The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-14 00:00:00

2,000,000 souls, and is most remarkable for its industry.
The whole rateable property of Lancashire is about
7,000,0001. a-year. If you take that at twenty years'
purchase, it will make a sum of 140,000,000/. sterling. By
rateable property we mean all the land and all the build-
jugs upon the land. The value, then, at twenty years'
purchase of the county of Lancaster is 140,000,000/.
But take our 17,000,0001. a year that we are now spend-
ing, and throw it into a principal sum at the rate of 3 per
cent., and it involves or represents a principal sum of
not less than 560,000,0001. That is the investment
which we now make, the interest from which sustains
the army and navy of this country ; and you will see
the sum of 560,000,0001. is equal to four times the value
of all the lands and all the buildings in the most popu-
lous and wealthy county in the United Kingdom. Now,
in 1847 the whole ratable property of England was about
64,000,0001. sterling, and if you take 16,000,0001. or
17,000,0001. per annum for your military expenditure
in a time of peace, every four years you will appropriate
the whole income of all the land and all the buildings in
England to support that very military expenditure.
Well, then, why should not we look at this question as
a great practical question ? Our forefathers did many
things in their time, and we have done some. Why
cannot we do this ? The Emperor of the French may
say, " I cannot reduce my army to 200,000 men ; my
position is not very secure ; I have not the prestige of a
venerable and ancient monarchy, like England." The
Emperor of Austria may say, " I have Lombardy on
one side and Hungary on the other ;" but we can say
none of these things. We have a Government which
we respect—(hear, hear) ; we have a monarch who per-
haps—yea, certainly—will bear comparison, and a fa-
vourable comparison—(cheers), with any or with all
of her predecessors upon the English throne ; and
we have a people more united, I undertake to say,
at this moment, in regard to the law as a nation,
than we have had at any former period of our history.
(Cheers.) We have no necessity for an armed force to
keep down the people, or to enforce obedience to the
law ; and yet our Government, by a succession of tricks
—by cajoling the people—by persuading them to be
frightened by one story after another—has induced them
to permit them to raise the military expenditure from
11,000,000/. in 1835 to 17,000,0001. in 1853. We have
got a militia. Well, I was one of those in the House of
Commons who opposed the militia. (Hear, hear.) There
was nobody in favour of the militia. It is certain that
Lord John Russell's Cabinet differed much in opinion
about it. They were to a large extent indifferent ; and
when Lord Derby's Cabinet came in, they brought for-
ward the militia scheme because their predecessors had
brought it in, and because there is a very large class
always existing pleased to have the Government going
on with an increased military expenditure ; and the.
favour of that class would be obtained by the Militia
Bill. The militia cost between 500,0001. and 600,0001.
a-year--about double what we were told it would cost.
The patronage is in the hands of somebody, and is used
for political purposes. (Hear, hear.) Bear in mind that
this great military expenditure is not at all necessary.
They keep up the army and navy that they may raise
the taxes. They do not raise the taxes that they may
keep up the army and navy. It is a great portion of
our system of government. 17,000,000/. of expenditure
creates an enormous interest—that interest goes with the
executive Government—it corrupts men, and blinds
them to the great morality of this question. (Hear,
hear.) Thus you find all over the country, and just as
much in Scotland as any where else—for I believe the
people of the north are never backward in looking after
their own interest—scores and hundreds of families who
somehow or ether have something out of these
17,000,000/. ; and if a man once gets hold of the public
money, it is not to this question alone, but to every
other question that he shuts his eyes. lie does not
care for reform. Oh, no ; he is content with the
Government—he knows on which side his bread is
buttered--and he takes care not to disturb a system
which works exceedingly well for him. Look at your
colonies. You have got no fewer than 46,000 troops
in the colonies. Why do you want several thousand
troops in Canada, a country more liberally governed
than England, with a better representative system,
and where the condition of every man who is decent and
industrious is equal to that of the middle-class people of
this country ? Yet you pay for several thousand men
in Canada and in the West India Islands. Surely it is
necessary to put a stop to this pouring out of the extorted
wealth of this country for purposes in which the people
have no direct or indirect interest whatever. All this
arises from the fact that a great portion of the peoplr4o
not examine into politics, while another large jitittio'
take their opinions at second-hand from somU paper
which they read, and which writes very infldted leading
articles, appealing to the gallantry of the British nation
and speaking about the British lion as a terror to the
world. The British lion is a very old animals-and I wish
in that shape he would die once for all., (A laugh.)
They are the people who are now making,an uproar.
What can be done ? These conferences will do some-
thing. The country has been in danger of running mad
within the last two months. We do not intend that the
country shall run mad. We intend to bring about a
lucid interval. But England is nearly becoming one
vast lunatic asylum every few years. Every now and
again some clap-trap question is being raised, and the
people are expected to run after it. Well, if they do
enter into a war, we shall have no Parliamentary reform
next session—no more reduction of taxes—you will have
your industry very much discouraged, and your people
very much brutalised. In fact, the advantage is all ou
one side and all against us. I cannot conceive of any
result to a war with Russia which can at all compensate
to my mind for the inevitable mischiefs which war, un-
der present circumstances, must bring upon this country.
Just now there is a great talk about draining our towns.
Suppose we brought our military expenditure down from
17,000,000/. to 11,000,000/., that would leave us
6,000,000/. to drain all the to ,vris in the country.
(Cheers.) I perceived this mornine. that Mr. Cobden
did not assume a defensive tone. There is no occasion
for it. 'We will put other people upon their defence.
We are the peace party. Christians called us the peace
party, and thought we ought to he ashamed of the name.
(Hear, hear, and a laugh.) Well, we shall call them
tha war party; and if we must go to war with them upon
this question, as we are ready to do, I think, the argu-
ments are so entirely upon one side, that there cannot
be the least doubt we shall win. lam ashamed to be-
long to a country that conducts itself as if it were a tribe
of Red Indians. We never bury the hatchet. We
never give up war. We have fleets prowling about on
every sea, and bullying somebody on every coast. (A
laugh.) We cannot be as rational as the United States.
The population of the United States is about 24,000,000,
and by the time of the next census it will be as large as
that of this country. Now, it is a fact that, taking into
consideration the expenditure of the Federal Govern-
ment, the expenses of all the states, the cost of education,
the payment of the debts both of the Union and of the
Separate states, and the expenditure for military pur-
poses, the whole income and expenditure of that great
country is not more than 14,000,000/. ; so that we spend
on the army and navy alone, after thirty years of peace,
and apart from our expenditure in India, 3,000,0001.
more than a nation of nearly equal population, of far
greater extent of territory, and of a trade nearly ap-
proaching to ours, expends in every department of Go-
vernment, education included. I would like to ask you
now, if you ever met an American who believed himself
less safe in the world than an Englishman ? Lord Aber-
deen says he is for peace, and I believe him. Lord
Palmerston says he is for peace, and I do not believe he
'wants to go to war. (Hisses and cheers.) These men
• do not want war at this moment, and I believe the Go-
vernment is endeavouring honestly and anxiously to
avert the horrors of war. (Hear. hear.) But although
they do not want war, they allow themselves to be the
dupes of a false opinion and the servants of that great
and powerful interest which we have allowed to grow up
in this country ; and while they tell us in Parliament
and (rut of it that peace is their object, and that almost
at ail hazards they will preserve peace, they still insist
that 16,000,0001. or 17,000,0001. a year is the very
least with which they can maintain a peace establishment.
"Three thousand years hence, when they take up anything
that belongs to the present generation, it will appear
very much like the Nineveh marbles. When inspecting
those curiosities in the British Museum, I observed
horses and chariots of war, scythes, captives in chains,
and last among the indications of the horrors of war,
the tyrant and the slave, the powerful lord and the
humble sufferer. We have not got a bit further than
that. It is quite true the sculptors of the present day
would not make such figures as I saw in the Nineveh-
room. We have not the same battering-r ims ;we have
not to get over rivers on bladders ; but the result is just
the same—war ; and three thousand years hence, if
there be any monuments extant of our own times—of
the polity, the conduct, and the public morality of Eng-
land in 1853—they will show that during the last 3,000
Years we have scarcely made a single bit of progress.
Nov, I ask you, citizens of Edinburgh, and gentlemen
methall all parts of the country, if this should not be re-
ed even in our own day to some extent ? I ask
we whether, with the freedom of the platform which
enjoy with the partial freedom of the press, and I
lvipe ere long to see it entirely free—with the freedom
und universality of the pulpit—with publications pour-
ing out from every press, and no where to a greater
extent than in this city—l ask you whether, with all
these elements for ascertaining truth and spreading in-
formation, it is not possible for us to create a sounder
opinion in this country ; to say to the Government,
govern wisely, govern well—we require no military
force to keep the peace in England—treat all foreign
nations courteously, kindly, and honourably—adhere to
the great principle of non-intervention, and you may
`then cut down to an extent, which I will not now stay
accurately to describe, the army and navy of this
country. After some further observations, the hon.
member concluded amidst great cheering.
Bailie FITE supported the resolution, which was
carried with acclamation.
Mr. SAMUEL BOWLEY (of Gloucester) moved a reso-
lution, to the effect that this conference, believing that
the intervention, by threatened or actual violence, of
one country in the internal politics of another, is a fre-
quent cause of bitter and desolating wars, maintains
that the right of every State to regulate its own affairs
shou'd be held absolute and
i inviolable, and that this
Country ought to abstain from enteringnt,o any treaties
or al:lances binding the Government to intervene by
ff Jive of arms in the domestic concerns of any other
people.

The resolution was seconded by Mr. Macs, M.P.,
and agreed to.
The Conference then adjourned till this day.

FEMALE PARISH CLERK—In the parish register of
Totterid7,e appears the following :—" 1802, March 2._.
Buried, Elizabeth King, widow, for forty-six years clerk
of this parish, in the ninety-first year of her age."—.
(Burn on Parish Registers, 110). Is there any similar
in4tance on record of a woman being a parish clerk ?--
X:S.lll.—Notes and Queries,