The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-29 00:00:00

bravos !) And, I demand of you, if France, warlike
and conquering, has seen the nations offering to her
the tribute of their acclamations, what a part will she
perform in this long peace of the world?—( Applause)"
Now, gentlemen, when you see such statements of
those applauded, as they were in a French assembly,
will you believe that France is that nation of perfidy
, which some of your newspapers would make out ?
Now I will be practical with you on this question.
I shall not speak to you again until it comes before
the House of Commons. I have said that it is a

question for civilians—that military and naval men
should have no voice in it. lam not going to enter
into the technicalities of war, I know nothing about
that. Well, we are in a state of profound peace—it is
for you tax-payers to decide whether you will run the
risk of war, or allow an additional number of men in
red coats and blue jackets to live in idleness under the
pretence of protecting you. I say that I am for
acting justly and fairly, and for holding out the olive
branch to all the world, and for taking, as far as
my share goes, all the risk of anything that may
happen to me without paying for an additional
soldier. But it is not merely the question
of whether you will have more soldiers, that you, as
civilians, are called upon to decide. ,You will lay
out 17,000,000/. upon your armament this year, and
it is a question for you to decide whether the best
possible use is made of your money ; avhether,
for instance, the money for which you toil so dearly
is really employed in the best way to protect your
commerce and your shores.—(Cheers.) Where do
you think all your great line-of-battle ships have gone
to ? I've picked up a few secrets since I've been
abroad.—(Laughter.) I will venture to say there is
not mo sheer idleness and more demoralisation in
consequence of idleness going on in the same
space on the face of the globe as in our ships
of war, for want of something to do. Where
are all those great line-of-battle ships that go out of
your harbours with such a magnificent display of
grace and science ? Where do they go ? Do they
go where your commerce is ? No. Go to Ham-
burgh, where your commerce is immense; there's
never one to be seen there; go to the Baltic,
scarcely one is ever seen there. There is rough
weather there, and there are not many attractions
ashore.—(Hear, and laughter.) Go, then, to America;
there is North America, and I suppose we shall do
one-fifth or one-sixth of the whole of our foreign
trade with the United States. Do you ever see an
English man-of-war there? No; it's the rarest
thing possible—it's put in the papers if one goes on
that coast—they don't like the American society—
they are too fond of business there are no idle
people there, and so they do not go. Then where do
those ships go to that we pay so much money for ? I
moved for a return last session which will throw some
light upon the subject when it comes—kecp your eye
upon it. The return was for the amount of our naval
force that had been in the Tagus and the waters of
Portugal on the first of each month during the last
twelve months. When that report comes up I should
not be surprised if you were to find that you have
I had a naval force in the Tagus, and the Douro, and on
the coast of Portugal, which in number of guns will
not fall far short of the whole American navy.—
(Cheers.) Well, now, Lisbon is a pleasant place to
be at, as I can vouch fur—climate delightful—gran-
aries in the open air in the month of January. I
don't quarrel with the taste of the captains or admi-
rals who go and spend twelve months in the Tagus
—if you will let them.—(Cheers and laughter.)
But what are they doing for the money they cost
you ? Are they forwarding English interests there ?
Nothing of the kind. Our fleet has been in the
Tagus at the absolute disposal of the Queen of Por-
tugal—positively nothing else—ready to give her and
her court an asylum, in case their misconduct to their
people uhould render an asylum necessary. Now that
is a subject of which every gentleman, and lady too,
who pays a tax upon her sugar to support those idle
people, is able to judge. I never like to speak disre-
spectfully of any country, but I may say of Portugal,
that it is one of the poorest, and in every respect one
of the most decayed and abject of European countries.
What is England to gain by taking that country
under her protection ? Is it its commerce, with a
population of some 2,700,000 or 3,000,000, and those
excessively poor ? You take four- fifths of all their
port wine, and if you did'nt take it nobody else
would drink it.—(Cheers.) Now don't let me be
supposed to be uttering an atrocious sentiment, or
that I mean it in any other way than as an
illustration ; but positively if the earthquake that
once demolished Lisbon should come again and sink
all Portugal under the sea, it would be an immense
gain to the English people. That is not the fault of
Portugal, or of the Portuguese people. You go
there to help the Queen to misgovern her people ;
then when the people rebel you put them down.
You take the management into your own hands, and
say who shall rule the country, expressly forbidding
oue family. Yet you say that the elections to the
Cortes shall be free. They are free, and the con-
sequence is that almost every member returned is in
favour of the man whom Lord Palmerston says shall
not rule.—(Cheers.) The people of England must
get rid of their apathy with regard to foreign politics ;
you must look a little into the doings of your foreign
minister, and when you do, I'll undertake to say you
will save money at all events.—(Cheers.) What I
want to bring home to your convictions is this. If
the old ladies of both sexes at Brighton are
frightened that they will be taken out of their
beds some night by the French, why not bring
up your fleet from the Tagus, and let them
cruise in the Channel ?—(Cheers.) It would be a
great deal better practice and better exercise—better
for the health of the crew, the condition of the ships,
and the morals of the men. If you follow your ships
to the Mediterranean, the same process goes on as at
Lisbon. The Mediterranean is crowded with ships,
but they are not protecting our commerce. Malta
is the great skulking hole for your line of battle ships.
I was at Malta at the commencement of the winter,
in November. A :ship anchored there from Ports-
mouth, whilst I was there, with a thousand hands on
board. I went thence to Egypt and Greece, and on
my return to Malta there she was still—her captain
had gone ashore to live at the clubs, and the lieute-
nants found the utmost difficulty in finding anything
to do. It waslamentable to see the shifts they were
put to—letting loose the sails, hoisting them up again,
and scrubbing the decks, till one would think they
would scrub holes in them.—(A laugh.) I was
introduced to the American Consul when I was
at Malta, and we conversed very freely upon
the subject. He said, " I consider your navy very
slack.,' " Slack," I said, " what do you mean
by slack ?" " Oh," he replied, " too idle ; they can't
be in good order, if they are allowed to be idle in this
way three or four months at a time. We have three
ships in the Mediterranean, but my instructions are
never to let them come into port at all. There they
are—up one side, down the, other—always in mo-
tion." The consequence •is that the American ships
are in a far better state of discipline and equipment
than the English ships are.—(Cheers.) Now, this is
a question on which you are competent to form an
opinion ; and if they talk to you about protecting
the country, tell them to call home the ships lying at
Portugal. Talk of protecting the Queen of .Portu-
; gal, why her subjects are her proper protectors.—
(Loud cheers.) Now one word rather personal to
myself. I have been, some how or another, rather
singled out on the question of these armaments. I
dropped a few remarks at Stockport in the most harm-
less way—in fact, I did not go to Stockport intend-
ing to say anything about armaments or taxation ;
but a man in the crowd called out, " But beant
taxation soomut to do wit;" and then, under
the influence of the moment, I spoke of the army,
navy, and ordnance as being the only taxes in which
a reduction could be made—and the papers in Lon-
don, trying to make me ridiculous, said that I wanted
to do away with the whole of the army and navy.
Now I will state my opinion very candidly upon
this point. It is the same as I said at Stockport, and
as I published twelve years ago in a pamphlet. It
is that we cannot have a material reduction in our
armament until a material change has taken place in
the people of this country with regard to our foreign
politics. I wished to do no injustice to the Minister
that maintained our armament, all I did was to invoke
public opinion as I do now, and as I will do upon all
eccasions.—(Loud and general cheering). W hen
public opinion is on my side I shall be content to
find my views carried out—till then I shall be con-
tent to remain in the minority, and in the minority
I will remain until I can get into the majority.—
(Cheers). But the real question before the country is
not the reduction of our armament—it is not the ques-
tion whether we shall dismantle our fleets and leave
our arsenals defenceless—the real question is, will
you have an increase to your army, navy, and ord-
nance ? When I admit that public opinion does not
go with me to the full extent of my views, at the
same time I maintain, speaking for the West Riding
of Yorkshire, speaking for Lancashire, for Middle-
sex, for London, for Glasgow, on the question of an
increase of armament—that public opinion is with me
against the increase.—(Cheers.) And if that public opi-
nion is expressed, and expressed through public
meetings, before the estimates are brought on (for I
have no hesitation in saying that a large portion of
the press has neglected its duty upon this subject)
I venture to say there will be no increase of arma-
ment. Whether that manifestation of public opinion
takes place or not, I am determined that not one
single shilling shall be added to the estimates for
that purpose but I will force a division of the House
upon it.—(Loud cheers.) I began by identifying
the question of armament with free trade, and now
I tell you, in conclusion, that the cause of free
trade is deeply jeopardied all over Europe by the course
which it has been proposed to take. There is a
band of free traders in Paris who publish their weekly
organ, as we did our League—Le Libre Exchange—
and that paper is mourning in sackcloth and ashes
over our conduct, whilst the Moniteur, and other
organs of the protectionists, leap with exultation, and