The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-02-12 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDAILD.

THE MINISTRY.

The members of the Cabinet are, with but few excep-
tions, individuals whose abilities we despise, whose
nesty we dispute, who never trusted each other, whom
the people have ceased to trust ; to whom events have
given an importance which their own incapacity:is rapidly
taking away.' But we find every *here a fearful and
sorrowful conviction that the salvation of England from
the perils into which these men have guided her depends
upon the future course which these men are about to
pursue.
Not only in our amended representation is amendment
proposed, but in every institution which belongs to church
or state changes more or less violent are daily agitated.
The fiercer philosopher would. tear the gown from the
paster's shoulders—the feebler would only pluck the mitre
from the bishop's head; the sturdier rebel would trample
oil liiS sovereign's diadem—the more moderate would con-
tent himself with the appropriation of two or three of
the-gems with which it is adOrned. Amidst this conflict
of vague and dissonant opinions one thing is certain. As
the hold which prescription had over the minds of men
becomes more and more relaxed the voice of the avowed
revolutionist becomes louder, and the declared robber
withdraws the mask from his face. " Who," said an ad-
vocate of the Reform Bill in March, 1831, " who wants
to turn the nobility out of the. House of Lords ? Here
and there a crazy radical whom the, boys point at as he
walks, along." Two years have passed since this ex-
pression, was received'. with enthusiastic applause by the
regenerators of the. constitution; and the benches from
which that approbation :was expressed have
since echOed with Yet louder exultation when Lord Eb-
rington moved the• famous resolutions which, if they have
not for ever annihilated, have, at least for a time, sus-
pended the independent authority of the House of Lords.
We question whether Mr: Macauley would, now speak
thus slightingly of the desperate and dangerous men by
whom the utility of our hereditary peerage, is doubted or
denied.

The unsettled state of public opinion which we have
thus hastily sketched invests the intentions of the Cabi-
net, as. we before said, with a fearful interest. If they
shall determine to make a stand on the ground which they
have selected for themselves; if they shall redeem the
pledges which, they made two years ago to their less re -
solved friends, if, in a word, they shall become conserva-
tive, not of the constitution as they found it, but of the
constitution as they have made it, there is a hope, afaint,
perhaps; and a feeble hope, but still a hope, that the more

insane and terrible excesses of revolutionary outrage may
be spared us ; that the Warburtons and Woods may re-
turn to their insignificance ; and that the Steeles and
O'Connells may be once more harmless. But if the
King's Government shall place itself in this crisis at the
head of the party of the movement, we see no mortal arm
by which the ruin which impends over this unfortunate
country may be for twelve months averted. " Jack Cade,
the clothier, means to dress the commonwealth, and turn
it, and set a new nap upon it."
There are some members of the administration holding
in it a more or less distinguished station, of whom we an-
ticipate, whatever may be their present professions, that
they will move onwards with the agitators and the unions.
We anticipate this of Mr. Poulett Thomson, because we
understand his tacts ; of Lord John Russell, because we
appreciate his consistency ; of Lord Althorp, because he
has always been a radical ; of Mr. Charles Grant, be-
cause he was once a tory. There are others, and there is
one above all, to whose conduct we look with a more
comfortable faith; of such we shall speak to-morrow—
Morning Post.