The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-28 00:00:00

need not, for they would find enough of the same description
in the same district.—(Cheers.) Would they venture to re-
new the packing of Juries ? He was sorry to hear an instance
that lately occurred in Ireland of Jury-packing. It was a fatal
precedent, which would be caught at as an excuse by the party
opposite. He was sincerely sorry for this, as it would afford
an opportunity of again insulting a people whom they had so
long slighted, and of making their religion a subject of paltry
exclusion.--( Hear, hear.) They may take every method to
silence her, and when they have silt need her, they may imagine
they have tranquillized her. Mistake him not. There was but one
safety-valve for them, and that was to allow her grievances
and her voice expression.—( Cheers.) Yes, it was the con-
trast between England and Ireland which returned them there.
They were triumphant, their majority was owing to that cause,
and how long they may retain their majority it was not for him
to say. But there were many gloomy prospects before them at
home and abroad. They had a vast and starving popula'ion—
they had desolation in the manufacturing districts, and the very
air of their cite was frightful. —( Cheers.) Commerce was
languishing, and the nations of Europe, seeing the transition
that was taking place, would judge between the friends of
freedom and those who were opposed to all liberty and
improvement.—(Cheers.) Would they behold that state of
things which had becn spoken of by the Hon. Member for
Waterford—he hoped not prophetically—that all naions de-
pending on commerce for their prosperity fell sooner or later
into decay and dissolirion ? Should that befal them their fall
would indeed be a great one ; but it should at least
be recollected, what was true of all times, that
the higher any nation rose the more enemies it made.
And England had many enemies, who were anxiously w:shing
for her downfall. Power was, in its nature, unpopular. It was
impossible for power to satisfy the expecte' ions:of every body,
and they would not be long in power when they would be sub-
jected to the same criticism they so unsparingly lavished on
others.—(Cheers.) Their.all.ance with the Chartists would
soon be at an end.—(oh, oh, and loud cheers.) Any thing
rather than Whiggery, said the Learned Member for Win.
chester. Was not that a Chartist cry? —(Loud cheers ) They
were instrumental in bringing in the Tories. Their cry was,
" !if we bring the Tories once into power, they will
multiply the Chartists over the lend."—( Laughter and cheers.)
But was there not a substantial grievance on the part of the
people of England.—(Loud cheers.) Was there not an aril.
tocratic master class, and was therls not an immense majority
in the situation of a slave class ?—(Cheers. ) Were there not
25 per cent. only who had the franchise in Englond, and 75
per cent. who were excluded?—( ) Were they not aware
of the injustice of that? Were they not aware the people
ascribed their misery to their position. It may be that post
hoc was not proptu leoc, but in this case it was the duty of a
philosophic statesman to look upon it and leg:slate fur it as
for cause and effect.—(Cheers.) They tell you their misery
arises from the want of sufficient and cheap food.—( Hear,
hear.) These causes are broadly stated by them as the soerces
of their wretchedness. These who were anxious for the
Reform Bill, and who complained of its failure, felt the cause
of that failure was owing to its limited extent, and that the
features which were good in it. were not sufficient to make cor-
ruption unavailing.—(Cheers.) He knew the Ballot was re-
fused, which would have prevented bribery and intimidation,
whatever good beside it may have effected.—( Hear, hear.)
Blame the Ministry for the state of the finances if they would.
He admitted they were entangled and in a state of great dis-
tress. They proposed a plan which was not accepted, but what
will you do ?—( Hear, hen:.) What is your remedy ? More
taxes. Pe;coule not wish for evil that good might come of it, but
if he did he would wish for more taxes.—( Cheers. ) There
was one thing, beyond all question, that never did any party
come into power under greater difficulties.—( Hear, hear.)
Surrounded with more dangers than almost any Ministry, they
had little of the mens divinior to extricate themselves from.
their difficulties.—(Cheers.) Anti he would conclude by say-
ing that if misfortune accompanied that Ministry, men's in-
firmities afforded a good opportunity for redress, and they
would be compelled sooner or later to do justice to Ireland.
Sir R. PEEL rose and said—Sir, if I felt more acutely than
in feet 1 do, either for myself or for the party withwhich 1 am
connected, the weight of the censure and vituperation of the
Hon. and Learned Gentleman, I still could find some source of
consolation, for whatever may be his abuse of the Tory
party rim, it falls infinitely short of that which he
has lavished on his beloved Whigs.—(Loud cheering.) The
Honourable and Learned Gentleman has, in point of fact,
reduced himself to that position in which his praise and cen-
sure are of equal value.--(Continued cheers.) If these are
the men who hail so governed Ireland, who for ten years had
given it that great peace and happiness of which you speak,
what could have justified you in abusing them, in calling them
" the base, the bloody, and the brutal Whigs"—( Great cheer-
ing.) S 1 lien you seek to account for the cause of the difficulty
and embarrassments which they have experienced, let me ask
you if yin do not bear in mind that. there is not one dis-
tinguished man of that party, who has not had the honour
of your vituperation.—(Loud cheers.) For ten years
vou say they have governed Ireland, and preserved tranquil-
lity, security, and order. During four years of that period
my Noble Friend was the Secretary for Ireland.—(Loud
cheers.) For four out of those ten years that man, whose ad-
vent to power you now deprecate, was the immediate agent of
the Whig, Administration.—(Loud cheers.) I ask you, is it
the feet that these men have so well deserved of Ireland, and
if it is, what could be your motives anti objects in increasing
their difficulties and embarrassments in the Government of
that country, in trying to create a prejudice against them in
Ireland, by the use of every calumnious expression which an
imagination, fertile in calumny, could devise ?—( Loud Tory
cheers.) I am sorry to find myself thus led away ; but I
think I have received provocation sufficient--(Loud cheers,
which drowned the remainder of the sentence.) It is my earnest
wish, and I hope I may be able to fulfil my intention, to dis-
cuss the question before the House in a spirit and temper becom-
ing to great an occasion, and the mighty interests which are at
present at stake.—( Loud cheers.) I have now been in oppo-
sition to Hon. Gentlemen opposite, with a brief interval of
office, for a period of nearly ten yeais ; and I have 'attempted
to conduct that opposition—at the same time unreservedly on
every occasion giving a frank expression of my opinion--an
opinion generally in direct contradiction to measures proposed
by the Hon. Gentlemen opposite-1 say I have, on every oc-
casion, endeavoured to conduct that opposition without acri•
mony, without rancour, and with the absence of every thing
like a feeling of personal hostility.—(Loud cheers ) if when
I was placed in that situation, in opposition, where some degree
of latitude is necessarily allowed, I endeavoured to act in the
mariner which I have described, is it probable that on the pre-
sent occasion, when according to the publicly expressed opinion
of the House that opposition is likely to be attended with success,
I should be betrayed into the adoption of a course different from
that which I have pursued during the whole of that period.—
(Cheers.) Sir, it is (lateral that on the present occasion, if
1 looked merely to party differences, I should feel all the exul-
tation of a party triumph ; but, Sir, when I look to the great
questions which have been submitted to our consideration—if
1 consider the grave and important consequences which are
anticipated as being about to follow from the debate
to-night—(Cheers)—if I consider that the destinies of
this great country, as far as the Administrative Go- '
vernment is concerned, may be committed to other
hand-1 say that those who, apparently, according to
public opinion, may be called upon to the exercise of that
power, ought to survey the position of public affairs with feel-
ings far more elevated than those of party triumph.—( Loud
cheers.) I hope that, if the anticipations of Hon. Gentlemen
are likely to prove correct—that if it is likely that I may be
called upon to take any part in the conduct of public affairs—
that I shall be actuated by feelings far different from those of
party triumph. Without any feeling of unmanly fear—with-
out shrinking from the resnonsibility which may be imposed
upon me—l cannot but contemplate office with an awful sense
of the immense responsibility which must devolve on those who
may be called upon to administer the affairs of this country—
' ( Cheersj—and the sense of that responsibility would bealone
ficient to prevent my indulging in anything like a feeling of party
rancour or party exultation.—( Loud cheers.) I will now
brifly advert to those parts of the Address on which there is
no great difference in opinion ; and, first, the House expresses
its satisfaction to hear that the temporary separation which, in
consequence of the quadruple treaty, had taken place between
France and the other Powers, which were parties to that
treaty, had happily ceased. No man can hear with more sin-
cere satisfaction than I do that that separation has ceased.—
(Loud cheers.) No man can hear with more cordial satisfac-
tion than I do that France has been enabled, consistently with
what is due to her honour, to enter again into the great Council
of Europe—( Loud cheers)—and I hope that this rcs'ora-
tion of amicable relations is, not a mere formal
restoration of diplomatic relations, but that it has been accom-
panied by a restoration of those feelings of amity, and that cor-
dial good understanding between this country and France which
is no essential to the peace of Europe and the tranquillity of
the world.—(Loud cheers.) I have read with the greatest
satisfaction the sentiments which have been recently expressed
by one so truly deserving the character of a great statesman
as the statesman who now holds the important situation of
Minister of France.—(Cries of " Hear," and loud cheers. )
It is with great satisfaction that 1 have read his frank declara-
tion, that he rejoiced in the prospect of a renewal of that
cordiality which had heretofore subsisted betweeu France and
England—('fory cheers)—and that he trusted that the union
of the two people, so essential to the preser-
vation of the , peace of Europe, would still continue
to subsist, and that if one word were to escape
from him tending to interrupt that harmony, he should
consider himself undeserving of forgivness.—(Cheers.) I
frankly also reciprocate those sentiments—(Loud cheers)—
for a cordial union between all the great countries of Europe.
—(Loud cheers.) It is the first great interest of all the
European Powers to attend to the preservation of peace.-
--(Loud cheers.) Is not the time come, I would ask,
when it is is the power of the different European Powers
to reduce their military force.—( Loud cheers.) Of
what use can it be, I would ask, for any one
power grea'ly to increase its naval or its military armaments?
There is no increase whatever in its real strength in conse-
quence, for one universal armament throughout every country
is the necessary result, depriving peace of one half
of its advantages, and anticipating the energies of
war when war may hare become necessary.—(Cheers.)
I know that there is a romantic notion entertained by some
persons in regaid to this subject ; bat I would say, let each
nation examine the state of its finances, and then ask itself
what danger it may he in from any armed aggression of its
neighbours, and compare that danger with the danger it may
run from aggravating the feelings of its own population by the
increase in taxation necessary to support• these armaments;
and the answer must be, thatthe danger from foreign aggression is
infinitely less than that from internal discontents produced from
these causes.—( Loud cheers.) Is it not a fair presemption,
therefore, that the tittle interest of Europe is for all the Powers
to come to one torn-anon accord, so as to enable every country
to reduce its military establishments, which at present consti-
tute a force rather belonging to a state of war than to a state
of peace.--(Loud cheers.) In the councils of every country
of Europe, and, in the public mind, which, throughout Europe,
now necessarily influences those councils, a great revolut iota has
taken place (Agate years. Twenty-five years of peace have pro.
duced a great revolution in public opinion. Now, let us take the
case of France. What country in Europe is there which would
wish to see France curtailed of its just limits ?—( Cheers. )
I know that it has of late been a common feelink throughout
France that there existed in England a feeling of determined
hostility against that country. Now, the idea that there is
any such feeling existing in this cower), is a complete mis •
take.—(Loud cheers from ail parts of the House.) I feel
convinced that throughout this country ninety men out of
every hundred entertain no other wish than that France should
consolidate her institutions on the firmest possible basis.—
(Loud cheers.) It France should be subjected to unjust ag-
gression her security will be not in the number of her regi-
ments, but in the mind. the energy, and the public spirit of the
nation. In such a case France would rise with the energy of one
man and repel the aggressor.—( Loud cheers.) Let us look
now at another great country, divided by political institution 3
into separate States—l mean Germany. Public opinion and
public mind is every day making progress throughout. Ger-
many, and from Hamburgh to the Tyrol, from Iserlin to the
southern extremity of that great country, the German nation
would rise as one man to repel any aggression. What is it
that constitutes the great security of a state against. aggression?
" Not high raised battlement or laboured mound,
Thick wall or moated gate,
Not citic s, proud eith spires nd turrets crowned,
Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where laughing at the storm, proud navies ride—
Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride--
No ! Men, high-minded men I"
—(Loud cheers.) I would give this counsel to the State
of Europe.—(Hear, hear, from the Ministerial benches.) I
trust in speaking in this manner I cannot fairly be taxed with
presumptwp.—(iioar, hear.) Hou. Gentlemen themselves