The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-27 00:00:00

—(Hear, bear.) I will nnw show ynn whit. irleren.
.!F

bePn. slll4

~v _ ~.

ere increase, and 1 Ale then neve it to toe tiouse
to decide whether those causes remain at the
present time.—(Hear, hear.) In 1836 there
was an additional vote of 5,000 seamen
to the navy.--(Hear, hear.) lam speaking to Honour-
able Gentlemen who well remember what has passed in
this country since. In 1836 great apprehensions were
`elt in this country respecting a Ruesisn in-
vasion.—(Hear, hear.) We had at that time some three
or four gentlemen in this country who, I thought, had
a monomania on the subject, and I perpetrated two
or three pamphlets in answer to them.--(Laughter).
The cry was raised all over the country, and it
was echoed in the press, and the result was
that my Right Honourable Friend (the Member for
Halifax) recommended the increase in the navy,
and it was also recommended in the Speech
trom the Throne; but is there any thought of Russian
invasion now.—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) Since that
time we have had the threat of a French invasion. But
although we have no fear of any Russian invasion, these
5,000 seamen remain till this day.—(Hear, hear.) In 1838
the rebellion in Canada occurred that gave rise
o an increase of 8,000 men in our array; that re-
bellion was, however, soon put an end to, and Canada
has obtained all she can desire from self-govern-
ment, and I only wish the population of this coun-
try was placed on the same footing. I suppose no
one can imagine for a moment that there is now any
danger of rebellion or of any collision between England
and Canada, and yet these 8,000 soldiers still remain. In
1839 there was another increase proposed in the army.
There had been an apprehended outbreak in South
Wales—l allude to the affair at Monmouth—the riots
headed by Frost, Williams, and Jones. There
was great turbulence in that part of the country,
and the Noble Lord distinctly stated that an addition of
5,000 men was required to meet their domestic troubles.
Well,lbut we have had since then several years of uninter-
rupted peace at home, many years during which Chartists
were not heard of, and when there was no turbulence in the
land ; yet the 5,000 men remained.—(Hear.) I now
come to 1840 and 1841. We had a war with China—a
war in Syria—we had a threatened rupture with
France, and we were embroiled with America with res-
pect to the arrest and trial of Mr. M'Leod.
These were periods of excitement, times not without
peril to the peace of the country, and a❑ addition of
5,000 men was made at that time. The China war is
at an end. Syria is in the hands of the Turks. There
is no longer a threatened rupture with France,
nor with America, and the M‘Leod matter has been
settled—(Hear, bear)—yet the 5,000 men remain.—
(Hear, hear.) I then come to 1847. We had a dispute
with the United States with respect to the Mayne
boundary. In fact, a dispute between the two
countries had existed for some time with respect
to Caroline—a dispute kept up since 1842, and
there was considerable apprehension in America, and
some on this side of the water, that the dispute
would lead to war. 4,000 sailors were added to the
navy; but Lord Ashburton brought over a treaty set-
tling the whole dispute with respect to the Mayne boun-
dary; yet we have had no reduction in the number of
these sailors.—(Cheers.) Now, Sir, then I come to 1845,
In 1845 a serious state of things existed. We had a
dispute with the United States with respect to the
Oregon boundary, and President Polk sent a
very warlike message. General Cass made some
very foolish sp, eches, and there was a strong
feeling on both sides of the water that imminent
danger to both sides was impending. America bad
threatened to take possession of the whole territory, and
we were bound in honour to keep possession
of a territory which had been ceded to us by universal
consent. We had at that time a proposition for a fleet
of evolution. The proposition was acceded to, and I
recollect it was stated in the papers of the
time that the squadron was more formidable than that
which won the battle of the Nile. It was paraded
about Spithead and visited by her Majesty.
1,700,0001. was voted at that time to the
navy and ordnance, for the maintenance of
that new fleet, and the Honourable Member
for Montrose gave a willing assent to the increase in
the estimates under the circumstances mentioned.
Laugnter, and " Hear, hear," from Mr. Hume.)
But the Oregon question was settled in the
summer of 1846 ; that settlement was the last
, act of the Right Hon. Buronet (Sir Robert Peel)
before he left office in 1846. No plea, therefore, exist,
for keeping up this enormous armament. In 1846,
no sooner was the Oregon matter settled, than we en-
tered into a diplomatic dispute with France re-
specting the Spanish marriages. He might call it
a Court quarrel, because, he must maintain, that
the people of this country had no interest in it.—
(Hear, hear.) But it gave rise to bad blood in France,
and to a state of irritation in this country, and the press
of the two countries fanned it into a flame.
and no one can deny there was great alienation, if not
hostility, between the two countries. It was increased
by the previous publication of Prince de Joinville's
pamphlet, and also by the old grudge with Mr.
Pritchard. In 1846 we increased our military
and naval expenditure 1,200,0001.; and in 1847 this
spirit continued between the two countries until we had
the question about fortifying our country against the
attacks of France. We were informed by Mr.
Pigou, the gunpowder maker, that France was
coming to attack us.—(Great laughter.) Well, then,
one million nearly was incurred by the military and
navy in 1847. I believe the whole increase was 1,600,000/.
for the army, navy, and ordnance in 1847. But what
I wish to ask is this—whether there is one of those causes
which led to these successive augmentations to our ma-
rine and to our ordnance and army, which now remains.
—(Hear, hear.) The cost of which I have spoken I
think must have been the most serious of all, though
I stated it was but a diplomatic quarrel,
yet, as it had become dynastic, and as the
second generation, in Prince de Joinville, had entered into
this quarrel, it must have grown into something serious
to the two countries if the question had not been solved
by a very rude hand—by the late revolution in France
—which has put an end to all quarrel betwen this
country and France on the subject of the marriages in
Spain.— (Hear, hear.) Well, I wish to ask Honourable
Members, those who are going to oppose me on this
motion, those who will not admit that we must
return as speedily as practicaible to the standard
of expenditure such as we bad in 1835, to put their
finger on any one of those causes for those successive
augmentations of this expenditure, and tell me if one
now remains.—(Hear, hear.) We stand at the present
moment in an infinitely superior 'position as regards our
foreign relations to which we did in 1835; for in that
year, when we had reduced our expenditure to that
point, Hon. Gentlemen will remember we were not in a
very friendly position with Russia. -For several
years we had no ambassador at Russia. We were
marauding, too; if at that time on the coast of Spain, for
we had our quadruple treaty by which We; furnished
mercenaries under our foreign marine. But I ask any
one who opposes me in asking this reduction of
our armament to point out where the danger is
threatened. Is it with America, with its boundary
question ; is it with Russia, with its millions of serfs;
or is it with France, with its people involved in
intestine dissensions? Is it with Germany that
we dread a collision? Where is it to come from?
I tell you that if England confines herself to her own
affairs—(Hear, hear)—if she does not run needlessly
and rashly into the internal disputes of other countries,
there never was a time when we stood as free from the
danger of war as at this moment. There is one objec-
tion to our going back to the standard of our expenditure
in 1835, and it is this; we are told we reduced our expen-
diture in 1835 to too low a point. The Hon. 11,1..naber
for Montrose will not admit that.--(Laughter.) I re-
member in that year, in my own humble way,
writing on the subject of the expenditure for our
armaments, which was eleven millions and a half,
and contending for its reduction.—(Hear, hear.)
The Hon. Gentleman then went on say—lt was stated
that the services had been left in an inefficient state in
1835, and the Hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the
Admiralty, would repeat what he had stated before, that
the dockyards were in a state of absolute destitution.—
(A laugh.) But he should remember that this argument
had been used once before; for in 1816, when the Noble
Lord (Lord J. Russell) and those acting with him advocated
a redaction to the standard of 1792, the answer they
got was that it was dangerously low—that Mr. Pitt re-
gretted having gone back to it in 1796; all this was re-
peated by Lord Castlereagh and others—ay, ad nauseam
—till at last Lord Grenville, than whom there could be
no more able authority, in his place in the House of
Lords, denied that Mr. Pitt entertained any such opinions,
and that, on the contrary, he had always congratulated
himself during the French war that he had reduced
the establishment so low after the war with
America, because it had enabled this country to come
into the war with France with fresh energy and
vigour. The objection to the state of the dockyards in
1835 affected a Right Hon. Gentleman on whose admi•
nistrative abilities be had as much reliance as on those of
any one in the House ; and he called on him to say
during the discussion if the dockyards had been left in
that state of destitution to which they were said to have
been reduced. Turning from their foreign relations, the
question to which he was bound to advert was that which
was always put before them in estimates for the army
and navy. They were told it was necessary for our co-
lonies. The Right Hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel), in his
celebrated budget speech on the 14th of February, 1845,
in alluding to this subject, said :
" Of the 112 battalions of infantry in the British ser-
vice, there are now 23 in India, 50 are serving in the
colonies, and four are on their passage, making in all 77
battalions actually employed in the defence of our colo-
nial empire. We have 35 battalions at home, not, as is
supposed, for the purpose of restraining the population,
but for the purpose—and we effect it incompletely—ot
maintaining the system of reliefs for our regiments serv-
ing abroad.
Now he asked the House if the time had not come for
them seriously to consider if they could not reduce the
expenditure incurred on those accounts for our colonial
possessions?—(Hear, hear.) The question had been
put to them by his Hon. Friend (Mr. Hume) as long
ago as 1822. How much more necessary was it to con-
sider it now. Free-traders could not possibly advocate
the system of keeping up a ruinous military establish-
ment in our colonies. He could understand how Hon.
Gentlemen, who were Protectionists from principle, or
who believed that free trade was an experiment—be-
lieving that exclusive trade with the colonies remune-
rated you fir such expenses—could consistently vote for
those establishments as long as they expected to regain
protection. If there were Protectionists who thought
the old system of protection could be restored he was
willing they should vote against him.—(Hear, hear.)
But he asked those who thougnt that, right or wrong,
free trade was the permanent rule of the country,
how they any more teen the free-traders could pos-
sibly vote that this country elieuld pay for colonial ex-
penditure? They thought that in carrying out the free-
trade theory they had given an enormous boon to the
colonies, and that in allowing them to trade where they