The Sun.
London, England, 1851-06-18 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDA.Y

exaggerate at all the relative means of Franco for aggression
and attack as compared with those of this country, still less
did be wish to imply that the, continuance of the Cherbourg,
or any other works on the part of France, was to be
consl-
dered as, an indication of existing hostile feelings towards
England. For his own part he utterly disclaimed any such
belief.—(Hear, hear.) He was convinced that the greater
intercourse which had taken place of late years between the
two countries had dispelled many prejudices—had removed
many foolish hostile feelings which had long survived the
causes which had given them birth.—(Hear, hear.) It
was one of the most gratifying circumstances of the
times in which we lived to see two great nations close
to each other—each gifted by nature with various qualities
entitling them to the esteem, friendship, and he would
say, the admiration of each other—capable of ren-
dering each other most important services, and capa-
ble —if actuated by feelings fatal to peace—,Of inflicting
great calamities on each other—it was, he said, most gra-
tifying to see that every day that passed, that every month,
every year that elapsed was giving rise to more generous
and friendly feelings between these countries, and that the
feelings of mutton friendship aid esteem were rapidly
succeeding those antiquated notions of antipathy of which
he trusted nothing would remain except the record of them
in the history of the two ,countties. But he still main-
tained that if it was the wish of a sich country like ours to
main ain relations of friendship vith a powerful neighbour,
we must be able to repel attack.a-(Hear, hear.) He did not
ask the country to arm itself wine the means UP -aggression.
Ho did not wish to see anything hour arrangements in time
of peace which should not only indicate an intention of ag-
gression, but which- any Frenchman could regard as the
means of aggression against Franee.—(Heara hear.) We
had no feeling to induce us to take such a course, and he
was the last man to wish that anything they did should be
capable of such an interpretaticn.—(Hear, hear.) On the
other hand, he did say it was e duty which we owed to
ourselves—which we owed to bore functions which Pro-
vidence had destined the couniy to fulfil—which we owed
to those who were to succeed us, that we should place
the country in -a position, ,ant-_ keep it in 'a position, to
be able to repel attack, if tarough unforseen and un-
fortunate circumstances such I, necessity should arise.—
(Hear.) It was his (Lord Palmerston's) misfortune to
be always pursued by the Honoirable Member for Stafford
with that reckless feeling of condemnation which the
Honourable Member had shows to-night in his very elo-
quent condemnation of him for having interfered and inter-
meddled in the affairs of other countries. The Honourable
Member had referred to the affairs of Tahiti and Morocco
in 1844. Now, if the Honourable Member's memory had
been equal to his eloquence—(A laugh)—he would have re-
collected that these two transactions occurred when the
Government of this country vas administered by the late
Sir Robert Peel.—(Hear, hear The Honourable Member
must, therefore, retract the corden3nation he passed_ on the
Government, or must modify ii some degree the panegyric
he bestowed on others.—(Hear.) The Honourable Member
had naturally remarked that tle proposal that an arrange-
ment should take place between France and England for
the reduction of their naval forces was open to the objec-
tion that these countries were not the only.naval powers
in Europe, and that bott might reply to each
other that there were °ther considerations by which
their respective arrangements must be guided. It was
proper to recollect, when the lion. Member . said that for
a long time the two countries of France and England had
been struggling to outvie each other in their naval arma-
ments, that the facts were net; ss the Hon Member had re-
presented. True, the events .ccnnected with the expulsion
of the Egyptians from Syria in 1840 and 1841 had led to an
augmentation of the naval forces , both of France and Eng-
land ; but the Administration of Sir Robert Peel, which
succeeded to office after these events, reduced our naval
force to a greater extent than it' ad ever been reduced since
the peace of 1815. We had one sail of the line in the Medi-
terranean, and no more, at the time he referred to. It was
well known, when the Tahiti affair took place, one ship of
the line at Spithead was the while force at Spithead, and
that that ship was on its way either to the east or west
station of America, and was detained. It could not, there-
fore, have been from any over-armament of naval force in
this country at that time that France was led to make the
exertions she (lid make. It was, as was afterwards per-
ceived and stated, that the navel defences were not at all in
keeping with the question which then agitated the two
countries. It was stated, however, that in 1846 there was a
debate in the French Chamber upon the subject of a great
augmentation of the French navy, to be founded upon the
augmentation of the English navy. But the great naval
force which England had at that time, and which, according
to his Honourable Friend, was the foundation of the
French armament, was this—one sail of the line in the
Mediterranean, and . one sail of the line caught and
detained at Spithead, instead of being on the coast of
America. Therefore, there was no great naval force on the
part of England which could. have occasioned any great
exertion on the part of France. . In point of fact the debate,
which it was his (Lbrd Palmerston's) fortune to hear, turned
upon this, that Vs e Governmentof France proposed forty sail
of the line as the permanent naval force of the country;
whilst M. Thiers, and those who opposed the Government
wanted to have forty-two; so that it was simply es question
of two sail of the line. The Hob. Member for Stafford (Mr.
Urquhart), who saw further into millstones than he (Lord
Palmerston) could pretend to do, appeared to see in that a
most treacherous scheme on his part, "for," said he, " it was
a remarkable fact, and I beg the House to remember it, that
at that moment there was a reconciliation between the
Noble Lord and M. Thiers.—(A laugh.) And what was
that moment? The moment when M. Thiers was recom-
mending a great augmentation of the French navy." And
the Honourable Gentleman added, " Rely upon it, whenever
the French augment their navy they intend to attack
England; therefore the Noble Lord chose that very
moment for a reconciliation with M. Thiers."—( A laugh.)
Now the reconciliation, or rather the renewal of acquain-
tance between himself (Lord Palmerston) and M.
Thiers, he could assure the Honourable Gentleman
was founded on principles very different from those to which
he had been pleased to ascribe it. M. Thiers was then kind
enough to show him that the French, however powerful they
might be, still thought that there were.works necessary to
enable them to defend themselves against attack, and that,
although with an immense army and armed population, they
did not disdain to spend large sums of money to secure
themselves against the attacks of foreign powers ; and those
works were defensive, because no man could say that fortifi-
cations could march to attack foreign powers.—(A laugh.)
M. Theirs took him around the fortifications of Paris, which
cost, he believed, something like 12,000,000/. sterling; and
though there were many different opinions as to the value
and merit of those works, and though he was aware that the
opinion of a non- military man was worth little, yet he
(Lord Palmerston) must say the balance of ()Pillion was
decidedly in favour of their utility, and that they did add
greatly to the defensive strength, and by that means to
the security and the peace of France.—(Hear, , hear.)
The Hon. Member for the West Riding (Mr. Cobden) had
stated, as an illustration Of what he would wish, that there
had been concluded between this country.and the United
States of America a convention for regulatieg the amount of
naval force which each power was to maintain upon the in-
ternal waters of North America.—( Hear, hear.) That cer-
tainly was a very wise and good arrangement, and he (Lord
Palmerston) believed it had worked advantageously to both
powers; but, at the same time, he was sure the House would
see there was a geeat and manifest distinction between inland
lakes and the seas of the world. That distinction had been
marked broadly by the conduct of the two powers, because
having made it as to the inland lakes, they did not go further
and make it in regard to the seas of the world ; but for the
reasons he had already stated, it was manifestlyimpossible
that England and France could have any hope or expecta-
tion of coming to such an arrangement in regard to their
naval forces, the augmentation or decrease of which was
calculated upon a great variety of circumstances of a totally
different character. And really he should feel that no such
negotiations could he entered into, especially with the obli-
gation of a request from this House, with any possible pros-
pect of comingto a practical result. At the same time, he
was ready, to adopt the motion and the speech of the Hon.
Member as the expression of opinion by an influential
Member, responded to, he should hope, by the unanimous
feeling of the whole House of Commons —(Cheers)—that
if common sense actuated those who on both sides had the
management of affairs, Englaud and France must be, as far
as human foresight could extend, friendly towards each
other, and that those mutual suspicions and reciprocal
jealousies which might from time to time have misled the
calculations of the Governments of the two countries would
disappear, and mutual confidence take place of reciprocal
distrust.—(Cheers.) At the same time, his Honourable
Friend had a little exaggerated the want of information
which either party possessed in regard to the arrangements
of the other; for it was not necessary that either should
send out those spies whom the Honourable Gentleman spoke
of, inasmuch as in regard to our naval arrangements no-
thing more was necessary than to read the debates which
took place in, this House and to look at our estimates, in
order to: knove atactly how these matters stood here ; and
there was. no greater secrecy with respect to the naval
arrangements of France. But again he (Lord Palmerston)
said that he accepted with pleasure the speech and the pro-
position of the lion. Member as the right hand of friendship
tendered by this country to Foreign Powers; and he agreed
with the Hon. Gentleman in thinking that there could not
have been a more appropriate time than the present for a de-
monstration of th,is nnture, because we had Just, as the Hon.
Gentleman had' described it, converted this country into a
temple of peace, for the whole world—we had invited the
natives of every civilized land on the face of the 'earth to
come here, not in a rivalship of strength or of brute force or
of the arts of human destruction, but to compare the progress
which each nation had made in those arts which constitute
the happiness and the ornament of the human race.
(Cheers.) It was no less a satisfaction to see the confidence
which had been reposed in this country by those who had
brought themselves and their goods to our great and mighty
Exhibition than it was a source of honest pride to know that
there was nothing which had more struck the strangers
who had done us the honour of visiting us on this occa-
sion than the spirit of order which they observed to
pervade every rank of society in this country, and that
they had expressed their wonder at seeing that respect
for the laws which was a spontaneous feeling from the
highest to the lowest in this land, and which arose very much
perhaps from the excellence of those laws—though he did
not mean to say they were perfect any more than any
other human institution could be—but the comparative ex-
cellence of those laws which secured to every man, from
the highest to the lowest, throe full enjoyment of the'honest
fruits of his industry, and pected him alike against op-
pression from above and insult from below--(Loud and ge-
neral cheering)—he said he was glad the Hon. Gentleman
general meeting of the world
in Parliament those principles
hhearde,tatkoenpraodevlaainnitaignehoisf
pthlaices
of universal peace which did honour both to him and to the
country ; and if he (Lord
Palmerston) objected to being sent b,.und and fettered into a
in which they were proclaimed
negotiation in which he confessed he could not see his way
practically, it was not that he objected to the end which the
Hon. Gentleman proposed to accomplish, but because he
thought that that end was more likely to be accelerated by
the language of the lion. Gentleman, and by the sentiments
which lie and the House were expressing, than it would be
by the particular and specific motion which he had this
evening laid on the table of the House. Upon these
grounds, then, he trusted his Hon. Friend would be satisfied
with those expressions of approbation which the sentiments
he had uttered had been met with by the House, and with
the concurrence of her Majesty's Government, in the most
ardent desire that any man in this country, or in the world,
could have, that they should, for this and for all other na-
tions, as far as their influence and power of persuasion might
extend, avert, as long as it might be their lot to
have anything to do with the affairs of this country, the
miseries and calamities of war; and he trusted the Hon.
Gentleman would be content with that, and not press his
motion to a division, which might be liable to misconstruc-
tion, and as a consequence of which it might be thought
that they' who opposed his motion differed with him in the
end which he sought to obtain, instead of really objecting to
the means by which he would endeavour to accomplish that
end.—(Hear, hear.) When he (Lord Palmerston) assured
the House that the endeavours of her Majesty's Govern-
ment would be continued in this direction he must say be
thought that experience of recent times was highly encouraging
to those who wished for the continuance of peace.—(Hear,
hear.) He quite agreed with the Honourable Gentleman
that the diffusion of constitutional Government throughout
Europe must tend greatly to the maintenance of general