The Sun.
London, England, 1834-09-17 00:00:00

everything, and all the time that is spent in deliberation as
time thrown away.—( Cheers.) These men blamed my Noble
Friend late at the head of the Government for having done
nothing during the session preceding the last, when one
twentieth part of any one of those nothings that were then
effected would have made the fortune of any other Adminis-
tration.--( Cheers.) Might I beg, as a particular favour to
myself--for my Noble Friend and myself have had great fatigue
this day in encountering your kindness and hospitality, and I
am about to address to you a few more, and but a few
more, observations—might I beg as a particular favour, that
you would restrain your plaudits, which, though they are
gratifying, most gratifying to me, render it impossible for
me to address you as pointedly and consecutively as I could
wish. I do not mean,because you do not require it,and the pre-
sence of my noble friend would even prevent me,if you did—l
do not mean to enter into a minute investigation of every par-
ticular act of that session of Parliament, which is said to have
done nothing for the country. I only refer to it to show that
those who now assert, and pretend to think, that we went too
slow and did too little in the last session of Parliament, as-
serted and thought that we went too slow and did too little in
the session which preceeded it. In that session we opened the
trade to China—we emancipated the commerce of India—
we gave a liberal government to an empire which we hold over
70,000,000 of our fellow creatures.--( Cheers.) We also
emancipated the slaves in our colonial dependencies, and by so
doing gave freedom to 800,000 of human beings, an experi-
ment on a scale of magnitude almost frightful to contemplate,
and which would not have been required to be made to that
extent if our former rulers had taken gradual steps to accom-
plish it,—an, experiment on the entire success of which I fully
reckon, as all the accounts received from our colonies, with
one solitary exception, confirm and justify the calculations on
which we proceeded, but of which, if it be attended with fai-
lure, which I do not anticipate, instead of that success which
I fondly predicate, I am ready to take on my own head the
sole and undivided responsibility incurred in making the slave
free.— ( Cheers.) I hope—l confidently hope, that his free-
dom will be attended with no mischief either to himself or
others ; but whether it be so or otherwise, his freedom was
with us no longer a matter of choice.—(Cheers.) Then:we
reformed what was always deemed a great nest of abuses ; but
that seems to be forgotten, for it some how or other
always happens that when a nest of abuses is cleared
out, men's tongues are as silent about it as if the abuses had
never existed at all.---( A laugh.) I allude, as I believe you
all know, to that great court of equity over which I have the
honour to preside---(Cheers)—and that I may not weary you
with details, after effecting a very substantial reform in the
Church of Ireland—and it was no fault of ours that another
reform still more substantial was not effected also—we closed
the session with a measure as extensive and beneficial as ever
any Parliament passed, save only that great measure of Parlia-
mentary ieform of which it was the legitimate offspring—l
mean the bill for a general reform in the constitution of all
the Scottish burghs. All this, however, now-a-days, is said
to be nothing !—( Cheers and laughter.) I have mentioned
only five out of ten of these nothings, and such being the case,
I do not marvel exceedingly when I hear that *during the last
session we have done nothing also. We could not indeed
make the slaves more free than we had already made them.
We could not make' the. China trade more open than we had
already made it. The door cannot well be more open than
when it is flung back against the wall.—( A laugh.) We could
not make the Scotch burghs more open ; and yet all the re-
forms which we then made, and which I have recounted to you
—all this, I say, is overlooked by our detractors.—(Cheers.)
All this then is nothing, and is to be placed in the same line
of ciphers with another of our measures—l mean that for the
abolition of all the abuses in the English system of poor laws
—which you in this country, fortunately for yourselves, know
nothing about ; but which *very person at all connected with
England knows to be productive of the greatest practical evils
—of mischief to the richer proprietors—of mischief to the
middling classes, and of absolute ruin and misery to the poor,
for whose protection they were supposed, by some strange fic-
tion, to exist-4 Cheers.) We shall go on, however, in our
course, heedless of the attacks of these hasty spurts ; for they
come from men of much honesty, of hasty zeal, but of no re-
flection at all.—( Laughter.) They would travel to the ob-
ject which they have in view, but they are in such a hurry to
get at the goal three minutes before me, that they will not
wait to see whether the linchpin is in the wheel.—( A laugh.)
They would hurry their vessel into the wished-for harbour by
the nearest, and not by the regularly. frequented channel—
but they do not inquire whether there is a compass on board,
and so they run their vessel into the breakers.—( Cheers and
laughter.) They raise a scaffold, they build a house, they
rear a massive pile ; all they care for is the look and appear-
ance of the edifice, and they do not stop to see whether there
are partitions for rooms to live in.—( Laughter.) They will
not use the plummet and the line, and therefore it is possible
that the first story may tumble some fine morning about their
ears.--( Laughter.) I wholly respect the good intentions of
these men, 1 acquit them entirely of all blame of that de-
scription. I make to them my most respectful obeisance ; but
when they ask me to get into their carriage, I must
decline to accompany them,—when they ask me to
sail in their vessel, I must insist on staying on shore ' • when
they ask me to enter into any building of theirs, I shall not
only not enter, but shall also stand at a respectful distance
from it, for fear it should make an experiment, which I do not
wish to see tried either on their heads or mine, I mean, an ex-
periment as to the relative resistance of the two bodies.—
(Cheers and laughter.) These, then, are not wise counsellors
I to listen to—these are not safe guides to follow—these are not

fair judges on the merits of any British Statesman.--(Cheers.)
I would go on more deliberately than they would—l would
have my vessel more ready and better provided for its voyage
—I would use the plummet and the square—l would build ac-
cording to rule and compass, and I would not run up that sort
of edifice which at best can never be more than a shell, if it
does not tumble even whilst building about their heads ; and I
twoihuldgo wassafe eelyhaendsssaury to enablerelytowor untilmk,eto build with f
Ihad providseaty.
deevery-
hg that If
I differ with these persons, not doubting their honesty, but dis-
trusting their zeal, I only differ with them as to the pace at
t ragvreel
e;. b u tTasherteo the dei rtehcetri
so,n
however a r e t
with
iwwnhi:cicwmhewlmedtatitrffueeartlloyeve a n
as to direction. They would travel to
the South, when I would go north. With them I have an
irreconcilable if I may not even say a radical difference.—
( men are the most unsafe guides of all
)—for, in point of fact, they lead nowhere.—
Though they are not unfriendly to improve-
ment,provement which they would accomplish is so far
nowhere.—
(Laughter.)
their eyes, nor the eyes of their children,
as was once said at a meeting in this town,
ahCuetghhevrhaeteshtt: hope to see it. Reform, indeed, is always on their
lips ;
their vherubt, " Reform" assumes a shape unknown to the gram-
marians, for it is an imperfect verb which has only got a future
tense.—( Cheers and laughter.) They say that all things
ought to be done gradually and slowly ; and to make sure of
it, they move in such a way and at such a pace that even the
minutest eye cannot discern that they change place at all.—
(Laughter.) There is one kind of movement, however, which
they do not dislike any how. They are ready to move into
mischief, and to advance—backwards—( A laugh)—and .I never
heard with greater suprise in my, life the statement,—for I
have not seen the newspaper myself, —that language of the
most frightful, and I may say the most incredible kind, has
been used by those who call themselves the friends of order,
the haters of anarchy, the abhorrers of change, and who cry
out revolution, when any bills introduced into Parliament to
correct any abuse, however flagrant, and however generally
recognized. These men, who seem so anxious to testify their
abhorence of change, their hatred of anarchy, and their love of
order, only testify their lust of power and pelf,—that power
and that pelf which the faction has already lost in Ireland, and
which its brethren in England will not be satisfied until they
have made a blood-thirsty attempt to regain.—( Cheers. )
The power tlie
forym their
mean is
ownthe power of
emniesegrsovoerninlgnotehde
King's subjects
not add, that all their speculations about the unpopularity of
the Reform Bill, and about the approaching reaction in
favour of the Tories, and about the repentence for their
imprudence, which the people have made some progress
already, are too absurd to require refutation. I can only say,
that besides the irrefragable answer to the doctrine of reaction
and repentance which this assembly presents to-day, I have
not seen one solitary specimen of that reaction all over Scot-
land, and I have traversed it lately to within 40 miles of John-
o'Groat's-house ; and in all the directions which I have gone,
east, north, and west, among all classes, agricultural, manu-
facturing, and commercial, I have not seen one single sample
of this re-action and this repentance.--( Cheers.) If it exists
at all, it hides its head so closely that I have never seen so
much as even a single penitent.—( Cheers and laughter.) The
truth is, you may guess from the rage of those short-sighted,
and I should now add ill-conditioned and ill-disposed and dis-
loyal subjects, that their discontent and spite arise from dis-
appointed ambition, from the thirst of place, which they can
now no longer slake at the public fountain, and that if reform
is not popular, they cannot find out where the great undivided
stock of popularity is to be found ; for they, it is clear, do not
possess one fraction of it.—(Cheers) We shall go on, I
repeat, in our course, firm, uncompromising, unhesitating, and
unflinching.—( Cheers.) We will not be hurried on at any
other pace than that which we deem expedient for the public
and safe for the measures which we introduce. We shall not
be induced to take another course by any clamour proceeding
from the quarter to which I have been adverting, but delibe-
rately devising what we deem to be just, necessary, safe, and
expedient measures, we shall defy all opposition from the other
and the worse class of our enemies, who are opposed to every
species of reform, and who, if left to themselves, would renew
over the people the reign of terror, and restore the empire of
midnight darkness.--( Loud and long-continued cheering.)
The LORD CHANCELLOR again came forward, and said that
a most pleasing duty now devolved upon him, namely, that of
rendering to their Noble Chairman that tribute of admiration
which was now due to him from the company. The unavoida-
ble and lamented absence of the Duke of Hamilton, in conse-
quence of ill health, had suddenly and unexpectedly, at a quar-
ter of an hour's notice, rendered it necessary for the Earl of
Rosebery to supply his place as chairman, and he (the Lord
Chancellor) called on the meeting to say whether they had
ever known the duties of chairman better performed after
longer preparation. (Cheers.) The Learned Lord conclu-
ded by proposing " The health of the Chairman, the Earl of
Rosebery.”_( Cheers.)
The toast was drank with great enthusiasm.
The Noble CHAIRMAN returned thanks. He begged to as-
sure the company that at no public meeting, whether political
or otherwise, had he ever experienced the same degree of per-
sonal gratification as in presiding over the meeting of that day,
nor had he ever felt greater pride, as well as pleasure and sa-
tisfaction, in finding his health drunk in such a manner by such
an assembly. To have his name connected in any manner
with the proceedings of that day, would be, in his mind, the
highest honour; but to have been, in the first instance, unso-
licited on his part, selected as their Vice-President, and then
in the absence of the Noble Duke, to have been, equally un-