The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-01-20 00:00:00

THE QUEEN'S SPEECH

As the very greatest anxiety is evinced to learn what
her Majesty will address to her assembled Parlia-
ment on opening the Session on Thursday, we shall
have ready at an early hour on Friday morning
copies of the Queen's Speech, which may be ob-
tained gratis by any of our Subscribers or Friends
on application at our office.

Ebt &tanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, JA:.;

20, 1846

"farmer's friends." Sir John Yarde Buller, at a

meeting at Exeter, says :
•‘ My mind is now made up to this, that I will go no
further, that I will lend no assistance in the carrying of
any measure that will have a tendency to lower the pro-
tection which agriculture now enjoys. But, in so saying,
I do not feel that I pledge myself so tightly to any mea-
sure, that if anything more advantageous to agriculture
should be brought furward, I should not be at liberty to
support it."
Let Sir Robert, therefore, adduce any plausible
argument in favour of the measure, under which
Sir John can creep to the sunny side of ministerial
favour, and he is secure of him. His colleague,
Lord Courtenay, is equally pliant and open to con-
viction. He seeks for a measure or a mode of
protection "more tenable and less invidious with
respect to other classes of the community ;" and Sir
Robert will find him one. Lord Ingestrie, Lord
Hardwicke, Mr. Yorke, Mr. Allis, and a score of
other noblemen and gentlemen have given expression
to similar temporizing sentiments.
Lord Norreys, however, at a meeting held at
Oxford, let us more fully into the secret of the ap-
proaching conversions. After informing his hearers,
on the best authority, that Lord Stanley had de-
clined, as impracticable, the attempt to form an
administration on ultra protectionist principles, he
quotes from a letter addressed to him by his infor-
mant, said to be Mr. G, W. Hope, under-secretary
for the Colonies, which concludes as follows :
" I may add, I know Lord Stanley deprecates more
than anything any party declaration on the part of the
agricultural body, arising out of feelings of pdrsonal re-
sentnrnt, and that he would earnestly recommend a full
and impartial consideration of all the consequences which
may arise from the breaking up of the present govern-
ment, and all the responsiblity which must attach to
those who may be instrumental in breaking it up, before
they preclude themselves by making species and pledges,
from a fair examination of such measures as the govern-
meat may be prepared to submit to them on the meeting
of parliament."

There is nothing here of "dying in the la3t ditch,"
or " sticking to the last plank." Sir Robert is to
threaten resignation; to intimate the probable
handing over of the landed and other interests to the
tender mercies of Liberalism, as the result of the
obstinacy of his quondam friends, and the thing will
be accomplished. No love of consistency will inter-
fere to prevent the representatives of agriculture
putting their own hands to the work :

It was necessary," remarked Mr. Vernon at the
same meeting, " to pause and to deliberate, and to
hear what he (Sir Robert Peel) had to say, before
he used the language which had been freely used at
other places, where they taked of the perfidious mi-
nister and the infernal league. It was all very well to
make speeches spicy for public meetings, to draw forth
temporary and unworthy applause. He would not abuse
them in their absence ; if he chose to do so, he had the
opportunity in:their presence. * * He would not
pledge himself to this meeting, that he would stand by
every member of the present corn-law. Did they suppose
that a man no longer young, who had been forty years in
Parliament. and had had the misfortune to vote for se-
ven or eight alterations in the corn-laws,--did they sup-
pose that he would be fool enough to pledge himself that
the last corn-law was the only one that was fit to endure
to all eternity 7"

Of course not. Men who have changed with such
Protean dexterity—who, with professions of love for
their Protestant Church still sounding in our ears,
can turn round and endow Popery—who pass a corn
bill this session and, at the mere bidding of the
Minister, repeal it in the next—such mere legislating
machines would " be fools" to pledge themselves to
any consistent course of action, and their constituents
still greater fools to believe them.
With such evidence before us, we cannot believe
that Sir Robert Peel will experience any difficulty
sufficiently great to drive him to a dissolution. He
will bring in his measure—gild it with plausible
statements—accompany it with a few sops—and his
obedient friends, " the country gentlemen," like
obedient spaniels, will do his bidding.