NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE great debate has been prolonged throughout the week, with- out any material -variation in the nature of the arguments ad- vanced on any side. Among the mass of speeches, the general run present little for notice; but three were strikingly remarkable —those of the Premier, Mr. Bright, and Lord John Manners.
In its palpable success on all hands, Sir Robert Peel's speech has far exceeded all his previous efforts. It must be impossible, even for the most bigoted Protectionist, to hear or read that speech and retain the shadow of a notion that the Corn-laws could be maintained in the teeth of the Irish scarcity and of the altered opinion in England; or that Sir Robert Peel did not act in perfect good faith. He may be said to have risked all which he has valued as a public man—political power, reputation itself. The manner in which he described how he might have obtained " temporary triumph," by "raising the flag of Protection," talking • of, "the British lion," and so forth, was very happy. Every hearer knew that it was perfectly true, and felt the contrast between the cant of that affected "consistency" and the bold ingenuous course which the Minister has taken, in making the good of the country for once the sole object of its Government— real principles the guide. But such of our readers as have not already perused the speech itself, at full length, will recur to our abridgment (as copious as we could make it) ; and they will need no guide to discover the many excellences of that far more than eloquent—that truthful appeal, which never, even in its /sportive exposures and castigations, wandered from the ar- gument, or cared for any triumph but that of the cause. Mr.Bright was remarkable as the most prominent member of the League who has spoken in the debate. He was also remark- able for the unqualified tone in which he eulogized the speech of Monday—the greatest, he Said, delivered in that House within the memory of any there : he envied Sir Robert Peel his feelings after uttering it. Bravo, John Bright some credit is due to the man who thus emphatically relinquishes old prejudices, and gives • up a standing subject for the easy eloquence of disparagement. Everybody expected that Lord John Manners would be unable to keep up the amusing paradox of his letter to the electors of Newark, in which he told them, that, being in favour of altering 'the protective system, he should vote for maintaining it : but his speech has disappointed that expectation. Entomologists tell us that the butterfly's zigzag flight is a beautiful provision of nature to protect it from rapacious birds, by perpetual dodging. Lord John is a butterfly, whom you cannot hit with refutation, for he keeps to no one course. Once he was a Protectionist; but you could not strike him, for while you aimed he was off on the Un- protectionist tack, then back again—disliking protection, but about to vote for it : now he does not like abolishing it, but he is not afraid of it ; so he votes against considering the subject, and wishes the Premier "to appeal to the country." Meanwhile, he has forewarned us, that When that appeal comes about, he will vote no more for protection.
On the whole, however, the Protectionists have not shown so ill in the monster debate as people expected—they were more dis- creet, and more ingenuous ; and they made some effective points. But their main positions bear little scrutiny. For instance, they say that change is needless, because prices in England indicate no dearth—are much lower than they have been in times of previous dearth. That is true : but we cannot overlook the case of Ireland ; and it would be impossible, while establishing free trade there, to maintain protection in England. And there is a singular peculi- arity in this dearth : in the terrible scarcity at the beginning of the century, potatoes were the substitute for corn—the cheap plant was the substitute for the dear one ; but now, the failure is in the cheap root, and corn has to be substituted for the potato: to meet the exigency, the price ought to be far below the average level—as near as possible to the equivalent of a potato price. The Protectionists reproach the Minister with having changed. He has not changed in opinion as to the abstract merits of free trade—everybody knows that : the change is in his opinion as to its practicability and its necessity. Is it possible, after his speech of Monday, to doubt that that change is genuine Is it not of itself a "great fact " ? Is not the aggregate of little facts also— the many individual changes—another great fact ? Free trade now is practicable and inevitable. But, say the Protectionists, if carried it ought not to be by Sir Robert Peel. Why, no one else could be Minister ; and if free trade is inevitable, it must be car- ried by the Minister de facto. Mr. Bright makes an ingenious distinction : he points out that Sir Robert Peel ceased to be the Protectionist leader when he resigned office—that act closed his career as the Minister of 1841: he reentered office, at the appoint- ment of the Crown, on another mission and on another footing. But, say the objectors driven into a corner, he ought at least " to appeal to the country." There is a show of fairness in the com- plaint; yet even here there lurks more than one taint of rottenness. The appeal is the less necessary, as Mr. Milner Gibson remarked, in that the present Parliament was specially elected to consider the question of protection. The agricultural constituencies are spe- cially present by their representatives ; and, having sat in delibe- ration for four or five years, they have come to the conclusion that protection ought to be abolished. It is true that many of the Members were sent to Parliament with an opposite prejudice ; but we see the result. What is the use of putting the constitu- encies to the trouble of sending snore representatives, to undergo a more rapid renewal of the same process of conversion? Why, the conversion is now going on among the constituencies them- selves—witness the West Riding of Yorkshire, witness the sanc- tion given by South Durham to the change in Mr. Bowes and Lord Harry Vane. This, with the approaching troubles in Ireland, is not the time for a general election, in which party would be ranged against party with fierce bitterness—a fruitless contest over a foregone conclusion. It ,could not but be so—fruitless and mischievous. How is the. Premier to appeal to the country ? He can only appeal to trarignatituencies ; and the constituencies are not "the centre-74e electors are not "the people." Nor are the electors, the middle classes, nearly so much affected by the question at issue as the real people : the price of bread or potatoes is but a secondary consideration to the shop- keeper—it is all in all to the labourer. Yet no appeal would be made to the people. The sole effect of the appeal would be, to evoke all the reserve of indirect power which the landowners managed to retain by favour of the Schedule B and Chandos-clause Reform Bill, and, if successful, to arouse a new agitation against that imperfect measure—a new political revolution. Whether the ap- peal to the country were "successful" or not, it could not fail to injure the landed interest : it would make a great hubbub ; but for all practical ends it would be useless. Let the Protectionists beware—Sir Robert Peel has declared that the loss of the three- years scale, replaced by immediate" as well as "total," shall not make him give up the measure so amended : let them take care that they do not drag upon themselves something further—a new Reform Bill movement, not impossibly with Peel at its head. In the Upper House, Lord Beaumont has obtained a Select Committee of the Peers on the subject of "special burdens" borne by the land—an inquiry so long, refused by the agricul- turists. Lord Monteagle has extended the investigation, to the special immunities enjoyed by i the land. The Committee com- prises most of the best men n the House. Let them do their work thoroughly, present a fair debtor and creditor account; and we shall be surprised if the balance prove to be due to the land.
Mr. O'Connell moved for a Committee of the Commons to in- quire into the state of Ireland. The discussion has an important and useful bearing on the main debate of the week, although resultless, except in the satisfactory declaration that Ministers are prepared for every extremity in Ireland. On that account alone a change of Ministers, merely as a change, might have proved very inopportune.
