Volume 63: Lady Parker and Sir H. Watson Parker papers, 1829-1889: No. 567
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[Page 567]
TO THE ELECTORS OF THE BOROUGH OF GREENWICH.
GENTLEMEN, At the earnest solicitation of a very numerous and highly influential body of the Electors of this Borough, I beg to offer myself as a Candidate, in conjunction with the Viscount MAHON, for your suffrages at the forthcoming Election.
My earliest recollections are intimately associated with the Borough of Greenwich and its neighbour-hood; and having returned to England after a number of years spent in official duties abroad (not without recognition from those to whom my services were primarily due), I naturally feel an honorable pride in being called from my retirement by the very flattering requisition now presented to me by my friends.
I sincerely regret that the short period intervening between this and the day of the Election, renders it totally impossible for me to pay my respects to you by a personal canvass, as I otherwise should wish to have done, I am therefore compelled to rely on this mode of explaining my general principles.
It is not my intention to attempt the advancement of my own pretensions by any disparagement of my Opponents. My claims are principally founded upon political considerations: but this I must remark, in regard to Mr. GLADSTONE, that I know no reason whatever why he should be officiously thrust upon the Constituency of Greenwich, seeing that he has never manifested any desire to represent you, but has, so far as I am aware, received all overtures made to him with total silence.
My political principles are LIBERAL-CONSERVATIVE. I am decidedly favorable to all progressive improvements, but altogether opposed to a restless desire for change.
The great issue remitted for the decision of the Constituencies, is that all-important question of the State Church in Ireland. Whilst frankly conceding that certain reforms are necessary, I disagree entirely with the disestablishing and confiscating Resolutions which were carried in the House of Commons at the close of the last Session. I regard their tendency as calculated to undermine, at no remote period, the Established Church of England; to strike a warning blow at the security of title to property in general; and to effect alarming changes, without any prospect of deriving from them the solution of great difficulties by which the question of the peace do Ireland is encompassed.
I am a firm supporter of Civil and Religious Liberty, and although myself a strict adherent to the Protestant Church, I would desire to extend to all other who may differ from me in Religion, precisely the same freedom as I claim to exercise on my own behalf.
The public finances will, if I am elected, command my vigilant attention. It is too much the practice of the present day for each of the leading parties of the State to endeavour to cast upon the other the charge of extravagance; but what we really require is, the exercise of a wise economy, by which, whilst due provision shall be made for the maintenance of the honor and position of the Government of this great Country, everything in the shape of wasteful or unnecessary expenditure shall be firmly resisted.
Such being my general views and principles on the question of public interest, I proceed heartily to assure you that those local questions which immediately affect the Inhabitants of this Borough, and more especially its Working Classes, and which have hitherto, as I have been informed, been greatly neglected, shall receive my earnest consideration.
And first, as to the matters which AFFECT ALIKE PARTS OF THE BOROUGH.
I am prepared to support "An Equalisation of the Poor Rates by an extension of the Rating area in and around the Metropolis;" - "The restricting of the wasteful expenditure and rating powers of the Metropolitan Board of Works;" - "The immediate opening of the Creek Bridge free for all traffic;" -
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