Miscellaneous.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 651, 2 February 1859, Page 5

Miscellaneous.

A public dinner was given at Birmingham, in October, to Mr. John Bright. Mr. Muutz (brother of the late member) was in the chair. Among the gentlemen present were J. B. Smith, M;P., Mr. Bass,M.P., Mr. Hadfield, M.P., Mr. C. Foster, M.P., Mr. Pease, M.P., Mr. W. Sharman Crawford, Mr. Bazley. (the Candidate for the representation of Manchester), Mr. George Wilson, Mr. Duncan M'Laren, and a considerable nura ber. of the leading inhabitants of Birmingham. Letters of excuse were read, expressing great esteem for Mr. Bright, from Lord John Itussell, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Locke King, and Mr. W. J. Fox. After the routine toasts, Mr. Bright's health was drunk, and he rose. His speech was a strong vindication of a peace policy in foreign affairs, He began by declaring that he had promulgated no views which were not unheld by the best and most revered names in the history of England; particularly citing Sir Robert Walpole, Charles Jariies Fox, Earl Grey,—who came into office to carry out " peace, retrenchment, and .reform; " : and Sir Robert Peel, who ,pn the very day of his lamented death made a. speech in which. he describes himself in saying." If I am not mistaken I have made a speech of peace—a speech of peace." I appeal to this audience, to every man who knows anything of the views'arid policy of the Liberal party in past years, whether it is not the fact that up to 1852, and . indeed to a much later period, probably to the year 1850, those sentiments of. Sir Robert Peel—the sentiments which lin humbler mode have propounded—* were not received unanimously by the Liberal party as their fixed and unchangeable creed." The glorious Revolution, which put a hit in the mouth of the monarch, also enthroned the great territorial families; and .they invented the policy which has cost so much to the industry of the country-—a policy to "maintain the liberties of Europe;" there were wars "to "support the Protestant interest," and there were many wars to preserve our old friend, " the balance of power.'' "We have been at war since that time, I believe, with, for, and against every considerable nation in Europe. We fought to put down a pretended French supremacy under Louis XIV. We fought to prevent France and Spain coming under the sceptre of one monarch, although, if we had not fought, it would have been impossible in the course of things that they should have become so united. We fought to maintain the Italian provinces in connexion with the House of Austria. We fought ito put down the supremacy of Napoleon Bonaparte, arid the Minister who was employed by this country at Vienna after the great war, when it was determined that no Bonaparte should ever again sit on the throne of France, was the very man to make an alliance with another Bonaparte for the purpose of carrying on a war to prevent the supremacy of the late Emperor of Russia. (Cheers), And what are the results ? Europe is not at this moment, so far as I know, speaking of it broadly, and making allowance for certain improvements in its general civilization, more free politically than it was before. The balance of power is like the perpetual motion." These wars have cost this small island no less a sum than £2,000,000,000—a sum which it transcends his imagination to realise. He described the vast toil of this country; the peasant in the field, the mechanic at his bench, or forge, the worker in the factory watching the restless shuttle, the miner in the sunless mine, and he said—"When I see all this I have before me a mass of produce and of wealth which I am no more able to comprehend than I am that £2,000,000,000 of which I have spoken, but I behold in its full proportions the hideous error of your Government, whose fatal policy consumes in some cases a-half, never less than a third, of "-all the results of that industry which God intended should fertilise and bless every home in England, but the fruits of which are squandered in every part of the surface of the globe without producing the smallest good to the people of England." Among the tangible results we have the National Debt—which some,think an advantage—and a mass of fixed pauperism which astonishes foreign countries. " Mr. Kiriglake, the author of an interesting book on Eastern travel, describing the habits of some acquaintances that he made in the Syrian deserts, says that the jackals of the Desert follow their prey in families like the place-hunters of Europe. (A laugh). I will reverse, if you like, the comparison, and say that the great territorial families of England, which were enthroned at the Revolution, have followed their prey like the jackals of the Desert. (Cheers and laughter.) The more you examine this matter, the more you will come to the conclusion which. I have arrived at, that this foreign policy, this regard for ' the liberties of Europe,' this care at one time for 'the protestant interests,' this excessive love for 'the balance: of: power,' is neither more nor less than a gigantic system of out-door relief for the aristocracy of Great Britain." (Great cheering and laughter.) Mr. Bright described our entangling treaties,—to maintain Sweden against Russia, to interfere between Denmark and the Duchies, to defend. Belgium against.Holland, to preserve with Sardinia the balance.of power in Europe, to protect the kingdom of Greece, and the independence and integrity of the Ottoman empire. With what effects P It is not all glory, after all. Glory may be worth something, hut it is not always

glory. We havo. had .insolent despatches from /Vienna and St. Petersburg; our ambassadors have boon expelled from Madrid and Washington; Naples has dolled us. Ho entered into arguments and figures to show the '-wastefulness of thus-substituting war for trade. The trade with the United States, for example, will not pay for, the War to preserve those colonies. Wars to introduce calicoes by cannon, foolish and wretched excuses, are exposed to any man who can; understand the simplest rule of arithmetic. 1 The.wars may make great states and bring large sums to, great statesmen and capitalists; but they also occasion immense waste, to the ruin of the people. The exposure at Weedon is only an exposure of the system. "We have heard lately of instances of certain joint-stock institutions with enormous capitals collapsing suddenly, bringing disgrace upon their managers, and ruin upon hundreds of families. A great deal of that has arisen not so much from intentional fraud as from the fact that weak and incapable men'have found themselves tumbling about in: an ocean of bank-nptes and cash, and they appear to have lost all sight of where it came from, to whom it belonged and whether it it was possible by any mal-adminis-tration "ever to come to an end of it. That is absolutely what is done by governments." Cherbourg has been described as a menace—'-to us, who have no "impregnable fort" at Gibraltar, or Malta, no " preparations" at Alderney! Mr. Bright alluded to the Corn-laws as examples at once of the apparently hopeless difficulties, the fatal prophesies; that beset the change of ah established policy, while the sequel has gloriously refuted those forebodings. He wanted to inaugurate a new revolution of opinion, one in which among other changes the great anomaly of such a rich country having to raise £7,000/000 for its population and the unhappy condition of a portion of our women,, would be deeply considered. He spoke with no irreverence of the Crown, pleaded not that this country should remain without adequate and scientific means of defence ; but — " Palaces, princely castles, great halls, showy mansions, do not make a nation. The nation in every country dwells in the cottage; and unless the light of your constitution cap shine there, unless the beauty of your legislation and the excellence of your statesmanship are printed there in the feelings and condition of the people, rely upon it , you have yet to learn the duties of Government." (Great cheering.) Speeches were also delivered by Mr. Hadfield, the member for Sheffield, and by Mr. George Dawson, in acknowledging the Liberal electors of Birmingham. „ . Reported Maeeiage of the Earl of Caedigan.—Considerable excitement was caused some months since in. the fashionable world, by the elopement of a noble earl, of Crimean celebrity, with a young lady of much personal attraction and good connections and family. The destination of the parties was Gibraltar, where they stayed 'for a short time, and whence they proceeded, in his lordship's yacht to Cadiz. Since the departure of the noble earl from England, the death of his countess has taken place, an event which, however melancholy in itself, has enabled him to repair tlie wrong he had inflicted on Miss——, since it has now transpired that, on receiving intelligence of his marital bereavement, he lost no time in making her his wife. The readers of the ' Court Circular' will have no difficulty in identifying the nobleman alluded to with the Earl of Cardigan.-— Court Circular.

LordShaftesbury at LEEDS.—The Earl of Shaftesbury i in presiding at the annual meeting of Leeds Auxiliary, to the British and Foreign Bible Society, said that few things could be more encouraging than to go froni orie. great /city to another as he -had done, and to witness in each arid all of them the great efforts that were making for; the advancement of their Master's glory. 'He had been in Liverpool, arid had. rejoiced to see there;a noble spirit pervading the ,tpwn-^.ertainly/ far-less' than he could have desired in a town of such/vastmagnitude and of such boundless 'resources, -but they must compare the present state of things' with that which existed twenty-five; years before, and when they saw the great progress-that had been made, they might hope it would >-go on to higher and higher degrees of perfection. Lord Brotj&ham.—" Senex," the venerable correspondent of the 'Glasgow,' supplies the following notices:—-In a late number of the ' Court Journal' there is the folio wing passage:-—" A friend of ours, who had occasionally to see Lord Brougham in the course of the present year, was told from his own lips that he really did not know whether he was born in 1778 or 1779. - 'If my sister had been alive,' and his lordship, 'she could have told me; hut she died a few months ago, and I forgot to ask her.'" It lias generally been said that Lord Brougham was born in 1778, and in the list of the House of Peers, in.pur almanacs, it is there stated that his birth was in 1778; but from the following notice it will be seen that his lordship could not have been born in 1778 unless he is a seven months' child :—•" Scot's Magazine 1778, May 25. Married, at Edinburgh, Henry Brougham, Esq., younger, of Brougham Hall, to Miss Eleonora Syme, only daughter of the deceased Mr. Syme, late minister at Alloa." I may mention, as an instance that. Lord Brougham attended carefully to small matters as well as to great matters, that shortly before he became Lord Chancellor, and while he was plain Henry Brougham of the House of Commons, I had occasion to write to him; He answered my letter immediately; but he said that the enclosures in my said letter made it of greater weight than that what would go free to a member of the Commons, and that it had cost him ss. of postage. He added, however, that lie had divided his answer to me in, two packages, by which I would receive my papers back free of postage. How few M.P.'s would have thought of such trifles in their correspondence. It was a singular mark of politeness.