their betters, would suffer from any attempt to the opinions which he had advocated while in opbreak in upon the established order of things by violence. Nobody, as far as we can understand, seriously meditates an attack upon the house of lords. The custom of voting there by proxy will probably be discontinued; and, for our own parts, we shall be glad to see it quietly got rid of, for not on any principle of common sense can it be defended. But the house of lords, the chamber of hereditary legislation, is just as dear to the hearts of Englishmen as the house of commons; they would not endure that the hand of the spoiler should interfere with it. In like manner, we have no fear for the church. The establishment may be still more shaken than it has already been, and in Ireland it will probably cease to hold its ground altogether. But as to the church, as we believe it to be founded upon a rock, so we are confident that there does not exist the smallest inclination, where there is power, to molest it. On the contrary, we believe that sound church principles were never more respected by the great body of the middle classes, the real strength of the empire, than they are now; and we are confident that there needs but common prudence, mixed with increasing zeal in the clergy, to confirm this feeling. And, final ly, is the crown in danger? Does any human being, in parliament or out of parliament, indulge in dreams about a presidency? Very much the reverse. We may be, we are, in a state of social transition. We are scheming, indeed living, for the nineteenth century-perhaps for the twentieth -and not for the eighteenth; but it is not, therefore, a settled thing that we are going to rack and ruin; digging at the throne, laying barrels of gunpowder under the house of lords, or mustering for the overthrow of the altar. That the opinions which we have ventured to express are held by the great body of the people is apparent from the perfect apathy with which they looked on during the whole course of the recent struggle. Except in the house itself, no human being seemed to be roused. The city of London sent no addresses either for or against the proposed changes. We heard of no gatherings in the Bullring at Birmingham, or on Penenden Heath, as in other days. And now that Peel is out and Lord John Russell in, the people seem to care as little about the matter as if Lord Johnstone had merely removed from the Mansion-house, in order that Lord Thomson might come in his place. And the people are right. Events must now take their course; though whether they are to move too fast or too slow, both extremes being perilous, will depend mainly upon the measures which, in the beginning of their reign, the whig ministers shall propose. We write it with regret, but a consideration of the materials of which the whig ministry is composed, compels us to avow our belief, that Lord John will not be able to carry on the government. There is no principle of cohesion in his cabinet. Not only do the individual members hold opinions on all important subjects diametrically opposed, but they boast of these discrepancies to the world. Take one great question, which we defy them to blink-the Irish church question, and see how they are circumstanced. In 1835, Lord John Russell forced Sir Robert Peel out of office by proposing and carrying his appropriation clause. Lord John did not, it is true, persist in this policy after he had won his way back to Downing Street, but he made a boast of retaining position, and claimed credit on the ground of moderation while putting them in abeyance. He now tells the world that he cannot conceive a more fatal measure than the disestablishment of the Protestant church in Ireland, and declines taking any further notice of the project of 1835. Meanwhile Earl Grey has published a manifesto against the Protestant establishment of Ireland. He considers its existence to be the monster grievance in that portion of the empire, and conceives that there is imposed upon the government no more pressing duty than its overthrow. Lord Grey is supported in his opinions by Mr. Sheil; whereas Mr. Macaulay appears to have arrived at the unexpected conclusion that even to pay the priests out of the consolidated fund would be injudicious. Not so my Lord Morpeth. He is all for a state-endowment; and, if we understand him right, he would rather take it out of the property of the church than supply it through the treasury. Mr. Ward, on the contrary, is for no state-payments at all. He would have religionists of every sort to provide their own parsons as they provide their own physicians, and, saving vested interests, he would seize the property of the church, as incumbencies fell vacant, and apply them to the general education of the people. Mr. Ward may be a small man in the estimation of the noble lords to whom he plays second fiddle; but he is not small in his own estimation, nor in that of the radicals, of whom he is one of the represen tatives; and having Mr. Benjamin Hawes to support him, he flatters himself that he will be more than able to counterbalance Mr. Charles Buller, whose views on religious points are somewhat Puseyite, and who is too honest a fellow to sanction the spoliation of any class of the queen's subjects, even if the class proposed to be plundered be the clergy. So much for the state of feeling in the new gov ernment on a question which is just as sure to be brought forward early in the next session, as day is sure to succeed to night. Let us consider one or two points besides, in regard to which, if there be greater unanimity in the cabinet, there has been too much of coquetting out-of-doors to sanction remissness in the executive, or to ensure success after the movement is made. And, first, let us take the sugar question on which Lord John is pledged to speak out forthwith. It was during the former reign of the whigs, when Lord John was rising to the first place among them, that in order to get rid of the incubus of slavery in our own sugar colonies, the British parliament voted to the holders of slaves a compensation of not less than twenty millions sterling. The vote was opposed, of course, by the Joseph Hume clique of economists. But a sense of justice prevailed over the opposition, and, with the hearty concurrence of Quakers and philanthropists of every sort, the whigs, supported by the conservatives, gained their point, and the planters their money. So bold a confiscation of the property of Englishmen was tolerated only upon the plea that our West India growers must be placed in a very unfavorable condition of rivalry towards the growers of sugar in the Brazils, and in the Spanish and French colonies. It was held that, taking into account the natural habits of the negro, the planter who culti vated his canes by means of free labor could not possibly compete with the slave-owner; and that to give him any chance at all it was necessary first to compensate him for his loss of property in his WILL THE WHIG GOVERNMENT STAND? laborers, and next to afford him such protection as I would not come in. Lord John may feel and ex- But we have not yet done with the difficulties of the new cabinet. The members of the present government are as much divided on the subject of labor in the factories as upon the Irish church question. An influential section of them, with Lord John at their head, supported Lord Ashley in his last attempt to carry a ten-hours' bill, while Lord Grey and the more decided of the economists denounced the project as worse than visionary. What is now to be done? Will the government leave to Lord Ashley-on whose reëlection next year we count as surely as we do upon anything that is in the future-the honor of fighting once more the battle of the factory children, and winning it? or will Lord John assume the initiative at the inevitable risk of exasperating his supporters of the League and of coming into direct collision with Sir Robert Peel? or, finally, knowing that Lord Grey is against him, will he be content to keep aloof, or possibly vote against his own wishes? These are points which it remains for time to determine. And, let us add, that their settlement, be it managed as it may, cannot fail of causing very great embarrassment to the cabinet. On the plea that the repeal of the corn-laws has entirely revolutionized the commercial policy of the country, the head of the whig government talks of equalizing the duties on sugars, whether fabricated by slaves or by free laborers. Christian duty has thus ceased to have any weight with him. The Quakers, it appears, were mistaken in the use which they made of this argument; and his lordship, with his friends, accepted their view of the case, simply because it suited their convenience to do so. Perhaps Lord John is right, looking at the matter in a purely religious point of view. A state of things which has existed ever since the world began, which was sanctioned by the example of Abraham, and is nowhere denounced in the New Testament, cannot be opposed to the spirit of the religion which we profess; except, indeed, in its abuses. But we are quite sure that Lord John will never persuade the Quakers to understand this; and we are apt to suspect that he will find more than the Quakers averse, on other and less sublimated grounds, to sanction the arrangement which he proposes to make. John Bull retains a lively recollection of the twenty millions which it cost him to get rid of slavery in his own dependencies; and will not see, all at once, that there can be any fitness in the encouragement of So much for some of the questions in domestic slavery elsewhere. Besides, John cannot endure to be humbugged; and so if the Peelites and pro-policy, about which the new government is at issue tectionists unite to resist the move, Lord John will with itself. Look now to the personelle of the cabbe obliged to dissolve and go to the country on a inet, and judge how far such men are likely to go question by no means calculated to win recruits to on smoothly together. But a few short months are fled since Lord Grey refused point-blank to sit at his standard. Lord John has the same council-table with Lord Palmerston. But worse remains behind. taken new ground, such as we cannot believe that This reluctance has, somehow or another, been he will be permitted to hold throughout a single overcome; but he must be very simple-minded insession. He is for waiting the progress of events. deed who supposes that the feeling in which it Whatever his own views and the views of his cab-originated can have passed away, or that the noble inet may be touching the arrangements which earl of July, 1846, is not just as full of crotchets as would best promote the permanent welfare of the was the noble earl of 1845. The noble viscount, empire, he is determined to do nothing-to propose on the other hand, has neither forgotten nor-and nothing, till public opinion shall have declared in our readers may take our words for it-forgiven favor of a change. Now we shall be exceedingly the fracas of last autumn. Lord Palmerston has surprised if gentlemen on either side of the house the happy knack of laying all personal slights permit this. The purpose for which a cabinet ex- and wrongs in the secret recesses of his memory, ists is to take the lead in legislation, to think for where they are nursed and kept warm, that they the people, and to provide them with laws and may be brought into activity on the first favorable usages which shall carry them forward in civiliza- occasion. Neither would it be just towards the tion and prosperity; and the people know this so head of the house of Grey to conceal that in this well that they will not readily be put off with a respect his memory is to the full as tenacious. continued waiting upon Providence. Moreover, Macaulay's letter, more plain than pleasant, has there are those, apart from the people, the leaders never departed from his mind, and some fine day, of faction both here and in Ireland, whose very na- when his colleagues least expect it, this will be ture must change if they abstain from goading shown. Moreover, it is not one Grey, but many, ministers into action. Does anybody suppose that whom these feuds affect. The noble secretary for Mr. O'Connell will be quiet? He may patronize the colonies may count fairly on the support of the the whigs to a certain extent, and count upon get-home-secretary and the chancellor of the excheting a good deal out of them; but he is no more quer; and two secretaries of state, with the princiwilling to relinquish the trade of agitation than he pal member of the treasury board, seem to us to be is able. The Repeal cry may be softened for a capable of holding their own against all the other brief space out of deference to that show of decen- limbs of the cabinet put together. cy which even he is constrained occasionally to put on. But that it will be raised again in due time, assuming the cabinet to persevere in doing nothing, is just as inevitable as that without it the rent Again, it is a matter of grave doubt with us whether Lord John Russell, with all the prestige that surrounds his name, really possesses the confidence of the whig party. That he does not pos sess the confidence of the country we take to be an | Radical, may find it convenient to change his admitted fact. Just at this moment the country views when he comes into office. Indeed, we cares very little whom her majesty may be pleased will go farther by allowing, that on all questions to raise to the office of first lord of the treasury. It affecting the government of the empire, men in is the general belief in society that Sir Robert Peel office receive of necessity so much more light than has left nothing really useful for his successor to can be afforded to persons in private life, that it is accomplish, and that the best thing that could hap- not to be wondered at, assuming them to be reasonpen would be a suspension for a few years of the able beings, that, with their privacy of station, labors of a legislature, which cannot meet without they should usually lay aside both the language making or changing laws, whether the operation and the sentiments of demagogues. But in the be in itself desirable or not. But the people know case of one who has spoken in favor of repeal, that Lord John is a very ambitious statesman. His whether it were in the House of Commons or in character for courage, too, is more universally ad- Conciliation Hall, we cannot but think that the mitted than for discretion; and he has been too cabinet labors under a fatuity which advances him long in the hands of the movement to sanction a to a post of honor and responsibility under the hope that he will be able to shake himself free. crown. That Mr. Smith O'Brien should make Something his lordship feels that he must do; and something of the fact that the repeal functionary when men are operated upon by this sort of con- never gave in his formal adhesion to the Associa viction, the chances are at least even that rather tion, we are not surprised. Mr. Smith O'Brien is than do nothing they will do mischief. For exam- certainly not the Solomon of his party, but weak ple, was ever admission made by a minister of the as he is, nature has given him brains enough to crown more perilous than that which Lord John apprehend that it is a good thing for the cause of was drawn into on the subject of the estimates? mischief to get a repealer into place; and that it Let the principle be once conceded that the house is prudent on his own part to excuse the repealer of commons has a right to examine by committee to the mob for having accepted it. And Mr. before they are brought forward the estimated ex- O'Brien is right. Say what they will, the whig penses of each current year, and there is an end to cabinet need not expect that they can ever succeed all power in the state, except that of the commons. in persuading the British people that the associaThere is an end, likewise, to all responsibility by tion of the O'Connor Don with themselves is other the minister. He ceases to be answerable for the than an act either of policical treason or political conduct of public affairs. He has no further con- cowardice. trol over the expenditure of the revenue; embarrassment at home and disaster abroad may befall as fast as they may, but he will not withdraw from the councils of his sovereign on account of either, because the financial committee of the house, and not he, has occasioned them. Could the admission in question, or rather the hesitating reply of the noble lord, be dictated by the misgiving which always affects men's anticipations of the future when the memories of the past are unpleasant? Was Lord John thinking of the progressive decline of the national credit from 1835 to 1841; and considering how, in the event of a similar decadence, he might still hold place and pay in 1850 and beyond it? We suspect that he was; nevertheless, we take leave to assure him that neither the English people nor their representatives will permit the minister of the crown to devolve his gravest and most onerous duties on a committee of the house of commons. No, not even if the reward of acquiescence in the arrangement should promise to be a monopoly for life to the firm of Russell and Co. of the treasury benches, with all the agreeable concomitants thereunto attached, namely, lodging, presidence, patronage, and pay, with royal dinners ad infinitum. Meanwhile, the enemies of the English connection are elated-the friends of the Union exasperated rather than depressed. The former anticipate a ready compliance with all the demands which they make immediately, and calculate, at least the more sanguine among them, on forcing a separation by and by. The latter, disgusted and outraged in their bitterest prejudices, are ready, through sheer dissatisfaction with times present, to make common cause with the wildest of the disclaimers against Saxon injustice. We think that measures which go to produce such results are the reverse of wise; for though it be impossible to deny that in former years the Protestants somewhat abused the powers that were entrusted to them, we defy their worst enemies to bring against them now any charge of the sort. And let it never be forgotten, that their worst outbreaks were the results of a loyalty peculiar, but perfectly honest; of a principle which partook as much, perhaps, of hatred to popery, as of love for protestantism or for the throne; and could not be dissevered from the remembrance, that their fathers having won Ireland with the sword, kept it, not for themselves but for England, and devolved upon them the solemn duty of keeping it still. We There is yet another damaging circumstance think, then, that a policy which forces the protesconnected with the position of the new govern-ants into hostility, even if it seem for the moment ment, that in their Irish appointments they have to win the favor of the Roman Catholics, is neither not been happy. It is the general impression- a just nor a wise policy. For the party whom and we believe that the impression is a correct one you strive to conciliate make no pretence of loving that the whig lord-chancellor of the sister king-you for your own sakes, far less desire to be condom owes his rise to O'Connell. Not that O'Connell directly patronizes the Rt. Hon. Mr. Brady, but it was necessary to place Mr. Brady where he is, in order that another and a surer berth might be provided for the protégé of the Liberator-who is understood, in like manner, to have imposed upon the authorities at the castle their law adviser. And of the opinions of the O'Connor Don on the great question of repeal, nobody is ignorant. Now an individual repealer, like an individual sidered one with yourselves; whereas the outraged protestants used to boast that they were English, not Irish subjects, and were ready to sacrifice property and life itself in defence of the English connection. Hitherto we have spoken of the whig government as of a self-existent and isolated body. We have pointed out the causes of the weakness which we attribute to it, as far as they are to be sought for within the cabinet circle itself. We have ties in mobs, or in the leaders of mobs, is ridiculous. We give it, then, as our deliberate opinion, that Lord John Russell's government will not last a twelvemonth. We repeat that we are sorry for it; and as the best proof of our sincerity, we hereby declare that from us it shall receive a fair trial. We shall try its measures, be they what they may, on their own merits; and give judgment in each separate case according to right. From Tait's Magazine, (Radical.) POLITICS OF THE MONTH. shown that the management of public affairs has been undertaken by a body of gentlemen, hardly any two of whom think alike on any subject; that the points concerning which they differ among themselves are not secondary, but of the first importance; and that the tempers of the men are, in many instances, such as to preclude all hope of their being able, for any length of time, to keep their peculiar humors under control. What sane man expects that Lord Grey will give up the very least-valued of his crotchets, were the existence of the government shown to depend upon his doing so? Who professes to believe that Lord John Russell, after he has once made up his mind to any given course of action, will yield a jot in order to conciliate Earl Grey or any other member, either SINCE We last wrote, great changes have occurof the cabinet or the legislature! Who is so in-red. The Corn Law Repeal Bill has become the nocent as to anticipate that Lord Palmerston's law of the land, and the Anti-Corn-Law League repentance will prove to be sincere, or that, either has been dissolved; the Oregon question has been at the Foreign Office or in his correspondence with settled; the Irish Coercion Bill has been thrown the ministers of other states, he will abate a tittle out; Sir Robert Peel has resigned; and we have, of the petulance which in a few short years once more, in the direction of the national affairs, brought us to the very verge of an European war? Lord John Russell and a whig ministry. These are grave considerations-rocks ahead of The retirement of Sir Robert Peel, after carrythe new régime, which no steering, however skil-ing his great measure of Free Trade, was seen to ful, can, in our judgment, for any length of time, be inevitable; yet it has been much regretted. avoid. But if they be avoided, what then? The During five years he has conducted the business whigs are by far the weakest party in the House of the nation with admirable skill and success; he of Commons, and among the constituencies they are as nothing. Will they be able to go on? We think not. Their colonial policy, when last in power, produced a rebellion in Canada. If we may judge from what the new premier promises, it will bring total ruin upon the West India islands now. They showed themselves on former occasions miserable financiers, and are not likely to do better amid the confusions inseparable from a total change of system. Our facetious contemporary, Punch, has risked a prophecy in regard to this matter, which it will in nowise surprise us to see realized. And of this we can assure them, that as the people give them no credit for moderation or magnanimity as all the world is alive to the eagerness with which they joined in driving Peel from office, so there is little disposition anywhere to overlook their blunders when they fall into them, or to tolerate their feebleness whenever it shall begin to show itself. They have no hold whatever upon the country, and they know it. Now we sincerely regret this, for go when they may, there seems to us no prospect of replacing them by a cabinet which shall be stronger; for parties are utterly dissolved, and till they take again some form and consistency, we defy any man or set of men to guide with effect the councils of the nation. has effected the most important measure of reform since the reform bill itself became a law; the measure, above all others, to obtain which the people strove to obtain parliamentary reform. He has left the government to the whigs with a grand difficulty subdued, the national finances in a flourishing state, the country prosperous and at peace, and agitation for organic changes unheard of. With the exception of the protectionists, whose monopoly he has destroyed, and those whig partisans who profit, or hope to profit by his fall, the whole nation regrets the loss of Peel. No minister, in our time, has left power, followed by so much popular sympathy and affection. Who could have thought that this would ever be said of the tory premier? While he served a party, opposed to the interests of the people, he was the most unpopular of public men. He threw off party, and worked for the people, and speedily became the most popular man of the day. Let it never be said that the people are ungrateful. The course the whig leaders pursued in relation to the measure which caused the downfall of Peel, was not without suspicious circumstances. No doubt, the Irish coercion bill was a bad measure; unconstitutional, oppressive, and, above all, useless as a cure for the evil against which it was directed. Any minister who should propose so tyrannical an Finally, let the whigs beware how they endeav-enactment deserved to be driven from power; and or to get up, at a crisis like the present, what they expect to become a popular cry, whether it be on the subject of education or cheap sugar. Legislation carried on in a state of excitement invariably ends ill; for be the particular measure good or bad, the manner of pressing it forward is fatal. There is more truth in Lord Castlereagh's much abused aphorism than it might be judicious to acknowledge. "The people have little [we will not exactly say that they have nothing] to do with the laws, except to obey them." Clear heads, sound judgments, great circumspection, a keen insight into the future, are all requisite in men who would provide for the permanent well-being of the country; and to look for any one of these quali it was the duty of all the liberals in parliament to oppose the bill. But this was not the first Irish coercion bill. Ireland has never wanted such blessings. The two immediately preceding were both brought in by the whigs. Peel only followed the established practice; and this last of all the Irish coercion bills, as we trust, was passed in the upper house of parliament, with the concurrence of the whig lords; and not ill received by the whigs in the Lower House, at its introduction. But Lord George Bentinck and the protectionists, who had at first supported the bill, and who were ready to support it to the last, if Peel would have consented to postpone to it the Free Trade Bill, having, in revenge of Peel's disregard of their selfish propo of thinking. Within the cabinet, every man is allowed to have his own opinions: Earl Grey, who would crop and dock the Irish church; Lord John Russell, who would leave the Irish church its revenues, and establish the Romish church in Ireland in addition; and Mr. Macaulay, who would neither assail the Irish church, with Earl Grey, nor endow the Romish, with Lord John; have made up their minds to a harmonious difference of opinion. Outside of the cabinet, the Peel party having been worsted on the Irish Curfew Bill, have given up the hope, and apparently even the wish, to try another. They have adopted the same eclectic system of pol sal, sworn to effect his downfall at the first oppor- | apart, every man appears to be of every man's way tunity, the whigs became suddenly aware of the enormities and absurdities of the Irish measure; and by them and the protectionists the minister was outvoted. The act at least was right; let us hope the motive was right also. Ireland must now be governed otherwise than by coercion; and owes that immunity to Lord John Russell and the whigs. To Lord John and his friends, no small share of the merit of carrying the Free Trade bill is also due. Ever since his memorable letter, of last autumn, to his constituents of London, Lord John has steadfastly adhered to the principle he then announced, and has zealously cooperated with Peel in pushing the measure through the House of Com-itics as the whigs, and differ from them in no essenmons. To Lord John's firmness, and his influence with his party, is ascribed the support given to the measure by nearly all the whigs in the house. He has merited the place he now occupies. All the shortcomings and misdeeds of the whigs have, for the time, been forgotten; and the people are well content to see them once more in place and power. Those of the party who had to vacate their seats, in consequence of appointment to office, have in Out of doors the people are looking on to see every instance been reëlected, with general satis- what is to be the "upshot" of all this cordiality, faction, if not with acclamation. In only two cases what the first fruits of this political millennium. (Edinburgh and Plymouth) has there been the" Haud equidem invidio, miror magis," is the preshadow of opposition. In one of these it was only the shadow in the other the opposition was real, and, from special circumstances, might have been formidable. But even there, the opposition was directed against the person and not against the party to which he belonged. tials. Sir Robert Peel having been fairly compli mented out of office, bowed down stairs with an excess of civility, Lord John is welcomed, not exactly with empressement, but with a fair amount of cordiality. Whig, tory, and radical-the lion, the lamb, and-any animal the reader pleases to select as typical of the third party, have couched together amicably in parliament. vailing sentiment. Notwithstanding the famine and railway panics, there is no general pressure at this moment beyond what men have got accustomed to. Agitators (except in Ireland) find the masses, worn out with protracted struggles, rather difficult to excite. No-popery and free-churchism made as Apparently, the circumstances in which Lord indifferent a rally in Edinburgh as chartism did at John Russell has succeeded to power, are most Nottingham or Plymouth. There is a general disauspicious. The danger of war with America is position-now that the old whig and tory and parover with France we are again on cordial terms; liamentary radical parties are broken up, pounded and with all the world, (except Rosas, at La Plata,) down to a uniform consistency, and prepared for at peace. O'Connell, and Ireland, represented in fusion-to wait and see what kind of a government his person, are well disposed to whig government, is likely to be produced by the amalgamation. In (witness the unopposed return of Mr. Sheil, al- this state of the public mind, it is not so rash in though not a repealer, by the repeal constituency Lord John to take office without a numerical majorof Dungarvon;) and the chartist agitation is asleep. ity in parliament as might at first sight appear. Very little dissatisfaction, at the announcements of Where there is little difference even of professed whig policy, made by the ministers who have had principle among parliamentary men, place is a wonto face their constituents at the hustings, has been derful eradicator of mere personal incompatibilities. anywhere expressed. Such social improvements The treasury bench is a magnet that, except on as have been promised, are all highly acceptable; exceptionable occasions, is sure quietly to draw a and more is scarcely expected or required at pres- majority to it. Then if with the support of such ent. People have become tired of political agita- a majority for one year, ministers can contrive to tion, and desirous of a period of repose. Under avow principles and carry measures that may, in the whig rule, it is felt there is a prospect of quiet the taper and tadpole language, serve as a "cry;" and prosperous times. The advent of the whigs what with watchwords under which no political to power is, therefore, welcomed by the great ma- Dalgetty may be ashamed to rally, what with the jority of the nation; and deprecated, in so far as influence of office, and what with the excellent or we have observed, by only Mr. Duncombe, Mr. ganization of the whig standing electioneering comO'Connor, and their followers, if, indeed, their fol-mittees, ministerial chances of a majority in the lowers are with them at present. If infinitely less ardent, the welcome of the whigs to office has been far more general, than it was in 1830, when so much national benefit was expected from a liberal ministry. Everything seems, at first sight, to promise a long and happy whig reign. next parliament are as fair as could be desired. But, to those who scan the whole political horizon, the prospect is not without clouds. One dark cloud, especially, seems not unlikely from the course of the wind to overshadow, ere long, the ministerial position. The state of Ireland cannot The whigs reenter office in circumstances unpre- fail to bring on the question of church establishcedented in our history. There is no opposition; ments or the voluntary principle; the most formifor an opposition implies leaders who could be sup- dable question of the day. Other vexed questions posed to aspire to office without provoking a laugh, will be brought forward, in the course of next sesand this can scarcely be said of the party repre- sion, to say nothing of the sugar duties in the pressented by the hundred patriots who, under the aus-ent. For although the ministers and their partisans pices of Mr. Bankes, ate white-bait at Blackwall, and, intrenching themselves behind the walls of the church, swore to maintain an armed neutrality, unless the church was attacked. These gentlemen will do their best to prevent the introduction and the discussion of troublesome questions, and although the nation is likely, for some time, to prefer quiet to agitation, it is scarcely possible but that |