DUKE OF ARGYLE/MR. BRIGHT - Cumberland and Westmorland Newspaper Transcriptions

DUKE OF ARGYLE/MR. BRIGHT

       THE DUKE OF ARGYLE ON MR. BRIGHT
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On the evening of the 11th inst. the new Corn Exchange and Public Hall,
Dundee, were inaugurated by a public meeting, in honour of the right Hon.
Lord KINNAIRD and the other noblemen and gentlemen who had contributed to
the erection of the building.
    The assembly was presided over by the Right Hon. Lord PANMURE.
    After an inaugural address from Lord Panmure, the Duke of ARGYLE spoke
at great length upon a variety of subjects. Controverting the opinion that
the Anglo-Saxon race is declining, he proceeded: -
    Are we passing under any decline ? Are we or are we not advancing ?
And I look to such great meetings as these, and I find in them the answer.
For what do I see ? I do not deny that there are great evils affecting one
which was mentioned by the distinguished orator the other day in England, to
whom my noble friend alluded. I do not know whether many of you in this hall
may have observed it, but it is a singular instance of the many instances
which we have had of the impossibility almost of our southern friends quite
understanding the condition of Scotland. But that distinguished orator to
whom my noble friend has referred - I mean Mr. BRIGHT - was good enough the
other day to turn his eyes northward to this poor naked land of Scotland,
and he mentioned as one of the great evils of our condition that there were
various persons in this country whose mainstay was oatmeal porridge.
(Laughter)    Now, I remember Dr. JOHNSON, who also hated Scotland and
Scotchmen, used to talk about that kind of grain which was food for horses
in England and for men in Scotland; and Mr. Bright seems very much to
partake of the same feeling.

Now, I can only say to Mr. Bright that I wish he had one-half the chances of
good health and long life and vigour of many of those healthy mountaineers
whom I have seen bred up on oatmeal porridge. (Laughter and cheers). But I
freely admit that, without counting oatmeal porridge among them, we have
many evils affecting our social state. Possibly there are some evils also
affecting our political condition. But what do I see ? I see that there is
a steady progress towards meeting those evils. I see that the various
classes of society are uniting together, as I see them united here to-night,
for the purpose of rectifying these evils and of endeavouring to meet them.
    Well, then, I say these are the best and the surest symptoms of national
progress - the surest and most certain sign that there is no national decay.
I feel with confidence that we are a progressive people, not merely that our
empire abroad is as sound and extensive as it ever was, but that at the
heart and core of this people, we are better, more united among ourselves
than we ever were at any former period of our history. (Cheers)
    And I say this, and I appeal with confidence to the feelings of this
great meeting, that confidence is not one iota abated because the
distinguished orator to whom I lately referred, speaking in the name of
peace and progress, and taking as I think these great names in vain, has
been endeavouring to raise animosities which are now extinct, and to divide
those whom the good providence of God, and the course of events have year by
year been bringing more and more close together. (Loud cheers).
    I do not say, ladies and gentlemen - I by no means say that the
influence which various classes of society are now exerting upon each other
is as good an influence and as pure an influence as it sometimes might be;
but I look for a remedy of these things, not in going backwards, but in
going forwards. I look to the remedy of this and of all other evils to the
enlightened operation of public opinion - public opinion which, until it
becomes corrupt, is the best and surest guarantee for the faithful
performance of all public duties.
    And I say with confidence - and I know that I respond to the spirit
which animates you on this occasion - that every attempt at disunion, every
attempt to part the various clases of society, instead of uniting them
together, to endeavour to separate them from each other's influence - that
influence which we must all exert, and which we ought all to exert upon each
other's social and political condition, is an endeavour, not in the right,
but in the wrong direction - a step not onwards, but backwards, in the great
cause of progress and reform. (Cheers).

And now ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid I have detained you too long; but
there is one word which I wish to say before I sit down. I do earnestly
trust - no man trusts more earnestly or hopes more anxiously - that, for the
purpose of prosecuting those great works of social and political improvement
in this country, we may long continue to enjoy the blessings of peace. I do
not put forward this as if it were a new doctrine. I do not express this
wish as if it were not expressed by others.
    I do not, as Mr. Bright lately did, quote the great names of Sir Robert
WALPOLE, of Lord GREY, and of Sir Robert PEEL, as ministers who desired to
preserve the blessings of peace; because I believe in my heart that every
minister who has governed this country has more or less desired to preserve
peace if it could be preserved with justice and with honour. (Cheers)
    But I repudiate the doctrine which has been held by Mr. Bright, that the
wars of this country have been mainly due to any one class of the community.
I appeal to himself - was it not but three or four weeks ago that he
directed his observations against the working classes of this country for
those generous sympathies which made them unite heart and soul in the late
great war with Russia ? Was it not but a few weeks ago that Mr. Bright
himself had scolded the working-classes in language which I think was more
vehement than just, and I will call to the recollection of those who are
here assembled certain facts which will remind them of the truth.
    I think I could name another minister who was as anxious for peace as
ever was Sir Robert WALPOLE, or Lord GREY, or Sir Robert PEEL - that very
minister by whose exertions Sir Robert Peel was enabled to maintain peace
during more than one critical passage of our national history -- I mean
our distinguished countryman, Lord ABERDEEN (Cheers). I say with confidence
that Lord Aberdeen desired to preserve peace not more from the instincts by
duty. And I say that every member of that cabinet of which I had the honour
to be a member, was anxious and desirous to preserve peace, and yet we were
not successful; and I need only appeal to those who are interested in the
course of public affairs at that time - I need only appeal to them, and ask
them whether it is not true that the great mass of the people of this
country, feeling the injustice of the conduct of the Emperor of Russia, were
rather impatient than otherwise at our attempts to preserve peace with that
great and tyrannical despot. (Applause).

And although the efforts of the Government were seconded by remarkable
moderation of tone on the part of two or three of the great leading organs
of opinion in this country - although we were anxiously seconded, as every
government has been, by the public spirit of the House of Commons, yet I
maintain with confidence that the feeling out of doors among the working
classes, was rather that we ought to have gone to war sooner than that we
went to war too soon. (Cheers)
    But although I am anxious to preserve peace, and although I hope it may
be preserved, I do not admit - I cannot admit - that all our former wars,
any more than that war, have been wicked or destructive wars. I believe
that many of the wars which this country has waged have been wars as
necessary in their origin as they were glorious in their result. (Cheers)
And I think that we have great cause for gratitude and for pride as a nation
when we look back at what we have achieved for our own liberties and for the
liberties of Europe, by a generous and manly use of the weapon of the sword.
(Cheers)
    I will only mention one other circumstance as tending to show the
fallacy of Mr. Bright's opinion. He quotes Charles James FOX as a great
authority for peace. I happen to know, from the only living authority from
whom that information could be derived - I happen to know that Charles James
Fox, the great minister who resisted the revolutionary war so long, told his
colleagues each and severally, on his deathbed, that the great war in which
they were then engaged could not be brought to a conclusion; he enjoined
them to prosecute it with vigour; and I among others, look back with
gratitude to the results of that great contest. (Hear, hear, and cheers.)

    In truth ladies and gentlemen, and with this remark I shall conclude, I
hold it to be a false and narrow philosophy which, whether in domestic and
foreign politics, sees no hope for the future except in a wild and
indiscriminate denunciation of the past. How different is the feeling with
which our history and our longing to enjoy some portion of the liberty which
we have so long enjoyed ! I remember some four years ago, being present at
the opening of the British Parliament at a period of great excitement, and
standing close beside one of the most distinguished foreigners who has ever
lived in our country --   one of the many who is longing to impart into his
own some part of those noble institutions under which we have so long
flourished as a nation - and as he saw that great spectacle, all orders of
the State represented in the assembling of the British Parliament.
    I heard him say far more to himself than to me in language of deep
emotion - Happy is that people between whose past and whose present no
gulf of forgetfulness has been fixed, whose progress has been a steady
progress under the guidance and protection of their acient laws, no national
element of life rejected, no national memory forgotten.

And such, I say, may our progress still. It is one of the many evils of
violent language addressed either to one section or to another section of
the community, that, acting by irritation upon the minds of some, and by
timidity upon the minds of others, it induces some men to doubt the end, and
others to mistake the way; but I see in such evidences as this great
meeting, clear proof of the social progress of our people; and I hold that
the reality of social progress is the great and the only guarantee for the
perfect safety of political reform.
    [His Grace resumed his seat amid long-continued cheers].
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