that the nation is to be fooled and insulted by their pretended love and veneration for the sacred institutions of our ancestors. It is not for these men, who gave up Protestant England to Catholic Ireland, to look holy and demure, and protest by their consciences, they cannot be parties to so monstrous an inroad upon the constitution as giving up East Retford to Birmingham. What though they really mean the thing they profess? They are not the less unworthy of confidence. Gasparino, the Italian bandit, of whom we read an account lately in the papers, and who acknowledged to one hundred and fifteen murders, out of one hundred and fifty with which he was accused, covered himself with sacred relics, crucifixes, and images of the Virgin; and was so pious withal, that he made it a rule never to cut a throat on Fridays. He was a true Catholic, I have no doubt; and a zealous one, once a-week; but he was a wholesale assassin nevertheless. So, our whig-tory cabinet may be true lovers of the constitution, and ready to shed their blood, even in its defence-till some English agitator, the organ of some English association, with the sinews of an Eng lish rent, plays the bully and plucks them by the beard-but they have, nevertheless, once and again laid their sacrilegious hands upon it, and left it bleeding with deep wounds. It is not, then, from such men, that I will consent to receive reasons why it would be a dangerous innovation to disfranchise East Retford, and enfranchise Birmingham, Leeds, or Manchester, with her forfeited privileges. I confess I heard no arguments this evening, sufficient to convince me that there would be any danger in adopting the amendment proposed by the Hon. Member for Beverley, (Mr Tennyson,)" to exclude the borough of East Retford from electing burgesses to serve in Parliament, and to enable the town of Birmingham to return two representatives in lieu thereof." The Chancellor of the Exchequer, indeed, who broke the first lance, came ambling into the lists upon the back of that sorry jade, Precedent. "I am determined," said he," to abide by my so often expressed opinion, and in following that line of conduct, I shall be adopting the view which has always actuated

me in public life, a deference to the established customs and precedents of this House. We ought never to forget that there is danger in going a single step in an opposite course. I mean, in taking the first step in a course not sanctioned by precedent.” Again, in allusion to what had fallen from Mr Huskisson-" He has enlisted under the banners of those who seek for wild reform, and forsaken the ranks of that party who have preferred, and still prefer, to follow in the safer course sanctioned by the precedents of Parliament." The precedents of Parliament ! "Revere them," says Mr Goulburn. "Make them your polar star. Do not step one inch out of the magic circle they have traced. Venerate these sacred land-marks, and be happy." Who made these precedents? Parliament. Who can unmake them? Parliament. Shew me that they are precious, that they are the emanations of unerring wisdom, that they have cherished our national greatness, and will maintain it-that they are so applicable to all times, occasions, and circumstances, that neither now, nor in years to come, can they be slighted with impunityshew me these inherent virtues in your precedents, and I will prize them as I would the apple of my eye. But as precedents; as a something done by some former Parliament; as decrees made by men neither wiser nor better, I may assume, than we of the present generation,—to endue them with infallibility,-to give them the irrevocable quality of the laws of the Medes and Persians-to say, in effect, that what was ordained by the knights, citizens, and burgesses, of one House of Commons, may not be approached, questioned, or set aside, by the knights, citizens, and burgesses of another House of Commons, is the language of pure imbecility. What is half the business of every Session of Parliament? What, but to amend, revise, and repeal the legislation of preceding Parliaments? And are your laws less sacred than your precedents? "Man! and for ever!" exclaims the poet, in philosophical derision of the whole race of Goulburns, who would grope their purblind way to the grave in the path where their grandams placed them when they left their cradles; children all their lives, in the leadingstrings and go-cart of antiquity. Away

with the enervating bondage of implicit obedience to precedents! Hold fast by what is good; but know that it is good, before you grapple to it. Act for yourselves, and from yourselves; neither seeking, with restless vanity, to change what is old, because it is old; nor enslaving your minds to its authority, as if you were not as free to examine its present fitness, as they were who determined its original necessity. But thus it is; or thus, at least, it may be, that a corrupt minister, wielding the pliant majorities of the House of Commons in one age, fetters the next with precedents.

Mr Peel, having first voided his bile on his right honourable friend, the member for Liverpool, proceeded to repeat some of his former reasons for opposing the transfer of the elective franchise from East Retford to Birmingham. They were such as satisfied the right honourable gentleman himself, and of course produced instantaneous conviction upon the minds of 154 honourable members who afterwards voted with the minister. They must have been extremely gratified also, to find that the right honourable gentleman having done with the Protestant interest, (or, as some may think, done for it,) he is now ready to become the champion of the landed interest, giving to the latter the same honourable, consistent, and firm support, which we all know he gave to the former. But what will the University of Oxford think, what will the country generally think, of Mr Peel's facetious jokes about his present constituents? "I oppose the noble lord's proposition," (Lord Howick,) "because the House is called upon to admit the truth of a general charge of bribery and corruption, without having any proof of the prevalence of such conduct. From the form of the resolution, it appears that the electors of cities and boroughs only are charged with corruption, and the freeholders of counties are exempted. There can be no doubt but that the representatives of all the cities and boroughs of the country will be very anxious to defend their constituents from such a charge; and I cannot suffer such a censure to pass upon the electors of the borough which I have the honour to represent." (Loud laughter.) "I am prepared to defend

the electors of Westbury from such an accusation," (renewed laughter); "and I also feel confident that the noble lord" (Lord Howick)" will get up and vindicate the borough which he represents. I, at any rate, object to include my constituents in such a charge." This is sorry jesting! It neither becomes a minister of the crown, who should at least try decently to veil the corruptions he refuses to remedy; nor honours the once proud member for the University; clothed with that dignity for virtues he then professed; stripped of it now, for the abandonment of those virtues. Have there ever been moments when Mr Peel has reflected with just pride upon his situation as the representative of one of the most learned bodies in Europe? Are there ever moments when he remembers why he is no longer its representative, but, instead, the representative of Sir Manasseh Lopez? I will answer for him; and my reply is-No! Had he ever felt the pride, or did he now feel the degradation, he could not have played the droll upon such a theme, nor have enjoyed the laugh which his waggery provoked.

I like the sturdy good old English plain speaking of the Marquis of Blandford. I give him credit for sincerity, and then, without involving myself as a partisan, I say he is one of those men we want; not now merely, but at all times. When the Speaker put the question, for the House resolving itself into a Committee of Supply, he opposed it in these words: "To the question you have now put, sir, I must again say decidedly, no! I will not consent to vote one shilling of the public money until the alarming state of the country be taken into consideration-until the sufferings of the people be relieved-until the grievances they complain of be redressed. It little concerns me whether for so acting I shall be stigmatized as factious, or branded as a vexatious opponent, interrupting only proceedings which, without a numerous adhesion in this House, I cannot finally avert. But my determination is taken. And as I am convinced that his Majesty has been grossly imposed upon and deceived, as to the extent of the distresses of his people, I conceive that the best mode of awa

kening the royal mind to a full sense of the existence of such distress, now presents itself in the constitutional form of withholding the supplies about to be asked at our hands. I therefore move that this House do now adjourn."

The Noble Marquis pressed his motion to a division, and his "adhesion," as he anticipated, was not numerous. Only nine members voted with him. No matter. Success is not the criterion of deserving it. I love to see honest men seeking their ends, by direct though inadequate means. The example is good for something, even as a precedent, Mr Goulburn. It begets honesty in others; or at any rate tends to give confidence to those, who, with equal purity of intention, lack equal energy of character. To think what we speak, is at best but an equivocal virtue. To speak what we think is the true heroism of our moral nature. I am of Andrew Fletcher's opinion, (would that we had half a dozen Andrew Fletchers now among us!) that "a word spoken in season does, for the most part, produce wonderful effects." And, therefore, I was delighted with one of these seasonable words addressed the other night to Lord Teynham, by the Duke of Richmond. The Noble Lord moved for certain returns relative to the poor laws, as to what money had been paid to labourers out of that fund. The Duke of Wellington pointed out the difficulty of obtaining the required returns, and the time that must elapse before they could be laid upon the table. The Duke of Richmond agreed with his Grace, but, turning to Lord Teynham, he said, "If he" (the Noble Lord)" wished to lessen the necessity of poor rates altogether, he could tell him how he might do it much more effectually than by moving for any such returns. It was, by voting against his Majesty's ministers, when they refuse to enter into an enquiry into the general distress of the country; and if the Noble Lord had voted for an amendment, which would have obliged them to enter into that enquiry, instead of swelling the ranks of the Noble Duke at the head of his Majesty's government, it would have been much better than moving for such returns as he required,"

February 12th.

SIR JAMES GRAHAM'S MOTION FOR A REDUCTION OF THE NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.

When Sir James feels his ground better, as he must do every session, with his talents, and when he is a little better acquainted with party tactics, he will not suffer himself to be caught, as he was this evening, by the clumsy stratagem of a milkand-water motion brought forward by the government as a substitute for his own; a motion which means nothing, and will effect nothing, for one which went directly to its object, and that object salutary and indispensable. I have no doubt the honourable member was influenced by the opinions of Lord Morpeth and Mr Hume; the former declaring that Mr Dawson's amendment was as good, the latter, that it was better, than the original motion; and also by the consideration, that if he pressed his own he would be sure to lose it upon a division. Still, I would have pressed it, and for this reason,

that the ministerial concession might appear upon the journals of the House, as a concession; as a some thing better, if it were better, than what it superseded, and not as a boon, gratuitously bestowed. It was a tardy pittance, wrung from reluctant hands, and it should not have been invested with the character of a spontaneous bounty. The hon. member for Montrose said, the

proposition of the Treasury bench was better, because it was unshackled, and less restricted than the other." Yet, if my ears did not deceive me, it had that serviceable restriction, that pliant condition, which can be made to accommodate itself equally to economy and profusion. "Every reduction is to be effected in the civil and military branches of the service, that can be made, consistently with the efficient discharge of their duties." Who are to be the judges of this efficiency? The Parliament? No. The House of Commons? No. The people? No. The Ministers? Yes. Even they-the very parties out of whose pockets the money must come, and from whose hands the patronage must pass, with which that money is iden tified in a thousand different ways.

That the government is not quicksighted in discovering what reduction can be made, without impairing the efficient discharge of the public duties, we know from experience. The fact is established by this curious evidence, that every year, when hard pushed, they do make reductions which they declared it impossible to make the preceding year, when they are not so hard pushed. For example, in 1823, further reductions are impossible. In 1824, they take place. In 1825, not another shilling can be saved, with a due regard to the efficient discharge of the public service. In 1826, the public service is efficiently discharged, upon a reduced expenditure of a million or two. In 1827, they have cut down all salaries to the lowest practicable point. In 1828, the lowest point sinks a little lower. In 1829, the government cannot be carried on if retrenchment is pressed beyond its then limit. In 1830, that limit is reduced, and still the government is carried on. This is the history of ministerial economy. All sorts of impossible savings are effected year after year, with the greatest ease imaginable, when it is found impossible to raise a revenue sufficient to maintain salaries at the consistent level. But never till then. In private life, a man may be said to act cautiously, who spends no more than he gets; but the prudent man is he who always spends less than he gets, and does not wait to reduce his outgoings from a thousand to seven hundred a-year, till his income has sunk down to the latter sum. It is this prudence I would expect from the government. But as I have no faith in modern miracles, I do not expect to see it practised, while the undefined and indefinable (as it would seem) standard of efficiency is employed; which only means, we will if we must. The "must" is at hand however. Whoever may be Minister during the next five years, will find he has but this choice, to meet the exigencies of the country, or to yield to them; to remove the burden at once, or to lighten it by degrees. The former course would conciliate a people, never prone to be impatient or unreasonable in their complaints, and the Minister who adopted it would win golden opinions.

The latter, will vex and irritate; no credit will be given for what is done; no gratitude felt for the doing of it; while there is an extreme probability that, before it is done, the mass of discontent, which partial and protracted relief must keep festering in the body politic, will ripen into inflammatory action. A government renders itself unnecessarily obnoxious to popular odium, when it re fuses to propitiate a distressed nation by the cheap sympathy of voluntarily abating some portion of that luxury and opulence which are derived from the nation. Taxation

may be strained to a very high pitch, and borne contentedly, as we have seen in this country, provided enough be left, after the State is satisfied, to secure the moderate enjoyments of life; but when a crisis arrives, no matter how produced, in which a majority of the people feel that their rulers take what they need for themselves and their families; when the tax-gatherer disputes with the baker, the butcher, and the tailor, every guinea he demands for the King's Exchequer; then it is that men begin to reason sternly with allegiance, to compute the cost of loyalty, and to array against their public duties, as good subjects, duties apt to be considered in such moments of paramount obligation. Are we approximating to such a crisis? And can it be averted? Yes, but not by high and sounding phrases about the elasticity of the national resources, the energy of the national character, or the enterprising spirit of the coun try; but by keeping the national feeling calm and tranquil; by preventing an ebullition; by narrowing the space which now divides those who suffer from those who do not; and by convincing the former, (for they are accessible to conviction,) that every sacrifice is cheerfully and promptly made for them, who have made so many sacrifices for others. Were this done, and done frankly, there would be an interval of repose during which that elasticity and energy and enterprise could come into play again; but not being done, it is to be feared, unless some fortunate accident intervene, that a paroxysm of the disease may come on suddenly, and work its own cure by the violence of the shock.

With what temper, for example, can a high-minded, proud, and powerful, and thinking nation, like England, endure to find its complaints "slighted off," and prated upon, by a shallow Under-secretary or Treasury-clerk, in a shoulder-of-mutton speech? I allude to Mr Dawson, the "honourable relative" of the Right Hon. Secretary for the Home Department. He was put forth to answer the able, eloquent, and argumentative statements of Sir James Graham. And he did so, with a pert volubility, which would have struck amazement into the " prentice boys of Londonderry." By way of consoling the distressed agriculturists, manufacturers, merchants, traders, &c., of 1830, he enumerated all the odds and ends of savings spread over the last three and thirty years-from 1797 down to the 31st December, 1829. But could he have "assured the House" that ten times the number of sinecure offices had been abolished within that period, and fifty times the amount of retrenchments had been accomplished, the main question would have remained just where it was, viz. how are the actual burdens of the coun

try to be borne? The brilliant part of his speech, however, was, when he came to discuss the reductions which had taken place in the salaries of the "subalterns in office"those meritorious individuals, who do the work, while their " superiors in office" receive the money. The most edifying alacrity is always displayed in paring down a salary of L.500 a-year, but one of L.5000 ayear, the lean hand of economy approaches not. Referring to these subalterns, Mr Dawson observed, "there had been no corresponding reduction in the prices of the neces saries of life, equal to the reduction of thirty per cent which had been made on their salaries. The price of a leg of mutton in 1822 was sixpence per pound; in 1827, it was eightpence; that of a shoulder of mutton in 1822 was fivepence, and in 1827 it was sevenpence." Legs and shoulders of mutton, selected as the criteria of a public measure, by a member of the government, in his address to the House of Commons! And it was after a series of frivolous

statements like these, as if the Cabinet Ministers, and great officers of state, lived chiefly upon such epicurean joints, that the hon. member complacently observed, he "thought he had made out a case that the salaries of public officers, as at present paid by the government, were not greater than was sufficient to reward their exertions, or to incite them to a more efficient performance of their duties." It has been asked, "what must the religion be, where a monkey is the God?" And I am tempted to enquire what must the government be, where one of its subordinate, but from various circumstances, not insignificant, members, is permitted to make such a defence of its measures?

February 15th.

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY.

"by

Sir Charles Wetherell, the other night, called the hon. member for Montrose, “an omnifarious reformer;" and this evening, before he would allow Mr Goulburn to have his Committee, he compelled him to listen to an omnifarious speech of three hours and a quarter, Shrewsbury clock." It was, in fact, the "tottle of the whole" of Mr Hume's speeches for the last ten years; a digest of every topic he had separately discussed during that period. He travelled through the whole of the Finance accounts, and not ar item was passed over, nor one which he proposed to exclude from the operation of retrenchment. Palaces, ambassadors, judges, woods and forests, army, navy, ordnance, clerks, secretaries of state, clergy, and taxation in general; malt, tobacco, and population; the Canadas, the Duke of Athol, and the Isle of Man; pensions, sinecures, and the sinking fund; high prices, low prices, and the corn laws; New South Wales, the Bermudas, and Sierra Leone; barracks, the Post-office, and the travelling expenses of government messengers; customs, excise, and a stamp distributor at Aberdeen; tax payers, tax collectors, and receivers general; the national debt, three per cents, and Exchequer bills; starvation, luxury, and the Military Asylum; and lastly, miscellaneous,