16 DECEMBER 1843, Page 1

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

ONE common characteristic of political rumours is peculiarly ob- servable in rumours before the session—that their truth or falsehood makes scarcely any difference to the eagerness with which partisans accept and circulate them. Last week the rumour was, that there was to be some kind of coalition between PEEL and the Whigs; this week the story is, that there is to be some astonishing combi- nation of Liberals against PEEL. The one object of all these ru- mours is to damage the Premier with his-own party : now he is to be represented to them as too much like the Liberals, and then again, as too weak to cope with them. Such gossiping will go on, in- creasingly, until the 1st of February, when the meeting Of Parlia- ment 'will 'furnish the gossips with other subjects. In one in-

stance the solemn trifling has taken a form of curious. absurdity. Some months ago, Mr. HENRY S. CHAPAIAN, a barrister of three or four years standing, _ departed for New Zealand, carrying with'. him, the appointment of Judge at Wellington, the chief settlement of the English. Nothing was then said , of the

appointment ; but recently, ." Liberals" have waked to the - notion - that it might in some way be twisted to the disser- vice of the "Tory " Government. It is not alleged that Mr. CHAPMAN is incompetent, but that he was once Secretary to an Anti-Corn-law Association, and before that a principal contributor to Mr. ROEBUCK'S Political Pamphlets. 'Well, what have Liberals to complain of? or, in setting forth that Sir ROBERT PEEL selects for offices where public service is to be performed, well-qualified individuals of the most opposite politics to his own, do they mean to represent him as being wonderfully liberal,* disinterested, and public-spirited-? , Oh, nothing of the kind ; they' only wish to damage him with the expectants of his 'own. party., In all this paltry pecking at motives and this warfare of insinuation, any little mischief they may occasion to their head rival is at the expense of much discredit to themselves. If they are so very eager to oust him, so very anxious to assume his responsible office there is one vertain and not discreditable mode of doing it : let them produce substantially-better measures, and with manifest bona fides—not as a "tub to the whale," or "for rejection" by Lords or Commons, but giving- a pledge that their political existence is staked in that high vocation.