The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-27 00:00:00

Banquet to Sir 1f . Caiins in Belfest.

BELFAST, Friday Night.
This evening a banquet was given to Sir H. Cairns.
The chair was occupied by:Chas.Lanyon, Esq., J.P.
Sir H. CAIRNS, on rising to respond, was received
with prolonged applause. He said—Mr. Chairman,
my Lords, and Gentlemen, it is a misfortune of lan-
guage that, owing to its poverty, the words in which
we express our gratitude fcr the greatest favours are
but the same as those in which we speak of the
smallest that are conferred. Those who have
honoured me with an invitation to this magnificent
banquet have paid me to-night a compliment the
highest which, to my mind, any public man can re-
ceive. To find that any act of a public life has re-
ceived the approbation of oat's fellow citizens must
always to a public man be a source of gratification,
but to receive an approval such as is indicated by
this entertainment for the whole course of public
conduct, and to receive that, not at the hand of
strangers, but at the hand of those to whom I have
been known from my earliest years—(hear)—l re-
ceive it not forashort or isolated period of time, but
for the whole course during which I have had the

honour of representing this town—is indeed a com-

pliment of which I may justly feel proud, and for
which I may well be thankful, add, gentlemen,
thankful I am. I thank you most sincerely ; believe
me I feel deeply your kindness—believe me I shall
never forget it. (Hear.) You have said truly, Mr.
Chairman, that this dinner, when it was originally
contemplated, was not intended to be a farewell
banquet. (Hear, hear.) It was at first proposed
to me at the time when I accepted the office of

Attorney-General. When I accepted that office—
for although I would gladly avoid this subject of
myself, I yet feel it due to you something of myself
to say—l took the liberty of representing to Lord
Derby that my earnest desire was to render to his
Government every assistance in the House of Com-
mons in my power ; that I should be able so to do,

as more within the compass of my strength, with-
out holding any office, but that it was his wish
that I should accept the office of Attorney-General

I would do my best to discharge its duties; yet that
so strongly did I feel the tear and wear of Parlia-
mentary, combined with professional and official
life, thatl trusted, should fitting opportunity arise,

I might be allowed to make such services as I could

render to the country available in a less laborious

position. (Hear, and cheers.) Mr. Chairman, to this
Lord Derby, with a kindness and consideration for
myself of which I can hardly trust myself to speak,
acceded, and thus it has come to pass that I appear
before you to-night your representative still in point
of form, but to address you in that character for the
last time. Mr. Chairman, you have reminded us
that it is now near 15 years since first I was entrusted
with the representation in Parlia.nent of this great
and important town. At that time I had as my col-
league my excellent friend your old and well-tried
representative, whose presence to-night we hail with
so much pleasure—l mean Mr. Davison. (Cheers.)
Mr. Chairman, I remember well and I remember
gratefully the cordiality and harmonious co-opera-
tion which existed between Mr. Davison and myself.
(Hear, hear.) I know well how that cordiality, how
that co-operation has continued to exist in the case
of my present colleague, whose absence to-night,
and the cause of whose absence, we so much regret.
(Hear, hear.) I know that both Mr. Davison and
Mr. Getty have laboured well and faithfully in your
service. (Hear, hear.) But I speak for myself, and
I think I may speak also for those who have been
my colleagues, when I say that, looking back upon
those 15 years, I own it is with umningled satisfac-

tion that I reflect that our voices and our votes have,

as you, Mr. Chairman, have stated, been given in-

variably for the maintenance and the advancement
of Conservative principles. (Cheers.) And Mr. Chair:

man, it is with equal satisfaction that I eanitay I
firmly believe that in pursuing that course we have
acted in accordance with the opinions of the vast
majority of the electors, aye, and of the non-electors
of this town. Mr. Chairman, it is the faShion of those
who desire to cast discredit onConservative principles
to assert that those who hold them are opposed to
progress and improvement, and are chargeable with
narrow-mindedness and bigotry. Now lam and I
have ever been an advocate for progress and for im-
provement, but I am Lot for revolution. I believe
that the institutions of this country have developed
and are capable of developing to an unknown degree
that improvement and progress under any system of
government. lam not for transferring our proper-
ties or our liberties to the tyranny of a multitude.
I believe that if you transferred the government of
this country into the hands of mere numbers you
endanger property ; and I believe—for history and
experience alone teach us this—tbat if you endanger
property you must inevitably endanger liberty.
And, Mr. Chairman, with regard to the charge of nar-
row-mindedness and bigotry, I repudiate the charge.
I respect the rights, I respect the opinions, of every
member of an English constituency. But for ano-
ther reason I look with satisfaction upon my tenure
of office. It has drawn me into close connexion with
a body of public men with whom it has been my great
happiness to act, and of whom I will say this, that
I believe they are actuated, they have been actuated,
and iu all their measures of government they will
be actuated, by a sincere and earnest desire for the
welfare of their country. And in particular with
regard to Ireland, I feel confident that her Majesty's
Ministers will endeavour to treat her, not as the
battle-field of a party, not as a splendid child in
whom the mismanagement of one day is to be rec-
tified by the equal and contrary mismanagement of
another, but as an integral part of the United King-
dom, entitled to the same measure of justice, to the
same laws, to the same firm executive, to the same
even and impartial hand, as is extended over to
other parts of the United Kingdom. The great
majority of the wealth, and the intelligence, and the
education of this country acknowledge and cherish
in their hearts these principles, whatever divisions of
party may lie upon thesurface; and they arc opinions
which the events occurring every day must lead us
to acknowledge and to cherish more firmly. Mr.
Chairman has styled me, just now, " ller INlajesty's
late Attorney-General." I beg, in the first place,
to say that I still have the honour to hold that office.
As the proof of the intimate and complete union
and incorporation of Ireland with England, and of
the absence of any jealousy or narrow-mindedness
towards Ireland on the part of the sister country, I
appeal to the fact that I, an Irishman, an Irish re-
presentative, had been entrusted with an office
which never before was filled except by a native of
Great Britain. Nay, I respect even the prejudices
of my fellow-citizens. It is one of the many ele-
ments of civil freedom that every one should be able
to express his opinions freely, and that he should be
enabled todo so without being exposed to the threats
which of late I have seen public men exposed to that
the multitudes will rise in their tens of thousands if
he dares to express them again. 1 believe that just
as the truest safeguard for civil freedom is to be
found in your mixed and balanced Constitution, so
the safest guarantee for liberty of thought and opi-
nion is to be found in that free and unfettered spirit
which is embodied in your Protestant institutios ;
and depend upon it, Mr. Chairman, that these are
our opinions which, whether you call them Conser-
vative or by any other
name, we may rest assured
that the question of the
general improvement of
Ireland is a matter of no trifling importance to a
commercial constituency like ours.'' Our interest is
not in our locality—it is in the kiuocloni
at large.
You cannot have prosperity w•
I°l4 confidence__
you • cannot have confidence without order—y°
cannot have order without obedience to thcl
itti law
you unless
cannot expect obedience to the law
is known that the law will be impartially enforced,
unkss it if; known that the
.establishments and
institutions of the country will not be sacrificed in
order to obtain the Parliamentary support of a
particular political party. But if you sec, as I have
seen not long ago, a Prime Minister rise in the
house of Lords and say, with regard to the destruc-
tion of the Protestant Establishmentiu Ireland, that
in his opinion no worse or more fatal measure could
be sanctioned by Parliament, and if, notwithstand-
ing when a motion is brought forward in the
House of Commons having for its object the de-
struction of that establishment, you find the Minis-
ter entrusted with the Government of Ireland rise
iL b.i~ place and wish that attack God speed ; if yo::

find, on the eve of sharp political contests in Eng-
land, a measure in its operation tampering equally
with the rights of the tenants in Ulster and the
rights of landlords in other parts of the country ; if
you find under-pressure from this quarter, or from
that authoritative declarations made indicating a
willingness to surrender the system of education
established by Parliament for the country after long
contests and with great care— if, above all, and
Ibe-
yond all, you see the executive Government, in hur-
-1 ried bustle, without the knowledge of Parliament,
and even in opposition to the expressed pledges
given to Parliament, by one stroke overthrow the
whole University and system of education of the
country; if these things are done, the end and ob-
ject for which they are done may be accomplished,
the exigencies of the moment may be met, political
support in a critical emergency may be obtained,
but all confidence in the wisdoni, in the firmness, in
the impartiality of the Government must disappear.
Mr. Chairman, I have said this much in general
terms, for this is not an occasion to detail the
grounds for the course which I, in conjunction with
my colleague, have thought it my duty—which we
have thought it our duty—to pursue in the past year
in the House of Commons ; a course which, if I
rightly interpret your attendance here to-night, and
the manner in which this toast has been received by
you, has met with your approval. The hardest, but
not the longest, part of my task remains. I have to
say farewell—farewell at least in the character of
your representative. How can I express to men of
every class and of every opinion in this town my
sense of gratitude for the long stream of unbroken
kindness which for so many years I have received.
How can I ask you in fitting words to overlook my
many shortcomings and errors, of which I feel too
well I have been justly chargeable. How can I tell
you of the pride and interest I take in witnessing
the prosperity of this town. (Hear.) Those finan-
cial difficulties to which you, Mr. Chairman, have
referred, are now happily adjusted; with its num-
bers rapidly increasing; with its wealth, commerce,
and manufactures swelling and increasing on every
side ; with its place now firmly established amongst
the foremost seats of industry in the empire, may
loyalty and order, peace and virtue, abound with her.
May her progress in years to come be such as to dis-
tance; and to reduce to insignificance even, the
strides she has madein years past. May she and may
her citizens stand forth, for private worth and for
political wisdom, the ornament, the example, and
the encouragement of Ireland. (Loud and protracted
cheers, the whole assembly arising to their feet when
Sir H. Cairns resumed his scat.)