The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-30 00:00:00

ME SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 30, 1858.

TEE DIRaiIXGHAM BA.AffE.i' TO
MR. BRIGHT.

•
Yesterday evening Mr. Bright was entertained
by his friends at Birmingham at a dinner in the
Town-hall. Covers were laid for 500, and every
seat was occupied. The side galleries were filled
exclusively by ladies, and the great gallery at the
end was crowded with working-men, who were
admitted by ls. tickets.
Mr. H. P. Muntz, the brother of the late mem-
ber, was in the chair. Among the gentlemen pre-
sent were J. B. Smith, M.P., Mr. Bass, M.P., Mr.
Hadfield, M.P., Mr. C. Forster, M.P., Mr. Pease,
M.P., Mr. W. Sharman Crawford, Mr. Bazley (the
candidate for till representation of Manchester),
Mr. George Wilson, Mr. Duncan M'Laren, and a
considerable number of the leading inhabitants of

Birmingham.
The following letters were read from gentlemen
who were not able to be present :
Lord John Russell says :
" I am very sorry that it is not in my power to attend
the proposed dinner, for, although I have the misfortune
frequently to differ from Mr. Bright, I entertain a Freat
espcct for the sincerity of his convictions and the upright-
ness of his character."
_ _ _ _

The following is Mr. Cobden's letter :
" Midhurst, Oct. 26
" Sir,—l lament that, being confined to the house by a
severe cold, I am unable to accept the invitation with which
the comMittee have honoured me to be present at the dinner
to be given to my old friend and colleague on Friday next.
" Thq electors of Birmingham may justly feel proud of
their present position. Their reversal of the sentence
passed upon Mr. Bright by his late constituents has been
ratified by the approving voice of the country and of the
civilised world. By that act they have done more than
restore an able public man tothe House of Commons ; they
have, at the same time, rescued our large constituencies
from the reproach of inconsistency and ingratitude to
which the conduct of Manchester had subjected them.
" I shall always feel the highest respect and admiration
for the manly course which, under circumstances that tested
their self-relying independence of character, the people of
Birmingham pursued towards Mr. Bright, and I shall in-
dulge the hope of being allowed a future opportunity of
giving expression, to those feelings at a public meeting in
your borough.—l remain, sir, your obedient servant,
"Robert Wright, Esq." "R. Cosnax.
Mr. Roebuck says :
"I am sorry to say that my engagements prevent my ac-
cepting your invitation to meet Mr. Bright. I should have
been glad of an opportunity of expressing my great respect
for him ' • and I heartily rejoice that his constituents duly
appreciate the worth of their distinguished representative ;
and I hope that they may be long able to retain his invalu-
able services."
Mr. Locke King, who could not attend, says :
" I was truly glad to hear his voice once so familiar to
us,
in the House of Commons again this year. The electors
of Birmingham have done honour to themselves in selecting
a man for their representative of whom England is justly
proud. I feel they have in some measure removed the stain
which Manchester inflicted on the country, when it, acting
under the dictation, and urged by the prejudices of a Mini-
ster, forgot the claims Mr. Bright had, and ungraciously
rejected him at the very moment he was seeking-to recover
that health which he had impaired in the service of the
people of Manchester and of the country.
Mr. W. J. Fox says :
" I very much regret that my state of health will not
allow Me to attend the-dinner on the 29th. But I cannot
refrain from expressing my high gratification that the elec-
tors of Birmingham have replaced in the Legislature, among
the representatives of the people, so able and unflinching an
advocate of popular rights as Mr. John Bright ; the selec-
tion is alike honourable to both parties, and should be cele-
brated with lively gratitude for past services and full eonfi-
dence in his future usefulness.
After the cloth was drawn,
The CHAIRMAN gave the usual loyal and patrio-
tic toasts, which were received with great enthu-
siasm.
Mr. W. MATHEWS proposed " The Liberal Mem-
bers of both Houses of Parliament," which was re-
sponded to by Mr. Bass, M.P.
The-Cllaißatax then proposed " The Health of
Mr. Bright," which was received with loud cheer-
ing
M.
r. BRIGHT—The frequent and far too compli-
mentary manner in which my name has been men-
tioned to-night, and the most kind way in which
you have received me, have placed me in a position
somewhat humiliating and really painful ; for to
receive laudation which one feels one cannot possibly
have Merited is much more painful than to be passed
by in a distribution of gratitude to which possibly
one might lay some claim. If one-twentieth part of
what has been said is true, if I am entitled to any
measure of your approbation, I may begin to think
that my public career and my opinions are not so
un-English and so anti-national as the best of those
who presume to be the best of our public instrue-
. tors have sometimes assumed. How, indeed, can I,
any more than one of you, be un-English and antis
national ? Was I not born upon the same soil ? Do
I not come of the same English stock ? Are not my
family committed irrevocably to the fortunes of this
country ? Is not whatever property .I may have
defending as much as yours is dependinn, upon the
good government of our common fatherland ? (Hear,
hear.) Then how shall any man dare to say to any
One of his countrymen, because he happens to hold.
a different opinion on matters of great public policy
that therefore he is un-English and is to be con-
demned as anti-national. (Cheers.) There are those
who would assume that between my countrymen
and me, and between my constituents and me, there
has been and there is now a great gulf, and that if
I cannot pass over to them and to you, they and
you can by no possibility pass over to me. Now, I
take the liberty here, in the presence of an audi-
ence as intelligent as can be collected within the
limits of this island,- and of those who have the
strongest claims to know what opinions I do enter-
tain relative to certain great questions of public po-
licy, to assert that I hold no views, that I have
never promulgated any views on those controverted
questions with respect to which I cannot bring as
witnesses in my favour, and as fellow-believers with
myself, some of the best and most revered names in
the history of English statesmanship. (Hear, hear.)
About 120 years ago the Government of this coun-
try was directed by Sir Robert -Walpole, a great
Minister, who for a long period preserved the
country in peace,and whose-pride it was that during
those years he had done so. Unfortunately, to-
wards the close of his career he was driven by fac-
tion into a policy which was the ruin of his politi-
cal prospects. Sir Robert Walpole declared,
speaking of the question of war as affecting this
country, that nothing could be so foolish, nothing
so mad as a policy of war for a trading nation—
(hear, hear)—and be went so far as to say that any
peace Was better than the most successful war.
(Hear, hear.) Ido not give you the precise lan-
guage of the Minister, for I speak only from me-
mory, but I am satisfied I am not misrepresenting
him in what I have now stated. Come down 50
years nearer to our own time, and you find a states-
man, not long in office, but still held in the affec-
tions of all persons of liberal principles in this
country, and in his time repressenting fully the
sentiments of the Liberal party—Charles 'amen
Fox. (Cheers.) Mr. Fox, referring to the policy
of the Government of his time, which was one of
constant interference in the affairs of Europe, and
by which the country was continually involved in
the calamities of war, said that although he would
not assert or maintain the principle, t.utt under no
circumstances could England have Any cause of in-
terference with the affairs of the continent of Europe,
yet he would prefer the positive policy of non-in-
terference and of perfect isolation rather than the
constant intermeddling to which our recent policy
had subjected us, and which brought so much
trouble and suffering upon the country. (Hear,
hear.). In this case also lam not prepared to give
you his exact words, but I am sure that I fairly
describe the sentiments which- he expressed.
Come down to 50 years later, and to a time, with-
in the recollection of most of us, and you find
another statesman, once the most popular man in
England, and still remembered in this town and
elsewhere with respect and affection. I allude to
Earl Grey. (Cheers.) When Earl Grey came into
office for the purpose of carrying the question of
Parliamentary Reform he unfurled the banner of
" peace, retrenchment, and reform," and that sen-
timent was received in every part of the United
Kingdom, by every man who was or had been in
favour of Liberal principles, as the pronouncement
of the commencement of a new era which should
save his country from many of the calamities of the
past. (Hear.) Come down still nearer, and to a time
that seems but the other day, and you find another
N insister, second to none of those whom I have
mentioned—the late
R Peel. (Cheers-) I was
in the Hou§e of Commons,observing.
Sir R. Peel, from the t' when he took office in
1841 ; I watched his prounceeeonfghsisplarticulaiddy- from
the year 1843 up to the time
perioadmelnte death;
and during the whole of that venture to
d
say, his principles, if they *were to be discovered
from his conduct and his speeches, were precisely
those which I have held, and which I have always
endeavoured to press upon the attention of Tr
countrymen. €Cheers.) If you have any doubt ony
that point Vould refer you to that last, that most
beautiful, That most solemn speech, which he de_
livered with an earnestness and a sense of respon-
sibility as if he had known he was leaving a legacy
to his country. (Hear.) If you refer to that speech
delivered on the morning of the very day on which
occurred thd accident which terminated his life, you
will find that its whole tenour is in conformity
with all the doctrines that I have urged upon my
countrymen for years past with respect to our policy
in foreign affairs. When Sir R. Peel went home
just before the dawn of day, upon the last occa-
sion that he passed from the House of Commons,
the scene of so many of his triumphs, I have heard,
from what I think a good authority, that after he
entered his own house he expressed the exceeding
relief which he experienced at having delivered
himself of a speech which he had been obliged re-
luctantly to make againgt a Ministry which he was
anxious to support, and he added, "If I am not
mistaken I have made a speech of peace." (Hear.)
Well, if this be so, if I can give Tou four names

like liese—if there were time I could make a
longer list of still eminent, if inferior men—l should
like to know why I, as one of a small pa-iy, am to
be set down as teaching some new doct..ne which
it is not fit for my countrymen to hear, and why.
I am to be assailed in every form of language, as if
there was one great department of governmental
affairs on which I was incompeten` to offer any
opinion to my countrymen. (Hear.) But leaving
the opinions of individuals, I appeal to this audi-
ence, to every man who knows anything of the
views and policy of the Liberal party in past years,
whether it is not the fact that up to 1832, and in-
deed to a much later period, probably to 1850, those
sentiments of Sir Robert Walpole, of Mr. Fox, of
Earl Grey, and of Sir Robert Peel—the sentiments
which I in humbler mode have propounded—were
not received unanimously by the Liberal party as
their fixed and unchangeable creed ? (Hear.) And
why should they not ? Are they not founded upon
reason ? Do not all statesmen know, as you know,
that upon peace, and peace alone can be based the
successful industry of a nation, and that by suc-
cessful industry alone can be created that wealth
which, permeating all claseses of the people,
not confined to great proprietors, great merchants,
and great speculators, not running in a stream
merely down your principal streets, but turning
fertilising rivulets into every bye-lane and every
alley, tends so powerfully to promote the comfort,
happiness, and contentment of a nation ? (Cheers.)
Do you not know that all progress comes from sue-
kssful" and peaceful industry, and that upon it is
based your superstructure of education, of morals,
of self-respect among your people, as well as every
measure for extending and consolidating freedom
in your public institutions? (Cheers.) Well, lam
not afraid to acknowledge that.l do oppose—that I"
do utterly 'condemn and denounce a great part of
the foreign policy which is practised and adhered
to by the Goijernment of this country. (Hear,hear.)
You know, of course, that about 170 years ago there
happened in this countrywhat we have always been
accustomed to call a " glorions Revolution"—a Re-
volution which had this efi'eet—that it put a bit
into the mouth of the monarch, so that he was not
able of his own free will to do, and he dared no
longer attempt to do, the things which his prede-
cessors had done without fear. But if at the Revo-
lution the Monarchy of England was bridled and
bitted, at the same time the great territorial fami-
lies of Englandwere enthroned—(hear, hear.)—and
from that period until the year 1831 or 1832—until
the time when Birmingham politically became fa-
mous—those territorial families reigned with an
almost undisputed sway over the destinies and the
industry of the people of the United Kingdom.
(Hear, hear.) If you turn to the history of Eng-
land, from the peiiod of the Revolution to the pre-
sent, you will find that an entirely new policy was
adopted, and that while we had endeavoured in
former times to keep ourselves free from. European
complications, we now began to act upon a system
of constant entanglement in the affairs of foreign
countries, as if there was neither property nor
honours, nor anything worth striving for, to be ac-
quired in any other field. The language
coined and used then has continued to our
day. Lord Somers, "in writing for William 111.,
speaks of the endless and sanguinary wars of that
period as wars "to maintain the liberties of Eu-
rope." There were wars
_" to support the Protes-
tant interest," and there were many wars to pre-
serve our old friend, " the balance of power."
(A laugh.) We have been at war since that time,
I believe, with, for, and against every considerable
nation in Europe. We fought to put down a pre-
tended French supremacy under Louis XIV. We
fought to prevent -France and Spain coming under
the sceptre of one monarch, although, if we had not
fought, it would have been impossible in the course
of things that they should have become so united.
We fought to maintain the Italian provinces in
connexion with the House of Austria. We fought
to put down the supremacy of Napoleon Bonaparte,
and the Minister who was employed by this country
at Vienna after the great war, when it was deter-
mined that no Bonaparte should ever again sit on
the throne of France, was the very man to make an
alliance with another Bonaparte for the purpose-of
carrying on a war to prevent the supremacy of the
late Emperor of Russia. SO that we have been all
round Europe and across it over and over again,
and after a policy so distinguished, so preeminent,
so long-continued, and so costly; I think we have a
fair right-4 have, at least—to ask those who are
in favour of it to show us its visible result. (Hear.)
Europe is not at this moment, so far as I know,
speaking of it broadly, and making allowance for
certain improvements in its general civilization,
more free politically than it was before. (Hear.)
The balance of power is like perpetual motion, or
any of those impossible things which some men
are always racking their brains. and spending.
their time and money to accomplish. Vt. laugh.
We all know and deplore that at the
present moment a larger number of the grown
men of Europe are employed and a larger
portion of the industry of Europe is absorbed to
provide and maintain the enormous armaments
which are now on foot in every considerable
continental State. (Hear, hear.) Assuming,
then, that Europe is not much better in conse-
quence of the sacrifices she has made, let us inquire
what has been the result to England, because, after
all, that is the question which it becomes us most
to consider. (Hear.) I believe that I understate
the sum when I say that in pursuit of this Will-
o'-the-wisp, the liberties of Europe, and the
balance of power, there has been extracted from
the industry of the people of this small island no
less an amount than. £2,000,000,000 sterling. I
cannot imagine how much £2,000,000,000 is, and.
therefore I shall not attempt to make you compre-
hend it. I presume it is something like those
vast and- incomprehensible astronomical distances
with which we have been lately made fami-
liar ' • but, however familiar, we feel that we do
not know one bit more about them than we
did before. (A, laugh.) When.l try to think
of that sum of £2,000,000,000, there is a
sort of vision passes before my mind's eye. I see
your peasant labourer delve and plough, sow and
reap, sweat beneath the summer's sun, and grow
prematurely old before the winter's blast. I see
your noble mechanic with his manly countenance
and his matchless skill, toiling at his bench or his
forge. I see one of the workers in our factories in
the north, a woman, or a girl, it may be—gentle
and good as many oithem are, or as your sisters and
daughters are—l see her intent upon a spindle
whose revolutions are so rapid that the eye fails
altogether to detect them, or, repeating the alterna-
ting flights of the unresting, shuttle. I turn again to
another portion of your population, and I see a man
who, plunged in mines, forgets that the sun was
made, and digs from the secret chambers of the
earth the elements of the riches and greatness of
his country. When Ise all this I have before
me a mass of produce and of wealth which I am
no more able to compreb cid firm 1 am that
£2,000,000,000 of which i have spoken, but I behold
in its full proportions the hideous error of your
Governments, whose fatal policy consumes in some
cases a half, never less than a third, of all the re-
sults of that industry which God intended should
fertilise and bless every, home in England, but the
fruits of which are squandered in every part of the
surface of the globe without producing the smallest
good to the people of England. (Cheers.) We
have, it is true, some visible results that are of a
more positive kind. We have that which some
people call a great advantagethe national debt--
a debt which is now so lirge that the most prudent,
the most economical, and the most honest have
given up all hope, not of its being paid off, but of
its being diminished in amount. We have, too,
taxes which have been during many -years so one-
rous that there have been times when the patient
beast of burden threatened to revolt—so onerous
that it has been utterly impossible.to levy them
with any kind of honest-equality, according to the
means of the people to pay them. (Hear.) We
have that, moreover, which is a standing wonder to
all foreigners who consider our condition—an
amount of apparently immoveable pauperism, which
to strangers is wholly irreconcilable with the fact
that we as a nation produce more of what should
make us all comfortable than is produced by any
other nation of similar numbers on the face of the
globe. (Hear.) Let us likewise remember that
during the period of those great and so-called glo-
rious operations on the continent of Europe every
description of home reform was not only delayed,
but actually crushed out of the minds of the great
bulk of the people. There can be no doubt what-
ever that in. 1.793 England was about to realise
political changes and reforms such as did not ap-
pear again until the year 1830, and during the
period of that war, which now almost all men agree
to have been wholly unnecessary, we were passing
through a period which may be described as the
dark ages of English politics, when there was no
more freedom to write or to speak, or politically to
achat,,,ethbaenal lere is now in the most despotic country
there
of
Europe Europe. But, it may be asked, did nobody gain ?
i
iso nmouobleitisoterr,sae,n d the people of England
new system of foreign powliheyo h? a slbvehnaetfi te d
has by
et he
ne
the fate of those who were enthroned at the Revo-
lution and whose supremacy has been for so long a
perion undisputed among us . Mr.
author of an interesting book on E. stern Kinglike,
describing the habits of some acquaintances
that he
Eastern travel,the
made in the Syrian Deserts, says that the jackals of
the desert follow their prey in families like the
place hunters of Europe. (A laugh.) reverse,
if you like, the comparison, and say that the great
territorial families of England, which were en-
throned at the Revolution, have followed their prey
like the jackals of the desert. (Cheers and laughter.)
Da you not observe Sat a glance that as from the

time of William 111., by reason of the foreign policy
which I denbunce, wars have been multiplied, taxes
increased, loans made, and the sums of money which

every year the Government has to expend aug-
mented, so the patronage at the disposal of Ministers
must have increased also, and the.families who were
enthroned and made powerful in the legislation and
administration of the country must have had the
first pull and the largest profit out of that patron-
age ? (Hear, hear.) There is no actuary in exist-
ence who can calculate how much of the wealth, of

the strength, of the supremacy of the territorial
families of England has been derived from an un-
holy participation in the fruits of the industry of
the people, which have been wrested from them by
every device of •taxation and squandered in every
conceivable crime • of which a Government could

possibly be guilty. (Cheers.) The more you exa-
mine this matter' the more you will come to the
conclusion which Z haye arrived at, that this foreign

. . .
policy, this regard for." the liberties of Europe," this
care at one time for " the Protestant interest,"

this excessive love for " the balance of power," is
neither more nor less than a gigantic system of
outdoor relief for the aristocracy of Great Britain.
(Great cheering and laughter.) I observe that
you receive that declaration as if it were some
new and important discovery. In 1815 every
Liberal in England whose politics, whose hopes,
and whose faith had not been crushed out of him
by the tyranny of the time of that war was fully
aware of this and openly admitted it, and up to
1832 and for some years afterwards it was the fixed
and undoubted creed of the great Liberal party.
(Hear.) But somehow all is changed. We who
stand upon the old landmarks, who walk in the
old paths, who would conserve what is wise and
prudent—(hear)—are hustled and shoved about as
if we were come to turn the world upside down.

(Hear, hear.) The change which has._ taken place
seems to confirm the opinion of a lamented friend
of mine who, not having succeeded in all his hopes,
thought that men made no progress whatever, but
went round and round like a squirrel in its cage.
(A laugh.) The idea is now so general that it is our
duty to meddle everywhere, that it really seems as
if we had pushed the Tories from the field, expel-
ling them by our competition. I should like to lay
before you a list of the treaties which we have made,
and of the responsibilities under which we have
laid ourselves with respect to the various countries
of Europe. Ido not know where such an enume-
ration is to be got, but I suppose it would be pos-
sible for antiquarians and men of investigating
minds to dig them out from the recesses of the
Foreign-office,.and perhaps to make some of them
intelligible to the country. I believe, however,
that if we got() the Baltic we shall find that we
have a treaty to defend Sweden, and the only thing
which Sweden agrees to do in return is not to give
up any portion of her territories to Russia. Com-
ing down a little south we have a treaty which in-
vites us, enables us, and, perhaps, if we acted fully
up to our duty with regard to it, would compel us
to interfere in the question between Demark and
the Duchies. If I mistake not we have a treaty
which binds us down to the maintenance of the
little kingdom of Belgium as established after its
separation from Holland. We have numerous
treaties with France. We are understood to be
bound by treaty to maintain constitutional go-
vernment in Spain and Portugal. If we go round
into the Mediterranean we find the little king-
dom of Sardinia, to which we have lent some
millions of money, and with which we have entered
into important treaties for preserving the balance
of power in Enrope. If we go beyond the king-
doms of Italy, and cross the 'Adriatic, we come to
the small kingdom of Greece, against which we
have also a nice, account that will never be settled
—(a laugh)—while we have engagements to main-
tain that respectable but diminutive country under
its present constitutional Government. Then,
leaving the kingdom of Greece, we pass up the
eastern end of the Mediterranean, and from
Greece to the Red Sea, wherever the authority
of the Sultan is more or less admitted, the
blood and the industry of England are pledged to
the permanent sustentation of the independence and
integrity of the Ottoman empire. (Hear.) I confess
that as a citizen of this country, wishing to live-
peaceably among my fellow countrymen, and wish-
ing to see my, countrymen free and able to enjoy
the fruits of their labour, I protest against a system
which binds us in all these networks and complica-
tions, from which it is impossible that we can gain.
one single inch of advantage for this country. It is
not all glory, after all. Glory may be worth some-
thing, but it is not always glory. We have had
within the last few years despatches from Vienna
and St. Petersburg which, if we had not deserved
them, would have been very offensive and not a
little insolent. We have had the ambassador of the
. Queesi expelled summarily from Madrid, and we
1 have had an ambassador expelled. almost with igno-
miny from Washington. We have bloelmded
Athens for a claim which was known to be false.
We have quarrelled with Naples, for we chose to
give advice to Naples, which was not received in
the submissive spirit expected from her, and our
Minister was therefore withdrawn. • Not• three
years ago, too, we seized 'a considerable kingdom
in India, with which our government had but re-
cently entered into the most solemn treaty, which
every lawyer in England and in Europe, I believe,
would consider binding before God and the world.
We deposed its monarch ; we committed a great
immorality and a great crime, and we ..have reaped
an almost instantaneous retribution in the most gi-
gantic and sanguinary revolt which probably any
nation ever made against its conquerors. Within
the last few years we have had two wars with a
great empire, which we are told at least contains one-
third of the whole human race. The first war was
called—the opium war. No man, I believe, with
a spark of morality in his composition—no man
who cares anything for the opinion of his fellow-
countrymen; has dared to. justify that war. (Cheers.)
The war which has just been concluded, if it has
been concluded, had its origin in the first war; for
the enormities committed in the first war are the
foundation of the implacable hostility which it
is said the inhabitants of Canton bear-to all persons
connected with the English name. Yet, though we
have these troubles in India—a vast country which
we know not how to govern—and a war with China
—a country -with which, though everybody else
can remain at peace, we cannot, such is the invete-
rate habit of conquest, such is the insatiable lust of
territory, such is, to my thinking, the depraved,
unhappy state of opinion of the country on this sub-
ject, that there are not a few persons—Chambers of
Commerce, to wit, in different parts of the king-
dom—though I am glad to say it has not been so
with the Chamber of Commerce of Birmingham—
who have been urging our Government to take pos-
session of a province of,perhaps,almost the greatest
island in the Eastern was—a possession which must
at once necessitate increased estimates and increased
taxation, and which would lead us into one of the
most merciless and most disgraceful wars with the
half-savage tribes who inhabit those islands. I will
not dwell upon that question. The gentleman who
is principally concerned in it is at this moment, as
you know, stricken down with affliction, and I
should be ashamed of myself if I were to enter here
into any considerable discussion of the case which
he is urging upon the public ; but I say that we
have territory enough in India, and if we have not
troubles enough there—if we have not difficulties
enough in China—if we have not taxation enough,
by all means gratify your wishes for more; but I
hope that whatever may be the shortcomings of the
Government with regard to any other questions in
which we are all interested—and may they be few
—they will shut their eyes, they will turn their
backs obstinately from adding in this mode, or in
any mode, to the English possessions in the East.
(Cheers.) I suppose if any ingenious person were
to prepare a large map of the world, as far as it is
known, and were to mark upon it, in any colour
that he liked, the spots where Englishmen have
fought, and English blood has been poured forth,
and the treasure of England squandered, scarcely
a country, scarcely a province of the vast expanse
of the 'habitable globe, would be undistinguished.
Perhaps there are in this room—l am sure
there are in the country—many persons who hold
a superstitious traditionary belief that, somehow or
other, our vast trade is to be attributed to what we
have done in this way—that it is thus that we have
opened markets and advanced commerce—that Eng-
lish greatness depends upon the extent of English
conquests and English military renown. But lam
inclined to think that, with the exception of Aus-
tralia, there is not a single dependency of the Crown
which, if we come to reckon what it has cost in war
and protection, would not be found to be a positive
loss to the people of this country. Take the United
States, with which we have such an enormous and
constantly increasing trade. The wise statesmen
of the last generation—men who your school histo-
ries tell you were statesmen—ruled over by a
monarch who they tell you was a patriotic monarch
—spent £130,000,000 of the fruits of the industry
of the people in a vain—happily a vain—endeavour
to retain the colonies of the United States in subjec-
tion to the Monarchy of England. Add to the inte-
rest of that £130,000,000 for all this time, and how
long do you think it will be before there will be a
profit on the trade with the United States which
will repay the enormous sum we invested in a war
to retain those States as colonies of this empire ? It
never will be paid off. (Cheers.) Wherever you turn
you will find that the opening of markets, develop-
ing of new countries, introducing cotton cloth and
calico with cannon balls, are vain, foolish, and
wretched excuses for wars, and ought not to be
listened to for a moment by any man who under-
stands the multiplication table, or, who can do the
simplest sum in arithmetic. Since the " glorious
Revolution," since the enthronisation of the great

Norman territorial families, they have spent in wars
—and we have worked for—about £2,000,000,000.
The interest on that is. £100,000,000 per annum,
which is three or four times as much as the whole

•
amount of your annual export trade from that
time to this. Therefore if war had provided you
with a trade, it would have been at an enormous
cost ; but I think it is by no means doubtful that
your trade would have been no less in amount
and no less profitable had peace, harmony, and
justice been inscribed on your flag, instead of
conquest and the love of military renown. But
even in this year, 1858—we have got a long way
into the century—we find that within the last seven
years our public debt has greatly increased. What-
' ever be the increase of our population, of our ma-
..

chinery, of our industry, of our wealth, still our
national debt goes on increasing. Although we
have not a foot more territory to conserve, or an
enemy in the world who dreams of attacking us, we
find that. our annual military_ expenses during the

last 20 years have risen from £12,000,000 to
£22,000,000. Some people believe that it is a good
thing to pay a great revenue to the State. Even
so eminent a man as Lord J. Russell is not without
a delusion of this sort. (A laugh.) His lordship,
as you have heard,' while speaking of me in the
most flattering and friendly terms, says he is unfor-
tunately obliged to differ from me sometimes; there-
fore I suppose there is no particular harm in my
saying that lam sometimes obliged to differ from
him. Some 10 days ago he was a great star in the
northern hemisphere, shining, not with unaccus-
tomed, but with his ordinary brilliancy at Liver-
pool. He made a speech in which there was a
great deal to be admired to a meeting composed, it
was said, to a great extent, of working men ; and
in it he stimulated them to a feeling of pride in the
greatness of their country and in being citizens of
a State which enjoyed a revenue of £100,000,000,
a-year, which included the revenues of the United
Kingdom and of British India. But I think it
would have been far more to the purpose if he could
have congratulated the working men of Liverpool
on this vast empire being conducted in an orderly
manner, on its laws being well administered and
well obeyed, its shores sufficiently defended, its
people prosperous and happy, on a revenue of
£20,000,000. The State, indeed, of which Lord J.
Russell is apart, may enjoy a revenue of £100,000,000
but I am afraid the working men can only be said
to enjoy it in the sense in which men not very choice
in their expressions say that for a long time they
have only enjoyed " very. bad health." (A laugh.)
I am prepared to maintain that it is a sub—
ject of congratulation that there is a people so
great, so free, and so industrious, that it can
produce a sufficient income out of which
£100,000,000 a-year, if need absolutely were, could
be spared for some great and noble purpose ; but
it is not a thing to be proud of that our Govern-
ment should require us to pay that enormous sum
for the simple purposes of government and defence.
Nothing can by any possibility tend more to the
corruption of a Government than enormous reve-
nues. (Cheers.) We have heard lately of instances
of certain joint-stock institutions with enormous
capitals collapsing suddenly, bringing disgrace on
their managers, and ruin upon hundreds of families.
A great deal of that has arisen not so much from
intentional fraud as from the fact that weak and
incapable men have found themselves tumbling
about in an ocean of bank-notes and cash, and they
appear to have lost all sight of where it came from,
to whom it belonged, and whether it was possible
by any maladministration even to come to an end
of it. That is absolutely what is done by Govern-
ments. You have read in the papers lately some
accounts of the procedings before a Commission ap-
pointed to inquire into some alleged maladminis-
tration with reference to the supply of clothing to
the army, but if anybody had said anything in the
time of the late Government about any such
maladministration, not one of those great states-
men, of whom we are told we ought always to
speak with so much reverence, but would have got
up and declared that nothing could be more ad-
mirable than the system of bookkeeping at
Weedon, nothing more economical than the
manner in which the War Department spent the
money provided by public taxation. But we know
that it is not so. (Cheers.) I have heard a gentle-
man—one who is as competent as any man in Eng-
land to give an opinion about shipowners—a man
of business, and not. surpassed by any one as a
man of the world, . declare after a long examina-
tion of the details of the question, that he would
undertake to do everything that is done not
only for the defence of the country, but for
many other things which are done by your
navyi and which are not necessary for that pur-
pose, for half the annual cost that is voted in the
estimates. (Cheers.) I think the expenditure
of thcse vast sums, and especially of those which
we spend for military pprposes leads us to adopt a
defiant and insolent tone towards foreign countries.
We have the freest press in Europe, and the freest
platform in Europe, but every man who writes an
article in a newspaper, and every man who stands
upon a platform, ought to do it under a solemn
sense ofresponsibility. Every word he writes, every
word I utter, passes with a rapidity, of which our
forefathers were utterly ignorant, to the very ends
of the earth—words become things and acts, and
they produce on the minds of other nations effects
which a man may never have intended. Take a
recent case—take the case of France. I am not
expected to defend, and I certainly shall not attack
the present Government of France. The instant
that it appeared in its present shape the Minister
of England, conducting your foreign affairs, speak-
ing ostensibly for the cabinet, for his Sovereign,
and for the English nation, offered his congratula-
tions, and the support of England was at once ac-
corded to the re-created French Empire. Soon after
this an intimate alliance was entered !into between
the Queen of England, through her Ministers, and
the Emperor of the French. -I am not about to
defend the policy which flowed from that alliance,
nor shall I take up your time by making any at-
tack upon it. An alliance was entered into and a
war was entered into. English and French soldiers
fought on the same field, and they suffered, I fear,
from the-same ne,glect. They now lie buried on the
bleak heights of the Crimea, and I suppose, except
by their mothers, who don't soon forget-their chil-
dren—l suppose they are mostly forgotten. have
never heard it suggested that the French Govern-
ment did not behave with the most perfect honour
to this Government and this country all through
these grave and momentous transactions; but I
have heard it stated by those who must know,
that nothing could be-more honourable, nothing
more just than the conduct of the French
Emperor to this Government throughout the whole
of that struggle. More recently, when the war
in China was begun by a Government which I
have condemned and denounced in the House of
Commons the Emperor of the French sent
his ships and troops to co-operate with us, but
I never heard that anything was done there to
create a suspicion of a feeling of hostility on his part
towards us. The Emperor of the French came to
London, and some of those powerful organs who
have since taken the line of which lam complain-
ing did all but invite the people of London to pro-
strate themselves under the wheels of that chariot
which conveyed along our streets the revived
Monarchy of France. The Queen of England went
to Paris, and was she not received there with as
much affection and as much respect as her high
position and.her honourable character entitle her
to ? (Cheers.) What has occurred since ? If
there was a momentary unpleasantness, I am quite
sure that every impartial man will agree that,under
the peculiarly irritating circumstances of the mo-
ment, there was at least as much forbearance shown
on one side of the Channel as on the other. Then,
We have had much said lately about a naval forti-
fication recently completed in France, which has
been more than 100 years in progress, which was
not devised by the present Emperor of the French,
nor by his will. For 100 years great sums had
been spent on it, and at last, like every other
great work, it was brought to an end. The Eng-
lish Queen and others were invited over, and many
went who were not invited. And yet in all this
we are told that there is something to create ex-
treme alarm and suspicion ; we, who have never
fortified any places—we, who have not a greater
than Sebastopol at Gibraltar—we, who have not an
impregnable fortress at Malta, who have not spent
the fortune of a nation almost in the lonian Islands
—we, who are doing nothing at Alderney!—in fact,
there never was a nation so perfectly guiltless of
preparing to do anything to anybody ! There are
few persons who a some time or otherhave not been
brought into contact with a poor unhappy fellow-
creature who has some peculiar delusion or suspicion
pressing on his mind. I recollect a friend of mind
going down from Derby to Liverpool in the
train with a very quiet, respectable-look-
ing gentleman sitting opposite to him. They
had both been staying at the Midland Hotel,
and they began talking about it. All at once the
gentleman said, "Did you notice anything particu-
lar about the bread at breakfast ?" " No, said my
friend, " I did not." "Oh ! but I did," said the
poor gentleman, " and I am convinced there was an
attempt made to poison me, and it is a very curious
thing that I never go to a hotel without I discover
some attempt to do me mischief." Of course the
unfortunate man was labouring under one of the
greatest calamities that can befall a human crea-
ture ; but what are we to say of a nation which
lives under a perpetual delusion that it is going to
be attacked—a nation which is the most combined
on the face of the earth, little less than 30,000,000
of people all united under a Government which,
though we intend to reform it, we do not the less
respect—(cheers)—and which has mechanical power
and wealth to which no country offers any parallel.

There is no causeway to Britain—the free waves of
the sea flow day and night for ever round her
shores, and yet there are people going about with
whom this hallucination is so strong that they do
not merely discover it quietly to their friends, but
they write it down in double-leaded columns, in
leading articles—nay, some of them actually get up
on platforms and proclaim it to hundreds and thou-
sands of their fellow-countrymen. (Laughter.) I
should like to ask you whether these delusions are
to last for ever, whether this policy is to be the
perpetual policy of England, whether these results
are to go gathering and gathering until there come,
as come there must inevitably, some dreadful catas-
trophe on our Country ? I should like to-night, if
I could, to inaugurate one of the best and holiest
revolutions that ever took place in this country.
We have had a dozen revolutions since some of us
even were children. We have had one revolution
in which you had a great share, a great revolution
of opinion on the question of the suffrage. Does it
not read like madness that men, 30 years ago, were
frantic at the idea of the people of Birmingham
having a £lO franchise ? (Laughter.) Does it not
seem something like idiotcy to be told that a banker
in Leeds, when it was proposed to transfer one rot-
ten borough to the town of Leeds, should say (and
it was repeated in the House of Commons on his
authority) that if the people of Leeds had the fran-
chise conferred upon them it would not be possible
to keep the bank doors open with safety, and that
he should remove his business to some quiet place
out of danger from. the savage race which peopled
that town ? (Laughter.) But now all confess that
the people are perfectly competent to have votes,
and nobody dreams of arguing that the privilege
will make them less orderly. Take the question of
colonial government. Twenty years ago the go-
vernment of our colonies was a huge job. A small
family party in each, in connexion with the ,Colo-
nial-office, ruled our colonies. We had then discon-
tent, and now and then insurrection, especially in
Canada. The result was that we have given up the
colonial policy which had hitherto been held sacred,
and since that time not only had they gone on pro-
gressing in wealth and material resources; but no
parts of the empire are more tranquil and loyal.
(Cheers.) Take, then, the question of protection.
Not 30 years ago, but 12 years ago, there was a
great party in Parliament, led by a duke in one
house and by the son and brother of a duke in the
other, which declared that utter ruin must come,
not only upon the agricultural interest, but
upon the manufactures and commerce of England if
we departed from our old theories upon this subject
of protection. They told us that the labourer—the
unhappy labOurer—such friends as he had—of whom
it may be said in this country,
"Itere landless labourers, hopeless toil and strive,
" But taste no portion of the sweets they hive."—
that the labourer was to be ruined ; that is, that
the paupers were to be pauperized. (Laughter.)
These gentlemen were ove'rthrown. The plain,
honest, common sense of the country swept away
their cobweb theories, and they are gone. What
is the result ? From 1846 to 1857 we have received
into this country of grain of all kinds, including flour,
maize, and Indian corn—all objects not of absolute
prohibition, but which were intended to be prohibited
until it was not safe for people to be starved any more
—not less than an amount equal in value to
£224,000,000. (Cheers.) That is equal to £18,700,000
per annum on the average of 12 years. During that
period, too, your home growth has been stimulated
to an enormous extent. You have imported
200,000 tons of guano, and the result has been a
proportionate increase in the productions of the
soil. With all this, agriculture was never more
prosperous, while manufactures and goods were
never, at the same time, more extensively exported;
and with all this the labourers, for whom the tears
of the Protectionists were shed, have, according to
the admission of the most violent of the, class, never
been in better state since the beginning of the great
French war. (Cheers.) One other revolution of
opinion has been in regard to our criminal law. I
have lately been reading a book which I would ad-
vise every man to read—the " Life of Sir Samuel
Romilly.b He tells us in simple language of the
enormous difficulties he had to contend with to per-
suade the. Legislature of the country to abolish the
punishment of death for stealing from a dwelling-
house to the value of 55., an offence which now is
punished by about six weeks' imprisonment. Lords,
bishops, and statesmen opposed these efforts year
after year, and since he commenced them there have
been Some thousands of persons put to death pub-
licly for such trivial offences. Now, every man and
woman in the kingdom would feel a thrill of hor-
ror if they were told that a fellow-creature was to
be put to death for such a cause. These are revo-
lutions in opinion, and let me tell you that when
you accomplish a revolution in opinion upon a great
question, when you alter it from bad to good, it is
not IWe giving a beggar (id. and seeing him no more,
but it; is a great beneficent act, which affects not
merely the rich and the powerful, but penetrates
every lane, every cottage in the land, and wherever
it goes brings blessings and happiness. It is not
from statesmen that these things come. It is not from
them that have proceeded these great revolutions of
opinion on the questions of Reform, Protection, Colo-
nial Government, and criminal law—it was from pub-
lic meetings sueh as this—(cheers)—from the intel-
ligence and conscience of the great body of the people
who have no interest in wrong, and who never go
from the right but by temporary error and under
momentary passion. It is for you to decide whe-
ther our greatness shall be only temporary, or
whether it shall be enduring. When I am told
that the greatness of our country is shown by the
£100,000,000 of• revenue produced, may I not ask
how it is that we have 1,100,000 paupers in this
kingdom, and why it is that £7,000,000 should be
taken from the industry chiefly of the labouring
classes to support a small nation, as it were, of
paupers. Since your legislation upon the corn
laws you have not only had nearly £20,000,000 of
food brought into the country annually, but such
an extraordinary increase of trade, that your ex-
ports are about doubled, and yet I understand that
in the year 1856—for I have no later return—
were no less than 1,100,000 paupers in England,
and the sum raised in poor-rates was not less than
£7,200,000. And that cost of pauperism is not
the full amount ' • for there is a vast quantity- of
temporary, casual, and vagrant pauperism that does
not come in to swell that sum. Then don't you
well know—l know it, because I live among the
population of Lancashire, and I doubt not the same
may be said of the population of this city and
county—that just above the level of the 1400,0.
there is an equal number who are ever oscillating
between independence and pauperism, who, with a
heroism which is not the less heroic because it is
secret and unrecorded, are doing their very utmost
to maintain an honourable and ind ependent posi-
tion before their fellow-men ? (Cheers.) While
Irish labour—notwithstanding the improvement
which has taken place in Ireland—is only paid at
the rate of about ls. a-day ; while in the straths
and glens of Scotland there are hundreds of shep-
herd families whose whole food almost- consists of
oatmeal porridge from day to day and from week
to week ; while these things continue, I say that we
have no right to be self-satisfied and contented
with our position ; but that we who are in Parlia-
ment and are more directly responsible for affairs,
and you who are also responsible, though in a lower
degree, are bound by the sacred duty which we
owe our country to examine why it is that
with all this trade, all this industry, and
all this personal freedom there is still so much that
is unsound:at the base of our social fabric ? (Cheers.)
Let me direct your attention now to another point
which I never think of without feelings which
words would altogether fail to express. You hear
constantly that woman, " the helpmate of man,"
. who adorns, dignifies, and blesses our lives—that
woman in this country is cheap ; that vast numbers
whose names ought to be synonyms for purity and
virtue are plunged into profligacy and infamy. But
do you not know that you sent 40,000 men to
perish on the bleak heights of the Crimea, and that
the revolt in India—caused, in part at least, by the
iniquitous immorality of the seizure of Oude—will
tax your country to the extent of 100,000 lives
before it is extinguished; and do you not know
that for the 140,000 men thus draughted off
and consigned to a premature grave nature pro-
vided in yonr country 140,000 women ? If you
have taken the men who should have been hus-
bands to those women, and if you have sacrificed
£100,000,000, which as capital reserved in the
country would have been an ample fund for their
employment and for the sustentation of their fami-
lies, are you not guilty of a great sin in involving
yourselves in such a loss of life and of money in
war, except on grounds and under circumstances
which according to the opinions of every man in
the country should leave no kind of option whatever
for your choice. Now, I know perfectly well the
kind of observations which a certain class of critics
will make on this speech. (A laugh.) I have
been already told by a very eminent newspaper
of Calcutta, which, commenting on a speech I made
at the close of the session with regard to the con-
dition of India and our future policy in that country,
said that the policy I recommended was intended to
strike at the root of the advancement of the British
empire and that that advancement did not neces-
sarily involve the calamities which I pointed out as
likely to occur. My Calcutta critic assured me
that Rome pursued a similar policy for cen-
turies, and that for those eight centuries she re-
mained great. Now, Ido not think that examples
taken from pagan, sanguinary, bloodthirsty Rome
are proper models for the imitation of a Christian
country, nor would I limit my hopes of the great-
ness of England, even to the long duiation of 800
years. (Cheers.) But what is Rome now ? The
city is dead. A poet has described her as " the