The Press.
London, England, 1858-04-03 00:00:00

THE PRESS, APRIL 3, 1858.

Owing to the demand for labour during the put season
on the two lines of railway now in the course of construc-
tion in this province, there has been a large immigration
into it from the United State 3 and the neighbouring
colonies. lam advised that the construction of these two
lines of railway will be vigorously prosecuted during the
coming season, and that, in addition to the workmen now
employed, from 1,200 to 1,600 ableboditd men (unskilled
labourers) will find employment on the railway works for
the next two years, at one dollar, equal to 4s. 2d., per day.
A number of mechanics of the description usually needed
on railways will also be required in proportion to the un-
skilled labour, and these mechanics will be sure of employ-
ment, for two seasons, at fair wages. A considerable
number of farm servants, both male and female, will readily
find employment throughout the province at goad wages.
Female servants are much needed both in town and
country.

Surely hero is a solution for our domestic
difficulties—a remedy for the " great social
evil," as well as a field where honest industry
cannot fail to meet its reward. We commend
these extracts to the attention of philanthro•
piste, as well as to the careful perusal of the
working classes.

THE ABSURDITY OF REVIVING THE
PROTECTIONIST CONTROVERSY.
" Is it not very absurd, at this time of day,
" to be reviving the question of Protection ?"

We should think so. We cannot form an
idea of anything more absurd. But who has
been guilty of such an act of folly ?
Certainly not THE PRESS.
We cannot call to mind, or by searching dis-
cover, anything we have said, or suggested,
having any kind of tendency to recommend a
return to Protection. On the contrary, we
willingly admit, that after going through an
arduous struggle, the farmers of England
have become " acclimatized," and can hold
their own without Protective statutes. Why
then should we, who as Conseivatives
dislike perpetual tampering with the laws,—
why should we desire any kind of return to
Protection ? But, in truth, we have been
guilty of no such folly. On the 20th of March
we said, " Do we suggest the expediency of a
" return to the Protective system? Far
" from it." And on tke 27th we added, "We
" have again and again disclaimed any such
" view, and our arguments do not so prepare
" the way"
But why, then, do we allude to " Free
Trade" at all ? Why not let that unlucky
phrase drop into silence and forgetfulness 9
It is scarcely good manners to allude to
" swindling " in the bearing of a Director
of the Bank ; or to discuss the morality
of will-forging while certain noble lords are
just behind your chair.
Considerations of this kind, however
valid, must sometimes be thrown aside.
To speak plainly, we feel that there is a
little knot of prigs among us—a set of con-
ceited, vain, pragmatical fellows whom it
is among the first of duties to bring to their
proper level. They are full of vain conceits,
and evidently believe that their peculiar mis-
sion is to put an end to all former parties—
Whigs, Tories, Pal merstonians, Russellites,
and Derbyites—and to set up some new inde-
scribable set or clique of their own, who are
to enlighten and rule over the world. This
new party, or rather set of men—for wo do not
believe that they ever will arrive at the dignity
of a party—it is our purpose to withstand. We
believe that they have not yet resolved on any
definite creed or system; but they are not
sparing of their contempt for all the old prin-
ciples of the Conservative party. To doubt.
the wisdom of the Free-trade measures of 1846.
for instance, they would deem preposterous
folly. They take for granted that " Lord
DERBY has moved too fast even to remember
" the existence of a creed so outworn as Pro-
" tectionism."

Now, this kind of arrogance might or must
be tolerated, if it came from men whose pre-
dictions had been fulfilled, and whose doctrines
had been established by experience. But it is
not to be tolerated in the mouths of beaten men
—in the mouths of men every one of whose pre-
dictions have been falsified, although they, for a
short space, clutched hold of power by means
of the grossest delusions Hence we began a
warfare from which we do not mean to shrink,
by bringing these people to the test on a
question of plain, broad, historical fact, from

- -
which there is no escape. We say that they
convulsed England, changed Ministries, sacri-
ficed irrecoverably the reputation of a Peel,
and, far worse, deprived the country, for twelve
years, of the services of a Stanley, on a pre-
tence which is now proved to be utterly hollow.
We say, that these vain pretenders promised
the people of England, in 1845, that they
would cheapen food, increase trade, and
diminish pauperism; whereas the experience
of twelve years has now shown that they
have done none of these wonderful things.
And instead, therefore, of strutting about, as
they do, with the constant cry, "We are the
" people, and wisdom will die with us," their
proper place is, at the bottom of the lowest
form, among the most unlucky of blunderers
and the most preposterous of ignoramuses.
Let it be understood, then, that we have not
revived, and do not mean to revive, " the
Protectionist controversy." But our willing-
ness "to leave things as they are," and our
free admission that nothing could be more
absurd than to reopen the question of Pro-
tective Duties on Corn, shall not deprive us of
our right to censure the wicked and senseless
agitation of 1842-5, or to remind the oracles of
the LEAGUE, that of all the good things which
they promised us, not one has been realized
in fact.
Our chief object, as we plainly avow, is to
press upon the defeated Leaguers and Free-
traders the expediency of acquiring a little
self-knowledge. We would beg of them to be-
lieve, that they are where they are by no mis-
, take. Messrs. COBDEN and BRIGHT were ex-

pelled from Parliament—Messrs GLADSTONE
and GRAHAM wander about the House of Com-
mons, scarcely knowing where to sit—not as
victims to the treachery of others, but self-
immolated. And yet all these people are
more or less infected with the notion che•
rished by the lunatic, who complained that he
was shut up in prison, not because he was
wrong, but merely because he was in a mi-
nority. Nay, they will scarcely admit that
fact; they rather boast that they are in a great
majority; but then, somehow or other, they
cannot bring their guns to bear!
The most conceited set of this whole party
of self-sufficient men is that set which speaks
through the Saturday Review. The calmness
with which a few nameless " young gentlemen
" from Cambridge " dismiss all the present
party leaders—and tako for granted that, be-
fore long, all England will have to come, can
in hand, to No. 39, Southampton-street for a
Government—is only to be matched by Punch
himself; hut then Punch counsels and pa-
tronizes Prime Ministers in jest, while the
people in Southampton-street do it in sober
earnest.

The Whigs are thus warned of their, not
impending, but already accomplished fate :

The struggle of Whiggism to transmute itself into Libe-
ralism is like the attempt of an old mail•coachman to turn
stoker. He fails because he was not bred to the trade, and
does not understand it—because it is alien to hie nature,
his habits, and his tastes. We think it fair to point out
the true position of this defunct power; because, for want
of corrprehending it, injustice seems to us to be done to
individuals. The utter collapse of the party which it has
been Lord John Russell's fate to lead is at least as mach
his misfortune as his fault A man of more political saga-
city and more commanding abilities might have gilded the
decline, but could not have stayed the setting, of the sun!
So much for The Whigs. Of the other great
Liberal or Whig leader, the late Premier, they
thus speak :
That Lord Palmerston—that the Bombastes Furioso of
foreign liberalism should be the fugleman of such a treason
to the cause of freedom and the reputation of England
throughout Europe—will surprise those who have not
learnt by experience that the noisiest braggarts are not
the most courageous or consistent statesmen. No wonder
that the long and humiliating defence which the " spirited
Foreign Minister " delivered to the House of Commons
just before the division on Tuesday night, was received by
his own side in what our French friends would call a
silence morne. The breach between Lord Palmerston and
the Liberal party at home and abroad is final and incur
rable. The fate has befallen the " spirited foreign policy '
which sooner or later overtakes all impostures—it has
been found out.+
Well, then, surely if Lord JOHN RUSSNLL'S
party is "in utter collapse "—if Lord PAL-
MERSTON " has been found out "—there would
seem to be no help for it, but that Lord Dzaß!
must be undisputed " master of the situation.
But he, too, is either too weak or too treacherous
for the pure patriots of the Saturday Revie4-
-----

• N0v.17, 1865. + F0b.13, 1868.

Nothing bat a Protectionist Government could ever
have finally disposed of Protection, and Lord Derby must
be allowed time enough to defttro y fur ever what remains
of Derliyism. Most Ministers come into power for the
purpose of advancing the principl es of their party—the
peculiar function of the present Premier is to take office
for the more complete annihilation of his own. This of
course is a temporary work, but it is a necessary one.
When Lord Derby leaves office, Derbyiam will have been
catinguished by its own band, and when it has once been
buried in the cross-roads with a stake through it, we shall
bear no more about it.:
- -

These three great sections of the House of
Commons are thus disposed of. The Russell
Whigs are in a state of hopeless collapse ;
the Palmerston Whigs and Liberals are found
out ; " and the Derbyites are about to be self-
immolated. As these three classes embrace
fully 500 members out of the 654 who consti-
tute the present House of Commons, in what
way, or by what system, does the Saturday
Riview propose, in its expected millenium, to
carry on the Government? " The Liberal
" party," we are told, will soon " resume the
" power which of right belongs to it, with
" fittinr, leaders and a disciplined army."
This is to happen when the Derbys, Russells,
Palmerstons, and all " the old set," have been
got rid ofl
Are these the day-dreams of schoolboys, or
the serious projects of grown men? The
" great Liberal party," with its " fitting leaders
" and disciplined army," are at present in the
position of the Armada in The Critic—
" The Spanish fleet thou canst not see, because
" 'tis not in sight."
But, never mind ; it's coming. We bear of
it in another quarter, and proofs from
various quarters furnish the strongest corro-
boration of any fact.
The " Birmingham Reformers' Union "
issued, only last week, a circular descriptive of
the political prospects of the present time.
In that document they say :
" The advanced party has no leader; at
"present the majority cluster round the
" standard either of PALMERSTON' or RUSSELL ;
" but a large number believe in neither. One
" other man they would follow; but this session,
" at least, he will not take active means to
" organize a party. We refer to our own
" member, JOHN BRIGHT. His day will come,
" we have confidence—but not yet."
Here is the same yearning, the same expec-
tation, which we find in the Saturday Review.
But if the Saturday Review means what JOHN
BRIGHT means, why does it not say so ?
And more. do not mean to imitate the
ill-manners of the Saturday Review. or to hold
up gentlemen, by name, to ridicule ; but
universal report gives the proprietorship of
that journal to an M.P. who has long been
connected with the press, and who has already
brought one daily paper to utter ruin and
. destitution. In that paper the gentleman in
question used to write long High-Church dia-
tribes: and in a well-known Kentish borough
he exhibited himself in the character of a
Conservative candidate. What means, then,
the line of conduct taken in his present news-
paper, which eschews and ridicules everything
savouring of Conservative principles, and de-
siderates the formation of a " great Liberal
party," of which Messrs. BRIGHT, ROEBUCK, and
MILNER GIBSON must be the leaders? How
are we to understand all this? Amidst such
contradictions, such unintelligible conduct,
the only thing which seems quite natural, and,
in short, inevitable, is, that which the Satur-
day Review frankly confesses—namely, that
" the disorganization of the Liberal party is a
" great fact."
A great fact it certainly is, but one which
it is not difficult to understand. If gentlemen
choose to canvass a borough as Conservatives,
and to carry on a newspaper as Liberals—if
they quarrel with every man of any note in
the House, except those few who take no
pains to conceal their Republicanism—if they
avow their disgust for Lord PALMERSTON, their
contempt for Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and their
pity for Lord DERBY; while the BRIGHTS and
ROEBUCKS neither can nor will " organize a
Party," what remains? The boasted " majo-
" rity of the House of Commons " can be,
under such circumstances, nothing better than
a well-dressed mob. It loses the reins of
Government inevitably, because it has neither
But we must not en-

37,1 M.

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•SS,•.t.caua.y,
a policy, nor leaders. I
4 March 37,