The Sun.
London, England, 1859-04-30 00:00:00

Government and their supporters—a manoeuvre
perfectly legitimate according to the rules of par-
liamentary warfare, but still a manoeuvre, and they
are not the party who should make the result of
that manoeuvre a reproach or a censure to the Par-
liament which they have recently dissolved. Now,
gentlemen, you of course remember the events of
that trial. There had occurred in Paris an event
of so outrageOus a description as to excite the hor-
ror and indignation of all mankind. The Emperor
and Empress of the French when on their way to
the theatre were suddenly attacked by a discharge
of shells exploding under their carriage, around
their carriage, and in every direction in immediate
contiguity to it. The result was, that I think ten
persons were killed, the imperial servants and
horses severely wounded, and that upwards of 100
persons who had assembled to see them pass were
injured in some manner or another, while the only
persons who escaped were the individuals against
whom the attack had been directed, namely, the
Emperor and Empress in their carriage. When
we heard of this affair the then Government par-
took of the general indignation, for it was known
that the conspirators had come from England, that
the plot had been hatched in England, and that the
instrument of destruction had been made in Eng-
land, and therefore at the first blush England was
obnoxious to the charge of having harboured men,
who, not content with enjoying that freedom and
security with all who live in this country, made
this place of refuge the quarter in which to plot a
diabolical attack on the sovereign of another
country. The first impulse of our minds, of the
mind of the Government, was to rescue this coun-
try from the imputation which might fall on it
from any other civilised country. (A voice " Ber-
nard for. ever, down with Louis Napoleon.") But it
was made a matter of charge against us that we
acted under the dictation of the Government of
France, • that we acted under the threats of some
half dozen foolish French colonels of regiments,
and of speeches which had been recently made in
public assemblies in France. I can assure you that
that assertion was totally and fundamentally false.
We acted upon the feelings which every gentle-
man of honour who had the least spark of generous
feeling.in his mind must have been actuated by,
had he been placed under similar circumstances.
We felt it due to the general feeling not to alter
those laws which gave refuge to foreigners of all
descriptions who were flying from political perse-
cution abroad, but acting on suggestions which
were made to us by men standing high in the legal
profession—suggestions which, without infringing
on the laws of hospitality or being at variance
with the constitution of the country, would attach
a heavy punishment to conspiracies in this country
for the atrocious purpose of murder, wherever that
murder was to be committed. And I am sure that,
unless great pains had been taken to mislead the
public mind, the feeling of all honest Englishmen
would have been that we were right in the course
we had pursued, and that we were only doing our
duty in proposing that measure. And whatever
the consequences of that proposal may have been to
the Government of which I was a member, there is
no part of my public life which I look back to with
more satisfaction than the part which I took in
proposing a measure which, in my judgment, was
honourable to the country, and which I think
ought to have been adopted by the Parliament of
this country. But, gentlemen, public opinion took
a different line. Men interpreted as applicable to
England and Englishmen certain expressions in a
despatch which we knew were only intended to
apply to certain foreigners who were residing in
this country. That despatch said that assassination
was publicly preached here as a doctrine. Those
who read that passage understood it to imply that
Englishmen adopted the doctrine; but we know
that it only related to a small number of refugees,
by whom the doctrine was published in
.print and
advocated in makings. But public opinion ran
wild in the matter; and when once public opinion
takes up a patticular view you might as well think
of stopping' a wild horse as or stopping or turning
it. (A larugh.) One hundred members who had
ordinal.* supported the Government took that
view of the matter, and—according to their views
—honourably opp•sed the Conspiracy Bill. But
the members of the present Government, before its
introduction had recommended a measure of the kind,
and when it was my duty. to propose it they voted in
a body for leave to bring in the bill. We had,
therefore, every reason to count on their support for
the further stages of the measure ; but when Mr.
Milner Gibson moved a resolution not bearing on
the bill, but censuring the Government for not hav-
ing answered a despatch, the party opposite to us,
seeing now how opinion ran, threw themselves in a
moment from one side to the other, voted that black
which only a fortnight before they had voted to be
white, joined the .100 malcontents amongst our
supporters, and thus carried a censure on the Go-
vernment. I ask you, gentlemeti, who it is in ordi-
nary life has to complain of the nun-a.u.5-tvet ing of a
letter ? Why, the man who wrote it, to be sure.
The real complaint in this case lay with the French
Government. We did not answer their despatch,
and they might have called this scant courtesy and
incivility on the part of the people of England.
There was no case of blame against us, because our
answer to the despatch was the course that we were
pursuing, and we did not think it necessary to en-
ter into any controversy with the Government of
France respecting words which we knew were not
intended to convey any insult to the people of
England, although parties who did not know so
much of
.the matter as we did so considered it. I
say, then, that the present ministry and their
friends were the parties who turned the scale
against the late Government ; and it is unjust on
their part to make that vote a ground of impeach-
ment against the late Parliament, because they
were the persons who by their own acts had given
effect to the vote which was a manifestation of cen-
sure on the Government. They brought in a Reform
Bill which pleased nobody, which contained pro-
visions some of them highly unjust, such as the
disqualifying. of county freeholders who happened
to have • their freeholds within the limits of bo-
roughs represented in Parliament, and was other-
wise unsatisfactory, inasmuch as the bill contained
no reduction whatever of the b3rough franchise,
and, therefore, made no provision for admitting to
electoral privileges the best class of experienced
and intelligent workmen. (Hear, hear.) Gentle-
men, I am not going to give you a Reform Bill.
(Loud and general cries of " Oh, oh.") I do riot
think it. is right on the hustings to go into the
details of such a measure. (Considerable interrup-
tion, and cries of " How far will you go ?")
Mr. ROWCIAFFE—HOW far will you go ? State
yourL ON—I was going to say that I do
Lord
ArLm An Bill.
not think it fitting for a candidate on the hustings to
state the details of a Reform Bill which he would pass.
It is the duty of the responsible Government of
the country to propose such measures as they think
suited to the public interest, and it is the duty of
members of Parliament S not in office to criticise
those measures, to improve them if wrong, to ap-
prove them if right, and to act with respect to
them according to the best opinion they can bring
to bear on the matter. (" What's your opinion ?' )
I can assure my friends in the crowd that it has
been my lot to have many plans of reform sent to
me by different correspondents, and if any of them
will come to me in London he may have his choice
of fifty. Perhaps the best plan would be for him to
draw lots, or may be he would select the one which
contains .the most clauses or effects the greatest
changes in existing institutions. But although I
am not going to give you my plan of reform, I will
state now what I stated in the House of Commons,
that I think there ought to be a lowering of the
county franchise, and a transfer of seats from some
of the small boroughs to larger places. But the
extent to which these changes are to be effected
must be decided by the examination of statistical
facts, and without these facts it would be impossible
to go properly into the question. But this I will
say, without meaning offence to any man, and I
hope that no man will take it in that light, that I
should not be prepared to extend the borough fran-
chise so low as to swamp by numbers of men not
possessed of property and intelligence those upon
whom the franchise has already been conferred, and
who have exercised that franchise with honour to
themselves and with advantage to their country.
Now, gentlemen, there is another point of public
affairs, to which the minds of all men are now at-
tracted with anxiety the most intense. (" Hear,
hear," and interruption. A voice : " The vote, the
vote.") One at a time, gentlemen ; turn about
is fair play ' • if that gentleman will listen to me
now, I will listen in perfect silence to him after. I
was going to say that the eyes and the minds of all
Europe are now fixed on that great event which
either has taken place, or is immediately about to
ensue we were told yesterday. I am informed to-
day that the event has not yet happened. But, how-
ever that may be, I fear that it will immediately
take place, and that Europe will be exposed to the
calamities of a devastating war between the armies
of great and powerful states. It will remain for Go-
vernment to show when Parliament meets in what de-
gree and by what means they have endeavoured to
put a stop to this great calamity, and to preserve
to Europe the blessings of peace. I be-
lieve that they honestly meant to do so ; but
I fear that from want of capacity their efforts
have failed. They began to mediate before they
were officially recognised as mediators by either
Austria or France, the parties between whom any
mediation must take place. A proposal for a con-
gress was substituted either by Russia or France—
some say one, some say the other—in place of
mediation, and that congress was declined by
Austria, except on conditions which it was absurd
to ask. We are informed it was required as a

preliminary that all parties concerned should dis-
arm. Why, disarming is the resolution and the act
of a successful congress, and not the beginning of
its negotiations. It was putting the cart before
the horse. (Hear, hear.) Why do men arm ? To
obtain some object. They may deliberate, in order
to see whether their object may not be obtained by
peaceful negotiations, but they will naturally not
disarm until they know whether their object can
be obtained; because they feel in their own minds
that if the object cannot be obtained by negotia-
tion, the arms must be used for the purpose of
obtaining it by force. (Hear, hear.) Therefore
the demand of Austria that disarmament should
precede negotiation, was in other words a civil way
of saying that she declined the congress altogether.
But if that demand was absurd with regard to
France, it was most ungenerous as regarded Sar-
dinia. For what was it in effect that they pro-
posed ? They proposed that Sardinia should at
once deprive itself of adequate means of resistance,
whilst they should merely withdraw their troops
to other stations, and that if the negotiations failed
as they must have failed, they should be at liberty,
in return for Sardinia disarming, to fall with accu-
mulated strength on the country which had dis-
armed in obedience to the requisition of the con-
gress. The main question is, I believe, one which
Austria might settle fairly, amicably, and speedily.
Nobody that I am aware of meant to wrest from
Austria the territories in Venice and Lombardy
which she possesses by virtue of the treaties of 1815.
Those are hers by right, and the judgment of
Europe has affirmed that she is entitled to them.
I do not say the sympathies of Europe, because,
unfortunately, the system of governing those pro-
vinces has been such that nobody can deny that the
discontent of the people of those provinces is justi-
fied by the maladministration of Austria since she
possessed them. (Loud cries of Hear, hear.) But
in 1815, after the great war, and when Europe was
settled, men looked at what had been the danger
.of the preceding period. That danger was the
overwhelming power of France, and it was
against the recurrence of that danger that
almost all the arrangements of the congress
were made. Austria was thought to be the Power
which could best oppose a barrier to France in
Italy, and possessions were given to Austria in
Italy which, I believe, Austria did not wish to have,
but which have since been a source of infinite
misery to the whole of the Italian peninsula. (Hear,
hear.) For Austria, not content with ruling her
own provinces in her own way—and heaven knows
that way was one which no well-minded Govern-
ment would persevere in—not contented with that,
entered into negotiations, exerted her influence, and
extorted treaties from all the other States of Italy,
from the Po down to the Mediterranean, by which
in all those countries, from that time down to the
present moment, a most abominable system of mis-
government has been supported by the confidence
which the respective Governments felt, that if the
discontent, the just discontent, of their subjects
should at any time break out into open rebellion,
Austria was ready with an overwhelming military
force to compel obedience, and to support the mal-
administration of the Government. (Hear.) Well,
that which Austria ought on the present occasion to
have consented to, and that which I believe if
Austria had consented to would have prevented the
outbreak of the war, was that she should consent
for the future to confine herself within her own
rightful limits, and should forego any interference,
by influence or by military force, in the internal
affairs of the countries of Italy south of the river
Po. I believe that if that were done, there is so
much intelligence amongst the people in the differ-
ent States, there is so much education and so much
enlightened political knowledge abroad, that you
might leave the different peoples to discuss with
their Governments all those arrangements which
are so greatly required, and that you need not have
done anything else but to have withdrawn once and
for ever any interference on the part of a foreign
military force. (Hear.) If Austria had agreed to
that, my belief is that for a time at least Europe
would have remained at peace. There are those
who say, I know not how justly, that Austria was
afraid of meeting the other Powers in congress, be-
cause she was afraid that there a bill of indictmeut
would be preferred against her, enumerating all
the evils which her influence and interference had
produced in Southern Italy. What may have been
her reason it is not far us to say, but now she seems
to have chosen the la of war, and apparently hav-
ing drawn the sword, she seems to have thrown
away the scabbard. It is said in her behalf that
she has the Governments of France and Sardinia—
and perhaps Russia—against her, that they mean
to eject her from her Italian dominions, and that
therefore it was better for her to fight now when she
was prepared than to wait until she should, be less
able to cope with her adversaries. But that is a bad
argument. If Austria has invaded Sardinia she has
torn the treaties upon which she rests for the secu-
rity of her own possessions. She has put herself in
the wrong by a military movement, which, unjust
in itself, cannot lead to ultimate success. She may
be successful at first, but infallibly that success will
be followed by subsequent reverses, and those who,
like him, think that there is great advantage in
having a considerable power in Germany to act as
a barrier between the east amd the west, to main-
tain the liberties and independence of Europe—
those who are of that opinion must deeply lament
the course which tends, I fear, to results that must
alter materially the future position and condition
of Austria. If the war is confined to Italy, and if
the consequences of her aggression should be that
she should be compelled to withdraw north of the
Alps and leave Italy free to the Italians ; why,
however we may lament the calamity by which
that result is to be brought about, yet every gene-
rous mind will feel that out of evil good may
sometimes flow, and we shall be glad of the result,
however we may lament the means by which it has
been obtained. (Hear, hear.) But, gentlemen, the
Government seems to have been exceedingly ill-
informed as to the course of events. In the first
place, they failed in giving that official character to
their mediation which, if they had done, it would
have been difficult for France or Austria to have
escaped from; but, in the next place, what shall
we think of their state of information when we see
that on last Monday week they covered Austria
with praise, talked of her " dignified conciliation,"
stigmatised the conduct of Sardinia as " ambigu-
ous," and I know not what, declared themselves
the partisans of Austria, and designated the course
which had been pursued by that power as one of
"dignified conciliation." (Hear.) Why, on the very
day, I believe, on which these panegyrics were
uttered that arrogant and insulting message was
sent by Austria to Sardinia, calling on her to disarm,
with only three days' notice, and telling her that
war was to be the result of a refusal, or an evasive
answer. Did the Government know—it was
their duty to know, but they might have been igno-
rant—that the Austrian army was on the point of
invading the Sardinian territory? Well, but a week
after' at the Lord Mayor's dinner last Monday,
furious at having been taken in, they went from
one extreme to the other, talked no longer of the
dignified conciliation of Austria, but were loud in
denouncing her criminal conduct. Why, this dig-
nified conciliator was in the course of one week
transformed into a criminal offender. (Hear, hear.)
Really this was the anger of schoolboys, the anger
of men who had been deceived by their own want
of foresight, want of intelligence, want of knowing
what was actually going on in the world around
them. It was their duty to know, and they might
have known, that things were in a different state
from what they took them to be. I say, then, that
they have failed in domestic legislation, and that
they have also failed in the conduct of great Euro-
pean interests ; but they now say that we are all
sent to our constituents in the hope that " under
the blessing of Providence," a Parliament will be
returned who will support by a majority some Ad-
ministration or another. Now, while every man
here must concur in that fervent prayer, what that
Administration is to be I will not undertake to
foretell, but if one may judge from what has passed
from the conduct of the present Government, if one
may infer from that what is likely to be the opinion
of the country, and of the Parliament which is
about to meet, I should be disposed to infer that the
opinion of that Parliament will not be very differ-
ent from that of the one which has been so summa-
rily dissolved, and that the present Government
will not have the confidence which they wish the
electors to repose in them, that the result of their
appeal will be to confirm the unfavourable opinion
which they say has been the cause of the present
dissolution. Gentlemen, I should be breaking my
pledge if I detained you any longer. I see before me
convincing reasons why these proceedings should not
last beyond a certain hour. I thank you from the
bottom of my heart for the kindness I have always
experienced at your hands, and for the fresh proof
you have now given me of it. I can assure you
that my gratitude to the electors of Tiverton can
only end with my life. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. DENMAN briefly addressed the electors, de-
claring himself to be the strenuous advocate of all
liberal measures, and promising to vote for the
ballot should it be found impossible to carry a good
reform bill without it.
One or two questions were asked Lord Palmer-
ston by his friend Mr. Rowcliffe as to what he
meant to do with respect to reform, to which the
noble lord said he would give his catechist a fair
answer, namely, that " he would not tell him."
The proceedings terminated with the usual vote
of thanks to the mayor.

At the Bank of England yesterday there was a
full demand for money at the increased rate. In the open
market the terms are quite as high as at the Bank, and the
dealers are indisposed to take long paper. For bills having
six months to run 5 and 5i per cent, are the lowest rates.