THE RIGHT TIME FOR DOING THE RIGHT THING.
FROM all sides Mr. WAKLEY is snubbed for his independent con- duct in the Address debate. It was very wrong to bring forward Radical questions on the first night of the session. The exten- sion of the suffrage is a necessary measure, doubtless; and inti-
midation has become intolerable ; but where was the necessity of annoying the young Queen with popular grievances ? WAKLEY is right to advocate the Ballot, and Suffrage-extension—but not immediately on the assembling of Parliament. It looked really as if the redreSs of' grievances ought to take precedence of a pro- mise of supply ! Ungallant Mr. WAKLEY ! It is credible that that the Member for Finsbury suffers for sins
no this own. He provoked Lord JOHN RUSSELL to speak what it annoyed the Radicals exceedingly to hear. Had Lord JOHN, in reply to the challenge which he could not refuse, declared him- self the supporter of the Ballot, not a whisper of reproof would have been directed against Mr. WAKLEY; and Ministers would have been lauded for taking the earliest opportunity of putting themselves right with the country. But Lord JOHN came out a Conservative ; and silly Radicals, in their wrath, turn upon Mr. WAKLEY, and exclaim, " See what you have done !" As the Glasgow Argus illustrates it, " King James is confessed on all bands to be a naughty boy, but Sir Mungo Malagrowther must take the whipping." In a letter to the Chronicle, Mr. WAKLEY successfully defends himself from the imputation of having been piqued by Sir ROBERT PEEL'S taunts to divide the House; and truly observes, that the right time for a disagreeable motion never arrives. Mr. WAKLEY did commit one fault: he failed to take pains with his brother Radicals to obtain their cooperation, or to hear what they proposed : it was always open to him to vindicate his own principles at the last, by standing alone, if the others neither had any plan of their own, nor were willing to join him. He might also have framed his amendment in a less startling ahape; .'and he might have waived the division, seeing the object already accomplished. The outcry against the early introduction of debate- able points is contemptible. It was the excellent practice of former times to develop, on the first night of the session, the entire policy of the Government and the Opposition ; instead of wasting it in a mere interchange of commonplaces and compliments. There never should be any sham-fighting or trifling in the Legislature. Mr. WARLaY forced the Government and the Radicals into close quarters; and the result of the collision has been fact and truth, in the place of delusion and falsehood.
The minority was very small. Never mind that. The least influential of the twenty who voted with Mr. WAKLEY, excels the foremost man among the professing Liberals, who, pretending to desire the object that Mr. WAKLEY desired, swelled the Whig- Tory majority—excels him in that essential but most rare quali- fication for a Representative of the People, moral courage.
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