The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-02 00:00:00

MR. CARDWELL AT OXFORD.

The annual festival of the 59th Lodge of the
Ancient Order of Druids took place in the Town-
hall, Oxford, on New Year's-day. It. is usual for
the Parliamentary representatives of the city to be
present on these occasions, and yesterday offered
no exception to this rule. About 400 gentlemen,
including the Mayor and other members of the cor-
poration, sat down to dinner, presided over by Mr.
Alderman Dudley. The hall was decorated with
banners and evergreens, and the band of the City
Rifle Volunteers enlivened the prooeedings by their
performances.
The customary loyal toasts having been duly
honoured,
The CHAIRMAN gave " The Army and Navy,"
which was acknowledged by Capt. FANE, who said
he had served with the British soldier in the Crimea,
and had never found him flinch from any danger
or hardship. They had it on the high authority
of his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge that
our army was now in as efficient a state as it ever
was at any former period of our history.
Prosperity to the Lodge having been drunk,
The CHAIRMAN next gave the health of the mem-
bers of the city, Mr. Langston and Mr. Cardwell,
and expressed the pleasure it afforded him to see
those gentlemen again among them.
Mr. J. H. LANGSTON, M.P., as the senior mem-
ber, first responded. In the course of his remarks,
he said it was a practice with Englishmen at that
season of the year to balance accounts, or at least,
to endeavour to do so. Nor ought that operation to
be neglected in respect to public affairs. They
would all agree with him that, comparing the last
year with the previous one, the present state of the
public account was very favourable. At the com-
mencement of the year just expired our small army,
however effective as far as it went, might of itself
have been insufficient for the defence of our shores,
and our navy would have had to be retained near
our own coasts, however much its services
might have been required elsewhere. Thanks
to the volunteer movement, which had
already furnished • the country with 150,000
men capable, if need were, to meet the enemy, the
alarm wiaick recently prevailed had given place
to a feeling of security. (Hear, hear.) Again, since
they last met there the unhappy dispute with China
had been closed; and although no very implicit
confidence was to be reposed in the good faith of
the Chinese authorities, it was yet to be hoped our
Armstrong guns had created such a salutary im-
pression on their minds as would make them slow
to provoke us to another quarrel. Not long ago con-
siderable apprehension was entertained in this
country as to the enormous army maintained by the
Emperor of the French. He trusted, however, that
the commercial treaty recently concluded would be
the means of producing a better feeling between the
two countries, and that the constant intercourse
inseparable from extended trade would engender
sentiments of mutual friendship and peace. (Hear.)
Every friend of liberty would rejoice at the late
events in Italy. Any one who had prophesied at
that time last year that that splendid country
would have the chance of independence and union
which was now before it would have been set down
for a perfect madman. In the course of the ensuing
spring they would perhaps witness further develop.
ments of freedom in that great peninsula. (Hear.)
It was insanity in Austria to attempt to keep pos-
session of Venetia, by the people of which she was
so much hated ; and it was to be hoped that as that
province was really of no value to her, she would
_ _

feel it her interest to make a bargain for quitting
it. (Hear, hear.) When he addressed them last
year he ventured to express not only a desire but a
belief that a measure to which he would not now
more particularly refer would become the law of the

land. He did not know what measures Government
might intend to bring forward when they next met
Parliament, but so little had been done during the
late session that he thought it incumbent on them
earnestly to consider how they could most advan-
tageously employ the period devoted to legisla-
tion, so that Parliament might not separate again
without adding to the statute book some of those
bills which had been repeatedly promised in her
Majesty's Speech, but which were, nevertheless,
no further forward than ever. He hoped that, whe-
ther by greater management of the business of the
house, or by introducing at first only such measures
as they believed would pass, such progress would
be made in the work of useful legislation as would
make the labours of the coming session contrast
most favourably with the achievements of its pre-
decessor. (Hear, hear.)

Mr. CARDWELL, on rising to acknowledge the
toast, was loudly cheered. He said—Gentlemen, I
beg to return you my most sincere thanks for the
honour you have done me in drinking my health.
You spoke, sir, of your members visiting you on
this festive occasion, It would indeed be painful
to me to bo absent through any pressure of duty
from this gathering ; for in coming to Oxford I
always feel that I come
every membertronlytor of enderthat
tribute which is due from v
Parlia-
ment to those by whose favour he sits in the House
of Commons, but also to renewaantctiaecnhmtferinetnsdwshhiiephs
and reviveearly associations and
I regard as the pride of private as well as of public
life. (Cheers,) Gentlemen, in the review which
my friend and colleague has taken of the year that
has passed I generally concur, but if he will
permit
me I will venture to say a few words on behalf of
the House of Commons. It has been customary
during the recess to say that the late session was
like some of our fruit trees in the past autumn,
which' yielded more leaves than ripened produce.
But, gentlemen, in the past, as in every preceding
session, we had noble efforts of eloquence, such as
perhaps no other popular assembly in the world
was ever privileged to listen to—we had high and
lofty expressions of the position of our country in
the face. of other nations which were worthy of the
leading representatives of this. free and generous
people. And though Ido not think you can Mea-
sure the House of Commons—any more than you