THE PEAR-RIPENING PLAN.
" Last autumn, before some of the Radicals, in their inscrutable wisdom, thought proper to turn their arms against their allies because they could nut beat their enemies intrenched in the House of Lords; and some others per- suaded many of the working classes that Peerage Reform was is bubble, and that the one thing needful to be struggled for exclusively was Universal Suf. frage ; before all these minks were played, and when the question of Peerage Reform had made great and rapid progress in the public mind, we expressed our opinion that by the next Easter things might be ripe for the appeal to the na- tion whether it would submit to the despotism of the Lords. Many faults and follies, together with the backwardness of public business, have tended to the disappointment of this expeCtation. We may have been sanguine in our hopes of progress (though it was impossible for us to foresee the diversion in favour of the Lords effeeted by some of the professed Reformers), but with what grace does a sneer at our calculation of the time when the pear might be ripe, proceed from one who asserted that it was actually ripe in September List, ant only lvaiting for the Alinistry to pluck it ?"— Examiner, of Sunday lab& Certainly the question of Peerage Reform bad, at that time, made " great and rapid progress in the public mind ; " but how stands the case now ? The Examiner's pear, instead of being ripe at Easter, has shrunk into nothing. At present, there really is no such question as Peerage Reform. The plan of " bombard- ing the Lords with good measures," which was a plan for keeping the Whigs in office upon the strength of mere proposa!s of reform for rejection by the Lords, has signally failed, both as a means of preparing the country for Peerage Reform, and as a means of se- curity to the Ministry. We know not of any political progress that has been made in the country since last autumn, except to- wards Toryism. The irresponsible and obstructive power of the Lords may now be considered safe for many a day to come : the Ministry has just been within an ace of destruction by an ad- verse majority in the Commons, and has nothing to rely upon but vague hopes of Court favour, and the yet poorer chance of an aimless popular excitement in their favour. The many " faults and follies" which the pear-ripening plan was well suited to encourage, have produced their natural result, This is our apology for what the Examiner calls a sneer at his Lmiscalculation. We did not intend to sneer, but to state the plain fact,—which is, that the House of Lords, with all its mischievous qualities and dispositions, has been greatly strengthened by the Pear-ripening plan. When, we should like to know, does our contemporary now think that the pear will be ripe ? An anwer will oblige.
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