The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-07-26 00:00:00

that even he could wish to see a return to the old system.
The new system, so far from deserving repudiation as a rigid
cast-iron mode of administering relief, was, on the contrary,
a plastic system, which adapted itself to the varying circmn-
stances of the various localities in which it was carried into
operation. _ _

Mr. O'CONNELL said that its unpopularity was
.to be
attributed to the cast-iron rigidity of the central controlling
power. He would in the next session of Parliament move
for a committee to examine into its working in Ireland.
Captain BERKELEY insisted that the bill had worked well,
which was denied by Colonel SIBTHORP.

After some discussion the house divided, and the third
reading was carried by a majority of 103 to 30.
Sir T. ACLAND moved a clause by way of rider, i❑ order
to enable guardians to appoint local committees for receiv-
ing applications from poor persons in parishes at a certain
distance from the place of meeting of the board of guardians.

Sir 3. GRAHAM acceded to the proposition, and the clause
was added accordingly.

On the motion that " the bill do now pass,"
Mr. FIELDEN moved as an amendment that it be printed
with a view to its re-committal. The amendment, however,
was negatived on a division, by a majority of 83 to 5, after
which the bill passed.

On the motion for the house resolving itself into a com-
mittee of supply,
Mr. M. Ginsos moved as an admendment that the house
should resolve its-elf into a committee of the whole house, to
take into consideration the distressed state of the country.
The hon. member, in support of his amendment, went over
many of the arguments used in the debate of the previous
evening. lie thought it was a sufficient vindication of his
motion that a msjority of the house had already declared its
belief that great distress prevailed throughout the country,
and he also thought that the house could not employ itself
better than in seeking into the cause of that distress.
Dr. BOWRING seconded the motion.

Capt. BERKELEY thought it would be better to throw the
responsibility of upholding the corn laws upon the govern-
ment, than, by a fruitless repetition of motions for their
alteration, to impede the progress of public business.
Sir J. EASTHOPE spoke of the distress prevailing in the
borough which he represented ; nearly one-third of the
frames being out of work, the value of houses deteriorated
from 30 to 35 per cent. and of machinery 40 per cent., while
the poor-rates had nearly doubled as compared with the year
1810. He did not think that emigration would afford ade-
quate relief to the distress, but still he was of opinion that
government had not availed itself of it to the extent they
might have done.

Mr. HUME gave every credit to the government for pass-
ing the tariff, but while they were testing its efficacy the
people were starving. Even if corn were admitted free of
duty the people had not the means of buying, and the lauded
interest should beware lest, after upholding the preseut mo-
nopoly for their own sakes, they should find themselves ulti-
mately overwhelmed by pauperism.
Mr. FIELDEN, in supporting the amendment of Mr. Gib-
son, said the distress was so great that private exertions to
relieve it were utterly unavailable, and government should
therefore lend its assistance. _ _

....
Sir C. Bun RELL supported the original motion, and
Mr. VILLIERS, at considerable length, supported the
amendment. . .

Mr. MUNTZ said that trade was never so bad or so unpro-
fitable in Birmingham, or presented such s►nall prospects of
improvement, as at the present moment. It was necessary
that the cause of the distress should be sought for and dis-
covered ; and if sought for, he had no doubt that it would,
without much difficulty, be discovered.

Mr. M. PHILIPS supported the motion, and said that
62,900 of his constituents had called upon him to lay before
the house the misery by which they were surrounded.

Mr. COBDEN moved the adjournment of the debate, which,
on a division, was defeated by a majority of HS to 33.
Mr. HINDLE Y then moved the adjournment of the debate.
Sir R. PEEL strongly opposed the adjournment, and com-
plained that he had been very unfairly treated in the way in
which these discussions were carried on. It was painful to
him to see the time of the house wasted, night after night,
by a repetition of precisely the same sentiments ; and he had
so recently stated the views of the government that he really
had nothing to say beyond repeating what he had said on the
previous evening. He was, therefore, treating the house
with no disrespect by remaining silent. He could not help
saying, however, that the continued opposition to the will of
the majority in that house was calculated to prove destruc-
tive to anything like a deliberative assembly.
Mr. COBDEN said that the majority in that house were re-
garded by the country with disgust, and contended that Mr.
Hindley was justified in moving the adjournment.

Mr. HAWES thought that a continuous attempt to resist
the opinions of the majority was calculated to prove fatal to
the constitution of the house as a deliberative assembly. He
still thought that some minister of the crown should have
spoken to a motion of such importance, brought forward by
the representative of the most important town in the king-
dom.

Mr. FIELDEN said the people. were starving, and, if he
could, he would not give the government a shilling—no, not
a single shilling—until it did something for them.
After considerable discussion, Mr. H INDLEY withdrew
his motion for the adjournment ; and
Mr. COBDEN, at one o'clock in the morning, addressed
the house in support of the amendment.
The house then divided, and the motion was negatived by
a majority of 156 to 64.

THE MINISTRY AND THE CONSERVATIVE

PRESS

(From the Morning Post.)

Some remarks which we find in the Globe of Friday night
on the tone of the conservative press towards the present ad-
ministration, affords us a fair opportunity to say a word or
two upon the advantages and disadvantages which appertain
respectively to a strong government and weak one.
Our whip-radical contemporary flatters himself, or would
wil!ingly, at least, flatter his readers, wit h the hope of the
restoration to power of his party, on the ground that some
portion of the conservative press expresses without reserve
opinions hostile to certain parts of the policy of the present
administration.

The fact is truly stated, but the inference deduced from
it is one which none but a weak, defeated, and desponding
party could possibly have drawn.
The animadversions of the conservative press upon some
of the measures of conservative government indicate the
earnestness, the zeal, the independence, and the integrity of
its readers, in the performance of what they deem their duty
to the interests and the rights of the community ; but indi-
cate still more clearly their conviction that there is no dan-
ger whatever of so great a national calamity as the resump-
tion of power by any such administration as that of Lord
Melbourne. _

It is one of the advantages of a strong government like
that of Sir R. Peel, as contrasted with a weak government
like that of Lord Melbourne, an advantage to which no ge-
nuine English tory can be indifferent, that the former re-
vives the monarchial principle, and gives to the executive, as
such, a considerable share in determining the course of na-
tional affairs and events. Sir R. Peel is not, as Lord Mel-
bourne was, a nominal Prime Minister of a nominal Crown.
This is a great change. We think it a change for the better ;
and while we dissent from some of the measures of Sir R.
Peel, and listen with regret to some of the expressions of his
individual opinion, we rejoice in this change, and do not he-
sitate to say that the man who does not rejoice in it, although
he may be, perhaps, an honest man—although he may be,
perhaps, a sensible man—cannot be an honest and loyal
English tory, hut must be in his heart a republican.
Another of the advantages of a strong government like
that of Sir Robert Peel, as contrasted with a weak govern-
ment like that of Lord Melbourne, is that in the former
case the power of the party in possession of the government
is really wielded by the superior men—by the head, and not
as in the latter case by the inferior men, by the tail of the
party. Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen, Lard Stanley, and
Sir J. Graham, have no O'Connells, Hawkeses, Warbur-
tons, Duncombes, or Wakleys's at their back, to whose opi-
nions they are obliged to defer. They can consult, and
together with their colleagues in the cabinet, determine to
propose to Parliament and can dare to press upon its adop-
tion such measures as they think likely to conduce to the
welfare of the country.

A third advantage of a strong government like that of Sir
R. Peel, as contrasted with a weak government like that of
Lord Melbourne, that it affords freer play to the action of
individual mind, and to the interchange of independent opi-
nion. Thus, the conduct of important sections of the con-
servative press, at this moment, from which the whig-radical
journals, after the weakness of the administration, may more
properly be regarded as a proof of its strength. The posi-
tion of the government is such, that its members can look
down from their elevation—from their place of power and
responsibility, upon the conflicting currents and varying
eddies of opinion beneath, not despising or disregarding
them, nor be yielding to their indications an instant and
implicit deference; whle the organs of public opinion can
animadvert with friendly freedom upon the conduct of the
administration, and speak plainly out what may be deemed
the errors and vices of its course, unrestrained by the appre-
hension that they will thereby give back
.the powers of the
monarchy into hands already shown to be incapable of wield-
ing them. Upon the various important points of national.
policy, in respect of which it is our misfortune and that of
some of our conservative contemporaries to differ from the
present government, our opinions would unquestionably be
• the same that they are were the present government in the
deplorable position in which that of Lord Melbourne con-
sented to drag on, session after session, a powerless and de-
based existence, forcing dead or dying men into the House
of Commons in order to secure themselves the measuring-
cast majority indispensabie to the prolongation of their
ministerial being; yet it is, at least, probable that we and
our conservative contemporaries would in such circumstances
urge the points on which we differ from Sir R. Peel's admi-
nistration with a degree of restraint and timidity from which
it is now our privilege and our felicity to be entirely free.
It cannot be denied, on the other hand, that a very strong
government, like that of Sir R. Peel, is attended with some
disadvantages. The consciousness of strength is apt to en-
gender in the minds of the leading members of a powerful
administration an overweening self-will, preserving some-
thing of the appearance of tyrannical dictation; while those
of its friends who think it their duty to remonstrate and to
reason against any part of its policy, perceiving how well
established are the bases of its power, may occasionally be
led to impart to their animadversions a vivacity presenting
something of the appearance of unmeasured hostility.