justing it; he wants some two or three millions to make up a deficiency caused by lending what he had not, and he wishes to lend a few millions more, and therefore intends to borrow, in the market.

The Whigs have added ten millions to the national debt, in three sessions. They are now to borrow that they may lend. Now this pitiful financial exposure, is only a sign of their deeper and fundamental errors of policy.

Sir Robert Peel, on leaving office, gave his successors advice which, if followed, would have issued in a very different result. He said more good would be done by improving the relations of the peasantry of Ireland, to the land of Ireland, than by all the money which England could send to the relief of the distress of the famishing people. Good bills for this purpose,Tenant Right Bills, Encumbered Estates Bills, and Landlord and Tenant Bills, would have done more than the eight millions for the present and permanent relief of Irish distress. But the government preferred sending what they had to get in debt for, and what they must make up by borrowing.

Borrowing, to lend on bad security, without profit ;-this is the financial policy of the Whigs. And they have lent and expended on the Irish peasantry in a way calculated to demoralize them, and only too successfully. But this is not enough for them. It is not enough that the peasantry have been taught to put their hands into the public purse, the priests are to be taught the same lesson, and Protestants are to be taxed to pay for the inculcation of Romish superstition. The Whig ministry when compelled to borrow, announce their determination to add an organised Jesuitry to the public burdens. When 'Down with the Jesuits,' is an inscription on all the walls of Rome,'Let us borrow to endow the Jesuits' is the maxim of Whig policy.

The financial policy of Russell contrasts disadvantageously with that of Peel. By imposing an income-tax of about five millions and a half, Sir Robert Peel was able to remit indirect taxation to the extent of seven millions and a half. He relieved trade, by removing import duties on raw materials, and he tried to shift the burdens of taxation from the poor to the rich, and from industry to property. Sir Charles Wood, as the instrument of Lord John Russell, has added ten millions to the national debt, in two years. On the plea of saving the Irish peasantry from starvation, he has given the Irish landlords the handling of eight millions, and he ends the session proposing, in his fourth financial statement, to borrow two millions on exchequer bills, in order to lend three millions and a half to the English, Scotch, and Irish proprietors, to drain their estates

and obtain a profit of eight per cent. on the outlay of the loan. There was a surplus when the Whigs took office, and now there is a deficiency, a debt, and a borrowing to lend!

The financial condition of this country is such, we submit, as to require the most earnest attention. In the most prosperous years of the Peel ministry, as in the days of the Whigs, there was a defalcation of two millions in the ordinary revenue. With the income-tax, there is again a defalcation of two millions. There is something in this fact worthy of strict scrutiny. These defalcations must either proceed from a failure in the resources of the country, or from weak finance ministers, who cannot keep the expenditure within due bounds. They have not the strength needful to keep the expenses in hand. The exposures in the Woods and Forests show, that officials appointed by poli tical interest are not to be trusted, and there are abundant grounds for suspecting that all the departments of the public service are infected with corruption. Peculation and malversation are not novelties, the novelty is the appearance of a spirit of exposure. A revision of the expenditure of the country, and an examination of the public offices, are indispensable reforms. Strictly and accurately, no one knows the income or the outgoings of the state. In some departments, there are accounts unaudited, twelve years old. It is said, for instance, on the authority of the Committee upon the Naval and Military Estimates, that, of the six millions a-year which the navy costs us, one million and a half are wasted! For the sake of economy, and for the efficiency of the public service, there must be financial and official reform.

In an article like the present, we are rather noticing the features of the session, than commenting upon its topics. On some of its points, the West India question, the Sabbath question, and Electoral Criminalities, this Journal has commented repeatedly. Our views of the movement for Parliamentary Reform will be found in an article entitled, "The People's League and the People's Party.' There is scarcely a topic which we can discuss here, without reviving in our readers the painful recollection of the wearisome longsomeness' of the debates. On the theme which the Session has given to the future, the Immediate Endowment of the Irish Catholic Church, we shall have somewhat to say hereafter

But for legislators and journalists, for readers and hearers, in fairness to the topics themselves, change of scene, sea-sides, moors, lakes, mountains, seas besprinkled with sunlight, are necessary to make their discussion endurable.

Lord John Russell says, his government have introduced one hundred and twenty-five bills, and carried, or expect to carry,

one hundred and five. Of these, he takes most credit to himself, for the Encumbered Estates Bill, which, he says, cannot fail to do much good. Now, every man has a right to his own in this world, and the journalist, to be an impartial historian of the events of the time, is obliged to declare the fact, that the principle of this measure is one which the noble lord has adopted from his predecessor, Sir Robert Peel. In 1845 and 1846, the late premier was zealous for such a measure; and in his speech, on leaving office, he earnestly recommended it to his successor, who has delayed it at least a couple of years, and never delivered a speech manifesting any interest in it, until the end of the session of 1848, when he claimed the merit of it. All wellinformed, and all candid men know and admit, that the celebrated D'Israeli joke is just the reverse of the fact; instead of Peel catching the Whigs bathing, and walking off with their clothes, for years, the Whigs have had no clothes, except what they have filched from him, or he has flung to them. Penny Postage, Commercial Reform, and the adjustment of the relations between the people and the soil, in so far as these beneficent measures have been adopted at all, have received Whig support only after they were well known in the upper political circles, to have been adopted by Sir Robert Peel. But, in adopting the measures, and repeating the lessons of the son of the cotton-spinner,' the Whigs have proceeded to work blunderingly. Peel, by passing the measures for the improvement of the relations between the people and the land, in 1846, would have prevented the necessity for the outlay of thirteen millions, which Ireland has cost the Exchequer under Whig rule. The eight millions of relief-money, the three millions and a half of loans for drainage, and the million and a half for extra military and police, might all have been rendered smaller items in the Budget, if they figured there at all, by speedy and timely Tenant Right Bills, Landlord and Tenant Bills, and Encumbered Estates Bills. But Lord John found 'lions in the way,' and has only adopted, too late, a small part of what justice and statesmanship demand.

Lord John Russell has repudiated all the doctrines of progressive reform in his last speech this session, and proclaimed that large legislative ameliorations are not necessary to great statesmanship. Except the series of measures which combine in his master-purpose-the ascendancy of Romanism in Ireland -Lord John Russell has no large legislative policy. He is to seek greatness in administration. Walpole, Chatham, and Pitt, are to be his models. The statesmanship of progressive legislation to give place to the statesmanship of administrative repression. Walpole governed by corruption,-Pitt added six

hundred millions to the national debt, and Russell glorifies himself for following these illustrious examples.

'Yet I must remind the honourable gentleman and the house that this supposed duty of government to introduce a great number of measures to parliament, and to pass a great number of bills in each session, is a duty new to government. It may be that the duty is less well performed by this than by other governments, but I maintain it is a duty hardly known and recognised by the greatest ministers we have had. I will mention three of the greatest ministers which this country has had, who had the support of the House of Commons :-Sir Robert Walpole had that support, and yet it would be difficult to name any legislative measure he introduced. He introduced a measure to alter the Customs duties and he failed. Then there was Lord Chatham. There was hardly a debate in his time without a division in his favour; but, with the exception of a bill by which soldiers' pensions were paid in advance, I hardly know of a legislative measure that bears Lord Chatham's name. Another minister had the command of this House, and had large majo rities. He was considered the greatest supporter of the institutions of the country, and the best defender of that constitution from perils-I mean Mr. Pitt. Except some measure connected with the affairs of his administration, and the bill for the Union with Ireland, which he did not succeed in passing, there are few measures to which the name of Pitt can be attached. I say, then, that it is not the sole, nor is it even the principal, duty of an administration to introduce legislative measures and carry them through parliament.'

This doctrine is strange to the ears of a free people. It was the doctrine of Metternich in Austria, and of Guizot in France, with well known consequences. Not to deprecate the utterance of it in the British parliament, would be treason to constitutional liberty, to the cause of order, peace, and progress.

The minister claimed credit for the preservation of the public peace, and the suppression of rebellion and sedition, before the peril was past. If justice had been done in the matter of Ulster Tenant Right, and in improving the relations of landlords and tenants all over Ireland, would there have been the amount of danger and alarm which have prevailed? If retrenchment and economy had been the business of the government during their tenure of office, would chartism and confederatism have become considerable, even as bugbears?

The premier has been in Ireland. We believe there cannot be a doubt of his business and his object. It is to help forward the realization of his long cherished vision of good government for Ireland, the beginning and the ending, the alpha and the omega, of which is the establishment of popish ascendancy. When the Jesuits were expelled from Rome, they found a hospitable home in Malta! By their aid, Lord Minto obtained the authority of the pope in favour of the acceptance of endow

ment. Lord John Russell is in Dublin to complete the preliminary negotiations, and overcome the well-feigned coyness of the Irish priesthood.

Retrograde, extravagant, despotic, and popish misgovernment— these are the things of which Lord John Russell is the repre

sentative.

But, at the risk of seeming tedious, we must briefly record our convictions respecting the Irish Rebellion, the renewed disturbances of which are now more menacing than ever. In July, they were very much got up by journalists and police spies; but in September, they have arisen naturally from the unhappy relations between the peasantry and the landlords. Determined to have their rents at all hazards, and emboldened by the presence of many soldiers and policemen, the landlords have placed keepers upon the unreaped and ungathered harvest fields. Evictions have been numerous. It is in these circumstances that rebellion re-appears.

The agrarian condition of Ireland has occupied many pens, but to a distinguished foreigner, now in London, M. Gustave de Beaumont, the ambassador from the French republic, belongs the high honour of having shed the strongest light upon it. The master fact can be stated very briefly. The original owners of the soil have been robbed of eleven-twelfths of it by confiscation, within a period embraced by the traditions of a Celtic people. We have been assured, that the peasantry know and honour the descendants of the chiefs who lost the estates to this day, though reduced to their own humble condition of common labourers or small cottiers. Be this as it may, there is a strong indignation in the minds of the Irish people, at this hour connected with these agrarian spoliations of the Norman, Elizabethan, Cromwellian, and Orange invaders and conquerors. The Irish sing in St. Giles's, London, every week, songs, mourning over the confiscation of their lands.

The adjustment of the relations between the people and the soil, was felt to be the great duty of statesmanship by every one who came within the influence of the book of M. Gustave de Beaumont. This is the task, in which a beginning has been made this session. How necessary this was, may be inferred from one fact; no man could buy the freehold of a bit of land as a site for a mill or a factory in all Ireland, the law would not allow it, and no one was safe in making such an erection on land not his own for ever. The Irish are more than eight. millions, and the landowners less than eight thousand.

'My chief difficulty is Ireland,' said Sir Robert Peel, and Mr. Daniel O'Connell cried, 'Hear, hear!' Ireland will always be a formidable difficulty to every statesman who does not declare