The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-03 00:00:00

sters returned to office; it might be that they were justified in
making the experiment to form a new Administration. But
he would say that that experiment had entirely and signally
failed. They had not since received a greater share of confi-
dence, but every thing that had taken place in the House and
in the country showed the diminished confidence of both.—
(Cheers.) Their very first step was to abandon the Jamaica
Bill they had brought forward, and to adopt that proposed by
his Right Hon. Friend. From that time to the present
nothing had taken place to give the Ministry additional
strength. The Noble Lord at the head of the Govern-
ment had declared at the time, in the House of
Lords—not adopting the doctrine of the Right Honourable
Gentleman the Secretary at War—that the worst Ministry
for this country would be a Ministry which had not the
power to carry its legislative measures. How had the Mi.
nistry since maintained their position? By making conces-
sion after concession, and attempting to conciliate, and by that
conciliation necessarily encouraging extreme parties in the
country, whose views the Noble Lord the Secretary for the
Colonies and other Hon. Gentlemen opposite had repudiated
and denounced as dangerous to the monarchy and to the
country.—(Cheers.) What was the course of the Govern-
ment with respect to the Ballot ? They had at first opposed
it as a Government measure—they had considered it a dan-
gerous innovation. Nothing had taken place which ought to
have produced any change in their opinions, but they had be-
come weaker in that House, and the Ministry had come down
and made the Ballot an open question. Again, when
the Hon. Member for Preston had proposed to introduce a 101.
franchise in counties, the Government bad opposed the mea •
sure ; and yet they had themselves afterwards brought forward
a measure for giving Ireland a 51. county constituency. These
were some of the concessions which her Majesty's Government
had formerly made. What was their course with regard to the
Corn-laws? The head of the Government had declared that
no one but a madman:scould listen to any proposal for altering
the present Corn-laiv.—(" No, no," from the Ministerial
benches.) The Noble Lord at the head of the Government
had emphatically stated in the month of June last, not a twelve-
month' from the present time, that he could listen to no pro
posal for altering the present system.—( Renewed cries of
" No, no.") He did not think he could have mistaken the lan-
guage of the Nohle Lord, which he would then read to the
Houses' The Hon. and Learned Gentleman then proceeded
to read an extract from a speech of Lord Melbourne, to the
effect, " that no alteration in the present Corn-laws would be
carried without a violent struggle, without causing much ill-
blood, without stirring society to its foundation, and leaving be-
hind it a source of bitterness and animosity • and he therefore
felt himself justified in saying 'no' to the motion." Hon.
Gentlemen opposite cheered that speech, which had been made
in the month of June last, and the Noble Lord who had
made that speech, and her Majesty's Government, of which he
was the head, now proposed to stir society to its foundation.—
(Loud cheers.) Were they now prepared to commence a
struggle •which should raise man against man—(Cheers)—
by rashly entertaining a proposition which the very Ministers
who proposed it admitted they had no hopes of carrying ?
( Cheers. ) What justification could be brought forward more
cogent in support of the proposition of his Noble Friend, than
the conduct of that Government, and of the Nohle Lord who
was at the head of it on the present occasion—(Cheersl—in
bringing forward a measure not for the purpose of carrying it
into a law, but for the purpose of appealing to the passions of
the people ?—( Hear.) He would ask if the conduct of the
Government in relation to the Budget could be defended by
Hon. Gentlemen opposite.—(Cheers, and counter-cheers. )
What was the Budget? If he understood the subject aright,
it was a proposition brought forward by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, to enable him to meet the present deficiencies
in the revenue. Now, could they tell bins any in-
stance in the history of the country, in which with
a deficiency in the income of the country, fa Chancellor of the
Exchequer had come down to the House of Commons to pro-
pose a budget, as a means of supplying that deficiency, contain-.
ing propositions which' the Government themselves admitted
they never expected to carry?—(Cheers.) Whstever might
be the ultimate result of those propositions, admitting they
were sowing the seed of which they might expect the fruit in
the future—admitting that at some distant period these proposi-
tions might be carried, still there could be iio hope of carrying
them for the purpose for which they had been brought fore aril.
If the Government could, he would not say so excite the pas-
sions, but so trifle with the revenue of the country, were they fit
to remain any longer in office? The Right Hon. Gentleman the
Secretary at War had confined his sdruission to the Corn-laws,
but he believed that the Ministers never thought they should
carry that portion of their Budget which related to the timber
duties ; and he believed that, even from what had transpired
with regard to their communications with the Governor-Ge-
neral of Canada, because the Governor said, that if the Go-
vernment intended to propose any alterations in the duties on
Canada timber, he thought that time ought to be given to
consider the alteration, and to enable persons interested in the
trade to employ their capital in some other manner : therefore
that could not be a measure available for the purposes of the
Budget. What, then, was the meaning of these propositions ?
The one was calculated to agitate the people of this country,
and the other to excite discontent, if not disaffection, in the
colony, recently the seat of rebellion, in which the great
experiment of the union of the two provinces was carrying on,
and with a country lying along its borders, I.e could not say
hostile to England, but the border population of which were
anxiously looking out to take advantage of any ilisturLances
which might arise in Canada. Now, that was the state of
affairs with regard to the Budget. The Chancellor of the Ex.
chequer admitted the ddiciency, and he brought forward a
Budget to supply it which he admitted he never expected to
he able to carry—(Cheers)—and then the Ministers said that
they hold office on a great public principle.—(Cheers.) He
saw nothing either in the announcement of an approaching
ditsalution, which had produced such an effect upon his Hun.
and Learned Friend the Member for South Shields, or in the
manner in which that announcement had been made, that should
prevent him from giving his vote in favour of the resolution of
his Right Hon. Friend. He should give that resolution his
cordial support, because he was satisfied that both the propo-
sitions it contained had been clearly made out, and because h.
i;j;
'
was satisfied from the course which he believed her itir
they could est)
no
Mioisters had been compelled to adopt, fins.
longer continue in power without 7:,-,iitlnt?„ in equal danger the
power and prerogative of the trown, and the pesos and-happi-
ness of the country.—(Load cheers,l
Sir G. GREY confess,q, i'liat that it was not without some
curiosity that lie 'eact seen his IHon. and Learned Friend who
lied iu§t addreaaesl the House, rise to state his reasons for sup-
porting the resolutiona of the Right Hon. Baronet, because
knowing the reputation whieh ho so deservedly possessed as a
great coostitWissoal authority, he was unable to imagine how
4 wottlti nOlntain the proposition that Ministers wore bound
on the rejection of measures which for the first time
had been submitted to the Hooso to relinquish office
without appealing to the coontry, and affording the people an
opportunity of rpwasipii their opinions—(Loud cheers)—as
to vlsetilets they approved of the conduct of their represent at ives
in Pirltament. His Hon. and Learned Friend had abandoned
that position, although other Gentlemen who had addressed
that House on the other •',(4s,ksad adduced precedents in sup-
port of it. He. ?,imitteil that a dissolution was a part of the
Comstitetiow and that the exercise of the prerogative in appeal-
ing tolhe people was not unconstitutional. Ile had admitted
that a dissolution might be proper, and had not attempted to
uphold the doctiisee that tt, was a part of the constitutional law
that ass Government which, under any circumstances, should
be unable to carry its measures, would
,be bound
by the decision of any existing Parliament, and must refuse to
dissolve. He had listened to the speech of the Right Hon.
Baronet, s,nd had gathered that the object of the resolution
nas to drive the present Ministers, from their offices, and to
assume the GOvernmeot librise4 without any appeal to the
people. —(Loud cheers.) The Right Hon. Baronet the
Member for Pembroke had denounced a dissolution as uncon-
, stitutional, reckliss, and revolutionary. It seemed as if that
Right Hon. Gentler ark had entered the House from the li-
' brary fresh from reading the speech of the Right Honourable
Member for Tamwogth in IEOI, in that debate which had been
interruptedby the tap of the Black-rod at the door of the House,
and mho, its terms not so, strong nor so vituperative
as those which the Right Hon. Baronet (Sir J. Graham) had
felt himself privileged to use,_ because he was using them in
speaking of men Whom he had once called his friends, had
attacked the measures of Mscisters in 1631, when the Noble
Lord the Member. foe Lancashire, who then sat opposite the
Right bon: Baronet the Member for Tamwarth, had an-
swered him, while the Right Hon. Baronet the Member for
Pernbrok9 sat silent under the lash.—(Loud cheers.) The