The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-13 00:00:00

LORD PANMURE ON REFORM.

On Monday Lord Panmure was present at a
dinner given to Provost Guthrie, at Brecbin, and,
in acknowledging the toast of his health, proposed
by the Earl of Southesk, he said—l rise to thank
you for your too partial reception of the toast which
has been so kindly proposed by noble friend on my
left (Lord Southesk). During that career to which
he has alluded I have certainly endeavoured to do
my duty for now very nearly a quarter of a cen-
tury; and I have had the satisfaction of knowing
that during the whole of that time my conscience
has told me that, with whatever success that duty
has been performed, it has been performed, at least,
with a consistency which I am thankful I have been
enabled to throw into it. I think that in these
times the conduct of public men ought to be a mat.
ter of grave consideration to all their fellow-citi-
zens. We live in curious 'times—in times when it
appears that in politics we are to have large mea-
sures of constitutional reform when scareely a voice
in the country is raised in its favour ; but circum-
stances have so combined that it is impossible for
any. government, whatever its strong political pro-
fessions may be, to abstain from entering and
embarking in a course of Parliamentary reform.
For myself, gentlemen, I have been accused of
having lost some of that taste for reform which I
imbibed in early youth, and which for many years
I have followed up ; but I can assure you that that
representation is not founded on fact. (Applause.)
So far as reform is carried out on the principles of
the great measure which was held at one time to be
a second Magna Charta of the liberties of this
country—so long as reform is continued on the
principles of the Reform Bill of 1832, I am ever a
steady, progressive, and determined reformer. (Ap-
plause.) Gentlemen, when I see schemes of reform
projected which strike at the very root of our
mixed constitution—when I see new organisations
sketched out before me which are to do away with
some branches of our constitution, or to give to one,
at least, the supremacy—then I confess I shall
pause at that road to reform, because I do not think
it is a safe one. A very amiable gentleman, who
has lately been down in this country arguing in
favour of such a course of reform, has gone back to
England and complained that he did not get that
support which he expected from the gentry and
middle classes of the country. And why has he
not done so ? Because their own good sense assures
them that the course he would lead them is not the
course they ought to go. (Hear, hear.) When Mr.
Cobden and Colonel Thompson came to this country
as the apostles of free trade and the justifiers of a
policy which was to rid us of taxation on the food
of the people, among the first of those who were
ready to welcome them on the platform of Glasgow
I had the honour to appear, and I know many in
the same condition as myself who rallied round Mr.
Cobden on that occasion. (Great applause.) And
what was the result ? In 1846 we received. one of
the greatest benefits of the Reform Bill. We saw
an end put to taxation on the food of the people.
But it has been the policy of some to run down and
decry the measure of 1832. Now, if ever there was
a measure from which a benefit accrued to the
nation and glory accumulated on its head, it is that
measure of reform which was passed in the year
1832. And what has Tesulted from it? The very
first act after the passing of the Reform Bill was to
blot out from our country the disgrace of participa-
tion in the trade of negro slavery. (Cheers.) The next
act of reform was the Municipal Act, which was of
great value to the country, and none knew its value
so well as the municipal corporations. There are
many people who had no vote before, and who have
a voice now, and they may go on in the spirit of
that bill, and get a further voice when parliament
chooses to grant it. But, gentlemen, I assure you
that free trade is the result of the Reform Bill of
1832 ; and numerous other advc.ntages, you are all
well aware—and I need not detain you in enume-
rating them—flowed from the passing of that mea-
sure, and that measure alone ; and I earnestly, trust
and pray that whatever steps we may take in
furthering the career of reform, we may never
depart from the measure of 1832 as its fundamental
basis. Gentlemen, it has been said that those who

Live in glass houses should not throw stones.
(" Hear, hear," and laughter.) Now, I should not
have alluded to anything personally relating to
myself if what I said at the last county meeting
had not been misrepresented. When Mr. Kinloch
got up and made a speech in favour of reform, he
took us all by surprise. (A laugh.) He made a
very good humoured speech, and concluded by a
very good proposal, and one we should be very
glad to see carried out, if that could possibly be
accomplished—that in any plan of reform that
might be proposed, Forfarshire should have a
second member, and that in any re-distribution of
the seats in parliament, every 30,000 individuals in
this land should have a member to represent them
in parliament. All I said was, that I deprecated
the division of the country into numerical parlia-
mentary divisions, and I thought Mr. Kinloch
would find himself mistaken if he thought that in
any re-distribution of seats Forfarshire would come
in for a second member. And it turns out very
much as I said, for according to the announcement
of Mr. Bright himself, if his plan were carried out,
he would not give a single one to the counties at
all, but would confine them all to burghs and large
populous towns ; so that, under the circumstances,
I thought I was not fairly treated by being
held up somewhat as an anti-reformer in giving
vent to these opinions at the last county meeting.
Now, gentlemen, I would have our honourable
friend the member for the burghs, instead of can-
vassing my conduct, to look a little after his own.
(Great applause.) Because, if lam not very much
misinformed by a public print on whose veracity
I place very much faith—namely, the Scotsman—
he is rather seeking popularity in Arbroath and
Montrose by supporting the shipping interest in
their demands for protection than adhring rigidly
to the principles of free-trade. (Applause.) And
I would give him a friendly warning from twenty-
five years' experience, that adhering steadily and
honestly to particular principles is worth all the
temporary popularity that a departure from them
may give any one. Now, gentlemen, I would only
state one thing further with regard to my own
particular principles. Essentially—however un-
popular the expression may be—essentially, I say,
they are those of a Whig. The old Whig principles
I understood from he life, conversation, speeches
and character of !he man whose name I bear—
Charles James Fox. The principles of whiggery
.are these—to maintain the liberties of the people
against the encroachments of the aristocracy and
of the Crown. These were the principles upon
which Mr. Fox acted, and upon these principles I
act still. But, gentlemen, there is a reverse to what
I have thus stated. Whig principles stop at a cer-
tain point and then turn ; and while maintaining
the just rights of the people, they are equally, pre-
pared if necessary to defend the rights of the Crown
and of the aristocracy from undue encroachment on
the part of the people. These are what I under-
stand to be Whig principles ; they are the prin-
ciples upon which I have acted—the principles
which I think maintain this country in the posi-
tion it holds, and I trust ever will hold among the
nations of the world, with its limited monarchy
and aristocracy open to the very, humblest of the
people if they are willing to work themselves up
to it. The middle classes are honest and true to
their principles, and the lower classes busy and
industrious. The nation gives refuge to political
outcasts of every other country, and will hold up
its lead firmly and honestly when the heads of
every other nation throughout Europe and' the
world are lowered. During the revolutions of
1848, no position was more proud than that held
by this country—calm amid the storms that
surrounded her, and ready to be an asylum to
all who sought of her a refuge, without asking
whether they had been right or wrong in the coun-
tries they had left. I have gone, I presume, some-
what beyond my mark—(cries of " No, no," and
" Go on ")—in expressing thee opinions ; but it is
but rarely, gentlemen, that a person in my position
—removed, I am sorry to say, at present from the
Commons' House of Parliament—has an opportu-
nity of expressing his opinions. I have taken this

opportunity'of making these remarks, in order that
I may not be misunderstood ; and I shall conclude
by saying that, on the subject of a Reform Bill, so
far as the intelligence of the people warrant me in
going, so far will I go. I would do everything to
forward a measure of reform on this basis; but I
would do everything openly, and would have no
secret transactions, either in voting or legislating.
(His lordship concluded amid great applause.)

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If these diseases be unattended with danger, the annoyance
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MR. S. T. KEKEWICH, MP., ON THE

REFORM BILL.

Mr. S. T. Kekewich, M.P. for South Devon,
addressed a meeting of his constituents at Honiton,
on Saturday, and in the course of his speech he said
—Gentlemen, you are well aware that there is a
very important session opening before us. There
are many people, perhaps, who think the session
will be of greater importance than I do. I think
'those questions which we often hear spoken of as
" looming in the distance," when they come before
us, will be settled with much greater ease than we
are led to expect. (Hear, hear.) Among the ques-
tions to be introduced in the House of Commons
will, I believe, be one relating to Parliamentary
Reform. Now, I have looked at all the reports in
the papers, whether of meetings of the " Ancient
Order of Foresters," or of the " Ancient Druids ".
—(laughter)—or of other meetings, and I cannot
discover, looking carefully at the words of the dif-
ferent speakers, that any person is aware of any
settled plan of reform. (Hear.) We all know
that the question of Parliamentary Reform is to
be brought forward, and I think you will agree
with me that, as the measure has been promised
from the throne, there cannot be a more fitting
time to bring it forward, when, if I may so express
it, there is a sort of lull in political affairs. (Hear,
hear.) I have never known the people so happy
and contented ; I have never known commercial
prosperity so great, and all interests in the commu-
nity so quiet and peaceable as they are at this
moment. (Cheers.) Ido not, therefore, think
there can possibly be a better time chosen at which
I to bring forward a question so exciting as political
reform, when there is really nothing to call the
passions of the people into existence. (Hear, hear.)
As you are aware, gentlemen, during the past few
weeks a worthy gentleman—Mr. Bright—has been
endeavouring to excite the people on the subject of
political reform by eloquent speeches. Now, I be-
lieve that if that gentleman were to come here, we
should rush to hear him speak, but I do not believe
one of us would entirely agree with him in his opi-
nions on reform. (" Hear," and cheers.) What
the plan of reform to be produced is none of us, I
'
believe, know • it is entirely confined to the Go-
vernment, and I do not believe the subordinate
members even know what the measure will be. If
I may be allowed to use a hunting phrase, we know
the fox is in the bag, and we can wind him afar
off. (Laughter.? We do not know the complexion
ofhis coat nor the length of his brush, but we know
that on a certain day—probably in March—he will
be turned out on the floor of St. Stephen's, when
there will be a great hue and cry, and we shall
hope to run into him and kill him in the month of
May. (Cheers and laughter.)

EXTRAORDINARY CHARGE AGAINST
TWO TRADESMEN,

At the Birmingham Police-court on Tuesday,
Isaac Hill, landlord ofthe Malt Shovel Inn, Princep-
street, and Clement Payne, butcher, Newdegate-
street, were charged with having possession of
stolen deeds. The owner of the lost deeds is Mr.
Edwin Barlow, of Hampton-street, metal dealer.
Mr. Barlow stated that on the Ist day of last Nov.
he went to London. At that time he had in his
warehouse in Hampton-street an iron safe, in which
he safely locked up two deeds. One was a counter-
part of a lease of a house in Hampton-street from
Barlow to Baker, and the other was a conveyance of
some land in Middlesex from a gentleman named
Sams to Mr. Barlow. Mr. J. Barlow, son to prosecu-
tor, stated that when he got to the warehouse of his
father, in Hampton-street, on the 3d of Nov., about
eight in the morning, he found that the iron safe,
which was built into the wall in the counting-house
upstairs, had been forcibly taken from the wall,
carried down into one of the shops, broken almost
to pieces with a hammer, and, the deeds abstracted.
Other papers and documents in the safe were
strewed about the floor. Nothing was heard of
these documents until Monday last, when, in con-
sequence of information which the officers of the
detective force received the two persons accused
were taken into custody on the charge of being con-
nected with the deeds, so far as Hill was specially
concerned, he implicating Payne as to the posses-
sion of the documents. Hardly had the matter been
launched when the question of an adjournment was
mooted, and after this had been settled some dis-
cussion took place as to whether further evidence
should now be taken or otherwise. It was even-
tually decided that it should. A person named
Nathan James Johnson, who said he was an
accountant, stated, about six weeks ago he was at
the inn kept by Hill. The prisoner said, " I under-
stand you know something about deeds." To this
a reply in the affirmative was given, and Hill then
took witness into the cellar and showed him the
two deeds previously described. (Johnson gave 'a
description of the documents.) Hill added, " These
deeds were lost, and the person who found them
brought them to me." The prisoner further asked
what was the value of the parchments, adding,
either a reward had or would be offered for them.
He (witness) saw Mr. Barlow's name on one of the
deeds. Hill had asked him who he thought the
documents belonged to. This witness, when he said
the deeds were valueless to him, Hill, was asked by
that prisoner to go and see Mr. Barlow. He (John-
son) went twice to Hampton-street, but Mr. Barlow
was out of town, and he (Johnson) did not see him.
This witness did not say if he had given information
to the detective force.—Detective Alexander was
then examined, and stated that on the preceding
day, he, in company with Kelly and Palmer, also
detectives, went to Hill's house, in Princep-
street, having a search warrant. Finding the
prisoner at home, he questioned him as to
the deeds referred to, telling him he should
search the house. Hill positively, at that time,
denied all knowledge of the deeds, adding, " You
may search, and welcome." (He, witness, did not
find the deeds.) Subsequently Hill said, "The
man who brought them to me took them away
again." He, witness, then said, " Who was this
person ?" and after some time Hill added, " I'll not
get myself into trouble; I had them from a man
named Payne;" and finding he, Alexander, did not
know where this prisoner lived, said, "I'll go and
show you his house (Newdegate-street). If we could
see him, I have no doubt he would say where he
had the deeds from, and clear me." Later in the
day, detective Kelly having apprehended Payne,
Alexander went to the public-house where they
were and "confronted" the two prisoners in the
yard of the premises. When this took place, Hill
remarked to Payne, " You see what trouble you
have got me in over these deeds. What have you
done with them P" To this the accused, Payne,
replied, " You know that we put them on the fire,
in your house, and burnt them ; and that we were
both together when this was done." To this Hill
replied, " That is the truth." This comprised the
evidence given in a most extraordinary case, and
the further hearing was then remanded till Thurs-
day next.—Birmingham Daily Post.