The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-13 00:00:00

MR. GLADS 7 ONE IN YORK.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mrs. Glad-
stone arrived in York by the 11.25 train from the
North on Saturday morning. They were accom-
panied by Mark Millbank, Esq., of Thorpe Per-
row, and were met at the station by the Lord
Mayor and the Deputy-Chairman of the North-
Eastern Railway Company (G. Leeman, Esq.). The
party, with the exception of Mr, Leeman, at once
entered a carriage which was in waiting, and drove
to the Mansion House. Subsequently, accompanied
by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, Mr. and
Mrs. Gladstone visited the Minster, and spent
some time in the inspection of the sacred edifi2e.
They then returned to the Mansion House, where,
at two o'clock, a large party of guests sat down to
lunch.

The LORD MAYOR having proposed " The Health
of Mr. Gladstone," and referred to his public ser-
vices,

Mr. GLADSTONE rose, and, after some few prefa-
tory remarks, said—My Lord Mayor, you have been
pleased to refer, in the most complimentary and in
the most friendly terms, to my own appearance in
this city. I really feel it is not on any personal
ground I can claim your notice, but I believe that
the characters of public servants and public men
are warmly and generously appreciated and libe-
rally estimated by the people of England, and that
every member of that body, however little he may
be distinguished, yet when he moves about among
his fellow-countrymen, he receives in his own per-
son a large share of reward which is due, not to his
individual exertions, but rather to the general
fidelity and general efficiency with which the great
works of Government and of legislation have been
carried forward during his lifetime in the country.
(Cheers.) It is, my Lord Mayor, a happy reflec-
tion for those who are beginning to see the shadows
of their life lengthened around them to compare the
condition of the country at the present moment
with what it was when their public career began.
I do not refer now merely to those patent facts
which are established in the intelligible, but in
the comparatively vulgar force of vigour—l do not
mean to compare population with manufactures
and trade, and yet I do not exclude them from the
reference, because I contend that the increase which
has taken place in this is not a mere signi-
fication of the accumulation of wealth in the hands
of the wealthy ; but it is likewise a happy and a
blessed testimony to the fact that the privations of
human life have been diminished, the comforts of
human life have been increased, the sense of self-
respect has been strengthened in all classes of the
community, in consequence, in no small degree, of
the great fidelity with which the duties of Govern-
ment and legislation have been performed. (Cheers.)
My Lord Mayor, we have also hoped that some-
thing has been done towards redeeming the reproach
in former times, not unjustly addresed to us, that
in the rapid and eager pursuit of wealth we had for-
gotten that it is not wealth alone which humanises
and elevates mankind; and although England in
these later years has abated nothing of her commer-
cial and manuft.:cturing energy, but, on the contrary,
has seemed to augment that energy from year to
year, yet happily there has spread, along with that
increase of activity, a deeper moral sense, a stronger
consciousness of the obligations that capital owes to
labour, a constant development of every benevolent
design for the benefit of the masses of the commu-
nity ; and it is here we see the crowning blessing
of our lives in the increased and yet increasing, the
closer and still continuing closer growing union of
all classes of the community. My Lord Mayor, you
have referred to the case of other countries, and it
must be our fervent prayer, not that our weaknesses
not that our infirmities (and we have them in abun-
dance), but that the blessings we enjoy may be im-
parted to other nations of the earth. You have re-
ferred, my Lord Mayor, to the case of our brethren
in America, and for one I confess 1 can hardly ex-
press the disappointment and pain with which I
witness what is now proceeding on that great con-
tinent. I have never been one of those who have be-
lieved that the new world was to be an improvement
upon the old. (Applause.) It may be because our
local and municipal and insular ideas in England
to a certain extent bind us down to what is English,
and tend to make us not only impartial judges of
the institutions and manners of other people, but I
must confess on all hands, while rejoicing that
America was a free country, I have felt that there
was something in the freedom of Americat that
was not quite of the genuine ancestral staple of the
freedom of England. (Applause.) We have now
lived to a period when that freedom itself seems to
be in danger. Every packet almost brings us ac-
counts of measures which show that in the despe-
rate agonies of the conflict that rages civil and poli-
tical rights are necessarily offered up a sacrifice to
the necessities of the time, and there rises in the
mind, along with the regret for the unlimited
effusion of human blood, and for the continualnlmited
exas-
peration of human passions—there rises in the
mind a question if possible yet more painful, because
it reaches further into the future, bow, after this
tremendous conflict—how, after the enthroning of
force and military power above the ruin of laws and
order—how is America hereafter to return to a state
of things in which, at any rate, whether we prefer
English views of freedom to
personal
or not, she did
and individual
afford perfect guarantees to
i,fe
? I earnestly
liberty both as to property and "
be answered, and
hope that this question may
spirit ; but I think that
answered in a favourable
e longer this terrific struggle
we must feel that th
goes on, the more
doubtful the future of America—
ifficult will it be for her to establish that
the more d
orderly and legal state of things now for the moment
d and which we saw,
at least superseae
witness with delight, and Were
bemstaterial pros-
accustomed to
for the extension of her
best security
r, and likewise the
pros-
perity and powe • hope of her
• to retain that
continuingresemblance to
England,
and that deep attachment to England, which I for
one believe that she never yet has lost, (Applause.)
My Lord Mayor, there is no doubt, I am afraid, if we
witch what has taken place in this country and
Europe, there is no doubt, as far as experience throws
light on the subject—and, indeed, on the grounds
of reasoning and ant*
nepa.tion—there is no doubt
that what has taken place in America has operated
as a serious blow, and a serious and grave disadvan-
tage in Europe
to the progress of principles, I will
not say merely of liberal principles in the sense of
Party, but even of those Constitutional principles in
firmly embracing which all parties in this country
are happily agreed. Ido not think it possible to
watch the course and current of opinion, and the
tone of public declaration as to the action of our in-
stitutions, without seeing that a very unfavourable
influence—an influence unfavourable to freedom—
has been strengthened by the unhappy experience
of what we may call American democracy. I ear-
nestly trust that Englishmen will be upon their
guard against that reaction. (Hear, hear.) If it be
k true that the institutions of America have not pro-