NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE details of the Tariff have occupied the chief attention of the House of Commons this week ; a few of the items, as we antici- THE details of the Tariff have occupied the chief attention of the House of Commons this week ; a few of the items, as we antici-
pated, having been largely, if not unduly, discussed, and the rest
.hurried over. The duties on cattle and provisions were the most keenly debated : and the most striking thing in the debate was the total omission of defence for the prohibition which has so long been allowed to disfigure the British Tariff; not even the band of Immortals, sworn to defend agricultural interests to the last, raised a hand for prohibition; it was all but forgotten—mentioned merely to reprobate.
In these discussions, Sir ROBERT PEEL again stood prominent as leader of the Practical Free-traders; and Mr. GLADSTONE, the young
Vice-President of the Board of Trade, made a promising mate to the Premier. They showed, to the conviction even of some agri- cultural Members, that the population increases faster than the supply of food, and that all the importation of cattle that can be
expected from abroad can but make the supply of meat keep pace with the further increase of mouths. Even if no duty at all were im-
posed, the importation would not exceed the demand ; and how ne- cessary it is to supply the people with wholesome food ! Most true, Lord Joan RUSSELL and others fairly retorted ; but all that you say
to vindicate the free introduction of animal food applies 4fortiori to bread : you speak as if beef and mutton were the chief food of the people, instead of bread ; and you legislate to !give them all the butcher's meat you can get at, but to stint them in the staff of life ! Ministers are undoubtedly convicted of that glaring inconsistency : but before the Whigs pretend to condemn, they are bound—they especially are bound, to prove that Sir ROBERT PEEL could carry more than he proposes. His measures, be it observed, are not meant "for, rejection "—for a make-believe "bombardment of the House of Lords "—but for the practical use of the country : and could he bring them to the point of practical use if he made them larger at present ? Let us, he says, try these measures first : if they are on the whole successful, we will make further reductions. Other statesmen possibly might proceed less cautiously—less timidly, if you will : but where are they ? did the Whigs combine greater daring with equal efficiency or sincerity ? They had the power, nine or ten years ago, to do more than the Premier now proposes but they did not do it : they lost the power, and then they offered to do largely, being unable to do any thing. The Conservative Premier offers less, but the offer is fulfilled. And it is fulfilled even in spite of opposition from the very party that upbraid him with insufficiency : in the ranks of his opponents this week on the Cattle-tariff we find the names of about thirty Whigs, one of them a quondam Minister. The Morning Chronicle twits the Premier with receiving now from the Liberal Opposition a support as efficient as that which he used to boast of lending to the Whigs when their situations were reversed : they could have placed him in a minority had they not generously forborne. But mark the difference: when he supported them, it was against the advances of a more Liberal section of their own party—when they support him, it is against a less Liberal section of his own party ; he helped them to be Illiberal—they help him to be Liberal ; he helped them to postpone measures needed by the country—they help him to advance such measures. It is a simple but striking instance of the advantage which the country derives from the change of Ministry.
Thus it results that the boundary of Liberal opinion has been advanced by a large stride. Things which heretofore were hotly canvassed are now left behind as settled : principles are transferred from the controversial pages of the political economist to the records of Parliament. Urged for a long time, almost hopelessly, by a small section of political theorists, certain doctrines were adopted by the Whigs in the despair of a downfal, as an election- eering manceuvre; and thenceforth the Whigs were pledged to their new profession of faith. The Tory Ministry found it hope- less, or at least inexpedient, to hold office in defiance of opinions thus reinforced; and their adhesion also having been rendered, there is no party left to dispute about them,—always excepting the aforesaid Immortals, headed by Mr. Almas, the party of the extreme country gentlemen. And it illustrates the extent of the advance, when we remember that even they, the relics of the Anti-Free-trade party, now reduced to its dregs, utterly cast aside the doctrine of prohibition : they dare not so far lag behind the progress of all other parties as to retain the encumbrance.
