WHAT HAS THE MINISTRY DONE? - This question is daily
asked by the enemies and the friends of the Ministry; and its answers are "wide as the poles asunder." On the one hand, we are told that the Ministers have done all that men could do; on the other, that they have. done nothing but mischief. Like all party views, both are over-coloured. Our Ministers are undoubtedly honest, able, and well-intentioned; but, with more energy and activity, they might have done more good than they have yet accomplished. Their time, indeed, has been short ; and there is, we hope, "a good time coming."
With a view to the General Election, no doubt, the adherents of the Ministers are putting forth their claims to public confidence, in various ways. We formerly alluded to the querulous article in the last Edinburgh Review. A pamphlet has just appeared en- titled Whig. Government, or Two Years' Retrospect; in which the services of Ministers are somewhat pompously blazoned. The production has a very demi-official tone; and speaks with great confidence not only of what Government has done, but of what it intends to do. The pamphlet tells us, for instance, that " ar- rangements are even now in progress for a further reduction in the Estimates of the ensuing year, to the amount of one million and a half." We heartily pray that this may be true ; though it hardly chimes in with Lord ALTHORP'S late desponding declara- tion, that he did not see how any further reductions were to be effected.
The writer refers to the three pledges of the Whigs on accept- ing office,—Peace, Parliamentary Reform, and Retrenchment; and contends that all these have been fully redeemed. On the subject of the greatest of these pledges, and its redemp- tion, he says little or nothing; probably because he considers that this is a point on which Ministers stand in need of no vindication. It is true that this great pledge has been gloriously redeemed ; and that the names of Earl GREY, Lord Joriar RUSSELL, and Lord ALTHORP, will descend to the latest posterity, in conjunction with the Great Charter which they have been instrumental in obtain- ing. They entered office with the honest intention of answering the universal demand of the nation for a reform of our rotten system of representation ; and the bold and sweeping measure which they at once brought forward—a measure which went far beyond what •%ais looked for by anybody—evinced their sagacity, as well as vigour. We must say, however, that, for the completion of this great work, the People of England are entitled chiefly to take credit to themselves. The Ministers did not unifamly eralibit the energy with which they set out. They had to contend against an Opposition of unequalled pertinacity; and would have fainted and fallen by the way, had it not been for the manner in which the People came forward to their support. On the subject of Peace, the writer takes credit to the Minis- ters for having preserved it. This boast sounds rather awkwardly at a moment when a combined French and English fleet have ac- tually assembled for the purpose of making a descent on Holland, —at a moment, too, when three of the greatest Powers of Europe, our co-mediators between Holland and Belgium, have declared their disapprobation of enforcing their proposals by bombs and bayonets. A good deal, certainly, has been done in the way of Retrench- ment. Many useless drones, who fed upon the honey of the State, have been driven out of the hive ; but the number expelled is nothing to those that remain. If there is any truth in the state- ment we have already quoted from the pamphlet before us, Lord ALTHORP has reconsidered the matter, and no longer thinks the expenditure incapable of reduction. If so, we shall see a pretty piece of drone-killing in the first session of the Reformed Parlia- ment,—a clearing of our body-politic of the swarms of noxious vermin that now prey upon it. We have exhibited to the pubLe, in its true form and bulk, the mountain of abuses in every depart- ment of the PUBLIC EXPENDITURE; and it will be from the exer- tions made by the Government in levelling this unsightly mass, that the People will determine on its ?attire claims to their confidence.
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