NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE meetings in London and in-the country to aid the Anti-Corn- law League in their new plan, prove that, if the agitation might be
managed with more tact in some respects, they have pertinacity enough for almost any thing. As they sound each of the great towns, like Glasgow this week, it rings with the same response as usual, showing itself ready at their bidding.
But a fact far more ominous for the Corn-law system is the pro- gress of opinion in the agricultural districts ; which is so rapid as to outstrip even the expectation that it awakens, and to relieve the reports on a selfsame subject from the tedium of repetition. We have striking instances this week. The Steyning agricultural meeting appears to have been quite under the sway of the new sentiments. Mr. CHARLES GORING testified that the landlords were prepared to stand by the tenants, in one way or other, to
meet the consequences of the late changes. He still, indeed, hesi- tated dislike of losing all protection ; but stronger counsels pre- vailed. Mr. HARRY DENT GORING broadly declared that the Corn-laws must go,—giving emphatic voice to the impression which we last week described as existing even among agriculturists; and he exhorted the farmers to stand by the land, to cultivate it with industry and skill, and in short to act on principles of Free Trade, relying upon the natural riches of the country and their own intelligence and power of exertion ; and the landlords, said Mr. Goittan, would not forget the intelligence of the farmers or the toil of the labourers. So completely did the speaker carry his -bearers away with him, that his voice was drowned in cheers. When Mr. CHARLES Goma°, for whose infant economics these meats were somewhat too strong, put in a word for protection, he met with but a faint response from the assembled agriculturists— the cheering, the papers tell us, was only " partial."
The proceedings at Glastonbury, though the interlocutors were some of those whom we heard last week, were not less remarkable ; for they spoke under correction and on second thoughts. The ex- ultation of the Anti-Corn-law press, and the violent attacks of the journals still left to the waning Pro-Corn-law party, alarm the more timid neophytes, and oblige even the bolder to revise their declara- tions. Mr. MILES again comes forward, to assure us that his opinions on the Corn-laws and the Tariff have not altered : he avers that the reporters garbled his speech, (a plea for which he was a little quizzed ;) but what he now says, on reconsideration, amounts to this—it was impossible to resist the changes, and they must be met with energetic preparatives for the altered position of agricul- ture. Mr. PINNEY shrewdly remarked, that Mr. MELEs gave up the hope of high prices in future, but that high prices had usually been considered so closely connected with protection " that it was natural to infer that he gave up protection too. People laughed while Mr. PINNEY compared Mr. MILES with himself, as if they were rather uncharitably amused with the struggles of his transi- tion-state. Mr. Dicainsost did not partake in his honourable friend's thin-skinned compunctions, nor did he seek to retreat be- hind the reporters; but he repeated, perhaps in more measured and therefore more emphatic terms, what he had said at Yeovil— that the spirit of the time is against commercial restrictions, and that farmers must abide by that spirit and by something more stable than protection. - -
The_proclamation has been issued for the assembling of Parlia- ment on the 2d day of February. It will take place under unusual circumstances; for the recess has been very eventful ; and not the least remarkable event is this disruption of the old protection- school and the formation of a new class of economists who will be .rspresented in, the House. Parliament, therefore, will have to take kip the discussion, not where it left off at the prorogation, but from the stage to which the recess has brought matters during its slum- ber. What measures may be promulgated we are not prepared to speculate ; perhaps no one could make out even a conjectural list before meeting a Parliament so very differently circumstanced ; but at all events the council will be diversified by novel con- ferences. The bloody storm of agrarian outrage in Ireland continues, though with mitigated fierceness; and the opinion seems to gain ground, that something must be done to allay the spirit of anarchy once for all. The Liberal papers have in view the " fixity of tenure," which is recommended by the °Totowa. party and Mr. SHARMAN Caawroan—" some enlightened and comprehensive remedy, soon applied, to heal the present deranged state of the relations subsisting between landlord and tenant" : nearly as absurd a proposition as the demand of the Tories for " the benefits of a Conservative Government," and that peculiar form of Church- extension which they are pleased to call " education." The remedy is empirical : the proximate causes of disorders in Ireland are the poverty of the tenants-at-will and their exasperation on ejectment; and it is proposed to compel landlords not to eject them, but to allow them to hold land on terms set by act of Parlia- ment. It does not meet the real wants of Ireland—capital, intel- ligent enterprise, and thrift among the employing class—diligence and habits of subordination among the employed—order and safety of life and property for all. But restrictions on enterprise are not the way to foster it, or to encourage the influx of capital. A better feature in the discussion is some repudiation of party- views, the bane of the devoted land. The Dublin Monitor quotes passages from the Times and the Morning Herald, censuring the system of wholesale ejectments, with the remark that, " during the period that the Whigs were in office every outrage that occurred. was recklessly ascribed to them as to the effect of their rule" ; but " now Lord De Grey occupies Lord Normanlbes place, and the Tories can afford to tell the truth "; and " it is 'very important to find leading Tory journals commencing to discuss this serious sub- ject in a manner so impartial and truth-telling." The Dublin Pilot, the Repeal organ, goes further, and censures the leading Whig journal, for doing what the Tory papers once did : " to criminate the Government— that is, the Tory Government—to place to its account each and every act of outrage, and disorder, that is evidently the object "—" the sole and only object "" and not a desire to serve the wretched tenantry, or to correct the glaring abuses of the Poor-law system." The rebuke is most just, well-timed, and un- exceptionable. Aggravated as the evils of Ireland have been by centuries of mismanagement, to attribute them to the neutral policy of the present Government is even more flagrantly foolish than it was to accuse Lord NORMANDY'S leniency. They lie in the social state of Ireland itself, and are beyond the influence of mere changes of Ministry here, or transitions from political principles to others so slightly different as those of PEEL and RUSSELL practically are. The agrarian outrage itself is but a symptom of the morbid state ; so is the ejectment. The Dublin Evening Mail even roundly as- serts that " the supposed ' drivings' and forcible ejectments of tenants have no existence" ; another among the many indications of the degree to which politicians in Ireland are at issue, and at sea, as to the most glaring operation of' the evils which surround them. A sensible view of Ireland's actual condition would regard chiefly the country itself, apart from English politics. The seat of the disease lies there, though the remedies may be sought with- out. Ireland is a smaller island lying near to a larger one, of
overwhelming predominance, and necessarily the site of the com- mon government : it was for centuries neglected by its powerful neighbour as to all purposes of good—tormented for corrupt pur-
poses: the oppression has ceased, and there is a disposition quietly to extend to Ireland benefits enjoyed by England, as fast as their
reception can be prepared. Such a disposition we believe to ani- mate all influential parties in this country. It now matters little, therefore, to Ireland—far less than to England—which party shall be in power, so long as it can but summon determination to be tranquil, and to be the passive recipient of services which it cannot compel. True patriots in Ireland will seek to devise means of using for their province, in every posible mode and to the fullest extent, the whole power and riches of England. They have to be- think them, not of sweeping charges against parties and persons in this part of the country—charges which are only not thought insane because we have been accustomed to them ever since they had a show of reason—but of what Ireland's internal condition demands. This disclaimer of party asperities is a good beginning ; and so anxious are we for the process to be at work of making England do all it can for Ireland, that we are fain to recognize, even in this little negative improvement, the first glimmering dawn of a better day, when local politicians will cooperate with practical
English statesmen for the benefit of their own country, and no longer furnish a Swiss contingent on either side in the battles of English politics, paid with the licence to tight on in their own in- ternal feuds—as our traders pay savage allies with fire-arms to destroy each other.
Barcelona has succumbed to the constituted Government of Spain, and retribution succeeds. ESPARTBRO keeps personally aloof from the ungracious task; leaving it to VAN Hater( and his
subordinates. The excitable French press is inflamed with anger at the " cruelties" practised towards the vanquished insurgents : yet, if we admit at all the wisdom of warlike retribution, it was never more justified than in the present case. It is not always fair to judge by the event, but the event is sometimes to be taken as proof of what preceded it ; and in this instance it proves that the rebels of the Catalan city must have been without a shadow of excuse for their revolt. Revolutions may be justified : a spirited community may make the first start, and be justified by success; or, failing, it may yet plead a justification in having proper objects, and the probability of success, to compensate the miseries of the pro- cess. Barcelona is without such a pretext. Although Spain has grown almost habituated to anarchy, the efforts of the Barcelonese have met with the very faintest sympathy in other central deposi- taries of disorder. None of their proclamations, except one obscure and meagre placard, have evinced any thing like a scheme of political regeneration. Their outbreak was, in fact, a mere resistance to Government. So far from being cruel, the terms on which VAN HALEN accepted the submission of the city seem, upon the whole, to meet the case very aptly : they are rigid as respects the recu- sant or the treacherous, but they throw the door of safety wide open for the truly submissive. There was nothing in the position assumed by Barcelona to entitle it to more deference; while the gratuitous nature of the rebellion rendered a strict account ne- cessary.
The French newspapers try to turn the events to a further ac- count, and to manufacture a new " question" with England. They fling at this country a charge, which would be as difficult to prove against us as to disprove for themselves. The position of the two countries in relation to Spain is not unaptly illustrated by the con- duct of their representatives, the French and British Consuls. The French Consul busied himself in the revolt : if not avowedly aiding and abetting, he was seen accompanying their movements, spread- ing reports favourable to their projects, and finally harbouring the rebels. It is a charge against the British Consul that he did not interfere—that when shelter for the vanquished and fugitive rebels was asked, he refused it, as forming an act of hostility to the con- stituted Government. The French Consul conceived it to be his duty to enter personally into the contests of particular sections of the Spanish people ; the English, to deal only with the constituted authorities. The French people are animated by a spirit of diplo- matic activity and of proselytism, which makes every individual that composes it a public functionary in his own estimation at least. Therefore it is not necessary that the French Government should move in order that the French nation should do so. The Consul obeyed what he conceived to be public opinion in his own country— possibly acting in magnanimous disregard of the Foreign Minister, as M. GUIZOT is emphatically and sneeringly called. France is close to Spain ; and it is impossible that propinquity, individual political activity, and some sympathy in impulsive disorders, should not have considerable influence. On the other hand, the English people have no interest in Spain. There was at one time a public in this country who took an interest in Spanish affairs ; but their view has been shut out by the crowd of unpaid Spanish Legionaries and unpaid Bonds. England leaves Spain as a branch of strictly Foreign affairs to the Government ; and our present Foreign Se- cretary has not yet earned for himself that reputation for ubiquitous meddling which distinguished his predecessor. The interest of the present Cabinet is to keep as much as possible out of the mess of Peninsular intervention, and merely to maintain neutrality. The French Government appears inclined to the same view ; but then the French people do take an interest in Spanish affairs, and have a conterminous boundary. These considerations not only account for the present pluenomena, but lead to the resonable expectation that all the pother about Spain and English treachery will die away when the memory of the nine days' wonder, the Barcelona revolt, is extiuguished by the next marvel—the meeting of the French Chambers at the latest.
