The practical effects of our embarrassed foreign relations are beginning
to be felt at home : the daily papers tell us that there has not been such a bustle in the dockyards for a quarter of a century ; and the Ministerial Times yesterday devoted a column of "leader" to seeking out, in the dark political horizon of Europe and America, causes of war, which must necessitate a greatly-increased naval force, and which justify warlike preparations. Good; but some one must suffer, if "the dignity and security of this em- pire must be effectually maintained" only by such costly means : and that somebody is the tax-payer, from whom the Corn-law and similar legislative " protections " filch all that the National Debt leaves. The Tories will have the unpleasant task of calling upon the burdened tax-payers for more taxes ; and at such a pros- pect we perceive certain honest Whigs indulge in a patriotic chuckle. But who turned over foreign affairs to the Tories in that condition which makes a war probable and necessary to be provided against ? Who, but the Whig Lord PALMERSTON ? It would need the ingenuity of a PeLmeasros to unravel the knots which a PALMERSTON has tied—that is, if he could do it. No; the Tories have as yet done nothing to blame in the matter : the blame to them will be, if they imitate the disingenuous, vacillating, extra- vagant policy which they condemned in Opposition—if they plead the delicate state of "pending negotiations" to conceal from the country all those growing embarrassments which end in wars, little or big. Activity in statesmanship is better than activity in the dockyards: prima fade, increased armaments are an evil; but before we condemn the successors of the Whigs for finishing what the Whigs began, let us hear their story!
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