The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-18 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 18, 1859.

passed. - The press and the orators of England hive no
capital-stock so rich in sure returns of interest, of custom,
as the &Talc terror of invasion, which seems-to have fixed
itself in the British mind on the slightest disturbance of the
continental relations of the great Powers. On the least ap-
pearance of unusual activity in the dockyards of France,
on the merest rumour of a new combination between one or
more States in Europe not commonlyunited in their policy,
England at once sets up her outcry of distress, her leading
journals thunder alarm over the land; her Parliamentary I
candidates make the hustings ring with the dreadful notes
of war, her captains take down the sword of Wellington,
. and her poets laureate take up the lyre of Tyrtieus. , If
England were consciously the weakest or the wickedest of
Powers, her conduct in this respect would be perfectly rea-
sonable • if she knew herself to have fairly earned the
hatred of all the world and felt herself unequal to resist the
very sword of avenging justice, one might attribute her
propensity to panics to causes that would be' national at
least, if not respectable."
(Hear, hear.) Well, now, I repeat it is not pleasant
for an Englishman travelling in a foreign country
to read such paragraph as this, and that is the
mildest part of the whole article—(Hear, hear, and
much laughter)—and there is scarcely a post that
has not brought me some newspaper from some
part of France or America, particularly from the
seaport of Havre and the centres of commerce in
France, in which they do not speak with profound
pity, with the charity with which wo should listen
to a child, of the outcries raised by our newspa-
pers and speakers about a French invasion ; the
Americans have given it the nickname of " the
craze"—(laughter)—" the English craze." (Great
cheers and laughter.) As to our newspapers, I
am sure I do not want them to say one word
that is hard against me, for I don't desire
to curtail them in their privilege of commenting on
and criticising all the world ; they may say what
they please of Louis Napoleon or any other arbi-
trary Sovereign on the face of the earth, and this I
tell those- Sovereigns, that if they cannot bear the
criticisms of English newspapers in the midst of all
their other triumphs, well, they must be difficult to
please, for if they " take stock," as the saying is,
they will find that they get a great deal more of
the good than of the bad treatment of this world,
and therefore I think they ought to be content to
bear it. I don't want to curtail the liberties of the
press at all ; therefore don't let them set up a
screech against me, and say I want to put down
the freedom of the press ; but this I ask of those
newspapers who have been lending themselves to
this absurd screech about a French invasion—not to
make me ridiculous and the rest of my countrymen
by continuing in this tone hereafter. Is that a
reasonable request to make of them ? (" Hear,"
-and laughter.) Well, if you will only treat those
panics with the ridicule which they deserve, we
shall be able to put an end to them. But now
what are the facts ? When I came home and
looked into the blue-books that had been presented
to Parliament,. I found what I am now going to
mention, and I don't believe anybody else ever
looked at it or read it, because it did not answer
the cry of the moment. It was not pabulum for
those newspapers that want to write just in the
interests of the moment ; it was just the opposite ;
but there was a paper presented to Parliament
which was drawn up by the late Government,
giving us an account of the French and English
navies. It has never been contradicted or denied,
and recollect that it had reference to the state of
our navy and that of France in 1848, before our
present increase. That paper showed that for
every vessel France has added to her navy in
the last seven years we have added 10. (Hear,
hear.) You will observe that while our
writers and those public speakers who seem to
pander to this panic about the navy gave you the
mere statistics of line-of-battle ships and frigates
built or in preparation, they kept out of view all
the rest of our preparations, and which I venture to
say are, and the scientific naval men'of the day
have declared to be, the most perfect preparations
which you could make against the aggression of a
foreign foe. (Hear.) You have 160 odd steam gun-
boats lying in your creeks and harbours, and they
have been pronounced to be, by the highest scien-
tific nautical men in Europe and America, in the
case of any future war, the most desirable means of
defence for the country you could possess. In the
present state of the improvement of our cannon and
the deadly nature of the missiles which can now be
projected from them, from the enormous distance
at which you can strike an object both with solid
shot and hollow shell, the scientific men say that to
put a thousand men—l use the very words I used in
the House of Commons, and they had the acquies-
cence of the most intelligent men there—into a
line-of-battle ship, with 30 or 40 tons of gunpowder
below them, when a single shot from an Armstrong
gun, fired at a distance of 3,000 or 4,000 yards,
striking the vessel would blow her all to pieces, is
a piece of suicide that has given to these vessels in
the most scientific minds of America the sobriquet
. of " slaughter-houses." (Hear, hear.) At the end
of 1848, when this panic began against the French
for overwhelming us with their naval preparations
we had 200 more vessels moved by steam of all
sizes than the French had, while the number of
vessels, sailing and steamers, by which we had in-
creased our navy was tenfold the French increase
from 1852 to that time, and what has been the result
of this panic outcry • You have added £4,000,000 or
£5,000,000 more to your taxationiand expenditure.
(Hear.) I have no hesitation whatever in saying,
bearing in mind the rule I have laid down before,
that all this has been a perfect waste; that you
were as safe from any aggression upon your shores
as-you are now after all that additional expenditure
—(bear, hear)—and what would that money have
done—(hear, hear)—if it had been left in the hands
of a Chancellor of the Exchequer ? (Hear, hear.)
Give me five millions of revenue to deal with, in-
stead of voting that money by acclamation, as we
do, for this useless and senseless expenditure—give
me that money to deal with in the modification of
taxes, the reduction of Customs duties, the relief of
trade from existing encumbrances and interferences
—give it to me, and see what can be done with it
—see how I could remove encumbrances and ob-
structions to your commerce ; see how I could re-
duce those duties which check our intercourse with
France,—give me that money to deal with by re-
div.ing the duties on French commodities, and you
will do far more to cement the bonds of peace be-
tween this kingdom and that—(loud cheers)—,-far
more than will ever be done by any preparations for
war—(cheers)—for France is a country that you
cannot terrify by your preparations. (Hear, hear.)
You may provoke her by antagonistic rivalry ; you
cannot coerce her into peace by any attempt at
great superiority, and let me remind you that while
we have heard from France—l don't pretend to
know with what truth—that there have been pro-
posals for a reduction of the navy, our trusty ad-
visers hero tell us that we must not diminish for a
moment our preparaticat3. I will tell you what, in
all soberness, the consequence will be, if you show
yourselves with your 10 or 12 line-of-battle ships
sailing up and down the Mediterranean, which at
least belongs to France as much as it belongs to us. ,
I say that no French Government will dare to dis-
arm or greatly reduce their navy while you have
such a display of force on French coasts. The
French have got a length of coast second only to
your own, and they have also a commerce that is
second to your own. They are a proud nation like
yourselves, and they won't bear to see a
vastly superior English force at the entrance of
their ports. It is all very well for us, in our
complacency, to say, " France has no reason
to fear England ; England is not likely to go and
attack France." By your leave, gentlemen, when.
ever there have been any attacks or invasions between
England and France for the last 700 years, they,
have always been the invasions of France by Eng-
land, and not of England by France. (Hear, hear,
and laughter.) And when you bear in mind that
the French read in their school-books of our descents
upon their coasts, of our carrying arms to excite
rebellion, and of our going about and attacking
their great seaports—when they read of this they
have a very different opinion of us to what we have
of ourselves, and they don't believe us to be a na-
tion of Quakers, whatever some of us may be.
(Cheers and laughter.) Now, gentlemen, I am not
sure that the experience of the last six months may
not have had a tendency to incline the great Powers
of the Continent to peaceful counsel; if this coun-
try should do its best to promote those views. I
think the experience of the last six months must
have shown the two great military Powers of the
Continent that war is too serious a pastime, in our
days, to be resorted to, lightly or at very short in-
tervals. It is a very serious thing, with our means
of lodomotion, and with our tremendous prepara-
tions of the means of destruction. It is a very seri-
ous thing to bring 500,000 or 600,000 men into
array against each other; for a few days will now
do what it would have taken months to do at the
beginnine• of last century, and you bring these
mighty hosts into instant collision with means of de-
struction such as the imagination of our forefathers
could never have conceived. Well, that has been
found out—that public opinion in Europe is not in
favour of these wars. I have never presumed since
I have spoken in public on questions relating to the
ru!er of France—l have never presumed to utter
one word in censure or in praise of that individual,
and for this reason, the Emperor of the French is
elected by the whole people of France, and I believe
freely elected, inasmuch as he received more than
two-thirds of the whole votes of the country for the
position of President when the ballot boxes wore
In the hands of his rival Cavignac. I take that
as a proof that the feelings of the people were
in favour of Louis Napoleon ; I take it for
tfgrreaene l
;.
as
s t
thi a l
et y theyvot votes e
d forhifmor
ahsim apressideEmnt.persorucahs
being the case, what may have been the motives
of six millions of people in the election of their
chief it is not my business and I have no right to
inquire ; I bow to their decision, supposing that

•
...they have acted from convictions and impulses
which may be right in them, and woald not have
been probably Tight in us; but I have always had
this impression for the last seven or eight years,
that the ruler of France had a perception of the
altered times in which we live, and that his career
was not to be the career of one who bore his name
before ; and this I will say, that if he or any other
ruler of the continent should so far mistake the
spirit and requirements of the age as to dream of
repeating the career of war, of annexation, and of
conquest which Napoleon I. achieved, he will find
that public opinion, which was impotent 60 years
ago, will be sufficiently powerful now to avenge
itself against the man, whoever he may be, who
may attempt to trouble the industry, commerce, and
agriculture of the present world, and deprive the
population of Europe of their just expectations of
reaping the benefit of those improvements and of
those inventions which characterise the age. If
such a man should attempt to convert the steam-
boat, the telegraph, and the railroad merely to pur-
poses of warlike ambition, he would have the
prayers and aspirations of 19-20ths of all the honest
and industrious men in Europe in favour of his de-
thronement and downfall—(cheers)—and where
such a majority as 19-20ths proclaims its views, it
sooner or later, and not very late, can make its
power felt; and such an individual, in mistaking
the character of the age in which he lives, will
realise very soon in his own person the truth of that
Divine precept, "They that take the sword shall
perish by the sword." (Cheers.) Gentlemen, as I
am to have the pleasure of saying a few words to
you to-morrow I will not trespass further on you
on that point. I find, however, that lam expected
here to offer an explanation on an incident which
occurred some time ago. (Hear, hear.) If it should
be thought that it is, even at this distance of time,
becoming in me to say a few words to you on that
subject—and I should certainly have deemed it pre-
, sumptuous to have said anythingupon it to any one
else—(hear, hear)—but if it is your wish, as I
understand it is, from your chiefs upon the
platform, of course I must obey. I need not tell
you, then, that on my arrival in England, when I
found myself yourrepresentative, I received a com-
munication from Lord Palmerston, and also another
from Lord John Russell. In his letter Lord Pal-
merston was good enough to urge many reasons,
kindly and frankly expressed, why I should accept
a seat in his Cabinet as President of the Board of
Trade. Gentlemen, I will not affect any modesty in
the matter, but say that I think if I was fit for any
post in the Cabinet 1" should have been fit for the
one thus offered to me. If other circumstances had
not intervened, probably the placing of me in that
particular office would have been really putting a
square peg in a square hole—(laughter and cheers)
—but I will give you my reasons, if you will have
them, for declining to accept the honour offered to
me ; an honour which I beg to assure you is not a
matter of indifference to me, and which would have
been peculiarly inviting to me if I had been a man
of ambitious character : because, taking it for all in
all, the probability is it would have been the first
instance in which a man literally springing imme-
diately from among you, and a man of business, had
been offered a seat in the Cabinet. Neither office,
then, nor any of its concomitants, could have been
indifferent to me, but I felt that it was a matter
calling for my anxious consideration, all the more
in proportion to the inducements which might have
been held out to me in taking a particular course.
I went to London, and before calling upon or seeing
any one I thought it better to wait upon Lord Pal-
merston and express to him exactly what were my
views on the subject. I may tell you as frankly as
I spoke to him what passed between us. To Lord
Palmerston I stated my case thus :—I have been for
10 or 15 years the systematic assailant of what I
believe to be your foreign policy. I thought it
warlike, not calculated to promote peace or har-
mony between this country and other States. I
explained to him precisely what my feelings
had been in those words. I said—" It is quite
possible I may have been mistaken in all this.
When a man takes an idea up and pursues it
for 10 or 12 years, very likely his first impression
may have been exaggerated." But I put it to
Lord Palmerston, and I put it to you, whether,
having recorded those•opinions, it was fit and be-
coming in me to step from an American steamer
into his Cabinet, and there and then for the first
time, arter having received at his hands a post of
high honour and great emolument, to discover I
had undergone a change in my opinions, and whe-
ther I should not have been open to great miscon-
struction by the public at least if I had adopted
such a proceeding. Gentlemen, I candidly confess
to you that would have been a course inconsistent
with my own self-respect. (Cheers.) I don't in-
tend to dwell on that subject because it would be
egotistical on my part. I don't mean to claim to
myself any more merit than belongs to me, and I
do not wish my abnegation in any way to reflect on
those who took a different line. I must frankly
' tell you that the course I followed had reference
solely to my own strong impressions. As I told
the gentlemen who met me at Liverpool, it was a
question Which I alone could decide, because I alone
was conversant with the extent of my own convic-
tions with respect to Lord Palmerston's policy ; I
was bound to be faithful to those convictions; the
more especially so considering the temptations
which his very magnanimous offer presented to me.
While, therefore, my own feelings prevented me
from taking the step which so many of you here
wished me to take, and which so many friends
in Liverpool and Lancashire generally pressed upon
me, I am still very glad to find that my friend, Mr.
Gibson, felt himself able to accept office under Lord
Palmerston. I was also pleased to see that my
friend, Mr. Gilpin, had taken a subordinate office
where he will have plenty of work ; for if I tell
you candidly I like to find men cropping up, as it
were, from the lower strata, who have laboured as
hard as any of you, and I am glad, therefore, to
see a man stepping into public office from the very
ranks of the people, because we want to show that
you need not be born in certain regions in
order to serve the Queen. (Cheers and laughter.)
It is- not necessary I hope for me to add
that I had no personal feeling whatever in the
course I took with regard to Lord Palmer-
ston's offer. If I had cherished any personal hos-
tility towards that noble lord—which I have never
done, for he is of that happy nature that he cannot
create a personal enemy—his kind and manly offer
would at once have disarmed me. I think lam
made of very yielding materials when anything like
conciliation presents itself, but I really had no such
feeling, and I should be sorry if it were thought
I had, and if in any of my attacks upon our foreign
policy I have said anything personally offensive to
any public man I very much regret it. (Cheers.)
I have now only to add that I trust to your kind]
and indulgent interpretation of the course which I
have felt it my duty to pursue. (Loud cheers, amid
which the hon. gentleman resumed his seat.)
Mr. Tilos. ASHWORTH and Mr. JACOB BRIGHT
seconded the next resolution—namely,
• "That this meeting having heard from Mr. Cobden the
reasons which induce him to decline the office which a
offered him in the present Cabinet, expresses its entire i
satis-
faction with the course ho has pursued, and
sees
honour
n• tan-
other proof of the clear judgment and the. perfect
and disinterestedness by which his public life has been dis-
tinguished."
which was carried unanimously.
Mr. W. SHARMAN CRAwFORD then moved :
" That in the opinion of this meetingtheseqtutleesmtioennto
Par-
liamentary reform presses
.for-immediate ;f that
without reform elections will continue to. be corrupt and
Parliament will be unfaithful in its trus.t, that so long as
one-sixth only of the tidbit male population of the kingdom
is entrusted with the franchise, that a small minority, pro-
bably not more than one-sixth of the existing electors re-
turn a majority of the Members of
Parliament
that the
coercion of electors is the rule in counties, and the co
li expenditure of money,p_
_on of them, through a profligate
the practice in boroughs, and that atr-uly liberal and honest
Administration is impossible ; that this maeting recom-
mends all liberal and free constituencies to support the pre-
sent Government through their representatives only nlyonco-
dition that the question of Parliamentary reform shall be
dealt with in an earnest and geer,ous spirit at
the opening
of the next session a Parliament.,
Me. F. CROSSLEY, M.P., seconded the resolution,
which was supported by Mr. Leathern, M.P.
Mr. BRIGHT then addressed the assemblage in
support of the resolution. The hon. gentleman
said--I am, know, not only one of the as you popu-
lation but one of the constituency of Rochdale, and
it is therefore no intrusion on my part to come for-
ward to
-night to state publicly how much I partici-
pate in the rejoicing and exultation with which we
have met together. I shall not indulge in any
laboured panegyric on the character .of your repre-
sentative. I have had the great privilege of being
his political associate and his personal friend for
nearly 20 years, and if there is any man in England
that I would wish to call my representative more
than any other, I have the gratification to-night of
being represented by that man. (Loud cheers.)
From 1832 up to this time the constituency of
Rochdale has wisely and honourably, in. my opi-
nion, exercised its power. For nearly 50 years no
candidate on the Liberal side has been required or
expected, or even permitted to engage in any per-
sonal canvass, nor has any Liberal candidate been
rcquired or expected to pay one single farthing to-
wards the expenses of his election. (Cheers.) So
far as I am aware there has been nothing done by
any leading man on our side in the contests which
have taken place which we are afraid to bring to
the light of day, or which lies with any weight on
our character and consciences. If this description
could be extended to all the constituencies of the
United Kingdom bow honourable—how glorious—
how isuequalled oar position in the eyes of the
whole world ! but when we look outside this little
circle, what do we. find?—not that there may not
be other constituencies of equally high character,
but, taking a general view of the constituencies of
the United Kingdom, I conic to this melancholy

conclusion tnat if there be 50 boroughs in the
United Kingdom of equally high character with
this, their representatives, when they go to the
House of Commons, are met by an overwhelming
majority of members who can sa for those who
sent them there very little of what I have said
of tho electors of this town. (Cheers.) The
resolution which has been read to you tells
you that only one man in six of all
your adult countrymen haS a vote. Why, then, go
to Italy with your sympathy ? Why ever declaim
against Austria ? Why spend years in abusing
Russia ? Why be constantly finding fault with the
King of Naples, when five out of six of your own
countrymen have no more legal power over the acts
of their own Government than they would have if
they were Austrians or Russians, or subjects of the
King of Naples ? (Cheers.) And yet they call this
a representative system whichhas worked well, and
it is called setting class against class to tell the five
men that they have no idea and the sixth that he
is bamboozled and jockeyed till his vote is of no use
to him. (Cheers.) The votes of this sixth part are
distributed over the counties and the boroughs,
large and small. Look at this last election. I might
mention previous elections as illustrations of my
argument, but I will confine myself to the last. At
the last election you had a tremendous fight, more
determined and more costly on the part of the Con-
servative party than at any election for a great
many years before. A week after Parliament was
assembled it resolved, by a majority of 13, that a
Tory Goveimment should remain no longer in office ;
but do you believe that that majority of 13 in the
House of Commons represented the balance of feel-
ing in the country against the Tory party ? Take
the test of the newspapers. If you can do so, get a
list, a statement of the circulation of the newspapers
of the Tory party and of the Liberal party. The
Tory paper, so far as the news it gives, must be, and
for aught I know is, just as good as the Liberal
newspaper. It gives the same accounts of all the
unhappythings that take place with regard to crime
—it gives the same births, deaths and marriages—
(laughter)—it gives the same Parliamentary reports
—it gives the same accounts of all those wonders
that happen periodically to fill up newspapers, that
people not at all acquainted with them fancy would
not be otherwise filled up—(laughter)—but if you
do this you will come to this conclusion, not-
withstanding a Tory paper may be just as good
a newspaper as any other, yet there is something
or other in it which the majority of the people
dolet like. (Laughter.) They do not like to read
Tory newspapers or Tory leading articles ; they are
not very logical, they are not very palatable any-
way ; there is a sort of mustiness about them which
the people do not at all like. (Laughter.) It
always seems to me very much like eating some-
thing that is sadly over-kept. (Great laughter.)
That is precisely the feeling which the people of
England have with regard to the leading articles of
Tory newspapers. I have no doubt many a man
who reads what I have said will say, " Well, now,
that is just what I thought of them, but I did not
know how so correctly to express it." (Laughter.)
Well, but if you find throughout the country that
for every single copy of a newspapersupporting the
political principles of Lord Derby's party, there
are 10 or 20 or 50 copies of newspapers which
oppose the political principles of that party,—then
I say it is not an, unfair test with regard to the pre-
ponderance of opinion throughout the country as
respects Tory politics, in opposition to politics
which are not Tory. (Hear.) How are elections
managed ? My hon. friend the member for the
West Riding, who represents the largest, and
perhaps the freest county constituency in the king-
dom, could tell of things done even among his con-
stituents, and we could tell of things done in this
county, but if you look over all the counties of the
United Kingdom you find there are very few con-
tests in them. Somehow or other the event which
causes such tumult and excitement in our towns
passes over our counties like a Sabbath day, or any
other constantly-recurring event, and nobody seems
excited by or takes any notice of it. (Hear, hear.)
What is the reason ? Do you believe all the county
constituencies are of the same opinion P Is every
man in any county ? In the north of this county,
where there has not been a contest for 100 years, do
you think they will agree in opinion ? Do you
think they do in any other county in England
where contests have been so rare? Do not you
think there would appear to be the same difference
of opinion among farmers as other people if there
were an opportunity of showing it ? Is it not odd
that, though they agree in politics they do not agree
about anything else ? I will undertake to say that
you will not find two farmers agree as to the par-
ticular weather which would suit farmers at any
particular moment, they cannot agree on the pros-
pects of the market, they cannot agree about any-
thing but politics, that is who shall represent the
county ; in this they agree perfectly, because they
do not give the least care about it. (Hear.) In
these small boroughs, with very few exceptions, the
influence of some great man of pecuniary power,
some rich man, carries the election. The small
boroughs are merely little arenas in which rich
men go to fight a battle which costs them from
£l,OOO to £1,500. Somebody loses; somebody
wins. One man is an ex-M.P., another malt is an
M.P. We delude ourselves if we believe that:this
is a system of real representation. In the large
boroughs this corruption is found very rarely to
prevail. Where voters arc numerous, so that no
man and no clique of men can affect the indepen-
dence of the voters, where no small sums of money
nor any considerable sum of money can affect the
return, there you have no charge of corruption, and
from these boroughs, with one or two exceptions,
chiefly where old freemen have prevailed, you have
no election petitions. Now a Parliament elected as
the Parliament of our day is, by compulsion almost
universally throughout the counties, and by cor-
rupt practices to a large extent in a vast number
of the boroughs—l say that a Parliament of that
kind can be no real representation, that it intends
no real reform, and that it is not a worthy and use-
ful instrument for the Government of a great coun-
try like this. The Times tells us that there has
been a great deal of bribery and corruption on our
side, and I don't in the least mean to say there was
not, but it must be recollected that at every gene-
ralh election the Tories go into Parliament wit
probably 200 seats uncontested. The contests. are
all in the boroughs. They go intolestsheelviagribiolue,s
abnod-
roughs with candidates, more or l
moneyandwhnbntkhethteimmewdhrean hewtanestruggle s
egee t
as
NinN TV
aiatrnhl 1 3,
to ac
who is known to be in a certain minority, as
far as the real opinion of the constituency goes,
running away with the election by the dint of the
corruption which he has introduced into the
borough. The majority of the House of Commons
does not care about the system of corruption,
because it all tends to throw political power into
the hands of the great families and the rich. They
will leave it, unless checked, I am satisfied, because
they know that it is an instrument by which the
rich can maintain their power over the Govern-
ment of the country. But, of course, there are the
commissions ; no doubt they are pleasant things for
lawy( rs, and I am not prepared to say that they are
absolutely useless, because I think that every
ex-
posure of cases of this kind does some good; that,
I believe, is all the good which ever yet came from
any commission to inquire into the corruption in
tahney
questionP arl a m Parliamentary at ?re
bb
ao rl
loout g;
if th. Ihewll ballot n o
twge roe i
nn
ot ot
so good as we say it is, and I believe that our op-
ponents would never have so deadly an hostility to
it, and with a mode of election found to answer
admirably in every other country in which it has
been tried, I am not disposed tor
believe the same
plan could fail even in the country in which we
live. (Hear, hear.) Now, the general result of
our system is exactly what has been described, a
costliness which has no parallel in the world, and
an absence of responsibility which I believe exists
neither u,nder the absolutism of Russia or the re.
public of the United States. (Applause.) Why is it
that in this country so much should be spent, and so
much wrung from the industry of the people in
taxes ? Are we in this country difficult to govern ?
Look at the towns and cities ; I undertake to say,
that if you call our excellent mayor as a witness,
he will admit that no population that he is ac-
quainted with is more submissive to law and more
in favour of public order,than that over which he
has the happiness and honour at this moment to
preside. (Hear.) Tako all the boroughs and cities
of the United Kingdom, and you will find that the
chief magistrates would tell you the same tale.
The government of all these towns and all their
vast populations are entrusted to the mayor,
aldermen, burgesses, the magistrates, the local
authorities of the place, and they find the govern-
ment perfectly easy to manage, and we know
what the spread and sparse and separated popula-
tion of our rural districts are, they
are docile enough
and do not require great power or great fore° for
their government. Then what has Government to
do ? What have the 13 or 15 men who scramble
into Cabinets, what has Parliament to hoar P It
has two things to do to satisfy the opinion and
wants of the country. One is the dispensation of
justice impartially at home, and the other is to
take such care as may ho necessary, according to
the circumstances of the period, and any opinion
soyeitndus trious,
of the country, and to defend the country fromour an
attack from abroad. (Cheers.) This is all the Go-
oy
m.
sopeople,v
and
religious that we
Go-
vernment, rr nn
neenn tt i
with
tt she oathisc established
Christianity
moral,
le
to all the world in
uson
di nesrttiankeetetdo,
this inviolate island, against which no country in
of Lords, and this
the world has ever dared in earnest to lift a finger
House of Lords that sits in the House of
hear)
—this House
second
Commons, takes from the
hea r ,
industry of the people

£70,000,000 annually, that is 50s. a-head for every
man, woman, and child in the kingdom. I ask, is
it necessary that £70,000,000 a-year should be
taken for the government of this peaceable coml•
try, or for its defence against I know not what na.-
tions, for I have seen no earnest attempt—there is
almost only one recorded in history—
to in-
vade or attack this island ? Now, if I did not think
a Parliamentary Reform should enforce a, greati:
responsibility in the House of Commons and th
Cabinet, I would not go across the road to ask for
it, and if I thought that after a Parliamentary
Reform which should give a real hold into the
hands of the peaple upon the national expenditure
and the national policy we were to continue mount-
ing up tit expenditure from £70,000,000, as .1t
now is, to some higher but indefinite sum, I would
not spend my breath or my labour in asking my
countrymen to obtain such a measure ; but I should
think it a far wiser course to pack up every'
thing I had and remove myself and my family
to to a country where the people did not only
pretend to be but actually were some
degree sane. (Laughter.) The Government tha.t,
diture
we have now is one which, in all probability, will
be a considerable improvement upon the last;
_itts,i
indeed, it may very easily be—(o, laugh)—and I
will not be more difficult for it to be an imPre"-
ment also upon the Whig Governments whichre:
ceded the Ministry of Lord Derby. There are sour
men in this Government not only in whose sent!:
meats, but in whose sincerity and conscientious"
ness, I should be disposed to put some reliance;
but recollect they came into power with a
majority
of only 13 ; indeed, it is not now 13, for the whele,
of the election committees have not decided, and
has so happened by some accident or blunder tna!
t
the assault hitherto has fallen almost all on on!!
side. The majority has therefore diminished to
seven or eight, which is almost no majority at all,
or only just better than a minority or an equal
number. How is this Government to last ? °PP
thing I can promise, that if it is like the Whig
Governments Governments which preceded Lord Derby it
Whig
Governments last. The power which put out those Wing
Governments can put out this one. The represen-
tatives of the free and large boroughs of this king-
door hold the balance fairly between the two par-
ties, and I am sure that their power will be threw'
into a scale adverse to this Government before long,
if it walks in the footsteps of its recent Whig PI:
decessors. Having no reckonable majority in -
House of Commons it will probably before. lot/
have recourse again to the constituencies. It Will
depend much on their faithfulness to the principles
on which they were understood to accept offiee,•
Take the question of Reform. Lord John Russell:.
just before the dissolution, I think the very night
when the dissolution was announced, explained
what in his opinion if he were a Minister wouldbe
the measure of Reform he would be willing to pru".
pose to Parliament. He said he should pr.opose.
with regard to the suffrage that every occupier a
a house of the value of £lO in counties and every
occupier of the value of £6 rental in boroughs
should be enfranchised. Now, I am not going to
argue that this is enough or that it is not
enough. I am merely "stating what Lord J. Ens-
sell said—what the leading man on the side of Re;
form and a member of the aristocracy of England
pledged himself to bring before Parliament and the
people of England before the late general election;
No doubt, there are members of this Government
who think that it is rather an extensive measure;
there are members who will endeavour to persuade,
Lord J. Russell that such a measure is not desired
or necessary; if there be such, I beg to give thew
this warningthey will not only fail of bringing
forward a measure at all satisfactory to the Refer°
party throughout the country, but they will stamp
upon the Government a trait of treachery which 1t
cannot survive. (Cheers.) Let them rely, if t'ue-1,
are a Liberal Government, on liberal measures, on
liberal principles, and on a liberal people. We are
not asking for extreme measures ; we have been '
a patient people, too patient under the insults an
under the privations which we have endured. They,
have no right to say that the man who asks that
every occupier of a £lO house in a county, or a Xi,
hous3 in a borough, should be enfranchised is a man
asking for extreme measures. If that be extreme'
then Parliament is extreme, representation is sr.
surd, and the sooner it is done away, probably, II;
better. (Cheers.) We who live among the people
know perfectly well that with a constituency lie
that, with a better distribution of, seats, With ,-
establishment of vote by ballot, we should have,:
Parliament more responsible to public sentimenl
more truthful to its trust, more anxious to husban":
the public resources, and more capable to conduct
the government of the country with honour and to
the common interest of all the people. (Cheereq
Now, let us turn, as we are turning, from the fright-
ful themes which have been before us of late—fret
all the pictures and accounts of carnage. I say
not who is guilty. I point not to'the roan, or
men, but I hope the time is coming when the finger
of all mankind and the fierce eye of all human na-
ture will be turned in condemnation against those
criminals who thus destroy human life. (Cheers.)
Let us turn from these terrible scenes which have
filled the columns of our newspapers, and look
at home, where we have so much to do.
Are we not a people here hard working from morn-
ing to night, from January to December, almost
from our cradles to our graves ? Have we not
among ourselves much to instruct, much to help'
much claim upon justice, with a fair and free field
of exertion and competition besides. Let us attend
to all these, to our home affairs, for here lies our
interest. Our people have been patient in suffer-
ing, they have been heroic in labours and in strug-
gles, and I count the ambition of public life to be
of a low and worthless kind if it be not an ambi-
t
noblehsiins
epeoplesseats
thamid
n a home.
oumeetingd
tion to devote every faculty we possess to the true
e
interests, the permanent welfare, and real eleva-
selh
cheer"
in.
After a
e
g
hen.t°nogentleman
that
gre
formal t and
resumed
business some
rated, the proceedings • concluding with the usual
vote of thanks to the chairman.

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