The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-09-06 00:00:00

FRASER'S MAGAZINE

Our friend who caters for " town and country" is ra-
ther more solid this month than usual. His " Ireland
and the Conciliatory System" is a judicious review of
two volumes on the subject, and is chiefly composed of
extracts. We admire the " Bacchanalia Memorabilia"
exceedingly. We do not remember meeting with any-
thing so admirable since the " Philosophy of Drunken-
ness." We must not omit noticing the " Possums of
Aristopbanes," which is a clever jest d'esprit on the mo-
dern philosophers. There is a good story, entitled
" The Jew of York," and a very able article on the
"Scottish Universities." The grand article of the
month, however, is the " General Results of the past
Session, and Prospects of the next." From this we sub-
mit the following appropriate remarks:—
"Upon what, then, can the agitators possibly rest those ac-
cusations of the House of Lords which they are evidently desi-
rous of bringing? Here are the six chief matters of the session;
and in what degree have the lords counteracted the views or en-
deaVours of the government? Both an Irish Tithe Bill, with
every single point of any practical utility retained in it, and an
Irish Corporation Bill, in which the whole evil complained of
was removed, were passed by the House of Lords. The House
of Commons, not the lords, chose to reject both; the first, be-
cause the appropriation clause, now dwindled down to a mere
shadow—a something to come into operation in sixty or seventy
years—was struck out; the second, because, while one evil was
removed, another was not allowed to be set up in its room.
These two measures were indeed, altered by the lords—altered
in a way that we should call'an improvement; but, at all events,
so altered as to leave each measure a vast and most important
good. But as to the other four topics, the whole of the labours
of the peers were to aid and further thet objects of the govern-
ment ; and if church reform bills were given up—if law reforms
failed—if all the relief promised to dissenters was not affbrded—_.
if the Irish poor remained unprovided 1.414
these miscarriages the ministers have merely themselves
and their friends to blame; for in neither had they to com-
plain of the least opposition or difficulty from the House of
Peers. _

"The bill of indictment, then, which the whigs would fain pre-
fer against the House of Lords, by way of excusing their own
neglect and incapacity, is utterly unsupported by any evidence.
But, in their lack, of legitimate matters of complaint a col-
lection of falsehoods has been strung together with a business-
like air, and it passes with souse for a weighty array of charges.

"Such, then, is the condition of affairs at the close of this
year's session. It has filled the heart of every conservative
with confidence and hope—the heart of every radical with gloom
and despondency. Yet, on our part there is far less eagerness
than was apparent at the beginning of the present year. We
have no longer the same desire for the instant expulsion of the
whigs; for we have learned thht there is an effectual bar to their
perpetration of any considerable mischief. Let us entreat our
friends, however, to beware of the too easily besetting vice, the
great political error, of over-confidence and relaxation of exer-
tion. The final rescue of the country still depends, under God,
on their continued and combined exertions. If those efforts are
continued, Newcastle and Warwick, as well as-Northampton-
shire and Warwickshire, show what the result must very soon
be. Meanwhile, the po►nts on which the whigs and ridicals
agree are every day diminishing and disappearing; while those
on which they can never act in concert come more into view,
and demand decision, From both these causes, then, the in-
creasing strength of the conservatives, and the increasing dif-
ferences among the members of the coalition, a great, an impor-
tant, and, in all probability, a lasting, change must be rapidly
approaching. Let us wait for it with equanimity; but let us
not retard it by any diminution of our exertions.