The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-18 00:00:00

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PRICE 41
STAMPED sd.

sult the signs of the times, we shall easily discover
I
grounds of hope. We live in an age which is great,
and which derives its character of greatness from
the happy and mighty changes which it is incest
santly accomplishing. A long continuance of amic-
able relations between France and England will be
a novelty. But if we look around us how many more
surprising and unexpected :novelties we shall see.
Political liberty is establishing itself in the greater
number of States. Nationalities which seemed an.
nihilated for ages, and of which great statesmen
said that they were nothing but geographical ex-
pressions, are resuscitated and flourishing. Progress
is everywhere the order of the day. In the interior
of every State an assimilation proceeds between the
different classes of society, whilst the fusion of pro-,
vinces is being simultaneously organised. Between
the different nations 'interests are mixing and
confounding; products and ideas are rapidly ex-
changed ; inventions, which border on the miracu-
lous, since they realise what would have been
thought impossible a century since, facilitate and,
increase this admirable movement of amelioration.
Free trade, another novelty, is one of the natural
fruits of this productive age. It comes now as the
completion of several other improvements, and it
will impart a greater' consistency to them all. To
suppose that France and England, in the arrange-
ment of their mutual relations, will resist the influ-
ence of these moral and material improvements—to
believe that they will not draw closer together
when the tendency to fusion is so strong and gene-
ral, and that they will not be animated by the spirit
of peace at the moment when peace is universally
admitted
i e sul
t that
to
o theythe will e as,the first necessity of Europe—to pre-
tendthem
etthecivilised
eei
nvbbdpiieytioliyoelst
ienrhtodigeficsswtaailt
onkhari eln
world;
n;
si
and
appeal of mankind would be 'to offer an unmerited
,groat
final
the
lghl e u
anenoootat
nhrr course
ers
repudiationp
generous
tfne
opdaccomplishment
their
pathantiquatedunanimouslin
beeneinertidtailvthey
ongwrtehislesl
cherish
rhtpaasoeitpn-
oc
thefff
pro-
gressil o r
and disastrous jealousies. We may therefore look
with confidence to the future. The friends of civi-
lisation will soon find a new occasion for exultation
in the improved attitude which the two great
Western nations will have assumed towards each
other. (Cheers.)
The LORD MAYOR then gavp the " House of
Commons," conpled with the name of Mr. Bright.
(Cheers.)
Mr. BRIGHT—I find it is now 25 minutes past 11.
This adds greatly to the difficulty I feel in rising to
address you on an occasion like the present, when
my name has been mentioned in terms so flattering
by the Lord Mayor, and so kindly received by this
audience. I have heard some kind people observe
that it is not expected at .a dinner of this kind to.
say anything which might excite controversy or be
of a party nature. (Hear.) An hon. friend near
me approves of that sentiment, but I have a recol-
lection of an event which happened at a not very
remote period, when an eminent party leader made
a-speech—l presume' in this hall—full of party
exultation, and not devoid of party invective. (Oh,
and laughter.) It is not my intention to follow
what I hold is a vicious example ; but I will con -
fine myself strictly to the object of this meeting.
The Lord Mayor has called upon me to assist him
in doing honour to an hon. friend of mine who has

already addressed you to-night. I have had the
privilege of his private friendship, and the honour
of joining him in his labours for more than 20 years
past. l therefore am enabled to speak of those
merits which you have appreciated to-night, and
which, I may honestly say, have excited admiration
and gratitude among all the best men among his
countrymen. (Cheers.) If I may be allowed to
say something which might shock some persons'
nerves—and I recollect how much the good cheer
which the Lord Mayor has furnished us with has
fortified us all against any startling announcement
—I would observe that my hon. friend is a man

who entertains very revolutionary ideas, and has
the good fortune to live in a revolutionary epoch.
The Lord Mayor has referred to 20 years ago, An
excellent title that would be of a political novel
founded on fact. (Laughter.) Twenty years ago
many gentlemen here will recollect that the small
portion of our countrymen who had votes were
going to what was called a general election. They
returned a Parliment showing a majority of not
less than 90 votes in favour of protection—and
especially of protection to agriculture. On that
occasion the late Sir R Peel declared in his speech
—I think delivered at Tamworth—that no omouat
of fixed duty would be adequate for the protection
of agriculture ; and Lord Derby, if I recollect right,
told us that there was a province in Russia,of which
few besides himself probably heard, which would in-
undate this country with grain, at a price per quar-
ter, I am quite sure, less than the cost per quarter
of bringing the grain from that province to a Rus-
sian port. (Laughter.) All this was sheer delu-
sion, as we now know. The majority of 90 was
simply stupidity—(laughter, and cries of " oh")—
the speech of Sir R. Peel was absurd—the fact of
Lord Derby had no foundation. (Oh, oh, and cheers.)
The whole thing is gone, and every man who par-
took of that delusion and joined in those statements
would be most happy now if not one single word
he had uttered on the subject had been committed
to paper and to print. I say that during that time
we have gone through a revolution, and my hon.
friend has been the most eminent leader in that
great change. Well, that is a great lesson learnt, I
hope. The change was brought about by a few men,
the most prominent among whom were my right
hon friend, Mr. Chas. Villiers, the President of the
Poor-law Board, whose labours in office have been
greatly lightened by his labours as a free trader—
(cheers) ;—Mr. Milner Gibson, President of the
Board of Trade ; Mr. Lewis Ricardo, the member
'for Stoke-upon-Trent ; and Mr. George Wilson, of
Manchester, who I hope is one of the guests to-
night. (Cheers.) I was a worker with these and
many others whose names I do not at present recol-
lect. We instructed the nation. (A laugh, cries of
" No,'' and loud cheers.) No man will deny that
we converted Sir R. Peel. If we could not convert
Lord Derby, at least we succeeded in defeating him
—(cheers)—and, as M. Chevalier has said, this was
a great battle and a great fight ; and though there
were no regions ravaged, and no town sacked, and
no widows and orphans made, and though there
was no blood, and though there
' armour, still it was a great fight, andno
the weaponsresult
a great conquest. (Cheers.) conquests
that
And of all
w oa rs
e
by men struggling for libertywere.er madety, that when v
i
it had this great and blessed peculiar
were
the conquest was achieved the spoils and gains
were equally divided between the victor and the
vanquished. (Cheers.) Having thus in a few
sentences described this one revolution, what I
want to ask you is—" don't you think it would be
wise to get up another ?" I think I see one dawn-
ing already. If England were asked " Who is
thy 'neighbour ?" she would answer, of course,
speaking geographically, " France is my neigh-
, hour." But if England were asked "Does Eng-
land and France live on neighbourly terms ?" she
would be obliged to answer "No ; ' for in the
125 years which elapsed between 1691 and 1815
England and France spent not fewer than 65 years,
or more than half the whole period, in tearing each
other to pieces. I will not go into the causes of
those disasters. Let bygones be bygones, except,
indeed, for the payment of the bill, which, I suppose,
we cannot escape from. (Laughter,) But this will
be admitted, that the pen of no English or French
man has ever yet attempted to describe, or been able
to describe, one millionth part of the disasters to the
human race that have arisen from those conten-

tions. It may be that the recording angel, hovering
over the scenes of human action—and, if I may
quote a metaphor from a great Italian,
"Winnowing the air with those eternal plumes,"
may have recorded every single fact of that tremen-
dous and pitiful story of human suffering and human
wrong. (Hear.) Now let us—if that
.book has been...e
closed for nearly 50 years—let us, if it be. possible,
do something to prevent it being ever
folly—thereagain opened.
cir-
cumstances whose effect, .
may
prsoirbdeyr precipitate
and
these two countries again into e
E ;land at' this time
war ; but there is throughout
whether
*n feeling which, if they
(Cheers.) There are men whose --
a moral sense, and a.Christiean
the
practices of this
were once bent fairlyup
make it impossible for any
country, I believe would
cause, not absolutely uncontrollable,
to involve these
possibly
ecoaipreitete
two countries again in war. (Cheers.) Now, observe,
hon. friend Mr. Cobden has, in my opinion, been
my
again i
hope
will
pn eo not
that
dispute st
thep,
wuht eeGheeptrih e
able—and I know not that a man could have lived
fora morem pullingy
opinionblessed
d own ,
oorn a.swork—tobuocuh t
at
ot.
subject
uplc
bue
jl
el(t
cchdt the
elwefiornr
sf
offer
, first
our
andgreatra so l
ofda
step in the changed policy which I hope the future
will offer between England and France. We are
Voice—" Garibaldi.") But over and
shall
i.bsutihWl :se:::
Italian style of architecture. I .am in favour—
though the
above all nnwvalue—of the Italian style.
thatF
ques-
tions Foreign-office.
soghfnas-
office there will be somebody to bury
crowbars are employed to pull down then
old Foreign-
office there
traditions in its ruins. (Cheers and laughter.)
I am sure, if there be any moral government in the
meikacFna
xyo re
os.anitrd.

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