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 SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 ELECTION OF 1865. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P., 
 
 CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER. 
 
 '• He'll shape his old course in a country new." — 
 
 King Lear. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MUKRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, 
 
 1865.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SPEECH AT MANCHESTER 
 SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL 
 SPEECH AT NEWTON .. 
 SPEECH AT NEWTON .. 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 PAOK 
 1 
 
 16 
 20 
 34 
 38 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 SPEECH AT CHESTER 40
 
 SPEECHES. 
 
 SPEECH AT MANCHESTER ON JULY 18th. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer said: Mr. Bazley and Gentlemen, 
 — At last, my friends, I am come amongst you. And I am come — to 
 use an expression which has of late become very famous, and which, if 
 I judge the matter rightly, is not likely soon to be forgotten — I am 
 come among you " unmuzzled." After a long and anxious struggle of 
 eighteen years, during which the unbounded devotion and indulgence 
 of my friends maintained me in the arduous position of a repiesentative 
 of the University of Oxford, I have been driven from that seat. I 
 have no complaint to make of the party which has refused to me the 
 resumption of that high and honourable trust. I cannot say that I 
 am glad of it, or that I think they have acted wisely ; .but they are the 
 majority, they were entitled to use their power, and they have used it. 
 And as the}' have used it, I appeal to you, the men of my native 
 county, to know whether that which has disqualified me from 
 representing the University of Oxford has also disabled me from re- 
 presenting you. But, gentlemen, do not lei me come among you 
 under false colours, or with false pretences. I have loved the 
 University of Oxford with a deep and passionate love; and so I 
 shall love it to the end. If my affection is of the smallest advantage 
 to that great, that ancient, that noble institution, that advantage, such 
 as it is, and it is most insignificant, Oxford will possess as long as I 
 live. But we must not mistake the issue which has been raised. The 
 University has at length, after eighteen years of self-denial, been 
 drawn by what I might perhaps call an overweening exercise of 
 power into the vortex of mere party politics. A\'ell, you will readily 
 understand why, as long as 1 had even the faintest hope that the 
 zeal and kindness of my friends might keep me in my place, it was 
 impossible for me to abandon them. Could they have returned me 
 by a majority of one, painful as it is to a man at my time of life, and 
 one feeling the weight of public cares, to be incessantly struggling for 
 his seat, nothing would have induced me to quit that University, to 
 which I had so long ago devoted my best care, and my misjudging, 
 perhaps, but yet loyal attachment. But now, by no act of mine,
 
 2 SPEECH AT MANCIIESTEII. July 18th. 
 
 I am free to come among you. And, having been tlnis set free, I 
 need hardly tell you that it is with joy, with thankfulness, and 
 with enthusiasm that I now, at the eleventh hour, a candidate with- 
 out even an Address, make my appeal to the heart and the mind of 
 South Lancashire, and ask you to pronounce on that appeal. 
 
 Mr. Bazley and gentlemen, as J. have said, I am aware of no cause 
 for the votes which have given a majority against me in the University 
 of Oxford, except this fact, that the strongest convictions which the 
 human mind is capable of receiving, that an overpowering sense of 
 the public interests, that the practical teaching of experience, to which 
 from my first youth Oxford herself taught me to lay open my mind; 
 that one and all of these have shown me the folly, and, I will say, the 
 madness, of refusing to join in the generous sympathies of my country- 
 men, by adopting what I must call an obstructive policy. Xow, when 
 I speak of an obstructive policy, I necessarily speak in some degree of 
 those by whom it is conducted. But, do not let me be misunderstood. 
 I have known, certainly, as I think, in happier times — in times when 
 Sir R, Peel was the leader and head of the Conservative party — that 
 the materials of which it was composed included then, as I firmly 
 believe that there are now in the ranks of that party, not only man}'' 
 excellent and many able, but many enlightened, men — many men 
 who, if their circumstances and position were more propitious, would be 
 ready to concur and co-operate in every work of public improvement. 
 You may find them below the gangway of the House of Commons ; 
 you may find them, though perhaps more sparsely scattered, even 
 on the benches behind the principal Opposition bench ; you may find 
 them on the Opposition bench itself. It would be invidious were I to 
 name them. In some of them this county has a deep and affectionate 
 interest ; and Lancashire, without distinction of party, looks upon men, 
 or upon a man, as her own, who still sits upon that bench. But I 
 speak of the machinery of the party ; I speak of those who lead, and of 
 those who pull the wires; I speak of the daily, ordinary, habitual 
 action of our parliamentary system ; and I tell you, and wish to place 
 this issue distinctly before you, that it is because T have been unable 
 to concur in that system which marks and fixes definitively the general 
 character of the present parliamentary Opposition, that I now como 
 before you to ask, and with joyful trust I await the answer, whether 
 you approve or whether you condemn my conduct. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am in one sense glad, in another sense sorry, to say, 
 that my own experience of public life extends over three-and- thirty 
 years, and those three-and-thirty years perhaps among the most 
 remarkable, and the most momentous, so far as the triumphs, not 
 of merely defensive, but of peaceful and progressive legislation, have 
 been concenied, that ever have been known in the history of this 
 country ; possibly 1 might even say, in the history of anj- country 
 
 ^ UIUC
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT MANCHESTER. 3 
 
 in the world. What have been the characteristics of that legislation, 
 and what have been its results ? Some of you are old enough to 
 remember the ministerial reign of Lord Sidmouth as Secretary of State 
 for the Home Department, and to recollect what was the spirit of Man- 
 chester — the spirit of her upper class, of her middle class, and of the 
 masses of her population, in those unhappy days. Now, on the con- 
 trary, we have lived into a time when every man that represents 
 public authority, every man who bears office under the Crown, may 
 come among you, and may be sure that he will be received in every 
 thoroughfare of your vast and crowded community, not merely with 
 respect and with kindness, but even, it is not too much to say, 
 with affection and enthusiasm. And how has this change come 
 about ? It has come about because a conviction has been gradually, 
 slowly, but firmly engendered in the English mind, that, after 
 granting every fair allowance for the defects of himian institutions, 
 and by no means renouncing the hope of making by wise measures 
 that which is now good to become better still, but subject to these 
 reserves, and looking back upon the past, you live under institutions 
 in which the legislature and the constituted authorities labour, in the 
 main, for the good of the people, with honesty of purpose, and with an 
 enlightened view. Now, without entering into details, without un- 
 rolling the long record of acts and stages connected with the great 
 measures that have been passed, I will simply remind you that they 
 comprise the emancipation of Eoman Catholics, the improvement of 
 the representation, the emancipation of the slaves, the reformation 
 of the poor-law, the reformation — I had almost said the destruction, 
 but it is the reformation— it is the destruction in point of bulk, but 
 in no other sense — of the tariff, the abolition of the corn-law, the 
 abolition of the navigation law, the conclusion of the Treaty of Com- 
 merce with France : and, to cut short a list threatening to be almost 
 interminable, the laws which have relieved Dissenters from stigma 
 and from almost ignominy, and which in doing so have not weakened 
 but have strengthened that Church to which I humbly but gladly 
 belong. All these great acts have been accomplished, taking them 
 as a whole, with something that resembles the silent and majestic, 
 I had almost said sublime, tranquillity with which your own vast 
 machinery performs its appointed task, in the strength of perfect repose. 
 All these things have been done ; you see the acts, you see the fruits, 
 and it is natural to inquire, who have been the doers ? Well, gentle- 
 men, in a very humble measure, but yet according to the degree and 
 capacity of the powers that Providence has bestowed upon me, I have 
 for many years been desirous, and increasingly with increasing age, 
 not to obstruct, but to promote and assist, this beneficent and blessed 
 process ; and if I first entered Parliament, as I did enter it, with a 
 firm and anxious wish to maintain the institutions of my country, I can 
 
 B 2
 
 4 SPEECH AT MANCIIESTEll. July 18th. 
 
 tnily nay that there is no period of my life during AvLicli my ctm- 
 Bcieuce is so clear, and renders to me so good an answer upon that 
 very point, as for those yeurs in which I am thought to have co- 
 operated in the promotion of Liheral measures ; with the conviction 
 that not merely notwithstanding that thoy are Liberal, but, much 
 more than this, because thuy are in the highest and best sense Liberal, 
 they have been the true measures, and they have indicated the tnie 
 policy, by which the country has been made strong and its institutions 
 have been not only presei-ved but strengthened. 
 
 Now, so far as depends upon me, 1 want to ask and to leani the 
 opinion of South Lancashire upon that subject. There is no distiict 
 of the country, perhaps, that has known so much, there is none that is 
 in such a good condition to give an answer, there is none that will be 
 more deeply responsible for the answer that within these few days she 
 may give. But, gentlemen, we have lived into a period that is indeed 
 singular. The rules of my old university, and although perhaps I 
 have slightly suffered by them I much revere them, forbid the active 
 interference of candidates in academical elections. That state of things 
 has been favourable to my acquiring, while the elections have been 
 going on, a knowledge of what is done, and also a knowledge of what 
 is said, in diiferent parts of the country; and 1 don't know whether 
 you have been struck, but I have been struck in a degree that I could 
 hardly describe, with the marvellous character of what has been said 
 in various portions of the land. You read the speeches of multitudes of 
 candidates for seats in the interest of the Opposition, and you find that 
 they found their claim to support upon their approval of the measures 
 of the government. The}' very naturally say, and they always wind 
 up with the conclusion, either tacit or expressed, tliat that govern- 
 ment ought to be displaced. But really upon that subject 1, for my 
 own part, have no clear or strong opinion to give, ^\e have been 
 for six years in office. 1 do assure you that 1 want a holiday ; and 1 
 think it is perfectly possible, and a very fair thing to argiie, that the 
 general spirit— what 1 may call the political health — of the body of 
 the Liberal party would be improved if, during this fine summer, they 
 were to travel, by way of watering-place, into the clear and pure air 
 about the benches of the Ojoposition. Upon that matter, therefore, I 
 do not address you. I do not believe Old England — or the United 
 Kingdom, which we mean when we speak of England — will ever 
 perish for want of men to give effect to her mature convictions. If 
 one man is not forthcoming, another will be ; there is pith enough, 
 and virtue enough, and intelligence enough in the country to conduct 
 its public affairs. Therefore I am not here, notwithstanding the 
 distinguished claims of some among my colleagues, to preach to you 
 the merits of any particular set of men. If you think it can be 
 shown that those who sit opposite to us are better disposed, better
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT MANCHESTER. 5 
 
 qualified to carry on the policy that is essential for the happiness 
 of the country, by all means let them take our places. But it is 
 for that policy that I speak ; and certainly, unless I am required 
 to efface from my mind altogether the recollection of what has 
 passed within the last six years, and to read backwards every record 
 of our parliamentary proceedings, I am astonished at the delightful 
 unanimity with which the principal measures of the party now in 
 office are applauded by the candidates who seek to supplant them. 
 
 Now, it is much better to fly at high game than at low ; and there- 
 f )re, instead of burrowing among the declarations of small agricul- 
 tural or borough members here and there in holes and comers of 
 the country, I will just illustrate what I have said upon a topic or 
 two, by reference to the declarations of the great Coryphaeus of the 
 Opposition ; to those declarations with which Mr. Disraeli has kindly 
 furnished us, with admirable candour, and in unexceptionable abund- 
 ance, while addressing his Buckinghamshire constituents. It would 
 appear that he has been terribly misrepresented or misunderstood. 
 Do not let us suppose that in this country the public is well informed 
 about the views and actions of its statesmen. I will give you a proof, 
 in a conspicuous instance, that we know nothing at all about them. 
 For Mr. Disraeli tells us it is a delusion to suppose that, if he had 
 been in office, we should never have had a treaty with France ; nay, 
 he says, *' a treaty with France was the very thing Which it was the 
 supreme object of our desires to accomplish." Now, Mr. Bazley, you 
 are my witness, and others whom I am happy to see upon this plat- 
 form are also my witnesses, that it would have been a mighty con- 
 venience to us all if Mr. Disraeli had been kind enough to communi- 
 cate to the House of Commons, in the opening of the Session of 1860, 
 those views with respect to the treaty of commerce with France which 
 he has unfortunately reserved in the deep recesses of his mind until 
 the dissolution of 1865. Why, what was the history of that treaty? 
 Let us endeavour to analyse a little the representations which are 
 placed before the country. No doubt Mr. Disraeli said, and others 
 near him said, " ^Ve don't object in the abstract to treaties of com- 
 merce, but you have managed this thing so abominably ill, j'ou have 
 so entirely neglected to obtain what was required, and to jireserve what 
 was necessary for England, that, instead of approving, we condemn the 
 whole affiiir." Mr. Disraeli says he would have had a treaty of commerce 
 with France. I should have liked to have seen Mr. Disraeli negotiate 
 that treaty face to face with the French negotiators, and to have noted 
 what he would have said and done. 1 know what Mr. Cobden did. 
 (Prolonged cheering, the audience rising.) Mr. Cobden presented himself 
 to the Emperor of the French, without disguising for one moment the real 
 nature of the transaction in which he was about to engage. Mr. Cobden 
 never took up the ludicrous position of those who say to a foreign
 
 ISPK1':C11 AT MAN'(JliE^STEl{. July 18th. 
 
 country, " We deliberately withhold from ourselves what wo admit to 
 be a benefit to ourselves, unless you choose to confer another distinct 
 and independent benefit upon j'ourselves." Mr. Cobden thoroughly well 
 understood the nature of the business ho had in hand, lie stipulated 
 for nothing on behalf of England ; ho persuaded the French govern- 
 ment as far as ho could. But what would have been the position of 
 Mr. Disraeli ? 1 do assure you, gentlemen, that when I, by a violent 
 effort of imagination, represent to myself Mr. Disraeli standing in 
 the pi-esence of the French negotiators, my heart is overflowed with 
 a gush and torrent of compassion. What would have been Mr. 
 Disraeli's language ? The French would have said to him what they 
 said to us : " We want to give you a guarantee for peace. We 
 want to promote manufactures in France. We are poor in one 
 of the essential constituents of manufacture — we are poor in fuel ; 
 our manufacturers are desirous to come nearer to the British 
 Channel, but they must be assured that no false superstitious notions 
 concerning the export-trade will interfere with their supply of British 
 coal. You must engage, at least for the moderate period for which this 
 treaty is to last, not to prohibit or impede the export of coal." " Oh," 
 Mr. Disraeli would have been obliged to sa}^ " coal is a mineral that is 
 exhaustible; and though it is perfectly true we consume seventy 
 millions of it ourselves, and only send two or three millions of it 
 abroad " — (that was the then state of things) — " yet at the same time, 
 though we have never at all found it necessary to economise upon the 
 seventy millions we consume, we are dreadfully afraid lest this two or 
 three millions, or any increase it may receive, should deprive England 
 of the essential commodity of coal ; consequently we cannot put into the 
 treaty any article assuring your supply of coal, and that you must be 
 content to drop." Well, I think, for myself, that the French negotiator 
 would have been veiy apt, under those circumstances, to take up his 
 hat, to put on his gloves, and to say, " Sir, I wish you good morning." 
 But suppose that he was a man of extraordinary patience ; suppose 
 he said, " Well, after all, my friend is evidently well disposed; this may 
 be a single or particular crotchet ; I will try him a little longer. This 
 point perhaps may be disposed of by some subsequent understanding ; 
 we will see how we agree with regard to other matters." The French 
 negotiator might then have said, "At any rate, you won't object to the 
 free and immediate introduction into England of the chief manufactur- 
 ing product of France ; I mean of silk goods ? " Ah ! what would Mr. 
 Disraeli have had to say upon that ? Mr. Disraeli's friends have been 
 profiting by the discontent of the silk trade. His friends have won two 
 seats in Coventry from the Government, and from the Liberal party, in 
 consequence of the discontent of the silk trade. And here let me tell 
 you in passing, that, if there is one title more distinct than another that 
 T think the party and the Govenrment have to the approval of the
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT MANCHESTER. 7 
 
 coTintiy, it is this, that, unfortunately for Coventry, and unfortunately 
 for other places, we have lost seats which it would have been a discredit 
 to us to gain, and the reason we have lost them is, that we refused to 
 sacrifice the interests of the country to the supposed interests of a 
 class. But then it must be recollected that the loss of the first seat at 
 Coventry on the death of Mr. Ellice, and afterwards the loss of the second 
 seat at Coventry on the death of Sir Joseph Taxton, were among the 
 conclusive demonstrations that were naturally enough trumpeted to the 
 world, and made to do duty as proofs of a great reaction in the country 
 on behalf of the Opposition, and of the disinclination of the country at 
 large to maintain the principles which had theretofore been in favour. 
 Therefore Mr. Disraeli, if he had let in the silk goods, would, to use a 
 homely phrase, have cut his own throat ; and he would have been 
 obliged to say to the French negotiator. " Free trade is a very excellent 
 thing, but after all it must be applied with a good deal of reserve and 
 a good deal of qualification and circumspection." And perhaps he 
 would have spoken, as he spoke the other day on the Koman Catholic 
 Oaths Bill, when he assumed the character of an intelligent and 
 enlightened Eoman Catholic, and, speaking in the character of such a 
 Eoman Catholic, stated that he did not think he should desire that 
 Oaths Bill at all ; so I have no doubt, with his inexhaustible ingenuity, 
 he would have said, *' I put myself in the condition of an enlightened 
 free-trader, and I am quite certain that no enlighjtened free-trader, 
 whatever his abstract opinions might be, could think of giving imme- 
 diate and free admission into England to the silk goods of France." 
 But, gentlemen, I do ask and entreat you to conceive in your minds, if 
 you can, what chance Mr. Disraeli, with all his good intentions, would 
 have had of negotiating a treaty of commerce. Why, he would have 
 been obliged, at every step that he went, to reserve this and reserve 
 that, not upon grounds of revenue, but upon grounds which, call them 
 what you may, are grounds of protection sheer and pure : upon reasons 
 which, so far as they show anything at all, show a supposed necessity of 
 maintaining special taxes for the supposed benefit, for it is not the real 
 benefit, of particular classes, but taxes levied upon the people of England. 
 This I might illustrate not only by the article I began with, the article 
 of coal : not only what I went on with, the article of silk : I might 
 have various other chapters : for example, I might have a chapter upon 
 paper. There is the export of rags; you know, all of you, without 
 doubt, the terrible blunder that J\lr. Cobden made in not stipulating for 
 the free export of rags from Fiance ; that is to say, in not saying to the 
 French Government, " \\q will refuse to conclude this treaty unless 
 you remove 3'our prohibition, and permit that free export ; " because 
 that is the meaning of the accusation, if it has a meaning. Again, 
 besides the rags, there were the ships ; heaven only knows how many 
 blunders we did not commit about the ships. They were to go in, or
 
 8 SPEECH AT MANCHESTER. July Ibtli. 
 
 to come out, with equal duties, or unequal duties — I cannot tell now — 
 thank God it has all passed away from my recollection ; 1 have other 
 things in plenty to remember. But I know this, that, although a 
 French treaty in the abstract was the best thing in the world, the 
 actual French treaty in flesh and blood, or in pen and ink and paper, 
 seal and sealing wax, as it stood before them, was found to be the 
 worat thing in the world ; and to throw discredit upon the authors of 
 that treaty, and to work every possible mine and vein of prejudice 
 against them for the purpose of disparaging it, was the great and 
 principal business of the Opposition party, considered as a party, in the 
 somewhat memorable Session of 1800. 
 
 But, gentlemen, Mr. Disraeli likewise says, and I confess I was 
 greatly interested in the statement, that, if his Government had 
 continued in office, the paper duty would have been repealed. lie 
 proves it in a manner that I do not quite understand. The demonstra- 
 tion rests in part on the confessions of his opponents ; but be the mode 
 what it ma}'', he proves it entirely to the satisfaction of his own mind, 
 and to the satisfaction possibly of the farmers of Buckinghamshire ; I 
 know not whether to the satisfaction of the papermakers of that 
 county. Well, I must say, if there ever was a commercial question 
 second only to that of the corn-law, which was the source of the 
 deepest anxiety, and which was encountered with the greatest diffi- 
 culties through the persevering opposition of the party led bj' Mr. 
 Disraeli, it was the repeal of the paper duty. And nothing can be 
 more unfortunate than that it should have been his lot to testify liis 
 appi-oval of the measure, at the time when that approval would have 
 been of real value, only by condemning and resisting it. But now, 
 I ask you, what has been the effect of that measure ? I speak now not 
 only of its economical, but of its political and its social effect. Econo- 
 mically it was the abolition of a mischievous, I might almost say a 
 barbarous impost. Economically, when we repealed the paper duty, 
 we were treading in the footsteps of those who had repealed the soap 
 duty, the glass duty, the brick duty, and all other duties of excise 
 upon manufactured articles. But, over and above the relief of 
 industry from burthen and restraint, I ask you what has been the 
 advantage of that repeal ? Talk of Conservative measures ! Never 
 was there a measure so Conservative as that which called into vivid, 
 energetic, permanent, and successful action the cheap press of this 
 country. To the most numerous classes of the community it was like 
 a new light, a now epoch in life, when they found that the informa- 
 tion upon public affairs that had once been either the exclusive 
 property of the higher, or the higher with the middle class, or else had 
 been doled out to them through the rare and questionable medium of 
 Sunday papers, came to them morning after morning, gave them a new
 
 July 18tli. SPEECH AT MANCHESTER. 
 
 interest in the affairs of their coimtry, and, with a new interest in 
 those affairs, a new attachment to its institutions. 
 
 Now, I must not detain you too long, but, as T know that I am here 
 in the very heart and centre of the best political economy of England, 
 I will say one word upon another subject. Perhaps you will be sur- 
 prised at my mentioning here the subject of the malt-tax ; but you will 
 find that in the speeches of many gentlemen connected with the 
 Opposition there is a most cruel complaint in connexion with it, of a 
 mischievous personage called the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as being 
 a persecutor of what is still called the agricultural interest. And I beg 
 leave to sa}^ for myself, T know nothing at all about the agricultural 
 " interest," any more than T know about the manufacturing interest or 
 the commercial interest. There is one interest which it is our duty 
 resolutely to place and steadily to keep in view, and that is the interest 
 of the nation. Still, there are a certain number of gentlemen who seek 
 to obtain favour with special classes by professing to legislate for the 
 interests of class ; and among those gentlemen it is the fashion to com- 
 plain that with a cruel indifference we pass by the distresses of the 
 farmer, who sells his barley now under the influence of free trade for 
 better prices than monopoly ever gave him ; who sees the consumption 
 of beer growing year by year till it has almost reached the standard of 
 the golden age ; and these clamorous friends would contrive to persuade 
 this farmer — but the farmer is getting far beyond the ojjeration of such 
 means of persuasion — that, if only they had been in power, they would 
 have done something (as it is called) this year with respect to the malt- 
 tax. Now, the first thing that I should presume to say to these gentle- 
 men, and I think the only concession I should like to ask of them, would 
 be this; that they assent to the principle that you cannot eat your 
 cake and still have it. If they grant me this, I think I can promise in 
 return to make mince-meat of the proposition that if they had been 
 in power they would have done something for the farmer. Well, what 
 did we do ? We had a surplus, I am thankful to say, of four millions. 
 Speaking in round numbers, out of that surplus two millions were 
 given to the reduction of the tea duty ; and few indeed are those, even 
 among the class of candidates to whom I refer, that have ventured to go 
 even before a farming constituency, and to say that that reduction of 
 the tea duty ought to have been withheld. Now it is quite plain that 
 the question lay between reducing the malt-tax and reducing the 
 income-tax. Therefore, there were two millions available, in round 
 numbers. That sum of two millions was sufficient for the favourite 
 measure of Mr. Disraeli, the measure he proposed in 1852 — I mean, 
 for reducing the malt-tax by one half; and what I want to know is 
 this — why these enthusiastic friends of the farmer, when we proposed 
 to take the income-tax down from Gd. to 4<i., did not propose, instead of 
 so lowering the income-tax, to leave the income-tax alone, at the rather
 
 10 SPEECH AT MxYNCHESTEK. July 18th. 
 
 moderate rate of C)d., and to take oif half the malt-tax? Why, the thing 
 is traDsparent — there was not a man among them that did not want to 
 have the income-tax reduced ; and, on the other hand, I won't say 
 there was not a man among them — because some I believe there are, 
 but they were very few, elect and secluded spirits— not the leaders of 
 the party, nor yet the rank and file, but one here and there, the true 
 specimen of the pure old agricultural mind — these were the only indi- 
 viduals that cared about the malt-tax. And they cannot say that it 
 was not pointed out to them, because in my place in the House of 
 Commons, when these complaints were made of the Government by the 
 Opposition, that "we did not reduce the malt-tax, twice over 1 took the 
 pains to point out, in the most distinct terms, how they might have 
 reduced the malt-tax if they pleased. They had nothing to do but 
 make that proposal which I have described : namely, to leave the in- 
 come-tax alone, and to take off the half of the malt-tax. There were 
 several gentlemen on our side of the House, and gentlemen, too, of great 
 weight and authority — I believe your excellent member (Mr. Bazley) 
 was one of them — who thought that if we were to have an income-tax 
 it might as well remain at 6d. ; and of course he and they would have 
 been compelled to vote with the friends of the farmer, if the friends of 
 the farmer had proposed to leave the income-tax at that amounnt. Of 
 this I had not a doubt : and, accordingly, I ventured twice, in the most 
 distinct terms the English language can suppl}^ to state across the 
 table of the House of Commons, "Here is a distinct section of 
 the Liberal party who are keenly attached to direct taxation, and 
 who, if you will only for a moment pluck up your courage and just 
 propose to take off one-half the malt-tax, instead of 2d. off the income- 
 tax, will vote with you ; you will be in a majority, we shall be in a 
 minority, the farmers will be relieved, and the golden age will return." 
 Now, Mr. Bazley and gentlemen, when I look at the course of the 
 county elections, as far as they have yet gone, I am strongly impressed 
 with the belief that the farmer himself, who is a very different being 
 now from what he was when he was coaxed and cradled with monopoly 
 — he is now a man — resting, as you in Lancashire rest, upon his own 
 energies, his o\\ai intelligence ; — I think that he is coming to have a 
 very shrewd comprehension of these matters, and that something like 
 the sceptical feeling which has taken possessic^i of the 1 9th century 
 in certain quarters, is gradually acquiring rather a strong hold over 
 the British farmer, — with regard to the sincerity — I mean the political 
 sincerity — of his friends about the repeal or reduction of the malt-tax. 
 
 Gentlemen, the true friends of the reduction of the malt-tax are 
 the friends of public economy. It is only by a sedulous, jealous, 
 faithful application, upon every opportunity as it presents itself, and 
 I would that they Avcre more frequent and effectual, of the principles 
 of thrift to the administration of public money, that cither the malt-
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT MANCHESTER. 11 
 
 tax or other taxes can be reduced. True it is that tlie country is 
 prosperous, that the revenue increases, but along witb the increase 
 of the revenue there increases something else, and that is the disposi- 
 tion to feed upon and to consume it. And I cannot, standing as I do 
 before you now, refuse myself the use of this opportunity to repeat 
 what I have often felt it my duty to urge upon the late House of 
 Commons, that we are passing into the dangerous state of things in 
 which the House of Commons, instead of being the jealous, vigilant, 
 effectual controller of those proposals for expenditure, which it is 
 the duty of the executive government to make, tends itself to become 
 the promoter and the stimulator of public expenditure, forcing it 
 upon the executive government in every form of question, of motion, 
 of suggestion, and makiug it impossible for any government, and 
 for any minister of finance, to stand that continual pressure, which, 
 like the dropping of water, is at work by day and by night, and which 
 has its causes lying deep in human nature, and ever actively tending 
 to make invasions upon the public purse. But if I deeply lament 
 this state of things, which 1 look upon —I am Conservative enough 
 for that— as fraught not only with great practical mischief, but with 
 great constitutional danger to the purity of the life of the House of 
 Commons — I am bound in justice, sir, to you — in justice to others 
 whom I see around jow — in justice to those who are called the Liberal 
 party, to say that it is hardly, as far as my memory enables me to 
 form a computation, in one case in ten, that the pressure has proceeded 
 from that quarter. Nor has it come, I am bound also in justice to 
 say, from all gentlemen who sit opposite. One in particular there 
 was to whom I willingly render a tribute— he has but lately passed 
 away from us — I mean Sir Henry Willoughby, as true an economist 
 and as faithful a guardian of the public purse, as pure an adminis 
 trator of the gi*eat trust of Parliament with respect to public money, 
 as ever sat upon the benches of the House of Commons. But, 
 unfortunately, the great majority of those who have made it almost 
 impossible to apply vigorously the principles of thrift and good 
 husbandry to the expenditure of this country, are gentlemen 
 who have sat upon the side of the House opposite to you, and to 
 those by whom you are now surrounded. Most earnestly do I hope 
 that in the new Parliament we shall witness a different state of 
 things, and that the representatives of the people will, especially 
 among the Opposition, resume their legitimate office of limiting and 
 confining, not of promoting and enlarging, public expenditure. 
 
 But, Sir, however this may be, we have to consider of our future 
 course : and I avow my opinion, that we cannot do better, if we want 
 to arrive at a clear understanding of the terms upon which we propose 
 to contract together, than recollect those old words announced five- 
 and- thirty }ears ago, the words " Peace, Retrenchment, Reform."
 
 1 2 SPEECH AT MANCHESTER. July IStTi. 
 
 And, if I add a fourtli principle, and 1 think it ought to be added, it 
 is the pioniotion of that civil and religions liberty which is perfectly 
 consistent, at least in my heart I hope it is consistent, with a deep 
 attachment to the Church of this nation ; peifectly consistent, even 
 with a fair and equitable regard to all her temporal institu- 
 tions as an establishment. These are to be clearly distinguished 
 from what belongs to her religious character as a church; yet they 
 have a root, and a deep root, in the habits and in the attachment 
 of the country, and they are not to be lightly tampered with. But 
 I am for the policy which steadily refuses to seek either to extend 
 that Church, or to defend it, by means of imposing disability, or of 
 maintaining odious distinction against our Roman Catholic or Dissent- 
 ing fellow-subjects. Now, here sits my hon. friend Mr. Hadfield, 
 lately re-elected, after his faithful and active services, by the electors 
 of Sheffield. Mr. Hadfield and I do not always find ourselves in the 
 same lobby upon religious questions. I think Mr. Hadfield is a stout 
 anti-State-churchman ; and he is moreover a man who has the habit 
 of saying what ho thinks; in consequence we become well ac- 
 quainted with his opinions —a great deal better acquainted with his 
 opinions than we can contrive to be with those of many leading 
 persons who are now addressing the constituencies. But I now look 
 upon Mr. Hadfield with reference to those matters in which he endea- 
 vours to relieve his fellow-religionists from stigma or from inequality, 
 and to place them upon a political and social level with the members of 
 the Established Church ; and I do not hesitate to say, — often, too, has 
 he heard me say it while I represented the University of Oxford,— I 
 believe no greater error can be committed by those who call and 
 think themselves friends of the Church, but who are in reality least 
 of all its friends, than to endeavour to maintain its preponderance, 
 not by the free adhesion, not by the cordial love and admiration, of 
 the people to whom it ministers, but by miserable legal contrivances 
 that are available for no purpose whatever except that of placing 
 some oifensive badge on certain members of the community, and of 
 taking security, as far as human folly can take it, that those 
 members of the community shall be, from age to age, bitter enemies 
 of that Church, which, I am thankful to say, notwithstanding all the 
 devices of this short-sighted policy, is still the Church of the nation. 
 Well, my hon. friend Mr. Hadfield has sent up a measure to the House 
 of Lords— how many times, six ? [Mr. Hadfield : " Six."] My memory 
 is good, you see, in that case. He has laboriously brought into the 
 world one of the most modest, inofi'ensive little infants you can con- 
 ceive, — and he has done it six times over ; nay, six times over he has 
 overcome the difficulties of the nursing period. He has carried it 
 through all its stages in the House of Commons, and when he thought 
 it had arrived at an age when it ought to be sent to school — that is to
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT MANCHESTER. 13 
 
 say, an age when lie could with propriety present it at the door of 
 the House of Lords — the unfortunate and unoffending infant has been 
 ignominiously kicked back into his arms ; and ho has been told that 
 the declaration he wants to remove is a thing of. no value at all in it- 
 self, but a thing necessary and essential to maintain upon the statute- 
 book as a testimony to the superiority, or the ascendency, of the 
 Established Church. I most seriously deprecate this line of argu- 
 ment and of language. I hope my hon. friend will not be discouraged. 
 I trust that a seventh time, if necessary, or an eighth time, he will 
 go through the same pains and cares of paternity, and I feel confi- 
 dent that, at last, he will succeed in rearing the infant to full age 
 and stature, and in bringing him out entire and vigorous into the 
 Avorld. And then, gentlemen, it is easy to tell you what will happen. 
 That will happen which has happened with respect to the repeal 
 of the corn-law, the repeal of the navigation law, the treaty of com- 
 merce with France, the abolition of the paper duty, and a hundred 
 other measures ; the same men who have obstructed my honourable 
 friend, the same men who, in the days when they could resist him, 
 have resisted him to the uttermost, will, when he has gained his 
 object, claim credit for the very work that he has done, and will end 
 by kidnapping the child which they at first attempted to smother. 
 
 Sir, I will not detain you long upon the subject of the parliamentary 
 franchise ; but that is a question upon which, if 3'our patience be not 
 yet wholly exhausted, I will offer a few words. I entirely agree with 
 those who are of opinion that the question of the franchise cannot 
 possibly be settled by any mere naked allegation of abstract rights. 
 Yet 1 do not agree with those who say that there are no such things as 
 abstract rights. I believe that they exist, and that they are deeply 
 rooted in the relations of man, but 1 believe also that they are subject to 
 modification from time and circumstance. Indeterminate in themselves, 
 they take form from deliberation and public authority. The health 
 and welfare of the community is the supreme law of legislation. But 
 those who legislate cannot legislate justly and prudently, unless they 
 endeavour to satisfy, as well as they can, rights morally inherent in 
 the members of the community and anterior to all legislation. 
 
 Now I want to know how we stand with regard to this matter. In 
 the first place, it is one to which moie administrations than I can easily 
 remember, more Queen's Speeches than 1 could readily comit, have been 
 solemnly and deeply pledged. Promises have been recorded in the face 
 of the English people, which promises either ought not to have been 
 made, or else ought to have been redeemed; and if such promises remain 
 over long in suspense, if, after being profusely tendered in times when it 
 was politically convenient, they are cast aside when it appears to be safe 
 to make short work with them, the inevitable consequence is, I will not 
 indeed say discontent and disaffection in the mass of the commimity, but
 
 14 SPEECH AT MANCHESTE1{. July 18th. 
 
 certainly loss of credit, loss of dignity, loss of confidence, in the powera 
 and institutions of the country as regards their relation to the mind of 
 the nation at large. In 1832 was passed a Keform Bill. Since that time 
 what h.'us happened? Tlie fitness of the labouring class for the franchise 
 has increased; the proportion which the labouring class enfranchised 
 bear to the rest of the constituency I greatly fear has diminished ; and 
 there is a third element in the case, which is this— a very large pai't of 
 that limited portion of the labouring class that now have access to the 
 franchise obtain it in the character of freemen. In my opinion it is 
 impossible to give it them in a worse manner, because the distinction 
 drawn between freemen and non-freemen is an arbitrary distinction ; 
 it depends upon some mere accident of birth, or other local circumstance, 
 which has no relation to superior character, to superior skill, to supe- 
 rior property, or to superior morality. None of the tests that could 
 form, if they were available, a legitimate basis for drawing the line 
 between the enfranchised and the unenfranchised, apply in the smallest 
 degree to the line between freemen and non-freemen. Gentlemen, I 
 have ever been, and I still am, opposed to every sudden and to every 
 violent change. Never have I spoken a word which, fairly interpreted, 
 gave the smallest countenance to the schemes, if such schemes there be, 
 of any who would favour or promote the adoption of precipitate and 
 wholesale measures, that might endanger by their very suddenness the 
 true and just balance of the powers of the constitution. But this I saj^, 
 that the true and just balance of those powers would be, not destroyed, 
 but improved, by a fair, and liberal, and sensible, though not a sweep- 
 ing nor an overwhelming, admission of our brethren of the labouring 
 comnumity to the privilege of the suffrage. And I must say I could 
 heartily wish that it might still be possible to keep this question out 
 of the vortex of party politics. There was a time when the question of 
 parliamentary reform — it was in the days of Mr. Pitt — hardly could be 
 called a party question. When it comes to be a party question it also 
 comes to be associated with, and encumbered by, a thousand difficulties, 
 which render formidable, or even dangerous, that which might have 
 been easy in comparison, and simple. I know not whether it is des- 
 tined to become a party question or not; I can only say that so far as I 
 am conceiTied I have ever desired, and I shall ever desire, to have 
 it treated calmly, impartially, upon social grounds, upon a rational 
 view of the characters of our fellow-countrymen, upon a calm estimate 
 of the experience we have had of them; an estimate which shall not 
 omit to take into view, as it deserves, their conduct during the diffi- 
 culties of the last few years. I should earnestly desii-e to see an 
 extension of the franchise, not wrung, not extorted, as it was in 1832, 
 at the cost almost, certainly at the hazard, of something like revolu- 
 tion, but given freely, gencrousl}^ spontaneously ; given in that way 
 which excites confidence and gratitude, instead of engendering, by
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT MANCHESTER. 15 
 
 the animosities and the soreness of a protracted struggle, something, 
 perhaps even much, of resentment, or even of disaffection. But, gentle- 
 men, this question, like all others, is at the present moment not in our 
 hands; it is in yours. In my opinion we ought to draw a lesson from 
 the manner in which it has been taken up and abandoned by various 
 governments. An}^ government that should again take it up in defer- 
 ence to the supposed feeling of the moment, or to the wishes of their 
 supporters, but without a well-considered prospect of carrying it 
 through to its conclusion, would, I am persuaded, not perform, but 
 abandon their duty to the country ; and, above all, their duty to the 
 labouring class. Let us have no more of this promising without redeem- 
 ing. If there has been slackness in the parliament, it is a slackness 
 which I for one have been glad by every fair effort of argument and 
 persuasion to try to remove; but, on this you may depend, it has only 
 been the mirror and the representation of a corresponding sentiment, 
 and of a flagging interest in the countr}^ If you, the constituencies, 
 desire that this question shall be taken up and carried through to a satis- 
 factory conclusion, with you the matter rests. The House of Commons 
 never has yet refused, and I am sure it never will refuse, to give effect 
 to the well-considered wishes and convictions of the people of this 
 country. And now, gentlemen, I will detain you no longer ; my time 
 £ fear is, and your patience must be, entirely exhausted. I will only 
 say this in conclusion. It is my desire to state broadly to you the 
 question that I ask you. I have spoken of some of the points of public 
 interest which have come before the parliament that has just been dis- 
 solved, and which now occupy the public mind. The country in gene- 
 ral, if we may judge by the events of the last few days, seems disposed 
 to give a verdict upon the past which shall be perfectly intelligible. I 
 have been one of those who for many years past have laboured to pro- 
 mote that system of beneficial legislation which I believe has your 
 cordial, nay, your almost rmanimous, approval. I ask you, then, to 
 consider whether you, by the voice you are to give on Thursday, will 
 utter a note discordant from what I may now fairly say appears to be 
 the prevailing sense of the constituencies; or whether South Lanca- 
 shire, which, better than any other portion of the country, has followed, 
 understood, and promoted the cause of right and justice from the begin- 
 ning of the controversy until now, will send forth a sympathising echo 
 to the sound that the nation has given forth, and register her judgment 
 on the men and measures of the time in faithful correspondence with 
 the judgments of the people of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland.
 
 SPEECH AT l.IVEKPOOL ON JULY isth 
 
 Mr. Gladstone said: — Mr. Kathbone ; At eight o'clock to-night, the 
 very hour when I have the honour of appearing before this crowded 
 assembly, the poll has been appointed to cease for the University of 
 Oxford. The very last thing that I could think of would be to connect 
 that circumstance at Oxford with one single word either of disiepect or 
 indifference as regards that ancient, great, and venerable University. 
 Gentlemen, during eighteen anxious years I have been a representative 
 of Oxford in Parliament, it has been my duty in her name to deal, as 
 well as my feeble powers would permit me, with all the questions, bear- 
 ing upon the lelationship of religion and of education to the State, 
 which this critical period has brought to the surface. Gentlemen, I 
 have endeavoured to seive that University with my whole heart ; and 
 with the strength or weakness of whatever faculties God has given me, 
 it has been my daily and my nightly care to promote as well as I could 
 her interests, and to testify to her as well as I could my love. Long- 
 has she borne with me. Long, in spite of active opposition, did she 
 resist eveiy effort to displace me. At last she has changed her mind. 
 God grant it may be well with her, but the recollections of her confid- 
 ence, which I have so long enjoyed, and of the man}' hours and many 
 years that I have spent in her service, are recollections that I can 
 never lose. And if now, gentlemen, I appear before you in a different 
 position, I do not appear as a different man. I have not forgotten 
 the course of my former existence. In this free and happy country 
 I know of no opposition between its various classes and various in- 
 tei'ests ; and there is no reason why the man who has been, to the best 
 of his poor ability, the faithful representative of the University, should 
 not also to the best of his poor ability, if the constituency should be 
 disposed to grant the trust, be the faithful representative of the 
 electors of South Ijancashire. In representing that University my task 
 has been one of no small difficulty. The desire of my heart has been 
 to minister to her strength and to her prosperity ; and in devotion to 
 her truest interests I will not yield to my favoured competitor. As 
 to the mode of promoting these interests, as to the best method of tes- 
 tifying to that attachment, there may be, and I fear, from what has 
 occurred, there are, great differences between us. My earnest desire, 
 my heart's prayer, is that her future maybe as glorious as her past, and 
 yet more glorious still. But if it is to be so, that result must be 
 brought about by resolutely following a certain method of action ; by 
 enlarging her borders; by opening her doors; by invigorating her.
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL. 17 
 
 powers; by increasing her return of work done; by endeavouring, 
 wherever an opening shall be made for her, to rise to the height of that 
 vocation with which I believe it has pleased the Almighty to endow 
 her ; that as in other times the Universities of the land, and Oxford as 
 the first of them, led the mind and thought of the country along the 
 path of improvement, so now they, and she in her especial place, may 
 still prove worthy of that high office. But if I am told on the other 
 side that it is only by embracing the narrow interests of a political 
 part}^ that Oxford can discharge her duties to the country, then, 
 gentlemen, I at once say I am not the man for Oxford. 
 
 I hope, Sir, it will not savour of vanity if 1 detain you yet a moment 
 longer upon this subject. We see represented in that ancient institu- 
 tion, represented more nobly, perhaps, and more conspicuously, than in 
 any other place, at any rate with a more remarkable concentration, the 
 most prominent features that relate to the past of England. I come 
 into South Lancashire, and I find here around me an assemblage of 
 different phenomena. I find the development of industry ; I find the 
 growth of enterprise ; I find the progress of social philanthropy ; T 
 find the prevalence of toleration ; and I find an ardent desire for free- 
 dom., But, Sir, if there be a duty that more than another should be 
 held incumbent upon the public men of England, it is, so far at least as 
 I am able to conceive, the duty of establishing and maintaining a har- 
 mony between the past of our glorious country, and the future that is 
 still in store for her. In my humble and insignificant person, on the 
 one hand representing that ancient body, on the other hand placed now 
 for many years in the administration of the most responsible offices con- 
 nected with the material progress and well-being of the country, I 
 have honestly, I have earnestly, although T may have feebly, striven to 
 unite that which is represented by Oxford and that which is repre- 
 sented by Lancashire. My desire is that they should know and love 
 one another. If I have clung to the representation of the University 
 with desperate fondness, it was because I would not desert that post in 
 which I seemed to have been placed. I have not relinquished it. I 
 have been dismissed from it, not by academical, but by political agencies. 
 The great majority of the teaching body of Oxford, the great majority 
 of those who devote their nights and days and the best years of their 
 lives in rearing youths, have been at all times my supporters in the 
 election, and have not now abandoned me. I do not complain of those 
 political influences by which I have been displaced. The free consti- 
 tutional spirit of the country requires that the voice of the majority 
 should prevail. I hope the voice of the majority will prevail in South 
 Lancashire. 1 do not for a moment complain that it should have 
 prevailed in Oxford. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I come now to ask you a question ; the question 
 whether, because I have been declared unfit longer to serve the Uni- 
 
 c
 
 18 SrEKCH AT LIVERPOOL. July 18th. 
 
 versity on account of my political connection with the Liberal party, 
 there is anything in that position, there is anything in what I have 
 said and done, in the arduous office which I hold, which is to unfit me 
 for the representation of my native county. It is sometimes said, and 
 even upon high authority, but 1 really know not whether it is said in 
 jest or in earnest, that the present Parliament has been distinguished 
 by a series of attacks upon the Constitution, in Church and State. It 
 may be so. It may be that these attacks have been made ; but if they 
 have, they have not much fallen under my notice or knowledge. I do 
 not mean to say that I concur with every opinion that is pronounced 
 in respect to the Church in the House of Commons, and he would be a 
 very ingenious man who could concur with all of them ; but I do say, 
 gentlemen, that we, as a Government, and that I, as the representative 
 of the University, have not been unmindful of our and my duty to 
 study the interests of the Church. 1 admit that this is the special 
 duty of those who are chosen to that high trust, and I want to know 
 in what respect the interests of the Church have suftered during the 
 administration of the Government, and during the progress of legisla- 
 tion, through the last six years. There never was a time at which the 
 Church enjoyed freedom of sjDeech in the degree in which she now 
 possesses it. Her bishops and her clergy are permitted to meet, to 
 discuss the questions in which they feel an interest, and to give utter- 
 ance to their views, according to the old forms of the constitution. It 
 is quite true that they do not exercise coercive powers, and I am sure 
 that they are too wise to wish it; but, at an}^ rate, that freedom of 
 speech, permit me to say, is of itself a valuable privilege and an effec- 
 tive power, to a bod}^ which must necessarily depend upon its moral 
 influence ; for it cannot be defended, much less can it gain possession 
 of a continually extending sphere, by mere professions, by written law, 
 or by prescriptions from a former time. If the Church of England 
 is to live among us, she must flourish, and she i^ni.^t grow, and God 
 grant that she may do both, b}" making herself beneficently known in 
 the discharge of her Apostolic offices, by the faithful custody of the 
 word which she has received, by causing her ministration to be felt 
 as the friend and consoler of all in every rank of life; so that there 
 shall not be a man to whom her assistance can be available, who shall 
 not find her in a moment at his side. These are the functions in which 
 I have cordially desired to promote her usefulness, these are the func- 
 tions in which I believe she is growing stronger from da}^ to day ; and 
 on my part, as the representative of Oxford, on the part of those who 
 have been honoured with the confidence of Parliament, we say we have 
 in no respect betrayed our duty with regard to the Church of 
 England. 
 
 But, Sir, there is another view conscientiously entertained. I have 
 no doubt there is another view as to the proper mode of promoting the
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL. 19 
 
 interests of the Church of England, from which we essentially differ. 
 If it is thought that the Church of England's interests are to be pro- 
 moted by maintaining some odious stigma, T care not whether it be 
 upon Protestant Nonconformists, or upon our lioman Catholic fellow- 
 countrymen, I disclaim and repudiate all such modes, recommend 
 them who may, of defending the Church. And I say that the mis- 
 guided persons who, in their foll}^ would use such weapons for the 
 purpose which they have in view are merely contributing to defeat 
 their own dearest wishes, and are not to be reckoned, as far as their 
 acts are concerned, among her friends, but among her foes. Therefore, 
 Sir, I hold, that the promotion of the civil and religious freedom of 
 our fellow-countrymen, so far from being a sign of disloyalty, is a very 
 sure proof of that affectionate and intelligent service, which a body 
 like the Church of England ought to desire at the hands of her 
 children. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, I will not go into details. I will not trouble you 
 by arguing questions which have lately been under the consideration 
 of the Legislature, — questions about the qualification of Dissenters ; 
 questions about the oaths required from Eoman Catholics. These are 
 measures, with respect to which, in my opinion, a generous and con- 
 ciliatory policy is the only policy of wisdom ; and, whether I sit for 
 Oxford, or whether I sit for South Lancashire, or whether I don't sit 
 at all, I desire and I intend to act upon that policy so long as my life 
 shall last. 
 
 But now. Sir, I turn to secular matters; and I will make some 
 observations upon one or two of the questions that have been brought 
 copiously before the attention of the public during the course of the 
 present elections. Let me add, Sir, that I will endeavour to do this in 
 a manner as respectful and considerate as I can towards the feelings, 
 not only of those who hear me, but towards the feelings of those out of 
 doors who differ from me. The issue, gentlemen, which is before you 
 I take to be this. I am a member of a Liberal Government. I am in 
 association with the Liberal party. I have never swerved from what 
 1 conceive to be those truly Conservative objects and desires with 
 which I entered life. I am, if possible, more fondly attached to the 
 institutions of my country than I was when, as^ boy, I wandered 
 among the sand-hills of Seaforth or frequented the streets of Liverpool. 
 But experience has brought with it its lessons. I have learnt that 
 there is wisdom in a policy of trust, and folly in a policy of mistrust. 
 I have not refused to acknowledge and accept the signs of the times. I 
 have observed— and who could fail to observe ? — the effect that has been 
 produced upon the countiy by what is generally known as Liberal 
 legislation. And if we are told, as we are now truly told, that all the 
 feelings of the country are in the best and broadest sense Conservative, 
 — that is to say, that the people value the country and the laws and 
 
 c 2
 
 20 spep:ch at Liverpool. July istii. 
 
 institutions of the country ; if wc are told this, I say honesty com- 
 pels us to admit that this happy result has been brought about by 
 Liberal legislation. Therefore, I may presume to say that, since the 
 year 1841, when Sir R. Peel, then placed at the head of Her Majesty's 
 Government, thought fit to place me in a position in the Board of 
 Trade which brought me into direct, immediate, and responsible con- 
 tact with the commercial interests of the country, from that time 
 onward I have not swerved nor wavered, but have striven to the best 
 of my ability to advance in the work of improving the laws, and to 
 labour earnestly and fearlessly for the advantage of the people. Like all 
 who had opportunities of observation, I have been delighted to witness 
 the progress made in their condition, and therewith their growing 
 attachment to the laws under which they live. Every year has 
 brought with it its reward. We have seen the result of what has 
 been done, not only in the growing wealth, but in growing content- 
 ment, in growing industry, I would even trust we may presume to 
 add, in the growing ihorality of the people. And blind, indeed, must 
 that man be, who, after having been once privileged to take part in 
 processes such as these, withdraws his hand from the plough, turns 
 back his eye from the noble prospect that is before him, and reverts to 
 methods of thought and action, for which, before our late experience, 
 there might have been some apology, but which have been proved to 
 be so detrimental to the real advantage of the country and to tlie per- 
 manent maintenance of its institutions. I venture to put it to this 
 meeting that, although we may have been — I mean the members of the 
 present Government may have been — the members of a party, yet that 
 in associating ourselves with this work of beneficial legislation, and in 
 endeavouring to the best of our power to carry it forward, we have 
 not been labouring for the mere interests of that party, but for the 
 interests of the country at large. Nay, I may, perhaps, without 
 impropriety be permitted to say now, when the elections have been 
 for eight days in progress, that the country in its various districts and 
 divisions has recognised that truth, and has been pleased to seal our 
 conduct with the verdict of its general approbation. 
 
 I wish, however, to set before you more jDarticularly one or two of 
 the points upon wlnT;h we are disposed to make a claim to your con- 
 fidence. One among them is that we have been enabled to effect at 
 least some degree of retrenchment in the expenditure of the country. 
 Now, on the other side I have observed this answer made, that we 
 have not reduced the expenditure of the country below the point at 
 which it stood in the year when the party now in Opposition were 
 at the helm. The plea from that quarter is this : that the expenditure 
 of the country in that year— namely, 1858-1859— was under sixty-five 
 millions, and that it is now over sixty-six millions ; and therefore 
 that we have not only not really reduced, but have increased, the
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL. 21 
 
 expenditure of the country; and if we have made a diminution of 
 taxes, it has been made, as some ingenious gentleman has stated, by 
 taking off taxes which, we had first put on. Now, gentlemen, let us 
 see how that matter really stands ; and before I enter into it I will say 
 that I am not satisfied, as far as I am individually concerned, that the 
 expenditure of the country has yet been reduced to the lowest point 
 which may be found, under the improved and I trust improving 
 circumstances of the day, consistent with its honour and security. 
 But to this declaration I must add a further one. I will say this, and 
 say it without the smallest doubt, that, if the electoral body of this 
 country desires that further reduction shall be effected in that expen- 
 diture, they have only to send to Parliament men who sympathise with 
 that view, and the result which they wish for will be infallibly attained. 
 At this moment, however, we are upon a point of fact ; and the allegation 
 made is this, that a sum of no more than sixt^'-five millions represents 
 the public expenditure during the year for which the Government that 
 preceded us was responsible. Now, how does the matter really stand? 
 Pay a little attention to the facts and the dates. In the month of April, 
 1859, on the 1st of the month, a new financial year began. We were 
 not then in office. Another Government was in office. That Govern- 
 ment, when challenged upon its general conduct two months later, 
 founded a vindication, and even called for a vote of confidence and 
 thanks from the House of Commons, upon the ground that, discovering 
 the inefficient condition of our military and naval establishments, they 
 had set on foot what was rather pompously called the reconstruction 
 of the navy. This was in the month of April or May, 1859. Now, it 
 was not until June, 1859, that we came into office. It was not until 
 July that the administration, then just formed, were able to examine 
 the condition of the finances, and to propose measures for meeting the 
 demands of the public service for the year. We had then before us 
 the boast of our predecessors that they had set on foot the reconstruc- 
 tion of the navy ; and now I make the assertion, to which I challenge 
 contradiction, that when we came into office in 1859 we found the expen- 
 diture going on and the Estimates and plans of the year fixed, and three 
 months of the year already gone by, not at the rate of sixt3''-five millions, 
 but at the rate, in round numbers, of sixty-nine millions a year. Now, I 
 confess I am surprised to see that some of the very same gentlemen 
 who glorified themselves and took credit in the face of the country 
 for the immense energy they had displayed in setting on 
 foot the building of a number of perfectly worthless wooden line- 
 of-battle ships — can actually think that we liave forgotten all these 
 boasts, — that we are disposed to travel back with them to the expendi- 
 ture of a former year, from which they themselves considered and 
 declared it their highest honour to have departed. It was at sixt^^-nine 
 millions a year, then, and not at sixty-five millions, that we found the
 
 22 SPEECH AT LIVERroOL. July 18th. 
 
 expenditure proceeding when we came into office. In tmtli, gentle- 
 men, the legacy which was becpieathed to me as Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer— and most earnestly do I hope that no one of all this 
 vast assemblage ever may have such a legacy left to liim by the 
 kindness of his friends — the legacy bequeathed to mo in the 
 month of July, 1859, when between three and four months of 
 the year wore aheady passed, and a corresponding portion of money 
 already spent, was how to find the means of meeting a positive 
 deficiency of between four and five millions of money. Well, but 
 even this was not all, gentlemen : because we are told, and told but 
 too truly, that the expenditure did not stop at sixty-nine millions, high as 
 was that amount, but that in the year 18G0 it went up to seventy-two 
 millions of money. It was indeed nearer, I think, to seventy-three 
 millions. r>ut how came that about ? Why, gentlemen, it was due to 
 the veiy same reason ; we owed it to the kindness of our predecessors. 
 In the exercise of their diplomatic wisdom — they had to instruct an 
 ambassador to sign a treaty with China; and it appeared to them 
 that the signing of a treaty in that part of the world was an operation 
 which could not possibly be performed in a satisfactory manner 
 without the presence of a huge fleet, to give assurance, as they 
 thought, of our abandonment of all warlike intentions. The people 
 of China, in some way or other, did not understand the necessity 
 of a large fleet for the signing of a treaty, and thought that this 
 large fleet might possibly have some other object in view. However 
 that may be, as you know, a great disaster occurred in the month 
 of June, 1859, at the mouth of the Peiho, under the instructions of 
 Lord JMalmesbury, almost, 1 think, before the present Government had 
 assumed their offices; at any rate, before it had been able to consider 
 or direct any measure in reference to China. The consequence of 
 that disaster at the mouth of the Peiho was, that we had to find 
 SIX millions of money in order to restore our position with China. 
 And observe, I am not dealing with this subject as matter of praise 
 or blame, but simply as matter of fact. And, viewing it in that light 
 exclusively, I aver that the undivided credit of the expenditure of 
 from seventy-two to seventy-three millions, which we reached in 1860, 
 is not with your humble servant, but lies with those who preceded 
 us in our offices. Well, gentlemen, since that time we have effected 
 something, at all events, in the way of retrenchment. The expenditure, 
 which was in 1860 nearly seventy-three millions, is now reduced to, 
 I think, between sixty-six and sixty-seven millions. I do not say whether 
 that is satisfactory ; I do not say whether it is all that could be done ; 
 but I think I may say this, that it was something. And now the 
 question is— How has this been done? And here, again, I have 
 re^d with considerable astonishment statements that this reduction 
 of expenditure which has taken place has been forced upon Her
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL. 23 
 
 Majesty^s Government by motions made from the opposite side of 
 the House. Now, gentlemen, npon the opposite side of the House 
 there sit many excellent, many sensible, many enlightened men. 
 In this happj'- country all parties, fortunately but also naturally, 
 entertain in common much of sound principle and of sound opinion ; 
 yet still we have preferences among ourselves, and specially so 
 when we speak, not of the characters of individuals, but of the 
 combined and corporate action of parties. Now, gentlemen, I 
 venture to say, without fear of contradiction, that the influence 
 exercised from the opposite side of the House has in the main, in 
 the vast majority of cases, not been an influence to reduce, but an 
 influence to increase the expenditure, I know what I say : I am 
 confident it can be proved on careful examination of the records 
 of Parliament. A list of the motions which have been made, of the 
 questions which have been put, of the divisions which have taken 
 place, would show how, beyond all doubt, the powerful influence 
 which has been exercised from the opposite side of the House in 
 promoting the giving of public money to Mr. A, or Mr. B, or Mr. C, 
 or to Class A, or Class B, or Class C, or, I might almost say, to 
 whoever wanted it — to every class and every clique, in fact — has 
 been an influence not favourable, but constantly, though noiselessly, 
 most adverse to retrenchment. I will give you, gentlemen, a single 
 instance — I quote the name of the person because •! quote it with 
 respect. He is an old member of Parliament, and a man of consider- 
 able ability — a man respected by all, one of the most respected 
 members of the opposite party, whom anybody might be well pleased 
 to call his friend — Sir John Walsh, member for Radnorshire, who has 
 been in Parliament for thirty or forty years, and who should know 
 what he is about. But, gentlemen, I tell you this. In 1864 or 1803, 
 I forget which it was, Sir John Walsh thought the moderate reduction 
 made by the Government in the Navy Estimates so alarming, that 
 he deemed it his duty to make a special speech on the subject ; and 
 I assure you — for my own ears heard it — that he did not only state 
 that the Navy Estimates, such as they are now, were totally unequal 
 to the wants and necessities of the country, but that the proper way 
 to bring them up to those wants and necessities would be to double 
 them. The instance which I here quote to you was one of the most 
 conspicuous ; I am by no means sure that it was one of those attended 
 with the greatest real danger or power of mischief. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is quite true that upon one occasion — T think in the j'ear 
 1802 — the House of Commons took a step in favour of retrenchment. By 
 whom was that step taken ? A motion was proposed recommending that 
 attempts should be made to reduce the public expenditure. That motion 
 was made by Mr. Stansfeld. I never saw the face of Mr. Stansfeld on the 
 benches opposite. Thase who sit on the benches opposite do not seem
 
 24 SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL. July 18th. 
 
 to me to have exhibited any great love for Mr. Stansfeld, or to have 
 appreciated the services he rendered to the cause of retrenchment, if 
 we may judge from the steps which they afterwards took with so 
 much zeal and vigour to procure the removal of that excellent man 
 from office. Gentlemen, wliat I do claim is this, — that to the efforts of 
 the Government and the ellbrts of their friends, and also occasionally, 
 I admit, and gladly admit, to the exceptional efforts of enlightened 
 men on the Opposition side of the House, is due the retrenchment 
 that has been effected. And further. I have read in the report of the 
 speech of Mr. Disraeli — and I speak of him with all the respect due to 
 his position and talents — I read in the report of his speech to his late 
 and present constituents a statement that retrenchment has been forced 
 upon Government by motions made from his side of the House. I 
 cannot explain that extraordinary statement, which he will have the 
 opportunity, perhaps, hereafter of explaining, if he thinks fit, on the 
 floor of the House of Commons. I really think that the reporter of that 
 speech must for once have been asleep, or some of the heavy drafts, in 
 which Buckinghamshire is sometimes, though unjustly, accused of 
 indulging, must for a moment have bewildered his brain. I think 
 it absolutely certain that he must in some way or other have turned 
 inside out and upside down in the report of the speech the assertion 
 that had been made by Mr. Disraeli ; for it was totally impossible that 
 the statement I have referred to could have proceeded from the lips of 
 a gentleman possessing such means of information as belonged to the 
 leader of the Opposition. But then, gentlemen, I go from retrench- 
 ment to other matters. And it is very fairly said that good harvests 
 are not the work of Her Majesty's Government. That, gentlemen, 
 is perfectly true, but I recollect a time when instead of good harvests 
 we had bad harvests; when, in consequence of the miserable har- 
 vest of the year 1860, there was a deficiency of two millions in the 
 proceeds of the public revenue as compared with the estimate. Did 
 I at that epoch hear anything of the sound doctrine that the harvests 
 are not the work of the Government ? At that time, 1 do assure you, 
 the Government, and especially the unfortunate Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, were held resjionsible in full for the character of the har- 
 vest. There was not, you would have supposed, a waterspout opened 
 in the heavens which he had not discharged upon the fields beneath; 
 it was he and he only that had opened the windows of the skies. And 
 what a progress, gentlemen, does it show in physical knowledge and 
 training, 1 might even say in civilization, that a body of most excel- 
 lent and respectable persons, who in 1800, when there was a bad 
 harvest, were really so much bedarkened as to suppose that harvest 
 was the work of the Government — for they said that the deficiency was 
 its work, and that was the same thing — now, such is the progress they 
 have made, when in 1864-5 there happened to be good harvests, they
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL. 25 
 
 have awakened to the perception of the important tiiith that the har- 
 vest is not made good or bad by this or that Administration, but comes 
 as it pleases Providence to send it. Well, but, gentlemen, somehow or 
 other, there is a word, I think a very questionable word, called luck, 
 which has an immense effect upon the minds of men ; and they say that 
 the Government is the luckiest of all Governments, and that the Go- 
 vernment and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are the luckiest of all 
 Governments and of all Chancellors of the Exchequer. It seems that 
 all the circumstances of the country since we took office have been 
 so excessively favourable to economy, to saving, to moderate expendi- 
 ture, to large revenue, that to that source alone is to be ascribed the 
 happy state of things which exists. But now let us come down from 
 cloud-land, and for a while consider what our state has really been. 
 I have told you our friends who preceded us left us a legacy of 
 six millions of expenditure in the war with China. That I don't call 
 a remarkably good piece of luck. Well, then, the country, gentlemen, 
 went into a state of great and real apprehension, whether well founded 
 or not, in the year 18G0, with regard to its defences, and it determined 
 to have a large expenditure upon fortifications for the security of our 
 arsenals. Well, under the measures taken for that pui-pose we have 
 spent several millions of money. However right or otherwise such 
 expenditure may be in itself I am not now considering. It was the 
 plain undeniable desire and wish of the people of the country that 
 these costly fortifications should be erected, and sure I am that, when 
 the people of England wish to expend their money, why, they will 
 spend it; but you will admit with me it was not to be considered a 
 great piece of luck for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But that is 
 not all. It was in the year 1859 that the Admiralty set about that 
 remarkable work, the " Reconstruction of the Navy," which was a very 
 favourite phrase at the time, though you do not hear quite so much of 
 it now. Well, it is rather an expensive description of amusement for the 
 First Lord of the Admiralty, this reconstruction of the navy ; together 
 with the building of useless line-of-battle-ships, there was undertaken 
 what was really an attempt at something amounting to reconstruction ; 
 an attempt rendered wise and necessary by the remarkable transi- 
 tion from the use of wood to that of iron in the building of vessels. 
 This remarkable, and, on the whole, I trust, very beneficent transi- 
 tion has for the moment entailed great cost in the provision for 
 the defences of the countiy. That is not "luck" for the finances 
 of the country. Well, gentlemen, again, four years ago, by an awful 
 visitation of Providence, which rent for a time in twain the great 
 Republic so nearly and deeply associated with us, beyond the waves 
 of the Atlantic, there came upon Lancashire that which is familiarly 
 known by the name of the Cotton Famine. When wo look back upon 
 the Cotton Famine, and when wo consider the noble qualities that
 
 2(3 SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL. July 18th. 
 
 were displayed in the times of that most searching affliction — when we 
 recollect how we were then, for the first time perhaps, awakened 
 to the consciousness what a treasure we possessed in the factory popu- 
 lation of this country, we recognise the wisdom of Providence in 
 drawing good from that which seemed at the time to be unmitigated 
 evil. But that is not my present point. I want to know how that 
 Cotton Famine was to be considered as a piece of financial " luck." I 
 find, on the contraiy, it cut down our revenue, when it was at its 
 greatest intensity, by from one to two millions in a single year ; and, 
 beyond that, it was one of the most special inflictions, from its peculiar 
 nature, to which the Exchequer of this country ever has been subjected. 
 Further than this, I thankfully join with you in acknowledging the 
 bounty of Providence vouchsafed to us in the abundant products of 
 the earth. I cannot admit the doctrine that our situation is owing 
 to luck ; I acknowledge that in all good which befalls us, we should 
 recognise a hand higher, and a counsel wiser, than our own : yet, 
 speaking as a man to men, I do believe that we, as a Government, 
 are enabled upon the period of the present dissolution to show our 
 face before our fellow-countrymen, and that without a blush for the 
 financial condition of the country. 
 
 Now, Sir, as to the points on which I have last been addressing 
 you, I admit them to be points that more or less touch our dis- 
 tinctive professions as we sit on the right hand or the left hand of 
 the Speaker's chair. 1 am not ashamed to touch them ; I do not 
 lament, I do not regret, I do not mean to abandon the political as- 
 sociation in which conviction and experience have placed me. But 
 I do say to you, and I say through you to the people of South 
 Lancashire, that to the Liberal party of the present generation, and 
 with them to those members of the Conservative party, like Sir R. 
 Peel, who preferred the interests of their country to their place and 
 power, has been committed the extraordinary grace and favour of 
 being enabled, while they have held office, to address themselves, 
 and to address themselves with efi'ect, to the promotion of measuies 
 which ascend far above the height and descend far below the depth 
 of every party consideration, whatever it may be. There are objects, 
 gentlemen, which belong to our common country — to this England in 
 which we live. We have around us a vast population. These teem- 
 ing masses live under the ordinary dispensation which affects the lot of 
 human kind ; and experience teaches us that it has not been always 
 possible for the bulk of the community that live by toil upon this 
 bounteous earth to secure to themselves abundance of the first neces- 
 saries, much less of the first comforts of life. We know that in this 
 free country, that we admire and love so much, but half a century ago 
 great part of the peasantry were ground down almost to the very 
 dust; while the manufacturing population was tainted with a dis-
 
 July 18th. SPEECH AT LlVERrOOL. 27 
 
 affection that it is unfortunately too easy for us to understand, and 
 too difficult for us to condemn. We know that at that time few 
 were the labouring Englishmen who could see their wives and 
 their children decently lodged, sufficiently fed and clothed, and of 
 fewer still, and fewer far, can I say in addition, tolerably 
 educated. What is now the state of things? Much may yet re- 
 main to be done. My belief is, that there will always be ample 
 scope for all the best energies and all the best gifts of legislators 
 and public men, as well as of private benevolence and philanthropy ; 
 but something at least, by the mercy of God, has been achieved. 
 Education has gone forth through the length and the breadth of the 
 land. Voluntary institutions for every purpose of good, and because 
 voluntary, the best of all, have sprung up in multitudes. Wise 
 laws, abolishing the mischievous restraints upon capital and labour, 
 have enormously added to the wealth of the country. In so short 
 a period as the last ten years the foreign trade of England has become 
 nearly double what it was. It is more than triple what it was five- 
 and-twenty years ago. With the series of acts relating to the 
 material condition of the country have been joined, as I have said, 
 numbers of others bearing upon its moral and social condition, and 
 tending to set the masses of the community free in some degree from 
 necessar}^ and servile attention to their bodily wants ; to wants charging 
 and overcharging each day as it arose ; that they mighir care for their 
 higher interests, for the cultivation of their intellect, for their position 
 as rational, as moral, and as spiritual beings. But, gentlemen, this is 
 no party matter. The contemplation of it, if only for a moment, carries 
 us above the close and loaded atmosphere of party into a higher 
 and a purer air. Oh, what folly it has been, if there has existed* any 
 party in the State that has allowed to its rivals and opponents the 
 glory of almost monopolizing the prosecution of such a work! 
 But how happy, on the other hand, are they who have been per- 
 mitted to bear even the very humblest part in it ! Never can I be 
 too thankful that, not owing to any deliberate choice of my own, 
 but rather to the circumstances in which, without my own sugges- 
 tion, I have been placed, I have been as it were compelled to enter 
 into that beneficent work, and to make the prosecution of it the 
 main study and purpose of the best years of my life. It has been 
 a work, of which the vibration, so to ^peak, is felt throughout the 
 United Kingdom, and felt not only in the United Kingdom, but 
 felt, I rejoice to say, upon many a foreign shore ; and those who 
 formerly regarded England with jealousy or with hatred for the 
 selfishness of her commercial legislation, are now by degrees un- 
 learning their ancient prejudices, and are glad to follow the bene- 
 ficent example that has been set them by the Parliament of the 
 United Kingdom. It has been felt, then, through the world, it has
 
 28 SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL. July 18th. 
 
 been felt thiongh the dominions of the Queen, it has been felt 
 through those islands in which wo live, it has been felt, if in any 
 one place more than another, in the very district, and in the very 
 place, in which we stand. In Liverpool, in Manchester, on every 
 heath and hill, and in every valley, in every haunt and hive of this 
 industrious and stirring county, has been felt the impetus thus given 
 to the industry of man, and the influence thus brought into play for 
 bettering and advancing his position. Gentlemen, it would be the 
 height of arrogance in me were I to forget that I am no more than 
 a young, a late, a feeble labourer in this happy, 1 will even say in 
 this holy cause. Many have gone before me, many have exceeded 
 me ; but, with sincerity of heart and purpose, I have given myself 
 to the prosecution of the work ; and I come before you who have 
 fostered it in its beginning, known it in its progress, and enjoyed 
 it in its more ripe results, and I ask you to pronounce whether 
 those who have been privileged to take part in such a work are or 
 are not disabled and disqualified from sitting in the Parliament of 
 England, from receiving the suffrages, from being honoured with 
 the confidence, of the electors of the county of Lancaster.
 
 SPEECH AT KEWTON AT THE DECLARATION OF THE 
 
 POLL ON JULY 22ud. 
 
 Mr. High Sheriff and Gentlemen, — I am physically disabled from 
 using any effort to address you to-day. I am entirely dependent upon 
 your indulgence. On the Exchange in Liverpool, on "Wednesday last, 
 I had the honour of addressing a company almost countless, in hearing 
 of the roar of Dale-street and of Castle-street, and, I am sorry to say, the 
 result was that I left my voice behind me. Kow, it is just to the two or 
 three who stand in that neighbourliood (pointing') that I wish plainly to 
 say, if they are willing to hear me, I will endeavour not to abuse their 
 indulgence. I see one gentleman in particular ; he has been very active. 
 His lungs are in a much better state than mine ; but if I may address 
 myself to you, my friend, I tell you plainly, on another day when my 
 chest is right, I would not mind having a tussle with you in voice, not 
 to say in anything else ; but to-day I am totally unable to imdertake 
 anything of the kind : I am at your mercy, so to your mercy I make my 
 appeal. Mr. High Sheriff, having premised thus much, I need hardly 
 add that both upon this and many other grounds I shall endeavour not 
 to abuse the indulgence that I may receive. 1 have no doubt that the 
 speeches of my two successful colleagues have been models in point of taste 
 and feeling, but I unfortunately have not caught the purport of them as 
 much as I could have wished, and I beg them to believe that, if any omis- 
 sion in what little I have to say — any omission of reference to them — 
 should appear to be disrespectful, they will assign it to the true cause. 
 Mr. Sheriff and gentlemen, as politicians we live a life of con- 
 tention ; because in Parliament it rarely happens that our time is oc- 
 cupied in dealing with the many great questions — upon the deep 
 and important principles — uj)on which, thank God, as Englishmen, 
 we are all agreed. It is our happiness to dwell in a country where 
 the principles of liberty, liberty of person, liberty of proiDcrty, liberty 
 of belief, liberty of speech, liberty of assemblage, and liberty of peti- 
 tion, are better understood than in any other country of Europe ; and 
 I rejoice, gentlemen, to think that the strongest politician amongst 
 us, the most ardent partisan on either side, has no hesitation in shar- 
 ing the feeling of satisfaction with which I at this moment in particular 
 reflect upon the large inheritance of political belief that is conmion to 
 us all as Britons, by whatever name we may think fit to call ourselves. 
 Well, now, gentlemen, if I say one word upon mere politics, it will be 
 said, I hope, in accents that cannot give offence ; and I must already 
 interrupt the course of these few reuiarks by rendering my thanks to
 
 30 SPEECH AT NEWTONT AT DECLARATION OF POLL. July 22nd. 
 
 opponents as well as friends who arc present for the patient kindness 
 with wliicli they are hearing mo. Gentlemen, if you ask me for a politi- 
 cal motto, in my search for one I should be very apt to boiTow it from 
 a character well known and much respected among us — I mean the 
 policeman. When the policeman in London — and I suppose it is 
 the same elsewhere — when the policeman finds a number of people 
 blocking the footpath, he jogs one or two of them gently by the 
 elbow and just says, " Keep moving." But, gentlemen, when the 
 policeman says " Keep moving," ho does not mean " Iliish out 
 into the street and fling yourselves under the wheels of the omni- 
 buses and the cabs." Neither does he mean, " Overturn as quickl}'- 
 as you can, and as far as your ability will permit, everything that 
 comes in your way : " what he means is really and simply this, that 
 the people who are upon the footpath want to get on, that they have 
 good reason for wanting to get on, and therefore it is a great pity that 
 they should be compelled to stop. \N'ell, now, gentlemen, that motto, 
 familiar as the illustration may appear, I presume to think is a just 
 and a sound motto in political affairs. It is all very well to say, 
 " Things are very prosperous ; why can't you be content ? " But in all 
 human institutions there is an element of taint and corruption — a 
 principle of lapse and decay — that is continually at work : and not 
 only the popular doctrine of politics, but the truest and soundest philo- 
 sophy of human nature, teaches, in my opinion, that it is the duty of 
 public men to make it their care and study to apply to these danger- 
 ous powers and tendencies, which are in sleepless operation, a correc- 
 tive, as persistent and as wakeful as they are themselves, in the shape 
 of vigilant attempts to amend and an anxious desire to advance. And 
 now, gentlemen, having said so much, with your kind indulgence 
 I think I have said all that is necessary for the occasion. I mean all 
 that is necessary for the occasion which can partake of a controversial 
 nature. I have said that our life is a life of contention. It is well 
 that in the midst of it there should be some days of repose and peace. 
 I don't think that Mr. Egerton, Mr. Turner, and myself are met here to 
 fight our battles to-day. No doubt when we meet on the floor of the 
 House of Commons we shall all be ready to perform our duty to our 
 country, according to our respective convictions, and to the best of our 
 abilities. I, gentlemen, for my own part, with the help of the 
 Almighty, shall certainly endeavour, during what remains to me 
 of political life, to persevere in a course which I think has met, 
 under circumstances sufficiently remarkable, in my own person, with 
 the approbation of the electors. Gentlemen, I am as deeply indebted 
 to you, the electors of South Lancashire, as it is possible for any man 
 in my position to be. If I came here a wounded man, you have 
 healed my wound. It was an active, though I have no doubt a 
 perfectly loyal canvass of twelve months, carried on as Englishmen
 
 July 22ud. SPEECH AT NEWTON AT DECLARATION OF POLL. 31 
 
 had a right to carry it on, by the whole strength of a political party, 
 which deprived me of my seat for Oxford : but it has been a campaign 
 of two days, and no more, that has given me my seat for South 
 Lancashire. 
 
 I take this opportunity of expressing to you, gentlemen, my deep 
 regret that it has not been in my power in the usual and constitutional 
 manner to appear as a candidate before assemblies of my fellow-coun- 
 trymen at all the ditferent points of the southern division. But, gentle- 
 men, I am, as I have reason to be, all the more thankful for the result. 
 Perhaps I ma}^ offer with sincerity, and without suspicion, a word of 
 condolence to the defeated candidates, because I have myself been so 
 recently in that position, that, though I recollect it without malice, 
 yet I recollect it with a tolerably lively sense of what it is ; and 
 therefore I offer to them the sympathy of one who has suffered like them- 
 selves. I offer to the late member for South Lancashire, whom I have 
 been the means of displacing, the tribute which I believe he deserves, 
 of my sincere personal respect and regard. Nay, gentlemen, I will go 
 further, and I will wish him heartily a seat in Parliament, subject to 
 two considerations. One is, that he wishes it himself — and the second 
 is, that he does not displace some politician more nearl}' of the same 
 colour as myself. Gentlemen, with respect to Mr. Ileywood, his abili- 
 ties, his experience, his services in Parliament, the assistance that he 
 has given in promoting important changes and important measures of 
 improvement, I can trulj say — even though upon every one of those 
 measures he and I may by no means entirely concur — have given him 
 a distinguished place, and make his exclusion from Parliament a legiti- 
 mate subject of regret. As to Mr. Thompson, I entertain not only the 
 fervent hope, but the confident expectation, that at some early period 
 a gentleman of so much ability and so high a character, anxious to 
 devote Lis life to the service of his country in our free and open 
 Legislature, will find an easy and a secure way, and an honourable 
 way, into Parliament. As to my honourable friends (Messrs. Egerton 
 and Turner), from whom I am separated by too great a distance to 
 expect, them to take the hand that I hold out, I am sure that we shall 
 all cordially desire to co-operate together where we can, and that, 
 where we cannot, we shall, with a perfectly good understanding, fight 
 out our differences like men. And now, gentlemen, I thank you from 
 my heart ; I thank you without reserve and without distinction. I 
 thank those who, at the head of the committees, pursued a canvass 
 under the almost unexampled disadvantage of being liable to the impu- 
 tation that the candidate whose name they had placed first on their 
 card was nothing but the name and shadow of a candidate. I return 
 my cordial thanks to those who compose the committees of the wards and 
 districts, who, I believe, have laboured, and especially have laboured 
 during the animation of the last stage of the canvass, with that energy
 
 32 SPEECH AT NEWTON AT DECLARATION OF POLL. July 22nd. 
 
 and that straightfoi-wardnoss of purpose which belong to Englishmen, 
 and which every Englishman, whether he be friend or whether he be 
 opponent, must admire. I thank the voters of the Liberal party, who 
 have come up with sucli energy and zeal, and in such numbers, to my 
 support. 1 know that with respect to some of them, too, it was not 
 merely for their favour, it was also for their indulgence, and their 
 truly liberal indulgence, that I had to look. And lastly, gentlemen, 
 you will think I discharge no more than a debt of gratitude when I say, 
 I also thank those who kindly and generously, whatever may have been 
 their ordinary party associations, have thought fit, in the exercise of 
 their electoral franchise, to give their support to one who did not wear 
 the same colours as themselves, so as to assure to me the seat that I 
 now honourably occupy. And one step further, gentlemen, I must 
 go — I must thank, without exception, the whole of those who have 
 been opposed to me in this election for the kindness, and fairness, and 
 moderation — I might almost say something more — in many cases fur 
 the favour, with which I have been treated. I have seen, gentlemen, 
 nothing at all said against me in any local journal which has met my 
 eye — and if any other local journal has said anything worse, I hope 
 none of you will tell it me — I have seen nothing at all said against 
 me in any local print except this — that I am an erratic politician : and 
 that is a thing, gentlemen, that I have been accustomed to hear said of 
 me as long as I have lived. But, gentlemen, erratic or not erratic, for 
 more than a quarter of a century I have led an active life— a great 
 part of it in those very offices of the State which place a man in the 
 closest relations with the very sharpest sense and perceptions of his 
 fellow countrymen. And for my part, if a man is erratic, I would 
 advise him not to try his erratic propensities upon either the trade or 
 the finances of this country. But, gentlemen, in referring to the use of 
 that most inoffensive epithet — it ma}^ be just — God knows whether it is 
 or not — I did it only to show how tenderly even opponents and adver- 
 saries bad been disposed to deal with me. Gentlemen, I venture to trust 
 that the recollection of that tenderness will go with me to Parliament, 
 where you have sent me, and that, if I am ever tempted, in the heat of 
 party conflict, to think unkindly of any one who may sit over against 
 me, the recollection of this election for South Lancashire may act as 
 an effectual corrective, and ma}^ tend to cherish or to revive in my 
 breast a quality that is too often forgotten in our political contests, but 
 which, we ma}" depend upon it, is of as much value, or of more value, 
 in public life perhaps, than even in private life— and that is the homely 
 quality which goes by the name of Christian charity. Gentlemen, I 
 trust we shall part in Christian charity to-day. In this country we may 
 call ourselves Liberals, or we may call ourselves Conservatives. But 
 3'ou are aware that our friends who call themselves Conservatives 
 contend that they are in reality more liberal than we are ; and you
 
 July 22nd. SPEECH AT NEWTON AT DECLARATION OF POLL, 33 
 
 likewise know that we retaliate upon them by saying that we who are 
 Liberals are a great deal better Conservatives than tliey are. We think 
 — I won't say we are right — but we think we prove our case by point- 
 ing to the present condition of the country, the present sentiments of 
 the people, the present relations between class and class, compared 
 with what they were in the days of the corn-laws of 1814 and of the 
 Six Acts of Lord Sidmouth. For the moment, gentlemen, let that 
 matter of dispute remain as a drawn battle between us. Let every 
 man then to-day, without stint or scruple, abound in his own sense ; 
 let every man drink his own health with three times three. Honesty 
 of purpose, manliness of proceeding, straightforwardness, truth, and 
 energy, have hitherto been — and I trust will continue to be — the 
 distinguishing characteristics of my countrymen. As for our battles, 
 let us fight them out fairly ; as for our agreement, let us never cease 
 to remember and to rejoice that wo have a common country — a glori- 
 ous country — a noble country — a country with a past that has given 
 her one of the most distinguished places in the history of our race ; 
 and a country with a future awaiting her, before which, I will not 
 presume to hope, even her past may grow pale— but of which at any 
 rate I will venture upon saying so much as this, that we may well 
 hope the genei'ations of Englishmen who are j'et to come, and the 
 annals of our country yet to be unrolled, will not be unworthy of 
 those that have gone before. Let us each in our several stations 
 labour for that noble end, and rely upon it we shall have cause to be 
 thankful, alike for that which we have received from our fathers, and for 
 that which we may hand down to our children. Gentlemen, I have only 
 further to repeat, and to repeat most cordially, the thanks wliich I 
 ventured to tender before for your extraordinary patience, forbear- 
 ance, and kindness. Even the smallest minority of this assembly 
 might, if they had been so disposed, have prevented my being heard. 
 They have allowed my feeble voice the privilege of uninterrupted 
 speech, and I beg to tender to them the tribute of my warmest 
 thanks.
 
 SPEECH IN ANSWER TO AN ADDRESS FROM THE 
 PRINTERS AND COMPOSITORS OF NEWTON ON 
 THE 22nd OF JULY. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer said : ]\Ir. Ball, Mr. Palmer, and 
 Gentlemen, — I am extremely thankful to find that the arrangements 
 of the day have been so made, and likewise that the indulgence 
 of the great meeting out of doors was so unbroken, as to leave me a 
 little fragment of time, and a little fragment of voice, to acknowledge 
 the remarkable address that you have just presented to me. I must 
 refer first, gentlemen, to the closing words of that. address, which are 
 affecting words. I do not know that it is unseemly to introduce 
 them on these occasions. I hope it is not so. The opportunities 
 when we can meet are not numerous. We do not meet veiy often. It 
 is not a matter of every day. Although I am too happy to seize the 
 rare occasions that are permitted me of coming into immediate contact 
 with great bodies of my fellow-countrymen, 3'et it is but very rarely 
 that they can arise, by reason of the increasedly absorbing nature of 
 public business in the present age. And therefore, gentlemen, I do 
 most cordially thank you for the high Source to which you have referred 
 me in this address as the only source of good. The labours that we 
 do in this life — how poor they are ! How much cause we have to be 
 ashamed, in looking back upon them, that they were not better done ; 
 and how deeply convinced we all must feel, from the marks which it 
 has pleased Providence to impress upon our daily experience, that for 
 us all — for those of us who are old, and for those of us who are j^oung 
 alike — this world is nothing but a school, where we are put for a little 
 while to learn our lesson, and that there is a place beyond the grave 
 where it will be proved whether we have learned it or whether we 
 have not. Well, now, gentlemen, passing from that subject — that 
 solemn subject — I cannot help referring particularly to two of the 
 phrases that I find in this address. You kindl}' give me credit for " a 
 pure and honest wish to do all the good I can for the moral and social 
 improvement and elevation of the working classes of this great nation, 
 as well as acting justly and consistently to all those in the higher 
 spheres of life." Now, gentlemen, I cannot say that these sentiments of 
 equal regard for the interest and welfare of all the classes which com- 
 pose society, coming from you — I am now addressing you as an 
 assembly of working men, and I presume the bidk of you correspond 
 with that description — I cannot say that your receiving me with such 
 a declaration in the slightest degree surprises me. On the contrary, it
 
 July 22nd. 8PEECH IN ANSWER TO ADDRESS AT NEWTON. 35 
 
 is iu thorough conformity with what I hear from the working classes 
 whenever I am placed in contact with them in whatever part of the 
 country. They are just as sensible as any one can be — and I trust and 
 believe they will always remain so — that what is called mere levelling, 
 that is to say, the mere pulling down of what is above us, is a mistaken 
 and even an abominable system. It never really implies a genuine 
 and earnest desire to lift up what is below us. But the working men 
 of this country — the working artisans of this country — have many that 
 are below them as well as many that are above them. You know that 
 society is, as you have gone on to describe it, like a well-built, well- 
 ordered fabric, with many stones and many timbers, manj^ doors, many 
 windows, many parts and portions of the structure, all and each having 
 their separate offices, some of them above and some of them below, 
 some of them larger and some of them smaller, but all built and 
 framed by the mind of the builder to serve one common purpose ; and 
 that if you are to suppose that good is to be done b}^ bestowing exces- 
 sive and exceptional prominence upon some one portion of the building, 
 or, to quit the metaphor, if our scheme of policy be to grant a monopoly 
 of power or of favour to some one class or clique in society, it is not 
 for the benefit even of that part, and it is the ruin of the whole. It is 
 not, I say, for the benefit even of that class. The interest of every 
 class is to have justice done to every other class ; and, gentlemen, that is 
 the test to which I am sure you are disposed, and to wdiich I hope you 
 will always determine, to bring the deeds of the public men of this 
 country. Well, then, gentlemen, j^ou go on to say — and this pleases 
 me particularly, though it rather leads me again to the subject I have 
 just been upon — 3'ou go on to say that the public man ought to 
 be regarded as an architect. That is the best answer you can give 
 to any who suppose that the profession of popular principles makes 
 a man justly liable to be called a destructive. Certainly, gentle- 
 men, an architect is not a destructive, and a destructive is not an 
 architect. An architect may find it his duty, as you go on to 
 point out, to pull down what is old ; but not because it is old, — no, 
 not a bit. If it is the fine old architecture of the past times he 
 reveres it the more because it is old, and the good architect you 
 will find even passionate in his admiration of what is old, provid- 
 ing it is good as well as old ; but if it has become worthless, either 
 from being or in spite of being old, and if, being worthless, it at- 
 tempts to shelter itself under the pretext of its being old, then the 
 architect says, "No; I cannot listen to that, I must pull you down;" 
 and so he pulls down that which is old if it is worthless. But why 
 does he pull it down? Not for the sake of pulling down, as if pulling 
 down could, except in the case of things evil, be a purpose in itself; 
 but for the sake of building up in its place something which is 
 better, something which will more eifectually serve tlie use for 
 
 D 2
 
 36 SPEECH IN ANSWER TO ADDRESS AT NEWTON. July 22nd. 
 
 which the building was erected. Building up is the business of the 
 politician, the business of the minister, the business of the member 
 of Parliament ; my business, as knight of the shire, now that I have 
 been elected a member for the county of Lancaster ; your business 
 as citizens, your business as electors, your business in every opinion 
 you give on public affairs. There have been countries, unhappily, 
 where, from tlic course of affairs having gone long and obstinately 
 awry — there have been countries — and such perhaps was the state 
 of France before what was known as the great revolution — where a 
 great sweeping work of destruction was necessary, almost, perhaps, 
 absolutely neccssar}', before an}" good could be done, because the 
 defects and the diseases were incurable. That is not our case. This 
 is no sucli country. Our business is chiefly to build. I admit it is 
 to repair; but besides repairing, it is to extend, it is to raise higher 
 up, it is to spread wider and wider the lofty and noble building 
 which we fondly call the British Constitution. This is the nature of 
 the function to which public men in England are called. It is a 
 happy duty, gentlemen. They are supported in it by the indul- 
 gent favour of their countrj^men. I will say that nothing has 
 struck me more in the course of a long public life than the general 
 fairness — nay, the more than fairness — the ordinary and usual 
 generosity of the judgments that are passed, not by one class or 
 another, but by the whole community, on the character and con- 
 duct of public men. 1 am quite certain of this as matter of per- 
 sonal experience —that if sometimes it has happened to me to think 
 that in one or another particular I have been inijustly condemned, 
 ten times more numerous have been the occasitms when I have felt . 
 that I was unjustly and unduly praised, and far in advance of what I 
 had deserved. Well, gentlemen, this is the work that has been before 
 us. And I now cannot help saying one word upon your particular 
 duty and business. It is one in wliich I feel a special interest. One 
 of the sharpest passages in my political life, gentlemen — perhaps I 
 ought to say the sharpest of them all— was that which was con- 
 nected with the repeal of the paper duty in 1800 and 1861. I 
 know not how it was, but that was a period when even friends 
 seemed in some cases to become lukewarm — many who had said 
 before, at least, that they were friends, seemed to become lukewarm 
 or abashed, and when opponents seemed to grow more and more confi- 
 dent. It was then, I assure you, my frequent duty to sit in the 
 House of Commons, and not only to hear the Government, or, it might 
 be, myself, called rash, reckless, and profligate, for sacrificing without 
 a sufficient end the revenue of the country, but to hear it said that 
 the paper duty did no harm to anybody, that it restricted no 
 trade, that it was no burden upon commerce, that the additional 
 dearness of paper could have no effect of what was called a sensible
 
 July 22nd. SPEECH IN ANSWER TO ADDRESS AT NEWTON. 37 
 
 description; and forgive me, gentlemen, if, in the attempt to de- 
 scribe, I abandon detail, and say simply, in my homely language, 
 that there was at that time a copious venting of all the trash 
 and all the nonsense, which, if it had been good for anything, 
 was perfectly good against the repeal of the corn-laws, against the 
 repeal of the navigation laws, against the repeal of the soap 
 duties, against every good measure of that kind which had been 
 carried in our time : the whole of this trash came out reburnished 
 and done up again to oppose and obstruct the repeal of the 
 paper duty. And now, gentlemen, what have we seen as the 
 result ? Why, we have seen — and I acknowled^je it with thankfulness 
 in the face of God and man — that the repeal of the paper duty has 
 been a greater blessing even than any of its promoters anticipated. I 
 did, gentlemen, to the best of my ability, fight a battle, and I will 
 even say a hard battle, for its repeal. And I find now that in its repeal 
 not only was tliere involved the liberation of a great branch of trade — 
 a branch of trade which is already great, and which I believe will, as 
 years roll on, become very much greater — but theie was involved a 
 seed of social and moral good that has sprang up with rapidity and has 
 borne a harvest such as I confess I was by no means sanguine enough 
 to expect. We said to-day at the hustings that the Liberal policy is 
 conservative. Look at the daily penny press. What is the daily 
 ]ienny press ? The daily jDcnny press is an organ that finds its way 
 into the house of the working man ; that keeps him well-informed, 
 without the least disparagement to other classes, upon the course of 
 public affairs ; for the daily penny press is not destructive nor licen- 
 tious more than any other portion of the press — if possible, it is even 
 less so ; but its office is to keep the working man daily informed of 
 all current public transactions. Why, what is that but creating a new 
 interest in the mind of the working man— an interest that is refreshed 
 from day to day — in the affairs, the laws, the institutions of the land ? 
 What is that but making him feel that he has become in a new sense a 
 citizen of his country, that his country owns in a new manner his 
 title to a share in public affairs ? He feels it ; his bosom enlarges 
 with the sense of it; and in that bosom, so enlarged, there spring 
 up a continual growth and increase of love and attachment to the 
 Queen, and to the institutions of the country.
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 ADDRESS I. 
 
 To THE Members of Convocation in tue Univeusity of Oxford. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 After an arduous connection of eighteen years, I bid you 
 re^spectfully farewell. 
 
 My earnest purpose to serve you, my many faults and shortcomings, 
 the incidents of tlie political relation between the University and 
 myself established in 1847, so often questioned in vain, and now at 
 length finally dissolved, I leave to the judgment of the future. It is 
 one imperative duty, and one alone, which induces me to trouble you 
 with these few parting words : the duty of expressing my profound and 
 lasting gratitude for indulgence as generous, and fur support as w^aim 
 and enthusiastic in itself, and as honourable from the character and 
 distinctions of those who have given it, as has in my belief ever been 
 accorded by any constituency to any representative. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 Gentlemen, 
 Your obliged and obedient Servant, 
 
 W. E. Glads roNE. 
 
 JIawarden, Chester, July 18, 18G5. 
 
 ADDRESS II. 
 
 To the Electors op the Southern Division of the County of 
 
 Lancaster. 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 I appear before you as a candidate for the suffrages of your 
 division of my native county. 
 
 Time forbids me to enlarge on the numerous topics which justly 
 engage the public interest. 
 
 I will bring them all to a single head. 
 
 You are conversant, few so much so, with the legislation of the last 
 twenty-five years. You have seen, you have felt, its results. You
 
 ADDRESSES. 39 
 
 cannot fail to have observed tlie verdict which the country generally 
 has, within the last eight days, pronounced upon the relative claims 
 and positions of the two great political parties, with respect to that 
 legislation in the past, and to the prospective administration of public 
 affairs. 
 
 Without the least disparagement to many excellent persons, from 
 whom I have the misfoitune frequently to differ, I humbly but con- 
 fidently ask you to give your powerful voice in confirmation of that 
 verdict ; and to pronounce with significance as to the direction in 
 which you desire the wheels of State to move. 
 
 Before these words can bo read, I hope to bo among you, in the 
 hives of your teeming enterprise. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 Gentlemen, 
 Your most obedient and most humble Servant, 
 
 W. E. Gladstone. 
 Hatoarden, July IS, 1865. 
 
 ADDRESS III. 
 
 To THE Electors of the Southern Division of the County of 
 
 Lancaster. 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Within forty-eight hours of my first act of appeal to you, your 
 prompt response has placed my name on the list of your represen- 
 tatives. 
 
 I feel deeply, not alone the greatness of the honour, but the generous 
 manner in which it has been conferred. 
 
 It wqll bo my stud}' to discharge the duties of my trust in the 
 spirit of the declarations with which I solicited j^our support. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 Gentlemen, 
 Your most obliged and most obedient Servant, 
 
 W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 Hawarden, Chester, July 21, 18G5.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 SPEECH AT CHESTEll ON THE 31st OF MAY, 1865. 
 
 Thk Chancellor of the Exchequer said : " Mr. Mayor, Electors, and 
 Gentlemen, — Although I have not the honour to be either a candidate 
 or an elector for the city of Chester, yet I hope it will not appear to you 
 strange or unnatural that i ishould come among you on the present 
 occasion, when the immediate question concerns one in whom i am so 
 nearly and dearly interested, and of whom I at least have had cause to 
 believe that I never shall be ashamed. But, gentlemen, there is a 
 special reason which brings me here, and which makes me feel it to be 
 my duty, if I am favoured for a while with your patience and attention, 
 to explain distinctly the position in which we stand. We have in the 
 Held four candidates for Chester ; or, if 1 set apart one about whose 
 return I trust there is no shadow of doubt, and who need not be con- 
 sidered as a party in this contest, we have three candidates for a single 
 seat. That is not at first sight a promising position of affairs. But 
 who are these three candidates ? One of them is Mr. Eaikes ; and Mr. 
 Raikes has all the claim to represent this constituency in Parliament 
 which can be possessed by a man who entertains opinions which are 
 those only of a very small minority of the constituency. And how 
 came Mr. Kaikes among you ? He came, gentlemen, in consequence 
 of divisions existing in the body of the majority of the constituency ; 
 and I am sure you will agree with me that it is only those divisions 
 that could give to Mr. liaikes even so much as the ghost of a chance. 
 AVell, then, gentlemen (for I wish to make this a practical occasion), it 
 is a grave matter to consider who is responsible foi- those divisions. I 
 at least have felt that responsibility deeply ; and I have gone, I am 
 afraid, very nearly to the point of giving reasonable offence to many 
 who are the warmest and most influential supporters of my son, by my 
 disinclination— nay, more, by my resistance — to his coming here for 
 any purpose which could involve disparagement or danger to the pre- 
 valence of the Liberal party, and of its opinions, in the city of Chester 
 on the present occasion. And what, gentlemen, was the first com- 
 munication made by my eon to his friends, and made by my advice? 
 Generally, gentlemen, I presume to say that I leave him to the 
 formation of tree opinions. Never shall I attempt to interfere with his 
 conscientious convictions. I am a lover of freedom in the nation, and 
 I am a lover of freedom in the famil}-. But I did feel, gentlemen, that 
 it was my duty strenuously to urge upon him to adopt for himself this 
 rule of C(mduct, that he would not be governed in ever so small a 
 degree by considerations of personal ambition — that the flattering 
 prospect of his gaining j'our suffrages should not bring him into 
 the field to the possible danger of that party which comprises three- 
 fourths of the constituency ; that he should not appear there unless
 
 May 31st. SrEEClI AT CHESTER. 41 
 
 we were convinced by demonstrative evidence that it was by hiiii 
 that the wishes and opinions of that x^^^^y '^^'ould best be repre- 
 sented. And therefore his first pledge and promise was, that he 
 could not be a candidate at all unless invited in a manner so un- 
 equivocal as to be reasonably and morally sure that he would be tlie 
 object of your choice. But, gentlemen, it may be said, " That is all 
 very well, but what was to be the test?" Very well, it is a fair ques- 
 tion. Each of us has had a test. Mr. Fenton has proposed a test, 
 and we have proposed a test. And, gentlemen, if I refer to Mr. 
 Fenton, and if 1 show that this responsibility lies not at our door 
 but at his (A voice : " It does not "), I shall endeavour to do so 
 in terms that cannot give offence to the gentleman opposite who 
 just now expressed his opinion, nor to anybody else ; and not one 
 word of intentional disrespect to Mr. Fenton, to his friends, or 
 to his opinions, will escape me on this occasion. " Oh," said Mr. 
 Fenton, "decide the case between us two by a meeting of the Liberal 
 electois." Well, now, 1 frankly own I have no doubt that Mr. 
 Fenton, with his other accomplishments, must be a gentleman of 
 great humour, and that he knew we were very simple — he knew, as 
 has been said of one among us, we were little better than babies ; and 
 I really think he considered a fair joke might be passed off upon us; 
 because no one will seriously tell me in earnest that a man could really 
 suppose that the parliamentary representation of Chester was to be 
 disposed of b}'' a meeting, called, forsooth ! a meeting of the Liberal 
 electors. How is a meeting of the Liberal electors to be held? Are 
 there to be doorkeepers, to ask every man as he enters, fiist, whether 
 he is an elector, and, secondly, whether he is a Liberal elector ? Snppose 
 he thinks he is a Liberal elector, and the doorkeeper *does not, is the 
 doorkeeper to slam the door in his face? I take it that this is for the 
 most part a meeting of Liberal electors, nnd light well pleased I am to 
 meet you, gentlemen ; but at the same time it would not be very easy 
 to decide at this meeting, crowded and packed as you arc, who should 
 be the member for Chester. I think a good deal might depend in some 
 circumstances upon who was in the chair. But it is needless to argue 
 the matter in detail. The truth is, that was a method of declining 
 altogether a reference to any trustworthy ciiterion. \\*ell, gentlemen, 
 let me now deal with our criterion. A\'e did not entertain the question 
 of the Chester seat at all until a requisition signed by 400 persons 
 was presented, and then w^e said w^hat T am bound to admit was not 
 A^ery civil; we then said, "That will not do.'' We said, "There is 
 no proof in that requisition that my son is to be the object of the 
 choice of the bulk of the paity whieli forms the majority of the con- 
 stituency; and unless that condition is fulfilled, we will not go into 
 the field — we will not divide the Liberal party." \\ ell, thereupon our 
 friends, not discouraged, and 1 must say putting a good face upon the 
 matter, went back to their woik and raised the 400 to 800. Well, 
 considering that, after all, Mr. IJaikes has a party in Chester, and 
 considering that the number that can be polled in Chester is, as I 
 am told, not more than 1900, the presentation of a requisition with over 
 800 names did appear to show at least presumptively' that the man 
 who received it was and would be the choice of the majority of the 
 electors. I)Ut even then, gentlenn n, we did not liuiiy to a conclusion ; 
 but we said to Mr. Fenton, " Produce a supeiior or equal manifestation of 
 strength, and we will retire from the field." Nay, more, 1 say so now. 
 I make that promise again. (A voice: "He can do it.") \\ ell, if he
 
 42 SPEECH AT CHESTEK. May 31st. 
 
 cau do it, by all means let him do it. Wo made that proposal, and what 
 was Mr. Fenton's answer ? ]\Ir. Fenton looked with a critical eye 
 at the requisition, lie said, " Here are a hmidied men that 1 knock 
 ofT npon one plea or another ; three have signed thrice, fifteen have 
 signed twice, forty or something like it are unqualified to vote; some 
 have invited him, but do not promise to support him ; and that way 
 about a hundred names are made up." (A voice: "More than a 
 hundred.") Don't bo in a hurry, my good friend. If you will take one 
 thing at a time we shall get forward all the quicker. As regards that 
 hundred names, I trust to the supporters of my son and the framers of 
 the requisition to deal with those particular criticisms; but for the 
 l)rescnt, and for the sake of argument, I will suppose they are good, 
 and that a hundred are to be struck off. But tlien Mr. Fenton took 
 broader ground, and said, " Good heavens ! worse than all ; here are 294 
 Conservatives," all of whom this ruthless man proposed to disfranchise 
 at a stroke. That was a terrible f)roposition. The ground of it was 
 that they had voted for Mr. Ilumberston at the last election. Now, 
 gentlemen, you know the history of Chester better than 1 do ; but 
 I have been told that of the Liberal party in Chester, not only 294, 
 but probably oOO or 600, voted for Mr. Humberston, and therefore 
 I confess I am not prepared to disfranchise gentlemen who supported 
 your present member for having put their names to this requisition. 
 I do not approve of the policy that is pursued by the party which 
 calls itself Conservative. I do not think its measures usually tend to 
 the conservation of the interests of this country. But for many of the 
 gentlemen in that party I have a great respect, and upon their votes 
 1 will not deny that 1 set some value. But suppose that were all 
 true, did not Mr. Fenton see that it made it not the less but the more 
 necessary that he should accept the test ? His business then was to 
 say, "I decline your men in buckram, but your real men 1 will tackle 
 to, and I will show yon a list on my side better than yours." But 
 Mr. Fenton has done no such thing. (A voice : " You didn't wait.") 
 We could not w^ait for ever, and Mr. Fenton did not say, " I want 
 a reasonable time to do it in ;" he said, " 1 will not do it at all." 
 (A voice: "Not yet.") It is no question of "not yet," my friend. 
 Mr. Fenton, instead of being a man of business and a deputy- 
 chaiiman of the Great \\ estern Railway, really became altogether 
 poetical and mystical, and discoursed about anonymous and unseen 
 personages and agents, and the large number of his supporters ; but 
 he did not prcjdiice those supporters in black and white. I hold 
 then, gentlemen, that this demand of ouis was a reasonable demand, 
 and that we have thrown upon Mr. Fenton by that challenge the whole 
 and unmixed responsibility of the division that exists in Chester. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, that is the part of the proceedings for which I am 
 most especially responsible. If this contest proceeds, if it goes on to 
 its natural consummation, theie will be a good deal of controversial 
 matter bandied backwards and forwards in relation to the question 
 who w^as the cause of this mischief; and as my conscience is now clear, 
 I wish to lay our case before you, that we have not moved except upon 
 a requisition signed by 800 names from a constituency in which no 
 more than a gross total of 1900 can be polled. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, you are aware of the manner in wdiich I have been 
 brought into lelation with your political interests and proceedings. 1 
 am neither candidate nor elector ; and it would be most unbecoming 
 in me to attempt to address you on public aifairs unless it were in
 
 May 31st. SPEECH AT CHESTER. 43 
 
 deference to the general and prevailing wish of this crowded, I fear this 
 inconveniently crowded, assembly. All J would venture to suggest is 
 — and that, 1 think, is a fair appeal — that if it bo the desire of the 
 large majority of the meeting that I should speak upon the state and 
 prospects of this election, tlie minority of the meeting, Ihe very small 
 minority, will pay some regard to the wishes of that majority. Well 
 now, gentlemen, 1 take interest enougli in this contest to endeavour to 
 improve my mind from day to day by references to the political 
 literature of Chester, and it is with rather a peculiar interest, from the 
 fact that I am the subject of a portion of it. 1 refer particularly to 
 the speeches that have been made by and in the presence of the gen- 
 tleman who is called the Tory candidate — I mean Mr. Eaikes. Sow 
 I must express my regret that the discussions at that gentleman's 
 meetings have not been confined to political matter, but that matter 
 aftecting personal character, and even some portion of it matter which I 
 must designate as foul calumny, has been introduced either by the 
 error of the reporters or by the error of the speakers. I shall not 
 allude to subjects of that class. I shall deal with them not here but 
 elsewhere. But I hope, and I give it as my best advice and injunction 
 to my son, and I trust I may put it forward as an earnest entreaty to 
 his friends, that on their part in this contest everything of the kind 
 shall be studiously avoided. But, gentlemen, I pass on from that sub- 
 ject to politics of large and general interest. And these are matters of 
 fair remark in every meeting of Englishmen for a political purpose. I 
 have read Mr. Eaikes's speeches. I think he seems to be a young 
 gentleman of considerable readiness, and he has got a good stock 
 of what are termed cut-and-dried opinions on all the questions of the 
 day. Not only so, but he has contrived to form p?etty conclusive 
 judgments upon men old enough to be his father or his grandfather, 
 who have been spending some thirty, some forty, some fifty or sixty 
 years in the service of their country. Mr. Eaikes is leported to say, 
 gentlemen, that for the last six years there has been no government in 
 tliis country. It is true that there has been no government of the kind 
 which Mr. Eaikes wished to have, lliere has been no government 
 such as there was fifty years ago, when the Corn Laws were passed, 
 and when the Six Acts unhappily took their place upon the Statute 
 Book. There has been no government of tliat description : but, gentle- 
 men, I submit to you that there has been a government of some kind 
 or other. Why, who are the prominent men in the government ? 
 Lord Palmerston and Lord Eussell. Lord Balmerston is a man 
 who has established what I may justly call a world-wide reputation. 
 Almost wherever the name of England is known, his name is known 
 along with it. And I must add that he is a man whose services, whoso 
 experience, whose great powers, and whose estimable and popular 
 qualities, have long since given him a place in the favour and aifec- 
 tion of his countrymen. And wlio, then, is I^ord E^ussell ? lorsooth, 
 there has been no government for the past six years. I again 
 ask, who and what is Lord liussell ? Who will write the history 
 of this country in this generation witliout giving to Lord Eussell 
 in that history one of its very foremost, places? Gentlemen, it is 
 the practice, and the just practice, of the Sovereigns of England to 
 decorate the breasts of our soldiery with medals and clasps, for the 
 gallant and good deeds that they have done ; and I do not fear to 
 affirm that, if it were the practice to decorate likewise the breasts 
 of statesmen with medals and with clasps for the good laws they
 
 44 SPEECH AT CHESTER. May 31st. 
 
 have passed, and for the benefits they liave conferred upon the 
 country, the breast of Lord KusseU would be one blaze of clasps 
 and medals. And yet, forsooth, there has been no g(jvernment for 
 the last six years. Well, but there is, 1 perceive, in a part of the 
 same speech, a statement that something at any rate has come about 
 within these six years : 1 believe it was a commercial treaty with 
 Franco. I believe there was a treaty of that kind made in 1 8G0, although 
 there was no government in this country. Says Mr. Eaikes, "That 
 treaty has very much dif^appointed the expectations of its friends and 
 the expectations of its enemies." It is said to be a good rule in this 
 wicked world, just to believe one half of what you hear; therefore 
 1 believe one half of what I hear from Mr. l\aikes in this matter. I 
 believe that that treaty has disappointed the expectations of its 
 enemies. ]>ut with regard to the expectations of its friends, I want 
 to know where in the world Mr. Raikes gets his information about 
 them? I will venture to say there are very few of them standing 
 by his side in this election. Did he come eavesdropping at some 
 of your meetings to gather this intelligence ? He may be very well 
 entitled to describe tlie feelings of the opponents of the treaty, but 
 as to those of its friends he is a bad authority. I will presume to say 
 that I know something of the expectations of the friends of the treaty, 
 and I must say not only that no lawyer but that no dreamer ever con- 
 ceived a statement more exaggerated or more absuid than that it has 
 disappointed the expectations of its friends. What has that treaty done ? 
 It has added to the annual value of the trade between England and 
 France, I think, twenty-three millions of money, and besides adding thus 
 to the value of the trade with France, inasmuch as the legislation founded 
 upon and required by that treaty was not confined to Fi-ance, I believe 
 it has added at the very least as much more to our trade with other 
 countries of the world. And if we are able to see fort}' or fifty millions 
 of money of beneficial exchange added to the transactions of this 
 country by the conclusion of that instrument, is that a case for dis- 
 appointment ? For what is the meaning of the w^ords which 1 have 
 just used ? You see these figures in statistical tables — do you reflect 
 upon their deep and pi'egnant significanc}' ? They mean this. They 
 mean millions upon millions added to the profit of capital, to the 
 reward of skill, to the payment of honest labour in this countr3^ 
 They mean comfort carried into cottages, where, but for the demand 
 thus created for employment, want would have ])revailed. They mean 
 this, — that when the great calamity of the American war came upon the 
 World, and a great gap was occasioned in our commei'ce by the com- 
 parative cessation of American demand, a demand from France spring- 
 ing up under that treaty came in to supply its place at the very 
 moment, and kept in action those strong English arms which, but for 
 that treaty, would have hung paial^'scd by the side of our operatives 
 and artisans and mechanics. W^ell, gentlemen, that forsooth is the 
 disappointment so pathetically described, and that is just one among 
 the acts of a period when there has been no government in the 
 country. Such appears to be Mr. Kaikes's idea of the government of 
 the countr}'. A>'hat does he think is the business of a government ? 
 Does he think it consists only in the regulation of prisons and work- 
 houses, and in the passing and administration of penal or resti'aining 
 laws? J hold, on the contrary, that we are in our best and happiest 
 emplo3'ment when fortunate and providential combinations of cir- 
 cumstances enable us to devise means for raising the condition and
 
 May 31st. SPEECH AT CllESTEPt. 45 
 
 increasing the happiness of the great body of our fellow-country- 
 men. 
 
 However, gentlemen, I need not trouble you more on the subject of 
 the French treaty. But this I must say. Be on your guaid against 
 those who, while they just acquit from blame the good deeds of other 
 times, condemn the men who did them, and afford you no prospect of 
 their doing the like themselves : who, when they look back over the 
 legislation of the last thirty years, say, " We make no objection to this 
 and that — the repeal of the corn-laws is all very well ; the lieform Act 
 is all very well; the removal of disabilities for religion is all very 
 well — but beware of the men who carried the repeal of the corn-laws 
 and who endeavoured to mitigate or remove these disabilities. Beware 
 too of the men who have taught the doctrine of a renewed extension 
 of the franchise." These are the modest demands which Mr. Eaikes 
 makes upon } ou. But then, by way of compensation, all gentlemen of 
 this class are so kind as to assure you that they are perfectly willing 
 to consent to the "removal of proved abuses." Ay, gentlemen, 3'es, 
 " proved abuses," no doubt, but who is to prove them ? And who 
 is to be the judge of the proof? Mr. Eaikes and his friends are to 
 be the judges of the proof. But then we should like to know in what 
 manner they will pass judgment upon the proof. Well, but, if 1 am to 
 understand in what manner they will pass judgment upon the proof 
 hereafter, I must look to their past acts. And what have they been 
 about? What have they been doing in reference to the French 
 treaty? Offering every obstacle to the making of that treaty that 
 the ingenuity and zeal and vigour of Parliamentary opposition could 
 devise. I have told you its character — I have told you its results. 
 Judge of them yourselves ; and judge from them whether you ought 
 to give the honour and practical duty of representing Chester into the 
 hands of those who mean to follow the men that resisted the con- 
 ferring of those benefits, or into the hands of those who mean to 
 support them and to do their best to promote the pursuit of a like 
 policy hereafter. 
 
 Kow, gentlemen, I come to say a few words that are very stiictly 
 relevant to this occasion. My son appears before j^ou as a young man, 
 and Mr. Fenton appears before you as a man proved by experience in 
 business. I wish to state this part of the case fairly, because my son 
 is a man necessarily without experience in what is termed business. 
 Mr. Fenton is a man of experience in business ; and I think, naturally 
 enough, a certain presumption may arise in favour of a man of experi- 
 ence in business. But I wish to state to you some points connected 
 with the nature and functions of the House of Commons. The futui 
 well-being of this country depends mainly upon the manner in which 
 the House of Commons is composed. The most critical and imjiortant 
 perhaps of all its functions is the management of its relations with the 
 executive government; a large part of which, according to our old 
 and salutar}^ nay perhaps indispensable practice, must be formed 
 from the benches of the House of Commons. You must therefore 
 have a class of men who take to political life, and who do not merely 
 add the duties of Parliament to those of their business or profession. 
 Now, gentlemen, what is practically a political life ? ^Vhat is the life 
 of a man in office ? It is a profession. It is just as much a profession 
 and a trade as any profession or trade driven in this city. And allow 
 me to say that, if you intend to carry that profession on, experience 
 has proved that you must have it carried on in the main by men
 
 4r) SPEECH AT CHESTER. May 31st. 
 
 who have taken to it -when they were young. 1 will illustrate this, 
 if you please, in a familiar manner. Suppose there is any man 
 among you who is a master carpenter, or master smith, and 1 go to 
 him and ask him to take mo in as a journeyman, lie would naturally 
 say, "Do you know anything about the business?" *' No, but I am 
 willing to learn." l>ut he would say instantly, " You are a great deal 
 too old — go and tliink of something else." There is ample space and 
 room in the House of Commons for what are called men of business ; 
 not only country gentlemen, but manufacturers, merchants, ship- 
 owners, railway directors, and all other f^orts, generally speaking 
 from the towns. There will, 1 hope, always be a large number of 
 such men. ^Mlat the House of Commons wants is every available 
 diversity of elements, ^'ou see this very diversity of elements in 
 this hall. We want every class, every interest, every quality and 
 capacity of mind ; but if you wish to have the business of the country 
 carried on, you must, be content to return to the House of Commons 
 a certain number of men who are to make it the profession and 
 occupation of their lives ; and in order to be well supplied with the 
 means of choice for the government of the country, it is of vital 
 importance that you should always have in Parliament a sufficient 
 stock of those who have gone there with their minds fresh and 
 pliable, and apt to acquire the varied habits and aptitudes which 
 political life demands. Consequently youth is no valid objection 
 to a candidate : and, gentlemen, I should not in the least degree 
 feel ashamed of recommending — if it were in my power to recom- 
 mend — to you the choice of one whose education has been such as 
 possibly to qualify him for the discharge of public duty; whose 
 character has always deserved my confidence ; whose judgment I 
 know already, young though he be, to be sound and good ; and who 
 I am confident will prove himself an honest and a worthy j'cpre- 
 sentative of the people. 
 
 Well now, gentlemen, I came into the vicinity of this hall at the 
 moment when my son had proceeded far in addressing you. Perhaps 
 you will be surprised if I tell you I am not aware of his precise 
 opinions on several points which would probably be matters of 
 interest among you. I wish to leave them to a free growth in an 
 intelligent mind. And I am confident, from what I know of English 
 constituencies and the character of my fellow-countrymen, that you 
 will be likewise disposed to leave to him some freedom of discretion. 
 You ma}^ get a cut-and-dried representative who will answer political 
 questions as if the}'' were his catechism, and will go, with all the fine 
 powers of a parrot, wherever }ou like to send him. I speak of men 
 in general, and not of those who are rare exceptions. Mr. Eaikes 
 seems to think that at a very early period of life he ought to under- 
 stand the whole wide range of English politics, and be a perfect 
 master of all these vast subjects — nay, not only a master of them, 
 but in a condition to smite every other man with denunciation. I 
 say this, that if he can get to that condition of mind by the age of 
 twenty-five, what a prodigy of knowledge and of wisdom he will 
 be by the time he is fifty or sixt}''! And I really do think that, if 
 Mr. Kaikes's education advances in future years at such a rate as 
 he appears to think it has advanced heretofore, it would be very 
 hard to tell to what enormous dimensions — I mean morally — he 
 may not swell in future times. But that is not the lot of ordinary 
 men. Some degree of trust is what your representatives must
 
 May 31st. SPEECH AT CHESTEIJ. 47 
 
 ordinarily ask of you ; trust the young man peculiarly demands ; 
 and if you look back over the long line of statesmen in this country 
 who have on the whole been the leaders of opinion, Mr. Pitt, Mr. 
 Canning, Lord Macaulay, Lord Palmerston, Lord IJussell, and the 
 rest, you will find they are all of them men who have been 
 elected in early youth upon that principle of trust. Having honest 
 English minds, and leading their political life in the light of day, 
 and enjoying from day to day that inestimable privilege which wo 
 do enjoy of the free comments of our countrymen in general, and 
 the press in particular, upon all we say and do, rely upon it that, 
 with these advantages, when the conscience and character are right, 
 the result will be right enough too. The mind will open out under 
 the teaching of experience, like the flower under the rain and sun ; 
 and from those you have sent to represent you in youth, you will 
 see spring up by degrees in well-sustained succession the men who 
 are to make the name of England respected abroad, and to promote 
 at home the happiness of the people. Now, gentlemen, up to what 
 point do you suppose that my advice has been given to my son 
 with regard to all these questions? I have advised him frankly to 
 declare himself among you as an adherent of Liberal principles — 
 not to measure too nicely or too stringently the application of those 
 principles, but to take the principles themselves. And what do I 
 understand by the Liberal principle? I understand, in the main, 
 it is a principle of trust in the people, only qualified by prudence. 
 But by the principle which is opposed to the Liberal principle, I 
 understand mistrust of the people, only qualified by fear. Perfect 
 honour, perfect sincerity, may exist on both sides, but the dominant 
 idea I understand as 1 have given it. And why 4o I make that 
 recommendation ? Because I look back over the history of the last 
 fifty years, that is, since the peace of 1815, and I mark to myself 
 the change which has taken place in the condition of this country. 
 Those of us who are old enough to recollect that period have been 
 the witnesses of that change, and all others have the means by 
 inquiry of judging of its extent. AVhat was then, in and about 
 1815, the condition of the masses of this country? Their food 
 was shortened by unnatural and artificial laws ; and those very 
 laws which made their food dear and scarce, made also scarce the 
 employment by which their food was to be paid for. The natural 
 and necessary consequence of such legislation was widespread dis- 
 content. And how was discontent encountered ? It was met, perhaps 
 of necessity, by laws for repressing the range, and diminishing the 
 action, of personal liberty, and for making more severe the penalties 
 against those who might seem to manifest disaffection. The conse- 
 quence was serious indeed for that great and venerable monarchy of 
 England, which I trust wo shall hand down to our children stronger 
 and healthier than we received it from the immediately preceding 
 generation. Some forty years ago, the ancient foundations of that 
 monarchy were sadly weakened in the hearts and minds of the 
 people. But now a different tone has come over legislation. Another 
 spirit guides the deliberations of Parliament. Parliament has striven 
 to extend franchises, to mitigate penal laws, to improve and enlarge 
 education, to make justice acceptable to the people and the law 
 respected, to remove every occasion of collision and conflict between 
 classes — all these things, and many more of the like description, make 
 up the chapter of the legislation of the last five-and- thirty yeais.
 
 48 SPEECU AT CHESTER. Mat Slst. 
 
 And not only th's, bnt in another great chapter of politics — I mean 
 the foreign policy of this connir}- — they liave endeavonred, while 
 observing every international obligation, honestly to extend the 
 hand of sympathy and fricndshij) to free institutions throughout 
 the world. >s ow, by whom is it that this change has been brought 
 about)' Has it been bi ought about by those whom Mr. Kaikes asks 
 3'ou to support? [Cries of " No ! "] No, gentlemen, it has not. It has 
 been brought about mainly by the direct action of the party termed 
 the Liberal party, while in possession of the government ; and partly 
 also, I may bo permitted and 1 am in justice bound to say, partly 
 also by the example and the exertions of men like Mr. Canning and 
 Sir liobert Teel, whose minds were too largo for the contracted 
 space within which they found themselves confined, and who, because 
 of the benefits they conferred upon their countr^'men, had the mis- 
 fortune to lose the confidence of their party. But the party of which 
 they lost the confidence is that very party which Mr. Kaikes invites 
 you to support. Now I do not deny, on the contrary I rejoice, that 
 in that party there are not only many honourable men, but many 
 noble, generous, upright, intelligent, and enlightened men; but of 
 them as a party, it is not what I say but what history has recorded, 
 that the great and beneficial changes which we have seen, which 
 have rendered our people more happy, our laws more respected, and 
 our institutions more secure than those perhaps of almost any other 
 people in the world — are changes wliich have been made not by the 
 agency, but generally in opposition, to the endeavours of that party. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, i have detained you very long, and I do not think 
 there is any reason why I should detain you longer ; but, if it be agree- 
 able to your desire, I will say one word upon a subject which I know 
 interests you, and on which I heard the remarks that fell from my son 
 — I mean the subject of the franchise. Now, gentlemen, as far as I 
 can understand the position of that question in this city, it is very 
 pecmliar ; and the constituency of Chester, if I am rightly informed, is 
 very diff"erently composed from the constituencies — I mean the town 
 constituencies — of the country in general. As I understand the matter, 
 out of about 1900 or 2000 votes in Chester, at the least about 900 are 
 supposed to belong to the working class : that is to say, on a moderate 
 estimate, not very far short of one half of the whole. Well, now, 
 when we look over the countr}^ at large, so far is it from being tnie 
 that one half of the whole constituenc}^ is composed of the working 
 class, that the working class only forms an exceedingly small, and a 
 scarcely appreciable, fraction of that constituency. It is very difficult 
 to estimate the fraction exactly, and I will not pretend to do so ; but I 
 believe that if we take the whole constituency of the country at about 
 a million, some think that the working men comprised in that million 
 do not much exceed 50,000, and I believe hardly any one thinks the}' 
 come up to 100,00'). That, in my opinion, is a very small portion of 
 the constituencies to be composed of working men. I frankly own to 
 you, gentlemen, that I am against all sudden, violent, and sweeping 
 changes. The characteristic of our country is to go forward surely and 
 steadily ; but J confess I lament that the mind of the countr}^ is not 
 more fully ripened than at the present it seems to be for a sensible ex- 
 tension of the franchise to the working classes. I am not speaking of 
 Chester. The case of Chester, and all such cases, may require considera- 
 tion from another point of view. I am by no means sure that a better 
 system will not be found for Chester (prospectively, I mean) than
 
 May 31st. SPEECH AT CHESTER. 49 
 
 the present system, which practicaHy, as I understancl, admits the 
 working man only in the character of a freeman. But that is quite 
 another question as to the manner in which, the title under which, the 
 franchise is enjoyed. Evidently no one can den}^ that the workino- men 
 have a very ample share in the constituency of Chester. Certainly no 
 Government, and no member of any Government, with which I have 
 been connected, would have ever thought it wise to introduce laws 
 which would at once hand over the majority of votes in the country 
 into the hands of working men. Now 1 say that not through distrust. 
 I have had thirteen years' experience of a working men's constituency 
 in the borough of Newark. It was not a very large constituency, for 
 it contained about IGOO voters, and out of them 1100 or 1200 were 
 working men. Those working men never dreamed of voting together as 
 a class, or setting up a separate interest. But still J say, let us go surely 
 and steadily. Those scot and lot constituencies have been extinguished 
 and I am very sorry for it. I wish they had continued. It was a 
 good old sound English franchise, and it secured this effect, — that if 
 there were questions in which the working man had a peculiar interest 
 in those boroughs, at any rate they had, when occasion arose, the 
 means, if they thought fit, of making any peculiar wants and wishes 
 clearly known. And that, I think, was not a bad thing, but a o-ood 
 thing for the constitution. Now we are in this singular predicament. 
 I believe that a smaller portion of working men enjoy the franchise 
 now than enjoj'cd it thirty years ago, after the Keform Bill was 
 passed. But if the electors of the working class have diminished, 
 what has happened to the working class itself? Has the working 
 class diminished ? No, it has increased. Has the condition of the 
 working class deteriorated? No, it is amended. Is tlie education 
 of the people worse? No, it is infinitely extended and improved. Is 
 the loyalty of the working class more doubtful ? No, it glows more 
 fervently than ever. Is their feeling towards the Government a feel- 
 ing of greater hostility ? No, as I have the best means of knowing, so 
 far from mistrusting the Government, the Government is the agent 
 that they like to choose for the guardian of their savings. Yet one 
 word more : has the character of the working class been si^ecially 
 
 tested in that interval ? Yes, it was tried in the fire of affliction, 
 
 in that fire of affliction which wasted Lancashire, when, in a day, the 
 subsistence and employment of a people were swept away, and yet 
 public order was secure, the laws were revered, respect was paid to 
 every more fortunate class, want was endured with silence, patience, 
 and heroic fortitude. I must say that proofs of competency such as 
 those ought to have some influence on the spirit of privileged classes 
 and to induce them, not as a matter of conflict and of controversy, 
 not from a regard for abstract theorj-, but upon grounds the most 
 strictly practical, and with a view of strengthening the laws and 
 institutions of the country, to make some sensible, ay, some liberal, 
 though some safe extension of the franchise. It would be utterly 
 futile to enter now into the question what should bo the form of 
 that extension. I cannot but agree that it would be most wise to 
 include in that extension all those who, now being of a class and of 
 a property equal to the possession of the franchise, are notwithstanding 
 excluded from it. That is a measure which lias received a name from 
 a very distinguished gentleman, Mr. Disraeli. He calls it a lateral 
 extension ; I would rather call it an extension side-ways, and that is 
 a name which abundantly describes its meaning. But the opinion
 
 50 SPEECH AT CHESTER. May 31st. 
 
 of her Majesty's Government has been and is, that, though that is very- 
 good, it is not enough, and that there ought also to be, speaking of the 
 country at large, an extension downwards, one the ellect of which 
 should be that in the borough constituencies in general the working 
 classes should exist as a sensible fraction or proportion of those con- 
 stituencies, and that their voice should be more freely and fully heard 
 in the Houses of I'arliament, in order not only that their interests may 
 be more fully represented in Parliament, but that their feelings may 
 be yet more warmly enlisted in the welfare of our common country. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, shall I say a word to you about the Dee and 
 Mersey Eailway ? That is a great descent, is it not ? But I have not 
 the smallest objection to discuss the Dee and Mersey Railway, or any 
 other subject whatever. I have a very clear conscience about the 
 Dee and Mersey Railway; for my interests are the same as yours. 
 I am the owner of what a little niau may call a considerable frontage 
 upon the river Dee, but the whole value of that frontage dep..nds 
 upon the navigation of that river. It would play the mischief with 
 me if that navigation was stopped : and therefore my interests are 
 exactly the same as those of the city of Chester. And my agency, i. 
 may state, was very actively employed at the proper time to induce 
 the promoters of that bill to place in the bill such clauses for the 
 protection of the river, and the protection of the navigation, that I, 
 as a person whose only interest in the property was an interest in the 
 navigation, should be satisfied with. But, gentlemen, what has my son 
 to do with it ? Do you suppose 1 have been indoctrinating him with 
 the rights and the wrongs of the Dee and Mersey Railway ? The rule 
 seems to me to be this : If a man's father has done any good, " Oh," 
 you say, " that is the father ;" but if a man's father has done any mis- 
 chief, you say, " See, the father has done it : depend upon it the son 
 will do the same." AVell, but I hold exactly the contrary. And I say 
 this, we have all got faults. I have plenty of them, and I want my 
 son to avoid them. But if I have ever done any service, or been of the 
 smallest use to my countrymen, I beseech him so far, and so far only, to 
 imitate my example. I was going to say — I am member for another 
 place, and he is member for Chester, but that is not true : however, I 
 think it will soon be true, and I am confident that, if he be the object 
 of your choice, it will be the desire and aim of his heart and life to be 
 worthy of your favour ; worthy, even in the promotion of those local 
 interests, which are not the things for which you send a man to Parlia- 
 ment, yet which are of considerable importance, and on which j^ou are 
 entitled to be fully and fairly represented. He will be worthy, then, 
 in his devotion to your local interests, and I am persuaded he will be 
 worthy, in a yet wider sense, in a conscientious and enlightened at- 
 tachment to those principles and that policy which have been proved, 
 by the sure test of experience, to be alike calculated to develop the 
 material resources of this country, to increase the comfort of those by 
 whom the great business of British labour is conducted, to knead and 
 bind together in unity the difi'erent classes of the community, to in- 
 crease the name and influence of England abroad, and to contribute to 
 every good and beneficent purpose for which Providence has given us 
 a place in the family of nations. 
 
 LONDON : rUINTED BT W. CLOWES AND SONS, BTAlliO&X) STTUBET, AND CHARING CB0S8.
 
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