588 LIFE 2% OUBDEN, {cnar.

1852.

provisions, and binding the Government unreservedly t0
adhere to the policy of unrestricted competition, still eon
tained no declaration that the opinions of the Protectionist
party had been mistaken or had undergone any change:
The whole question turned upon the way in which the
national verdict was to be worded. Was this solemn final
declaration to be drawn up, Mr. Bright asked, by one who
had repudiated Free Trade as Mr. Disraeli had done, or by
one who had consistently supported it as Mr. Villiers bad
done? The question was not an idle point of etiquette. A
majority of the friends of the Government no further back
than the recent elections had openly declared either for @
reversal of Sir Robert Peel’s policy, or for compensation—
the word that never fails to come into our ears when 8
favoured order is stripped of some unjust and mischievous
privilege. Under these circumstances, ought the House 10
tolerate any evasion ?
This was a manly statement of the case. The interests
of political morality demanded that the Protectionists should
either be forced publicly to recant an error which they had
apheld with so much stupidity and so much virulence, and
in some cases with such unscrupulous hypocrisy and wanb
of principle, or else that on this issue, and no other, they
should be driven from power. But the complex play of
party combinations seldom permits these plain and unsophisticated
 courses. It did nob suit Lord Palmerston thab
the Government should be turned out $00 goon. His plans
for the succession were not ripe. A hurried crisis might
make Lord John Russell again Prime Minister, and unde
him Lord Palmerston was resolved not to serve. A little
more time was needed to clear this up, and accordingly
with a view of saving the Ministry from a repulse which
would for his purposes have been premature, Lord Palmerston
 suggested a third form of resolution which would coB-