3 JANUARY 1846, Page 5

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

This is usually the dullest week in the year for newspapers ; all honest folks being at home to enjoy the holydays in the bosom of their families : but the Protection meetings that multiply about the country are signs that some unusual element is at work. The double Ministerial crisis was over last week—that storm has fairly passed; and the agitation among the agriculturists is the slow heavy ground-swell which shows that the storm was felt more severely in distant quarters than in London. The conduct of those meetings forebodes a severe contest, such as we antici- pated—one of sheer dead force : it also forebodes the doom of the measure favoured by the Protectionists. The gatherings have been characterized by the most conflicting qualities, though by an unlucky uniformity of badness : they have exhibited dulness only enlivened by extravagance, obstinacy acknowledging no argument but only yiaialing to a blind sense of necessity, boasts of power mingled with complaints exposing weakness, defiance and shrinking. The Protectionists are bold in a losing cause; _.but, like all desperate people, their sallies are unregulated by policy, and their most savage onslaughts are made in a way to tell as little as possible ; the least able amone. them being fore- most in the fray. Thus the Duke of Richmond takes a very pro- minent part, Sir John Tyrell, and others of the " kill your own mutton " class of country gentlemen, of higher station than parts. 'Almost the solitary instance oT real personal ability among the very zealous is Mr. Stafford O'Brien ; whose false position on the wrong side of the argument looks like one of his best jokes. Great numbers, especially among the Members of Parliament belonging to the party, are in a state of confessed doubt and wavering. In the whole mass of speeches, scarcely a passage is worth quoting for its own sake, but only as an indication of feeling. The leading sentiments appear to be, an affectation of incredulity as to the contemplated repeal of the Corn-laws, in- tense anger at Sir Robert Peel's " treachery," a resolve to allow " no surrender," and a latent fear that the surrender will be inevitable.

On the opposite side, that of the Free-traders, there is by no means the corresponding. amount of activity. The inaction may be in part accounted for by the fact that the Anti-Corn-law League is, as it were, in stays—between the course which it has just accomplished and the new one which it is about to begin. But the most obvious.cause-for the quietude is the mystification -and perplexityOccisioned by the sudden evasion of Lord John Russell. The late resounding and triumphant progress of the Free-traders, " winning near the goal," is succeeded by the most absolute flatness. As if conscious that Lord John is the cause of that unpleasant reaction, his more unscrupulous friends attempt to shift the burden of responsibility from him to another : " Lord Grey,"_ says one of the Ministers an potuisse, " has frustrated all our plans." We do not, indeed, lay much stress on Mr. Mac- aulay's letter to Edinburgh ; because, from its lax style of coiroo- sition we must presume that it was not intended for publication ; and from the incorrectness of a prominent assertion, that it was written in ignorance of the facts. But we gather the party purpose from the bitter though vague and inconclusive observations of some Whig journals; ..and the total silence of others on this important point. One charge against Lord Grey, on which the shielciers of Lord John now insist with some emphasis,-is, that a more active step should have been taken to urge upon Lord John Russell, at the very first, the objection to Lord Palinerston's occupation of the Foreign Ofice. It is forgotten, that at that early stage the ques- tion on the tapis was, not who should take the several offices, but whether there should be any Whig Cabinet at all; and if the objection had then been advanced, there would have been no end to the outcry at the premature and precipitate making of "diffi- culties." But beyond the mere Whig party, no attention is paid to the tale about Lord Grey's having " frustra:ted all their [LATEST EDITION.]

plans"; simplybecause that, if it were true to the letter, could not account for the disruption of the half-formed Ministry and the abrupt evasion of its leader. One journalist confesses that the real thing wanting was " matured opportunity,"— that is, the occasion was not nicely enough fitted to the ca- pacity of the party : is, it not logically confessed, e converso, that the party were not fit for the occasion? Wit' an op- portunity of rescuing the country in the very mode pole ' out by the leader, with a great organized agitation placed at their disposal to appropriate with office at command, with an oppo- sition weakened by divided councils and the fear of anticipated defeat, and with the most favourable combination of circumstances that ever offered for the particular measure in contemplation, the Whigs drew back, in conscious weakness. They say that they did so because they could not put one of their number in a par- ticular office and at the same time include among them a noble- man who has never been considered an essential member of their party. What is this excuse, but to admit that they were so enfeebled,' so disorganized, that they were hopeless of getting along unless they had every possible circumstance and adventitious aid in their favour ? They could not exist, not merely without Lord Grey's support—for that was promised, but without his name. What a confession of miserable weakness is that! Lord Grey is a mere excuse to save the shame of openly confessing such an effete condition. His stipulation serves the part of that convenient "fall down stairs" which is made to account for the crooked frame of every sickly child.

The aspect of universal feebleness is curious. Here is a great Liberal measure to be accomplished; but its promoters have no adequate representation among the aristocratic class of statesmen; the statesmen of the Liberal party are confessedly unsuited and unequal to the task ; its great opponents virtually admit their weakness to resist. In the state of doubt, where the issue must depend on the balance not of power but of weakness, all eyes are turned to know what the only man having any positive available c fret tiiiat the moment means to do. In three weeks Parliament will be told the reasons of Sir Robert Peel's resumption of office after resigning., and will then be able to judge whether they were just and weighty. But, just or not, there appears really to be no other party prepared effectually to resist his flat, be that bad, good, or indifferent. Its badness or goodecas, therefore, i.i a ques- tion for his own fame.