The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-02-17 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, FEB. 17, 1846

We are far from entertaining the absurd notion
that a statesman is not to be allowed to change his
opinions without being taunted with unworthy mo-
tives. The legislator, as well as the man, has his
childhood, his youth, and his mature age; and he
who can pass through these stages without having

his perceptions enlarged and corrected, is little bet-
ter than an idiot. Experience is, indeed, lost upon
the man who, with the realities of life before his

eyes, which prove his early opinions to have been
based upon a foundation of sand, adheres doggedly
to their advocacy, and even prides himself upon his
mingled obstinacy and stupidity. In the man, there-
fore, we can pardon a change from the opinions of
the ?Jour

It is a change which not only added
xperience but altered temperament warrants.
We cannot, however, carry our tolerance upon
his point so far as to excuse the glaring apostacy
which we witness amongst statesmen in the present

day; and of whit

uch startling instances have
n exhibited in the proceedings of the House of
Commons during the past week. It is seldom that
real convictions come so suddenly upon men as to
allow of their boxing the compass in so short a
period as has elapsed since the Conservative Minis-
try of Sir Robert Peel—now advocating and intro-
ducing ultra free trade measures—were advocates
of protection to native industry. The change is too
sudden, too violent, to avoid leaving behind its

avowal the suspicion that the abandoned opinion
has never been very firmly entertained. There is

too much of strategy about it—something too much
resembling the military manoeuvre of turning the
guns of a captured stronghold upon the flying and
defeated foe, whose hands erected it as their defence
against aggression, and who looked to reap from it

ion, not slaughter

we expect to see in the avowal of changed
semblance, at least, of modesty, and
It is not enough for a mi-

pinions t

1 for appear_ances

,ynom his fellow countrymen have placed
a certain degree of confidence, to state, in brusque
terms, th,,• -Q changed his opinions. Men
war.'

luster, in

to know the process of that change—when the
early faith began to waver, at what time it ceased

ind how it came at last to cling to the
point from which, through life, it had turned away
with loathing and horror. Something like this sort
nation we looked for, especially from such a
Sir James Graham. Starting, as he did, in
early life, from ultra-radicalism, and progressing
gradually through moderate whiggism to conserva-
tism, there was apparently afforded a guarantee that
conviction, on his part, was gradual. The wild

to operate

theories of youth were forsaken for more moderate
opinions in manhood, and conservative opinions in
mature years. Certainly from such a man we were
warranted in expecting something better than the
meagre and reasonless avowal of change, which is
contained in the following paragraph of his speech

on Tuesday night last

" I cannot at all blame my noble friend who has just
sat down for the reference he has made to my former
declarations on this subject. I admit that the past de-
claratious of opinion made by a member of this House,
who either leads, or aspires to lead a party, and declara-
tions made by a first Minister of the Crown, if at variance
with the:course he now adopts, are subjects not unworthy
of reference, and which call for explanation. The hon.
member for Northamptonshire made a direct appeal to
the Government, and challenges us if we had changed
our opinions, manfully to own it. I answer that challenge.
I do frankly avow my change of opinion, and by that
avowal I dispose of all the speeches." (Loud cheers
from the Opposition, with counter-cheers from the Protec-
tion benches, rendered inaudible the rest of the sentence.

When a man thus cavalierly " disposes of all)
speeches" and principles of past years, we are na-
turally disposed to ask, " when will he begin to be
sincere and consistent," and how do we know that
he is now sincere and not disposed to veer round
again at the first change of the political wind, or
whatever influence it is which directs his conduct ?"
His own language, in the cour,e of the same night's
debate, affords us a criterion from which to form
our own deductions. In June last, Sir James Gra-
ham reminds the house the following were his opi-
nions upon the subject of protection :
" On the occasion when the hon. member for Wolver-
hampton (Mr. Villiers) moved for going into committee
on the corn laws in June last, I said, ' It is decidedly my
opinion, that the prosperity of agriculture must always

depend on the prosperity of the other branches of the
native industry of this country, and that the public pros-
perity is on the whole best promoted by giving a fair and
uninterrupted current to the natural flow of national in-
dustry. I will go further, and say, that it is my opinion
that, by safe, gradual, and cautious measures, it is ex-
pedient to bring our laws, with reference to tie trade in
corn, into a nearer relation with the sound principles
which regulate our commercial policy with respect to
every other branch of industry."' s _

Clearly, Sir Jam-es Graham, whilst uttering this
speech, was paving the way for the vindication of
his present change of opinions. If such references
he all the use of the recori of opinions of public
men which the pages of Hansard furnish us
with, such records might be burnt with great ad-
vantage to the national morality. Statesmen could
then more conveniently " dispose of all their
speeches ;" and we should less ominously be re-
minded of the necessity of rendering the text,
" put not your trust in princes," into an equally
appropriate one, put no trust in statesmen.

The following paragraphs, which we find in •the
colums of a local contemporary, suggest matter for
the serious consideration of that pertion of the com-
munity which is not in name and profession alone,
but in reality, Conservative.
"Up to last Saturday, sufficient transfers of property in
Preston alone had been made to place one thousand addi-
tional free-trade votes on the register. As similar exer-
tions had been made in other places, there is little doubt
but there will be, after the next recision, a majority of
free-trade votes for this division of the county.—Preston
Chronicle.

South Cheshire is safe on the next registry, 726 new
free trade votes having been secured."

What steps, we ask, are being taken to neutralise
the effect of these most unconstitutional proceedings
—this wholesale manufacture of qualifications ? Not
any. We see around us in this great commercial
locality—why should we conceal the fact ?—men
whom the dream of some vast benefit to arise from
the free-trade policy of government has blinded
altogether to the operations by which that„policy has
been precipitated. The League they regard merely
as a free-trade "great fact." The organisation
which has broken up the old commercial policy of
the country—which rules supreme in a majority of
our boroughs, and is already stretching out its arms
to grasp our counties—can, they imagine, be carried
to no further end ; but, its ostensible and original
object being achieved, it is to die a natural death.
The Cobdens and Brights are to sink from dema-
gogues into mere calico-printers and cotton-spin-
ners. We are to have a political elysium—no agi-
tation—no difficulty save that of estimating the
hugeness of the tide of prosperity which is advancing
to our shores. _ _

Most strongly we would warn every lover of the
Constitution and the monarchy of the danger of
thus allowing themselves to be misled. They do
not, apparently, care to battle very strongly in be-
half of protection to native agriculture. They have
the excuse for their lethargy, that the class most