NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Loan JOHN RUSSELL'S Liverpool speech, Irish affairs, and the state of the Revenue, have chiefly engaged the attention of poli- ticians during the week, and afforded matter of discussion in the newspapers.
At the little party in Liverpool, of which the Home Secretary was the "lion," there were no professional reporters; so that the account of his epeech, made up of recollections, in the local papers, is necessarily imperfect. It seems, however, to be generally ad- mitted that the published outline of his remarks is correct as far as it goes; and some of his observations have been selected by the Ministerial newspapers for especial praise. Lord JOHN, though avoiding politics generally, could not refrain from adverting to the recent meetings of' the working classes. Be said, that "there were some, perhaps, who would put down such meetings. But such was not his opinion, nor that of the Government with which he acted. He thought the People had a right to free discussion. It was free discussion which elicited truth. They bad a right to meet? Whereupon the Downing Street gentlemen are in raptures : behold, they exclaim, the liberality of our Home Secretary ! He will not attack the work- ing men of Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Glasgow ; who have a right to meet, and discuss their grievances freely. People of England, art ye not vastly beholden to this generous Minister, and "the Government with which he acts ?" You are neither to be gagged nor dragooned. Your rights are not to be invaded. Your merciful and just rulers, mindful of Peterloo, and repentant of Calthorpe Street, will not attempt to put you down ! Now it needed no express revelation from the lips of a Home Secretary to assure us of all this. The MELBOURNE Ministers are not exactly such infatuated madmen as to declare war against the masses, guiltless of breaking the law. Nor are they, to do them justice, much inclined to cope with any thing in the shape of laborious enterprise, which they can avoid: their amiable fail- ing lies the other way. Before boasting that they will not pre- vent the People from meeting in multitudes, let the power of pre- vention be ascertained. If Lord JOHN RUSSELL expects to gain more than a week's popularity by the superfluous declaration that he will not attempt what everybody knows he could not perform, lie will be disappointed. The plebeian agitators and their fol. lowers will be apt to reply to him in the familiar phrase, "Thank you for nothing." Probably Lord JoHar, who is dexterous in small shifts, thought it a fine stroke of policy to parry by anticipation a complaint of supineness from the Tory side. We know not that the Tories of Lancashire desire "strong measures" at present, but we know what they have desired and done in other times ; and we cannot say that Lord JOHN RUSSELL feared their censure and evaded it by a ruse, but we know from experience that it is not unlike him. On neither hypothesis is his feat entitled to hyperbolical laudation.
