The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-02 00:00:00

scattered dependencies which suggested to Daniel
'Webster the noble figure America has enshrined in
her classics will be united to the mother country by
the electric bond, and that it may be in the power
of the Sovereign and her Minister, or of the mer-
chant on " Change," to hold instantaneous con-
verse with all or any of the races, nations, and
tribes which yield obedience to the mild sceptre of
the good Queen Victoria. (Loud cheers.) I pray
that hereafter no jealousies may be allowed to create
a wall of separation between England and America
—that all the ill-feeling that has been engendered
between the two countries may he buried so deep
in the Atlantic that the ingenuityof man shall never
invent a grapple to drag it to the surface, and that
the only rivalry' between them shall be the rivalry
of co-workers in efforts to promote peace, industry,
and commercialintercaurse, and to extend the bless-
ings of civil and religious liberty throughout the
world. (Loud cheers.)
Sir S. NORTIICOTE, Bart., M.P., Sscrstary of
State for India, adiressed the company, in a speech
of considerable length, respecting the toast of "The
Peace and Commercial Prosperity of Great Britain
and the United States," which he proposed.
Mr. BRIGHT, who, upon rising, was received with
continued cheering, sail—Li attempting to respond
to the sentiment that has been submitte 1 to us, I
have a certain anxiety with regard to a mysterious
box which is on these premises, containing an in-
strument by which I am told that every word that
we utter to-night, be it wise or be it foolish, will be
transmitted with more than lightning speed to the
dwellers on that portion of the world's surface
which we describe as beyond the setting sun. (A
Voice—" Speak out.") But we are so entirely
agreed that there seems no possibility that anything
which can be said to-night that any one who hears
it can contradict, that perhaps we may avoid the
charge of saying anything that is foolish or
hasty. Sir Stafford Northcote has sub-
mitted this sentiment —" To the peace and pros-
perity of Great Britain and the United States ;"
which means, I presume, that we are here in favour
of a growing and abundant trade with America,
and at the same time have an unbroken friendship
with the people of that country. With one heart
and voice, I presume we accept that sentiment—
(great cheeriug)—and without any fear of contra-
diction we assert that we are on that point the true
representatives of the unanimous feeling of the
three kingdoms. (Cheers.) There are those—l
for there are cavillers and
meet them frequently,
critics everywhere—there are those who condemn
the United States, and sometimes with something
like scorn and bitterness, because at this moment
the people of the United States are bearing heavy
taxation, and because they have a ruinous tariff ;
but if these persons were to look at our own posi-
tion a few years ago they would see how much al-
lowance is to be made for others. (Cheers.)
During the years which passed between 1790 and
1815, for nearly twenty-five-years, the Govern-
ment and people of this country were engaged in
a war of a most terrific character with a neighbour-
ing State. The result of that war was that which
is, I believe, the result of every war, enormous ex-
penditure, great loans, heavy taxation, growing
debts, and, of course, suffering among the people
who have to bear the weight of those burdens ; and
for a space of 25 years, from 1815 to 1811, there
was scarcely anything done by the Government of
this country to remedy the gross and scandalous
inequalities of taxation, and to adopt a better sys-
tem in apportioning the necessary burdens of the
State through the various classes of the people.
Well, since 1811, as we all know, we have seen a
revolution in this country in regard to taxation and
finance, and I need not remind you that that has
been mainly done by the teachings of one who
is not with us to-night, but who would have re-
joiced, as we now rejoice, had the great event
which we are here to celebrate taken place in
his lifetime—he whose spirit and he whose mind
will, I believe, for years to come stimu-
late and elevate the minds of the majo-
rity of his countrymen. This revolution of
which I speak is not confined to this country, be-
cause, notwithstanding what we now see in Ame-
rica, at no remote period, I believe, it will embrace
within its own blessing and influence all the civilisa-
tion of the globe. Now the United States has had
for four years an appalling struggle and disaster.
It was a time in some sort of unspeakable grandeur,
and it has this great result, that, as it has sustained
the life of a great nation, it has given universal and
permanent freedom over the whole continent of
North America. (Loud cheers.) And as was the
case with our war, so with the American war : it
has been attended with enormous cost, with great
loans, with grievous taxation, and with a tariff
which iutelligent men will not long submit to ; but
at this moment and for some time the wounds
so inflicted are healing, freedom is secured, and the
restoration of the Union surmounts the difficulties
that have interposed. It is being gradually and cer-
tainly accomplished. (Cheers.) I conclude that such
a nation as the United States, such a people, so free
and so unshackled, will not be twenty-five years
before they remedy the evils of the unequal bur-
dens of their taxation and their tariff. (Hear, hear.)
They will discover, in much less time than we dis-
covered, that as a great nation they must advance
in freedom of industry and commerce ; and they
will find, further, that this freedom, like all other
kinds of freedom, is for the general good. This sen-
timent speaks of unbroken friendship. May I say
now, in the interests of calmness and of reason,
that, with regard to the United States, both our
writers and our people, and especially the more in-
fluential classes of our people, have greatly erred.
We here forget that after all we are but one nation,
having two Governments. We are of the same
noble and heroic race. Half the English family is
on this side of the Atlantic in its ancient home, and
the other half, for which we have not room here, I
has settled on the American continent. It is so with
thousands.of families throughout this country. No
member of my family has actually emigrated to
America for 40 years, but yet I have more blood rela-
tions in the United States than I have within the limits
of the :United Kingdom ; and that, I believe, is
true of thousands in this country. He is an enemy
of our English race, and indeed an enemy of the
human race, who puts the slightest obstacle that
shall interfere with the permanent peace and friend-
ship between all the members of our great English-
speakiag family. (Great applause.) One other
sentence upon that point. No man will dare to
say that the people of the United States or the
people of the United Kingdom are dot in favour of
peace. Whence, then, could there come a chance
of war? The fact is, in dealing with nations we
do not deal on the basis of morality which we apply
to individuals. One hundred years—two hundred
years ago almost every gentleman went about car-
rying deadly weapons. There were duels and vio-
lence, and fatal encounters constantly between men
of our order in life, and in the newspapers and
magazines of that period you will find constant
reference to events of that kind. Now nothing of
that kind happens except by some lamentable acci-
dent. We have great fleets and a great army like
the other nations of Europe, for the very moment
anything happens to create the slightest dispute be-
tween any of those nations the question is, How is
the army ? How is the navy ? Have you ships ?
Have you men ? Have you armaments equal to
those of your imagined opponent ? Instead of turn-
ing at the moment any little dispute arises to the
question of armaments, if our dispositions were
really those of peace instead of war, we should turn
to courtesy and to negotiation, to' arbitration, and
to settlement. (Cheers.) We do not in the
slightest degree lead men from the hostile passions
of war. But leaving for a moment—leaving alto-
gether, indeed, thesentiment and the toast which have
been submitted to us, you will permit me to turn more
immediately to time triumphs which have been
achieved, and which are the cause of this banquet. I
rejoice very much at this banquet, because we are met
to do honour to a man of rare qualities, who has con-
ferrei upon us—and I believe upon mankind—
rare services. I have known Mr. Field for a good
many years, and although I dare say that to any
sailor who may hear me it is not too much, but to
me it seems a gaol deal, Mr. Cyrus Field, in the
prosecution of this great work, not being a sailor,
has crossed the Atlantic more than forty times, and