THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MR. HUME AND MR. ROSS.
IT is the duty of the public closely to watch the conduct of Parlia- mentary men. at this epoch : they are on their trial. Late events have been exceedingly favourable for "testing" the principles and partialities of public men. The inter-ministerium was like the • application of Harlequin's truth-compelling touchstone : men and monsters stood up in their true colours.
In this point of view, the correspondence between Mr. HUME and 'Mr. Ross, as published in the Standard from the Aberdeen Ob- server, is well worthy of examination. It affords instruction of more than one kind.
The correspondence-consists of two parts,—one, a long state- ment by Mr. Ross, of his sentiments on occasion of Earl GREY'S re- signation, and his intended course of proceeding, addressed in a letter to the Provost of Montrose, one of the burghs in the repre- sentation of which Mr. Ross succeeded Mr. HUME ; and the other, a series of letters by Mr. HUME and Mr. Ross, respecting a state- ment made by Mr. HumE in a letter to the Provost of Arbroath.
. This statement appears to have been an unqualified assertion, that Mr. Ross, on the Duke of WELLINGTON taking, or being supposed to have taken office, had gone over to the Duke—in other words, ratted. Fortunately, says Mr. Ross, his intentions were recorded in a letter to the Provost of Montrose : which letter is the one we have mentioned as being the first in the correspondence. • The substance of this manifesto is, shortly—that Mr. Ross does intend to support the Duke of WELLINGTON'S Administration; . because, first, the Duke must necessarily pass the Reform Bill ; and, next, when the Reform Bill was passed, it would be imma- terial who was Minister, as he must be ruled by the Commons. He professes to regard measures alone, and to be still as always bound by the pledges he had given, to accept no Bill which should be less efficient than the one then before the Lords.
This letter looks very fair; but it must be observed that Mr. Ross could not say less, while the time he gained and the Duke gained by the entertaining of such sentiments, was likely to place the country at the mercy of a Ministerial despot. Had all members -thought even thus, there would have been an end of Reform and a beginning of Revolution. In the Commons, we should have had a Mock Bill ; in the streets, real cannon ; and on the plains and pastures of Warwick, an encampment. But Mr. Ross says more, though of a different kind : he states it is of little consequence that Lord GREY does not remain in the Government to pass the Bill. Thus, it appears, Mr. Ross was ready to trust Reform in Tory hands, and shortsighted enough to think it was " of no consequence.- Then again, he tells us that, at the moment of writing, "party". was " running madly high ;" that he.was of no party; that his course was straightforward— headlong, he might have said—bound hand and foot. Mr. Ross ought to have been of one party, to which, we fear, he never truly belonged—the party of the People ; which, it appears, he was willing to surrender into the hands of the Soldier-Premier. We feel strongly disposed to respect both Mr. Ross and his motives, and are willing to attribute his line of action to an error of ,judgment: .the error, however, had it been largely shared, would have been a fatal national blunder; and in a matter of such high importance, it is best to run no risk.
Mr. HUME, it appears, was told that Mr. Ross had promised his support to the Duke. On the day when it became evident that .the Tory Administration could not be formed, Mr. HUME wrote to the Provost of Arbroath, that the Duke was beaten, without the aid of their Member, and against his wishes. Now, this was a -charge of the most serious description : it went not merely to the unsettling of Mr. Ross's seat, but to the impeachment of his charac- ter for political honesty. Before such a charge had been made, and in the quarter most likely to inflict a fatal blow, Mr. HUME should have been sure of his ground : he should have demanded of his friend, whether such allegations were true?—they had been gene- rally made, and the authority was said to be even himself, Mr. Ross. The plain-course of a clear-headed man of business—one in whom the Nation puts confidence—was, unquestionably, to ascertain the exact truth of the rumour, before he gave it all the sanction of his own authority. Mr. HUME did no such thing : he wrote, loosely, a sentence that might have proved more fatal than one of • Mr. HORATIO Rbss's deadliest balls. This position is manifestly a disadvantageous one ;- and Mr. Human does not make the best of it. He is required to recant : he does all, and more than is re- quired of him ; but in so indirect and shuffling a manner, that while he fairly abandons himself, he gives no satisfaction to his correspondent, and lays himself completely open ; and we are ashamed to think that Mr. Ross should avail himself so unge nerously of' his advantage. Mr. Ross, the noted shot—the man of Red House fame—the professor of mark hitting—sends the fol- lowing epistle to Mr. HUME, a man not to be combated by pistol or small sword—the loss of whom in the Commons House, in spite of his occasional hasty and blundering mode of transacting business, would be greater and more felt than if the whole army of braggadocio shots, in the House and out of the House, were swept froni the face of the earth.
" St. James's Club, Wednesday Evening, 16th May 1832. " Sin—As you have thought fit to communicate to the Provost of Arbroath a statement respecting myself, which is utterly false, and have added to the wrong you have done me, by sending me a shuffling and evasive answer; instead of a manly admission of your error, I must repeat the demand I made in my last letter, and insist upon your writing an immediate contradiction to the Provost of Arbroath of the contents of your former letter as far as they relate to me. " This will be delivered to you by my friend Mr. Mills, to whom I must beg to refer you in any further communications that may take place in this matter.
" I have the honour to be your obedient servant,
" To Joseph Hume, Esq., M.P." " HORATIO Ross."
A pretty friend of the People Mr. Ross would have proved himself, had he dragged out the author of the speech of the 10th of May (when he, Hokum, was sick, or in the steam-boat), to be shot at, and left him on the ground a carcase—the victim of an indiscreet or hasty letter. We say indiscreet or hasty,—for had Mr. Human taken the pains to ascertain the fact by a personal in- terview, he would have been favoured, probably, with a copy of Mr. Ross's letter to the Provost of Montrose ; which all but confirms the allegation. That letter alone will prove that the Duke was beaten without Mr. Ross's aid : and by one who looks closely at it, it may be inferred that the resignation of Lord GREY was no matter of grief, but, on the whole, of congratulation, and that Mr. Ross looked upon the Duke's return to power with pleasure. Thus would Mr. HUME have been safe from the recep- tion of these insulting letters, and have been spared the misery of writing at Mr. Ross's dictation. Let this be a warning. They who do the People's work, must do it well, and under the impression of a fearful responsibility. Here are but two parries in this transaction—both men who have been trusted by the People, and one has greatly served them; and both are to blame,—Mr. Ross,' in his view of true policy, and in his appealing to the decision of force—the trial by battle; and Mr. HUME, in writing loose letters, and in extricating himself from the dilemma in such a manner as to excite ridicule, and to bring contempt on one of the People's men.
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