I was incompetent to offer any opinion to my countrymen. But
leaving the opinions of individuals, I appeal to this audience, to
every man who knows anything of the views and policy of the Liberal
party in past years, whether it is not the fact that up to 1832 and
indeed to a much later period, probably to the year 1850, those
sentiments of Sir Robert Walpole, of Mr. Fox, of Earl Grey, and of Sir
Robert Peel, the sentiments which I in humbler mode have propounded,
were not received unanimously by the Liberal party as their fixed and
unchangeable creed? And why should they not? Are they not founded upon
reason? Do not all statesmen know, as you know, that upon peace, and
peace alone, can be based the successful industry of a nation, and
that by successful industry alone can be created that wealth
which, permeating all classes of the people, not confined to great
proprietors, great merchants, and great speculators, not running in
a stream merely down your principal streets, but turning fertilizing
rivulets into every by-lane and every alley, tends so powerfully to
promote the comfort, happiness, and contentment of a nation? Do
you not know that all progress comes from successful and peaceful
industry, and that upon it is based your superstructure of education,
of morals, of self-respect among your people, as well as every measure
for extending and consolidating freedom in your public institutions?
I am not afraid to acknowledge that I do oppose--that I do utterly
condemn and denounce--a great part of the foreign policy which is
practised and adhered to by the Government of this country.

You know, of course, that about 170 years ago there happened in this
country what we have always been accustomed to call 'a glorious
revolution', a revolution which had this effect: that it put a bit
into the mouth of the monarch so that he was not able of his own
free-will to do, and he dared no longer attempt to do, the things
which his predecessors had done without fear. But if at the Revolution
the monarchy of England was bridled and bitted, at the same time the
great territorial families of England were enthroned; and from that
period, until the year 1831 or 1832--until the time when Birmingham
politically became famous--those territorial families reigned with
an almost undisputed sway over the destinies and the industry of the
people of these Kingdoms. If you turn to the history of England, from
the period of the Revolution to the p