NEWS OF THE WEEK.
EIGHTEEN-11-UNDR.ED-AND-FIFTY-TWO has excelled the annus mire- bilis of 1851, not only in .the importance but in the brilliancy of
its events : the occurrences of the year just expired will be marked in the future by a long train of great consequences, as the gold from the native mountains is washed far into the stream of the plains below. The grandest events, however, may perhaps be best described by the briefest expression.
In English politics, the Whig party, which made good its entry into the year and into the Parliamentary session, came to a close, not only of its administration, but, to a considerable extent, of its Old traditions. In the downfall of the last Whig Ministry, with- out any Parliamentary majority against it, by its own inherent weakness, we saw the insufficiency of Whig doctrine or influence to maintain a stand in this country ; we also saw that a Ministry deriving its vitality from the traditions of 1688 and small sequels of the Reform Bill retained no power of self-existence, and it ex- pired: the men remained, but the Ministry died, and with it also many of those false shadows of old principles which had kept to- gether a semblance of a party by deluding the country. It is all gone.
The Protectionist Ministry, short as its duration was, performed in regard to its own fallacious doctrines and its own ill-organized party the same duty of immolation and burial. Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli publicly entered office on the 23d of February, and publicly went out of it on the 20th of December; having in the mean time Shown that the ablest men which their party can pro- duce cannot sustain themselves in office for a year; that the party at their back is utterly incapable of sustaining action for an in- telligible purpose • and that the doctrine of Protection was neces- sarily abandoned by its own advocates as soon as they attempted to restore it to practice. Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli have erased the Protectionist party from the list of English factions, and have sent the doctrine of Protection to sleep amongst our obsolete tra- ditions.
A new Parliament has been elected for the specific purpose of pronouncing that judgment which Mr. Villiers was the chosen in- strument of inviting—a judgment for the continuance of Free- trade. The same Parliament, assembling with a remarkable pro- portion of new Members and of unformed conclusions' exhibited an unusual willingness to give a fair trial to a Ministry that could not claim the confidence of its majority. On consideration it af- firmed the objections of the majority to the policy of the impracticable Ministry; and it hasvirtnally produced the strongest Ministry which this country has seen within the present generation,—a Ministry framed on no party or exclusive principle, but established to carry on the matured convictions and expressed wishes of the great body of the people ; constituted of the best men from all sides, and bound together by the general desire to carry on the public busi- ness as efficiently as possible, and as consistently with the deve- lopment of the nation, her intelligence, and her material welfare. With a Ministry independent of party distinctions, with a Parlia- ment which has produced that Ministry, an open field offers itself for a new start in active politics ; and the new year political be- gins by turning over a new leaf, clean and unblotted by the erasures and corrections of the past. Some important changes have occurred in the recognized prin- ciples of our national conduct. Wellington has departed ; and, strange to say, the death of the Great Captain was the signal for applying more vigorously than ever those measures to strengthen our national defences the necessity for which he had proclaimed, although the infirmities of lengthened years had rendered his hand comparatively slow for execution. Hardinge has been appointed to the chief command.of the Army, Raglan to the Ordnance, and Napier to the military district nearest to the Continent, with the general understanding that these energetic men have been selected in order to a strenuous ipreparation. Fortifications have been be- gun, and our Militia s partially enrolled. But the great change is in the public spirit; and it is illustrated by the astounding boast of having aroused that spirit, from the same lips that last year met the same efforts at arousing with derision. " .
"The Empire" has been established in France. The Republic, prostrate under the 'Usurper, has confessed itself beaten; and, taking by the hand tattered and Democratic France, LOdIS Nape- leon raises her as his protegee, to endow her with splendours of the Imperial purple. He is recognized as Emperor de fade; and the Sovereigns of Europe are debating whether Europe will be Safe i
if they confess that he s the third of his name.
But that event which has most materially moved us in this country is the discovery of the immense gold-fields at the An- tipodes, following as that discovery did upon the acqnisition of
California to the commercial world. That gold existed in Australia, we knew before ; but it was within this year that we have heard of the raw produce brought weekly into Melbourne, by a comparatively small force of labouring men, to the amount of half a million sterling ; and it is within the year that a stream of emigration; steady and strong, drawn in an unusual proportion from the middle classes, has set from this country to the golden region. The gold has contributed with other causes—good seasons abroad, especially in the West, and new commercial inventions-Tin causing a healthy reaction for Ireland, and in stimulating that ex- traordrnary prosperity which marks the state of English commerce in all its branches, on shore and afloat. We have already had oc- casion to notice the unprecedented state of trade, and Chriabies itself, for all its holyday-making, has brought no reaction : on the contrary, the efficient causes of that prosperity still continue ; the gold still pours in, and industry has every prospect of long and busy employment for more than one season. With a strong Go- vernment at the head of affairs, with a thorough comprehension of the great principle that sets commerce free in its working, we may understand that full justice will be done to those efficient causes' and that, under the Divine bleising, human energy is doing all that it can to make 1853 in reality, as well as in the phrase of the season, a happy new year !
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