[In November of 1871, Sir Charles Dilke delivered an address at Newcastle, in which he denounced the cost of royalty. The popular agitation that followed throughout the country was very considerable; and, as Mr. Gladstone was then Prime-Minister, there were not a few that supposed this attack upon the support of the crown to be a premonition of a policy to be adopted by the government. The position of Dilke met with no popular encouragement, but it gave an opportunity to the Opposition which they were by no means reluctant to avail themselves of. The agitation that followed had not a little influence in bringing on the downfall of Gladstone’s ministry in 1874. Lord Beaconsfield was at the head of the Opposition, and the following speech was at once the most effective assault made upon the policy of Gladstone, and the most comprehensive statement of the principles advocated by the Conservative party.] GENTLEMEN: The Chairman has correctly reminded you that this is not the first time that my voice has been heard in this hall. But that was an occasion very different from that which now assembles us together—was nearly thirty years ago, when I endeavored to support and stimulate the flagging energies of an institution in which I thought there were the germs of future refinement and intellectual advantage to the rising generation of Manchester, and since I have been here on this occasion I have learned with much gratification that it is now counted among your most flourishing institutions. There was also another and more recent occasion when the gracious office fell to me to distribute among the members of the Mechanics’ Institution those prizes which they had gained through their study in letters and in science. Gentlemen, these were pleasing offices, and if life consisted only of such offices you would not have to complain of it. But life has its masculine duties, and we are assembled here to fulfil some of the most important of these, when, as citizens of a free country, we are assembled together to declare our determination to maintain, to uphold the constitution to which we are debtors, in our opinion, for our freedom and our welfare.