The praises of tobacco / [O].

  • O
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The praises of tobacco / [O]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/24 (page 578)
    o7S The New Ministry. [June, four men whose voices commanded attention in the House of Commons the instant that they rose—Mr. Canning, Mr. Brougham, Sir Francis Burdett, and Mr. Tierney. All these men are now upon the ministerial benches : tive-sixths of the second-rate talent of the House support them ; and they are opposed, literally—the debates will shew it—by Mr. Dawson and Sir Thomas Lethbridge ! Mr. Dawson is an acute, clever man, as a third-rate politician. Sir Thomas Lethbridge is a gentleman in his appearance and manners, and a man of the most unquestioned personal firmness and honour. But Mr. Brougham gets up, after their fiercest efforts—makes a speech rather for his amusement than troubling himself with the question—and laughs the whole phalanx—-such “ Opposition” leaders, and their support¬ ers—out of the field. This is the position of the high Tory party—which is not only a suffi¬ ciently embarrassing one, but one which is by no means likely to improve ; because they are not merely weak in talent, and, as we believe, in nume¬ rical strength; but their hands are, in a great measure, tied—and they will discover this—by their recent different situations. The topic of “ past declarations” will be found, we suspect, to form a far more serious obstacle in the way of the Opposition than it can be made (at least at present) in the way of ministers. The Catholic question, which they would give a hundred thousand pounds to bring on, they cannot bring on—because the object of their touching it would be too transparent. They would give their salvation to have the question tried; but they cannot bring it on merely in order to oppose it. So, again, the new ministry, like every ministry that ever existed, will have a certain number of jobs and shabby trans¬ actions to perform ; but these otherwise golden occasions will do very little for the present Opposition; for all the first jobs to be done—-the cur- . rent and unfinished ones—will be those in which they themselves, not six weeks since, were personally engaged. And, still again, upon all the ordi¬ nary routine points that form the hope of an Opposition—the money ques¬ tions, retrenchment, reduction of military force, colonies, taxes, embassies, pensions, sinecure places, and rewards—one eternal bar presents itself to the operations of the ultra-Tories ; for, how can they open their mouths upon such subjects, without having their own justification of the very acts that they are impugning quoted against them ; and thrust down their throats, amid the laughter of the very Treasury votes that formed their own majo¬ rities ? And yet these are the people that are proposing to found them¬ selves upon “ recorded declarations!” For these reasons it is, therefore—among a variety of others, which it would detain our readers too long in this place to describe—that we fully believe that the Coalition ministry (with all its sins upon its head) will stand its ground ; and that it must be upon the future conduct of the parties who compose it, and not upon their past declarations, that the Opposition must find cause to attack it, before it can be attacked with any prospect of success or of advantage. Our own opinion is, moreover, that the p.ublic has reason to be well pleased in supporting this state of things; because, while we give full credit to the seceding party for their spirit and sincerity, we do believe that the principles professed by their successors are more consonant to the wishes of enlightened people in this country, and more decidedly those which the increased information of the country, and the altered and improving state of Europe, generally, demand. Unfortunately, to any departure from a system of policy which was highly advantageous