The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-07-16 00:00:00

70T,%NTY ELECTIONS,

LORD MORPETIL AND LORD 110 WICK. 1
(From the London Times.)
The results of the struggle which has just been brought to
a close in the Fnglish counties are most ss.tisfactory.
Twenty-four seats (reckoning one in Glamorganshire, in con-
sequence of Mr. Talbot's declared adhesion to the Conser-
vative cause) have been wrested from the Whigs, and only
one has been lost to the Constitutional party. Every contest
in which the Conservatives have been engaged has ended in
victory, except in the four counties of Flint, East Cumber-
land, South Durham, and North Lincolnshire. In Fliutshire
Mr. Mostyn prevailed by a majority of only 34, and was in-
debted for his success entirely to tha calumnies with which
his supporters had for some time past been undermining the
personal popularity of the late excellent member. In East
Cumberland the result of the poll, though favourable to the
former members, furnished the most incontestable proofs of
an immense Conservative re-action having taken place within
the last four years. In 1837 Mr. James's majority over Sir J.
Graham was 519 ; now the same gentleman has very narrowly
escaped a defeat, being elected by a majority of only 85 over
Captain Stephenson. In South Durham the Whigs have been
backed by the vast territorial influence of the houses of Rahy
and Lambton, and in North Lincolnshire by that of the Earl
of Yarborough, which, for the time being, has proved to be
irresistible. With these slight exceptions, the conservatives
have succeeded everywhere. Candidates who announced
themselves scarcely in time for the day of nomination
have been triumphantly returned, and in almost every in-
stance the amount of the majorities has been great beyond
all previous example.
In Lord Morpeth we acknowledge a generous enemy. We
cannot say
" That very frankly he confessed his treasons,
Implored the people's pardon and set forth
A deep repentance;
yet we readily admit that, politically speaking,
" Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it ;"-
and that not the less, because he did not _ _

" Die
As one that had been studied in death,
To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
As 'twere a careless trifle."
" I come before you," said he to the electors of the West
Riding, " in the order duly assigned to me as the lowest on
the poll. lam the last person, and it would be the last ob-
ject I could have in view to aim at dissembling the magni-
tude of the triumph which our opponents have wrested from
us. On the contrary, I clearly think it the most signal and
the most decisive which has yet been attached to the car of
Conservative reaction." And then, after paying a graceful
compliment to his successful opponent, Mr. Wortley, he
continued thus:—" In transferring my late position into his
more fortunate hands, I cannot dissemble the price and
splendour of the pearl. I have been too fond of it, too proud
of it, for that." And again :—" The public questions at
issue constitute, of course, the really important part of such
a transaction as the present. With respect to them also, I
cannot fail to be sensible of the grave and intimate bearing
which the decision of this great constituency may have, the
present conjuncture of affairs, upon the concerns of finance,
trade, and commerce."
We wish we could transcribe the whole of this excellent
and amiable speech, which elicited well-merited applause
from opponents as well as friends. The noble Lord candidly
admitted that the verdict of the West Riding, and some of
the more important towns in it (such as Bradford and Leeds),
had been unfavourable to the measures of Her Majesty's
Ministers ; and while he still professed his confidence in the
ultimate prevalence of the principles which he had advocated,
he nevertheless spoke kindly and generously of his adversa-
ries in the hour of their success : he confess sd the poignancy
of his own disappointment, by declaring that " he thought
he could not reconcile himself for the present to occupy any
other seat or represent any other men ; ' and yet concluded
with a general expression of benevolence and benediction to
all present.
It is due to such a man as this to say, that, great as his
political obliquities may have been, much as he has been,
mixed up with that O'Connellite pitch which no one can
touch without being defiled, and impossible as it therefore
was for us to speak favourable or even in tolerant terms of
his public character, we ourselves, and all the conservative
party, have uniformly telt sincere respect for his many ami-
able personal qualities, and unquestionable honour and inte-
grity in private life. It has been a singular and most unfor-
tunate caprice of fortune, that of all the whig statesmen,
Lord Morpeth, the man of most generous disposition, and
most cultivated mind, should have been forced into the clos-
est political liaison with the coarse and ruflianlike leader of
the Irish democracy. When we consider the personal ad-
vantages with which the noble lord could not fail to enter on
his recent contest against almost any antagonist, we are more
strongly than ever impressed with the importance, in a public
point of view, of the decision to which the constituency of
the West Riding has come.
Very different has been the tone and bearing of the re-
jected of North Northumberland, and very different are our
feelings towards him. Furious with rage and mortification,
Lord Howick's deportment upon the hustings, at the decla-
ration of the poll, was like that of the dying rattlesnake dart-
ing out its venomous tongue with fatal malignity against its
destroyers. "He was not," he said, " one whit abashed or
cast down by this defeat ; on the contrary, he did think
that there was much in the result on which he had
a right to be proud. When he considered the circum-
stances of this contest—when he considered the sudden
manner in which the opposition had been got up—a sud-
denness of which he had already complained, and of which
he now repeated his complaint, because when Mr. Cresswell
told them that he had put the simple question to this county,
whether lie (Lord Howick) did or did not possess the confi-
dence of the electors, that he had accepted the challenge,
that he had had a fair trial, and that the decision was against
him—when Mr. Cresswell stated this, he begged to inform
him that he was totally mistaken." _ . -

Stich being the general result, and it being now ascertained
that the elections for England and Wales have ended in
giving the conservatives a clear balance of 111 seats, our
attention is again directed to two particular victories—those
for the West Riding of Yorkshire and North Northumber-
land. We recur to them, not so much for the purpose of
renewing the expression of our joy at these great conquests,
as for the sake of contrasting the manner in which the ver-
dict of the electorate has been received by the ejected Whigs
in each of those important counties.

THE MINISTRY AND THE ELECTIONS

(From the Morning Herald.)

The game is drawing to a close, and the issue is no longer
a matter of speculation. Even the Globe abandons to Sir
Robert Peel a majority exceeding 50. " Say that the Libe-
rals," quoth our petulant adversary in his penultimate hour
of official assumption, " who will become the opposition,
number 300 strong—a minority formidable in numerical force,
and more so by their onion, and the clearly defined objects
for which they enter parliament to contend." A few weeks
ago a minority known to be 320 strong, was a mere faction in
the eyes of the Globe ; and if ministers could count noses
against their opponents, even with the help of the Speaker's,
it would have been trumpeted as a tory defeat, upon the
" happy-come-lucky" principle, that " a miss is as good as
a mile.', But the new opposition will be strong, forsooth, in
their " union," and "in their well-defined objects." We
doubt it. There are seeds of disorganization in them as a
party, which, unless you can pitch nature out of the human
bosom with a pitchfork, cannot be smothered—and, if smo-
thered to-day, it will only be to spring up more rank to-
morrow. Naturam expellas furcd, tamen usque recurret.
The party is split into two sections. The whig (aristocrat)
section have " well-defined objects"—place, power, patron-
age, and being about the court. To the radical (plebian or
democratic) section these objects are just as well defined as the
spots in the sin to the naked eye. The radical section is jea-
lous of the whig, and the whig section despises the radical;
and, to make matters worse, each party is aware of the other's
unamiable feeling. The radical section know, as well as a
beggar knows the back door, that if they helped the whigs
again into the royal palace, the whigs would not have the gra-
titude to introduce them as their very good friends ; and,
sensible that their services to the whigs will never be sub-
stantially recognized, they will at least teach the whigs the
value of them. by ever and anon withholding them. Strong
by union ! ' Where, to constitute an effective union, there
should be mutual regard, there is mutual dislike; where there
should be a cohesive principle, there is a repulsive one;
where there should be affinity, there is aversion ! A com-
mon necessity alone could bring such strange bedfellows into
company, only to disturb each other's repose ! Union to be
strong must be cordial ; and is there any cordiality between
the whig courtier and his radical ally ? It would be a nine
day's wonder if Lord John Russell and Mr. Wakley were
seen walking arm-in-arm down Parliament-street together.
But all this by the way. The game, as we said, is drawing
to a close; and that the Whigs have already irretrievably
lost it is evident, from their ill-humoured attempts to account
for their defeat—just as a bad player, after losing a game at
piquet, will give you twenty reasons why he ought to have
won it. "The elections," says the Globe, " are sufficiently
advanced towards their termination to warrant us in forming
an estimate sufficiently accurate for the purposes of an in-
quiry into the causes of the losses sustained by the Liberals ;"
and we are bound to admit that the Globe traces these losses
to one of the strangest conspiracies against the rights and
liberties of a free people which history records, or which even
the genius which made Rienzi, the tribune, to be knocked on
the head by his own adoring democracy, could conceive.
This monstrous conspiracy, it seems, germinated originally
from a most unnatural desire on the part of the Conserva-
tives to " regain an ascendancy in the House of Commons."
(The italics are the Globe's, not ours.) How the Conserva-
tive party came to harbour an idea so abhorrent to all good
Whigs, it would be a waste of time and space to discuss, be-
cause it is much more important to examine the instruments
and the influence by which their purpose has been effected.
First, the official authority tells us, " the clergyman, who is
probably a magistrate," conspired against the Whigs, and, of
course, without any reason, as the Whigs have showed as
much love to the church as the gentleman, who shall be
anonymous, is said to show to holy water ! Secondly, there
was the squire, who is, of course, a magistrate ;" and as
the Whigs, by their tampering with the corn laws, would
have only reduced his noble to ninepence this year, and next
year probably his ninepence to nothing, be must be set down
as equally perverse and ungrateful ! Thirdly, there was the
" attorney," and fourthly the " apothecary," swayed, it
appears, by the consideration • that the Conservatives
never refused to pay fees when they were- due, or to
take physic when it was necessary. Fifthly, there was
" the old dowager, who supports so many charities," but
whose charities are smothered by the sin that she has
not charity enough to support the poor-grinding Whigs !
Sixthly, there was the " parish clerk' —it is a pity the Globe
did not say " and sexton too"—who is made a much more
important personage, as a '` well-instructed agent," than
-
ever Lord Brougham conceived him to be, and who certainly
ought to be henceforth a Whig world-without end for the
compliment. And, seventhly, there are the "farmers," and
lastly, the " shopkeepers," all ",effective in their vocations
as active promoters of Toryism; Why, Providence protect
us ! Here is a combination with a vengeance—clergy, gen-
try, tradesmen, farmers, every class of the community, even
including charitable ladies and sententious parish clerks, all
banned together to have nothing to do with the Whig boons !
Was there ever, we repeat, such a monstrous conspiracy
against the people—a conspiracy of the whole body of the
people against themselves? We advise Lord John before he
quits office to move for one more commission, a commission
de lunatico inquirendo on the people for rejecting the Whigs.
Lord Morpeth may be chairman, and sueh disengaged gen-
tlemen as Mr. Joseph Hume, Sir Edward Bulwer, &c.,
would most appropriately fill up the quorum.

THE SCOTTISH ELECTIONS.—Of the Scottish elections
that remain, we may state briefly that in Elginshire Major
Bruce is certain of beating General Duff; the result, how-
ever, is not yet known in Edinburgh, as yesterday was the
last day of polling. We hear that Lord Reidhaven is likely
to recover Banffshire to the conservatives ; the polling takes
place to-day and to-morrow. On the other hand we have
P urchase b y Wigtonshire, in
consequence of a recent larg of
the liberal Lord
heard doubts expressed as toethe safety
Stair, of certain properties commanding a considerable num-
ber of votes, which will be thrown into the whig scale :
the polling terminates to-day. The whig candidate for Ork-
ney will be returned without opposition. On the whole,
then, the elections yet to take place in Scotland, cannot
materially affect the general result. With regard to the yet
undecided Irish elections, we think they are likely to prove
favourable to the conservatives as against them.—Scottish
Guardian.

CIIATIIAM.—A petition will be presented to the House of
Commons against the return of the honourable G. S. Byng,
complaining of the gross bribery which took place at and
during the late election.