The Sun.
London, England, 1836-11-03 00:00:00

HALIFAX CONSERVATIVE DINNER.

On Mondayevening the Conservative Association of
this opulent, active, and improving borough entertained
their able representative, the Hon. James Stuart Wort-
ley, in the Assembly-rooms of the teem, according to the
usual annual custom. 450 gentlemen sat down to dinner.
The chair was filled by Mr. W. NORRIS. In the imme-
diate neighbourhood of the Chairman were, besides the
guest, Lords Wharncliffe and Sandon, Mr. T. Lees, M.P.
(Oldham) ; Mr. J. Entwisle, M.P. (Rochdale) ; Hon.
J. S. Wortley, Hon. C. S. Wortley, Hon. W. S. Lascelles,
Sir G. Ibbotson, Messrs. J. Rawson, T. E. Dyson, J. E.
Norris, J. Waterhouse, J. E. Dyson, Colonel Ramsden,
Messrs. J. L. Fernandes (Wakefield), H. Hall (Leeds),
J. Roby (Rochdale), Holroyd, R. Alexander (Liver-
pool), ssa.
After the usual loyal toasts,
The CHAIRMAN proposed " The Hon. James Stuart
Wortley, our worthy guest and representative."
The Hon. J. S. WORTLEY rose, after the cheering had
subsided, and said—ln this town you have been told of
the wonders worked by the Government under the direction
of the Whigs—(Laughter)—and by one of that Government
you have been told of all the benefits conferred by them on
the community. I hear, however, but of three ; and these,
I believe, a great many honourable and clear-sighted
men regard still as of very equivocal character. These
three are, the Act for the Registration of Births and
Deaths, the Act for the Registration of Marriages, and
the Act for the Commutation of Tithes in England. But
our opponents say that they had others in store ; and
they cast the blame of hindering them from producing
them on us. Let us examine the foundation of this charge.
Was it the Tories who hindered the settlement of the
church-rate question?—(Hear, hear, hear.) From the
time Sir Robert Peel came into office until the time he
resigned, his Government was occupied with devising some
measure to relieve the Dissenters of their grievances, and
give at the same time satisfaction to the Church. They
were as anxious as any Government possibly could be to
give this relief ; hut they were prevented from doing so.
Why have the Whigs not settled the question before this?
Why have they suffered it to remain like an open sore on
the body politic of the country? They were always loud
in their cry, and boundless in their promises, on this sub-
ject when out of office. Again, on the subject of our hin-
drance. Who hindered Church Reform ? Was it the
Tories ? Certainly not. But I shall delay no longer on
these topics : I shall come at once to the two great questions
of the session—those on which the charge of " hindrance"
made against the Tories more especially rested—l mean
the Irish Corporation Bill and the Irish Church Bill.—
( Cheers.) I have been to Ireland, and can safely say that
there is not one valuable institution which England has
that. Ireland is deprived of. It is true that there are not
equal laws in some respects, particularly the Preventive
Act in force in Ireland, by which persons out after sunset
are liable to be punished, but then has not Mr. Sharman
Crawford successfully established Mr. O'Connell's partici-
pation in that measure ? and can Mr. O'Connell cry out
for equal laws with that fact before him ? We next come
to the great question—lrish tithes. We are charged with
liiirlsance on this more particularly of all the measures of
the session. I fling back the charge. I charge the Go-
veroment themselves with being the sole cause of the de-
lay in its settlement.—(Hear.) It was they, and not we,
who hindered its final adjustment. I shall say no more
on the particular measures of the Ministry ; but I may
be permitted a few words on the general subject of their
policy. What is the position in which the Govern-
ment of this country has placed us ? What the de-
grad-al state to which they have reduced us? There never
was an aphorism more directly and emphatically verified by
the present Government than that which says " a weak
government is worse than none at all." Within less than six
years have they brought the very elements of the Constitu-
tion into discussion. How is it so ? It is because they
have sold themselves to inhuman task-masters—the enemies
of our glorious institutions. The Whigs of the present day
are not those of the days past. The House of Lords is
one of those institutions of the kingdom which Englishmen
love to look up to and possess, because the poorest among
them knows that even he is not forbade to climb the eleva-
tion, and may not despair of attaining it. It has been from
all time the boast of our glorious Constitution that any man
might, by the exercise of the virtues of industry and inte-
grity, aspire to and reach it ; but it has been reserved for
the Whigs—the Whigs who boast so much of liberality
and equality—to taunt one of the noblest and most power-
ful of their political opponents with the humbleness of his
birth.—(Cheers.) Yes, Sir R. Ferguson, at a dinner given
to Sir J. Campbell, taunted Lord Lyndhurst with being
the son of a painter.—(A laugh.) Has he not insulted
every one of us in that taunt ?—(Cheers.) Talk of Lord
Lyndhurst's expression respecting aliens—which he, the
best authority on the subject, denies having used—talk of
that, I say, after such a taunt from the liberal Whigs—the
friends of equality !
The CHAIRMAN, in a handsome speech, which want of
space precludes us from giving, proposed " Lord Wham-
cliff° and the House of Lords."—(Great cheering.)
Lord WHARNCLIFFE then rose, and spoke as follows :
You have been pleased to couple my name with the House
of Lords. I thank you in their name for it; but I tell
you at the same time that the people of this country are
now called on to decide whether they will stick to its old
institutions, or depart from them, and reform or abolish the
House of Lords ?—(Cheers.) lam proud of an opportu-
nity to meet and repel the accusations made against that
body of which lam a member. If they have betrayed
their country they deserve, and should have, their country's
reprobation. But I will say that they have not ; I will
boldly say in the face of the people of England—l will say
for the people of England—that they are " not guilty."—
(Cheers.) We have endeavoured to do our duty ; we shall
continue to do it as long as we have the power. But we
must not disguise from ourselves that the House of Lords
is placed just now in the most difficult position in which any
aesembly similarly constituted was ever placed. Look at
the House of Commons and the constitution of the existing
Government. We have a Ministry composed of the least,
the smallest, political party in the country ; we have them
supported by a majority in the House of Commons, but not
by the representatives of Great Britain. They exist not
on their own strength—they have no strength ; but on
-that of a party whose object is to destroy every ancient and
valuable institution of the country, and bring us to live
under the dominion of an unmitigated slavery.—(Cheers.)
The House of Lords is opposed to that consummation of
things, and through that opposition they have earned for
themselves the hate of the Republican party, and the aver-
sicsn of the Whigs. The House of Lords is not, like the
House of Commons, elected by the popular voice ; they
have J.., power, bequeathed to them by their ancestors, of
legislating without election, and their decisions have been
always respected, except in the time of the Republican
Commonwei
ilth. If it is not respected longer—if it ceases
to have the weight which has hitherto always attended it—
I will candidly admit that it cannot resist the peo
Thaple. We
are not responsible, we are told by our fos. twe have
no constituencies to render an account to is truF ;. but is it
to be believed that we, a part of the people, living among
then and with them, can be indifferent to our fellow-coun-
trywen ; and can it be credited
that because we have no
constituencies we feel no responsibility or interest in the
enactment and operation of the laws ? The assertion dis-
proves itself. The Whigs send every now and then an em-
bassy to the country to feel its pulse and to ascertain how
far it will go with them in their projects. I shall not advert
to all the trash uttered at meetings convened by their emis-
saries, but I see that some of them are employed in insulting
the House of Peers. The Attorney-General—his Majesty's
Attorney-General—l suppose in his capacity of public
accuser, has been busily employed in that line, and he has
brought in his bill of indictment against us in Scotland.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer also has been making
hsis charges against us at a public dinner in Ireland. It is
bui justice to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say
that his part of the business was done in a moderate way.
His .speech was a party speech all
.through, no doubt ; but
still it wa.s temperate, compared with others from the same
source. The Attorney-General's was different altogether.
Be indulged in sneers and revelled in calumny. Nay,
more, I tell him that he has more than once endeavoured
o' entrap the House of Lords, session after session, by in-
troducing measures he was su!.e they would reject. More
than this still, he introduced bills at the latter end of