The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-14 00:00:00

tilts that you will have bad seasons and bad crops occa-
ionally; it is your business, and not that of the public,
to see to this. And if you omit to take into account
these things, it is of no use your coming, like children,
whining to Parliament or to us. All that we can pro-
mise is, that when you have good profits we wont come
in for a share of the profits.—(Hear, hear.) Some people
ask," What has free trade done for us?" I have stated
at Wakefield what I have to-night repeated in a.paren-
thesis. From the best opinions I have been able to
gather, I believe if you had not been able to secure the
repeal of the corn• laws when you did, you would have
bad corn at 70s. per quarter now—some say 725. Before
this year you never knew a deficient harvest, with a
failing market afterwards.—(Hear, hear.) Well free
trade has done that for you, at all events; and whatever
your other troubles may have been—whether your poc-
kets are boring out at the bottom with railway shares—
(Laughter)—whether your trade may be interrupted for
a time by the Schleswig-Holstein quarrels, or the con-
vulsions in Hungary and Italy; whether these, or what-
ever other things, may happen, be assured that you are
better off with wheat at five and for:v shillings a
—that you have more power to mainN your nquarter
position,
and more chance of averting the evils co' these events;
that you are in every respect better off than s.f. you had
the sliding scale, and its concomitant of wheat at swenil
shillings a quarter.—(Applause.) Now, I have me:4lY
said this that we may put ourselves straight, and keep
ourselves straight with our opponents; that we may un-
derstand how we are, and let others know that we are
satisfied with the results of the repeal of the corn-laws,
and with free-trade, so far as it has gone. With
regard to the national expenditure, you are aware, pro-
bably, that I proposed we should make an effort to get
back again the public expenditure to what it was in
1835. I believed then, and I maintain still, that I acted
exceedingly moderate in proposing, as the great object
of financial reform, that we should revert to that
period—(Applause)—because I am assured, that by the
time we have got to that point, the discussion which we
shall have had, and from the light which has already
been let into this matter, we shall be able to get a great
deal further.—(Great cheering.) Fur we shall not get
this all at once. I never expected we should get it all
at once. If I were despotic—if I possessed absolute
power in this country—l don't pretend to say that we
could get it all at once. My plan extends to the anti-
podes. You must put your colonies on a new footing,
and I want you to tell the colonists how to govern them-
selves.—(Applause.) They will be very glad to pay
their own expenses, if you will leave them to manage
their own affairs—(Cheers)—and so long as you refuse
them that they are right in taxing you for their govern-
ment, for their bishops, and in putting you to all the ex-
pense they do. Well, this involves things so far off 12,000
miles away, that, as I have said, if I bed despotic power,
I could not carry it out at once. But what I want is,
that public opinion should so exercise itself as to con-
vince the executive Government that they should set
about arranging these things as quickly as possible. We
have made a step or two ; we have made some reduc-
tion. The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated it at
something like a million and a half. I think that very
little, and I don't believe it has been done the right way.
It will be said, "He is talking against the aristocracy
again."—(Applause.) I scarcely know how really to
talk to a large and good-humoured public meeting like
this; because, when I get back to the House of Com-
mons, they will say, " This man has two tunes; he talks
to one tune in Yorkshire, and to quite a different tune
here." Now, I say, I don't like the way in which these
reductions have been made; they have all been made
from the lowest end of the scale.—(Hear, hear.) It
seems to be intended, from the way in which they have
been made, to bring financial reform intodisropute. Hors
is a reduction in the army; and how do they go to work?
They pretend they are going to reduce 10,000 men.
Would it not be thought that the simplest way would
have been to reduce ten regiments, or as many regi-
ments as would embrace 10,000 men—and thus getting
rid of the officers—(Cheers)—of the staff—of that pro-
portion of the civil service which is required for that
large army—reducing the ordnance stores in proportion.
In fact, reducing the whole scale of the military esta-
blishment by one-tenth. Instead of that, what do they
' do? They send orders for the Horse Guards to dis-
charge 10,000 drunken men, and men of bad character
—men who have been put in limbo and flogged—(Great
laughter)—keeping up the whole staff, the whole este.-
' blishment, the whole skeleton of the regiment, and
leaving the same number of officers. I wonder if there
are any drunken officers or bad characters among them?
—(Cheers, and laughter.) They keep every General,
and Major, and Captain still standing, with the same
pay, though he has got fewer men to look after.—(Loud
cries of " Hear, hear.") What does all this mean?
I believe it means—and I may as well out with it at
once, though I believe I shall catch it when I get back
to London —it just means this, that the Govern-
ment look upon this cry for retrenchment only as a
mere passing fever fit, such as has been seen before.
They say we must attend to this cry; we must meet
this demand—in appearance at least; we will reduce
these 10,000 men to satisfy them and give an appearance
of economy; but we will keep the whole skeleton stand-
ing, like the scaffolding of a house, so that we may
build up the edifice again so soon as these financial re•
formers have turned their eyes another way.—(Ap-
plause.) Well, now, I say this is calculated to bring us
into disrepute, because it seems as if this reduction is
intended not to press upon the poor only, but is also
calculated: to let loose upon society men who can be of
no use, but who may be more burdensome to keep than
in the army.—(Hear.) The same rule has been applied
in the dockyards, they have been sending away from the
dockyards shipwrights and others; and I have had letter
upon letter from these dockyards, telling me of the
scenes which have taken place when these men have been
dismissed without notice; and it has been said, " That
fellow Cobden is the reason why you have been turned
away;" and I have got letter upon letter saying that it
is my fault. But go to the dockyards and see the
number of supernumeraries employed there, the number
of admirals and others who know nothing of their du-
ties, yet must be kept without one shilling reduction in
their wages—(Hear, hear)—though they have got fewer
men to look after. This, I maintain, is calculated to
bring financial reform into disrepute. We have heard
it said (I believe the Duke of Richmond said it some-
where) that if you will reduce the army it will be only
to keep as poor in the workhouse those who would have
been kept as soldiers; but if you reduce the army in my
way, and not in yours, the result would be different; for
suppose these able-bodied men were going into the work-
house, which I don't believe would be the case with
many, nobody pretends that you would have to keep the
officers at the workhouse.—(Laughter and applause.)
Let us meet this fallacy, as you will hear of it after this
evening. If you had all the men that are in the army
to keep in the workhouse, how much would they cost?
Do you think they would cost seven millions sterling? It
does not cost that, you know, to keep a million and a
half of paupers in this country. Every man of the
army, I should say, taking officers into account, costs
100/. a year; but they would not cost 100/. a year
in the workhouse. Now, if any man talks to you of
this, just remind him that our reduction would begin
at the other end. It is not our plan to dismiss the men
and keep up the officers. • I confess, though I may be
blamed for it, that I should like to begin with a field-
marshal or two.—(Loud sheers.) Well, you know, they
blame us exceedingly in the House of Commons if we
make this a question concerning the aristocracy. They
say it is not the aristocracy that is concerned in this
matter. We are going to put this to the test by and by.
I have told you how they propose to reduce the army;
here is a proposal on the books of the House of Com-
mons by my indefatigable friend, Mr. Hume—(Loud
applause)—and the vote will come on before long—
before another month I predict—that we shall reduce the
number of admirals from 150 to 100.—(Hear.) I will
show you how. We have now more than 150 admirals;
and, mark me, you can't employ more than fourteen of
them, do what you will with them.—(Laughter, and
hear, hear.) In the height of the French war, when we
had a thousand armed vessels afloat, we never employed
forty admirals at one time. You cannot now employ
fourteen, though you have 150. My friend Mr.
Hume's proposal is this, that there shall be only
ode post-captain promoted to the rank of admiral
for every three admirals who may die, until the
number of admirals is reduced to 100. Mind, at pre-
sent, for every admiral dying there in one post-captain
promoted. This reasonable proposal of Mr. Hume's is
opposed by Government, and it is talked of in the clubs
of London as something very little short of high treason.
When that proposal comes on keep your eyes on it, and
look to the votes. They siy that we do wrong when we
call this an aristocratical system; they say it is no aris-
tocratical matter: we shall test it upon this question of
admirals. You see how they prepare to reduce the
army; and if you find that they oppose this motion of
Mr. flume's, I don't see that we shall be very immodest
or audacious if we say that it is an aristocratic question.
—(Loud cheers.) I have said that one way of reducing
our establishments is to alter our colonial system. Now
there is another question I want to see altered. We keep
too many soldiers in this country and in Ireland. You
are aware that there are at this moment, as near as pos-
sible, 50,000 bayonets kept up in Ireland, at the expense
of this country, and paid out of the Consolidated Fund.
I have heard qualified persons say that the 12,000 or
14,000 police there are the most highly trained and finest
men in Europe. In addition to these, the pensioners er
invalids are liable to muster when called upon, so that
we have altogether very nearly 50,000 armed men in
Ireland.—(Hear, hear.) I believe this is more than the
whole number of British troops engaged at Waterloo.
What are they there for ? They are employed, I will
admit, to keep down a very restless and insubordinate
population ; but why are they insubordinate ? Is the
system of maintaining an armed force to be kept up for
ever, or not ?—(Cries of " No.") Then who is to alter
it ? I say that no Government is deserving of support
which cannot find the means of governing Ireland with-
out the enormous and overwhelming expense of keeping
up that army in Ireland.—(Applause.) I throw that
wholly on the Executive Government, and I say that that
Executive Government is bound to resign.—(Applause)
—and more especially do I say that this Whig Govern-
ment is bound to resign, unless they . can find means to
keep the peace in Ireland without putting yogi to the ex-
pense of this army. I speak out upon this qtrstiOry
because I have been once or twice dragged through the
have, I confess, w
mud in voting for
from coercion Bills coercion Bills fur Ireland
; and I
walked out of the House in disgust
more for Ireland_soororelreland. We want something
poor-laws.—(Cheers.) Now,ing more than bayonets and
a dead lull in Ireland; no V this moment, there is
omttuicetthl action; no political
feeling. The people are tooPhorrorintense
s struck,fferings tct
to
much exhausted with their too intea
moreed suited
think of politics. There never was
for a Minister to devise measures for imreem the
evils of Ireland. It is the spirit of landlordismytiong
stand
in the way of improvement in Ireland, and unless our
Minister in Ireland is in alliance with the spirit of land-
lordism he will submit a plan to remedy the evils which
afflict the mass of the people, regardless of the sinister
legume of the landlordism of Ireland,—(Hear, hear.)

THE SUN,