The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-06-22 00:00:00

and injustice to a large and important part of the population ?
(Hear, hear.) Gentlemen, although in a town like Liver-
pool, and upon an occasion like this, it is necessary to enter
upon these questions and discues them, yet these are not the
mein questions, as I have !Aid before, upon which the elec-
tion will turn. What are you electing your representatives
for ? Are you electing them simply for a single question ?
Will a rote upon one question be the whole amount of duty
which your representatives will have to discharge ? Is it a
single year's service they are to give you? No; you are
electing your representatives for seven years certain, or pos-
sibly for seven years, to vote on all great questions con-
cerning your deepest interests, the interests which are
dearest to your hearts, the integrity of the empire, and
the maintenance of your church—(loud and continued cheers)
—concerning the independence and dignity of the throne—
these, 1 say, are the questions for which you are electing
representatives, these are questions which must survive any
temporary agitation upon one or two commercial topics.
( Hear.) It is for these questions you are electing us, not
for those which are put in the foreground with the object,
if possible, of making the constituency forget themselves.
(Cheers.) Gentlemen, you must recollect that you have con-
demned governments for the way in which they have meddled
with the education of the people ; you have considered their
scheme for this purpose unwise and uncalled for. They
retain the same feelings, the same wishes ; the snake is only
scotched, not killed ; and if you choose to elect representa-
tives everywhere, merely because you want free trade in
corn, you will have these attempts upon your religion
and your establishment, renewed, and renewed too with
double force, if the constituency of the empire, in their search
after free trade forget higher and more enduring considera-
tions. (Cheers.)
A Voice.—Why did not the government pass these free
trade measures, when they had a working majority ? (Loud
cheers.)
Lord SANDON.—The observation of the honourable elector
is perfectly correct. If ministers really thought thee* mea-
sures so necessary to the interests of the country, how is it
that this new light has broken in upon them only at this mo-
ment ? (Hear, hear.) If they really thought these questions
of the importance which they now pretend, why did they
not bring them forward when they had some hope of power
to carry them ? (Hear, and cheers.) Why did they only
bring them forward when, according to their own confession,
with regard to the most important of them, they had not the
slightest expectation of carrying them ? (Hear.) Gentlemen,
I am really afraid of wearying you by dwelling so long upon
this subject—(cries of " go on,")—but I think I may be al-
lowed for a moment to advert to the candidates who are now
opposed to us. Of course I mean to say nothing against the
individual private character of either. With regard to the
gentleman who belongs to this town, I am sure I have not
one word to say against him : the representation of his native
town is an honour of which he is naturally ambitious, and if he
succeeds it will be rather owing to his private character than
to your approbation. With regard to the other candidate—
is he a candidate? (Laughter.) There seems to be some-
thing peculiar in the soil of Liverpool; no other soil that I
know throws up phantom candidates ;—(hear and cheers,)—
they seem to be indigenous to the soil. I worder how it fruc-
tifies so as to produce them ! (Hear, hear.) I once had
some friends at Tiverton, and I believe I hare some still. I
happen to hold in my hands an address " To the independent
electors of the borough of Tiverton," signed " Palmerston."
Is it the same candidate ? Surely the same gentleman is not
soliciting the suffrages of my old friends at Tiverton, and of
my present friends at Liverpool? (Hear, hear, and laugh-
ter.) But I suppose it is. Perhaps he thinks he has
not a very good chance here, and it is well to secure a retreat
elsewhere, in case he should be beaten. (Hear, hear.) Bu
I do not think that a gentleman who treats you in this very
cavalier manner, who does not think it worth his while to
solicit your suffrages, and who has so little hope of securing
them, that he seeks a retreat in the bosom of a small con-
stituency, is very likely to obtain your suffrages. (Hear,
hear.) Perhaps it may be as well just to see what he says
for himself. "My public principles are known to you." I
do not know how. (Cheers.) He used to oppose reform
when he served in the administration of Mr. Canning ; and
he has supported it subsequently under the auspices of very
diflerent administrations; yet he says, " my public opinions
are known to you!" He has been thirty years in public life,
and always, by some good fortune, found his principles in
accordance with those of every administration he has served!
—(hear)—a happy coincidence, but I hope the coincidence
will soon cease. (Cheers.) He says, "My public conduct
is before your eyes." Perfectly true ; I do not think the
better of it for that. What are the farther grounds upon
which he lays claim to the confidence of the people of
Tiverton? Perhaps they may be the same grounds as the
grounds upon which he seeks to have confidence re-
posed in him here. " The government," he says, " has
been obliged to appeal from a decision of the House
of Commons to that of the country." They have, at
last, and a heavy up hill game it was, but at length they
have. (Hear, hear,) " And I ask you to give your judg-
ment. We hare discharged our duty faithfully towards the
crown, and to the advantage of the country. At any rate we
have e,right to say so. We have maintained tranquility at
home' —that. I suppose, means by exciting the chartists to
insurrection " and peace abroad." That, I suppose, means
our warlike armaments in China, upon the coast of Spain,
and that little force which we have in the waters of the
Levant; and now the government tell us they have no alter-
native but to ruin the great interests of the country, or impose
fresh taxes. The noble lord then read another passage from
Lord Palmerston's address, to the effect that Ireland was for
the first time for centuries quiet and contented, and that our
colonial possessions are peaceable and secure. Now these,
his lordship proceeded, are remarkable assertions. I believe
that Mr. O'Connell is contented, not that Ireland is ; but as
he is the representative of all Ireland it is at least something
that half the assertions should be true. But, gentlemen,
when the quietness and contentment of Ireland is boasted
of, let us see what it amounts to. Does the murder of land-
lords in open day imply quiet ? (Cheers.) Do the returns
we have lately had from Tipperary speak of quiet and con-
tentment ? If so, it is that peculiar mode of expressing their
opinion which we sometimes find among our friends of
the sister country—(hear, hear)—and we are to infer
from what they say, that they mean directly the reverse.
(Hear, hear.) " Ireland is quiet and contented." If
Ireland is quiet how is it? Is it the sort of quiet that any
government has a right to boast of ? Is it not a quiet which
proceeds from buying the chief agitator? (Cheers.) Is it
not obtained by the policy which was once so notorious in
the dominions of the Pope ? I will tell you what it was.
The Pope always had a weak government—as have we had
lately. (Hear, hear.) The country was infested by high-
waymen who disturbed the public peace, and endangered pri-
vate property. How did the Pope deal with them? Did he
put them down by assertingthe majestyofthelaw ? Did he se-
cure property andlife by the authority of the laws ? No ; but he
took the chief robbers into his pay and soquieted the country
for a time. (Hear, and cheers.) Our government seernsto hare
taken a leaf out of the Pope's book in the management of
Ireland, and to think that the most prudent measure to
secure quiet and contentment is by paying the chief dis-
turber !• (Hear, and cheers.) That may be good policy for
a time, but it is bad in the long run ; it degrades and dis-
graces public authority, and the majesty of the law ; it can-
not be relied upon; and it only feeds and fosters the agita-
tion for the future, which at the moment it professes to
suppress. (Loud cheers.) Therefore, as to Ireland,
the government has no right to boast of its peace and con-
tentment. If it is quiet, it is because it is slumbering,
it is because the great master of the passions of that
people thinks it his interest to be quiet, but it is not quiet
because the law is supreme,—(hear, hear,)—it is not quiet
because the law is respected. (Cheers.) is it not enough
to condemn the policy of any government that they should
have offered the highest seat upon the jeudicial bench to that
man who has so often urged the people of that country to the
very brink of rebellion, who has taught them not how to break,
but how to evade every law? (Cheers.) Just of the same
.character was their placing Frost upon the bench of New-
port ; but Frost not being so calculating a man as O'Con-
nell, went a little further, and lie has now found his
appropriate place on the other side of the water. (Cheers.)
The other boast which my noble friend Lord Palmerston
made is that our colonial possessions are peaceable and se-
cure. If, in our colonial possessions, our large possessions
in the East Indies be included, I am not quite p
so satisfied
upon their security. lam not quite satisfied that we have
done wisely in extending our frontier so far as to bring us
into contact with fresh enemies—that we have not engaged
ourselves in a system of aggrandisement and conquest the
end of which we cannot foresee. lam not certain whether
we can consider it wise policy to bring onselves to the neces-
sity of an immediate increase in our Indian army, and of ex-
tending the arm of our strength beyond its natural power.
(Hear, hear.) But if we look also to Canada, our colonial
possessions there are secure at present; but it is too soon,
before the experiment of the new constitution has been tried,
for any administration to declare, and at once predict, that
security and peace can properly be predicated of. that impor-
tant part of our colonial possessions. (Hear.) I will not
trouble you further upon the occasion. Indeed, I ought to
apologise for detaining you so long; but the subjects are so
very various, the extent of delinquency we have to go through
is so very wide, that it is not easy to exhaust it in one single
address. (Cheers.)
A Voicx.—Never mind, my lord, we are all ready. (Loud
cheers.)
Lord SANDON.—I believe you are all ready. (Cheers.) I
believe the electors of Liverpool are always ready. Ido not
know whether they sleep with guns under their pillows,•but
they are always ready to stand to arms eta moment's notice.
(Cheers.) And whenever the battle of the constitution is
to be fought the electors of Liverpool are up and stirring at
a moment's notice. (Long and continued cheers.) Before
I retire I must say one word upon a subject which most
deeply interests me. I am told here, "Oh you need not
fear for your own election, hut you have a lawyer for your
colleague," and there are many who seem to doubt whether a
lawyer can do all you require. (Hear, hear.) Do not be
deluded ; do not let this lead you astray, or induce you to
lose from your service, and give up the advantage of having
attached to your interest one whose public or private character,
I for one, would most gladly have. (Cheers.) It is not
solely,—though that in my mind is the first consideration,
upon account of his upright and independent character; it
is not solely upon account of his ability; it is not solely upon
account of his straight forward downright conservative
opinions, but it is the real and substantial advantage
which the interests of Liverpool, in her peculiar character,
derive from having such a man as my able and estimable
colleague. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, you cannot have from
him, I admit it, the kind of sacrifice which, being an idle
man, lam able to bestow. His is a different kind of ser-
vice to mine, but it is equally efficient and equally important
in its nature ; lie is riot always able to be at your beck and
turn as I am, and as it is my pleasure to be, but have you
not the advantage, if any gentlemen come to London and
wish to examine any question in which the interests of
the town are concerned, of the opinion of a man who
comprises as much in five words as I can in twenty ?
(Hear.) Have yon not the advantage of having the best ad-
vice upon all those numerous questions which touch the pe-
culiar interests of Liverpool, for now, let us recollect, there
is going abroad a principle of general and wide spreading
legislation, irrespective of the peculiar wants of particular
communities, which compels Liverpool to be continually on
the watch, which compels its representatives to look with an
eye of legal jealousy at every act of parliament, lest under
cover of sonic general provisions, some stroke should be
aimed at the comfort, the interest, or the independence of this
great town. Is it nothing, upon oceasionslikethese to have the
opinion, the advice, and the services of my lion. and learned
colleague? (Cheers.) I have heard people complain that as
a lawyer he cannot sacrifice his time. Can that be said of
that man who sacrificed time so valuable as his last year in
the service of this town—who, thirteen weeks of the most
valuable portion of his time, sat upon your dock bill ?
(Cheers.) Why, gentlemen, he is prepared, and he does,
make large sacrifices ; and if he is riot able to be himself
continually at your beck, I am happy to give my time to you
for him, for if you have his opinion you have that which is
worth much more. I really ought to apologise to you—(no)—
and to my hon. and learned friend, for speaking of him in
his presence, but upon this occasion I thought it necessary
to throw over all delicacy, and give this public testimony of
his distinguished merit. (Loud cheers.) Having said this
much, I will not trouble you further. I do not profess to
be able to enchain your attention in the manrer that other
speakers are able to do, but at the same time T. do profess
that I have a hearty and a deep interest in the welfare of
every thing connected with this town. (Cheers.) I am
prepared to devote my best energies to your service; I am
prepared to watch over your local interests, but I am
not prepared to sacrifice them to the objects of a
party ; and I am prepared to watch with jealousy the
application of great principles to this community, and, above
all, that spirit of centralisation which is passing its iron roller
over all the different portions of this country, with the view
of pressing into uniformity every part of its varied surface.
(Cheers.) Ido hope that by this hour this day week we
ehall not be talking, but be doing (cheers) ; and by this hour
that we shall hardly be doing, for I hope the work will be