consisted of Lords Palmerston and Rus-
sell. He would do the Chancellor of the Exchequer the
credit of saying that the statement was modest as regarded
his own claims. They might admit that her Majesty had
three Ministers. Many here and everywhere had a great
respect for Lord Palmerston, and his long devotion to his
official duties. He had great respect, but certainly not the
greatest admiration for him, and would tell them why.
Eight years ago there was a general election, and Lord Pal-
merston was Prime Minister. In an adjoining county there
was an exciting contest, and a very great orator came down
from London to expose Lord Palmerston and his policy.
His fierce denunciations, his indignant scorn, produced a
groat effect upon his youthful mind—an effect which ho
had ever since retained. Who was that fierce exponent of
Lord Palmerston's policy ? The Chancellor of the Exche-
quer. (Cheers.) He had to thank him for that lesson, and
he did so heartily. Then they had Lord Russell. He
was not going for a moment to deny the great achieve-
ments of Lord Russell in past days. He had not denied
them, and ho was not going to do so ; but he would re-
mind them that those achievements were carried out in the
teeth of the party to which Mr. Gladstone then belonged;
and he thought there.could be no more melancholy instance
of the decline of years than that the great Reform Minister
should become the subordinate of a subordinate, and that
the man who stood up to Peel should live to be patronised
by Gladstone. (Long-continued cheers.) He had not at-
tacked the French Treaty. He intended to bestow upon it
modified praise ; but they knew what the papermakers
thought of it. They knew the effect it had on the weavers
of Coventry and Spitalfields, and in the neighbouring towns
of Macclesfield and Congleton. A general boon should be
a great one which had to compensate for BO mnoh misery.
Great men are always fondest of their most unpopular pro-
ductions. Milton preferred Paradise Regained to Paradise
Lost, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer probably prefers
his French Treaty, because it was the first thing he did
after he had regained the paradise of Downing-street.
(Loud laughter.) After expressing a resolution to avoid
all personalities, Mr. Raikes resumed his seat amid enthu-
siastic cheering.

Resolutions pledging the meeting to support Mr. Raikes
were then passed by acclamation.

DUDLEY.
The representation of this borough is to be contested.
On Monday an address was issued to the electors by Mr.
F. Wyatt Truscott, dated from the Dudley Arms Hotel,
soliciting their suffrages in the Liberal Conservative interest.
As to representation Mr. Truscott is opposed to "giving
an undue preponderance to any class," but is at the same
time "desirous of widening the limits of the electoral area,"
and is prepared to support "a judicious and temperate
measure of reform." He considers the ballot "would tend
to lower the independent responsibility of the elector." As
to church rates, he says---
" The question is one which should be definitely settled.
The heartburning and discontent engendered by their con-
tinuance are in direct antagonism to that spirit of true
Christianity of which the Church universal is at once the
authority and the teacher. If no satisfactory adjustment
be possib!e, it were better that the maintenance of the
Church should depend on the voluntary support of Church-
men rather than an impost should be perpetuated ob-
noxious to the conscientious scruples of our Dissenting
brethren."
Mr. Sheridan, the sitting member, it is understood,
offers himself for re-election,

EDINBURGH.
4, meeting of the electors was hold in Queen-street Hall
on Monday evening to hear Mr. Duncan 3/Urea and Mr.
John Miller as candidates for the representation of the
city. The hall was crowded to excess. Mr. Hugh Rose
presided.

The CHAIRMAN said Edinburgh had too long been a
nomination burgh of the Whig Government, and that the
time had now arrived when they must return members who
were sufficiently free from the ties of office to look after the
public accounts, who would support a fair and even liberal
extension of the franchise, and who would oppose public
grants to religious sects, and all vexatious ecclesiastical
imposts, whether they might go under the name of church-
rates in ono part of the kingdom or police-rates in another.
Mr. MILLER complaingil of an article in the Scotsman,
which represented him as having in the election of 1852
stood for the Stirling burghs as a Tory. Ile stated that on
that occasion he stood as a supporter of Lord John Russell's
Reform Bill, that he did not then receive Tory support, and
eat on that occasion he received the support of all the
Whig newspapers of the district. His opinions had, how-
ever, advanced with the times, which he thought was better
than going backward, like his hostile critics. He was in
favour of a lowering of the suffrage so as to take possession
of a large body of the working classes, of a liberal measure
for national education, and a strict looking into the public
accounts.

Mr. M`LAREN said he came forward on a requisition ten
times more numerous than the attendance at the meeting
which had called for the sitting members again to present
themselves, and larger than the number that had ever voted
for any candidate at a city election. He did not oppose the
Lord .Advocate or Mr. Black, but the electors opposed them.
Mr. Black had been brought forward nine years ago to re-
ceive the crowning reward of his labours for the city of
Edinburgh in being returned for a time to Parliamen'..
Was no one else to receive the same reward, or had no one
else done service to the city? There was a strong feeling
against both members on account of their conduct regard-
ing the annuity tax, and not so much for the quality of the
measure as for the arbitrary and despotic manner in which
it had been thrust down the throats of the citizens, not-
withstanding the opposition and protests of almost every
the suffrages
public body in the city ? Mr. Black was specially objected
to onaccount
the question of
reform. Mr.
Black of his
dconductasked respecting
and obtained
of the city as an " old Reformer," and he was well entitled
ba
to the name, for he was a true Reformer in days when
everybody was either a Reformer or was opposed to reform,
and when there were no sham Reformers such as they had
many of nowadays. When Lord Derby's Reform Bill was
thrown out, and when he (Mr. M'Laren) would have been
strongly disposed to share the obloquy Mr. Lindsay in-
curred by refusing to vote against that bill, which might
possibly have been made a good bill, Mr. Black opposed
that measure, and shortly after became a party to the
Willis's-rooms compact, and at last general election he