NEWS OF THE WEEK.

LORD MELBOURNE has now got his House of Commons. The ewers, Oich the Ministerial journals assured us were to " de- ree the laracter of the English Government for a long reed Of years,' are over. The result is not satisfactory, we ima- gtas, to the Premier and his advisers. The Liberal failure is

niftiest and admitted. How does it happen, that with appa- rently such ample means of insuring a large majority, and with siMh confident anticipations of success, the MELBOURNE Parlia- ment will contain fewer Liberals than that elected under the ment will contain fewer Liberals than that elected under the auspices of PEEL, with a Court and Cabinet hostile to the Libe- A? The mistaken election policy of the Whigs, framed for the avoidance of battle rather than the inspiriting to victory, and their previous management of the Liberal party, were the chief canes of failure: the zeal of the Tories in stimulating certain popular prejudices, and their employment of foul means to a greater extent and with more skill than the Ministerialists, were subordinate though powerful instruments of our defeat.

The Cabinet was in danger of falling to pieces when the illness of the late King assumed a fatal aspect. The progress of the session had been disappointing—disgusting; its prospects were hopeless.

The majorities had become little better than nominal. The Tories were in the high road to office. Even the Ministers, in formal

weclies, spoke of their resignation as an event not far off; and Tan replied with the taunt, that when they went out, persons Weaning himself and his friends) might be found not averse to come in. Out of the House, the official gentlemen talked unre- servedly of their approaching doom. So nearly had the crisis mrived at the end of May, when the election in Glasgow occurred, theta defeat in Glasgow, it was held, would be the finishing-blow. Had the Court taken advantage of any accident again to dis- card the Whig Ministers, certain it is that they would not again

have stormed the Cabinet at the head of an excited and indignant

people. In the course of the two years that had elapsed from the return of Lord MELBOURNE to power, the Whigs in office, with

their immediate partisans, had succeeded so completely in lulling the nation into lazy indifference, that the triumph of the Tories would have been easy.

But WILLIAM the Fourth sickened and died, and VICTORIA reigned in his stead. Then dolefulness gave place to delight. Whig exultation was unbounded. Then it was discovered that the Reform-damping policy had been the best possible policy. The Whigs had no occasion to "keep up the steam " of Reform among the People, for had they not the Court? Exciting topics were put aside. Organic reforms were ruled to be unfashionable. The Ballot vas a thing fit for the dusty pigeon-hole of a projector. Every thing

was said and done that could lull the spirit e Weir in 1831 and 1832

the Whigs had turned to such profitable account. " TheQueen and Reform," simply meant "The Whigs still in office." Apparently

the Tories were dismayed. Since the accession of GEORGE the Third, they bad always relied on assistance, secret or open, from the Cant ; and now that fortress was garrisoned by their foes. All looked well for the Whigs: and had they used their .1 acquired power at Court with discretion, the fair prospect might not have been blasted. Had they, for instance, announced their determination to carry one or two popular measures, and given an

enmistakeuble proof of the extent of their influence at Court, and the direction in which that influence would he used, by re- Moritig Lord BILL from the Horse Guards, the election-struggle

might have been entered on in a eery different spirit. But Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Mr. SPRING RICE, and Lord PALMERSTON, were

Wand Conservative in their electioneering addresses ; promising nothing definite in the way of reforms, but avowing hostility to the Ballot; while each successive Gazette announced the appoint- ments of Bedchamber Ladies, but not the dismissal of the Tory Commander and his mischievous though clever Secretary from the control of the Army. Lord DURHAM did his best to cushion

questions troublesome to the Whigs ; and the earnest Reformers, apparently deserted for the time by his Lordship, looked not else- 'here for a leader. The DURHAM Letter was placarded all over the Country; in every Whig comreittee-rooni the precious docu- raent was exhibited as a manrsl ; but nothing like enthusiasm for the Whigs " and the Queen" was excited.

The Tories, seeing that the means, by which their influence had been for several years past counteracted, were not now to be em- ployed against them, took courage. Everywhere they had emis- saries and candidates. The clergy worked upon the religious bigotry of their flocks, and scrupled not to use their temporal power over subordinates to gain votes for the Tories. O'Cosneses was held up as the great bugbear ; and Englishmen were asked whether they would see their Church and Constitution trampled under foot by a Popish beggar and bully? The registries were found to have been well attended to by the Tory attornies: bribery and intimidation were employed to win over or terrify the dependent electors ; every species of illicit influence on the opi- nions and on the worldly expectations of the voters was directed to defeat the I.iberals.

On the other side, the Whigs were not shy of employing such left-handed influences as might be at their disposal. Tradesmen

were lured by the hope of Court custom, or made afraid of losing it. Persons in public offices were required not to vote against their superiors. In some places, Norwich for instance, the Whigs bribed as freely as the Tories. Whig noblemen had their tenants marched up to the hustings to support the W 'rig candi-

date. Intimidation of a different species from _thee... sloyed be the landlords aided the Liberal candidates 111....44Ere. In both countries " the Hanoverian" cry was got up ; as if a man's vote for Whig or Tory were to depend upon the merits of a quarrel between King ERNEST and his subjects. But in this game the Whigs were beaten. Come to foul play, and the Liberals are no match for their opponents. Besides, there was disunion in some quarters ; the Whigs and Radicals did not always pull well together. The Tories, on the other hand, moved as one man to one point. Their object was to turn out the Whigs ; and they pursued it with the vigour arising from unanimity. But the Liberals, having nothing valuable clearly set before them as the prize of conflict, were apathetic, except in particular places. Whilst the Ministerial papers were loudly boasting of the union of the Re- formers, and declaring that " the eases in which Liberals would be replaced by Tories would be comparatively few "—" that the Tories had ceased to hope for the triumph of their cause"—that there was " a greater prospect of accession of strength, and conse- quent permanence, than any Government had bad for these five years "—that" every thing seemed to indicate a general feeling of strength and permanence in the policy hitherto pursued ;" whilst the unscrupulous retainers of the Treasury were day after day holding such language as this, rational men, who chose to employ their senses and to scorn delusion, saw that the Tories had secured and were employing the means of victory—that the com- plaints of apathy, and of indifference as to the permanence of the Ministry, were general—that to lower the tone of public feeling, to damp the spirit of reform, the lulling policy in short, was not the way to contend with the aristocracy, the squirearchy, and the clergy of England. In several counties, where the Whig aristo- cracy has been more powerful than the Tory, the parsons and squires have beaten the Lords. Well, what has been the result ? Numerically, the Whigs are not only weaker than they were at the opening of the PEEL Par- liament, but the slender majority which remained to them at the close of the last session, after their repeated defeats at single elec- tions, has been still further cut down. They have not, in a full House, a majority greater than ten on the Churth question. Our tables show a slight advance on this number; but then, the Whigs have credit for several uncertain Members, whose votes may fail when they happen to be most wanted, although they are too Whiggish to be put among the Tories. When the Palm Parlia- ment opened in February 1835, we anticipated a majority of 80, even though all the Doubtfuls had voted with PEEL—and on the Irish Corporation question the Liberals dill muster that majority : now we can scarcely count up a dozen and a half. The elections have not only reduced the number of Whig Members, but Ministers come out of the struggle with a diminution of moral force. They tacitly abandoned the principles on which they en- tered office, and chose to fight the Tories with Tory weapons— let net; go the People and clinging to the Court. The difficult question occurs," How then is the Queen's Go- %torment to be carried on ? "—on the "Conservative," or on the " Reform- principle ? Thetendency, almost the necessity, is toCon-

servatisru. A clear majority in the next House of Commons will be Tory, unless there should arise, from some unforeseen accident, some sudden revulsion of popular feeling, a great national excite-

merit to make a combined effort to complete the Reform Act,— to simplily the franchise, doing away with complex and absurd qualifications; to establish compulsory registration by accountable officers z.t the public expense ; to protect the %eters from MUM- dation and persecution; and to provide for regularity and method in legislation as well as responsibility, by giving a defined and certain, though shortened period for the duration of Psi!laments. When the time shall again come for talking about these not very wild desires, without the imputation of insanity, God only knows. In the mean while, believing "Reform" (meaning by that term not the mere administration of government as carried on, sometimes with a really reforming effect, by the Duke of WELLINGrort. and Sir ROBERT PEEL, but Reform in the sense which has served the Whigs as a cheval de bataille

• againetttbese statesmen since November 1830.) to be at an end( the present, wesiball apply ourselves to such measures of practied improvement as may be attainable under a Conservative Govere. ment and an instrument of legislation miserably defective. Per. haps it will be found that we shall labour with aimuch zeal aryl

effect in this our more congenial vocation, as some of our con. temporaries who have sneered at the organic changes we have ed„ vocated as a means of carrying practical improvement, and u. sumed to themselves the reputation of being remarkably wise in their generation.