The Sun.
London, England, 1848-03-21 00:00:00

EVENING, MARCH 21, 1848.

in the matter. He took no blame to himself. In 1835,
when our navy was at the lowest, he made his first ap-
pearance in public life by writing pamphlets against
increased armaments. But they now came to the ques-
tion—how was the money to be raised?—(Hear, hear.)
They were in a serious dilemma respecting it. It was
proposed to do it by an increased income-tax, and he
would say very frankly to the country, that if the ex-
penditure must be carried on, he would vote that it be
paid by the men of 1501. a year and upwards, rather
than that the working classes should be taxed another
farthing.—(Hear, hear.) He believed that the masses
had no fear of invasion. They laughed at it. The
peasant working at his plough, or the weaver at his
loom, never felt any alarm. It was the genteel and
timid classes of the country who wanted this protection,
and he would say, if they would have it, let them pay
for it.---(Cheers.) But what a lesson did the present
state of Europe read to us as to the result of these vast
armaments? Every post brought accounts of the march
of revolution throughout Europe, and the primary cause
of all this was, no doubt, the heavy burdens, the material
suffering and oppressions of the people.—(Hear, hear.)
It would have been better if a remedy could have been
found other than revolution, but there was no doubt but
that the principal cause was the heavy expense, parti-
cularly for army, navy, and ordnance. There was in the
United States a writer, Mr. Charles Sumner, who had
published a work to prove that the standing armies of
Europe, cost 200,000,0001. a year, together with the
withdrawal of 2,000,000 of men in the foyer of
manhood from industrial pursuits, involving a loss of
60,000,000/. more. Two millions of people were alleged
by this writer to be absorbed by the monastic institu-
tions, but he (Mr. Cobden) wanted to know what dif-
ference was there between keeping two millions of men
idle in red coats and keeping them in black? They had
equally to be supported, the result was disaster to the
finances, and such a state of things must always lead to
revolution.—(Hear.) He was anxious that they should
take this matter in hand in time. He believed that
great disasters threatened this country in financial
affairs. They talked of borrowiag from the reserve
fund. Then they must borrow from the Bank, and then
came Bank disaster and a panic. He believed most of
the panics had arisen from the illicit intercourse carried
on between the Bank and the Government.—(Hear,
hear.) Then they had the danger of a bad harvest, for
such an event was always on the cards. He maintained
that the danger of invasion was not half so great as the
danger to be apprehended from a disordered state
of the finances. Our present embarrassments did
not arise from any falling off in the revenue, but
from our inordinate expenditure. He wished that
Hon. Gentlemen would pluck up courage against foreign
foes, but also that they would at the same time have
courage to face our financial difficulties. He had no
fear whatever of invasion from without ; he did not
think that any one would assault us; but the state of our
finances afforded him ground for apprehension. If we
could increase our strength in that department—if we
could only add to the number of prosperous people, at the
same time diminishing the number of our paupers and
sailors, we should be taking the best means of securing
the permanent welfare of the country.
Admiral DUNDAS said he could not lose a moment
in noticing the statements which had been put forward
by the Hon. Member for the West Riding respecting
our squadron in the Mediterranean. He held in his
hand a letter from Admiral Parker, in which, after
quoting the observation of the Honourable Member,
to the effect that the American Consul had criticised
the discipline of our ships, the writer proceeded to
say, " The American Consul writes to say that he has
had no sort of intercourse with nor has he seen Mr. Cob-
den for ten years."—(Opposition cheers.) His (Admiral
Dundas's) Gallant Friend was also totally at a loss to
know what ship it was which had remained in Malta
throughout the whole of the Hon. Member's cruise to
Sicily and back. He did not think the House would
expect him further to defend the charactera of Admirals
Napier and Parker on the discipline carried on on board
their squadrons.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. (,OBDEN—The Gallant Admiral says what is
true—that it is ten years since I was in Malta; but it is
also true that I never said anything else.—(" Oh, oh,"
from the Opposition.) It would be the last thing which
a man so notorious in his movements as I have been
would think of.—(lnterruption, and cries of " Oh, oh 1")
I believe that almost every town I visited was duly
chronicled in the newspapers.—(Hear, hear.) But I
was in Malta in the winter of 1636 and the spring of
1837, and I again repeat what I have said on the
subject. Don't tell me of the characters of Gallant Ad-
mirals—we have all got good characters, I hope; but I
ask whether or no my facts are correct?—(Hear, hear.)
The American Consul could not deny that he went in
the steamer with me from Malta to Greece, or that we
were four days together in the same vessel.—(Hear,
hear.) We have heard a great deal of the character Of
the two services. I tell them that I look upon them in
the same light as I would any other profession; they
don't work for nothing, as the seventeen millions in the
estimates will testify, and their conduct forms as fair a
subject for criticism as if they were barristers or phy-
sicians.
Admiral DUNDAS said that he held in his hand an
extract from the Hon. Member's speech in Manchester,
and the Hon. Member's words were :
" I was at Malta at the commencement of the winter,
in the month of November. While I was there one of
our ships of the line arrived from Portsmouth : it had
come direct: it had left England with a crew of 1,000
hands, and arrived in the harbour of Valetta with 999,
one person having died on the passage. It went, as I
say, into the harbour of Valetta, and there it remained
while I travelled from Malta to Naples, thence to Egypt
and to Greece; and when I returned to Malta there was
the vessel lying in the harbour of Valetta still. Her
chief officers had gone on shore to live in the clubs, and
the subs and rest of the crew found the utmost difficulty
in keeping up even the appearance of a pretence to use-
ful employment, in hoisting up the sails and taking them
down again, and in scrubbing the decks.—(Laughter.)
Well, I was introduced, as it happened, to the American
Consul at Malta, and he spoke to me on the subject.
He said, We Americans consider your navy to be very
slack."'
In answer to this the Consul wrote to say, that he
had not seen the Hon. Member for ten years.—(Hear.)
Colonel TYNTE said that a relation of his, who was
in the navy, had returned on the previous night from
Lisbon, and had told him that the strict discipline of the
squadron there was the topic of general conversation.
Lord PALMERSTON said that he did not rise to
defend the British navy—" the blood of Douglas could
protect itself." The high character which our navy had
acquired, and the brilliant discipline it had attained,
and which was never more remarkable than at the pre-
sent moment, would secure for it the respect and admi-
ration of all whose knowledge of it was not, like that
of the lion. Member for the West Riding, confined to
a period of ton years.—(Hear, and cheers.) With re-
gard to the question more immediately under considera-
tion, he should not go over the ground which had been
so ably trodden by those who had preceded him on both
sides of the House, as to the reasons which had led to
that progressive augmentation in the charges of the
navy, which was observed and found fault with by those
who opposed the present vote. It had been explained
that this increase had arisen partly from the necessary
supplies of stores consumed in the annual services cur-
responding with the augmentations made from time to
time, and partly from the great and extraordinary
change which the introduction of steam as a means of
propulsion for vessels necessarily made in the character
and description of our vessels. But that increase, what-
ever it might be, was not greater than what had taken
place in the navy of Franco during the corresponding
period, And when he was told that they were not to
look at what other nations did with their naval establish-
ments, the answer was given by the Hon. Member who
had just spoken. He had repeated the arguments used
in the French Chamber for the increase of their navy,
but the common sense of those arguments was, that the
defensive means of a nation even in time of peace must
in some degree be proportioned to the preparations
of other nations with whom there might be a chance
of our coming into collision. There was nothing
offensive in that mode of proportioning the defen-
sive means of our nation to the preparations of
another, and it would have been bad policy if we
had taken no notice of the naval forces of the United
States, of France, and of Russia, the three great mari-
time Powers of the world. He imagined that neither in
stores, in sailing ships, or in steamers, bad we gone
beyond what the necessary service of the country re-
quired. It had well been observed that, in defending the
present vote, they should not rest their arguments on a
state of things which had arisen since the estimates had
been prepared. He was willing to admit the force of
that assertion ; but when he was asked why it was
that our extended commerce required increased means
of defence, he must protest against the manner in which
the Hon. Member for the West Riding had said that our
commerce required no protection from our navy.—(Hear.)
Our merchants were every day seeking fresh markets,
and everywhere that those were found British residents
flocked to the spot. There was hardly a place in
the commercial world in which British subjects did not
establish themselves, and being established they always
looked for protection at least from our naval force.
There was not a day in which he did not receive letters
from various parts of the world, from British subjects,
complaining that they were neglected and exposed to
oppression and ill-treatment from the local authorities.
It was, therefore, not merely on account of the extent of
our colonial possessions, but of our trade and commerce,
that additional naval protection was necessary. But the
argument of the Hon. Member (Mr. Cobden) would go
to show that we might dispense altogether with, not
only the navy. but the army, and even the police.—
(Cheers.) The Hon. Member said, what was the use of
our ships of war, they are always lying useless in the
harbours, and the men are cleaning the decks, or em-
ployed in other equally peaceable and useless occupa-
tions.--(Hear, hear.) He wished the lion. Gentleman
would exercise his ingenuity in describing, in the same
way, the occupations of the soldiers in their bar-
racks. Because, if •it were a good argument that
because our sailors were not employed in hostile occu-
pations, that therefore we have no use for them,
it would be equally good as against our army that in
time of peace they were only employed in barracks or
on parade, and in the same way it would apply to that
army of blue coats who we saw walking about the
streets with their hands in their button-holes and staring
every person out of countenance who ventured to look
into a shop window.—(" Hear, hear," and a laugh.) He
must say that the Hon. Gentleman, who talked of
childish argument and childish reasoning, had, in endea-
vouring to show that our navy should be reduced in time
of peace, adduced a line of argument which was not
likely to have much weight with the House, nor with
any reasoning man in the country.—(Hear, hear.) The
Hon. Gentleman would refer the question not to a naval
man or a statesman, but to the ploughmen and the
weavers.—(A laugh.) There is no danger of invasion,
said be, for the ploughman ploughs on without dread of
a foreign foe, and the weaver has no fear of foreign
OCCUPatI9II4-"(Chegra and laughter.) Now ho (Lord

Palmerston) could not consent to leave the question to
that triounal—(Hear, hear)—nor did he consider that
because the ploughman and the weaver did not believe
the descent of a foreign enemy possible, that we ought,
therefore, to strip the country of its naval defences,
and depend for protection altogether on the doctrines
of free trade.—(Cheers.) Those doctrines he had often
admitted and pressed upon the House as doctrines tend-
ing to peace, but he was not prepared to say they could
be relied on as an efficient substitute for that more
material and physical protection which a great nation
like this would always require.—(Hear, hear.) The
Right Hon. Gentleman (Sir James Graham) had said
that he trusted no member of the Government, in ad-
dressing the House on this question, would depart from
that reserve which was becoming of the present occa-
sion ; but the Hon. Member for the West Riding
exhorted them to tell all the secrets of the Foreign-
office.—(Hear, hear.) He (Lord Palmerston) had no
secrets. Heaven knew that what was now passing in
other countries was no secret.—(Hear, hear.) Those
events were notorious to all mankind ; and if any
reasoning or reflecting man in the House could have
thought six weeks ago the force proposed was greater
than expediency or the neces&ities of the public service
required, he was sure no man in the present state of
affairs, and in the face of future events, which he hoped
would not be of that character which some expected—
but still with a future big with uncertainty—(Hear,
hear)—whatever the wishes and hopes of the Govern-
ment that that future would end in peace might be—and
he could assure them that whatever influence the Go-
vernment possessed would be steadily exerted for that
object—(Hear, hear)—and is urgently and impartially
endeavouring to inculcate the doctrines of peace to all
who might be disposed to listen to their counsels—still,
with a future big with events, the character of which no
one could venture to predict—no careful man in this
country could wish that our naval and military force
should be reduced to a lower amount than that at which
it now stood.—(Hear, hear.) If they wished the
counsels of this country to carry any weight, we
mast be in a condition independent of fear and
alarm. A country that was itself powerless could not
expect other nations to listen to its appeals. For your
counsels to have weight you must show that you do not
desire peace out of humility or fear.—(Hear, hear.)
You must show that you demand it because you think
it is consistent with the true advantage of all countries—
that you demand it, because of your love of peace it-
self, and not out of fear of the consequences of war- in
your own case. He could assure the House that it was
not only the desire of the Government that this country
should continue to enjoy the inestimable blessings of
peace, but it would be no fault of theirs—when they
ventured to offer connsel to others—it would be no fault
of theirs, if Europe should be involved in the calamities
of war.—(Hear.) No one, he thought, in these days
would venture to prophecy what might occur. Events
had followed each other of late with such rapidity that
no man would attempt to anticipate what might be the
rsults of the coming ; week.—(llear, hear.) But he
trusted they would not think this was a moment when
they shbuld divest the Government of those means
which, at the beginning of the session, they proposed
that the House should intrust to the Government for the
service of the country.—(Hear.)
Captain HARRIS defended the military and nava
services from the imputations of the Hon. Member for
the West Riding, and said that when that Hon. Mem-
ber spoke slightingly of the Duke of Wellington he did
not know the hearts of the people.
Mr. BRIGHT (who was for some moments pre-
vented from proceeding by the calls for a division) said
the speech of the Noble Lord (Palmerston) was precisely
like the speeches of all the Foreign Secretaries for the
last sixty years. He wished to recal the House to the
question under consideration, via., whether they were to
vote this enormous sum without deduction or not, and
in point of fact, whether the:Committee should give its
sanction, which had been for so many years followed, of
perpetually increasing the military expenditure of the
country ?—(Hear.) Of what was that expenditure now
composed ? The interest on the national debt, the
navy, the army, and the ordnance, were all expenses
which arose from those warlike propensities which had
been so extensively gratified by present and past Go-
vernments.—(Hear.) These branches formed almost the
whole expenditure of this great empire-47,000,0001. a
year were paid either for wars that had already taken
place, or in preparation as it seemed for wars that were
expected.—(Hear.) The Noble Lord (Palmerston) asked,
" How can you expect to have influence with foreign
countries unless, when you recommend peace, you are
in a powerful position as to your armaments?"—(Hear.)
New there were two answers to that proposition. First,
the Noble Lord did not consult the interest of this
country—he thought it was his duty, for the purpose of
upholding the balance of power, to interfere with the
arrangements of continental states; and the other answer
was to be found in the answer to the question, was the
United States powerful or not? Had not the United
States obtained from France the restoration of rights and
payments which France for a long time had refused?
Had not the United States obtained from this country
the settlement of the Maine boundary question and the
Oregon question? And yet, until the Mexican war, the
United States had, as compared with our own, a ridi-
culous amount of armaments both military and naval.
—(hear, hear.) But there was another question which
the Noble Lord (Palmerston) and the Secretary for
the Admiralty seemed to have lost sight of—that was,
where was the money to come from for these constantly
increasing armaments?—(Hear, hear.) They might
bring forward documents and argue, that because France
or some other power had increased its armaments,
therefore we must add to ours. But there was a limit
to this, which if they passed they would entail more
mischief on the country than could result from any in-
crease of the armaments of foreign countries.—(Hear.)
Let them consider the discontent which the proposed
increased expenditure and increased taxation had occa-
sioned throughout the country during the last three
months.—(hear, hear.) The people were not, however,
sufficiently alive to the extravagance of the Govern-
ment, nor to the necessity of resisting by all constitu-
tional means these unnecessary additions to our taxation.
—(Hear, hear.) But it was because 500,0001. more was
asked for in the present estimates than in those of last
year, and because 2 per cent. had been attempted to be
added to the income-tax, that an amount of discontent
existed against the present Government which no pre-
vious Government for many years past had met with.
The industry of the people was paralysed, their means
were exhausted, and from the highest to the lowest they
were in a state of extreme difficulty and suffering. If
this course was continued, we could scarcely -hope to
escape some of those troubles which had resulted in
other countries from the same cause.—(" Oh," and
" Hear.") The Noble Lord talked of his desire for
peace, but had he sent any Ambassador or Envoy to
any foreign nation with a direct and tangible proposi-
tion to reduce the military expenditure in conjunction
with this country ?—(Hear, hear.) Nothing of the
kind had ever been done, and yet there was no doubt
that Prussia, Russia, Austria, and all the continental
powers, were sighing for some relief from those all but
intolerable burdens.—(Hear, hear.) If we had a Secre-
tary fur Foreign Affairs who thought more of the true
interests of his country than the exaltation of his
office—("Oh," and cheers)—he could imagine him enter
ing into a correspondence with intelligent Ministers of
other countries to bring about such a reduction of ex-
penditure as he had alluded to, and such a reduction as
this country would enforce before long.—("Divide.")
When he remembered that there were 150 Gentlemen
in that House connected with the army and navy, he
was not surprised that what he was saying now, and
what he had said en former occasions, should be unpa-
lateable ; but if that House really represented the com-
mons of England, and held the purse-strings of that
enormous taxation which was extracted from the people,
he knew of no more solemn duty that could devolve
upon its members than to protest against an expense
which they believed to be excessive, and which was oc-
casioning discontent through all classes of the industri-
ous people of the country.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. IL DRUMMOND—When he heard gentlemen
belonging to the military and naval professions charged
by the free-trade party with selling the interests of their
country he feared they were on the verge of carrying
into the military affairs of the country those tenets
which had brought ruin on the country in every other
way.—(A laugh.. He would not detaia the House on
that question now, because other occasions would arise,
when he was determined to trace, in all its ramifications,
the principles of the free-trade schools, and to show the
injury which had resulted from their adoption. They
had been taught to consider the interests of the master
cotton spinners as identical with the interests of the
kingdom.—(Hear, hear.) So the interests of the cotton
spinners, the cotton operatives, the colonies, and every
other interest had been sacrificed; and now the same
party who had obtained this sacrifice come forward,
with the most inordinate presumption, to sneer at
Ministers for maintaining those doctrines which every
previous Government upheld—(Cries of " Hear, hear")
—and to call for the abolition of that policy and those
maxims which experience and common sense had shown
to be correct. The cotton-spinning interest was to be
the guarantee for peace; and, according to these gentle-
men, he believed if Cain himself had been a cotton
spinner, he would never have knocked Abel on the
head.—(A laugh.) He mistrusted not the men, but
their power. He mistrusted that they had the power at
all, and he certainly did not believe that we were in any
danger of a foreign invasion, so long as we showed that
we had the power and the determination to resist it.—
(Hear, hear.) He conjured the House not to believe
that these establishments were upheld merely for the
benefit of the genteel classes, and to mistrust all counsel
that came from that quarter ; for the throne could not
stand upon cotton, and the Queen could not sit upon a
spinning-jenny.—(Cheers and laughter.)
Sir H. VERNEY said a few words in vindication of
the Irish Roman Catholic soldiers, than whom (he said)
there were none in the British service more ready to do
their duty.
Mr. HUME replied, and the Committee divided—
For Mr. Hume'. motion
_ _

Against it 347
Majority
The original motion was then put and agreed to, the
House resumed, the Chairman reported the resolution
to the House, and obtained leave to sit again.
ELECTION RECOGNIZANCES BILL.
Mr. BRIGHT asked the Hon. and Learned Member
for Midhurst (Mr. Walpole) whether the second reading
of the Election Recognizances Bill would come on to-
night ; if not, whether it would come on at all ; and if
at all, when ?—(Laughter)
Mr. W ALPOLE was willing to take any course
which might be agreeable to the House. As the organ
of the Select Committee appointed on this subejct, he
had brought forward the Bill, but after the division
which had taken place upon it on Wednesday last, he
did not entertain much hope of being able to pass it in
its present form. The Bill sought to do justice to all
parties, both petitioners and sitting Members, and it was
' for the House to decide whether ho had succeeded in
1 accomplishing that object. His sight Lion. and Learned