The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-22 00:00:00

NR. LAI A.RD AND HIS CONSTITUENTS.

Last night Mr. Layard met his constituents in
Taylor's Depository, St. George's-road, Southwark.
The meeting was very crowded, a large portion of
qhe audience consisting of working men. Mr. New-
man occupied the chair, and was surrounded on the
platform by a considerable number of the more in-
fluential electors of the borough.

Mr. LAYARD said—l believe the present is the
first political meeting at which I have met my con-
stituents since I accepted office under the Crown. I
trust, however, that although I have not been in
your sight I have not been altogether out of your
minds. (Hear, hear.) Allow me to say at the outset
that in taking office I have not done anything which
should not meet with the approval of my constitu-
ents. (Hear.) Ido not believe you will think that
I have done ill in accepting office under a Govern-
ment in whose general principles I concur. (Cheers.)
It is frequently the case in England, especially with
the Liberal party, that people are denounced for
merely taking office. Either, however, public mora-
lity has very much improved during the last 50
years, or the press is much more vigilant than it
used to be, for no man can now be suspected of tak-
ing office for the mere paltry gains of place. Such
a thing is unknown in the present day. All those
snug sinecures and profitable jobs which were for-
merly regarded as the sweets of office are, happily
for us, no longer in existence. Indeed, instead of a
man making money by taking office, the probabi-
lity is that he will leave office poorer than when he
entered it. (Hear, hear.) I think therefore that the
Liberal party has not done wisely in denouncing
those who have accepted office. Soon after I joined
the Government I received an interesting letter
from a valued friend in York. The writer, Mr. John
Brown, a small bookseller in York, gave me when
I contested that city a most disinterested and noble
support. He told me in his letter that 20 years ago,
when he was known as a Chartist, he should
have been unable to find words sufficiently strong
to express his indignation at a Liberal taking
office, but he said his opinion upon that
point had undergone a change, and he now
thought it was a foolish thing for the Liberal party
not to wish those who represented the people to
take office. How were they, he asked, to carry
out their views, unless they had men to represent
them in the Government ? (Hear.) What he said
was perfectly right. If a man can accept office
without abandoning his political convictions, with-
out breaking his political pledges, he is justified in
doing so. (Hear.) On the other hand, if in taking
office he renounces his political opinions, throws his
pledges to the winds, he does a base thing which
no words can sufficiently condemn. (Cheers.) I be-
lieve that in accepting office I have done neither
the one nor the other. It is true, perhaps, that the
present Government; have not done all we could
have wished them to have done in matters of do-
mestic policy. In matters of foreign policy, on the
other hand, they deserve the hearty support of the
country, and you will recollect that when I made
my appeal to you at the election it referred almost
exclusively to questions of foreign policy. There
are times when questions of foreign policy are so
important that questions of domestic policy give
way to them. I think the Government should have
done more in matters of domestic policy—but look
at the circumstances in which they were placed, for
instance, at the commencement of last session.
They had to do one of two things—either to intro-
duce a Reform Bill into Parliament which, through
the machination of parties—and parties, I am
sorry to say, not composed exclusively of Conserva-
tives—would have been thrown out, or to wait until
public opinion out of doors was sufficiently strong
to enable them to carry a good measure. The latter
was the course they took. You will recollect that
Mr. White, the member for Brighton, moved an
amendment upon the address in the interest of
Reform. I voted with him, but lam sorry to say
we found ourselves in an illustrious minority of 48.
(A laugh.) Immediately afterwards we had a
meeting in this very building. I believe that was
the first meeting held in this country after that
division on the subject of Reform. The people of
Southwark nobly expressed their opinion upon that
question, and all I will say is, that if every great
constituency in England had followed your example
we should have had a Reform Bill at this moment.
(Cheers.) What, however, are the facts ? It is
impossible to deny that from various circumstances
there was not that excitement in the country which
Reformers had a right to expect. Perhaps a different
state of things might sooner or later arise, but the
fact was as I have stated it. (Hear.) The House
of Commons had been accused of lukewarmness. It
is all very well to accuse the House of Commons,
but let me tell you that the fault lies, not with the
House of Commons, but with the people themselves.
(Cheers.) I maybe told that the case is not so,
became the people are not represented in Parlia-
ment, and cannot therefore have their voice heard.
That may be perfectly true, but whose fault is it
that the people are not represented in Parliament?
It is their own fault. (Hear.) Who carried the
Reform Bill of 1832 ? Was it the members for the
rotten boroughs, or the few members who repre-
sented popular opinion in the house—men whom
you could have counted upon your 10 fingers. No,
the Reform Bill was carried by an unmistakeable
expression of public opinion out of doors. Who
carried free trade ? Not certainly the Protectionist
members of the House of Commons. Free trade
was carried by the people themselves, and until
we have a similar expression of public opinion on
the subject of reform there will be no Reform Bill.
(Hear.) The question fFefore remains with you,
and no Government can do anything with it until
they have the support of the people. (Cheers.)
Under these circumstances, the reform question hav-
ing been withdrawn from consideration, it appeared
to me that as I agreed entirely with the Government
on matters of foreign policy—as I admired their
policy in Italy and saw its great results, as I believed
they had made the name of England honoured
abroad, and as I coincided with their Eastern policy
—I should have been a political caward if I had
refused to accept office when I had an opportunity
of carrying out my own opinions. (Cheers.) Before
going to public matters let me say a few words on
what are called local interests. When elected your
representative I was particularly pledged to attend
to your local interests. Have I neglected those in-
terests in any way ? (Cries of " No, no," and cheers.)
Lest session Mr. Locke and myself succeeded in de-
feating two measures which if passed would have
seriously affected your local interests—the Dover
Road Bill and the Rock Loan Bill. There is another
local question which I regard as one of the greatest
importance, and which is engaging a good deal of
public attention at the present moment. I refer, of
course, to the Thames embankment. (Hear, hear.)
You all know that in consequence of the projected
embankment on the north side of the Thames the
river will be considerably raised, and that, flooded
as you have been hitherto, you will be flooded ten
times more it that embankment is carried out with-
out a corresponding embankment on the south side.
(Hear, hear.) I accompanied a deputation to the
Prime Minister yesterday on that very subject.
Lord Palmerston, who received us most graciously,
promised that the matter should be carefully eensi..
dared. I have since seen Mr. Cowper, the Chief
Commissioner of Works, and he, too, promised that
the subject should be brought before Parliament, at
the same time expressing his hope that the southern
embankment of the Thames would bo speedily ar-
ranged. (Cheers.) Let me now proceed to public
matters. Of the light literature which one reads
during the recess, a great part consists of the
speeches of members who are out of work. I
have read a good many of those speeches recently,
and it appears to me that they may be characterised
generally as apologies for the donothingness of the
House of Commons. I shall not apply
to the
makers of those speeches an old French proverb
which says that he who excuses himself accuses
himself, but still I believe that they are chiefly to
blame each individually for the fact, if it be one,that
little was done last session. lam not here to apo-
logise for the }louse of Commons, but I think that
last session, although not a very brilliant one, was
certainly a very useful one. You will not expect
me to enumerate all the measures of domestic in-
terest which were passed in the course of the ses-
sion, Mr Lock‘ has already done so in a masterly

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