The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-05-19 00:00:00

MR. D'ISRAELI AND SIR ROBERT PEEL

The hon. member for Shrewsbury is undoubtedly the
evil genius of Sir Robert Peel, and the one member of the
house who appears to possess the power to disturb big
complacency. In the concluding debate on Friday night
upon the Corn Bill, Mr. D'lsraeli inflicted the following
severe castigation upon the premier, which called forth
from him very unusual symptoms of irritation :
" And now I must say a word in vindication of the right
hon. baronet. (Laughter.) I think that great injustice
has been done to him thrcughout the debate; that a jus-
tifiable misconception has universally prevaile respecting
the right hon. gentleman. He has been accused of a long
meditated deception, of a desire worthy of a great states-
man—even of an unprincipled one—to give up all the opi-
nions by which he rose to power. I acquit the right hon.
gentleman of any such intention, and I do for this reason,
that when I examine the career of the minister who now
fills a great space in the parliamentary history of this
country, I see that between 30 and 40 years, from the days
of Horner down to the days of the hon. member for Stock-
port, the right hon. gentleman has traded on the ideas and
intellects of others. (Cheers.) His life has been a great
appropriation clause.. (Renewed cheers and laughter.)
He has been the burglar of others' intellects. Open the
index of Beatson, and from the days of the Conqueror
down to the termination of the last reign you will find no
statesman who has committed petty larceny on so great a
scale. (Cheers.) I believe, therefore, that when the
right hon. gentlemen undertook our cause on either side
of the house he was perfectly sincere in his advocacy. But
as in the course of the discussion the conventionalities he
had imbibed crumbled away from his grasp, feeling no
creative power to sustain him with new arguments—feel-
ing no spontaneous sentiment to force upon him convic-
tion ; the right hon. eentleman was reduced at last to de-
fending the noblest cause, based on the highest princi-
ples, the right hon. gentleman, faithful to the law of his
nature, embraced the new doctrines, the more vigorous,
life-like, popular doctrines of free-trade, just as he had
I embraced the doctrines of Horner; just as he had em-
braced the doctrine of every leading man in this country

for the last 30 or 40 years, with the excePtion of the doc-
trine of Parliamentary reform, which the Whigs wisely
kept as their own4and did not allow it to grow to sufficient
maturity to fall into the mouth of the right hon. gentle-
man. (Loud cheers.)

THE PREMIER'S ANNOUNCEMENT AND ITS EFFECT

I remember when the whig budget was rejected, and

the right hon. gentleman installed into office, the changes
which he proposed at the time created some suspicion ;
but all suspicion was hushed at the moment because the
right hon. gentleman was looked upon as the man who
could make the best bargain for the party. I want to
know what gently men think of their best bargain now.
(Laughter and cheers.) At last, sir, it was announced
that the first minister meditated another change. And
how was that announcement made ? Were hon. gentle-
men called together, or had the influential members of the
house any intimation given to them of the nature of it
=SO No, sir. It was announced through the color

(Hear -
of a journal—(cries of " hear")—which is always careful
never to insert important information except on the high-
est authority. (Renewed cries of "hear.") And see the
effect which the announcement had on foreign ministers

and on foreign courts. I can bear witness to it. I know
one great potentate who sent for the English ambassador
and demanded an explanation of the announcement; and
I know an English ambassador who called on a great po-
tentate and assured him that there was not the slightest
truth in the announcement. (Hear, and laughter.) And
all this time members of the government—l have some of
them in my eye—were calling on other newspapers devo-
ted to the government, and instructing them to declare
that the announcement was an infamous fabrication. And
how ingenious was the conduct of the ministers—or of
that minister who formed the omnipotent minerity of the
cabinet. (Loud and ironical cheers.) After so much
agitation, after so much maroeuvring, and after the cabi-
net had been reformed, was it not somewhat strange that
the right honourable baronet should have talked and acted
as if we had deserted him. and not as if he had deserted
us? (Great cheering.) Who can forget those tones? Who
can forget that an indignant glance?

" Vectabor humeris tunc ego inimicis eques;

Meacque ter: a cedet insolentim ;"
which means to say, " T, a protectionist minister, mean
to govern England with the aid of the Anti-Corn-Law
League. (Cheers.) And, as for the country gentlemen,
why, I snap my fingers at them." (Continued cheers.)
Yet it appeared to me that even then the right hon. gen-
tleman had no cause to complain of bis party. It is very