The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-02-15 00:00:00

THE REFORMED HOUSE.

Time was when certain feelings of courtesy and good
breeding overcame even the violence of party warfare in
the House of Commons. Time was when the decencies
of social life were preserved, and the conventional dis-
tinctions which public worth and talent obtain were al-
lowed by coLunon consent among public men to the lead-
ers of both political parties. It was reserved for Lord
John Russell's Parliament to outrage and insult thoSe
feelings, to violate those decencies' to disregard those
distinctions, and to reverse all those forms which even in
Political Unions give precedence and place to the Humes
and O'Connells who frequent them.
Mr. Cobbett, whose assumption of Lord Althorp's seat
afforded so much amusement on the first night of the
session, is said to have declared that he left it, not out of
deference to his lordship, but because his friends would
not follow his ultra movement, and he found it inconve-
nient to sit alone among the ministers. To Sir R. Peel's
accustomed position in the house no such objection ex-
isted, and there accordingly are the radical crew gathered
together—Cobbett and O'Connell, and the Brighton ra-
dicals whose election in defiance of the King's influence
does such honour to the King's ministers. There, too,
sits Whittle Harvey, pure, immaculate, disinterested pa-
triot, and scores more whose names are as yet unknown
even to Lord Althorp, but whose votes he will ere long
live to deprecate. re these, and such as these now ap-
pertain the seats which a Fox, and Sheridan, and
Brougham at one time graced, and from which with brutal
violence they exclude the only living statesmen who,
with comprehensive views, matured experience, and
ready debating powers, combine: that solidity of charact&
and universal respect which Pitt has bequeathed to Sir
Robert Peel, and which the tories, as a body, though out
of office, still possess, but which in office, the whigs can-
not obtain ; why, Mr. Cobbett can best tell them.—
Morning Post.

THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY.

We have left ourselves but little space to speak of the
part which the conservatives have played between the
ministry and the opposition. It has been worthy of
them. There has been no petty ovation over the dis-
appointment of the whigs, no mean co-operation with
with the factious machinations of the radicals. There has
been no seeking for popular applause, no craving after
political power. Seldom has a speech been delivered
which produced a greater effect than that delivered by
Mr. Shaw. The clearness with which he detailed facts,
and the unaffectedly impressive appeal which he founded
upon them, entitle him to the hearty gratitude of every
Protestant in Ireland. Sir R. Peel is said to think little
of the praise of journalists ; but we must not .on that ac-
count withhold from him ours. There was in his speech
genius of the highest order, art of the most cultivated re-
finement ; but there was more. There was what genius
sometimes wants, what art can never acquire—genuine
nobility of mind.—Morning Post.

The debate of the four days, and its result, present a
triumphant answer to the slander of the ministerial press
both before and during the election.
Our readers cannot be unmindful of the incessant cry
of the Times and its accomplices in calumny, that the
conservatives were making a league with the destruct-
tives, in order to trip up the heels of the ministry—an
audacious falsehood, which its promulgators did not dis-
continue, even after the detection of Mr. Charles Wood's
letter to Lord Clanricarde, implorinq him in Lord Grey's
name, . and confessedly by Lord Urey's authority, to
" support any one rather than a conservative :" the only
possible " any one" in the case being a " radical, a de-
structive, and a repealer"—a member of that faction
whose conduct has made it necessary to place Ireland out
of the pale of the general law. _ _ _

Nor yet was the odious lie departed from after Lord
Anglesey (now returned upon Ireland) had dismissed
Captain Hart from the public service, with as much dis-
grace as the act of an oppressor can ever inflict, because
that officer had voted against a radical or repealer—a de-
structive, and a member of that faction which is tottering
on the very verge of treason, if the members of adminis-
tration have presented a true picture of the state of Ire-
land, as none deny that they have done. And how have
the conservatives answered this charge ? Look to the
acknowledgments of the ministerial papers—look to the
division. The speeches of Sir R. Peel and Mr. Shaw were
incomparably the best delivered on the side of the
ministers, as such they are acknowledged by the ministe-
rial writers; and in the minority, that ministers contri-
buted so much to swell by their conduct at the Irish and
at some of the English elections—in that minority the
name of a single conservative member is not to be found.
We hope that the country generally will draw the just
conclusion from a circumstance so remarkable and so
ho-
nourable to the most numerous and respectable party in
the nation. We hope that the conduct of men, maligned
and persecuted up to the last hour as factious and selfish,
who, when the trial came, forgot party and personal.
wrongs, in pursuit of public good, will be justly appreci-
ated by an honest and honour-loving people, like the peo-
lle of Englandi we hope, too, that the lesson will not be
ost upon the ministers themselves; we trust that they
must now see that the conservatives are not, as recollec-
tions of their own feelings out of place has led them to
suppose, so ravenously greedy of office as to postpone to

its acquisition every consideration of the public good.
They have now learned that they have only to govern
well, to ensure, not merely the support of conservative
votes, but the aid of conservative talents, to which the
best of their own party can make no approach.—Standard.

PARLIAMENTARY HOURS OF BUSINESS.

The plan of getting the public business of the House
of Commons performed in the day time, instead of in the
evening and during the night, as heretofore, however
desirable, and even feasible, it may at first appear, will
be found, we apprehend, incapable of being brought into
practice. There are three obstacles to prevent its adop-
tion, any one of which will be found too important to be
overcome.

1. If ministers were required to attend in Parliament
during the morning the business of their respective de-
partments must be wholly neglected.
2. Commercial and professional men must be either
absent or neglect their other callings altogether.
3. Much of the business of Parliament is conducted by
committees, which necessarily sit during the forenoon;
and the members of which (amounting sometimes to some
hundreds in a day) must either be absent from the house
or neglect the frequently not less important business of
1 the committees.

In the House•of Lards, the objection to any such alter-
ation is still more insurmountable. That house sits in
its judicial capacity during the forenoon: and, of course,
could not sit as a House of Parliament at the time pro-
posed without closing its doors against the numerous ap•.
pellants who are anxiously awaiting its judgment; and
as it is desirable on many accounts (indeed it is almost
indispensable) that the two houses should sit simulta-
neously, this reason is an additional objection to the pro-
posed alteration in the business of the Commons.
There are, we are fully aware, many reasons in favour
of the proposed alteration, were it practicable ; and we
can readily understand the inconvenience which is felt by
the Irish members especially, who, coming from a dis-
tance, and having no occupation during the day, find it
repugnant to their feelings, after idling away the natural
hours of business, to be compelled to pursue their labours
during the hours of rest. The question resolves itself
into a mere balance of inconveniences. The same prac-
tice was pursued in the Irish Parliament as is now com-
plained of here; and probably were Mr. O'Connell and
Mr. Shiel as near the Four Courts as they are to West-
minster-hall, they might see the matter through a diffe-
rent medium, and themselves oppose the very alteration
which they now advocate. Morning Herald.