The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-25 00:00:00

Mr. Newdegate at Birmingham.

At the annual distribution of prizes to the Bir-
mingham volunteers, Mr. Newdegate, M.P., was
present, with Lieut.-Col. Mason, Rev. Dr. Wilkin-
son, Rev. C. Evans, Rev. I. C. Barrett, Captains
Ilebbert, Briggs, Burt, and Gem. The mayor pre-
sided.

Mr. NEWDEGATE, after the proceedings had been
opened by his worship, said he was proud of being
deputed by the lady who had to confer the honours
upon the successful competitors that evening to ad-
dress to them a few words. He contended that the
establishment of the volunteer force had effected an
immense saving to the country. A friend of his
told him the volunteers had saved 2d. in the pound
in the income tax. One penny in the pound
income and property tax used to be thought worth
a million; now it was worth between £1,100,000
and £1,200,000; therefore, they were very good
political economists according to that calculation.
When the volunteers were enrolled in 1801, it was
because England found herself isolated in Europe.
Then 400,000 men started up to defend the country,
and if they had to fight the battles of England
single-handed, they might depend upon it that they
must all turn out. He was ready, and he thought
he was the oldest volunteer in the room. But look
at the state of Europe. The treaty of Vienna was
being torn up. He thought 17 minor States had
been absorbed. What did they think of the pros-
pects of peace? Why, every State was arming, as
England was armed, for defence. Let them con-
sider the effect of all the discoveries which science
had made—the wonderful increase in the rapidity of
intelligence by the telegraph. Why, they trailed
the wires in the rear of the cannon. Then, what
was the effect of the rapidity of railway communi-
cation Simply that they could move large bodies
of troops in less time. What was the effect, to go
further back, of the application of steam to naviga-
tion ? Why, they explained that to the Russians in
the Crimean war. What was the end of it ? That a
blow might be struck by one nation upon another in
one-fourth or one-fifth the time that it could be
done in before. They would remember how public
opinion outran Parliament, because it was the
intelligence of the middle class which made an un-
willing Parliament re-establish the militia. He re-
membered the sharp work he had in the House of
Commons, co-operating with their excellent and
lamented member Mr. Muntz, to convince the Go-
vernment of the expediency of changing the weapon
with which the army was furnished. Supported by
the Duke of Somerset, they undertook a grave re-
sponsibility. They persuaded the House of Com-
mons to overrule the Government, and to send the
order for arms down to Birmingham; and they
made them do it. He had a piece of plate pre-
sented to him by the arms trade as a memento of
the course be pursued on that occasion, and which
he should hand down as an heir-loom in his family.
Breech-loaders had now come in, and General Peel
deserved the highest credit for his promptitude. He
trusted he was breaking no confidence, but he saw
Gen. Peel before lie was sworn in, and then he had
expressed the opinion that if breech-loaders were
better than no breech-loaders, then breech-loaders
the English army should have. He had to say
that General Peel had broken through the pipeclay
of the War Department, and sent down an order to
Small Heath ; and the chairman of their small arms
trade, co-operating with the Government, was
rapidly supplying the troops of England with
breech-loaders, which, to use a sporting phrase,
would handsomely cut down the needle-gun. Well,
they were volunteers, they were citizen soldiers, and
let them not rest content until they had breech-
loaders themselves. They knew he was a Protec-
tionist, and should be a monopolist ; but there was
something inconvenient in the old Tory politics, and
the Liberals would always find it so. They did not
call themselves Liberals in politics, but they thought
the Liberals eminently narrow-minded. Well, he
had not the slightest notion of having a Govern-
ment monopoly, and he did not wish the monopoly
extended so as to include only Small Heath. His
belief was—and he spoke in the presence of men
who knew more about the matter than he did—

that to insist upon the interchangeability o:

every part of every rifle was a piece of
departmental coscornbry. Ile wanted to know
how their American cousins did ; and they had
seven patterns of rifles, most of them breech-
loaders, in their service. They had got on in that

way, and he wanted to know why every part of
the gun was to be interchangeable to fit it for the
English service. Everybody had replied that it
was contrary to departmental opinion. Well, he
had a very great respect for the department ; but
he had not the departmental opinion. He bad
heard it declared that the arms trade of England
could not produce more than 30,000 stand of arms
a year ; but in the years 1850 and 1855, and about
three months besides, he saw the arms trade pro-
duce 272,000 stand. What, then, was he to think
of departmental opinion ? His opinion—and he
was quite prepared to repeat it—was, that it would
be wise on the part of the Government to obtain a
class of arms which had been found good enough
for the Americans, and which were quite good
enough for them, though not interchangeable—
.

breech-loaders which should be ready to their hand,
so that if they were called upon they should not be
placed at the disadvantage the Austrians were in
the presence of the Prussians. He was afraid he
had been troubling them with entering into detail.

The great fact with which they had to deal, as
Englishmen, was this, that the appliances of modern
science and art had rendered it possible for one
great nation to strike a fatal blow upon another in
a quarter of the time it was possible to do it in
before. He rejoiced to see the volunteers organised
as the third line of the national defences ; but he
trusted that he should have their sanction when he
claimed that the second line of defence—the militia
—should be augmented. For what was France
doing ? what was Russia doing ? They were aug-
menting the strength of their second line of defence,
in imitation of Prussia. Those men were ready
for service when occasion should arise ; and let
them remember that the augmentation recom-
mended for the French army, the augmentation
contemplated for the second line of the Prus-

sian defences, the augmentation that has made
Prussia victorious, was not a militia ; it was
the augmentation of a force available for agres-
sion as well as defence. Remembering that,

he asked them to support measures for strength-
ening the second line of the national defences—.
the militia, from which the army of England
could be recruited, forming together a force far in-
ferior to the large contingents France and Russia
would have, but still a force disposable as a movable
column for the defence of England, whilst they (the
volunteers) held the fortifications in the defence of
the hearths, of the homes, of the altars of England,
a cause in which he had been long joined with them,
and in which he heartily wished them God speed.
Mr. Newdegate was loudly cheered at the con-
clusion of his speech. The prizes were then dis-

tributed by Mrs. Mason. Their total value was

£596 13s.

WM. MULREADY, THE LATE. ROYAL ACADEMI-
.cimq, has been cleverly sketched by the Athenxunt
as follows :—" Poor old Mul !" By this phrase was the
late William Mulready spoken of, towards the close of his
long career, when his fame had increased with his years,
but his fortune had not augmented in proportion. What
a quaint, kindly-hearted, slightly cynical, old-fashioned
figure was his, when your eye
.fell on him as he stood in
the centre of a drawing-room, where the somewhat sad so-
lemnities of a soiree wore being celebrated! lie looked,
in dress and bearing, a relic or last shadow of the times
.of
the Regency. How pleasantly antiquated was the
le
which BOW and then crisped up from above his white,
rolling "neckcloth" and his lofty shirt-collars. Ho was
the very picture of old gentlemanlike simplicity; and you
longed to ask him why he would carry about with him,
held close to his side, and among such gay throngs of
fashionable people, that antique umbrella, to which he
seemed to attach such importance. But every one had a
tenderness for the gentle old man, a respect for the air of
sorrowing which hung about and over him, and no ques-
tion was ever put to him that carried with it the possibi-
lity of wounding his susceptibility. There might be a
smile at the umbrella, when the smiler was out of sight of
the bearer, but there was never a reference to it within
the bearer's hearing. Ho would pull it up under his left
arm, as you approached him, hugging it closer to his heart
as if it were a matter which only concerned themselves—
that is, heart, umbrella, and Mulready—and, respecting the
myster72 you talke4 of eneral thiDgs•