The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-14 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL EXPENDI7URE.

BARNSLEY, WEDNESDAY MORNING.
The annual meeting of the Mechanics' Institution
was held last night. The attendance was very large,
and the extensive hall was crowded in every part.
The chair was taken by Mr. Edward Aldam Lea-
thern, one of the members for Huddersfield. After
the tables had been removed,
The CHAIRMAN, in opening the business of the
meeting, said,—Ladies and gentlemen, I think it was
one of Sterne's observations that, when a man had
once resolved upon his subject, the text, " Cappa-
docia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,"
was as good as any in the Bible. (Laughter.) We
see the truth of this every day in our lives. People
are constantly having " Cappadocia, Pontus, and
Asia," for a text, and then, in pulpits and out of
them, preaching sermons upon every possible sub-
ject under the sun. Nor do I think that this is a
practice altogether to be condemned, especially when
there is but a small choice of texts, or when the text
chosen happens to have been pretty thoroughly
preached from already. Now, when these insti-
tutes were first founded, those who advocated their
establishment had excellent texts to preach from,
and very good sermons.they preached. They had a
great deal to say about the advantages of popular
education, and so long as anybody doubted those
advantages they got on well enough, because there
is nothing like a little opposition for a good cause.
It is said that even steamboats make the best way
against a light head-wind—the draught gets the
steam up ; but when they had talked down all op-
position, the speakers upon these occasions began to
find that they might become as eloquent as they
pleased upon the advantages of popular education,
yet somehow or other the audience forgot to cheer,
or, if they did cheer, it was evidently in the kind-
ness of their hearts, lest the speakers should feel
uncomfortable, or should hear them yawn. (Loud
cheers.) The speakers then began to see
whether they could not get something more
out of " Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia," than
appeared on the surface, and whether they could
not use these anniversaries for something else
than the mere reiteration of sentiments such as
"Knowledge is power," which I now see before me
—very excellent sentiments in their way, but

which by constant repetition have become almost
as flat as—what shall I say ?—as charity sermons,
or the performance of street organs. (Laughter.)
We all know that " Pop goes the weasel" is a very
animated tune when we hear it for the first time,
but when it reaches the one-hundredth performance
we begin to wonder in what the charm consists;
and when a reverend native gentlemen is labo-
riously going over his twentieth sermon in aid of
the evangelisation of the Cannibal Islands, why,
some of us—l know I do, although it may be wrong
—begin to wish that his fellow-countrymen had
eaten him, for the sake of mere change, (Laugh-
ter.) But suppose that this evening we leave for a
few minutes the consideration of the advantages of
popular education, and turn to the topics which,
closely allied to popular education, lie on every
side around the educated man, and which, there-
fore, I think, ought to be interesting to every in-
telligent member of this institute. (Hear, hear.)
Now you will say I am going to talk party politics.
I only wish I could ; I only wish that most odious,
but at the same time indispensable regulation, did
not exist which excludes from our discussion almost
every question on which a human being can take a
fervent interest; but so long as the rule is there
we have but one choice before us, and that is to
obey it. When we consider how greedy a thing
party is, how apt it is to avail itself of every ques-
tion upon which it can fasten and thrive, we shall
see how limited must be the class of questions still
open to our consideration. (Hear, hear.) How-
ever, some there are which have hitherto happily
escaped being surveyed and appropriated by party,
but which probably do not yield in importance to
many of those over which it has fought its sternest
fights. Take, for example, the question of the na-
tional expenditure. (Hear.) You may say to me,
" What connexion has that question with the object
of the present meeting ?" I suppose that in the first
place I ought to show that it is not a question of party
polities. If anybody wants to know that, he has only
to go to the House of Commons and mark the unani-
mity with which men of almost every shade of poli-
tical opinion troop into the lobby in order to record
their votes for the bigger sum, if any unsophisti-
cated person shall have been foolish enough to
doubt the wisdom of a particular item in the expen-
diture and propose a smaller one. (Cheers.) And if
he wants further confirmation he shall find it in the

composition of the ridiculous minorities upon those
occasions; he will find they are composed of per-
sons taken from every part of the house. The great
function of Parliament is, as we all know, to tax
the people through their representatives ; and, to
judge from the cheerful alacrity with which that
function is exercised, one would suppose that the
harder we exercised it the better every ene would
be pleased. (Hear, and laughter.) But suppose that
one tithe of the intelligence and ability which
people bestow upon the accumulation of the where-
withal to pay taxes was devoted to the considera-
tion of the question of how far those taxes are just
and necessary. (Hear, hear.) I can conceive that in
that case this grand function of which I have
spoken would be performed with much less levity
than it sometimes is, and with far greater regard
to the pockets of those whose interests, by a plea-
sant fiction, we are supposed to go to Westminster
to represent. (Loud cheers.) See how vast this
question of the national expenditure is becoming.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us last spring
that the public expenditure had risen above the
figures at which it stood seven years ago by no less
a sum than 20 millions sterling. It is very difficult
to conceive what is meant by 20 millions sterling,
but perhaps you may form some estimate of what
must be the effect of such an additional burden upon
the resources of the country from the fact that 20
millions sterling is supposed to be the sum which
the nation lost owing to the bad corn crop of last
year. (dear, hear.) That, as you will remember,
was a season of unprecedented inclemency, and had
it been followed by another equally unpropitious it
is almost impossible to realise the disasters that
would have ensued. (Hear.) Money would have
risen to a fabulous price, trade would have been
crippled, multitudes would have been thrown out
of employment, and only sedition and crime would
have grown strong (cheers); and it is a consideration
the importance of which can scarcely be exagge-
rated that the same figures should denote the in-
crease in the expenditure of the country during
seven short years, and the whole fall from prosperity
to
comparative scarcity—the whole loss which the
the nation sustained by a season more inclement
and more untoward and disastrous than any which
the present generation can remember. (Cheers.)
Yon may be inclined to ask me what connexion
these facts have with the object of the present meet-
ing. Well, we are met,
wareellwbeeinngototfo
thepromote
peoplethe
p
moral and intellectual
(Hear, hear.) Now, it has been found that the
moral and intellectual condition of the people bears
a direct ratio to
their physical comfort.
Dr. John-
ban used to say that every man was a villain when
be was sick, and although I will not go so far as to
say that every man is a villain when he is pool,will say that the principle of evil within him has
great odds in its favour when a man is ill-fed, ill. I
clothed, ill-housed, and overworked. (Loud applause.)
Now, by increasing the expenditure of the country
more rapidly than the resources of the country' in-
creased—and this has been abundantly proved to be
the case in our own country—w
an effect
increase
do you
produce upon the working m .
Yo
expenditure and diminish capital, and, the popula-
tion remaining the same, the effect of the diminution
of capital is to lower wages. As far as the working
man is concerned, you are burning the candle at
both ends; you are not only compelling him to give
a larger amount to the support of the Government,
but you are decreasing the wages from which he
has to give it. (Hear, hear.) You are, therefore,
decreasing his physical comfort; and, bearing in
mind that his moral and religious condition deperlds,
to
a certain 'extent, upon his physical comfoiTti I
think we shall see that as long as this process goes
on we are
rendering the working man less moral,
less intelligent, less' inclined to cultivate ;his
otherwise would be, and