Perhaps a score and upwards of new writs for seats
in the House of Commons never created so little sensation as those which were issued on Wednesday. It has been held out as a sort of threat to Ministers, that they would have to go through a second ordeal, a sort of" appeal to the country" in little, when their acceptance of office should make them vacate their seats. The ordeal is before them ; but it does not appear to be very terrible. Of the twenty- seven places for which writs have been issued, there are but few in which any opposition is as yet offered ; and where it is offered, it is not of the most formidable kind. Probably the most alarming IS that which Mr. WILLIAM GLADSTONE, it is said, will encounter at Newark, in the person of Mr. Thomas GISBORNE. Many people would be glad to see able Mr. GISBORNE in Parliament, even at the cost of seeing able Mr. GLADSTONE OUI of it ; and the latter, by his activity in canvassing, seems fully alive to the expediency of strengthening himself for the struggle, or of preventing it altoge- ther by showing that he is strengthened. Possibly, however, it may be said that all the Ministers are " virtually " opposed in the person of their chief, Sir ROBERT PEEL ; for he has to meet no less an antagonist than Mr. JAMES Acr.arin, one of the Corn-law League's lecturers. If Mr. ACLAND has rity of the League in issuing his address, that infl s
never made so great a blunder. What sort of ret
look for in the poll between PEEL and ACLAND ? Th expect Mr. ACLAND to Slip into Sir ROBERT PEEL might as well hope to put hint into his•office ; and whist Corn-law Repeal can derive from being pitted through against the Premier, merely to exhibit some ludicrou the poll-returns, it were difficult to guess. It is tom; electors cannot pronounce upon the broad question be ROBERT PEEL and the Repealers ; but why should the Ann,
law League submit the question to them as if they could, courting an adverse decision where no decision can avail ?
In fact, generally speaking, the reelections must be'mere copies of the elections : there has been no change in public ;opinion in the interval, little alteration in the real position of parties, and What little formal change there has been has only served pro tank, to strengthen the Tories. The reaction, whatever it is to be, has yet to begin : it were worth little if it began so soon ; and mock contests between JAMES Acnaian and ROHERT PEEL will not hasten it.
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