IMPROVED TACTICS OF THE LIBERAL OPPOSITION.
[From the Morning Chronicle, Dec. 7.]
There are no words in the whole whites...pregnant with more meaning. and with a meaning more gratifying to us. than those in which Lord John reminds the people that. for securing the great practical reforms now in dispute between the two parties, it is not necessary " that the late Ministry should be restored to power." We understand this to amount to a distinct disclaimer on the part ,f the late Ministerial leader in the Commons nut only of any hope of a speedy return to ofte, bat of any purpose of shaping his present course towards that end. The straggle is to be for g. ml measures from any Govern- ment; and in full cunfidetice of the speedy triumph of a sound policy under circum- seinces which seem to be with unexpected force tending to compel its adoption, it is clearly indicated that measures will be within our graspere a question shall arise about the men by whom they are to be proposed. • a • a a • • • W e are rejoiced dist he has thus early spoken in this tone, and is thus shaping his course of action. It is not merely that we wish to dispel any unjust suspicions that may bang round the motives of an Opposition composed of a party receutly in power, and to avoid the imputation of struggling merely to get our friends back to ..ffice. For what- ever opinion the public might form with respect to the party, our delite, ate opinion is, that there cold occur no calami'y so great Ar the Lif eml cause as the immediate restoration to office of the late or any other Liberal Ministry. The Liberal party most be restored be- fore a Liberal Ministry. Its principles. its objects. its course of action, must be clearly defined in Oppaiti. n; and the public must be reassured with respect to its purposes by observing. some the earnestness, others the moderation, with which it shall advocate the popular cause while in Opposition. Honestly and beneficially as the Liberal Ministry has in the main used power. a long tenure of office has not been without pro- ducing, as it were, some of those effects which it produce:, on all parties long in power. From their ranks. as from thuseof all parties in office, public as well as private motives have alienated many; of their principles, as of all that ever gain undisputed ascend- ancy in a free country, doubts and alarms have been generated, diminishing their force at both ends by the influence of perfectly different appreheusieus. This reaction must be counteracted ; these differences healed ; these losses repaired.; and the partially-lost favour of the public won back ere power will be worth regaining or possessing-. Not till the country sees before it great practical benefits seeured as as earnest of its future policy, and others contingent on its return to power—not till it is convinced that from
no others cau it hope for the -measures requires— not till than country wish to see the Liberat leaders in office ; not till then should they themselves wish it, ur take °Me were chance to place &in their reach.
For we have to develop in Opposition not only our own principles and course of melon, but those also or our opponents. We are bound not to disturb the experiment of a Tory Guverument in a Reformed Parliament. Once we have been borne down by their triers in Opposition; we are bound to expose those tricks, and prevent their ever being played off again with success. If the counsels of such specimens of ancient Toryism as your Buckingham* and Rodeos are to prevail, and England to be again go- verned by penal laws and six acts; or if useful reforms are to be staved off, or mi- micked. or marred in the making by any of the shallow shuffling of the red-tape school. we ahall have the satisfaction of aiding in that demonstratiou of public feeling which will speedily show our new masters that England will not be governed on Tory prin- ciples. If. on the other hand, the tools of the ancient system have really beeu heti ered by experience, and if, sensible of the improved feelings and intelligence of the nation, Sir Robert Peel shall set himself in earned and efficiently to the work of Reform, we shall have the satisfaction of proving, by the practical confession of our adversaries, that England can only be governed now-a-days ou those principles which we have al- ways professed and which our opponents hare always opposed. But not till we base, in one of these two ways, unmasked and prostrated Toryism and Tories—not till we have shown that on Tory principles the Government of this country cannot be cots- ducted—not till we have proved the incorrigibility or the falsehood of the Tories— not, in flue, till we have dragged them through the mire of inconsistency or of incapacity— of false professions or impracticable policy. ought any Liberal to move hand or foot to relieve them of the responsibilities of power gained by false pretences.
FACTIOUS AND SPITEFUL OPPOSITION TO WELL- REGULATED EMIGRATION.
[Frew tke Globe, Dec. 111.)
Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield has published a very long letter in the columns of
the Siamese twins devoted to .• Wakefield principle " —we mean. of coarse, the Colonial Gazette and the Spectator. In this imposing proclamation of •• principle" Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield declares that he shall not admit that his " principle " has been fairly tried, till Government shall resort to a system of burrowing money to curry it into effect !
Now then, the murder is oat ; and we know what this school means by National Emigration. It has been curious to trace the progress of the " Wakefield principle." Teu or eleven years ago. it was annouuced as superseding all action on the part of Go- vernment, beyond merely allowing free play to the " principle." It was to work its speciosa miracula, if the Colonial Office would but leaner faire. The Wakefield prin- ciple w to be all-sufficient to open Paradise in every wild. But now it appears this priuciple cannot work, if Goverumeut won't borrow money for it. Oh most lame :del impotent conclusion 1 Government then is to borrow money on " the Wakefield principle," for colonization by wholesale. What is the object cummeusurate to such a stride beyond its right func- boas? Forsooth. the giving •' a fair trial" to " the Wakefield principle" I What ii the security? The scientifie accuracy of " the Wakefield principle." But how if " the Wakefield principle" has no pretension to scientific accuiacy ? Government surely can't entertain is doubt so injurious! It would be little short of imputing fallibility to Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the Spectator, and the Colonial Gazette, and drawing down ou the Government the same disinterested hostility which every previous one has
incurred which failed to espouse implicitly their sanguine schemes!
We are utter uubelievers in the boasted sufficiency urthis •• Wakefield principle." It has some trite wades truth in it, and a prodigious deal more of delusive assumption. Having this opiuion, it becomes our duty, when a call tie imperious is made ou the Go- vernment auto' country to enter into these speculations—to raise a borrowed capital on the security offeture sales of lauds—lands, whose value will solely depend on the pre- cision with which the " Wakefield principle " works. (an anticipated precision in all cases, uu which we would not hazard a brass button)—when. we say, Government is called on to take a part so extranrrlivary—when the call is likely to be echoed from many interested, and some duped quarters—it becomes our duty to oppose at least our humble protest to the whole prneeeding. The specific and principal evil of uur present condition is the want of a steady supply of all agricultural produce in return for our staple products. The specific remedy is opening our ports to that steady supply. No, say these culouisers, we are to assume that our ban labourers are really reoundant, and that the uuly way of getting rid of their burtheusume presence is for Government to borrow money of whatever capitalists can be gulled to lend it (the law basing done its best to make their capital value,ess at home), and by these means whip off our labourers. as largely as possible, to the Anti- pairs. The state to which Corn-laws reduce us at present is assumed as our normal state—the Government is called upon to proclaim Sawn qui peat to our labour—to bor- row, in octal, I insolvency, on the faith of Jidda colonial wealth—wealth to be realized to the lenders by the labourers whom Government thus finds means to export. These labourers, it is assumed, will give a high value to the precise lands to which Govern- ment seeds them, and by the sale of which it is to pay its confiding creditors. All this is exceedingly fine, and we presume the scheme is to be completed by building walls to keep the birds from the cherry-trees—to keep the labourers on'the All the colonies which the weed has yet seen have been tar simpler in theirgrowth- far less swaddled in their stage of infancy—or else have beets slave or convict colonies. It is admitted that penal discipline may secure artificial results, and that where immense government outlay has been made, as iu New :South Wales, large roturus may be reaped eventually, though not repay...ea/for the sunk capital. If. however, as we shalt be glad to believe, all our "colonies of the Southern group," as Mr. Wakefield calls them, offer good investments to capitalists, why is government to be made the money borrower in the transaction? Why is government to promote the efflux of capital sad labour by such means ? Why is goveruikent to stimulate colonial speculations by taking part in them as a principal? The pretence is iudeed kept up that the scheme in not ultimately to cost the country a farthing—that the sums to he raised by luau are to be raised on the •• security of the waste lauds of each of thaw colonies separately (and without any other guarantee from Parliament), and devoted to the sole purpose of giving a free passage to that colony to persons of the labouring class properly selected." This is what is pretended ; what is intended (or will, at least, cestrunly follow) is that goverumeut will be involved. on an immensely extended scale, is all the responsibilities of peopling a. batch of new colonies; and no fixing lse..ple on them, in the precise spots where land-buyers want them, that the ruachtuer) of production and commerce shall work with the precision and profits of an old rouutry I Now we have no doubt in the world that if Government. fur a long series of years, would lavish public treasures. as it has done in peopling its convict colonies, some ap- proach to the %earth of those colonies might at length In: accomplished. Accomplished, however, only by au exoenuiture never to be repaid. That government are to be paid back what they may thus spend, is a mere delusion. It is a mere delusion that the whole expenditure- (as regards the public) a ill be summed up in the amounts borrowed in anticipatiuu of the ales of laud, and to be paid. hum that source. If that were so, then the capitalists who buy the land would be the dupes. But we know the nature of three gentry a little too well to imagine that they will submit to stiffer, while it is pos- sible to let su the public for a share iu such bad speculations, as John Ball is wanted to make good ones! It will soon be discovered that it is incumbent on Government to supply all those deflcieucietain a sew colony (e Islets are just deficiencies of every thing that is found in older countries or settlements)—delicieuries which those who hate paid high prices fur laud will have no mind, and probably no means, to pay further high prices for. Internal improvements and administration don't cost nothing at the Anti- podes I Surveys, roads, bridges, establishments ut every description, which in all set- demerits of older date, seem to have come by nature (so little do men in general cuusis der how they were first finuided)—all these have to be commenced and created—mm.8es of capital have to be sank, which none but the shrewd ones, who dupe the sanguine ours, have any idea of calculating. We have some premonition or those calls on us in the recent demands on Parliament for the "self supporting " colony of South Australia. We have some sample of them in the bills overdrawn on this government by its late Goveruor, and which we are not aware that the South Australiau proprietors are disposed to take up. We base some sample of them in the estimate of that lute functionary, (Colonel Gaoler,) that half a miliion or thereabouts, would sot be more than is stilt wanted to place this " self- supportiug " colony its a state of security and prosperity. Now it is all very well to declaim against a governor's plans, or his extravagance. It will remain certain that these nee and excessively remote settlements cauuut be rendered able to :wart them- selves, and far less to pay debts, or profits, without an extent of outlay which the san- guine assailants of John Bull's pocket studiously shirk calculating, and affect to be- hove nobody ueed be taxed fur in any shape. We must not be supposed, in calhug these chimeras by their rightnames, to intend any discounagemeut. ut emigration on sound priuciple*. That the Autipudes luruish the best fides ha it, and the rawest of all new settlements, (which always are the favourites for the day.) the likeliest sources of large profits, are poiute ou which We reserve our opinion. Those whs have not read colonial history, or have read it only with Wakefield varnish on it, may believe all that if they can. We have no objection; but they shall nut, if we can DM in preventing them, make government dance to their pipe—whittles mural certainty thee the nation must prey the piper.
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