The once Whiggish Corporation of London have taken their revenge
on Ministers for a series of affronts. A motion to address the :Queen on "the recent trying events" has been rejected in the Court of Common Council, by a majority of 121 to 75. Many members professing to be Liberal voted against the motion. Thus the " Queenite agitation" has received a check from head- quarters.
In the addresses sent up from the provinces, the necessity of Progressive Reform is pointed out to her Majesty. These docu- ments are so many Anti-Finality manifestos. The opportunity of giving vent to Radical aspirations has been eagerly seized. It is perceived that an advantage has been obtained over the Tories, and it is hoped that by following it up something may be gained for Reform. With this object in view, Liberals seem reckless whether the means be fair or foul. Their speeches and addresses are uniformly based on the fiction, or, as Lord MELBOURNE termed it, "the erroneous impression," that PEEL and 'WELLINGTON endea- voured to exact unconstitutional and cruel terms from the young Queen, and demanded the removal of the entire female Household— the dear "friends of her childhood." And it is not wonderful that this notion should have taken deep root in the public mind, for the Liberal newspapers, with scarcely an exception, have laboured with unscrupulous perseverance to implant it there. The London journals of the 10th, 11th, and 12th May, first gave currency to a deliberately-fabricated falsehood, which might possibly have been received as truth previous to the explanations ih Parliament on the 13th, but subsequently_ to those explanations the excuse of ig- norance is not available. Nevertheless, so far from any one attempt- ing to substitute fact for falsehood—to correct the "erroneous impression "—the Ministerial newspapers, one and all, in town and country, have continued to countenance and encourage the con- temptible delusion. Never was there so general, almost universal, a consent to disregard the highest function of a public journalist— that of disseminating truth; and the eagerness with which the ex- ample of "enormous lying" has been followed in the provinces, shows to what a low ebb political morality in this country has been reduced.
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