The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-05 00:00:00

eyes. No political trick in this country ever passes
undetected, and the certain result is a reaction of
public opinion, and a tendency to advance too
rapidly in the direction contrary to that in which
an attempt may have been made to mislead the
public. From whatever quarter a Reform Bill may
come, and in whatever shape it may present itself,
I trust it will receive that consideration which will,
when it obtains the sanction of the Legislature,
make it tend to the public good ; and as I feel sure
it will be, and must be in the direction of democracy,
so I believe it may be brought to increase our pub-
lic liberties. (Cheers.)
Several other toasts of a purely local character
were then drunk, and the proceedings terminated.

THE DUTIES OF AN M.P. AND THE
LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.

The Mayor of Ripon (Mr. R. Kearsley) provided
a banquet at the Town-hall, Ripon, on Friday., to
which he invited the members for the West Riding
of Yorkshire and the city of Ripon, the magistrates
of the liberty of Ripon, and a number of the local
clergy and gentry. Among those who were present
were—the Right Hon. Viscount Goderich, M.P.,
Mr. J. A. Warre, M.P., IMr. J. Greenwood, M.P.,
the Hon. and Very Rev, the Dean of Ripon, Mr.
J. Dalton, Sleningford-park; Col. Crompton, Azer-
ley-hall ; Capt. Smith, Green Royd ; Col. Byrne,
Ripon ; the Mayor of Wakefield, &c.
After the usual loyal and patriotic toasts, that of
" The Lord Bishop and the Clergy of the Diocess "
was drunk—to which
The Dean of RIPON (Dr. Erskine) responded, and
proposed—" The Members for the West Riding,"
coupling the name of Lord Goderich with the toast.
He observed that the people in the consideration of
their Parliamentary representatives, were so much
mixed up with the broils of political life, and so
much influenced with mere party spirit, that they
were too apt to forget the real sacrifices which honest
and honourable men made for the good of their
country when they entered Parliament with a de-
termination to endeavour to do their duty. As the
son of a member successively of both Houses, he felt
entitled to speak of what he knew, and had known
during many a long year, to be the anxiety, the
care, and the intense interest which the mem-
bers of Parliament felt, not merely for popularity
and for the advancement of the party to which they
might be attached, but really to work out that
policy which they sincerely and conscientiously
believed would contribute to the welfare of their
country. (Applause.) He did, therefore, and had
been accustomed all his life to respect highly an
honest and devoted member of Parliament ; and
the public were very little aware how much they
were indebted, under Providence, for the great
benefits which this country had received from the
deliberations of those men. (Applause.)
Lord GODERICH replied to the toast. After re-
marking that, from his earliest boyhood, many of his
most pleasant recollections were connected with the
city and neighbourhood of Ripon, for which he
had a hereditary affection, he said that he would
—if his honourable friends on his right hand
and on his left (Mr. Warre and Mr. Greenwood)
did not think he was poaching on their manor
—address a few words to the assembly as
being to a certain extent their Parliamentary
representative. He need hardly tell them that it
was a proud thing for him to stand in that or any
other company and return thanks as one of the
members for the West Riding ; his only regret was
that he was so little worthy to fill the high position
in which the favour and confidence of the first con-
stituency of England had placed him. The duties
of a member of Parliament in these days ap-
peared to him to be peculiarly responsible. His
friend the Dean of Ripon had spoken of the
warmth of party feeling. It was a happy cir-
cumstance in very many respects that the
bitterness of party spirit had passed away
entirely from private and social life, and he trusted
that it was also passing rapidly from public life ; but
if the ties of party were to some extent lessened,
that only threw greater responsibility upon indivi-
dual members of Parliament. If, now-a-days, a
member of Parliament was not inclined as formerly
to follow the beck of a party leader, it increased the
difficulty of his task—it required of him a larger
amount of thought, and cast upon him a greater de-
gree of responsibility. (Hear, hear.) For himself,
he trusted that he felt that responsibility deeply ;
he had always, since he hipi had a seat in Parha-
ment, endeavoured to discharge those duties to the
best of his ability ; but though his friend Captain
Smith had spoken of the great difficulties in which
officers of the navy were sometimes placed, he
thought they were almost inconsiderable compared
with the numberless difficulties in which members
of Parliament found themselves—difficulties so great
that they very frequently became, to nse a York-
shire expression, quite fast. (Hear, hear.) Their
constituents expected that they should be a sort of
political encyclopaedias—that they should be able
to vote upon every possible subject, and to judge of j
it with an independent judgment_ He bolievedthat
in the House of Commons in the present clay there
was a very widely spread and earnest desire among
the members faithfully to do their duty. (Hear.)
How far they were successful it was for their con-
stituents to judge. He had very frequently differed
from the majority of the House of Commons, and,
of course, on those occasions he had thought them
wrong ; but there was one thing which the members
of Parliament were always ready to' do, whatever
might be their party differences or their personal
divisions, and that was to unite whenever they were
called upon to defend the honour or the indepen-
dence of their country. (Applause.) He trusted
that the gloomy forebodings to which some persons
of late had given vent might not prove true ; but
this he knew, that if any nation in the world should
be so rash as to think that she could attack Eng-
land with impunity, this country would be able to
show her her mistake. (Applause.) He could
assure the assembly and Captain Smith, who had
specially referred to the subject, that they would
not find him in the least inclined to enjoin parsi-
mony in respect to the national defences. (Hear.)
That was no party question ; it was the duty of
Parliament to keep the country in a state of ade-
quate defence, but it was also their duty, and espe-
cially the duty of the House of Commons, to see
that the public money in regard to those defences,
as well as in regard to every other branch of public
expenditure, was not squandered or wasted by mal-
administration. (Hear.) His lordship expressed
his regret at the absence of Mr. Denison, his col-
league in the representation of the West Riding,
and made one or two observations as to the impor-
tance of social gatherings like the one he was pre-
sent at that evening. Such meetings, he said,
brought together friends and neighbours, they led
to convivial intercourse, and certainly to members
of Parliament they were of great advantage, be-
cause they enabled them to discover the sentiments
of their constituents and to ascertain what was the
public opinion of the country, which must be of
great use to politicians or statesmen, for no man,
whatever might be his power or position, could
govern this country long without the approbation
of public opinion. (Applause.)
The toast of " The Borough Members," proposed
by Mr. F. WooD, was responded to by
Mr. WARRE, who confirmed the remarks made
by Lord Goderich as to the difficulties and respon-
sible duties of everybody who had the honour of a
seat in the House of Commons. He referred also
to the Act of Parliament passed last session for the
government of India, observing that it was an act
for the government of India in England, and not
for the government of India in India, so that India
still remained pretty much under the same system
of administration which existed until the recen,
alteration had been made. It was a matter of con

gratulation, he continued, that active field opera-
tions on a large scale were over in India, but he
apprehended that there still remained what Capt.
Smith in his Peninsular days would have called
an active guerilla warfare, which entailed on our
troops a great deal of labour and fatigue without
that amount of glory which attended those who
were engaged in general action. (Hear, hear.)
The mention of anything about military operations
led him to what had been more or less touched
upon in various addresses delivered by members
of Parliament at meetings of their constituents, and
in other places—he referred to the great and pro-
minent question of our national defences. He
did not wish it to be supposed that he breathed
suspicions and mistrust of our great and powerful
neighbour the Emperor of the French. There he
was, the ruler of that great country, and he (Mr.
Warm) was willing to give him credit for the sin-
cerity of his pacific intentions ; but when mem-
bers of Parliament came to speak, as they would
have to do when Parliament met, of the amount of
the estimates of the expenses of onr distinguished
services, the army and the navy, the question which
they ought to look at with a degree of apprehen-
sion was—if it should be the will of Heaven that
anything should happen to the present ruler of
France—what is to come next ? (Hear, hear.) If
the historical events which had happened since the
year 1789 were considered, it would be found that
there had been organic changes in the Government
of France once, upon the average, in every five
years; and if that had been the case during the
last 70 years, was it possible for any human saga-
city to calculate what would be the form of Govern-
ment in France, or what would be the disposition
of that Government, if anything should happen to
bring about some change in the relations of our great
and powerful neighbour ? (Hear, hear.) This
might be rather a dry matter to talk about after
dinner, but, as it would be his duty, as well as
that of others, to consider the estimates which
would be brought before them on- the reassembling