The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-04 00:00:00

TIVERTON.

TrvERTON, MONDAY.—The election for this borough
took place this morning in the Guildhall, when Lord
Palmerston was returned without opposition. His lord-
ship, who has been for some time very unwell, arrived
about ten o'clock last night, much to the gratification of
his friends and supporters, who, in conslquence of a com-
munication received from his lordship on the preceding
day, began to despair of his presence, his medical adviser
having almost absolutely prohibited him from leaving
home. Several attempts had been made to bring for-
ward another candidate ; and the name of Mr. Gard,
the rejected of Honiton, was publicly mentioned, but
:the presence of the noble lord had the effect of at once
putting an end to the movement in favour of that gen-
tleman.

The proceedings commenced at half-past ten, at which
hour his lordship entered the hall, accompanied by Mr.
Francis Hole, the chairman of his committee, and a con-
siderable number of his supporters. Mr. Rowcliffe, who
was so smartly handled by his lordship at the last elec-
tion, was also present, and much merriment was excited
by the smiling and pleasant manner in which they re-
cognised anti greeted each other.
The oath having been administered to Mr. John S.
How (the mayor) by Mr. William Hole, and the usual
preliminaries having been gone through,
The MAYOR briefly addressed the electors.
Mr. F. HOLE proposed Lord Palmerston as a fit and
proper person to represent the borough in Parliament.
Mr. R. WERE, yeoman, seconded the nomination.
The MAYOR then inquired if any other person had
any other candidate to propose, and no answer having
been given, his worship declared the Right Hon. Lord
Palmerston to be duly elected, an announcement which
was received with three times three.
An adjournment then took place from the Guildhall
to a room over the Bank, in front of which a large
crowd had assembled. His lordship here met with a
most cordial and enthusiastic reception. Silence having
at length been restored,
Lord PALMERSTON addressed the assembly in nearly
the following forms :—Gentlemen,—lt may seem rather
unreasonable for a person who is about to return thanks
for a favour conferred that he should preface his thanks
by asking two other favours. But having lately suffered
some indisposition, brought on by a violent cold caught
in the discharge of my Parliamentary duties, I shall be
much obliged to you if, in the first place, you will per-
mit me to address you with my hat on. (Hear, hear,
and a laugh.) And in the next place, if you will allow
me to condense, in as short a compass as possible, the
observations which I shall feel it my duty to submit to
you. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, in the first place, I beg to
return you my cordial and heartfelt thanks for the great
honour which you have done me, in again confiding to
me your interests in the House of Commons, and re-
turning me to the distinguished post of one of your repre-
sentatives in Parliament. You have added thereby
another tie to the many bonds of gratitude which bind
me to the electors of Tiverton, and I can assure you that
my sense of the obligation never can terminate but with
my existence itself. The circumstances which have
now brought me before you are too well known to you
to render it necessary for me to state them in detail.
The late Government being defeated on a question con-
nected with the budget, thought it their duty to resign
their offices. Her Majesty then confided to two distin-
guished noblemen--the Earl of Aberdeen and the Mar-
quis of Lansdowne—the task of endeavouring to organise
ca;cueAns,tdrysmiin, Administration.
felt ttrhation. Being applied to to join that Admi-
nistration, and finding that it was likely to be composed
of persons entitled in my opinion to the confidence of the
eiyt mwyereduthtyoungohtt tdoersierfauhselem. y(Chuhmeebrsle.)serl-
vconsequentlyoffilling, accenpatmly,
edethatt of Secretary
that office which I
of State wasmost f
do er -
s
the Home Department, and that act having vacated my
seat, it became my duty again to present myself to your
choice. Now, gentlemen, I would wish to say one word
or two with regard to the late Administration. I was
not their supporter. I was not their opponent. I was
an impartial observer of their course, and, therefore I
may speak of them with strict justice, with fairness, and
without prepossession either for or against them. (Hear,
hear). It must be admitted, gentlemen, that that Ad-
ministration during the short period that it held office
did several very good things. I supported them
when I thought them right. I opposed them when
I thought them wrong. (Cheers.) But they did
these main things which I conceived to be good.
They adopted, in the first place, useful and ener-
getic maasures for improving the defences of the coun-
try by land and by sea. (Hear, hear.) They adopted
boldly, and carried out with fairness, measures of Chan-
cery reform, which had been matured by a commission
of able men who had had that subject for some time under
their consideration. (Hear, hear.) Gentlemen, that
Government proved an example of the correctness of an
opinion which I ventured to give in the year 1846, in a
speech which I at that time made in the House of Com-
mons, and of which I was reminded the other day during
a debate by my right hon. friend Sir J. Graham. The
observations had escaped my recollection, but he re-
minded me that I had said that there were certain dis-
eases for which certain climates were an absolutely spe-
cific remedy—that the yellow fever, for instance, could
not exist in England, and that that malignant fever
which was called protection, although it might be in its
worst and most virulent form, could not survive six
months occupation of Downing-street and the Treasury
bench. (Cheers and laugh'...?.?.) The meaning of that
was that the most violent and sincere Protectionists
were brought into office, and once enabled to see the
real working of the doctrine of free trade would, in spite
of their prejudices, soon be convinced of their former
errors, and would frankly and fairly adopt the better
and sounder opinions of freedom of commercial inter-
course. (Cheers.). Well, gentlemen, so it turned out
in regard to the last Goveriunent. They could not
resist the conviction which facts and figures brought to
their minds, and after a certain period of administra-
tive experience they frankly avowed that protection
was impossible—that a return to protection was im-
possible—and that it was absolutely necessary to adopt,
as the permanent foundation of our commercial system,
principles of free trade. (Cheers.) Well, gentlemen,
that admission was honourable to the men who made
it. The question, as you know, came on for dis-
cussion on the meeting of the present Parliament. The
late Parliament had been dissolved avowedly for the
purpose of making an appeal to the country to ascertain
whether in the opinion of the electors of the United
Kingdom, protection should be re-established, or that
free trade should become our permanent system. When
Parliament met there was, I think, a mistake going to be
committed. Resolutions were proposed, which were so
worded that it was impossible for men who had at any
time entertained sincerely and conscientiously the opinion
of protection to vote for those resolutions ; and the
House of Commons, as I thought, was about to place it-
self in a disadvantageous position, for, instead of fairly
testing the opinion of the house on the questions of free
trade or protection as our future system, the divison was
about to be taken—opposition on one side fninisterialists
on the other. The result would have been a small ma

jority either one way or the other. If the free trade re-
solutions had been adopted by a majority of 10 or 20, an
impression would have gone forth which was not true,
that there was only that small majority in favour of the
future adoption of the principle of free trade. If, on the
contrary, the majority had been the other way, a still
more false impression would have been created, for it
would have appeared that the majority, however small,
was against free trade and in favour of protection. I
felt it my duty, standing as I did in a perfectly inde-
pendent position, to propose to the house a resolu-
tion free from the objections to which I thought
the others were liable, but affirming, if possible, in
stronger and more distinct terms the future establish-
ment of the doctrine of free trade. (Cheers.) The
House of Commons accepted that resolution, and we had
the satisfaction of seeing, not a majority of ten, or
twenty, or thirty in favour of free trade, but a majority
--

believe unexampled on any former occasion—
a majority of 486 against 53—showing a clear majority
of 415. (Loud cheers.) I think, gentlemen, that I
humbly did good service to the House of Commons and
to the country in being instrumental in bringing about
such a satisfactory result. (Cheers.) Then, gentlemen,
came the budget. Now lam bound in fairness to say
that, taking that budget piece by piece, in principle it
was not a bad budget. In the first place, it relieved
the shipping interest from some vexatious restrictions to
which that interest is still exposed. (Hear, hear.) In
the next place it proposed to diminish for the consumer
to a certain extent the cost of beer and the price of tea.
Some persons thought that the diminution of the malt
tax would be a benefit to the landed interest—to the
farmer and to the landowner. That was a pure delusion,
an entire delusion. It could not have been of any
benefit to them except by raising the price of barley.
But how was it to raise the price of barley ? Why, it
was said as beer would have been cheaper more would
have been drunk, more malt would have been made,
more barley would have been bought, and the demand
for barley increasing, the price would have increased.
But would that have been the case ? Not a bit of
it. Foreign barley would have come in, foreign malt
would have come in, the farmer would not have been