The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 25, 1866;

There were loud Opposition cheers at that. (Laugh-
ter.) He goes on, "We have the power of combin-
ing, as we have shown over and over again, and we
have a prize to fight for ; we will bring it to bear
with tenfold more force than ever before." Perhaps
the hint that you have your trade unions and your
machinery and leaders—a hint whichl offered to you
some years ago—may have some effect coming from
such lips— (laughter) ; but you see the whole tenour
of these observations, and there are men to whom I
should attribute no blame for uttering them or for
holding them, but the whole of these observations
is to show that a great body of the working classes
are in a degraded position. I find that the bill only
proposed, according to Mr. Gladstone's estimate,
which, in my opinion, was an exaggerated estimate,
to admit 200,000 of the working classes to the fran-
chise, and these observations rest upon the opinion
that when the great body of the working classes are
in that condition of ignorance and degradation, and
also of hostility to the existing institutions of the
country, it would not be safe to admit to the fran-
chise even 200,000 out of the 5,000,000 who are
now excluded. Now, I said in Birmingham, and I
say here, that in every workshop, in every room,
in every factory, in every clubhouse of every
trade, there ought to be a card hung up with
these remarks, or rather slanders, upon the work-
ing men there suspended. (Cheers.) If those
slanders be true, hang the card up there that you
may see in that mirror what you are, and reform
yourselves. (Cheers.) If the charge be false, as 1
hold it to be, then read what it is that is said Of you
by those who are hostile to your political rights ;
then draw your ranks closer together, and make a
more resolute and determined fight to change the
state of things in this country. (Cheers.) Some of
the newspapers have said since my speech at Bir-
mingham that it is very unfair to try and paste this
upon the back of the Tory party. Why did they
cheer it? (Hear, hear.) Why have their news-
papers said, " Here is a great man come down, as
it were, from the clouds to tell us all about the con-
stitution of the country ?" I say that the doc-
trinces of Mr. Lowe uttered in that speech are in
the main the doctrines upon which the Tory party
have acted for generations absolutely, although
there are not many men in the House probably of
that party who would dare to say what he said,
and I fancy there is hardly one of them who could
say it so well. Now, I want to ask you a ques-
tion. I don't know how many thousand people there
are here to-night, and I don't know how many
people have been attending your great demonstra-
tion in Manchester ; but I put the question to them
through the gentlemen below me to whom we give
so much trouble, and to whom we are so greatly
indebted--I put this question to them :—lf this
argument of ignorance and drunkenness be true,
what does it show? There is a newspaper in Lon-
don—the Morning Herald—which the other day, I
am told, wrote some hints for me for my speech on
this occasion. The Morning Herald is a paper which
proposes to be, in some sort, the organ of the Tory
party ; but I have had it from the best authority,
that the leaders of the party very rarely read it.
(Laughter.) The Morning Herald pointed to a fact
which I stated with great amplitude at a meeting of
the Sunday-school teachers in Rochdale, I think on
Good Friday last, that a very large portion of the
children of working-classses in Manchester, a poor
and deplorable class, was growing up without
any school provision made for them. The Morning
Herald states also that in Manchester there is a
great deal of drunkenness, although I believe all the
facts show that there is less drunkenness in Man-
chester probably than in any other town of equal
magnitude in this kingdom. (Cheers.) I will as-
sume ignorance for a moment, I will assume the
drunkenness, and I will assume the degradation to
be true ; what then shall I say of the Government
which has permitted it ? (Cheers.) What is that
Government? What is that party which is supreme
in this country ? It holds all the land or nearly so ;
it holds the revenues of the richest Church that the
world has over seen ; it has both Houses of Parlia-
ment to do its bidding ; it has two ancient and
noble Universities—in fact it has everything of
power in this country, and yet, according to the
showing of this writer, the people are ignorant and
drunken and degraded—it must be to an extent far
more than that of almost any other country, because
in almost every other constitutional country. the
franchise is more widely extended than it is in this,
and that without the slightest danger to dynasty or
to order. (Cheers.) Why is it, I ask you now, that
the English'nenin England are not so well educated
as the Englishmen in New England? In the New
England States of North America there have been

seven generations of men who came originally
from this country, who have been thoroughly and
fully instructed; and now in every free State—in
every State that was free before the late war—there
is a wide suffrage too, schools are universal, and all
the people have the fullest opportunity of being
thoroughly instructed for the purposes of life.
(Cheers.) Why, in this country what are we doing?
(A Voice—" Gamekeeping 1" and laughter.) No ;
we are doing something beside that. The people,
who have the matter in their hands, and who could
settle it, are discussing questions of catechisms, the
Thirty-nine Articles, and what they call conscience
clauses. They are all engaged in worrying some
dry bone of this kind, while the great body of the
people, and especially the poorest of the people, are
left wholly unprovided for. (Cheers.) I venture
to say it, I would stake everything I have in the
world upon it, that if the platform of the National
Reform League, or any platform which gave us a
substantial or real representation of the whole people,
were embodied in an Act of Parliament, they would
not pass over three Sessions of Parliament but there
would be a full provision for the thorough instruc-
tion of every working man's child in the kingdom.
(Cheers.) But there was another argument which
was very often used in the House of Commons,
which is even more extraordinary coming from the
quarter whence we heard it, and it was this—
that the country is so prosperous (proving that it
is so well governed) that really there is not only no
occasion for anything more, but nobody has any right
to ask for anything more. It was one of the argu-
ments, I believe, of the gentleman from whom I have
quoted, that we have a right, of course, to be well
governed, but that the right to govern us exists and
rests much higher up. (Laughter and cheers.) Now
we are assembled here in a building which recalls a
good many memories if one had but the time and I

had the voice to dwell on them. But, may I ask
you why it is that. we are prosperous? You recollect
many of you that are here, 25 years ago in the year
_ . _

1841, this country was subject to desolation and to
famine, and it is only since 1846, since the abolition
of the corn laws, since the general change to a free
trade policy, that there has been continually grow-
ing up that prosperity which is now brought
against us, and used as an argument why there
should be no further Reform in Parliament.

(Cheers.) Suppose you had the corn laws now.
What au August
we have had, and what a Septem-
ber we are having I Gold would be going out of
the country. The rate of interest would be rising,

the wages of the people would be falling, the
wages they received would be absorbed in the pur-

chase of dearer food, and generally over the country
there would come a state of things which would give
the greatest alarm to the thoughtful in the higher

classes, and the greatest suffering to the multitudes
at the base of our social scale. But why is it? How

comes it that we are not in that danger ? How is
it that we are not now filled with confusion and dis-

may? Who was'it that destroyed the curse of the
corn laws, and who was it that fought desperately
to maintain that curse ? Why, surely you know
that we, who are accustomed to assembly in the Free
Trade-hall, were largely instrumental in destroy-
ing, and you know that no man was more forward
in its support than the man who is now Prime Mini-
ster of England. (Cheers.) 1f this be so, if we,
the party that we represent on this platform to-night,
if we did much to promote this prosperity, are we
not fairly entitled to offer ourselves as advisers
on the question of the franchise ? (Loud cheers.)
What is called statesmanship is like no other profes-
sion. In other professions failure is acknowledged,
and it shuts a man out from distinction and su-
premacy, but Lord Derby at this moment is Prime
Minister of England, whose failures are in the annals
of England for 30 years past. (Cheers.) In 1834
Lord Derby left Lord Grey's Government because he

would not permit even an inquiry into the excessive
revenues of the Irish Church, but the Irish Church is
doomed to destruction. (Cheers.) In 1846 he left
Sir Robert Peel and became the leader of the Tory
Protectionists, because he would not consent to the
abolition of the Corn Laws, and since then he has

been foremost in opposition to all good things in
Parliament. Lord Derby is not the leader of his
•
f party in a high sense. He is not its educator, he is
not its guide, but he is its leader in all foolish con-
. I tests in which in its ignorance and its selfishness
, it involves itself with the people. (Great cheer-
ing.) Only three or four days ago I opened a
book which professes to be a history of the govern-
ing families of England, and which is composed of
articles, interesting many of them, which appeared
in the Spectator newspaper. There is one of them
on the Stanleys of Knowsley, and they are certainly
of the governing families, seeing that Lord Derby
and Lord Stanley are both in the Cabinet. But on
opening this book I found this curious fact, that
during the agitation of the Reform Act, I believe
in the year 1831, Lord Stanley, the present Lord
Derby, is stated to have leapt upon the table at a
meeting where there were a number of Reformers
assembled to urge upon them the necessity of refusing
the payment of taxes till the Reform Bill was
passed, (Laughter.) Well, I was not there to
see. I have heard the story several times before,
but I see it recorded in this volume, and I there-
fore take it to be accurate. The same Lord
Stanley :came forward in 1852 to stem the tide
of democracy, in 1859 he was the head of a
Government which introduced a Reform Bill of a
most fraudulent character, and in 1866 he is the head
of a party which has destroyed an honest franchise
bill, and overthrown an honest and patriotic Go-
vernment. (Cheers.) The newspapers which write
for his party tell us that Lord Derby and his Go-
vernment are not in the least degree disabled or pre-
cluded from dealing with this Reform question. I
hope no Reformer dreams of such things. If you
like you may trust your life to your most bitter foe,
but I will not do so if I know it. We had free trade
from free-traders, for when Sir Robert Peel repealed
the corn laws he was as good and sincere a free-
trader as if he had spoken free trade for the previous
five or six years on this platform on which I now
stand. Lord Derby is not a Reformer, nor will he
introduce a Reform Bill in the character of a Re-
former. If he does introduce one it will be as before
—it will be some juggle, some dishonest trick, some-
thing base, like the means by which they overthrew
the bill of Lord Russell's Government. If that bill,
had passed, moderate as it was, I undertake to say
it would have been received in every part of the
United Kingdom with the liveliest satisfaction. It
would have given to the working men, and to num-
bers of them, a partnership in the State, and I believe
that the nation would have been happier and stronger
from the passing of that bill. (Cheers.) But now
discontent is growing everywhere, and will con-
tinue to grow until that discontent becomes a great
peril in the country, unless a satisfactory measure is
introduced and passed through Parliament. I charge
Lord Derby and his friends with this. I say that
they have brought class into conflict with class.
I say that they have done much to separate Parlia-
ment from the nation ; that they have made the
• House of Commons the reviler and not the pro-
tector of the people ; aud, further, that they have
frustrated the just and benevolent intentions of the
Crown. In conclusion, I venture on something
which may be deemed as foretelling what is to come.
I say that the men who are now in office cannot
govern Britain. The middle classes and the
working classes will alike condemn them. They
cannot govern Ireland. In that unhappy country
their policy has produced a state of chronic
insurrection which they can never cure. They will
be expelled from power, and their policy will be re-
jected by the people ; for it is on broad and just
and liberal principles alone that England can main-
tain her honest, but now unchallenged place among
the nations of the world. (The hon. gentleman,
having spoken very nearly an hour, sat down amid
enthusiastic cheers.)
A vote of thanks to the chairman, proposed by
Mr. WILFRED LAWSON, and seconded by the Hon.
LYULPII STANLEY, brought the proceedings to a
termination.

All the resolutions were adopted at the afternoon
meeting. This evening a large torchlight meeting
is holding outside the Free Trade-hall simultaneously
with the one within.

The Develo, ment of American Resources.

The TVashington Chronicle, under the above
heading, gives the following description of a
tempting site for a

CENTRAL CITY.

This is a city in embryo, yet ogle that is as certain to
exist as Pittsburgh, and as sure to enrich its fortunate
founders, whoever they may be, as Chicago did her landed
proprietors. A simple glance at the map of our country
will satisfy the sagacious man that such may be, and that
such will be, the future of Central, if both enterprise
and capital can ever come to terms with prejudice and
pride.
Follow up the course of the Great Kanawha from the
waters of the Ohio through the dense forests and wide
coal-fields of Western Virginia, via the New River, to the
valley of Virginia in the South-west. This great " river
of the woods" cuts a path through the mighty Alleghanies
to their rocky bases, and connects the varied and wonder-
ful mineral wealth of the mountain regions of the South
with the plains of the Mississippi.
Shortly after entering the limestoro lino, in the east of
the Alleghany ranges, and penetrating the North moun-
tains—synonymous with our Blue mountains in Pennsyl-
vania—the Kanawha, now called the New river, is crossed
by the Virginia and Tennessee railroad, leading from
Richmond and Lynchburg through East Tennessee to
Chattanooga, via the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad
after leaving the Virginia line.
The point of intersection between this, the Grapevine
line and the Now River, is known as Central Depot, and
hero we place the site of the future Central City. The
Little river, a branch of the New river, penetrates the Blue
Ridge ranges, and heads in North Carolina; while Smith's
river, a branch of the Dan, enters the mountains of Vir-
ginia ; and along these streams we find a practicable route
for a railroad, connecting the present railroad system of
North Carolina with the Western rivers and the Western
railway lines to the Pacific.

It is singular that this most direct line should have been
so long overlooked, while other and impracticable routes
are proposed. This puts the seaports of North Carolina as
near Cincinnati as those of Baltimore and Philadelphia,
while it secures a better grade than any of the present lines
possess, and would place the whole system of her roads in
practical connection with the trade of the West and the
great Pacific railroad, with nearly one hundred miles less
distance than that presented by the shortest proposed line
from East to West.

" Central City" is at the spot where this North Carolina
road would connect IT ith the proposed " trunk line" before
mentioned from Hampton, on the Chosapeko, to the Ohio
or Cincinnati as a centre. Hero it would unite also with
the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad and the navigable
waters of the Now river, since a company aro now improv-
ing it from Central to the mouth of the Greenbriar, and
from that point the James River and Kanawha Canal
Company aro preparing- to improve the Great Kanawha
for steam navigation to the Ohio. The site of Central
City is therefore a central one, and on the great highways
of trade and travel both from North to South and from
East to West.

Within ten miles of the location aro largo beds of both
anthracite and semi-bituminous coals, and within fifty
miles exhaustless beds of bituminous coal. Around on
every hand are immense deposits of the richest hematite
iron ores. Perhaps no part of this great valley range is
richer in iron ores than this, while in the mountains on
both sides aro exhaustless stores of the same material.
The magnetic ores of North Carolina are also near, and
may be judiciously used over rail transportation, with
the hematites of the valley and the carbonates of the coal-
fields.

Hero, too, mos s vast f • t of timber exist, and hero charcoal-
iron and steel may be made when tho timber for this pur-
pose has become exhausted in all the older districts.
Within thirty miles of Central are the old Wythe lead
mines, which have been productive and profitable for a
hundred years, and have produced lead for three wars, be-
sides a long Indian warfare.
"Within the same distance aro the rich copper regions of
the south-west, which range through Virginia, North
Carolina, and Tennessee, and which have regularly-defined
beds of copper, not subject to the variations and uncer-
tainties of the Lake Superior mines. The copper mines
of this region have been worked with profit, though the
ores were carried over rough mountain roads from 20 to 30
miles, and then transported by rail and water 400 miles to
the smelting works at Baltimore.
The new river at Central may bo made to yield thirty
foot fall, at a small cost for dim and race, and give as
great a water-power as the James affords to the manufac-
tures of Richmond.

Sheep may be raised in vast numbers and with small
cost in the mountains of this region, whore shade is every-

where to bo found, and food is plonty nearly all the year
round.

The cotton of the South is in close proximity, and the
markets of both East and West aro within available dis-
tances.

Here, then, is a site for a city having no superior, as far
as natural advantages are concerned, and whore enterprise
and capital may make the greatest and most profitable de-
velopments. In this there is no speculation or blind ven-
ture, as in oil, stocks, " gold leads," or " silver ledges ;"
but a groat State to develop°, now languishing for want of
energy and means; a people to conciliate and assist, now
disheartened and poor. In this good work, every dollar
invested prudently will not only return a hundred per
cent. por annum, but will do more to protect free labour
than all the Federal bayonets that our illustrious Grant
could levy.

The Visit of the Seventh New York.

AN OPPORTUNITY TO STRENGTHEN THE

AMERICAN ALLIANCE.

Seldom has America offered an opportunity to
England of meeting on a spot to which the sym-
pathies of both nations could be strongly drawn.
We feel sure that no such opportunity has yet
occurred as will offer on the arrival of the 7th New
York Volunteer Regiment. The 7th, the Royal
Fusiliers, were once, and are even now, a crack
regiment of the British Army. But we wish to
point out the difference between what is termed a
" crack" regiment of the English service and a
similar regiment in the American army. It is neces-
sary in both services that the battalion should be
distinguished in the field. This really becomes the
base on which the fame rests. There is no crack
regiment in the English army which has not won
high honour in the field, and if we take those corps,
which for so many years formed pet preserves of
the aristocracy, and were exempted from all disa-
greeable colonial service, the origin would be found
in gallant field service. The Royal Fusiliers but a
few years ago had no grade of second lieutenant or
ensign. We are not aware how the peculiarity
happened, though we feel confident that it arose
from the second lieutenants being promoted
on some distinguished battle-field. This led
to the regiment at one time being filled with the
scions of our aristocratic families. Not only was
the corps renowned for its conduct on field service,
but a commission granted in the 7th placed the
officer in a grade higher than that of any other re-
giment. The 7th New York do not boast of aristo-
cratic officers, but they assert that the ranks are
filled with the gentlemen of their great metropolis,
sons of the leading merchants, and of all the learned
professions who have attained the highest celebrity.
This regiment, as our correspondent " T. R." states,
is a volunteer force among the most distinguished in
field service of the troops which carried the Northern
arms to so successful an issue in the Four Years'
War. It is proposed that the regiment, as a body,
should visit England and France during the period
of the Paris Exhibition. The opportunity is a rare
one, and should not be lost on English Volunteers
of giving a hearty and national welcome to their
distinguished brethren in arms. The body may
be regarded as delegates from the great
United States' army. They should be invited
to land in England complete in all their appoint-
ments. It would give us here an admirable oppor-
tunity of seeing and judging what the United States
Volunteer army is, if their Royal Highnesses the
Prince of WALES and the Commander-in-Chief
were to review this regiment in Hyde-park. It
would not be the first time our future King had
seen this gallant body of soldiers. The British
Volunteers might extend to these gentlemen an in-
vitation to become th eir guests during their stay in
England, and meet in friendly rivalry on the parade
ground, and as marksmen at the butts. We have
a sample of what American sailors can achieve in
the successful passage across the Atlantic of The
Wee Craft ; and in the 7th New York Volunteers
we will have a fine specimen of what the American
soldier is. Let us meet these gentlemen with the
right hand of fellowship, and seize the rare oppor-
tunity of strengthening the entente cordiale offered
by the proposed visit.—Anglo-American Times.

CALIFORNIA.

IMPORTANT GEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY-CALIFORNIA

THE CRADLE OF THE RACE.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 5, 1866.
California has claimed, among her remarkable
productions, the most stupendous valleys, the largest
trees, the biggest vegetables. She now appears
before the world in the more ambitious character
of being the oldest portion of the earth's surface,
and, to use the remarkably fine language of the
interior press, " the original cradle of the human
race." The discovery of a human skull in the plio-
cene formation is the foundation of this startling
assumption.

It appears that an honest miner, named James
Matson, digging in a shaft in Calaveras county,
came across this osseous fragment at the depth of
two hundred and fifty feet. The relic passed into
the hands of Scribner, merchant, who transferred
it to Jones, doctor, who, in turn, handed it over to
the State geological survey, where it exactly fitted
a theory promulgated by the survey of the extreme
antiquity of man on this coast. Professor Whitney
has visited the shaft, and is confident that the posi-
tion of the skull justifies him in ascribing its intro-
duction to a period anterior to the lava deposits.
This would make it antedate the mastodon, the
pachyderms, and, indeed, most of the paleotheres.
In fact, according to this theory, that which has been
termed the pliocene formation is a comparatively
recent deposit ; the world is really older by many
million years than hitherto supposed by geologists—
particularly that portion known as the Pacific slope,
to which the, Laurentian hills of Agassiz are crea-
tions of yesterday. Under what conditions of atmo-
sphere or climate our pliocene friend flourished is not
known. From an unscientific view-point, which is
the only one your correspondent would venture to
take, the state of things must have been singu-
larly unpleasant for this earliest pioneer. With the
whole range of the Sierras a series of active volca-
noes, with earthquakes by day, and eruptions by
night, he must have passed a remarkably active
existence in dodging the scoria and volcanic
stones—those unrefreshing showers of the period.
Huge Saurians contended with him for the limited
refection of muscles and shell-fish. Defenceless—
for it is singular that no weapons, bows, arrows, or
spears—have been found among the rude domestic
implements which denote his presence, and place
him in the " stone age,"—he must have been an
easy prey to the lower order of his animal contempo-
raries. The skull, which is not perfect, has a facial
angle, not unlike a Digger Indian. The bones
are somewhat thicker than modern specimens—
doubtless a providential precaution to enable
it better to resist the local showers previously
alluded to. The discovery has occasioned consider-
able excitement in scientific circles, and some little
stir among theologians. The pliocene skull has been
the text of some remarkable editorials in the up-
country papers. The provincial editors have gam-
bolled wildly in these geological " pastures new,"
and some theories have been advanced that would
startle Agassiz, Lyell, and Austed. Doubtless the
society of pioneers will claim the skull as a member.
—The Springfield Weekly Republican.

REPRESENTATION OF EAST NORFOLK.—The Libe-
rals of East Norfolk are endeavouring to retrieve
their position. In 1857 they wrested both seats from the
Conservatives, and on the death of Sir E. N. Buxton in the
summer of 1858 they still succeeded in maintaining their
ground. At the dissolution of 1859 the representation of
the division was compromised ; but when Col. Coke, the
Whig member, presented himself for re-election in 1859, it
was found that he had become so unpopular that ho had

little chance of being again returned, and ho was displaced
by Mr. C. Read, a tenant farmer, who was supported by a
number of the Liberal electors. Mr. Read has, since his
election, almost invariably voted with the Conservatives,
and his liberal supporters will probably not again record
their votes for him. The Li)oral leaders have resolved at
any rate to endeavour to retrieve the severe disaster which
they sustained in July, 1865, and they have held several
meetings for the purpose of securing increased attention to
the registration. No positive announcement has yet been
made on the subject, but it is understood that Viscount
Bury, son of the Earl of Albemarle, will be brought for-
ward as a Liberal candidate. Lord Bury was first returned
for Norwich in 1857, and sat for that city until the summer
of 1859, when ho was unseated on petition. He was subse-
quently returned for the Wick burghs, from the represen-
tation of which constituency ho retired in 1865. He con-
tested Dover unsuccessfully last year, and has since not
obtained a seat in Parliament. His lordship hold a Court
appointment under the Palmerston Ministry.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

CHELMSFORD-SEPT. 21.

Tho wheat in the market to-day was rather a large 013-
ply, but the business transacted was quet, and the prices
of last week could hardly be realised for best samples ; in-
ferior sorts is per qr. down. Spring corn of all descriptions
at late rates.
Wheat, old white.... 495 6 ?i; Peas, Partridge ......40s 40s 428
new .46s 38s White
....325 36.4
_ —s
old red 45s 58s Riling
new. 4gs 54s bun—. ..... —3BO 400
Barley... 2ss 33s dit.o, new....---s —e
55
Chevalier --s —s Beans, Tick, 01d...... 400 45a
Grind.ng 25s 30s new.... 388 422
Malt sBs Os Harrow licks.42s 4..
Chevalier BCs 620448
Oats .. 2's 26s mazagannew. ....4350: t: