The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-01-06 00:00:00

A new year has just opened upon us, pregnant
with more important problems to be solved, and
difficulties to be surmounted, than ever before pre-
sented themselves, in any one year, throughout the
history of British legislation. And brief, more-
over, has been the warning given to us of their ap-
proach, and short the period which is left for states-
manship to devise and to act in the emergency,
which circumstances ha e partly hurried on, and

which it has partly created for itself. A few months
ago, the political horizon was without a cloud, save
that small one in the "far west" which was seized
upon as the pretext of sending " a message of
peace" to disaffected popery in Ireland. A minis-
try,• stronger than ever, held the helm of the state,

sate secure and confident in office

Prosperity al-

most unbounded, extended through every branch
of industry and commerce. We had a full exche-
quer, full garners, and unexampled credit, amidst
which, the national enterprise put forth all its ener-
gies for the developement of the country's resources
and the people's social amelioration and comfort.
Yet this vast and imposing fabric of power and
prosperity, the caprice of one man—its chief ar-
chitect—has been sufficient to destroy, and without
even a glimmering of the reason which can have
brought about so total a change in his political con-
victions and purposes, the country has, within the
last three weeks, seen the helm put down, and the
vessel of the state directed upon a new course,
which its steersman, throughout his past public
life, has declared to be full of dangerous shoals, and
to lead to assured destruction of its most valued in-
stitutions, and the comfort, the liberties, and the
happiness of the people.
At the instigation, and as the act, we repeat, of one
man, the legislature, in the approaching session, is
about to venture upon the momentous experiment of
remodeling the entire social fabric, and reversing
completely that policy which has characterised the le-
gislation of Great Britain for centuries; under which
she has grown up to be first in arts, in arms, in
commerce, and territorial greatnes4, amongst the
nations of the world. Who can look forward to
the issue of that experiment without a feeling of
trepidation and of doubt ? The repeal of the ex-
isting system of protection to the native producer
of food, is virtually a revolution which must ope-
rate upon the fortunes and the social position of
every man, woman, and child, throughout the Bri-
tish empire, and ultimately change and re-distribute
the elements of which our social fabric itself is
composed. Nor can it stop here. It deals not
only with financial considerations and the re-ar-
rangement of the relative positions and privileges
of the various classes into which the community is
divided, but will effect also an entire change in those
feelings and associations—prejudices if you will—
of the national heart, upon which the institutions of
the country have been based, and by which, for
centuries, they have been secured. Upon wealth
embarked in the ownership of the soil is founded
those feelings of traditional respect with which we
look upon that order in whose hands we have placed
a third share in the administration of the national
affairs, and with whom, principally, we have sur-
' rounded the person of the sovereign—amongst
whom have we been accustomed to look for our
most eminent statesmen and the leaders of our army
and our fleets. Concede that a blow, more or less
severe, will be struck at the landed aristocracy of
the country, by the repeal of the corn laws, and
you concede the weakening of the power of the
house o: peers to withstand the aggression of de-
and thus destroy the nicely adjusted ba-
lance and counter-check of the three branches of
the constitution. That the striking of a sudden
blow is the object contemplated as the result of
the removal of protection from agriculture is noto-
rious. It is evident, from the tone in which the ad-
vocates of free trade launch their philippics against
the landlords, rather than -at the law which protects
them. Ostensibly, the triumphs of the league is
one which is to secure a better and a cheaper sup-
ply of food for the people : in reality, it is one whose
result is to unable: democracy to plant its heel upon
the prostrate form of aristocracy, and obtain a pre-
ponderating influence over the direction of national
affairs. _ _ _

►nocracv

This is the movement, at the head of which 'Sir
Robert Peal has so unaccountably placed himself.
This—the reduction of the proud and honoured
aristocracy of Great Britain—of the descendants of
the warriors of Cressy and Agincourt—to a level,
in political power, with the mushroom millionaires
of the spinning jenny and the power loom, is, the
price which he h prepared to bid for a new lease of
powet and a triumph over men by whom, in consi-
deration only of his political cleverness, his claims
to rank with
.them is grudgingly tolerated. That
he will be successful in carrying out his measures is
as yet an unsolved problem. We may assume,
however, that he has confidence in his strength, and
sufficient warrant from the past, for the required
amount of suicidal infatuation. to enable him to lure
on the credulous believers in his pre-eminent cun-
ning, to their own destruction.
Admitting, then, the successful achievement of
this first and great step towards the establishment
of pure democractical institutions, are the difficul
ties of his position as a minister surmounteri? By
no means. The cry for cheap bread is not the only
cry of the party into whose hands he has thrown
himself. Thebrinciple of protection once given up,
upon what plea can he defend the continuance of
the differential duties upon foreign and colonial