details would occupy a volume; but one sample is too remarkable to be passed over in silence. It is an individual case, indeed-but, from all its circumstances, it becomes the Key to the whole system. The man himself the child and champion of Reform-twice Lord Mayor of London for his devotion to Reform'-who endangered the safety of the metropolis in his illuminating zeal for Reform-the favoured host and guest of the Reform Cabinet-the chairman of the cup-subscription to the three great authors of Reform-the Baronet of Reform -who will bear Reform' inscribed on his knight-shield as the Wodehouses bear Agincourt'-the metropolitan member of Reform-the most prominent figure, except one, in Mr. Haydon's Great Picture of the Reform Banquet,' ordered by Lord Grey, and destined, of course, to be the principal heirloom of Howick this most distinguished, most honoured Reformer gets an illegal contract-continues to sit, and vote, and move, and divide-in contempt of all law-then asks an appointment for his son, and when the minister hesitates to appoint a lad of eighteen, asks it for his eldest son a man of twenty-two, and obtains it; and then it turns out that he has but one son, and the rejected lad is the appointed officer;-and appointed to what?-to be inspector of the articles furnished under the father's illegal contract; appointed, too, in spite of the remonstrances of the Comptroller of the Stationary Office, distinctly made to that very Government which had afterwards the baseness to attempt to shift the blame on the Comptroller, when they knew that they had rejected his advice and despised his honest remonstrances. And, finally, to make this selection of a delinquent more palatable, and to stifle all pity for the innocent victim whom they wished to substitute for their Baronet, they proclaimed the Comptroller a Tory! And all this for what?-will the pamphleteers dare to say that it was not to reward Sir John Key's political zealand to secure his parliamentary vote? Nor was this an accidental or obscure affair-the jobbing of negligent or fraudulent subalterns-no; the parties to the transaction were Lord Grey, the Prime Minister, and Mr. Charles Wood, his son-in-law-his Secretary of the Treasury—his manager of the patronage of the House of Commons. This case is, we hope, singular in its infamous details-but it is not singular in the view in which the pamphlet has forced us to notice it. Lord Grey himself saw Key, and gave him, member for the City of London, the appointment for one of his sons; the Secretary of the Treasury, the colleague of one of the pamphleteers, conducted the negociation; neither of them advanced the principle (which the pamphlet now professes) of governing with out out patronage-by sheer public spirit, and without the aid of mercenaries-on the contrary, they exercised the patronage and hired the mercenary; and what they did in Key's case would clearly have been done in any similar case, and has, we have no doubt, been done in fifty others,-where, however, the auxiliary circumstances have not been so flagrant, or where there has been no comptroller honest and bold enough to show them up. With this boast of the high public spirit and spotless integrity of the government and its friends the pamphlet concludes, and with this specimen of its veracity we shall conclude our observations upon it—and wish we could conclude the article, but still more important considerations press themselves upon us. Not only is our constitution threatened by the gradual and inevitable inroads of the House of Commons on the other estatesinroads which even the majority of the present house are not desirous of making, but into which that house will be, whether reluctantly or not, driven by the force of the unbalanced power of the popular constituency-not only are we threatened from that gradual Revolution, but we are in more immediate danger of a convulsion arising out of the principles which the ministers first promulgated, then encouraged-then, when their turn was served, would have checked-and at last contemplate with equal embarrassment and alarm. When Lord Brougham broached the doctrine of stopping the supplies-when his brother on the hustings, and when, in the House of Commons, Lord Milton, standing by the side of his friend Lord Althorp, and amidst the cheers of the ministerial party, proclaimed resistance to taxation, they sowed seed, which, like the hemp in the fable, produced a present profit, but in the end may strangle their government-and all government! The Political Unions and the Associations to resist the payment of taxes, have at length alarmed their original instigators-they see, with tardy terror, the growth of the cockle of sedition and rebellion, Which they themselves have ploughed for, sown, and scattered.' And the Morning Chronicle has, no doubt by particular desire, sounded the alarm of the ministry in an article, our entire concurrence in every word of which is only moderated by surprise at the quarter whence it comes :→ The people retain under a reformed parliament the principle of action, which destroyed, it is true, the unreformed parliament, but which, if persisted in, must equally destroy all parliaments whatever. The principle of associating to resist the law, instead of endeavouring to obtain the repeal of the law through the means pointed out by the constitution, is at once proclaiming anarchy. They who associate to resist one tax levied by law, may associate to resist all other taxes levied by law. We at once boldly and unhesitatingly proclaim that the whole property of the country is at this moment in imminent peril. What security has the state annuitant that his interest shall not be arbitrarily withheld? The taxes of the country are mortgaged to large classes of the people, and constitute a large share of the available assets of these classes. Where are we to stop if we allow individuals to organize themselves in this open manner to resist the law? We call, therefore, on every man who does not wish to see all confidence shaken, and open violence the order of the day, to rouse himself to a due sense of the danger with which we are threatened by those anarchical associations.' With much more to the same effect. These are the arguments and some of the very words which we employed in a former article on this subject; yet the ministers still sneer at the suspicions,' the 'terrors,' and the 'prophecies' of the Conservatives. In the mean while, another ministerial organ rouses us to another danger: while resistance to the law is so active, the zeal of the people for the Reform Bill has suddenly cooled. After casting censure on the apathy shown by the reformed constituency at the late annual registration, the Times of the 3rd October adds— We observe, that in some districts the motives for indolence, or the feelings of indifference to what we have alluded, have operated to a considerable extent in the diminution of the lists. Nothing, we think, can be more disgraceful. Why did the country, with united voice, demand the Reform Bill, if the privileges which it has conferred are to be treated with insulting neglect? Why did we destroy rotten boroughs, if we are, by our carelessness, to allow small juntas to govern counties? What stronger objection was ever made by the Conservatives to the agitation of the reform question than that the people did not desire, and would not exercise, the privileges which it was intended to confer? Yet, by neglecting to register, the favoured voter proves the reproach to be just.' Yes; 'tis but too true; all that the Conservatives foretold from the disorganization of the old political system has happened, or is in progress. The irregular passions and illegal power of the turbulent are increased, while moderate and soberminded men-the friends of good order and good government -retire in despair from what they know to be an irksome, and feel to be a hopeless contest. It is in vain that the Chronicle and the Times endeavour to awake them to action; they cannot revive the spirit that was quenched--they cannot repair the strength that was broken by the fatal Reform Bill, and the still more fatal principles on which it was founded, and to which it has given sanction and authority. Some peers have retired from their insulted, menaced, and proscribed House. Many men men of talents and property have declined what was once the highest aim of their ambition-a seat in parliament. Individuals abjure an elective franchise, become troublesome and valueless; a general sense that the catastrophe is inevitable palsies men's minds, and a gloomy indifference to public events, a sullen acquiescence in what they can neither avoid nor avert pervades all that portion of the nation, (and in particular all who are connected by affection or duty with the Established Church,) in which used to reside the true national character, the real national force, and the influential public opinion. Like men doomed, they meditate on the grave, thinking little of the road by which their hearse may reach it! But, on the other hand, every disorganizing principle, every revolutionary power, is in full and triumphant activity. Does the Morning Chronicle complain of the apathy of the Anarchists? Can the Times reproach the Dissenters and Radicals with neglecting their registries? Alas! no. The dissenting interest, already predominant in the new House of Commons, is every hour becoming, if possible, more influential; and the Government is, we are convinced, prepared to prolong its own precarious existence by the sacrifice of the Church; they will endeavour to purchase the payment of taxes, and for a season may succeed, by the abolition of church rates and tithes, and when, after a humiliating series of concessions, they have nothing else to surrender, they will be swallowed up; not, alas! the only victims of the anarchy which the Morning Chronicle-now, we believe, the most authoritatively official journal-begins to foresee. And while all this disorganization is advancing-while their journals are thus making signals of distress, the Treasury puts out a trumpery pamphlet to tell us that all is well-that the Government is strong and respected-the House of Commons conservative and firm-the people happy, prosperous, and obedient -and the aspect of the European world serene and satisfactory. They are like that unhappy ship-master, into whose conduct they have directed an inquiry; like him, they are aground; like him, they assure their passengers that they are quite safe; like him, they only mistake the rising for the falling tide; and like him, their ignorance and obstinacy will consign the unhappy people who confided in them to a wanton-but, at last, inevitable-de struction. |