TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE RENEWED LEASE.
Trfouoir Lord Stanley's coy evasion of office leaves the Whigs tin- disputed masters of the field, some perverse influence in the stars seems destined to dash their safety with discredit. Even the best-meanr defences of their policy are apt to read like covert satires. For example, on Monday last, the " greatarithmetician," the Mem- ber for Westbury, descended upon the House in a shower of sta- tistical tables, to enlighten it upon the merits of Free-trade policy and finance. He traced that policy from the remote age of Huskisson, through the middle ages of Whig rule, to the
modern aim of Peel ; and was so full of his theme, that he altogether overlooked the scurvy figure his chefs cut in the
retrospect. Mr. Wilson demonstrated that the policy of Mr. Hus- kisson immensely improved both the finances and trade of the country from 1823 to 1830 ; that the policy initiated and developed by Sir Robert Peel, and imperfectly carried out by his successors, from 1842 to 1850, had the same effect ; and that the policy pursued during the intermediate period from 1830 to 1841, when the Whigs were in the ascendant, contrasted in its results most lamentably with both. Ministers, we imagine, will scarcely thank the Secretary to the Board of Control for obtruding their inca- pacity as commercial legislators and financiers upon public no-. tiee at the very moment when they appear to have run through the stock in trade they inherited from Sir Robert Peel. What more than anything else contributed to drive the Whigs from office in 1841, was the fact of which Mr. Wilson reminded his audience, that under their ten years' sway the Debt was increased by seven millions, and that during the last five years of the period there was a recurring deficiency of revenue amounting in the aggregate to ten millions. Sir Robert Peel restored the prosperity of the exchequer so completely that the Whigs have not yet been able to undo his handiwork; though the recurrence of a Caffre war, and the mysterious and sudden claim of 400,000/. made by the East India Company on the Chancellor of the Exchequer the day before his amended Budget speech was delivered, threaten to eat deeply into the surplus and suggest fears of recurring deficits, and shifts that may lead to an augmentation of the Debt.
The moral of Mr. Wilson's figures would appear to be a warning, that the Whig bark is again drifting down on the rock of finance whereon it split before. Yet those in command of the vessel give no indications of any wish to relinquish the helm. On the contrary, they seem willing to encourage the getting up of a " cry " for the hustings against the general election of 1852. The old cant phrases of "confidence in the Reform Ministry," and the like, are furbished up, after, having been for some time consigned to the political lumber-room, rather the worse for wear. Mr. Fox Maule' as fugleman hints that "discussion among themselves" might lead to "the downfall and overthrow of the Reform Govern- ment "; exhorting the Liberals "to combine and follow the banner of him who twenty years ago," &c., and to allow this chief of a past generation "to use his own time." The leader in question, it is true, preserves an ominous silence as to the measure for the ex- tension of the suffrage with which he is said to be pregnant. But "confiding Liberals" hurry not the less to wallow in the mud under his feet. Such is their eager craving for self-abasement, that they hastened to retract their votes in favour of Mr. Locke King's bill, and swell the Anti-Reform majority, though the shabby service was not needed to save the Ministers from a second defeat.
A locus prenitentim has been extended to the Whig Ministers; but it is not by phrases, the hollowness of which has long been detected-nor by sham measures "for rejection "-that they and the "confiding Liberals " can regain the public support they have lost. There is a wide field of real work for whosoever will do it. Their own allusions to the necessity of keeping down the Debt suggest the need of very different measures from occasional small purchases of stock by the Government-broker, on disadvantageous terms. The recent disclosures in the Customs prosecutions call for a searching reform of deep-seated abuses. Manufacturers, plagued by the vexatious surveillance of the Excise, urge the execution of improvements proposed by Commissions of Inquiry appointed when many Members of the present House of Commons were in the nursery. The slovenly system of allowing large sums to be deducted by various departments from the gross revenue before it is paid into, the Exchequer has long called for amendment. From the task of simplifying and rendering more efficient the modes of raising the na- tional revenue, the transition to its more effective expenditure is na- tural. Among other functions of government kept in abeyance, by the want of funds-and that again arising from injudicious ex- penditure, such as bungling experiments in shipbuilding, and similar follies-the necessity of a system of national education, to make the people citizens, not mere votaries of sects, is brought to remembrance at present by the panic inspired by the aggres- sive attitude which the Romish hierarchy has assumed. The state of the law and its administration is daily becoming more inade- quate to the increasing numbers and more complicated relations of the community. The desiderata will not be attained by mul- tiplying special courts, or establishing local courts with inadequate jurisdiction, but by separating the administrative from the judi- cial functions of Chancery-substituting a sufficient number of courts with general jurisdiction, distributed over the face of the country, for the local and special courts of Common Law, Equity, and Doctors' Commons-placing within a moderate distance of every citizen a tribunal competent to decide in any litigation in which he may be entangled. Lastly, with regard to the very im- perfect legislative machinery of Parliament as at present consti- tuted, it is obvious that a mere reconstruction of the electoral sys- tem, however necessary, will be insufficient, unless Parliament be relieved from a load of business-that would be better despatched by local boards, and improved arrangements be adopted for initiating and maturing measures of general legislation. It is only by seeking to comprehend in their full extent the actual wants of society, and by basing upon this knowledge real and comprehen- sive measures of financial, administrative, judicial, and legislative reform, that the present or any Ministry can establish such a hold upon public confidence and esteem as will insure them a majority at a general election. Assuredly the revival of worn-out devices, and cants made nauseous a dozen years ago, will have the opposite effect.
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