The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-28 00:00:00

MR. MATHESON'S ANSWER.

Mr. Meers, Chairman, Mr. Fitze, Secretary, and
all my kind and warm-hearted Friends,— How or
where can I find language sufficiently expressive to
convey to you the fervour of my gratitude for the too
flattering address and testimonial which you are
pleased to offer me. To deserve and to enjoy the
good opinion of his constituents, ought to be the aim,
and may well be considered the honest ambition of
every representative of the people. flow gratified
then must I feel to be thus honoured by no less than
two thousand of your number, men whom I know to
be distinguished equally by the independence of their
political principles, as by their intelligence, industry,
and highly respectable bearing in every relation of
life ; for to say the truth, there is no body of men
whom I have seen so much reason to esteem, and
with whom my intercourse has been productive of so
much satisfaction, as those I have now the pride and
pleasure to address.
This testimony of your goodwill towards me is
the more gratifying from the manner in which it
has been arranged ; for, first, it is a source of satis-
faction to me to know that none of the contributors
have been put to inconvenience by the share they
have borne in it; and, secondly, the large number of
those who have joined in presenting me this gift is
the best possible proof of the unanimity of feeling
which suggested it, and the harmony of opinion
which it is designed and intended to convey.
I thank you all most cordially and sincerely for
the gift itself, and assure you that I shall preserve it
with great care, as one of the most agreeable me-
mentos I could have of a period of my life spent in
a position to which I was elected by the constituency
of Ashburton, and in which, while I have endea-
dutiea, my conduct has hap-
pilyv ur
beenendea-
voured to discharge
honoured my
w with your unqualified appro-
bation.

After the manner in which you have expressed
yourselves, however, on several topics of public inte-
rest in the flattering address accompanying your
highly valued gift, I cannot content myself with
merely. offering my thanks, but will embrace the op-
portunity which the occasion so appropriately offers,
to advert, very briefly, to one or two of the questions
of public policy which it will be the duty of the Le-
gislature to consider; and which it will be the inte-
rest of all the constituencies of the kingdom rightly
to appreciate, and temperately, yet firmly and vigo-
rously, to support.
First in the order of necessity and importance, is
that which you have touched upon in your ad-
dress, namely, Free Trade, meaning thereby the
abolition of all merely protective duties ; and I
consider your advocacy of it as the strongest
proof of your enlightenment ; seeing that, although
long since inculcated by philosophers and men of
learning, it is only very recently and tardily that it
has been able to overcome the old interest-begotten
prejudices that have unfortunately so long swayed the
bulk of mankind. So prejudiced against free trade
were the artisans of this country at a very recent
period, that it was impossible for the Minister to pro-
pose the minutest abatement of protection on the
most insignificant article without exciting such a
violent clamour and resistance as it was for a time
impossible to withstand. When we consider how
powerful is the influence of large pecuniary interests
to obscure the reason and cloud the judgments of men,
we can hardly wonder that there should be some
parties alarmed at what seems likely to injure
their local and peculiar sources of profit. But to
all other minds not so fettered, the question of free
trade must seem one of the easiest to understand,
and one of the most advantageous to the world at
large (but to England in particular) to carry out
as speedily and extensively as possible. When it
pleased the great Creator in his wisdom to produce
for the habitation of man a globe marked by diver-
sities of climate and yielding an infinite variety of
products, each in excess beyond the wants of the par-
ticular provinces in which they are found, he saw
fit also in his benevolence to provide the means of
barter and exchange between all the varied regions
of the earth, by the noble rivers which form the chan-
nels of conveyance for the produce of the interior to
the sea coast, and then the vast ocean as the high-
way between nations the most remote.
If the inhabitants of each of these nations were re-
stricted to the use of their own products only, and
could not interchange them with others for articles
differing from their own, it is clear that all countries
would remain in a state of comparative barbarism, as
each would be lamentably deficient in many things
essential to their happiness, at the same time that they
would be encumbered and burdened with far more
than they needed of their own peculiar products. But
if free trade be important to the world in general, it
may be called the life-blood of England especially.
In no other country of the world have there yet been i
made the same adTances n the arts and sciences as
applicable to manufacturing power. In no other
country are there the same inexhaustible beds of iron
and coal, in none the same amount of skill and indus-
try, or the same extent of capital and energy to combine
all these for the production of wealth. From all which
there results the daily and hourly manufacture of such
a vast mass of commodities as to be beyond measure
superabundant for the consumption of our own popu-
lation. And it is impossible these immense manu-
factories and the millions of our fellow-countrymen
depending upon them can be maintained; far less
can they advance as they ought, without a constant
and progressively expanding demand for their com-
modities, among the other nations of the globe. For
these reasons, and a hundred others which might be
added, I respond most cordially to your wssh that I
should sanction all measures in favour of free trade,
to which I shall always give my constant and earnest
support.
There is another topic of the highest importance in
which I am sure your sympathies will be as warmly
enlisted as mine—l mean the extension and promo-
tion of education. To those who have thought upon
the subject it must be evident that among the many
powerful causes of crime, disease, and misery still
operating in England, ignorance and intemperance
may be regarded as the most prolific—they contribute
equally to fill our prisons, our hospitals, and our
workhouses, and they materially assist to swell the