TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE PREDICTION.
" In about a month Sir R. Peel will be Prime Minister."—Standard, 22d January lenfi.
WELL—here we a re on the 27th of February, and Lord MELBOURNE is still First Lord of the Treasury. A month and more has passed away since the Standard's prophecy was published for the comfort of desponding Tories, and Sir ROBERT PEEL still lies in the cord shade of Opposition. Where are the three hundred Conservatives whose arrival was duly notified in the columns of the Standard, three or four days before the opening of the session ? 1Vhere, oh where, are the recreant seventy-six, whose absence on the first night gave the victory to Ministers and their Radical allies? Surely the snow has melted away from the uttermost parts; the roads are no longer blocked up; all the world has came to town ; the King holds his Levees and the Queen liar Drawing-rooms : but where is the threatened majority of Conservatives? The Ministers are the same set of " beggar-ridden" incapables—the same desperate, penniless spoliators—as on the 221 of January. There has been no change for better or for worse ill the Cabinet; the measures of last session are not to be Tory fled for this; and yet the Conservatives ..o/ save their country They will not make PEEL Pi .enier! Alas! we begin to fear that there is no hope of salvalie; for the Church and the Monarchy from the Conservatives. II is to be given up to those needy desperadoes the HOWARDS, C •VENDISHES, RL'SSELLS, C LEVE I. ANDS, L Als18- DOWNES, GROSVENORS, PORTM ANS " et hoe genus innne"—men to whom, as the Standard used to say, a warns room was " an un- wonted luxury."
But, to speak seriously, was there ever a more impudent and
shameless attempt to deceive the public, than the Standard's posi- tive and unqualified assertion on the 22d of January last, that Sic ROBERT PEEL would he Prime Minister in a month from that date? There was not, a month ago, any more probability of a Tory Ministry titan there is now. We knew this, and the Standard knew it. There bad been no desertions from the Ministerial majority of last year : the Tory writers could not mention the name of a single recruit to their tamp. It was therefore impas- sible that any reasonable expectation could exist for a change of Ministry—far less such a certainty as would alone warrant the as- sertion of the Staiiiteid.
But what did that matter? When did—when do—the Tory
newspapers stick at publishing a downright falsehood, when it is fancied that a temporary purpose may be served? It was supposed that a stronger muster of the Opposition would be made, if the Tories could be duped into the belief that there was hope of spoil for those who were early in the field of battle. Sober calculation of the comparative strength of the two parties would have revealed the inferiority of the Opposition : the fabrication of falsehoods was deemed a more acceptable service to sinking Toryism. TLe arrival in town of three hundred Conservatives was announced; and on the 22d of January the Standard printed this memorable sentence—" In about a month Sir R. Peel will he Prime Mi- nister!"
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