The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-01-04 00:00:00

TUE LIVERPOOL STANDARD, TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1853.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

i mier may not be questioned ? And

'et this is the

reason, publicly stated in his place in Parliament,
by which Lord ABERDEEN attempts to justify that
heterogeneous combination of political opposites
which is being palmed upon the country as a Ministry,
which shall cement all differences, and perform good
service to the Crown and the people —a NI inistry whose
measures are to be Conservative as well as Liberal,
because he considers both to be essentially neces-
sary ! He next proceeds to decry the alarm of the
Earl of DERBY on the encroachment of democratic
principles, for the reason—which is unique in its
simplicity—that he never recollected thecountry more
tranquil, more contented, and less abounding in
subjects of danger and alarm than at the present
moment. Upon this narrow ground he hinted at
some unexplained amendment in our represen-
tative system, of which his sudden conversion
to Liberalism had enabled him to see the necessity.
Well was it remarked by the Earl of DERBY in his
reply, that the new Premier had spoken with such
oracular ambiguity on this point, that his policy,
which was to be Conservative, Liberal, and Liberal
Conservative, might be made to mean anything,
from doing little or nothing to measures going as
far as the adoption of the Ballot. He, however, saw
great danger from entrusting too large a share of
political power to persons who have too little
acquired information, and too small a stake in the
country to qualify them properly to consider the
consequences of political measures. He had as
high an opinion of the loyalty of the people as his
opponent, but among the great body there were
many below those entitled to the franchise, who
from want of sufficient intelligence and foresight
were incapable of judging of the effects of political
measures. It is evident, from the statement of the
Earl of ABERDEEN, that the new Ministry has been
formed without any definite or intelligible policy.
It is impossible that the members of it can have any
principles in common, unless the Conservative por-
tion surrender their convictions to the Liberal por-
tion, who are the most numerous; and the betrayal
of weakness by their nominal leader, shows the
utter impossibility of his being able to guide the
intractable colleagues whom he has brought toge-
ther for the sole purpose of defeating the very party
with which he has all his life professed to have been
allied. He has consented in his old age to be
dragged through the mire of Radicalism, and we
can imagine the day not far distant, when the Peel-
ites who have joined him, in order to gratify their
personal spleen and wounded pride at the elevation
of Mr. DISRAELI, will stand aghast at the fright-
ful abyss from which they can only be saved by a
timely entreat.
The rest of the speech of the Earl of ABERDEEN
was made up of an attempted denial of the charge
of a combination to defeat the previous Government.
The charge was not true, he said, as far as he was
concerned, for he had endeavoured to keep them in
office ; and so little did he contemplate holding his
present position, that he had actually arranged to
spend the winter on 'the shores of the Mediterra-
nean. This may be true; but the Earl of DERBY,
in his reply, triumphantly refuted the denial of the
combination, as he proved by the statements made
by Sir JAMES GRAHAM in the House of Commons,
`that the whole plan of the attack by the Tree-trade
resolutions had been arranged by the leaders of the
several sections of the Opposition, in which
the Peelites took the more prominent part,
and which was only defeated by the refusal
of Lord PALMERSTON to join the conspiracy,
The latter could not, perhaps, forget his grudge
against Lord• JOHN RUSSELL ; and we have yet to
learn what influence has been used to induce him
to make one in the patchwork Cabinet. He may
have surrendered his prejudices in order to meet
the temporary difficulty ; but a belief in his per-
manent cohesion betokens an extent of credulity to
which we have not yet attained. As the House of
Lords was the only arena open to the new Ministry
before the-re-election of those in the lower house,
the Earl of ABERDEEN was expected to say some-
thing, and it may be that he endeavoured to acquit
himself of the task with the consciousness that the
least said is the soonest mended.

ELECTION 'PETITIONS.

THE wholesale manner in which petitions 'have
been presented, alleging bribery and corruption
against'Members returned to serve in :this present
Parliament, has very naturally-excited public atten-
tion to-the form of procedure under which such
charges are made. We can readily understand the
mortification which an unexpected defeat may ex-
cite after fallacious hopes have been freely indulged
in, but-we have yet to learn the justice or common
honesty of gratifying this feeling by making false
charges of the gravest character against a success-
ful rival. It may be urged that such charges,
couched as they are in technical phraseology, are
mere words of course, but that does not at all lessen
the baseness of making them, when their promoters
know full well that, so far as concerns the men
whose acts they impugn, there is not a shadow of
proof, or ,even probability. There was never, per-
haps, a contested election held wherein acts, which
a straining of the letter of the law might term
bribery or treating, were not committed through the
over-zeal of some indiscreet partisan ; but will the
most extreme stickler for purity of election for one
instant pretend that such acts, even if proved, afford
the slightest excuse or palliation.for gravely charg-
ing the successful candidate with having used such
-means to obtain his seat which a majority of the
electors were only too anxious to secure to hire
It is an insult to common sense to imagine that
there can be a defence for such a--course, and it re-
mains for the -Legislature to provide some snore
efficient protection than at present exists against
such a scandalous abuse of the privileges of electors.
As -the law or 'practice now stands, there is not:
even the remedy which is interposed against false
charges of much slighter import. -If in ordinary
affairs a man be :accused of any offence against
the laws, the information must be made on oath,
and if ,false, the accuser may be indicted for per-
jury; but a gentleman in the high position-of a legis-
lator, whose characterfor honour and integrity should
be, like that of Cxsaix's wife, above suspicion, may
be recklessly accused ()facts which, by common con-
sent, should stamp him with infamy; and the foul
slanderer, having allowed this charge to hang over
his victim's head, perhaps for months before-its false-
hood can be proved or the charge withdrawn, incurs
no other penalty than his own costs, which may be
provided for from a joint purse, unless in the rare
-instance of a committee pronouncing the charge to
he frivolous or vexatious, by which all the costs are
thrown upon the accuser. There is, however, ano-
ther and, if possible, more serious evil, which the
recent change of Ministers has brought more pro-
minently before public notice. If, in the petition
alleging bribery and corruption, the seat should also
be claimed for the unsuccessful candidate, no new
writ can be issued until it has been decided by an
Election Committee ; so that, in the case of accept-
ance of office, no re-election of the Minister can
take place until the decision on the petition has been
given. It is to the absence of such a claim for the
seat, in the petitions against their return, that Sir
JAMES GRAHAM, the ATTORNEY-GENERAL, and
others of the new Ministers have been enabled to
return to their constituents for re-election ; but such
an important proceeding should not have been at
the mercy of an unscrupulous petitioner, who, by
this means, might have prevented any member of
the House of Commons from accepting office. It '
is, however, as well perhaps that the danger has

been so imminent, and the enormity so flagrant.

AMERICA.