The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-09-06 00:00:00

CAMBRIDGE ELECTION.

C, Sept. 2.
To-morrow and the next day areAMBRIDGE
looked for with the
greatest anxiety throughout this town. The business of the
nomination commences at 12 o'clock. The- hustings are
already erected on Parker's-piece. The betting on the can-
didates is no longer with seven to four, or three to two, in
favour of Gibson, but even. The pledged-promised voters
on either side are to a man almost the same number—say
about 700—to either party, and there are about 100 others as
yet undecided. The whigs look very blue, and to-day, as the
rain was pouring down btween 11 and 12, their canvassing
parties seemed as dull and as drizzling as the drenched
knights of the Ardrossan tournament. The conservatives,
on the contrary, go about right merrily, with the looks of
winning men.
I said all along that Mr. Manners Sutton was getting on
quietly, but well. Every hour which brings him nearer to
the day of battle tends to prove the truth of my prediction.
lam confident that he is to be the winning man. Certainly.
if he is beaten, it will only be by a majority of three or four,
• THE NOMINATION.—On Wednesday morning, after the
usual preliminary proceedings had been gone through, the
Mayor appeared in front of the hustings, and called upon
the electors to propose such candidates as they thought pro-
per to represent their interests in parliament.
Mr. Sutton and Mr: Gibson (the two candidates) having
been proposed and seconded, the former immediately pre-
sented himself, and spoke as follows :
The Hon. H. M. SUTTON then came forward, and, after
the usual groaning and cheering, said he would at the outset
promise what the rev. gentleman had promised, to abstain
from anything whatever that partook of personality. He
had nothing whatever to do with his honourable opponent as
an individual, but into his principles both lie and the elec-
tors had a right to inquire. To these he (Mr. Sutton) was
decidedly opposed, and he, of course, had a right to convass
them. Before, however, he did so, he would allude to one
observation of the rev. gentleman, who had proposed his
hon. opponent. On a former occasion, when he was first
introduced, to the notice of the electors, he had been met,
both abroad and at the hustings, with a cry from the grey-
headed sages among his opponents of " Lord ! what a boy
he is ! " To-day, however, the antiquity of his intercourse
with the electors had been spoken of by the rev. professor,
who had thought proper to designate him as •f the old can-
didate." (Cheers.) Here, however, the change of senti-
ment on the part of his opponents had not ended, for, as if
to set all their former objections against him on the ground
of his youth in array against their consistency (loud cheers)
they had solicited, before they solicited the hon. gentleman
who then stood before them, a gentleman who was actually
three years younger than he (Mr. Sutton) was at the time
they called out " Lord ! how young he is !" The rev. gen-
tleman said, also, that he had had the advantage of having
been before known to the electors, and having made many
friends. This he was happy to say, was perfectly true, and
another advantage had "resulted to him which the rev. gentle-
man had not mentioned, it was this—his principles had been
known as well as his person to the electors for three years„
and he now came forward to them the same man with th
same principles. (Great cheering and groaning, and cries
of " Ipswich ! Gibson.") Farther than this, though he
had been told that there was not a universal wish for him to
be their representative—and such unanimity was a thing not
always to be met with—it was not often that all the electors
polled for the same candidate, though a case had recently
occurred where the same candidate had polled all the elec-
tors of one borough in the short space of two years. (Great
cheering and groaning, and cries of "Go to Ipswich, Gibson")
[Mr. Sutton was here proceeding, when some one shouted
" Bribery," to which that gentleman immediately respond-
ed, by saying. " As to that, I have only to declare on my
honour as a gentleman, I know nothing whatever of the mat-
ter."] (Cheers.) Mr. Sutton then proceeded to say, that
he would now call the attention of the electors to two or three
allusions of the Rev. Professor, and first of all to the charge
that the Conservatives were the opponents of national edu-
cation. (Cries of " They are.") Such was not the case,
and he for one, so far from opposing education, was as anxious
and zealous as any man could be for the universal spread of
education. (Cheers.) To the particular system, however,
propounded by the Whig Government, he was hostile, and he
would tell them why. He considered that a system of cen-
tralization was incompatible with the liberties of Englishmen,
and the Whig scheme having centralization for its base, met
therefore with hostility. He objected, also, to place the
working of any system of the kind in the hands of four mem-
ber of the Executive ; and last of all, he was decidedly hostile
to the principle that allowed a national system of education
to be superintended by any one professing the Roman Ca-
tholic religion, and there was one of the Lords of the Trea-
sury now of that persuasion. (Groans and cheering.) He
would, however, go one step further, and would say that he
did not object to the Government plan of education because
there was religion in it, but because of the impracticability
of having the creeds of all sects taught by one schoolmaster !
(Great cheering, and then a cry of " You are an enemy to
inquiry.") He had heard some one say, be was an enemy to
inquiry—he thanked that person, be he who he might, for he
gave him an opportunity to deny it, and at the same time to
add, that though he did not object to the freest inquiry, he
did object to that which went to the extent of undermining
the foundations to see whether they were sound ! (Cheers.)
With regard to the cern laws, he should have to refer to
some statements made by the hon. gentleman opposed to
him, and as he referred to a report of his statements in a
in a paper friendly to his interest, there could be no doubt
that they were not misstated. Here he found the hon. gent.
to have said—first, that he was for a fixed duty; and then
that he was hostile to the corn laws. It was difficult from
this contrariety to make out what were the real sentiments
of his opponent, but as he was opposed to both propositions,
he would show the electors the insuperable objections there
were to both. (Groans and cheers.) He was opposed to
both, not because he did not wish to see bread cheap—not
because he was opposed to the poor man living with all pos-
sible comfort, but because by the fixed duty, instead of in
times of scarcity getting wheat imported at a mere nominal
duty, as was now the case, be there little or much in the
country—let the misery of the people be ever so great—the
same fixed duty must be paid. (Laughter and cheers.) He
objected to a free trade in corn, because it would throw a
vast quantity of land out of cultivation, and also because the
very fact of throwing land out of cultivation carried with it
the consequent fact, that it also threw men out of employ-
ment. (Uproar.) Another reason why he wished to pre-
serve the corn laws was, that he was patriotic enough to wish
preserve his country (cheers) ; for if they depended for a
supply of the staff of life on a foreigner, that dependance
would be used against them iu the time of trouble, and when
our poor were famishing we should call in vain upon the
foreign grower, if he were hostile to us, to give us bread.
One wrong impression he would now remove, if possible,
and that was the impression of poor men that if bread were
cheaper they would be benefitted. This hope was raised by
the manufacturers of Manchester and other places; but it
was contrary to the usual course of events—it was contrary
to what the workmen knew of these men, to suppose the con-
sequence would be other than that after bread was cheaper
these masters would reduce the wages, and themselves pocket
the advantage. (Cheers.) There was now one other point
to which he would allude, and that was the ballot. He op-
posed the measure on two grounds. (" Three" from the
crowd.) No, only two. It would not answer the end pro-
posed by those who favoured it—it would not tend to
secrecy ; and it. besides, had a tendency that all honest men
should oppose—it was the germ from which would spring the
greatest immorality. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer,
who was decidedly the most popular candidate who bad ap-
peared for the town of Cambridge, had declared on these
hustings, in a speech that he wished he could rival, that he
was opposed to it, and that he was sure it would not answer
the purposes for which it was intended—and the first, the
most important of those purposes, was secrecy ! He was
then going on to show that the ballot would necessarily be
productive of the greatest immorality by inducing one conti-
nued habit of lying and deceit, when he was interrupted, and
said he would not trespass further upon their patience, as he
felt how little depended on what was then said • but he
trusted they should have to-morrow what was desired by the
mayor—" a clear stage and no favour," and then he was
confident of success. He then earnestly implored his friends
to be early at the poll, and.if they did this, he was sure they
would be not only triumphant, but win the day by an over-
whelming majority. (Great cheering, mixed of course by
hostile expressions.)
Mr. GIBSON then presented himself ; and was received
with enthusiastic cheers from the radical party, and groans
and hisses from the opposite side. His exposition of his
political creed showed plainly enough that he was prepared
to "go the whole hog" with the democratic party. He
abused the Church and the clergy, and lavished his eulo-
giurns on the Roman Catholics and their religion. On the
subject of national education he was particularly diffusive,
and, at the same time extremely lax and latitudinarian in, his
views.

The MAYOR decided that the show of bands, as far as he
judge, was in favour of Mr. Gibson, when a poll was de-
manded on behalf of Mr. Sutton. We hope to give the
result in a second edition.