FINALITY.
SIR JAMES GRAHAM, having been "a student in the same school of Finality with the noble lord the Member for London," has be- come, "after the experience of seven years, decidedly of opinion that Finality, as it is called, is in legislation a mere phantom." Theoretically, Sir JAMES is correct ; but practically, he might have put the wisdom acquired in his studies to better purpose than to recommend a law which, only unsettling without reforming, must necessarily lead to speedy change. From the constant alterations taking place in society, no law, however adequate today, can be ex- pected to be equally appropriate—say twenty or fifty years hence. But surely it is not too much to require at the hands of those who propose a law, that it should be applicable to the cir- cumstances of the time at which it is brought forward. Though no man would have a right to complain because Sir RonsaT PEEL'S Corn-law modification may become useless or hurtful twenty years hence, it is no answer to those who say it can afford no relief at present to be told it is not meant to last for ever.
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