The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-29 00:00:00

titkor ur ish.* ft V* I
44V Plza 41, 4,4 tj 44.

INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR AT FALAISE.

SPEECH OF li. UCIZOT.
On Sunday the inauguration of the fine equestrian
statue of William the Conqueror, which was exhi-
bited recently in one of the squares of the Champs
Elysee, took place at Falaise, the birth-place of the
conqueror. Several speeches were delivered on the
occasion, among which was the following, by M.
Guizot :
" You present, gentlemen, today, a rare example,
the example of a long and faithful memory after
the lapse of ages; nearly eight centuries have passed
since King William died neglected in Normandy,
which he had rendered so illustrious. It was with dif-
ficulty that there were found a few servants at Rouen
—the scene of his death—to watch his remains. Alfew
feet of earth were hardly obtained at Caen wherein to
deposit his remains. On the present occasion you
repair that indifference of his cotemporaries by your.
persevering care; and owing to the talent of an emi-
nent artist King William is again beheld his native
town. Falaise repays him, after eight centuries, the
glory which it received from him. It is a glorious
deed to render justice to a great man. Great men,
however, must not be flattered, neither after their
death nor yet during their life; their errors, their
faults, their vices, their crimes, when they have com-
mitted any, ought not to be kept a secret, but ought
rather to be judged with severity. It is the right, as
it becomes the duty, of impartial history. But this
just severity once exercised—the evil once recognized
and treated as it deserves—a truly great man still
remains—great in the midst of all the imperfections
his history discloses ; and then it is our duty to ad-
mire and pay signal honour to his memory, inasmuch
as. great men are the glery of a nation, even where
tb eir despotism has been rude and dearly purchased.
" William was indeed a great man, and if the
greatness of princes be estimated, as it ought to be,
by the difficulties of their deeds and the importance
of their results, there are few who have been superior to
him. You will not have forgotten, gentlemen, a deed
which was accomplished in our time—the expedition
of 1830 to Algiers ; the attempt to embark and trans-
port; to the other shore of the Mediterranean an army
of .30,000 men to obtain from a barbarian the satis-
fa/ ation due to us. What immense preparations were
Veen made ! What mighty efforts, what powerful
'means were employed by the aid of our advanced state
of civilization ! And all that was deemed absolutely
necessary, because the undertaking was difficult. You
have now the proof that none of these precautions
Nv ere unnecessary for a view to their success; and
the success of that enterprise has become the glory
of its leaders.
" In the 11th century, scarcely issuing from a
barbarous condition, without any of the resources
now furnished by civilization and science, Duke
*William assembled together, embarked, conveyed to
the other side of the blanches. and landed on the
enemy's territory more than 30,000 men ; and scarcely
had he landed, when he won battles, and conquered
for himself a kingdom. So much fur the difficulty
of the enterprise. Now for the greatness of the re-
sults. William not only traversed the sea in small
and fragile barques with a mighty army—not only
did he conquer a kingdom—he did still more, he
founded a state. He strongly and solidly established
his power on a foreign soil—his race, and a new lan-
guage, and new institutions. And his work has lasted
for ages, and it still endures. And it is in the tongue
that King William spoke that the English Podia
ment still addresses its Noble Queen, and in it she
replies.
, " We have seen, gentlemen, conquests more vast,
more dazzling, than those of King William. They
disappeared as rapidly as they ware made. The phe-
nomenon is, indeed, rare of invasion founding a state.
'ret William accomplished such a deed. William
vas in harmony with the spirit and the permanent
interests of his age ; he was as deeply imbued with a
conservative spirit as he was gifted with the genius of
a .conqueror.
" We are right in rendering him this justice, as
his glory has cost us dear. It was the origin of
that national struggle which lasted more than
three centuries between France and England. It
Was William who, by establishing between two na-
tions partial and precarious ties, began between them
that epoch of terrible hostility, and all the wars which
lasted until they terminated in a complete separation
of the two countries. We were the conquerors in
that mighty struggle. We successively won back all
the parte of our territory, and ended gloriou,dy by
securing our national independence. We definitively
drove the Norman invaders to the soil conquered by
them, and whither we had sent them. That glorious
creature, without parallel in the history of the world
—with a natare half aage.lic, half heroic—Joan of
Arc, for ever destroyed what the successors of Wil-
liam the Conqueror laboured to effect in France ; and
it was on this same spot or' earth, in this v:!ry city of
Rouen (where King William met his death) that the
Virgin Warrior sealed with her martyrdom the de-
liverance of her country.
" Yet I care not to dwell on those glorious but
saddening memories of the past. I rather love to
contemplate ourselves and the history of our own
days. In our times, also, ships without number
crowd our coasts, and convey thousands upon thou-
sands of voyagers to the shores of England. But is
it for another war that they thus depart ? No, no!
It is benign Peace that beckons and guides them to
a foreign land and leads them back again. Their
desire is not for chivalrous adventure, nor is their
ambition that of conquest. They crowd thither to offer,
or bring back, the pledges of reciprocal prosperity.
Tne intercourse between the two nations is now as
pacific as it is frequent and animated. A Crystal
Palace, where they congregate in thousands ; an in-
visible thread—a flash of lightning shooting beneath
the wave, which conveys from the one to the other
the message of their mutual wants and their mutual
services—such, gentlemen, are the bonds which now
replace those that William the Conqueror wished to
establish
.." Which of the two periods, gentlemen, is the hop-
per ? Which spectacle is the nobler, the more glo-
rious? In the midst of the troubles and di-quierudes
which weigh upon us in our present agitated and pre-
carious condition, we yet have a right to be proud of,
and, full hope in, our own age—provided our hone
and our pride do not impel us into the pride of maa-
nes 3. We may justly speak of the bensfi•s and the
marvels of our civilization, provided that our civiliza-
tion be not itself like a Crystal Palace, which ell
men. admire, but which all at once diseppears ; and
that it cannot be said of it, in toe language of the
greet poet, that Normandy has given to France, with
its brilliancy the brittleness of glass.
" I wish not, gentlemen, to throw a gloom over
this festivity by words of sadness; but you will pardon
me the expression of a sentiment, which is certainly
that of all men of sense and of honour. When men
who traverse the wide ocean are overtaken by the
tempest it is not sufficient to have a noble ship, well
equipped, and well furnished with an intelligent,
brace, and hardy crew; that crew must be united;
and she noble ship must have stout anchors—for on
these. the salvation of all depends. Let us, gentlemen,
be firmly united ; let us know how to possess our-
seive.a of the strong anchors of society ; let us trust
to them together. Yes ' Heaven will deign to grant
us salvation—if we act so as to deserve it !"

TO THE EDITOR OF TIIE SUS.
SI 11,—NOW that
whave just witnessed that
triumph of modern civilization'i; and the arts of peace,
the Great Exhibition of the Works of Influstry of all
Nat ions, we hear with deep
of another
iu this quarter,
a daily growing rumouraother design of his
Royal Highness the Prince Consort;likc,l one far more
easy of accomplishment, yet to be attended
with no less important and enduring results. I al-
lude: to the project of an associaticn purchase
in convenient lots to
of land, under the Incumbered Estates Commission
in :?country,. to be sold again
n other words, a plan for creating a
small iarmers;
peasant proprietary in Ireland.
It is now generally admitted that the non-success
of the Irish farmer is not so much his own fault as
the re cult of circumstances over which he has had no
c9ntroL Well indeed has i: been said—Give a man
a luxuriant garden to cultivate, without security of
tenure, it
ury? and will in time become a useless waste;
give, him a barren rock be can call his or: n, and it
will era long bloom with fertility and beauty. At
home, urfotnrhtgunately, owing to the necessities of the
landlords
ha, hadno se Irish farmer hitherto, ft 3 a general rule,
:eurity for his outlay, no stimulus to in-
dustry.inse"re Oppressedtenure, by an excessive rent, with an
at would
exertion beyond weh has had no encouragement to
subsit t. Give hi merely enable him to
equiti
line
share
inm,,but a fair margin allow li.
; him an
will fi ad no more "‘"„Pli:c!'''' of his labour, and
you
valual )1e member init-ms-r,`"s, more ,-
. supdffiac.eful, or more
this is the success° of-c'c'ety.
their 1
,wn. witriai.3vliric,hine,,Aia
every
proof of
every, year in America,' nre i-'ll'.ge sums
they accumulate
ihut
thotrsa ode of pounds to -th-tic""'lt in hundredlilfh-ef
Sir, it is a first principle of -eoorelativea here. Yes
of Hit wisdom who ordained trill:l7l' ''cienbe'' a law
bread in the sweat of his brow, tnar,mun '''''ulci earn
favnlzi.able circumstances, not only that,
l7a7Zdinarily
man Teroac3 by his labour wart he consumes,'eu'llZ,„
will moreover, in his accumulations or surplusutp
-
ductKon, add to the general wealth. This v‘•efindroto.
be the case in every country where patient industry
is sure do reap its reward. In Norway, we are hi:
formed liy Mr. Laing—
" The land is parcelled out into small estates,
affording a comfortable subsistence, and in a moderate
degree the elegances of civilised life, but nothing
more. lYith a population of 910.000 inhabitants,
about the year 1819, there were 41,6.5'6 estates. In

THE SUN,

Norway the law of succession has prevented property
being accumulated in large mn-ses. The estates of
individuals are in general swan , i the house- ihr-
niture, food, comforts, wages, and means of living
among all classes appear to approach more nearly to
an equality to one standard than in any other coun-
try of Europe."
Speaking of Zurich, where the peasantry cultivate
their own lands, Mr. Inglis observes—
" Anywhere in the neighbourhood of Zurich, in
looking to the right or the left, one is struck with the
extraordinary industry of its inhabitants. In the in-
dustry they show in the cultivation of the land
I may say they are unrivalled. When I used
to open my casement between four and five
in the morning, to look out upon the lake and the
distant Alps, I saw the labourer in the fields ; and
when I returned from an evening ramble, long after
sunset, as late perhaps as half-past eight, there was
the labourer mowing his grass or tying up his vines.
But there are other and better evidences of the indus-
try of the Zurichers' than merely seeing them late
and early at work. It is impossible to look at a field,
a garden, a hedge—scarcely even a tree, a flower, a
vegetable—without perceiving proofs of the extreme
care and industry that are bestowed upon the culti-
vation of the land." Speaking of the Engadine, in
which he states the whole of the land belongs to the
peasantry, he continues, " I did not sufficiently en-
large upon the industry of the inhabitants, but it
deserves a panegyric. There is not a foot of waste
land in the Engadine, the lowest part of which is
not much lower than the top of Snowdon. Where-
ever grass will grow, there it is; wherever a rock
will bear a blade, verdure is seen upon it ; wherever
rye will succeed, there it is cultivated. Barley and
oats have also their appropriate spots ; and wherever
it is possible to ripen a little patch of wheat, the cul-
tivation of it is attempted."
" The little spots of land," says Mr. Laing, writing
of Switzerland generally, " show the same daily care
in the fencing, digging, weeding, and watering. The
owners have a kind of Robinson Crusoe industry
about their little properties," &c.
" In Germany," says Mr. Howitt, " the land is for
the most part in the bands of the people, and par-
celled out amongst the multitude; the peasantry la-
bour early and lute, because they fell that they are
labouring for themselves. There is not an hour
in the year in which they do not find unceasing oc-
cupation."
And so, let us hope, it will yet be in Ireland. The
Incumbered Estates Commission is a large step in the
right direction ; but its operation is necessarily very
gradual, and its beneficial effects will not be felt, on
an extended scale, for a considerable time. We re-
quire, meanwhile, some extraordinary aid, to restore
confidence to the people, to stay the tide of emigra-
tion that sets so strongly from our shores. Such an
association as that spoken of, under the auspices of
his Royal Highness Prince Albert, would, at the pre-
sent moment, work wonders for this country, not only
directly by helping to create a peasant proprietary
amongst us, bat indirectly by its moral effects. And
this is a question not merely of Irish, but of Imperial
interests. If the population of Ireland continues to
melt away from the face of the land, where will be
Ireland's contribution to the Imperial Exchequer ?
where will be the Irish market for England's manu-
factures ? How different would it he if, remember.
ing that population is wealth, an exertion were made,
even now, to retain the millions in the country, to
render it their interest to remain at home ! Then
would Ireland gradually Ix-come, as from her natural
capabilities, she ought to be, a great and prosperous
nation, with her people all employed, well fed, well
clad, and largely contributing to swell the revenue,
and benefit the trading and manufacturing interests of
the empire.
The importance of this subject at the present junc-
ture must plead my apology for thus trespassing on
your valuable space.
I remain, Sir, your's, &c.,
I. N. M.
Cork, Oct. 25, 1851.