The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-31 00:00:00

S N, JANUARY 31, 1848.

Henry, M.P., entered the room at this stage of the
proceedings, and were greeted with loud cheers.]
The CiranistAsrsaid—l dare say you have noticed
that we have just received an accession to our num-
ber in the persons of our excellent Member for South
Lancashire,
Mr. Henry—(Applause)—and in our
excellent friend the Member for North Lancashire, Mr.
Heywood.—(Applause.) I should tell you that these
gentlemen had, previous to the public announcement
of this meeting, accepted an invitation to dine with
his worship the Mayor of Liverpool ; but that, being
most anxious to be present this evening, a special
train has brought them from Liveepool, since they re-
ceived the hospitalities of his worship the Mayor of
that place.—(Cheers.) I will now convey to them,
in your name, our assurance of the great gratification
we have in seeing them present.—(Continued cheer-
ing.) I now beg leave to call on Mr. Bright to re-
spond to the toast.
Mr. BRIG uT, M.P., came forward amidst deafening
cheers, which continued for several minutes. When
the applause had subsided he spoke as follows :—lf
any person here present was in any doubt as to the
purpose of this meeting when he came here to-night,
by this time I apprehend his doubt must be entirely
removed.—(Hear, hear.) I have been asked why this
meeting has been convened when the political world
was so calm, and the object for which we have con-
tended in this room was for the most part accoin-
plished. My answer has been that we were coming
together for the purpose of doing honour to a great
principle which has triumphed, and to another prin-
ciple which is marching on to a still greater triumph
—that which embodies the demand that in future
the opinions of the people shall guide, and
the interest of the people shall be the object
of government in this kingdom.—(Cheers.) Of the
first principle which we have so often spoke of in this
hall, I will not now speak in those terms of apology
which I have heard it treated with on some recent
occasions.—(Hear, hear.) If ever there was a prin-
ciple which was triumphant, if ever there was a po-
licy which was vindicated, if ever there was a course
pursued by a great public confederation which was
justified by the results,—l say we may point to the
principle of free trade, and to the course pursued by
the agitators from this platform.—(Loud cheers. Did
we not hear for years that we were to be, and that it
was the policy of this country to be, totally inde-
pendent of foreigners; and yet now we have to
make the confession, that, by the supplies of food
received from foreigners, some millions of our coun-
trymen have been kept alive during the last eighteen
months ?--(Hear.) Were we not told that the best
security for a full, for a permanent supply of food, was
by giving protection to the cultivators of our own soil;
and is it not proved, that after 30 years of strict pro-
tection, millions of our countrymen would have died
of famine if it had not been for supplies received from
abroad ? And were we not told that when we had
importations from abroad we should have abstracted
from us large sums in gold, and that these large sums
would go to build up rival manufactories in foreign
states ? Well, we have had large importations, and
large exportations of gold in payment for the corn.
But where is the retention of the gold ? Is it not at
this moment coming back about as fast as it went ?
(A voice, " Faster.") And more than this, has not
the country which took the largest portion of the
gold, has not that country—the United States of
America—doubled, I believe trebled, its purchase of
our manufactures within the last twelve months ?
(llean) If any man complains to me of free trade—
and I confess I meet with few men who do so, but
those obtuse individuals whom we were never able
to convince—if any man asks me if free trade has
triumphed, and if our policy has succeeded,J point
to 16 millions of quarters of grain which have come
into the country during the last 16 months.—(Ap-
plause.) I say, what would you have bad ? Would
you have had the anarchy, the famine, the mortality,
the ruin, unparalleled in any age and in any country,
which must have overspread this land, if your policy
of restriction and exclusion had been carried out ?
(Great cheering.) There never was exhibited a
more magnificent proof of our position than that
which the last twelve months have shown. If a
man could have stood upon an eminence, and
looked over the whole world, what would he have
seen ? What would he have seen that the spirit of
commerce was doing for this nation ? We were
panic-stricken, we were prostrate, we were famine-

steiekene we implored the whole wrielti
the spirit of commerce responded from every portion
of the earth.—(Applause) By the shores of the
Black Sea and the Baltic, by the classic Nile and
the sacred Ganges, by the St. Lawrence and the
Mississippi, in the tar-off islands of the Indian Ocean,
in the nascent empires of Australasia, we find human
beings, active, energetic, like yourselves—gathering
harvests, or dispatching the fruit of harvests for the
supply f the famishing people of this kingdom.—
(Great cheering.) And what is the lesson we should
learn from this ? That there is little dependence to
be placed upon human governments and human con-
trivances, and we should receive this universal ser-
mon to the world, that our greatest dependence is in
the laws of nature—(Hear)--in obedience to them,
and in the universal bounty of the common Father
of mankind.--(Cheering.) But,what are the politi-
cal results ? For there are political results of no slight
moment which have followed the triumph of the free
traders of England. The repeal of the corn-laws is in
the political world to be likened to the breaking up
of a long frost. You find that when the river is
unbound vast masses of ice become dislocated and dis-
jointed; they go in separate directions; 113 W they
touch and now they separate ; but still there is one
tendency—they are all flowing on towards their kin-
dred ocean. And what is it in Parliament and out of
Parliament but that your parties—and that party,
one of the worst which ever was bound together, has
been disjointed, separated, weakened, perhaps dis-
united for ever ; and there is in Parliament and out
of Parliament a general, a strong, and all-pervading
tendency in favour of liberal measures and greater
freedom in the Government of the kingdom.—
(Applause.) And to what are we tending? To
some things which have not been mentioned here to-
night. Take your own town. A number, not very
large, but daily increasing, of sincere and honest, and
good men, are protesting against the misappropria-
tion of funds which the State has applied to religious
purposes. (Hear, hear.) Look again at what
has recently taken place with respect to an elevation
to the episcopal bench.—(Hear, hear.) I have never
said a syllable since I spoke in public against the
Church of England as a religious body.—( Hear, hear.)
But at this moment I can appeal to thousands of in-
telligent and pious churchmen, and ask them whe-
ther they are not themselves driving in the direction
which I have long travelled in ; are they not them-
selves of opinion that it would be better for religion
that Bishops were not made by Prime Ministers, as
Prime Alinisters make them.—(llear, hear.) I say
that it is derogatory to the character of a Christian
church that its highest dignitaries should be nomi-
nated with as little—l will not say consideration—
but precisely in the same manner as a clerk in a Go-
vernment office, or an exciseman, is nominated to his
place.—(Loud cheers.) There is the question of
tenure of land ; the mode in which land is transferred
from hand to hand and from sire to son ; that question is
important to England and Scotland, as well as to Ireland.
These gross evils, which have so long existed, arose
in times when the population was thin and the people
were powerless. They are worn out now, and so
sure as Parliament has admitted foreign supplies of
food, so certainly before long, whatever aristocratic
influence may say to the contrary, will freedom be
given to the land as freedom has been given to the
produce of the soil. —(Applause.) But it is a curious
thing that at this meeting the speaking has all turned
upon a question which, but a few weeks ago, was
scarcely thought of at all—the question of the war-
cry which has been raised. I have not said much
about this war-cry, because everybody who knows
me believes that 1 must, from the mere fact of my
connexion with a religious society which as a
society is known to have been always a peace society
—that I must go along with the friends of peace.—
(Hear, hear.) I hear on every side that there has
been a panic ; but I do not believe it at all. There
is no panic ; there has not been a panic. My Hon.
Friend, the Member for the 'West Riding, has been
down in Cornwall. He has not been here. He has
read in the London papers, and he fancies we would
believe in the London papers.—(Laughter.) I will
just give you another instance of his credulity.—
(Laughter.) When he was in Spain he wrote to me
a letter, about the time that there was an apparent
quarrel between Lord Palmerston and somebody in
Paris, about the marriage of the Spanish Queen, and
he begged and implored that we would not go to war
about it, and that we would not get up a war mania
here. The fact was, that being in Spain he forgot
the character of the people he had left.—(Renewed
laughter,) He read the London papers, and fancied
we were all writing leading articles for the London
papers. The fact is the panic has been entirely among
certain leaders of the ilitary party in this country,
and among the "leaders" in the newspapers.—(Hear.)
There is another class that the panic has been among,
that distinguished body who go by the name of the
Yeomanry corps.—(Laughter.) However, I marvel
greatly they should be alarmed, because it is, or was
proposed to be expressly provided for them, that
whenever there was an invasion they should be per-
mitted to go abroad.' (Loud laughter stud cheers.)

• Now, I assure you I am not in the smallest degree
afraid, and I believe that the whole of this cry and
this panic has been a sham.—(llear, hear.) I would,
however, be permitted to state one
,thing, I believe
in my conscience that there is not a man in England
more innocent of bringing this war-cry upon this
country, or more unwilling it should go on, than
the present Prime Minister of England:-- (Hs ar,
hear.) It would be madness in a Prime Minister, in
any man who has to maintain his reputation as a
statesman, and who wishes to see the country prosper,
that he should get up a cry like this, or in any way
advance it. Great taxation, a deficient revenue—
these are things which an honest and a wise Mi-
nister would avoid, and I believe that Lord John
Russell has no more sympathy in this extrava-
gant outcry, than any man on this platform or in
this room.—(Hear, hear.) But the Prime Minister of
England is not a man exactly at his own disposal.
For example, we are trying to keep him in one po-
sition, or press him in another, and those who live
by military tactics are trying to persuade him to go
in another direction. I think I can give you the
secret of all this. In this country it is the custom for
men, the larger the property they have, generally the
less they leave to the majority of their children.—
(Laughter and cheers.) Now, an honest cotton
spinner or calico printer down here, if he makes
20,0001. or 30,0001. he generally divides it tolerably
equally among his children, when he leaves this
world. I can't tell how any man, with natural af-
jections anti common honesty, could do otherwise.—
(Cheers.) But the more property a man gets, and
especially if it is in green fields, he thinks it neces-
sary that the oldest should get it all ; and, I believe,
Col. Thompson gave a right explanation of this when
he said, "It makes one hand in the family so strong
that he can force the public to keep all the rest of the
family."—(Loud cheers.) Well, now, bear in mind
this, that among aristocratic families there is a
natural increase as there is in families of other sorts
of people.---(Laughter,) There is one child or two
children about the board at first, and by and by six,
eight, ten, or twelve, as the case may be. All these
children, for the most part, are brought up with the
idea that it would be lowering to their dignity if they
were seen offering anything for sale, or offering to
purchase anything on your Exchange. They don't
go to trade. They go to the public departments.
They are so overdone with patriotism, that nothing
will serve them but they must be continually giving
their services to the country.—(Hear, hear, and
laughter.) Well, the pasture is getting rather bare.
The middle classes are gradually throwing up more
and more of their number of active, clever, and intel-
ligent
,men, who become competitors for offices of
every description in the public service with the
aristocratic class. Well, the consequences are
very evident. The fact is, as political econo.
mists, or as our friend Colonel Thompson would
say, if he was writing upon it, " The numbers are
pressing upon the means of subsistence"—(Laughter
and applause)—in fact, that they must have a wider
scope for their engines, those energies being princi-
pally employed in doing nothing, and eating taxes.—
(Renewed laughter and cheers.) But, then, bear in
mind, that during these thirty years of peace, there
has been a process going on in this country which has
caused the utmost possible despondency among a large
portion of the aristocratic class. Take the last
twenty-five years, and any preceding twenty-five
years of our history, and you will find we have been
going through a revolution, a glorious revolution,
but a tranquil one, and the more glorious, infinitely,
because it has been tranquil. We have se.n
changes in the law and institutions, we have seen
changes in the policy of Government, and changes
in the temper of our executive, such as, with many
nations, have cloody revolutions, and yet they
have not suttee a in• .securing them. (Hear,
hear.) Who knoxiw4aapapsemarewext? "If
we are to have other 30 year i of pate, with a Free
Trade Hall in every large town, I should like to
know what is to come next," says a member of the
titled and aristocratic class. I have no doubt some-
thing very seriotiffor them, and they seem to be per-
fectly aware of it. There is a deadly ilfeud between
the spirit of war, and political, and socia*and indus-
trial progress ; and, therefore, it would servesthe pur-
pose of this anti-national class, if it were possible to
get up the war-spirit in England. For let that pre-
vail—let war again overspread the earth, and there
will be no social, no industrial reforms wrung from
the Government of the United Kingdom.— (Applause.)
I know that if you look upon the page' of history, the
last thirty years do not show quite so brilliant a
picture as the thirty years preceding. So many men
have not grown up to be great generals and admirals;
we have not had so many victories by land and sea,
and the churches and cathedrals have not been—shall
I say ornamented—l will say desecrated by the ban-
ners
and trophies of war.—(Applause.) A dis-
tinguished
French writer (Mons. Lamartine) has said
that blood shines more in history,
.it is true ; but it
taints : blood and liberty effectually exclude each other. I
do beseech you, then, as you value all the victories
which you have already won, as you value all that is
before you, and that which you may yet attain, make
a firm, a resolute resistance to whatever comes from
the highest, from whatever quarter, that shall engen-
der a hostile feeling towards foreign countries, and
shall induce you to spend large sums in your military
armaments and preparations.—(Great cheering.)
What is this meeting called for ? Why, but that
men—a score of men here, who have been returned to
Parliament by free constituencies—should have an
opportunity of meeting this large assembly, repre-
senting the intelligent classes of this country, and of
discussing these great national questions with them.
The popular power is spreading every day. Let it be
enlightened, that this power may be a blessing to its
possessors.—(Hear, hear.) I can fancy what will be
the exclamations of the United Service, the Army
and Navy Club gentlemen, when the papers arrive in
London with an account of this meeting.—(Hear )
Oh! it is a glorious time that we are come to, when
thousands of us come here and meet together free—
for there is no greater freedom than that which we
enjoy to-night ; free fully and openly to discuss, free
to approve, and free to condemn the policy of those
who occupy the highest places in this great empire.
—(Loud cheers.) I have stood upon the sea beach
sometimes, when there was not a breath of air to
ripple the surface of the ocean, and I have seen the
tide rising, as though there were some hidden secret,
and irresistible impulse, by which wave after wave
leaped upon the beach. Let us, then, as a great and
magnanimous nation, as I honestly believe we are,—
let us have within our souls that hidden, that irresis-
tible impulse,—that love for freedom, that love for
justice, which will enable us now, and in all future
time, to move onward and onward, making triumph
after triumph, until this great nation may be what all
nations, I trust, may one day be, a community of
happy people, to which all men will look up as an
example throughout the world.—(lmmense cheers.)
Mr. BROTIIERTON, M.P., rose amid general applause,
and said—Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—
In order to bespeak your indulgence, I promise that
I will not detain you more than five minutes. I have
the honour to propose a sentiment which I am sure
will be cordially responded to by this company; and
I will adopt the principle that I generally observe in
the House of Commons, that when I have heard my
sentiments expressed by others I generally remain
silent.—(Hear, hear.) My sentiments upon the sub-
ject of this toast, if it may be called a toast, have
been already expressed by gentlemen who have pre-
ceded me, and particularly by the Hon. Member for
the West Riding of Yorkshire. Anything that I
can say cannot add any weight to the sentiment I am
about to read :—" Free trade and peace : the best
guarantees of popular rights, the best promoters of
national industry, and the most effectual means
for the reduction of our national burdens." We
are at present at peace with all the world. The
question for our consideration is, how are we to re-
main so?—(hear, and applause.) It is proposed
by one party as a means that we should increase our
army and our navy. It is proposed by another—the
party on the side of peace—that we should adopt and
encourage a friendly intercourse with all nations, and
act upon the principle of justice and of a conciliatory
policy. A nobleman who has been alluded to this
evening, one of great influence in this country, and
from whom I had expected better things—(Hear,
hear)—" saluted" this country, I may say, through
the medium of the Times newspaper, on Christmas
morning, with these emphatic words, " Awake, arise,
or be for ever fallen !" This was not to announce
the birth of a Saviour, but the incarnation of a demon.
—(Hear, and applause.) It was not to proclaim glad
tidings and peace on earth, and among men, but it
was to sound the trumpet of war and desolation.
Therefore, the question that I have to ask you this
evening is this,—Are you in behalf of war, and po-
verty and misery, or are you in behalf of peace and
plenty ? No doubt you are for the latter ; and therefore
let us consider whether free trade is not the best
guarantee for peace. I would ask whether you wish
manufacture of
to see your people employed 111
the
food and clothing and in the building of
houses, and
adding to the comforts of the people ; or whether aou
wish to see your artisans engiged in milking guns
and swords and bullets, in order to shoot .ur le-st
1
customers.—
(Hear, hear.) We find that there is a
maxim among warriors that in order to ~,,„ p,,,,,,,
we should always be ready for war. We consider
that for the last thirty years we have spent 500