NEWS OF THE WEEK.
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Jr has been generally understood for the last fortnight, that.nego tiations have been on foot with a view to further Cabinet changes. The public have waited to learn the result with a languid patience. The_ nival of Sir tames Graham in town, the visit of the Diike'of Newcastle to Windier at the same time with the Marquis,of Lans- downe, and the holding of Cabinet Councils, has been simply re- marked, not commented on. 'Even the stream of club and news- paper rumour, apt on such occasions to overflow its banks, has a- lmost been dried. up. Curiosity has not been strong--enough to stimulate invention., . People have quietly said to. theniselves, "We will know all in time." _ These pluenomena indicate the pre- valence of an opinion that changes are expected, but any material 'changes for the better scarcely hoped for.- It is apparent, indeed, that the Whig Ministry is in a state of , dissolution. The practice of selecting its members within a limited range of family connexions has been carried to such an excess as to have left it little internal vital energy, and few external supports. It has become attenuated through lack of periodical supplies of new talent, and it has been isolated from most of the many circles of which the political public is made up. Thus circumstanced, the loss of one important, member has so deranged its organic action, has so weakened it, that without a large infusion of "new blood," the machine must soon of its own accord cease to work. - Conjectfire is rather at fault as to the course Lord Palmerston will pursue. Strenuous efforts have been made, either at his own instigation or by volunteers desirous of showing their zeal in his behalf, to elicit an expression of popular sympathy for him. Their success has been at the best equivocal. The readiest responses have come from quarters open to the suspicion of encouraging Lord Palmerston to engage -in hostilities with his old colleagues less to benefit him than to damage them. He has had abundance of word-sympathy from parties who were 'most eager in promoting the attack on his Greek escapade. The various shades and sec- tions of the Liberals have in general received the appeals in his, behalf rather coolly. This is discouraging; but Lord Palmerston is not a man to be easily discouraged ; and a vigorous assault frtim him could scarcely be withstood by a Ministry tottering on so narrow a pedestal as the present. But any onset from such a quarter is certain to be of a merely personal and factious nature—little likely to _lead to. MiniSterial combinations of permanent advantage to the community. The agencies relied on by the assailants will be fallacious and delusive pretences. One of these has already appeared, in the insinuation of " back-stairs" or Court influence. The best way to deprive political fallacies of their power to harm, is to analyze them, and expose their true meaning or want of meaning. With respect to the cry of " Court influence," it may be sufficient to observe that there is a legitimate and an illegitimate power of the Crown in all 'Ministerial appointments. The Crown—the Sovereign—is not en- : titled by' the constitution to uphold a Minister or Ministers in opposition to a Parliamentary Majority ; but the Sovereign has a constitutional right to-approve or disappprove of particular Minis- ters and their policy, and to act -upon the-preference of one to another. The right of the Sovereign to appoint; and present for the approbation of Parliament, men who enjoy his (or her)) confi- dence and are personally acceptable, is unquestionable ; and arlia- inent will not factiously reject Ministers, eligible in other respects, merely because they have the good fortune to please the Sovereign. Neither can the spouse of the Sovereign be precluded- from the exercise of that moral influence, within decorous limits, which is inseparable from the matrimonial union in every rank, where hus- band and wife live together on happy terms.
