The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-24 00:00:00

Mr, Dunlop, M,P., at Greenock,

-On Friday, Mr. 1311111°p, M.P. for Greenock,
addressed his constituents in the Town-hall. There
was a large attendance both of electors and non-
electors. On the motion of Bailie Lyle, Provost
Grieve was called to the chair, and briefly introduced
Air. Dunlop to the meeting.
Mr. DUNLOP, who was received with applause,
said,—l have to apologise for holding my annual
meeting at a period so much later than usual, but I
was unwilling to appear before you without being
able to say something definite on a subject personal
to myself, to which I shall advert before I sit down,
and the great difficulty I have had in coming to a
final decision on that subject has been the sole
cause of the delay which has taken place. Since,
however, I do present myself to you only on the eve
of a new session, I shall not trouble you with going
over, as is my ordinary custom, all the proceedings
of the past session, the interest of which is now lost
in the prospect of that about to commence. On one
point, however, connected with last session, I must
say a few words, as a vote which I gave on a very
important question might, without some explana-
tion, appear to you to have been inconsistent
with the views I have repeatedly, on former oc-
casions, stated to you here. On the Slesvig-Holstein
debate I voted, and very cordially, against the
resolution of censure on the Government policy,
proposed by the Opposition. Now, you will pro-
bably remember that, for several years past, I
have, year after year, at my annual meetings,
been condemning the policy which the Government
persevered in pursuing up to very near the close of
the important struggle between Denmark on the one
hand, and Austria and Prussia on the other. Four
years ago at least, while Frederick VII. of Denmark
was still alive, I brought under your notice the dan-
gers likely to arise, in the event of his death, out of
the provisions of the unhappy treaty of 1852, by
which the Sovereigns of Europe, in conjunction
with Bing Frederick, took upon them to regulate
the succession to Denmark and the Duchies united
to it, in violation of the then existing law of succes-
sion, alike in Denmark and in the Duchies, and
without any reference to the wishes of the people
over whom the proposed monarch, selected by the
parties to the treaty, was to reign ; and I expressed
my condemnation of that treaty, especially if it
should be held to imply that the parties to it had
thereby come under an engagement to secure, by
force of arms, the succession therein provided. In
the course of the immediately following session of
Parliament, I took occasion to ask a question of
Earl Russell, then in the House of Commons, as to
the construction, in this respect, put on the treaty
of her Majesty's Government, inquiring, with a
view to the probability of King Frederick's death
without issue, whether the Government held them-
selves bound by the treaty merely to recognise
Prince Christian of Glucksburg, now King of Den-
mark, in the event of the law of succession
in the several portions of the Danish monarchy
being constitutionally altered so as to admit
of his succeeding lawfully ; or whether they consi-
dered the treaty as a combination in order to force
on the people the new Sovereign on the death of
Frederick, under all circumstances, even contrary to
their law and irrespective of their wishes. After
the struggle was over, and Denmark had been de-
feated by its ambitious and selfish assailants, Lord
Russell, in a despatch to Prussia, laid down the
sound principle that it is essential that when new
bonds of allegiance are required nations should be
satisfied, and expressed the desire of our Government
to see the wishes of the people of these Duchies con-
sulted on the choice of their future Sovereign. If
his lordship had availed himself of the opportunity
afforded him by my question in 1861, to give utter-
ance, at that state of the question, to such views, as
being those by which the conduct of our Govern-
ment would be regulated, he would, I believe, have
prevented the calamities which ensued, as he would
likewise have been spared the retort with which
Bismark so fairly rebuked him, of pressing on Prus-
sia, after the war was over, principles to which,
during the whole course of it, the policy of this
country had been opposed. His lordship was not,
however, prepared to take such ground, and he
declined to give any answer, on the plea that till
King Frederick's death the question was merely
hypothetical. This refusal necessarily led to the
conclusion which the subsequent conduct of the
Government proved to have been well-founded,
that they contemplated the aiding, by force of arms,
the imposition of Christian as their Sovereign, on
the people of the Duchies, the States of which, act-
ing differently from those of Denmark proper, had
refused to alter the order and law of succession so
as to admit of his succeeding. Accordingly, at my
meeting with you in 1861, I again adverted to the
subject, and denounced the treaty of 1852, and still
more strongly the inferred intention of putting on
it the construction of an obligation, on our part, to
force a new Sovereign on a people, in violation of
their law, and regardless of their wishes. I thought
the treaty really bore no such construction, and
that the course of policy apparently contemplated by
the Government was iniquitous in itself, and utterly
at variance with the constitutional principles on
which our own monarchy is founded, and any in-
terference with which we should have been pre-
pared to resist, in the face of the whole world
in arms against us. In the following year I rei-
terated the same opinions, and uniformly con-
demned the policy pursued by our Foreign Office,
which all tended to encourage a war for the purpose
of forcing a new dynasty on a free people, in viola-
tion of their law of succession, and contrary to, or,
at all events, regardless of their will. You might
therefore possibly have expected that when a motion
was made condemnatory of the policy of the
Government as to this question, I, who so strongly
condemned a large portion of that policy, might
have concurred in supporting such a motion ; and I
feel bound to explain and justify my conduct in
supporting the amendment moved by my hon.
friend, Mr. Kinglake. Now, in the first
place, although the motion of censure did not specify
what part of the policy of the Government was con-
demned, and so left it open for any one who con-
demned any part of that policy to vote for it, yet,
looking to the parties from whom it proceeded, and
their views on the Danish question, the necessary
interpretation of a vote carrying the motion must
have been that the House of Commons condemned
the Government for not going on to declare war, in
• accordance with the tendency of the earlier policy,
of which I disapproved ; so that in supporting it I
should have been condemning them for abandoning
a policy I had denounced, and for at last adopting
the policy I had ever advocated. In the second
place, the amendment for which I voted contained
no approval of the Government policy universally
as to this question, but only of theirhaving kept out
of war, in which approval I, of course, cordially
concurred. And in the last place, the real meaning
and object of the motion was to turn the Govern-
ment out, and put the Opposition in their place.
Now, it certainly would have been a strange pro-
ceeding on my part if I had seized, as the occasion
for turning
having out the Ministry, the very fact of their
up the abandoned the policy I condemned, and taken
policy I had always contended for ; and thus
in order to
put in statesmen who, I knew, if they
had been in power,
would have carried oat, to the
loss and damage of the
which Iso "stronglycountry, that policy of
disapproved, and which I was
thankful that the
Ministry i had at last, though
so tardily, given up. I
to us now to find, after hfla vi anig great satisfaction
been in a small
minority so long, in advocating that
Policy as to this
that
itshouldwith
at last
question which alone seemed to me consistent
justice and sound principle,
have been adopted by the Government,
and almost
almost
universally approved of by the country. It has been
said that the result of this question is to settle a
policy of absolute non-intervention on the part of
this country with reference European politics.
should be very sorry if this could be truly stated so
broadly and unqualifiedly as I have seen it repeated
on various occasions of late. No one can be more
thoroughly opposed than I am to intervention with
reference to the internal affairs of another State, or

to involving this country in war in order to main-
tain or change any dynasty, or to resist or promote
some new territorial distribution of province. Nor
would I hold it enough of itself to sanction a war on

our part, that its object was to check or punish in-
justice on the part of the strong against the weak,
unless the interest of this country was involved in
the dispute. But, in my view, the interest sufficient
to justify a war on our part need not be exclusively
a material interest. I hold, on the contrary, that the
interest most vital to us for the permanent security,
prosperity, and welfare of the country is the mainte-
nance of constitutional liberty in Europe ; and if
the cause of war be just in itself, I should, so far as
the mere matter of interest is concerned, deem it
more important for this country to maintain consti-
tutional liberty in Europe against external aggres-
sion, than such objects as forcing the opium trade
in China, battering down the Tartar dynasty as we
did there for a while, or bolstering up again as we
have been doing lately, making dear friends of the
Japanese at the cannon's mouth, or securing to the
colonists of New Zealand the privilege of lawfully
depriving the Maori tribes of their land. In this
view; if we had intervened by joining the German
Diet in seeking to secure to the people of the
Duchies the right of maintaining their own law of
decision, and deciding who should be their Sove-
reign, we might have had some justification for our
intervention, as we should then have been promot-
ing the cause of constitutional liberty against a law-
less and ambitious aggression, by setting up an
equally lawless plan of forcing a new dynasty on a
free people, the cause of liberty would have been
injured rather than promoted by the support of this
country being given to such an attempt. I should,
however, be very sorry to think our hands were so
absolutely tied up that they never could be em-
ployed, under however favourable circumstances,
and however just in cause, for maintaining and pro-
moting that constitutional freedom in Europe, on
which, to so large an extent, our own commerce,
security, and welfare depend. If this supposed prin-
ciple of absolute and unqualified non-intervention
had been the rule of conduct in former days on the
part of free States, Scotland would have become a
province of France, and in all probability Eng-
land too, and the Reformation and civil liberty
would have been crushed in both countries. Holland
would not have become a free Republic, to lead the
way in the modern race of commercial enterprise
and industry, and now, in our own days, Italy would
still be languishing in degradation and disunion
under the deadening influence of Austria and the
Pope. lam contented to take the decision of the
country in regard to the Danish question, as it is,
and to take it thoughtfully, without passing it be-
yond its true import, which seems to me simply to
be to lay down for us, as our policy for the future,
that we shall not interfere to force a new Sovereign
on an unwilling people, nor even to resist or punish
an act of unjust aggression by one European Power
against another, unless our own interests are
involved, and above all, that we shall never take
part again in such an unwarrantable proceeding
as joining in any treaty like that mischievous
treaty of 1852, by which the Sovereigns of Europe
took upon themselves to settle prospectively for
the future who should rule over certain peoples,
without consulting them, and in defiance of
the laws which regulated the succession to their
their throne. This treaty, indeed, presents the most
melancholy exhibition conceivable of the results of
our modern secret diplomacy. Originated by Russia
for the professed purpose of securing the integrity
of the Danish dominions, it not only failed to effect
that object, but was the main cause of the disinte-
-1 gration which has recently taken place, and the
only object which has been attained by it is the un-
avowed object for the sake of which Russia got the

treaty entered into, but which the utmost efforts of
our own diplomatists should have been exerted to
prevent—namely, the getting rid of the large num-
ber of intermediate heirs to the Crown of Denmark
who stood between the late and the present King,
and establishing the limitation of the succession
thenceforward to the heirs male of his body, so as to
accelerate the period when Denmark, which holds
the keys of the Baltic, may become a Kingdom
without a lawful heir to succeed, and to be con-
tended for in a struggle in which Russia will not
have the worst chance of success. Relying on that
treaty, the late King made no attempt to fix on a
successor, who might have satisfied all the portions
of his monarchy. Emboldened by it, instead of
attempting to conciliate his subjects in Slesvig and
Holstein, he persevered in irritating them by petty
tyrannies, so as to reader them anxious to avail
'themselves of his death, and consequent divergence

in the order of succession, to escape from the dOmi- '
nation of Denmark, by refusing to submit to the
new sovereign, whom, though the Danes had
..._
accepted him for Denmark Proper, they were en-
titled to regard as a lawless usurper over them ;
while the present King, relying on the support which
the treaty held out to him, hesitated not, at his ac-
cession, to give to Prussia and Austria the pretext
for war which they immediately took advantage of,
and afterwards to throw away every opportunity of
an amicable arrangement, trusting to aid from the
several parties to the treaty who, one and all, ex-
cept ourselves, either directly violated it or stood
aloof from all assistance ; so that the ostensible
author of the treaty of London has not only had to
witness the utter failure of his supposed grand
achievement for maintaining the integrity of Den-
mark, but to feel the mortifying consciousness that
he had been used in reference to it, as the mere
tool of Russia, whose ulterior objects, at variance
with the interests of his own country, he has so
effectively helped to advance, while failing in any-
thing else. (Applause.) Leaving, however, this
subject, of which, interesting though it was at the
time, you are probably now heartily tired, and not
troubling you with any of the other matters which
engaged the attention of Parliament during the last
session, I would ask you to look forward with me
for a little to that which is about to open. The sub-
ject which most impresses men at present, with re-
ference to the future, is the old, but now interesting
ing question of Parliamentary Reform. It is not, in-
deed, to be expected that this Parliament should, in
its closing session, settle this question, nor have I
any confidence in the present House of Commons,
if they did take it up, dealing with it as it ought to
be dealt with. They were originally elected for the
purpose of carrying an extension of the franchise,
which would have been, I believe, on the whole,
satisfactory to the country, but they very soon be-
trayed the cause that had been intrusted to them.
The question of reform was only used to accomplish
such a union in the Liberal ranks as should enable
the Whigs to turn out the Tories, and settle them-
selves in their place ; and having accomplished that
object, the cold shoulder was immediately turned on
Reform by that section of the Liberal party which
chiefly shared the benefits purchased by the use that
had been made of the question, and the Reform
Bill, brought in by the Government in fulfilment of
their pledge, was allowed to fall through, mainly
through the lukewarmness, if mot hostility, of the
section of the Government supporters to which I
have referred ; who, I believe, are, at heart, as averse
to any real and effective Reform as the Conserva-
tives themselves. They had, it is true, the excuse,
which to a certain extent was fell founded, that the
people generally had beeome apathetic on the sub-
ject of Reform; and assuredly, if the =same apathy
is shown at the election for the next Parliament, the
same result will fellow as took place in this, and we
shall have no Rriorm till the repressed demands of
the unenfranchised classes create an excitement akin
to that which carried the last Reform Bill, but pro-
bably much more dangerous. I:earnestly trust this
hazardous; experiment of waiting till the people get
excited xnay not be tried a second time ; and, to
assist in averting it, there would be great advantage
in having a discussion in Parliament next session,
even though there might be little hope of actually
carrying in it the extension of the suffrage desired.
(Cheers) Some new interest hasbeen introduced into
this old question by the recent reviving of schemes for
guarding against an overwhelming preponderance of
the most numerous class of society, by means of the
interposition of electoral colleges, or by
giving votes
corresponding to the extent of the voter's property,
as is done in reference to some matters involving the
imposition of local rates. Now, if it were proposed
at once
scheme ot°f
but no one at
and so long establish .
restricti
extending the franrre
society, as each suffrage, some such
might deserve. .
proposes anyf
2un of the kind,
consideration ;
d on the principle of only
asPrwesee:unlversal .
arate to stratum after stratum of
um 8110eaglivey, by the ad-