The Sun.
London, England, 1851-11-03 00:00:00

TIIE SC

that it is therefore not only the right, but also the
duty, of every honest citizen to contribute to the deve-
lopment and expression of that public opinion, of which
the legislative, as well as the executive, authorities
are, and must be, faithful representatives. Allow me,
secondly, to congratulate you on the just and happy in-
stinct with which, bestowing your attention on public
concerns, you have seized the very point which really is
the most important amongst all in which the mind and
the heart of Englishmen can be interested. That point is
the freedom of the European continent. I said it in the
Common Council of the City of London, I repeat it
here; there is none amongst your internal questions
which outweighs in importance the external. And how
may be summed up the external interest of the British
empire on the eEuropean continent ? It is to
be summed up in this question : by which principle
shall the continent of Europe be ruled, by the principle
of freedom or by the principle of absolutism? Can
England or can it not remain indifferent to the ap-
proaching struggle and final decision of this question?
and if it cannot remain indifferent without losing its
position in the world, endangering its own freedom
and hurting its own interests, with which principle
shall England side?—with the principle of freedom
or with the principle of aggression ? Shall
it support the rights, freedom, and happiness of nations?
or the oppressive combinations of arbitrary governments.
That is the question; a question the more urgent and the
more important that no man of whatsoever party
can dissimulate, still less deny that the situation
of France, of Italy, of Germany, of Austria, of
Hungary, of Poland, and of Russia is so unnatural,
so contrary to the human and national interests
of the respective people that it is utterly impossible
it can endure. Yes, no man can dissimulate the
conviction that France, Italy, Germany, Austria, and
Hungary, are already on the eve of those days, when
the great, and I hope final, battle of these adverse
principles will be fought out. Now, the people of
Great Britain, by its loudly proclaimed sympathy
with the cause of freedom and independence of
Hungary, has pronounced itself willing not to rc'uain
indifferent, and to side not with absolutism but with
liberty, by supporting and protecting against all inter-
ference of foreign governments the sovereign right of
every nation to dispose of itself. You yourself have
pronounced by this demonstration, and by your
generous address, in favour of this principle; so
thanking you most fervently
j for it, I beg leave to con-
gratulate you on the sound judgment and on the com-
prehensive views you give, and that you entertain, on
the duties of England towards Europe, and on the pro-
per interests of England itself. You have rightfully
considered that the freedom of England, and that happy
condition which you feel assured that your institutions,
your freedom, and your public spirit, will go on peace-
fully developing—morally, materially, and politically—
that all this is intimately connected with the victory of the
principle of freedom on the European Continent. In
a word, you have pronounced for tot truth I, since in
England, on no occasion have omitted to express, viz.,
that there is a community in the principle of freedom
as there is an ldenbty in the destinies of humanity
Be-ides, you have duly considered that the material
welfare of Great Britain is also in the highest degree
dependent on and connected with the victory of the
principle of freedom in Europe. And truly it is so.
Oa several occasions I have discussed al-
ready this important topic, and will do
so more amply yes on another occasion. Here I beg
only: leave to state briefly a few plain facts. You live
by honest labour. You have your manufactured pro-
ducts to dispose of, for which you want large free
merkets and tree trade. Now, it is as obvious as that two
and two make four, that without Europe, becoming free,
England can have no free trade with Europe. I wilt show
you by facts that the amount of trade with absolutist
Russia and Auserie is 10,1. per head, nh reas the
amount of the trade of England with a free country,
with the republic of the United States of America,
is --* per head. What a difference! Absolutism
gives to your trade and industry, a market of
—* pence per head, freedom gives a market of
--s per head. Is not the freedom of Europe,
then, a question of vital interest to you P
Let us look to consequences. Suppose the price of
the bread which one of you consumes be three or four
pounds; upon this price you have, by the repeal of the
corn-laws, probably not gained more than from fifteen
shillings to a pound. Certainly a great benefit. But
suppose the 120 millions who inhabit Russia, Austria,
Italy, and Hungary, to become free, and, being free,
to consume as much of your manufactures as the
United States (though in part highly manufacturing
themselves) consume per head; that would give a
mark©t of at least 60 millions of pounds s'.erling to
England, which would prove a benefit of two or
three pounds a year per head to you. I will not,
with ray aching chest, dwell further upon this subject.
now, but will cheerfully acknowledge that you were ani-
mated in this noble demonstation by higher motives—by
such generous sentiments as betoken the noblest feelings,
and by that moral dignity of man which is the revelation
of mankind's Divine origin. You say in your kind address,
that it:is the brotherhood of the people in which rests the
hope of civilisaticn, of our progress in the peaceful
arts, and of the free development of man's noblest
faculties. Now, these are noble sentiments, told
in noble 9 words. I thank you that you have ex-
pressed so nobly what I feel so warmly. It is my
heartfelt creed. You say that in the brotherhood of
people is the certainty of success in resisting the
encroachments of despotic power. Truly, it is so;
take the interference of Russia in Hungary, of the
French Government in Rome, of Austria in Romagna
and Schleswig-Holstein, and of Austria and Russia in
Hesse Cassel, which made only the most loyal, the
most moderate, the most lawful opposition to
the absolutist encroachments of its petty tyrant, and
yet was crushed by Austro-Russian arms—take all this
together, and the fact is clear that the despotisms are
leagued against the freedom of the world, so that
there is no hope against them but in the brotherhood of
people headed and protected by England and the United
States of America, ,by uniting in the principle of ac-
knowledgment of the natural rights of every nation to
dispose of itself, and uniting in the principle not to admit
any interference of whatever foreign Power in the domes-
tic concerns of whatever nation against its own will. By
tekine such a view of the brotherhood of people, you are
the interpreters of my most warm desires; and by as-
touring me to hope and to be resolved for the future, that
Russian intervention in the domestic concerns of what-
ever country, shall, •by England, not be permitted
more. By this you have anticipated all that
I, in my humble quality of a representa
tive of the principles of freedom, in the name
of my country, and in the inter, std of all oppressed
nations, have again and again entreated from the
people of England since I have been here. And here
I meet again another noble idea of your address,
where you say that the name of my country is
linked in your prayers and in your hopes with the
name of other nations. Bless you for that word !
You ennoble my name and my country's by it. Yet
you speak truth. The very moment that Russia
first interfered in Hungary our struggles grew to Euro-
pean height; we struggled no more for our own free-
doom, our own independence, but altogether for the
freedom and independence of the European continent.
Onr cause became the cause of mankind. My
nation became the martyr of the cause of European
freedom in the past; of other nations it will
be the faithful champion of that freedom for
the future. I, for my own humble part, whom
my people and the dublic opinion of the world took for
the personification of my people's sentiments, I know
where my place is. I know what duties are entailed upon
me. I shall ensure the sympathies of England by my
devotion to ray country's European cause. England will
find me faithful to that place and to those duties which
my people's confidence having assigned to me, foreign
violence could binder me from exercising, but
whose legitimate character no violence could destroy.
Let me also hope, twat whilst Hungary and I are aware
of the solidarity of our cause with the cause of European
freedom and independence; and whilst Hungary is re-
solved to stand manfully in its place, the other nations,
and England itself, will not forget that the freedom and
independence of Hungary is indispensable to the inde-
pendence of Europe against Russian encroachment and
preponderance, and so neither the other European nations
nor England will allow Russia again to interfere in
to uphold that detested House of Hapsburg, with which,
eternally alienated, Hungary will never, through time,
have any transaction, unless to ban it, expulse it, or to
hurl it in the dust. Amongst the nations linked to
my country in your hopes and prayers, your address
especially names France, Poland, Germany, and
Italy. To be sure there are some of those events
which may be scented already in the air. As to
France, my sentiments are known. I have de-
clared them openly. I will be true to those sentiments;
and can only add, that it is a highly important step in
mankind's destiny to see brotherly love between nations
so substituted for the unhappy rivalries of old, as to elicit
in England also such brotherly welcome to the French
as was seen at the late great Exhibition, and to elicit
such sentiments in England. And so certainly it
should ever be. The French nation is great enough
for the pulsation of its heart to be, and to have been
always, felt over the greatest part of the European con-
tinent. Till now it is true that the expectations have
never been realised which Europe's oppressed nations
had in France; but it must be remembered that the
French nation has fallen short in the realization of
Its own domestic hopes also. It would, therefore,
be unjust to make n reproach of that which was
a misfortune, which they themselves deplore most
deeply- I attribute their mischance to the unfortu-
nate
Propensity to centralisation which the French
nation
during all
to
trials conserved—centralisation
which leads ever
the oppression of liberty—cen-
tralisation with h the guarantees of liberty rest
rather upon personalities than upon principles;
and when an omnipotence
of
be it in one man or in one
power is centred,
assembly, that man
must be a Washington, or that assembly com posed
of Washingtons, not to become ambitious, be
tthrough
ambition, dangerous to liberty. Now andashi,g
not so thickly sown as to be gathered up everywhere'ais are
for
the reaping. I would, however, solemnly protest,
should whatever nation attempt to meddle in the
domestic concerns of my fatherland; so, of course.
I cannot have the arrogant pretension of mixing with
the domestic concerns of whatever other nation,
and least of all, of the great French nation, which
is powerful enough to come at last triumphantly
out of its trials and sufferings. I have only the warm
wish and hope that the glorious French nation-- will
soon succeed in making that which is now but a name
—then Republic—a reality, and will succeed soon to
achieve that work so as to see upon the basis of
common liberty established the contentment of the
people, and, secured by that contentment, a lasting
social order; which cannot fail to be secured when
it ie founded upon liberty, but which, without
liberty,
i 3 impossible; anti secondly, I hope that

* Unfortunately, the sums mentioned by itObuth were
not heard by the reporters.