3 OCTOBER 1840, Page 14

BACKING OUT OF AN UNTENABLE ARGUMENT. PEOPLE floundering in the

mud proverbially get deeper into it with every struggle. A writer in the Morning. Chronicle of Monday last curiously exemplifies this fitct. After lauding the Scotstnou for

nstrating, on the unanswerable authority of titets and his-

tsry. that, according to the strictest rule and precedent of the pabey days of Boroughmongering Parliaments and Tory Cabinets, Ministers are not only justified, but bound and called upon, to re- tain possession of the reins of government," he adds—" For our own part. we frankly confess we attach little importance to thi.se arvr.ls to precedent. The affairs of a great nation ought not to

s•,:.•lested on the narrow pettitilgging maxims of special-pleading in:. a,;'. The question is not what would have been done in

tees- under a different ri-4iine and diffi:rent s3 stem, but what • to 1,e done now." Our readers will be desirous to learn at this liberal-minded reasoner substitutes for " the maxims" and " :-.:pecial-pleading ingenuity" It is briefiy—Ist, " One thing is plain, the pr•- - G.,verrirrient is the only one which in the present House of ' ....a as has the sli4htcst chance of commanding a majority."

•• iiiF,olution. then, must be the infallible consequence of

27.1. :.:ge of Minitry." ad, " So, after all, the

• for not re Ageing, amounts to this, that ti:'. iO !sit

c'e, • - the public interests 1,..■.• 11. pro, (1; :1* Po, tioment, for no other earthly rea:,,,n than he: :use their • : happen to fancy that a general el( (Aloft weeld. si , then a se e for office, which it is clear they fin 1,,,t 4th. 1;:t we this point, and go on to coi:sid,r • , a : can any reac::a1,1r: • •.' a would be, to reterti another Parliament, alea,,e as evenly !ialsieesi es in ti' pre silt thst this argument is mooch IP:Itr:r than ,ega, which the L'hrote's/s eesere- 1,.. s :eosins to this—that light th,:ir resignation would to it three years elap,ed . wr:ter in the Chroniei, =47e the e of a new sse,,rdirig to Ii -''teal

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