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    October 16, 1852.] THE LEADER. 981

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    William, The "Miles Gloriosus" Op East S...

    assump tion of office , we did not , as a party , nor did any individual , acknowledged as a leader of that party , bring forward one single motion in which Protectionist measures were in the slightest degree involved . Sow then can it oe said that we came in upon the principles of Protection ? I deny it . " Modest W . B . speaks by the card ! He reminds his audience that Lord Derby , though in favour of a small fixed duty on corn , had determined to abide by the verdict of the country : —

    " That verdict has been taken . By the office , if I may call it so , or rather by the situation which I filled so long for that party , I am , alas ! too well acquainted with the lists , majorities and minorities , of the House of Commons , not to he able , in taking up a list of the Parliament which liaa just been returned , to perceive that there is a decided majority of members in the Lower House inimical to the feeling and the measure of protection to agriculture . If I differ , as I certainly do , from the wisdom and justice of their views , yet , notwithstanding , / must acknowledge that I myself , and those who think with me , are in a minority ; and I ask , is it

    wise and prudent , when you see you are m that minority , to force forward a question which can but involve those whose interests you wish to the utmost of your power and at every risk to uphold ?" These experiences of the man who rose to be Secretary-at-War , frorn ^ the " office , or rather the situation , " of Tory whipper-in , are at least conclusive . All that he can promise the owners and occupiers of the land , in the shape of Derby ism , is . to defend the Monarchy and the

    Protestant institutions , to show a determined front to Sir James Graham and the Manchester school , and to resist the encroachments of Lord John Russell and the—Perth school of democracy , we suppose . A few sentences , in which the vernacular is severely punished , a hurlyburly of confused tropes in allusion to Sir Robert Peel ' s Currency Acts , those " strong stimulants" to the moneyed power , make up the sum of this

    harangue . W . B . is evidently familiar with the subject of " strong stimulants . " Mark the splendour and havoc of his peroration . Speaking of the Currency Acts : — " I wish not to injure other men ' s property ; but if strong stimulants are not allowed for the landed classes , I say that they should have been stopped to the moneyed power ( cheers ) . The Government which is now in power will , I trust , in a short time mature those measures ( to which I am not admitted ) which may rectify that class legislation , for such I maintain

    those laws are ( hear ) . They may remedy it , and I trust they will . They may bring forward measures of greater justice to all classes . They may , and I trust they will , bring forward those which will be particularly adapted to the relief of the most distressed portion of the empire ( cheers ) . I trust in the integrity of the head of that Government ; I trust implicitly in the talents of many members of it ; but great as those talents may be , 1 fearlessly and honestly trust in that conscientious belief which a Government called to power in the manner they were , and assuming office as they did , must feel and will feel , in all that they carry out ( cheers ) . "

    With W . B . 's concluding words wo are not disposed to quarrel . It is certainly not easy to see how the Tory Ministry will deserve the " gratitude of all classes" by triumphantly throwing their own party overboard ; but when the speaker trusts that " if they fail , they will return to their private stations with characters undiminishedreputations untarniHhed — and , above all , with consciences free from the infamous remembrance

    of having undertaken offices which they were unable to fulfil , and having given pledges which they have not redeemed , " wo can only add , wo trust they may—the sooner the better ; and we ; heartily commend the last words to the memories of their suffering elienta . Wo do not hero notico more particularly Major Beresford ' s second speech , in which he makes another desperate effort to clear himself from the charge of insulting the people , and vents liin rage at the obloquy and cantigation ho has received from Sir James Graham and the Mornhta Chronicle .

    J ' ut l , he hero of our agricultural Iliad is , we Jl ** not ashamed to confess , " William , tho ' Miles Cloriosus ' of Has I . Somerset . " Let Brainf' ^ e boas t itn W . B . ; Worcester , jls Jlushout ; Warwick , its INewdegate ; Lincoln , its Sibl-horp , w » pin our faith on William Miles . He is our Pi-t 1 'roteetioniHt , if he will allow us to cleave y < -t awhile to that discarded title . We never « y ° ° » o of thoso dull and eoarso old comedies of Uolcroffc or Morton without regretting that

    Miles should have preferred the political stage . To be sure , his stage is East Somerset , and a finer set of bumpkins never acted up to a provincial " star" than the believers in Miles , who range the fat pastures from Bath to Wells . How shall we attempt to convince our readers , who may have only seen Miles , the heavy armoured , in the House of Commons , that he , too , is a shepherd of his people , and a king of men—in BoBotian valleys . "In the Commons , " Miles has been accepted as a type of the country party ; for , although one of a comparatively recent territorial aristocracy , and not having come over

    with the Norman , he looks and dresses the part to admiration : naive , hearty , frank , and sturdy bonhomie of exterior ; a business-like activity of local usefulness ; an imperviousness to ridicule ; a bold and fearless blundering amid the mazes of statistics , mark the model county member . Miles , too , has been great on " grease , " and even had the honour to be impaled by Peel , in a discussion on imported lard—a subject on which the hero of East Somerset was wont to become almost eloquent : car il a du lard , cet homme , as was once maliciously remarked of an actor , more fat than facetious .

    Well , he has lately been figuring to advantage at a dinner in the sleepy old cathedral city of Wells— . just the city to bury Protection in with all solemnity . In fact , Mr . William Miles qualified as undertaker on the present occasion . The entertainment is described as a " Conservative" dinner , whatever that may mean : it was given in honour of Mr . Tudway , " the recently elected member" for Wells , and was attended , it seems , by a very goodly company of

    local magistrates , including the venerable Dean , a host of clergy , " unhappily Protectionists , " as Samuel Oxon would say , and a few score of county gentry * The principal performers were no less than three members from the county , two from the Eastern , and one from the Western division . A Mr . H . Bernard " occupied the chair . " Let us pause , fd ? a moment , to remark that the dinner of these men , who came to celebrate the triumph of agricultural distress ,

    comprised " all the delicacies of the season , ' including , as we shall see , three converted Protectionists . The " blue banners used at the late elections" decorated the walls . " We noticed , " says the local reporter , " Tudway and Independence . " What could be more promising P The Chairman , in proposing Her Majesty ' s Ministers , struck bravely out on a sea of metaphors , as thus : — " He had no fear that if in the coming campaign her Majesty ' s Ministers had a fair stage and no favour , they would bo able to guide ike vessel of the state through all the troubled seas of political agitation , and at last bring her safely into port . " ( Cheers . )

    This is pretty avcII for a start , and suggests the strong stimulants" of William Beresford . But in rounding off the final sentence , the speaker lost sight of agricultural distress : " Under their guidance , " he had no doubt , " the farmers would continue in a condition of prosperity . " William Miles responded to this toast , and lost no time in getting at " our glorious Constitution as compared with tho . se of foreign countries , "—a rather hackneyed subject , to whieh even the strangest syntax cannot lend the grace of novelty . Then growing oracular , as he had a perfect right to do in such a company , he dashed off in a few rapid sirokes at Lord Derby , the House of Lords , and the new House of Commons .

    " They had , therefore , at the head of the Government a peer who would not only carry out , as far as lie could , // is own principles , but , what ho conceived to be the principles of the constitution . ( Cheers . ) The Administration , of which Lord Derby whh the head , wa . s not , as had been falsely slated , retrospective ; it was conservative and progressive . It ill became him io enter into any speculations respecting the measures of this Administration . Jt would speak out in its own good time , iiiid t : nable the country to form a proper judgment of it . ( Cheers . ) With respect to the llouso

    of Lords he need scarcely speak ; they bad regularly and nobly done their duty , and , for the truth of that , I bey might look at their proceedings for the last 2 f > years , when they would see nt once that , although the IIoum > of Lords might be slow in taking initiative progressive movements , yet , when the people of this great country spoke their minds upon any great public question , the House of Lords cordially responded to them , and where such measures wire calculated for the promotion of the public good , it became an echo to their viowH . Of tho present Houso of Commons hu could

    only say that , although it contained many men of transcendent abilities , yet it contained men representing every shade of political opinion , and some time must necessarily elapse before a sound judgment could be given on all their political views . " The good Dean acknowledged the Church in a few words , redolent of pigtails and Hessians , but unmistakeably sincere * The toaet of the evening was , of course , Mr . Tudway ; but the toast of the Members , which again called up Mr . Miles , is what we have to deal with now . He thought Lord Derby had a better chance now than four

    months ago , because he would be allowed to promulgate his views . Mr . Miles says nothing of the Duke's funeral . Having glanced at Lord John Russell ' s Perth speech , he assured his hearers that they " were as well able to judge on the probable course of events as himself . -But one thing was certain , that there could be no more cry at all upon the question of the re-imposition of the corn-laws : that was for ever settled , and those loho were oppressed , or who were injured by the weight of taxation , would have to look to other measures than the re-imposition of the corn-laws ,

    for justice to he done to them . At the same time " he continued—though what necessary simultaneity there is between the abandonment of Protection and the Established Church in Ireland , we fail to perceive— " in the sister country there is a faction , " & c . & c . ; and he went on to denounce the Irish Brigade , by a bold diversion from the grievances of the farmers ; perorating with a second allusion to Lord John Russell , in extenuation of that noble Lord ' s Perth democracy ; for " he had never heard that Lord John Russell was a democrat . "

    The other two members , Mr . Gore Langton and Mr . Knatchbull , shone as minor constellations , and spake few words . The former promising to be as serviceable as possible " not only to the country at large , but also to the county in particular ; " a strange inversion of the climax : and the latter neophyte—so far as report informs usalmost contenting himself with the Lord Burleigh business , and " shaking his head" in assent .

    We have been thus particular in describing this county " Conservative" dinner , not only as a fair sample of all similar entertainments , but as a marked specimen of the miserable delusion to which the occupiers have been " sold" by tho " owners" of land . " We have watched the doings in East Somerset , narrowly , since the elections . That whole county is represented exclusively by men wlio once told the farmers that Lord Derby's Government meant Protection . It was for this all-sufficient reason that even some of the more intelligent of the farmers scoured the county for Tory votes as for a matter of life and death—for this that all tho scandals of coercion

    and intimidation we exposed last July , were perpetrated : that surly landlordism leagued its forces : that stewards swaggered and stormed r that small country surgeons forsook their patients , and went electioneering mad : that obscure betliiigmen , who study *' Ruff'"in retirement , fought for Derby , whom they worship much as a certain class of the old Pagan populations worshipped Mercury : that , in a word , all the abominations of last July were committed . For tho farmers , it was an honest and a hearty con test fought in good faith—they believed in their " friends . "

    Arthur Hal lam Elton , the Liberal-Conservative , who had the courage to avow himself in July what Mr . Miles pleads guilty to in October ; tho man who refused to delude the simple selfishness of these traditional grumblers ; who told them , that Protection never could be , and never ought to be , restored ; who told them that he was for moving on , not , standing still , or going back ; ho , the country gentleman , who had the heart to bo honest , and the intellect to be wise , and the noul to he sincere in his professions , was the calumniated and rejected " destructive , " " leagued with revolutionists , " " paid by Manchester , ' " «• dangerous innovator . "

    Then ; aro Home fanners who still say , " we ai'O thrown over , it is true , bul , we would rather havo our friends in power than our enemies . " Belter , thai , is to nay , a treacherous friend than an open adversary . ' Bul what right havo they to call enemies men who never betrayed them ; mou who always told them that the queNtjon of Protection wild Holely and wholly a question of real , between Ilic landlord and the tenant ; an < l that tho oeeupier of land has nothing to gain by starving his lellow-orcalurea to inalio high ronta easy t <> tho owner P What do tho l ^ armor ' tf frionda say

    October 16, 1852.] The Leader. 981

    October 16 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 981

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 16, 1852, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_16101852/page/11/