The Sun.
London, England, 1836-01-23 00:00:00

r Con&a, all,to' the people that is just—concede all that is
rightful—eoncede all power to the peoples of which they are
the safest, and worthiest depnsttatitm The iiiOple of Eng-
land themselves elk nAliktk further. They seek not to
overturn=nbt 0eel)oll. they look to thbir own rights,
but lookln as they are bound to ,d 6 tn, thOr own rights,
they value MO resp4t -411. the srlrilitii
cheers.),
xVlith ilfia I take upon myself to say, that the
event Of the late municipal elections fully justify
~. the
principle I have laid down.—(Cries of " Hear.' ) • no
people have at length got that r.r,beee lidey long
desired, and were etosit44l:.'_, elelm, and which King-, Lordc,
and 'Cornmektli) have given to them ; for be it reeol-
lecte4 that this Bill has been obtainkk i\4lVotit eiertion or
any force beyond the legitilkiatte poWer Of 'the Constitution.
And when we fte that blessed Constitution produce such
fruits, ie. there a man among us Wh6 dbes not love it the
more ?—(Cheers.) But if th'e argument of those who
think we have gone tee Par be good for anything, I pro-
bably at this moment am addressing- a sat of unprincipled
Radicals--(Laughter)—bleed-thirsty Revolutionists—men,
who one day would dine upon the Church, and the next
sup ,ipon the steeple—(Laughter)—men seeking to destroy
King, Lords, and Commons, and all for the sake of some
fantastic scheme of their own. I presume, Sir, that yOu, as
the great administrator of the affairs of this town, possess
the emblem of justice—the ancient corporation scales. Let
us put the new Municipality of Cambridge in one scale,
and the old Municipality in the other—let us consider them
by the standard of education, intelligence, property, and in-
dependence, and I venture to say, that in every case the
result would be the same, my friends would sink, which
would be the first time they ever did sink ; and our
enemies would rise—the first time they ever did rise.—
(Laughter and cheers.) Here there has been perhaps the
most entire success that could have attended liberal
' principles, and therefore it is said that the new
corporate body here, and similar corporate bodies
elsewhere, are to be viewed simply as party meetings
and associations, not possessing and not deserving the con-
fidence of the other classes of the community. I must dis-
cuss this argument, because it is important to consider it
not only in reference to Cambridge, but to all the towns in
which the operation of the Bill has been similar. It is
true that here we have not only a majority, but an unani7
mity of persons of Liberal principles. But do they enter
the,Counsel of this Corporation for party purposes? Do
they mistake the reverse of wrong for right ? Do they seek
to establish a Liberal domination in the room of a Tory
domination, now extinct ? Sir, on behalf of the men who
have been called into a new state of municipal existence, I
deny and ropudiate the charge. You are about to admi-
nister the functions intrusted to you for the benefit of
all, of whom you are the organs, representing no partieu•
lar class, however respectable. I know that is the feeling
of all those I have the honour of addressing. I know
that the future will justify that which I now state, and
that the result will be, that you will present practically an
entire and perfect contrast to those gentlemen, who being
now extinct, come under that most necessary, and, in their
case, most salutary protection, which recommends us not
to speak in a particular way of the dead.—(Laughter.)
It is upon this principle that you arc called upon to
perform your functions. 'You are chosen on account of
particular shades of opinion, because the mass are of those
shades of opinion ; but, being chosen you are bound to
administer justice for the common good, and for the benefit
of the whole community.—(Cheers.) The character of the
individuals will justify my anticipations in this respect, but
that which will ensure them the most is the responsibility
to the people of those who are chosen. You owe your choice
to the free tradesmen of Cambridge. It is that which will
give you weight and authority. The people of this town will
be your body guards. They will be attentive observers of all
your acts, but they will be grateful for the services which will
be rendered to them ; and I trust that the new council will
form, in the future history of this town, a strong and striking
contrast to those who preceded them. I feel ashamed at
having occupied your time so long ; and yet, Sir, as you have
been pleased to notice me, in conjunction with men of ho-
nour and integrity—men whose situation in public life has
been accepted by them solely and exclusively with a view to
the public interests—as you have associated my name with
theirs, and haVe noticed their exertions—l feel I should
not be just towards you and them, if I did not proceed
further.—( Cheers.) We are now approaching an event-
ful period. You, have been pleased to think that the
work of last Session was a great and a good work.
You are here assembled not only to commemorate it, but
as living evidences of its salutary effects.—( Loud cheers.)
But great as that which has been done may be, much remains
to be done.—( Cheers.) When I speak of that which has past,
I may be allowed to say that those events offer a happy an-
swer to those who alternately stated to you that the Reform
Bill was a barren trunk which could produce no fruit, or was
a deadly Upas tree, which could distil only poison. " What
(said they) do you expect to come from the Reform Bill ?"
and if we replied that we expected something to come from
it, you were then donouneed as Revolutionists ; but if it were
stated that no results would ensue, then you were called the
dupes of a designing polioy. Sir, the first fruits of the Reform
Bill have been the Corporation Act. Could that Bill have
been carried into a law if we had been encumbered still with
schedule A, and schedule B.—(Loud cheers.) Can we ima-
gine that the former Members for the town of Cambridge, of
whom I shall speak always with respect, would have ever been
anxious to overthrow the corporation of the town ? I believe, how-
ever inadequate I may have been as your representative, and
however much the zeal and talents of my Hon. Colleague may
have failed to accomplish, we have been a little more efficient
in overthrowing the old Corporation than those who preceded
us.—(Cheers.) Then. Sir, again, the further fruits of the
Reform Bill will be good government in Church and State. The
Reform Bill has not been revolution—it has not been destruc-
tive or dangerous to property or life—but has been the means
of obtaining a freely constituted assembly of the Municipal
Representatives of the people, and which the people were en-
titled to claim. We see, then, that the first fruit has been the
Bill in question. But a first pre-supposes others to succeed.
I will not say that the first naturally leads to the last, because •
in the series of human affairs a good work, when once com-
menced, is not so readily terminated—time and circumstances
leading on to a succession of measures, each forming a part of
one great and beneficial whole.—( Cheers.) We are then to
proceed, and succeed, too, I hope and trust, and as I believe
we shall—( Loud cheers)—in the great cause of political im-
provement.—( Cheers.) We, for instance, have to remedy
the still existing grievances to which the great Dissenting bo-
dies of this country are now subject.—( Cheers.) That must
be done in the same spirit in which the Municipal Reform Bill
has been carried—with firmness and with decision ; and it
will be done by his Majesty's Ministers with the greater
firmness and greater decision, because they feel that doing
justice to the Protestant Dissenters of England, so far
from weakening or endangering the Church Establishment
to which we below*, will strengthen and defend it by fur-
thering the cause of justice and of truth, and thereby widen the
foundation on which the Church rests, and on which it may
depend for permanent protection and support.--( Cheers.)
We must proceed to consider also, and on the same principle
of firmness and decision grounded in justice, the question of
tithes in England. We must endeavour, if possible, to adjust
that difficult question so as to insure to the working Ministers
that support to which they arc entitled, and at the same time
to remove from between them, and their parishioners a fruit-
ful source of dissension'and enmity, which paraluzes the
efforts of the preacher,- and casts.some degree of mistrust in
some quarters upon the Established Church itself.,—( Cheers. )
We must proceed in the great work of reform of our Courts
of Equity. We must give to the people of England a better,
a cheaper, and a more effectual administration of justice.—
( Cheers.) We must, as far as it is in our power to do so,
improve and tranquilize Ireland.—(Loud cheers.) Gentle-.
men, I took the liberty of stating, when our acquaintance
began, that I would never profess myself to be, or act as if
I were, less attached to Ireland, because I was member for
the town of Cambridge. I told you then what my senti-
ments were, and you responded to those sentiments, and
declared that you recognized no separation of interests
between the two countries--( Hear, hear, hear, and cheers)
—that you felt that we were all brethren, aud that
those who raised the cry as between the two parties of the
united empire, were the true repealers who sought to over-
throw the British permanancy of dominion. Now I say that
Ireland must be tranquillized—( Loud cries of Hear and
cheers)--and I say further that the object which we had in
view in our measure of last session was no less the tranquillity
of that country than to make an adequate provision for the Pro-
testant Church of that country.—( Cheers.) If I could take
upon myself to reply to the mass of rubbish which I have met
with upon this subject, I should detain you much longer than I
should have lungs for, or you patience for.---( Laughter.) But
allow me to say (for to answer a false imputation it is unne-
cessary to do more than to make a strict statement of fact,
supported as that will be by the consideration of the measure
of last session), that whilst we wish to cut off all that is unne-
cessary in the temporal wealth of the Irish Church, we most
carefully, most sedulously, and I will say most effectually make
a provision for the adequate instruction of the Protestant com-
munity of Ireland.—(Loud cheers.) And, Sir, unless
these two principles can he reconciled I am no
Church reformer in Ireland. I wish to do complete and
full justice to the vast population of that country, but
I never will be a party to any scheme which will leave
the Protestant inhabitants of that country without ade-
quate means of religious education.—(Cheers.) On one oc-
casion, a very eloquent person, speaking of the Irish Church,
said that its condition reminded him of the fable in Roman his-
tory of Tarpeia. She asked for the golden ornaments, which
were granted ler, but she was crushed beneath the weight of
the very gold which she had solicited% So it is with respect
to the Irish Church. The danger of that Church lies in its ex-
cess. With that excess lam prepared to deal, but beyond it I
will never go. I will never leave the Protestants of Ireland
without adequate means of religious instruction. That, Sir,
was the object of the measnre of last year. These are a few
of the measures to which the earliest attention of the Govern-
ment will be directed in the next session of Parliament. We
shall deal with them carefully, deliberately, and by degrees.
And if we should not be able to go quite so quickly as we could
wish, still we shall go surely and unflinchingly. We hold
to the principle of paring down nothing abandoning no-
thing that is right, and adopting nothing that we believe
to be wrong ; and acting npon this Principle, I believe
that the people next session, as they did last, will say to
his Majesty's Government, " Gentlemen, you have done
your duty, and we are ready asain to trust you." It is
.hat principle of duty, whether it affects the Ministers of tile I