NEWS OF THE WEEK.
fixed upon, and the Ministerial papers make the momentous an-
nouncement. Lord BRABAZON and Mr. GRANTLEY BERKELEY have - agreed to propose and support a document of which they have no knowledge—except, perhaps, to do them justice, they may have a
prophetic knowledge of its unmeaningoess. In good time Minis- ters will vouchsafe to those gentlemen a draft of the sentiments which the Representatives of the People will have, by virtue of the " working majority," to declare in the name of the nation.
For, of course, there will be a working majority ; though there is enough of doubt and suspense just now to inspire those who ma- nufacture the sentiments for the People's Representatives to a diligent show of candour and popular views. Carlow is gone. Walsall is lost to them ; since the only' chance of the Liberal candidate lies in his devotion to the, project pronounced by the Premier to be the maddest that ever entered the brain of man : and, in their need, the Ministerial organs are reduced to the humi- liation of supporting theman who is pronounced by their leader to be a madman, and who has driven their own candidate out of the field. The hacks of Downing Street are constrained to affect de- light in the triumph of the " good cause," which the Whig candi- date, ad exemplar regis, utterly repudiated. The success of the Whigs in Walsall now depends upon the completeness of their own defeat.
Lord ALBERT CONYNGHAM'S health has been taxed even to hazard, to prevent the loss of a vote to his needy friends; but he can no longer support the task, and he retires. Here again the only hope of the Whigs .lies in their own insignificancy ; the only chance of the " Reform" candidate, in his being supposed to be widely at variance with the Ministers at whose service his vote is to be placed. At the Conservative dinner in Canterbury, on Friday last, Mr. SMYTHE, the Tory candidate, taunted his opponent, Mr. Wm- sow,' with his inconsistencies : Reform-Bill-finality, Franchise-ex- tension, Ballot—on all these, Mr. SMYTRE defied the other to . avow the sentiments of the Government he proposed to support. But there is more than inconsistency in this anomalous position of Whiggish candidates ; there is disgrace—to the candidate, who lays himself out to support the Government whose opinions he . disclaims—to the Government, whose supporters are obliged to slink into the House of Commons by disavowing the connexion. And there is yet more than either inconsistency or disgrace—there is death : the parts are falling asunder with debility and decay. Had the Tories a policy that they dared to proclaim, the working majority of two were not out of danger, even for so matter-of- course an affair as the address. Let Ministers fall into a working minority of two, and who knows how audacious her Majesty's Op- position may grow.
