The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-04 00:00:00

be our duty, Sir, not only to carry out abstract princi•
pies of right, but where they aff,et large interests, by
extensive alterations in the laws, that time should be
given for the adjustment of the interests to the new and
altered state of things.—(Hear.) But while I make this
admission, I believe that the good Nvishes to which
her Majesty has given utterance in her gracious
speech will be speedily realised, though in the transac•
tion we must be prepared for dlfficulties and loss, espe-
cially to parties who are slow in adjusting their course
of business to the altered state of things. It has, Sir,
always appeared to me that we have looked at the price
of wheat too much as a criterion of distress or pros-
perity. It is calculated that we have about 19 millions
of acres arable, and 38,000,000 of pasture and meadow,
while of the 19 millions acres less than 4,000,000 are
employed in growing wheat. Agriculturists it is,
thereture, obvious derive a large portion of their income
from stock, and to them therefore the prosperity of
trade and manufactures is a positive benefit and
source of profit, and we find that although the
price of wheat has declined the price of
meat has declined very little, and that it was cheaper
during many years of protection than it has averaged
since. And 1 need nut point out to the House that this
has arisen entirely from the larger consumption of meat
by the labouring classes—a circumstance at which we
may well rejoice.—(hear, hear.) The working men of
this country dine now as working men should dine, on
edibles furnished by the butcher. We have, unfortu-
nately, iu this country no means of estimating the
annual produce and consumption of food, and we must,
therefore, content ourselves with an approximation to facts.
I collect from the best sources that there were slaugh-
and we have local returns which give value to these
tered in England, in 1850, 60,000 more beasts than in 1849,
calculations. The largest cattle salesman in Liverpool
gives the following return of sales for the past year:—ln
1849 there were 109,287 oxen; in the year 1850,
123,213. They also state in their circular our imports
of sheep to have been on a less extensive scale from
Ireland, and we are now witnessing, to us, the novel
feature, that store beasts have been lately sent into that
country.—(Hear, hear.) I find the prices of meat during
the last six mouths and the corresponding six months of
a year since have been nearly the same. I find the in-
, crease of consumption in England to be the counterpart
of Scotland. The City Chamberlain of Glasgow makes
the following return of animals slaughtered in that
city:—

1848 132,150
1849 ... 161,527
1850 ••• •• ••• 185,235
The increased' consumption has fully kept up prices too
in Scotland. I have now before me the prices current of
Smithfield, Glasgow, and Liverpool for the last two
years, but I need only refer the House to Mr. Porter's
admirable work, just published, and there it will be
found stated, on unquestionable authority, that beef and
mutton are dearer now than they were in 1843, 1844, or
1845, which were years of protection.—(flear.) I have
also before me the statistics, with which I will not weary
the House, of the meat and stock carried by the principal
lines of railway, which proves most unquestionably that
our own farmers have in the three last years produced
much larger quantities of stock. I have shown the con-
sumption is larger than ever, and I ask them if there
is not solid ground for the belief that though there must
be suffering in the transition, yet agricultural interests
will be based on a solid, substantive foundation, and
that it will depend on legitimate courses of prosperity,
and that agriculturists will carry out all their engage-
ments with the sympathy of every class of the commu-
nity, with no fear of distrust taking the place of mutual
confidence, but with such a union of all the interests of
the country as shall be the best guarantee of commercial
greatness and domestic strength.—(Cheere.) It I am
not trespassing too much on the time of the House, I
desire to call its attention for a few moments
to the cheering prospects of progression in Ireland,
which I doubt not will eventually be a source of strength,
and contribute her quota to the general welfare.—(Loud
cheers.) Her comparative advance in industrial pur-
suits in the last sixteen years has been much greater
than in the sister portions of the kingdom, Scotland and
England.—(Cheers.) 'The number of persons engaged
in cotton, silk, and woollen factories, I find has increased
158 per cent., while in Scotland the increase has been
51 per cent., and in England 67 per cent., and I find our
cotton and flax manufacturers alone give employment
to 350,000 persons at the present time, and that
300,000 females are employed at sewed muslins,
the cost of which is almost entirely labour and profit.
On turning to agriculture, I find the prospects are even
more cheering. Capital is flowing into the country;
land is being rapidly consolidated from the old and
vicious state of conacre to farms of from 100 to 200
acres. In proof of this, I need only refer to Captain
Larcom's returns; large breadths of land are being sown
with cereals, the value of stock is increased, and that
too much neglected bnt most valuable link between the
agriculturist and the manufacturer, flax, is being more
extensively and profitably cultivated; and I note with
hearty pleasure the great eagerness of the people to es-
tablish packet-stations manufactories, as evidencing the
desire which is always the precursor of success. We see
also in Ireland the railway making its natural capa-
bilities available, and rapidly opening up its
resources. Soon will its most distant parts be placed
in ready communication with England ; and here, Sir,
I cannot but regret that the advice of a late illustrious
statesman, whose loss we deplored near the end of the
last session, has nut been more extensively carried cut,
and especially that the city of London, to whom we look
for the initiative in this matter, has not prosecuted her
intention beyond a public meeting. That corporation
holds very large estates there by the favour of former
Sovereigns.—(Hear, hear.) They possess, therefore,
a personal interest in the country, and I had hoped
to have seen large tracts of country vested by purchase
to them and to other corporate bodies, who could
invest capital largely, and who, while blessing their
country by the enterprise, would have left a valuable in-
vestment to their successors, and an enduring monu-
ment of their patriotism and public spirit.—(Hear,
hear.) I cannot but point with admiration to the con-
duct of a brother of the Noble Lord the Member for
Evesham. He has turned a desert into a garden—a
large estate from which no rental was derived into a re-
munerative property.—(Loud cheers.) He deserves
well of his country, and his conduct is worthy of imita-
tion. There are most false impressions abroad as to the
Irish character. I know nom personal experience that
if you pay the Irish labourer well, show him you care
for him, and he is the most faithful and bard-working
creature in existence; but if you find him in one pars of
his native country woi king for fourpence per day, paid
in potatoes or meal, and that where most of
the misery exists, can we wonder that the results are as
we find them? but give bim legitimate occupation,
remunerate him for his services, show him you appre-
ciate those services, and you may be sure you put an end
to all agitation. Ile will be your faithful servant, and
the loyal subject of his Sovereign.—(Cheers.) I trust I
have, Sir, been able to show, though ineffectually, that
the tone of trade in the whole country is healthy, sound,
and rational—(Hear, hear)—the manufacturing inte-
rest busy and prudent—the people better fed and clothed
than ever; that the agricultural interest must share in
the general prosperity—(Hear, hear)—and with an ear-
nest desire that all the wishes of our most gracious and
much-loved Sovereign may be fully realised, I turn
briefly to one or two other points in the Address,
asking the House before I pass to the next
subject to congratulate it, and through it the nation
which it represents, on the satisfaction with which we
can look forward to the visit of the world to the metro-
pelis.—(Hear, hear.) We cannot show our visitors
that which some other nations could have shown them.
The treasuries of art aro not ours pre-eminently. In
much that would have qualified and refined taste we are
deficient, but, Sir, we are by no means deficient in those
things which constitute the well-being of a nation.—
(Hear, hear.) We abound in the evidences of substan-
tial greatness—of permanent prosperity—of genuine
freedom—of the Sovereign's generous sympathy with
the people, and of the people's intelligent devo-
tion to the Throne—(Loud cheers)—and com-
mercially, while we fear no competitor, we court
reciprocity, and I believe this great meeting, while it
tends to our well being as a nation, will conduce to the
peace and happiness of the world.—(Cheers.) Her Ma-
jesty in her gracious speech next refers to she assump-
tion of certain ecclesiastical titles, and to a Bill to be
hereafter laid on the table of the House, and on this
point I trust that the wording of the Address will com-
mend itself to all.—(Hear.) No Hon. Member, by gie.
ing his assent to this Address, is bound to any subsequent
course of action, nor can I think that Hon. Members
professing the Homan Catholic faith are by it committed
to any course of proceeding until the Bill to which
it reters is laid on the table of this House.
Her Majesty refers to a fact patent to all,
and while we all feel bound by every tie to protect the
civil and religious liberty of the subject to the utmost,
we are all equally bound, by oar devoted loyalty and
love to our Sovereign, to protect her prerogative from
aggression of every kind also, and that to the utmost.
We are not called on, Sir, to any reactionary course;
the antecedents of the First Minister of the Crown are a
pledge more than sufficient to the most timid mind, that
while he would constitutionally preserve every right of
the Crows, and her Majesty's civil supremacy, and
while he will oppose determinedly the introduction of a
code of laws alike opposed to the rights of the Queen
and the civil liberty of the subject, he will not sully his
fair reputation by any course which shall be inconsistent
with that love of true religious liberty which he has ever
shown.—(Cheers.) And, Sir, I must ask permission
of the House to read a short extract from a speech of
that Noble Lord in introducing the repeal of the Test
Act in 1828—that Noble Lord being then in opposition:
—"I now come to the great principle involved in the nu-
merous petitions before the House—petitions signed by
the whole body of Dissenters, by Roman Catholics, and
by many members of the Established Church. That
principle is, that every man ought to be allowed to form
his religious opinions by the impressions on his own
mind, and that when so formed, he should be at liberty
to worship God according to the dictates of his con-
science, without being subjected to any penalty or dis-
qualification whatever—that every restraint or restric-
tion imposed on any man on account of his religious creed
is in the nature of persecution, and is at once an offence
to God and an injury to man.—(Hear.) This is the
first and noble principle on which the Dissenters claim
the repeal of the test laws; but I will fairly admit that
there may be an exception to its application—(Elear,
hear)—and I will illustrate it by reference to the general
principle of non-interference by one state in the internal
affairs of another.—(Hear, hear.) It may be stated
that one state would not generally be justified in inter-
fering in the internal concerns of another; but if some
of the internal regulations of political institutions of
one state are of such a nature as to lead directly to the
injury of another, then the interference properly com-
mences on the part of the state making such regula-
tions, and not on the part of the state which complains
of them. I will say the same of religion; if the religion
of any body of men be found to contain political principles
hostile to the State, or militating against that allegiance