The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-05-11 00:00:00

Ira wing I

rences of the col:

Board Of Trade returns

THE GO'v'ERNAI

ADE journalists and sp

rinri

an alleged adhesion to their own

pies, con-

fined in the financial

statement of

LI has been set down as

commercial policy of

school; and

the terms " traitor" and " impostor" have been
freely applied both to himself and the Noble Lord
at the head of the Government

The danger of

jumping too hastily to conclusions has never,
however, been more signally show❑ than in this
forced interpretation of the CHANCELLOR'S
speech; and the partieS who have been so anxious
to misrepresent that gentleman

ill probably not

thank the honourable member for Evesham for
having been the means of eliciting the vary
satisfactory explanations of the Government,
given on Thursday evening.

Mr. DISRAELI said of his speech upon the
budget :

" When I brought forward my financial state-
ment, it was my intention—and I believe I fulfilled
that intention—to express no opinion on any sub-
ject whatever. I confined myself to bringing
before the House what I believed to be a complete
view of our financial condition. (Hear.) I con-
fined myself to that duty, because it was necessary
for me to terminate my observations by making a
proposition which, abstractedly, as a measure of
finance, I do not approve of."

This is surely an answer sufficient to those who
affected to have discovered in the speech in ques-
tion a leaning towards the policy of direct taxation.
The honourable gentleman was equally explicit in
his denial of having any intention to shirk the
question upon which, mainly, his party were ele-
vated to power. Conceiving that, in bringing
before the House of Commons a statement of the
financial position of the country, it was not neces-
sary or desirable to introduce extraneous topics, he
says :

" Feeling that to be my only duty, I certainly
made no particular reference to those classes of
the community who are, in my mind, greatly
suffering, and to whose sufferings it is, according
to my opinion, the, duty of Parliament to apply
some remedy. (Cheers.) I certainly communi-
cated to the House the important fact that in esti-
mating the revenue of the country it was necessary
to make great allowances for reductions of rental
and farming profits. (Hear, hear.) In the posi-
tion in which the Government, the House, and the
country are placed, it would have been indiscreet
in me on that occasion to have obtruded the opi-
nions which the Government may entertain with
respect to the remedial measures such a state of
affairs may require. After it has been publicly
announced, and after that announcement has been
accepted by the country, that on an occasion which
is now not only not distant but imminent, the opi-
nion of the constituent body will be taken with
respect to that subject especially, it would have been
most improper in me, in making the financial state-
ment, to have troubled the House in detail with any
schemes or measures that had reference to the
alleviation of the sufferings of the agricultural classes.
(Hear, hear.) In taking that course I think I acted
in unison with the feelings of the majority of this
house and of the country ; but, after the observa-
tions of my hon. friend the member for Evesham,
I have no hesitation in saying that when her
MAJESTY shall have recurred to the sense of her
people, her Majesty's Government are prepared to
introduce, in due season, those remedial measures
which they believe are required by justice, and by
regard to the permanent interests of the country.
(Cheers.) I think there can be no misunderstand-
ing in this house or in the country on that subject.
We are prepared to fulfil, as far as lies in our power,
that policy with regard to the agricultural interest
which we advocated on the other side of the house.
(Cheers.) Strong, however, as may be our deter-
mination, and firm as may be our convictions, I
still believe that on the occasion of making the
financial statement it would have been a most
un-called for proceeding to obtrude an explanation
of our policy on the attention of the House of
Commons. (Cheers.)"
There can be no mistake in such a declaration
as this. The Government of Lord DERBY is not
about to imitate the example of the PEEL adminis-
tration, and to betray those confiding friends who
have placed the destinies of the country in their
hands. We should have wondered much, and
confessed ourselves to have very wrongly estimated
the high character of the Earl of DERBY and of his
colleagues, had he, or they, contemplated any course
so cowardly and so dishonourable.