Northern Times. — 1859-12-02 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

BASTEON GLADSTONE, ESQ., PRESIDENT OF TUE  FINANCIAL REFORM. ASSOCIATION  Faris, Nov. 28, 1859.  My dear Sir,—For the last ten days I have been confined to my bedroom by severe indisposition, originating in a cold and cough, followed by fever, which has left me in a state of considerabledebility. My medical attenuant, who promises me, with care and caution, a speedy recovery, warns me that to undertake a journey to Liverpool to address a large public meeting would. in the present state ,of my lungs, be almost an act of suicide. I need not assure you how, deeply I regret to be unable to fulfil my long-standing promise to be with you on the Ist. I do not, however, ask you to release me from my engagement, but only to allow me to postpone its fulfilment to a future, and I hope early, opp,,rtunity.  There newer was a moment when I felt ii•eater interest than at present in the realisation of your society's programme for substituting direct for indirect taxation. If I required an illustration of the importance of your principle, which implies the removal of custom-house impediments between nations, I should find it in the present relations of England and France. What means this periodical visitation, which, like ihe cholera or 'some other infectious disease, has; every two or three years since 1847, caused tho panic cry of a French invasion to overspread England, and which at the present ;moment 'is heard again in tones as loud and menacing as ever I Here am I, with all my children, in the very jaws of the imaginary monster which has been conjured up to terrify nap. good cormtrymeu, and yet I feel no less safe from attack or mury of any kind so long as I refrain from molesting or wronging others, than if I were residing in London or Liverpool. Whence springs the idea of danger which pervades the public mind at home 1 I attribute it mainly to the want of intercommunication, and the consequent ignorance and prejudice which prevail respecting the character and designs of our nearest continental neighbour.  Here ore two of the greatest nations, separated only by the narrowest strip of ocean, with their distingt and proud annals, their rival traditions, their differences in racy language, and religion, all tending to produce a but nature, which always works by laws of compere... has endowed the two countries with a variety of productions, and imparted to the, populations an instructive desire to supply each' other's wants and deficiencies, which, had nature's laws been allowed their free action, would have brought the two nations into such constant contact and communication, and laid them under such mutual dependence, as would have subdued the merely latent causes of antagonism, and rendered impossible the present state of hostility and. alarm. But, down almost to the present day, the Governments of the two countries have devoted their energies to the task of preventing, as far as possible, any esmmerciat intercourse between them. The baneful consequences are, naturally, such as we behold. Let uS hope that legislators will awaken to a sense of the 'responsib lity which attaches to those who thus array themselves against the obvious laws of the Creator. Meanwhile your society will, I hope, persevere in ilia useful labours, and continue to draw around you the symplthy and co-operation of good men. You are not a politicalorganisaffi vfalr nhian+  Llienation  tion ; your functions are those of an euucator, is to prepare the public mixd for the future action of the s man. The be remote, but the d,  p by ste