The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-12-22 00:00:00

GRAND ANNIVERSARY CEI:EBRATION OF THE
BERM G HAM LOYAL AND ‘QONSTITUTIONAL
ASSOCLaTION.
The preparations for the tine celebration of trstanniver-
sary of this society have excited very centsidelettilt;lnrerest in
this town and its vicinity for some days Sate, When the plan
was first proposed it was thought --that 60(5 persons would be as
many as would seek for:tickets, but the applications for admis-
sion since have satisfied the committee that had they the means
of accommodating. three times that number, every seat they
could provide would he occupied. The 600 tickets at first pro-
posed were inetantiy,absorbed by applicants. 200 tickets more
were as eagerly purchased, and for malty days past there has
been such demand that we understand five guineas have been
repeatedly offered and refused `for tickets. the fixed price of
which was only 15s. This, in a town like Birmingham, which
has so long been considered as the very focus of radicalism,
speaks volumes for the re-action in the public mind here, and
puts beyond all doubt the fact, that loyal and constitutional
principles, as opposed to those of the destructives, are every day
taking. deeper and more firm root amongst the people of this
country.
The meeting of the association took place at half-past one
o'clock on Thursday, at the great room of Dee's Royal Hotel,
and was most numerously and, it is scarcely necessary to add,
most respectably attended. As the principal object was to ap-
point a committee and other officers for the ensuing year, the
meeting was intended to be confined to matters of detail. - The
leading members, therefore, reserved their observations for the
dinner. One circumstance which occurred at it deserves parti-
cular mention,--it was the reading of a dutiful and loyal ad-
dress to his Majesty from a large portion of the inhabitants of
this town and vicinity, deelariug their firm attachment to the
principles of the association.
•eiss DINNER.
Immediately after the termination of the public meeting the
gentlemen who.'attended proceeded to the Town-hall, in which
the dinner was served. The Earl of Dartmouth, president of
the association, took the chair. The noble earl was supported
by Lord Viscount Lorton, the Earl of Bradfurd, the Lard of
Aylesford, Lord Willoughby de Broke, Lord Viscount Lifford,
the Hon. C. Bridgman, Sir J. Mordaunt, Bart., M.P., Sir F.
H. Goodricke, Bart., M.P., and Sir G. Pigut. Among the
company were Sir It. Gunning, Sir C. Greville, M.P., the
High Bailiff and Clergy of Birmingham, the Mayor orCoventry,
Richard Spooner, Esq., and a long list of names of gentlemen
in the town, and in the counties of Warwick and Stafford.
After the healths of " the King, Queen, Princess Victoria,
the army, the navy, and the House of Brunswick,—may they
never forget the principles which seated them on the throne,('
the uoble chairman proposed successively the healtlis of the
Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. These toasts, and
especially the latter, were received with a degree of enthusiasm
never surpassed in any assembly,
After the toast " Prosperity to the Birmingham loyal and
constitutional Association.' had beets drank, the folloWing song,
written for the occasion, was sung by. Mr. J. Whalley:;— •
"'Ti'the voice of our country, from 'shore unto .shiire;
It calls on each Briton to slumber no more;
It bitisais-arouse, ere ran- birthright be Ole,
And rally, like men, round the altar and throne.
"The God' of that -altnr, through tumult and war,
Ever beam'd upon lingland his bright leading star—
Ever potted on ourfathers his blessing divine,
Mid ne'er shall their children prove false to his shrine.
" Round the throne of our monarchs for ages have stood,
Saints, heroes, and sages, the great and the good,
Unshaken by foes from without hat h it been,
And it shall not be cankered by traitors within.
• " Todlong,, oh! too long, has a faction held sway,
That, piecemeal, would dribble old England away,
• That would take from her king and her nobles their own,
And cover with insult the altar and throne.
" But it shall not avail them !—the voice is gone forth
That shall dash to the whirlwinds their impotent wrath,
When Britain, uprous'd and indignant at length, •
Thus bares, like a giant, the arm of her strength.
" Here we stand for old England, her rights, and her laws,
"cis the cause of our country—God prosper that cause!
Unimpair'd to our children those rights shall descend,
We will live to preserve them,or die to defend!"
We are under the necessity of passing over the speeches de-
livered in the course of the evening for the purpose of inserting
the subjoined document, which will be found important, as
showing the successful labours of the association, and stillmore
important as proceeding from a town hitherto. considered the
hotbed of disloyalty and infidelity in Great Britain:—
"REPORT Or THE GENERAL, COMMITTEE OF THE LOYAL AND
CONSTITUTIONAL ASSOCIATION.
"In presenting the report of the proceedings of the past year,
your committee feel bound especially to advert to the circuits-,
stances under which the " Loyal and Constitutioaal Association"
was formed, and also to the measures they deemed it expedient
to take, particularly at the outset of their career, for attaining
the objects contemplated at its institution. For a series of
years this town had been the theatre of unceasing political con-
tention ; the public mind, wrought upon by artful demagogues,
hxd become unsettled to an extraordinary degree; persons of
middle station in• society, and those engaged in active employ=
ment of manufacture, were, in very many instances, without
entertaining sentiments of disloyalty or disaffection to our
ancient national institutions, estranged from the courses of
peace and contentment, and deluded to _join themselves with
men who professed indeed liberality and patriotism, yet evinced
by the whole tenor of their lives and conduct a tyrannical,
selfish, and intolerant spirit, and an hostility to those principles
of government which have raised this country to the highest
rank among the nations of the earth.
" Your committee will not further allude to the proceedings
and principles of that political confederacy whose directors,
ender the specious guise of liberality and abhorrence of corrup-
tion, inveigled many of our unsuspecting fellow-townsmen into
aiding them in the execution of their unconstitutional designs,
than to cite the instances of the two questions of local interest
that engaged the public attention at the close of last year and
the beginning of the present. In December last, the adver-
, series of the established church renewed their opposition to the
customary legal mode of defraying the charges of divine worship
wills' a virulence exceeding even that which. accompanied their
former too successful efforts. Religiousiceling or conacientious
scruple was least apparent in the resistance; a spirit of hatred
to the protestaut form of worship established in thi4 kingdom,
and enmity even to religion itself, were manifested even to an
extent unexampled on any former occasion; the eneniies of the
church, banded in organized array, exercised the influence of
terror to hinder christians from supporting the rights of their
church, and, from want of concert on the pert of the friends of
religion, they once again for a time succeeded. When, in
January, the election of parliamentary representatives took
place, the same sort of opposition was employed; every senti-
ment hostile to the protestant religion, and especially to that
form of it which has been for centuries established in connexion
with the state, was leagued with every feeling adverse to those
principles of government which have distinguished this country
in seasons of her greatest prosperity anti happiness. The com-
bined threes of the `revolutionary and popish factions ptoved
under the circumstances too powerful to be withstood, fur, aid-
ed by a plan of intimidation that was most unsparingly exercis-
ed, while the parties threatened were without a refuge for pro-
tection and defence, the avowed enemies of the church, and the
dangerous innovators that would alter the constitution again
prevailed. The experience of the struggle on the church-rate
question sufficiently pi oved that it remained only for the purpose
of opposing the destructive influence which had hitherto ope-
rated unchecked; accordingly, on the 17th of December last.
a number of your body, vigilant and determined supporters of
the constitution in church and state, assembled in this very
room and founded the association, the anniversary of whose
origin, and the auspicious course of whose proceedings, we are
this day happily met to celebrate.
" In order to carty the general design of the association into
effect, sub-committees were appointed, to whom the task of exe-
cuting certain particular duties was confided. Of these the
publishing committee came earliest into operation. They have
distributed to the members, and also to a large extent gratui-
tously to the public, various publications on subjects immediate-
ly connected with the designs of the association to the amount
of upwards of ten thousand, besides taking cognizance of vari-
ous matters relating generally to the conservative cause.
" Your committee recall with mingled feelings of pleasure
and regret the meeting in April last, at which the association
agreed- to present an address to the Right Hon. Sir Robert
Peel, at.the close of his short but eventful career as first nil:-
;lister of the crown. Indignant at the shameful artifices em-
ployed to thwart and defeat a statesman, the pledges of whose
conduct extended to the removal of every abuse, so far as
was practicable, consistent with the maintenance of the prin-
ciples of the constitution, your committee prepared a forum of
address expressive of admiration at the discretion, modera-
tion, and wisdom which characterized his whole conduct
throughout that interesting period, and to which the 'signa-
tures of the most respectable, wealthy, and influential inhabit-
ants of this town were, in the short space of twelve hours, af-
fixed to the amount of 2,000.
" Your committee also, attentive to the duty imposed upon
them, assembled the members of the association in May last,
when the bill for appropriating a portion of the revenues of the
established church in Ireland was before the [louse of Com-
mons, to petition his majesty to refuse his assent to a mea-
sure so fatal in its principle to the protestant religion, and also
to address the two Houses of Parliament, beseeching them to
reject a bill so directly invasive of the rights of the church;
and your committee have the satisfaction of referring to the me-
morable decision of the House of Lords, when the. bill was
brought before them-, in proof of the justness of your views in
calling earnestly on the legislature to resist the perpetration of
so unconstitutional an act.
"The secretaries of the association were engaged on 'behalf
of the committee, every day front the 20th of June to the • 20th
of July, in affording gratuitous advice add assistance id the
registration- of the conservative-electors .of-the eurroubdirig
district, After the lists of persons claiming to' vote forithe
county in the polling district had been published, they' were
subjected to a rigid scrutiny, and it appearing hot only that an
extraordinary addition ot"clainiants had been made to the regis-
ter of electors for the last year (the great majority of which had
been placed there by the agents'of the radical party), but that
active preparations were made for a very extensive system of
objection to the rights of the 'different conservative claimants,
and especially to the farm tenants in the rural districts who
claimed to remain on the registry, your committee, in concur-
' rence with the North Warwickshire Registration Society, took
'the necessary stepS to. create a fund for the special purpose of
,defraying the expenses necessarily attendant thereupon, anti
caused notices of objection to be served on such of the claim-
ants of the opposing party to whose rights to remain on the
'register the agents of the society considered that a fair and legal
Objection could be made and substantiated. In order, how-
ever, more effectually to insure the proper discharge of those
important matters, a sub-committee was appointed by your
committee, and by their directions a case was drawn up and
submitted to the opinion of tour of the most eminent banisters
in Londdii : and it was not till they had separately given de-
cided but concurred' opinions in favour of the objections taken
by your secretaries to the different classes of claimants, that
the sub-committee authorized the service of any notice of ob-
jection whatever:- There were two classes 'it' objection, which
included upwards of six hundred anti fifty out of the eight hun-
dred notices of objection vetoed hy the agents of the associa-
tion, but which, after mature deliberation and discussion, were
decided in favour of the claiuttints. The objections, however,
though made unsuccessfully at the time, have vet been not un-
availing. for the questionable votes are by that means brought
within thejuristliction of the House of Coinninns. The practi-
cm 1 result of the registiation sub-committee's labours has been
to defend the claims of no less than seven hundred voters in the
comervative interest, especially those who must otherwise have
been disqualified on aecount of the great sacrifice that daily per-
sonal attendance for several days would have entailed upon
them, and the prevention of a great number of persons being
placed on the register who had no valid e;round of claim. With
legate' to the state of the register, as affects the number of the •
the rival parties, the registration committee assure the mem-
bers that the proportion of conservatives relative to that of de-
struct ices is such as to render the county perfectly safe in any
future contest

" Your committee bare peculiar patisfaction in callingto mind
the remarkable display of feeling in favour of the protestant re-
ligton on the memorable occasion of the visit of the Rev. Messrs.
M'Gliee and O'Sullivan to this town on the 18th of November
Jut; and it is with feelings of heartfelt delight that your corn-