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

LORD PAN3IURE ON REFORM.

On Monday Lord Panmure was present at a
dinner given to Provost Guthrie, at Brechin, 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 resulted 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 advantages, 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 adhering 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 the life, conversation, speeches
and character of the 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 head 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 these 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
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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