POLICY AND PROSPECTS OF THE OPPOSITION.

WHILE the monthly organs.of the Tories, Blackwood and Fraser, write despondingly on the political prospects of the country,— meaning thereby the prospects of' their own party's return to power,—Tait, with chivalrous confidence in the strength and growth of Liberal principles, opens his Radical columns to an "Account of Toryism, Whiggism, and Radicalism." by his elo- quent and philosophical Tory contributor Mr. Ds QUINCEY, the "English Opium-eater." Only part of Mr. DE QUINCEY'S ease is before us, as he breaks off' in the middle of his pleading; and we are not a little curious to see to what conclusion he means to lead his readers. As yet, his Tory friends, the party of resistance, are not much indebted to him ; for be has demonstrated the pro- gress of the emancipation of the great body of the people from monarchical and aristocratical thraldom to have been constant and inevitable. He describes the manner in which the controlling authority slipped from the grasp of the Monarch and the Barons into the possession of the new landed gentry ; a revolution which was accomplished, he thinks, about the beginning of the seven- teenth century. The rebellion against the STUARTS he considers as the means necessarily adopted by the new power "to get itself recognized for what it was in the State." This rebellion was "the mere instincts of growth. No provision had been made (how should It, unless prophetically?) for the due action of the new order by the existing Constitution ; because the Constitution itself was a grow- ing thing, and waiting for its expansion; whereas Charles viewed it as a perfect whole, long since matured." Admitting the truth of all this, we can hardly suppose that Mr. Da QUINCEY will deny that another and a far greater class has risen into power since the finish was given to the struggle against the STUARTS. Is not this class now struggling "to get itself recognized for what it is in the State ? " There is no civil war, but the contention is neverthe- less manifest and constant.

Leaving Mr. Ds QUINCEY to deal with this part of his subject

on the principles of Toryism, and yet preserve consistency and coherence, we turn in the mean time to the pages of those whom we must call his fellow labourers in the cause of Toryism, though our readers will soon perceive that the light of history and the- spirit of philosophy have had little influence on their political speculations.

The writer of the leading article in Blackwoods Magazine for the current month is haunted by the dread of Popery. To the fatal Emancipation Act of 1829 he attributes all the disasters of the country (that is, of the Tory party); and he anticipates future ruin as a punishment for the national crime of allowing Catholics to sit in the House of Commons.

" There is (says Blackwood) something extremely remarkable in this evident

approach of punis/gment for our revolutionary misdeeds from the hands of the Irish Papists. That Catholic Emancipation was the first decided inroad upon the Constitution—that it necessarily engendered the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and gave birth to the fierce democratic ambition which landed us in the bottomless gulf of Palliamentaiy Reform—is now universally admitted."

Certainly, they who can believe that the Catholic Relief Bill " en- gendered the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts," which repeal preceded the passing of the Relief Bill, may be able to conceive how the Catholic Bill could " land us in a bottomless gulf" of Reform; but that either the one or the other is universally ad- mitted, we take leave to deny ; inasmuch as, whatever may be the intellectual fatuity or historical ignorance of the writer in Black- wood, men of sense and common information in this country protest against such an absurdity. But bow came the Catholic Bill to be carried? The Duke of

WELLINGTON and Sir ROBERT PEEL cannot avail themselves of the excuse that they acted in disbelief of its evil consequences ; because both of them, and PEEL especially, had for many years resisted the passing of that measure on the ground of its extreme impolicy, and bollh solemnly declared that their opinions on that point were unchanged. They gave way, avowedly, to a power which they could not resist ; and that power was wielded by

O'CONNELL. The question then occurs, how did Otosisnur. obtain this predominant influence? Under what Government did he—a subject, deprived of a seat in the Legislature, unconnected with the ruling aristocracy, and only of moderate fortune—acquire the means of overawing the conqueror of NAPOLEON, with the resources of the whole British empire at his command ? It was Tory misrule—the oppression of the Catholic millions, whose organ he was, which made him irresistible. It seems little short of madness to advocate the restoration of a system which made O'CONNELL what he is. But this is the aim of the men who, like the writer in Blackwood, sigh for the return of Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, and bewail the removal of the Catholic Disabilities. Are we not justified, then, in imputing political bewilderment to the Tories? They rail like demoniacs at the power of O'Coststat.L, and yet would strive to reestablish the very state of things under which that power was fostered and grew into full stature.

Catholic Emancipation, it is said, . . . . . .

"has proved fatal to every subsequent Administration or party which has not been based on the principle of uncompromising hostility to its advances."

From this it might be supposed that the writer had some Ad- ministration in his eye, which had been based on the principle of " uncompromising hostility ; " but a little further on, in the same page, he says- 4, Every party and Administration whether Whig or Tory, which has risen to eminence and enjoyed power slim* Catholic Emancipation was granted, with- out one single exception, has been destroyed by its effects."

The meaning of this is, that every Administration which has persisted in maintaining the old system of misgovernment in Ire- land, even in a mitigated form, has been unable to resist that force to which WELLINGTON and PEEL succumbed.

The author asserts, that

" As long as the Catholics were denied political power, they were compara- tively a harmless and inoffensive race; but no sooner were the whole restric- tions under which they laboured removed, and a complete equality established between them and their Protestant brethren, than the fierce passions of an in- tolerant theology appeared ; and with the reign of political agitation com- menced the triplication of atrocious crimes, the total stoppage of tithes, and the reign of massacre and conflagration throughout the land.

So we suppose that before 1829, in Ireland,

"All was harmony and calm and quiet!"

Before 1829 the Catholics were politically powerless !—Then, how did they force King, Lords, and Commons, to grant them Emancipation?

Of one thing we may be certain—that the men who " tried conclusions" with ARTHUR Duke of WELLINGTON, backed by the King and the Peers, and overcame him and them, will never desist from agitation, until the gigantic nuisance of the Irish Church is abated, ard Irishmen put in every respect on the same footing as their fellow subjects in England and Scotland. The country has abundant warning that the aim of the present Oppo- sition is to restore that system which the old Tories, with their Rotten Borough Parliament, failed to maintain. The knowledge that such is their intention, or at any rate their ardent desire, should of itself be sufficient to incite every friend to justice, order, humanity, and light taxes, to rally round the MELBOURNE and MULGRAVE Government, as long as it continues to act on its pre- sent policy. The latter part of the article in Blackwood consists of a rifaci- mento of sundry articles which have for some time disgraced the columns of the London Tory journals. Pity that Blackwood's Magazine should furnish nothing better than this second-hand trash—this half-exploded stuff about Father KEIIoK and Father u Ltd v AST, and that poor black-balled creature RAPHAEL. Yet so it is : the leading Tory Magazine is driven to feed on such garbage. Fraser, this month, is more original and honest in his politics than Blackwood. In an article entitled "The King and the

People," it is fairly acknowledged, that unless the Royal autho- rity is interposed, all is over with the Tory party. At present, however, it is admitted that the power of the Sovereign is "little worth."

" The Cabinet, looked at as a separate institution, which it has grown into in comparatively a modern invention. It is of self-creation ; the Constitution awl laws know nothing of it ; and too often it deserves the name it acquired at its birth. Frequently it is no better than a cabal—a focus of conspiracy—the nest where plots are hatched against King and People alike. It has exalted itself into, not a fourth estate of the realm, but a tyranny which destroys the three legitimate ones.

" It is from its nature the competitor of the King for the sceptre, and comprehends his only means for defending hithself against it. Of course, it has cast him n into the dust. What single right or Forcer of a King does lee retain? At the best, his choice of Ministers is confined to two parties, and generally to one alone. The heads of a party compel him to make them the Cabinet ; and, after exercising this prerogative, they exercise every other as matter of right."

All this is done under the "glorious Constitution !"—in which King, Lords, and Commons have each coequal and coextensive authority !

Fraser seems to think that the Tories are just as bad as the Whigs and Radicals— "Not long since, a Whig Ministry existed, which, on Conservative repre • sentations, was producing public vein; it was dismissed in favour of a Conser- vative one ; and the Country then naturally expected some great change of policy : but lo! proclamation was made that no change of policy foreign or domestic wmmscontemnplated—that all would be done which the Whigs intended to do. The Whigs and Radicals were not to be disarmed by this ; they re- solved on, and accomplished, the destruction of the Conservative Ministry, on the sole ground that what it wanted to do they alone had a right to do."

There is much truth in this. But why did not Fraser and the Tories say so last December ? This confession after failure comes too late. The People saw through the trick : they were disgusted with the pretended abandonment of opinions, and the open scrambling for place, exhibited by the Tories; and now we are quietly told that such dereliction of principle was wrong!

There is no hope for the Tories from another election-

" The hope which rests on another election will, we fear, be blasted by the Corporation-law. Never was such an error committed as that which has filled this monarchy with petty republics. It is demonstrable that, if a remedy cannot be found in and through the King, it is hopeless, because every thing ese has been tried."

It is to the King, then, that Fraser bids us resort. But how is the Sovereign, described as the mere tool of his Cabinet, to inter- fere ?—Oh! he is to be supported by good men of all parties, and to select a Ministry without regard to the distinctions of Whig or Tory ; and the Country is to support him. This is the same as saying to Lord MELBOURNE—" We have done our worst to turn you out, and find you are too strong for us : as we cannot have all the offices in the Government, we are ready to take part only : so go to the King, advise him to dismiss half of his Ministers and replace them by Tories; it is our only chance: there ought to be an end to party, now that ours is in distress and out." Such is the condition of the Tories. One section clamours for the reestablishment of Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland; another, of an all-powerful and virtually irresponsible King; both being utterly out of the question. Who does not see that there is dis- sension in the camp, and distrust of the leaders ? Yet such is the deplorable lack of talent or influence among them, that they are reduced to obey those who either betrayed them, or were guilty of errors in policy which have proved the ruin of the once omnipotent Tory party. We heartily wish them joy of their state and prospects.