The Express.
London, England, 1851-10-29 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29.

THAT Mr. Iltwea should wish to quit the colonial
department, and fall back upon the comparative quiet
and repose .of the under-secretaryship in the NVar-
Aloe, surprises no one. Snubbed incessantly in the
House of Commons for his unflinching championship
of his chief; and. for all thanks, worded by that chief
in the office, lie has led a sad life of it. lie has been
literally bandied back and forward between the two
like a shuttle-cock between two battle.doom The
country may have profited little from his sufferings,
but in so fur as personal wear and tear went, no one
can deny that he has earned his promotion dearly.
That the country is to gain anything by the
change does not appear quite so clearly. On the one
band, the addition of a third retired deputy secretary
at war upon a large allowance, to two already
equally well provided for, is rather a heavy price to !
be paid by the public for Mr. H.twes's easement.
And the mere substitution of a new man in the place
he lately occupied, can have little effect upon the
policy of the coloniul department. No Under-Secre-
tary of Slate can do much to check or modify the
action of a principal so wilful as Earl GREY ; least of
all am this be looktel fur from so young a man as
Mr. FREI/ERICK PEEI- For anything this change
am effect, the rolministration of the colonies may be
expected to tread the uneven tenor of the way it has
been pursuing for years.
The position in which Mr. FREIWRICK l'eet has
seen fit to !duce himself is his coneern, and the con-
firm of nobody else. Notwithstanding the 'tenacious
prudence of his first appearances, which from their
almost ludicrous family likeness provoked the obvious
joke of " a chip of the old block," Mr. PEEL has
already, in his brief parliamentary career, earned for
himself the reputation of high practical talents.
Modest, intelligent, inth fatigably industrious, he
seems eminently qualified for un official career. It
is, therefore, most natural that he should wish to
enter as early as possible upon that career for which
he must feel that his natural disposition and talent
best qualify hint. Official aptitude can only be
matured by long practice.
But if it is desiruble that a young man, endowed
by nature with the disposition and talents, out of
which the official statesman is made should early
place himself in the way of pructierally cultivating
them; it is equally desirable that he should not, in
his eagerness to accomplish this, make, what is
called,afalse start. Not the least instructive 'emboli read
by the long and remarkable public life of the late Sir
lbme.wr Peet, is the sad remelts to a statesman of
placing himself in a false position at the outset.
That a young man, of great abilities and equal am-
bition, accustomed, at home, to find it tacitly assumed
that the tory was the only true political faith.
Barthel' with university honours, should be led by the
early offer of office, to entangle himself with
a party, with which he haul trim nature nothing in
common, was not strange. But (hourly did Sir Romer
Fret pay fur this mistake of youth. The greater
part of his caner as a statesman was one continued
art of penance for this venial error. Those achieve-
ments which will hand him down with honour to
prigerity, wen• conquests over the false pride of in-
Aiveriminating consistency; Titanic struggles to
emancipate himself from the, narrow views and false
policy of the tic Lion with which he had identified
himself. And ferociously did the faction avenge it-
self on him for striking down its idols and dememt-
ing their Implies Since the death of its founder,
I'err, the faction has only had three really great po-
liticians to lama of (for the 'hike of Wettiewroa's
reputation rests mainly on a different basis) CAN-
Witco, Helsel-ale, and Ku. 'the second was saved
from much of what the others were deemed to under-
go by his rad and premature death. But PANNING
was literally worried out of existence, and l'eet.'s
proudest moments of triumph were embittered by
Ow rabid pentecut ion of the drivellers whom they hail
attempted to convert to (amnion sense, and teach to
art rationally.
The danger to which Mr. Feemailee Peet ex-
pnas himself is of a diffivent kind, but nut lots real.
The state of our colonial administration appears to
have reached the 11121111' of entanglement. Bight or'
wrong every great colonial grout!), with perhaps the
solitary exception of the North American, is at this
moment suffering and discontented. Tlw West
Indians arc irritatt tl, partly indeed by the suffeiings
unavoidably consequent on such great social rerolu-
films as the emancipation of the slaves and the tran-
aition from protection to fur-trade; but they have
also too just reason to complain of the obidaeles
thrown in the way of their obtaining free labour, and
Nome of them of the denial of constitutional rights. '1 he
Austruliann are goaded to desperation by the persever-
ance of the home government in the, to them,
destnictive system of convict transportation. South
Africa is rouged to indignation by the refusal of con-
stitutional rights, and by personal slights and insults
heated on the colonists for their stand against con-
vict tianeportation; and is at the same time in immi-
nent danger of being crushed by a war against pre-
datory savages provoked by the folly of a mounte-
bank governor. Nlernorials and deputations from all
these angry sufferers knock daily at the door of the
Calooialoffice, till the Secretary for the Colonies
fairly turns tail, and betakes himself for refuge to
die shades of his paternal home, when the con-
fusion is at its height. llis *tampering off is
taken by his Under-Stemtary as the signal to re-
sign his post. All is confusion and quarrelling in
the Colonial department, and there is no one to set
matters to right. At such a moment does the rash
Mr. Fitentettue PEEL plunge into the centre of the
chaos; he aver is of a subordinate office, iu which
he must implicitly obey the dictates of a I
chief who dues not appear to know what
mune to steer, or what orders to issue
Ili+ tasks will be, in the prnetralia of the office, to
listen to the grumblings and threats from which the
delicate tympanum of his chief keeps at a wary dis-
tance, and in parliament to defend the no-policy,
which it is impossible he can comprehend, much less
approve. Here are no useful lessons to be learned,
no
desirable diameter to be acquired, no opportunity
obtained of really serving the country. It is obviously
in every sense of the word a false start.
The question of real interest for the general public,
however, is, whether this new arrangement can be
received as any indication of a desire in the leaders
of the prevent administration to widen the circle of
their political relations—to infuse new blood into the
veins of a moribund party? Unfortunately it can-
not be taken to indicate anything beyond the
solitary accession of Mr. l'eet, by hiinsclt to their
ranks. Wc let pass for what it is worth—that is, for
rothing -the disclaimer of Mr. Pert. by the small knot
of would-lie statesmen, who, uncountenanced by any
of the surviving colleagues of his father, afteet to
call themeelves par r.rrellenrc l'eclites, on the
strength of their having engrnfted the state polities
of his father upon the ceelesiastital politics of
Young England. But it did not need this disclaimer
to let the public know that Mr. l'eta. can bring no
party along with him to augment the numbers or
modify the po icy of the present occupants of office.
He stands a tune. The real party of the late Sir
!tourer Peet— the men who gave him power and
upheld him in it—were not politicians in the custo-
mary and narrow acceptation of the word. The
moneyed interest and manufacturing interest be-
lieved implicit c in his caution. The quiet, easy-
going middle.elass men, whom the temporary effer-
vescence of the Ifilortn Bill period had carried
beyond their habitual timidity, and who re.
lapsed into conservatism as soon as the fever
abated, found him the most convenient and
reepectable chief to rally round. A large body of
earnest, thoitmgharoing reformers, political and
commercial, despairing of further reforms at the
hand* of the Whigs. and teeing that l'eo. was wil-
ling to du something—how much they knew not,
thaugh they worked hard to persuade themselves it
'could be a great deal—threw themselves into his
meek.. His supporters were strong among the general
body of the nation: parliamentary an d official politicians
only courted his alliance, becanee he brought this sup-
port along with him. This real PEEL party—the must

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