The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-06-30 00:00:00

cessnrs

The same journal, in an article giving its judg-
ment on Sir Robert Peel, whom it enthusiastically
admires, reiterates our sentiments of last week almost
totidem verbis In the course of the remarks, our
contemporary says, " sober men must allow that a
statesman ought not to be a quicksand to all who
trust him."

Does Sir Robert Peel know now the destiny
whicn he has prepared for his country? There can
he no doubt that he does. His policy has been
most astutely directed to bring it about. From the
commencement of bis career as a statesman his
object has been to erect an aristocracy of capital
upon the wreck of the old aristocracy of rank and
lan ed possessions. He has felt his position
amongst the men into contact with whom he has
been thrown ; it has galled his spirit to the quick,
and he has turned the influence of his talents and
his habits of profound dissimulation to the task of
winning a triumph for his order over those whose
conventional superiority lie has never ceased to feel.
The protestantism which he found so deeply em-
bedded in the constitution stood in his path ; and
he has quietly and assiduously] disrobed it of its
supremacy. The church was an aristocratic insti-
tution ; and he has winked at its partial prostration.
His measure of 1842 was a step to throw the coun-
try into more complete dependance upon the acci•
dents of commercial and manufacturing prosperity.
The Corn and Customs Act of the present session
is its natural sequence. The New Poor Law placed
a bar between the toiling masses and the agricul-
tural body—their natural prOtectors ; and he made
himself its apostle and defender. He has opposed
factory legislation, and done his utmost to perpe-
tuate a fertile source of heart-burning► and discord
between masters and workpeople, which may at some
future period he used to control the ambition of his
new alien. But in the whole of his devious course his
master stroke has been his treatment of Ireland. He
told us in 1835 that Ireland was his chief difficulty.
It is his trump card—his escape from the dilemmas
which he rushes upon with his eyes open. No one
can know better than Sir Robert Peel the real seat
of the evil which afflicts that•unhappy land; no one
more sedulously avoids grappling with the difficulty.
which it presents; no one so industriously sets him-
self to foment that difficulty ; and up to the last
moment of his official life he has been erecting in
that land the materials of future difficulty—estrang-
ing all that is loyal, all that is contributory to Ire-
land's happiness and quiet, and to England's great-
ness.

Sir Robert Peel must know that his policy is let-
ting in upon this country, through the door which
Ireland offers to his machinations, a flood of Popery
an disaffection, which will ultimately, when it,gets
more outrageously insolent, excite a storm OrPotiii:
lar indignation, and stir the empire to its centre.
Happily we have here a safety valve left us. The
mind of the English people is. determinedly opposed
to the pretensions of this heretical sect. Enunciated

at once, the past measures of Sir Robert Peel would
not have been tolerated an hour; but, gradually in:
troduced, they have been endured, as we bear a
hurthen which is imposed upon us ounce by ounce,
until at length we bend beneath the weight, aid
turn round upon the hand which has laid it on.
The nation did this in 1829. It rose in its might
and strij t of power, for a time, this insidious prac-
ticer upon the constitution.

It has just done so once more. The House of
Commons has revenged itself upon the Minister for
a second breach of faith ; and we have to ask the
question, will the people of England once more for-
give—once more permit itself to be deceived by
professions of remorse for the past—once more
permit Sir Robert Peel to build a new party, anti
seat himself at the head of their affairs ? Most
sincerely we believe the attempt to do this will be
made. The right hon. baronet knows that the ad-
ministrative talents of his political opponents are
not sufficient for unravelling the tangled web,
which he has woven for his country; and. alas !
the sounder portion of the Conservative statesmen,
in both Houses, are unpractised and unequal to the
task.

It is not straightforward principles of policy
which are applicable to a nation situated as Great
Britain is at this moment. A master of finance is,
with such a state of society as ours, a greater man
than the most profound judge of the means of pro-
moting a people's happiness. We are in the posi-

tion now, as o

whose all is embarked upon the casualties of a stea

gagements exceed his capital and Whom a single
false step may precipitate into insolvency. We have
thrown from us the noblest destiny which was ever
conferred upon a people. We have thrown from us
the proud privilege involved in our position as the
great instrument of spreading the truth—of being
the recognised pioneers of civilization and revela-
tion ; and become, at length, that reproach of one,
who showed too great a perception of our charac-
ter; " a nation of hopkee p er s"—a nation of huck-

In the meantime Sir Ro

from the arena of his past triumphs, and fold him-

self in stately reserve until he supposes that, his time
has come again. As in 1829, he has thrown upon
other heads the responsibility of passing measures

'erge of ac-

complishment. He leaves to others to complete
the sacrifice of the Irish establishment, or to stum-
ble in the attempt. He leaves to others to deal with
the overwhelming source of national and individual
eniharrassmen ts, which must result from .the mass
of injudicious Railway legislation which he, has en-

worse. thit this, he leaves them to
conduct the nation safely through those vast changes
of its nolicy—that new modelling of the social fabric

Courage(

—which he has just consummated by his withdraw-
al Of protection from our Home industry. The
envy is a grateful one for his successors to

ern erg

contemplate,

We have briefly glanced in a preceding article at
the position of the country in the present cri,is of
its afiltirs; but there are other circumstances affecting
us which appear worthy of a separate consideration.
To the superficial observer it may appear that all is
halcyon cidm around us. Our relations with foreign
of security and amity. We
'once against aagression from

e tnateric

without in Ure~t abundance and efficiency. But it
cannot escape us that the accident of an hour may
chance all this chew of quiet, and precipi,ate Europe
and the world once wore Into a struogle of tearful

and calamitous intenseness. For years past, by'a
sort of general consent, we have been preparing for
the emergency. We have been arming our coasts,
adding fleet to fleet and regiment to regiment.
e said to have lain down in
ent of

that they'rnight be, or, that be might be, a "d ys- ' our mail, ready to start up a
man," or "daysmen, ' to whisper in the ears of an event which cannot be far distant, and upon
Irish Protest nts, •in a trumpet-bla,t, " Stand out, which hangs perhaps the destinies of the next half
and you will fluid all right yonder; stand out, three century. Never, certainly, in the history of the
millions of you, and you will make all right yonder world, did such important interest attach to the life
You are placed in the front of
.the battle, and you of one frail old man.
must take your legitiMate poshion in marshalling We refer, of course, to that of Louis Philippe.
it ; but if you do, all will stand with you t' hi, are In. the nature of things it cannot be long before he
worth having." Are there none, we ask atain, who is called to his rest. Do we see, however, around
would have some influence with "an Irish bri.' the throne of his infant successor. the materials of
gale," which they might cause to serve a rational secinity for France or for Europe? Is the heart or
fame, in
.the noblest rank of patriots, such as no the head of that people less giddy than in the
•• Irish brigade" has yet achieved ? This is, in wildest days of their republican frenzy ? We fear
fine, the sum of the matter. Awakened 1 ish not. - The volcano may smoulder, hut the fire is
Protestantian would awaken English ‘Protes. ' still there, a• d hands are not wanting to stir it into