The Sun.
London, England, 1865-11-02 00:00:00

Mr. Gladstone in Scotland.

GLASGOW, Wednesday.
The proceedings in connection with the visit of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer to this city com-
menced this morning with the presentation of an
address from the Parliamentary Reform Union, in
the Trades'-hall. Mr. Graham, M.P., occupied
the chair, supported by Mr. Dalglish, Mr. Lamont,
the Lord Provost, Admiral Erskine, Mr.
Moir, and Mr. Crum-Ewing, M.P.
The CHAIRMAN introduced the deputation of the
Reform Union, one of whom, Mr. Moir, read the
address:—
"To THE RIGHT 110 N. WILLIAM EWART • GLADSTONE,
M.P., CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.
" The members of the Glasgow Reform Union desire to
join in the welcome given to you on the occasion of your
visit to this city.. They remember with pride your Scottish
descent, the connection of your ancestry with the shire of
Lanark, and that your high and honourable public career
contributes to the honour of Scotland, whose honour is
identified with that of all her sons. We also profoundly
appreciate the many happy results to the whole Empire
which have followed your financial and other measures,
liberating commerce from many restrictions, and pray that
you may be long spared to confer further benefits on your
fellow-countrymen by the same liberal and enlightened
statesmanship.
" We look forward with much hope to your wise policy
still further lightening the burden of taxation which yet
presses heavily upon the people, whose physical and moral
condition would become proportionally improved, and the
mass of pauperism which yet disgraces our country thus
be largely diminished.
" The members of this Union rejoice in your hearty ex-
pressions of trust in the people ; that your sympathies are
entirely with them ; and that your desire is to see a great
number who are at present debarred from citizenship ad-
mitted within the pale of the Constitution.!

" We rejoice that you have declared that' If forty-nine
fiftieths of the working-classes are to be excluded from the
franchise it is upon those who maintain that exclusion that
it rests to show its necessity.' Holding the maxim of Sid-
ney, ' That the liberties of nations are from God and nature,
not from kings,' we regard the exclusion of the working
classes from political liberty to be a national injustice, and
its continuance therefore unsafe for the nation; that this
disfranchisement by those who are in power is in violation
of the law of Christ, who said, ' Whatsoever ye would that
men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.
"We deeply regret that it should be necessary for Bri-
tish workmen to emigrate before they can obtain the status
of citizens,

" We believe that not until the interests of the working
classes are directly attended to by representatives in whose
election they share, will your noble effort for financial re-
form be duly supported to a legitimate extent, their ideas
of economy, acquired in the school of necessity, being very
different from the ideas of those who at present control the
public expenditure.

" We therefore hope that in the approaching session of
Parliament a comprehensive measure of reform, extending
the franchise both in counties and borough; and providing
for a redistribution of seats, may be introduced and success-
fully carried through by the Government of which you are
so influential a member. We believe that no other legisla-
tive measure will tend so much to the general elevation of
our fellow-countrymen ; that no other measure will so effec-
tually promote a truly national system of education for the
entire people: that no other measure will tend so much to
sweeten the breath of society, and beget contentment, peace,
and the mutual reconciliation of all classes of the community.
"We pray, honoured sir, that your life's work may be
crowned by seeing the great mass of your fellow-country-
men enjoying the dignified and ennobling position of citi-
zenship, their children having free access to all the means
of the highest Christian civilisation, and Britain maintain-
ing her precedence of teaching nations how to live."
MR. GLADSTONE, who was received with enthu-
siastic cheers, said—Although the straits of restricted
time are hard upon me, although I feel it my duty
chiefly to endeavour to pay honour to the commu-
nity of Glasgow in that place where I am after a
few minutes to meet that community as a whole,
and as it is represented by those whom it has chosen
to high office, yet I could not reconcile it to my
feelings to quit this room without begging you to
accept my very cordial acknowledgments for the
address which you have been so good as to present
to me in a manner so gratifying to my feelings—
(cheers)—and while I feel myself bound to eschew
detail—even to request indulgence on account of
the necessity of the occasion—l must thank you,
and thank you very particularly, for reminding me
upon such an opportunity of my connection, not
only with Scotland at large, but I must even pre-
sume to say with the city of Glasgow, through the
medium of the shire of Lanark. (Cheers.) I think,
gentlemen, there are
.very few of those who can
claim a connection with Scotland who are indis-
posed to make that claim wherever they may find
themselves. If Scotland is not ashamed of her
sons, her sons are not ashamed of Scotland, and the
memory of the parents to whom I owe my being
combines with various other considerations to make
me glad and thankful to remember that the blood
which runs in my veins is exclusively Scottish.
(Cheers.) Gentlemen, you have touched in this
address on questions of the greatest importance
which I must not here endeavour to open, but, again
appealing to your indulgence, I will simply my one
word upon them taken in the mass. In the first
place, I am glad that you have expressed with
manly, outspoken plainness and distinctness the
sentiments which you entertain upon subjects of
great public interest and importance. It is by this
plain outspeaking of sentiments, by reserving no-
thing, by keeping in your breasts no silent grudges,
by bringing out into the light alike our subjects of
satisfaction, our wishes for improvement, and, if
there be such, our causes for complaint, that we in
this happy country make common stock, as it were,
of the whole of our public ideas and feelings, and
lay a foundation upon which those who represent
you and those who advise the Crown may pro-
coed with some confidence in their endeavours to I
suggest measures for the benefit of the country.
(Loud cheers.) And, gentlemen, you are well aware
that as the proposition which I have just ventured
to state applies to every question, so it applies with
even still greater force to those that are of the most
difficult character in themselves, and to those upon
which, although not very difficult in themselves, an
extensive variation may prevail, although it may be
foreign to the merits of the question itself. With
regard to the great subject which gives its title to
your association, I simply beg you to put faith not
so much in a man, not so much in a set of men, not
so much in the chosen representatives of the people
at any given moment, as in the institutions and
habits of the country-. (Cheers.) Whatever wants
are deeply felt, whatever convictions are widely and
profoundly entertained, we may be assured, for we
know it from a long and extensive experience, these
wants and these conditions will mike their way to
the surface, they will do themselves justice, and the
results of that free bearing and free discussion which
every opinion from every quarter maintains among
us is sure to be, not perhaps as quickly as the more
eager among us could desire, but yet, if slowly, on
that account all the more securely, a settlement
conformable upon the whole to public justice.
Without in the slightest degree attempting at the
present moment to foreshadow or to forecast any
method of proceedings—nay, even admitting the
discouragement that may have arisen from former
events with regard to the particular subject of the
franchise, with unbounded confidence I am per-
suaded that whenever Parliament shall find the
opportunity of addressing itself to the consideration
of that question, and will approach it in a spirit on
the one hand of prudence, and on the other hand of
manliness and courage, the end which they will pro-
pose to themselves will be public justice, and they
will seek, by any provisions they may incorporate in
the law, neither to continue, nor to set up, nor in
any manner to favour dominion, or the undue in-
fiuence of one class as compared with another, but
in a fair adjustment of common rights and common
interests to make Provision for the happiness and
for the strength
and prosperity of the country.
(Loud cheers.)
The proceedings terminated in cheers for Mr.
Gladstone, the chairman, and Mr. Dalglish.
Leaving the Trades-hall at half - ast one 'cloc
Mr. Gladstone drove to the CentralPCookin og
Dep kot
in Irongate, having inspected which he proceeded
to the City-hall, where the ceremony of presenting
him with the freedom of the city was to take place,
and every part of the hall was crowded. Mrs and
the Misses Gladstone, Ladyßlantyre, and the Mar-
quis of Lorn occupied seats in the front gallery.
On the platform were the magistrates and members

of the Council, Mr. Dalglish, M.P., Mr. Graham,
M.e., Sir E. Colebrooke, Mr. Crum-Ewing, M.P.,
Mr. Merry, M.P., Capt. Spiers, M.P., the Dean of
Faculty, &C. At two o'clock, Mr. Gladstone, ac-