1 SEPTEMBER 1849, Page 14

NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

" P UNICA fides !"—" British faith ! " is the modern equivalent. Our Government plays strange pranks abroad, and abroad it is " England" that gets the credit. Canada is bullied into some- thing like revolt, and then the representative of Majesty slinks into a country-house; whereupon the colony talks of separation from " England." Lord Grey tricks the Cape colony into being a penal settlement, and " England " has done it all. You whine about annexation, cries the Yankee, and you are going to annex Cashmere, as you have annexed Scinde and the land of the Sikhs. Lord Palmerston allows Lord Minto to entrap the Sici- lians into revolt, and suffers Mr. More O'Ferrall to repulse the Sicilian refugees from Malta; and the bad faith is imputed to " England." " England " is kicked out of Spain in the person of Mr. Henry Bulwer. What with the strange medley of achieve- ments perpetrated in his name, good and strange John Bull looks rather foolish ; especially when he is asked to pay the bill for losing his property or his good name. " Oh ! " he cries, "I did not do it—I know nothing about it. It is not the people or the country, not England which has done all this, but the Government—a very different thing." Not so different as you would have us believe. Who appoints the Ministers, but the people, by the representatives whom the people elect? And the Ministers thus popularly appointed have a right to plead popular authority. If the people dislike the con- sequent discredit, surely England is not too stupid, too feeble, or too poor, to bring about a better state of things ? The root of the mischief lies in the fact, that although " England" dislikes the shame of avowing the acts of her public servants, she does not really feel any great concern at the wrong done. The middle and upper classes especially entertain this negative feeling of in- difference. So long as taxes and insurrections are kept down, so long as they are safe and their money is saved, they are indifferent to the rest. Even the Chartists share the feeling so, far as fo- reign countries are concerned : they are content with a moral " repudiation " of state debts. So long as English Ministers re- main in office, England" is really responsible for what they do, and must bear the discredit as meekly as she may.