Opinionsi of tbt 13trde.

LORD BROUGHAM'S REAPPEARANCE IN POLITICS.

Tare SUN—From the Postscript of Taies Magazine, we learn that the Reformers of Edinburgh have it in contemplation to celebrate Lord BroNtarn's restoration to health by a public dinner, which his Lordship will be invited to attend. The festival cannot fail to be an interesting one. The occasion itself, which though only personal, relates to one of the most remarkable personages of our times; the expression which will be given to the feelings of the great body of Scotch Reformers, and the intimations which may perhaps be afforded of the noble lord's course on his return to public life; all will distinguish it from the commonplace complimentary dinners which are so frequently deemed worthy of being recorded. • * • Always important and powerful, from his own inherent qualities, Lord Brougham is now more so than ever, in consequence of the pecu- liar state of parties and of public opinion. Ills retirement, short as it has been, and his previous isolation from the Ministry, will connect many of the advan- tages of a new man in politics with his reappearance. He comes back an un- trammelled man. He can be as independent or as cooperative as he pleases. And to the freedom of a novice he adds the experience of a veteran. His future career must, unless by his own fault, have the advantage of all that an eventful life of party conflict and vicissitude has taught. Nor has he failed to benefit in public opinion by this opportunity for estimating him according to his whole political life, and for recalling the memory of services that had at times been

forgotten under the influence of disappointment. • • • He was not made for the service of a clique. He has no natural affinity with the trimming agents of a trimming policy. To contract himself to their little- ness of view is violence to his being. His habit of acting with the members of the present Cabinet is happily broken. Let him not patch it up again. His proper party is the People. His proper place, as a leader of the great move- ment of Reform. He should never have descended to apologize for the little doers of one session and the less doers of the next. Such paltry work should have been left for baser organs. His worst errors have probably arisen from his entanglement with the Whig party, awl in Whig policy. C • Who, amongst all the champions of Whiggery, approaches him in talent, in acquirement, in eloquence? Since Canninea death, where has there been orator able either to stand by his side, or to encounter his terrific onset? How glaringly does his courage contrast with their temporizing and timidity ! Whenever he has blinked unwelcome truth, it has been from error of judg- ment, not from lack of nerve. He is no slave of coteries. The mighty sneer of aristocratical ridicule would soon quail under his proud scorn or contemp- tuous disregard. And he has ever sustained friendly relations with the People, down through all the gradations of society, to the most despised classes. The People know him, ate! he knows them. There is that sympathy between them, of which Whig lordlings know no more than of a sixth sense. His ex- ertions towards a repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge, were a final seal to this mutual understanding. Had his illness terminated differently, this alone would

have "long kept his memory green in their souls." They are eager to hail him back as the champion of universal knowledge and universal justice. But

not all the greatness of his powers, and the opportunity now open to him, can avail, if the peculiar errors of his former course are to be repeated. We have abstained from reviving them, even for warning. They were such as to neu- tralize much of his best ability for public good ; their recurrence would demo- lish it altogether.

A SMALL INCONSISTENCY.

EXAMINER—We certainly inferred, from a passage in Mr. Hutt's letter to his constituents, that it was his purpose to withdraw his support from Minis- ters unless they should propose some measure for the Reform of the House of Lords; and, deprecating such a resolution, we observed that we ought not, and must um, look to the Government to lead the way on this question, upon which it could not take any step until public opinion had furnished sure ground for it ; and that it would he idle and unjust to resolve upon a quarrel with a Minister, in the event of his not proposing a great organic change for which the public voice had not unequivocally declared itself. The Spectator, in referring to the at tide in which these objections appeared, did not state that we had mistaken the meaning of Mr. Hutt, but remarked that the Examiner • The Examiner's title. The reader of this article will do us the favour to test it by his owl, recollection, if he has been a regular reader of the Spertator since the month of May. Those AS lio have not seen the Spectator regularly, mill learn m hat our views natty ate, and have been, by perusing the" Topics of the Day" in the present IS umber. differed from everybody on the Peerage question, au tl we certainly supposed that the Spectator concurred in the view we had understood Mr. Hutt to take, or rather that Mr. Hutt concurred in opinion with the Spectator (according to our reading of the Spectator's opinion) as to the necessity of a Ministerial declaration for Peerage Reform. Our contemporary, however, now says- " Mr. Hutt has been understood to say that he will not vote with Ministers next sessioti unless they make Peerage Reform a Cabinet question. Neither he nor any other considerate Reformer has said any such thing. As what he did say accurately re- presents the Radical view of this subject, it deserves attentive consideration. '• The policy a Lord Grey's Government, after passing the Reform Bill, was to conciliate the Lords at all events; to propose nothing that was likely to bring on col- lision between the two HOURS. Lord Grey falling through their policy. Lord Mel- bourne advanced one step beyond it. He took office resolved to propose good measures —reforms agreeable to the nation—without regard to what might be the pleasure of the Lords; but also without anyplan for overcoming Lordly opposition to his proposals of Rehrm. The necessity had uut thee arisen for den i hug upon the question of Peerage Reform ; and it was therefore possible that Lord Melbourne's Ministry should contain perms who object to all fierther organic change. But the ease is now altered. Either Lord Melbourne must take another step, or the country will require another Minister. This is my deliberate conviction; am! I express it with an earnest hope that Lord Melbourne will not he found wanting on this great occasion for the exercise of states. manlike qualities. If unhappily. it should prove otherwise—if nothing be done by Mi- nisters with a view to preventing another such absurd session as that which has just closed- -1 shall not be found next year amongst the supporters of Governmeut. Nor am I singular in this opinion. Many earnest Reformers in the Commons are weary of at- tending to support proposals el Reform which end in nothing ; and I am but one of a powerful party, when I say, that the course which I may pursue neat year depends altogether upon what may then be the policy of Ministers.'

"The Ministerial policy which would maintain the Whig-Radical union, is here suf.

teently indicated. Lord Melbourne 'must take another step. He must not be con. tent with making proposals of Reform ' without regard to what may be the pleasure of the Lords,' but be must make such proposals with regard to the present determination of the Lords to reject every proposal of Reform. With a view to preventing another such absurd session' as the last, Lord Melbourne must not remain without any plan,' but must adopt some plan for overcoming Lordly opposition to his proposals of Reform.' "

Down to this sentence we supposed that the plan for overcoming Lordly op.

position to improvement, required of Lord Melbourne, must be some plan of Peerage Reform ; but we were mistaken, and much to our agreeable surprise, we presently found that the plan for overcoming Lorifly opposition to proposals of Reform, the adoption of which is now required of Lord Melbourne, is not any Ministerial measure or declaration for Peerage Reform, but a Ministerial neutrality on the question. No one surely, could have suspected that the plan for overcoming Lordly opposition, demanded of Ministers by our contem- porary, was a neutrality ! But so it proves, against all appearances. The

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Spectator proceeds as follows and it s hardly necessary for us to say that we thoroughly agree with it in opinion, that neutrality on the subject of Peerage Reform is the utmost that can be required of the .Ministry in present circum- stances.

"' But who suggests that he (Lord Melbourne) should make Peerage Reform a Cabinet question ? Considering that we have three hundred Tories in the Peel Par. liament, not to mention how many Ciceronian Whigs, a less ' statesmanlike ' plan of Ministerial action could hardly be imagined. As respects Ministers and the Peerage Returns question, all that any rational Reformer desires is, not that the Cabinet Mould propose to Reform the Lords. but that they should not vehemently object to any Rejiwoo of She Lords—not that they should make Peerage Reform a Cabinet question, but that they should not make it a Cabinet practice to praise and uphold the Lords as they are. As respects Peerage Reform, it ir not an active, but simply a negative policy which the Radica4 ask the Whigs to adopt. If Whigs and Radicals are to form one party next session, they must give and take. It is because Peerage Reform is now a practical question, that the Radicals will not take less from the Whigs than perfect neutrality In the existing war on that subject between the two great parties which divide the country— the Radicals and the 'I mins. We are actually engaged in a struggle for Peerage Reform, and if the Whigs do test fight wills us, at least they most not tight against us. That Sir Cicero Strickland, with his declaration against all Peerage He- form, has done as much as was in the power of such a person towards breaking up the Whig-Radical union. If Lord John Russell and Mr. Rice should repeat their declara- tion against all Reform of the Lords, the next division would convince them t hat Peer- age Returns is a practical question. This is not one of these cases in which it behoves the great Reform party to soy—' Those who are not fur as are against us;' bet it is oue in which they, are entitled to say, as they do—' We canuot be for those who are against us.'

We have said that we were agreeably surprised to find that neutrality on the question of Peerage Reform is the conduct required of the Ministry by the Spectator, for according to our reading of the Spectator during the last two or three months it has contended that the Government should advance beyond a neutrality, and instead of asking, in the name of the Radicals, as it now say s, "not an active but a negative policy," it has asked an active not a negative policy. So lately, indeed, as the 10th, it alluded to the Examiner as an erring brother, for "deprecating any pressure upon the Ministry for a decima- tion in favour of Peerage Reform." We heartily agree with the Spectator, that "this is not one of those cases in which it behoves the great Refoilh party to say, Those who are not for us are against us,"' &c. ; and as we concur in that opinion of the Spectator of September 17th, we could not but disagree with the Spectator of July 2d, which said- ' "Those ohs are not for Peerage Reform, must now be considered against it. There are ',Limy besides Ministers who must now ' take a line,' as it is called."

The Spectator of the 3d instant, arguing to the same effect, maintained that the people would not agitate for Peerage Reform till it appeared whether the Ministry were for or against the Reform of the Lord.; and that the count' y being ripe for the Reform of the Lords, the only question was, when Ministers would be ripe enough to lead in that direction, or for being cast off as incapable to conduct a Reforming Government- " Is agitation for Peerage Rehm to be for or against the Melloierne Minstryt This last is a question which Met5i be determined before the people will agitate hr Peerage Re- form. • • • • The Lords are ripe for being reformed ; the country is ripe for refornting them ; and the only question is, when will Ministers be ripe either Ay leading the country in Mat direction, or for being cast off OS incupable to conduct a it e- forrniug Government ?'• The same opinion was repeated in the Spectator of the 10th instant— "There will be no general agitation for Peerage Reform. whether 'constitutional,' as the Courier proposes, or with' such scenes,' according to the plan of Mr. Baines, until these Ministers either depart into obscurity, or declare their readiness to lead the Reformiia2

roues."

In all this, with a context to the same effect, there is certainly much more than the demand for neutrality or a negative policy, upon which our contempt).

rary now more judiciously takes his stand. After having long differed with us,he at last agrees with us that it is not expedient at present to press the Ministry for a declaration for Peerage Reform. It should be remembered, however, that the Spectator was the first to recommend a Ministerial neutrality on the ques- tion, and we promptly dill justice to the wisdom of its counsel (for the Examiner is not one of those reluctant to acknowledge and appreciate the ser- vices of a brother in the vineyard), but after having suggested the right course, the Spectator abandoned it for an eccentric flight, which it ends by a return to its original position. It has thus performed in argument a sort of rondo, con- cluding with the opening Ftrain after sounding a different note. There vet re- mains this difference between us and the Spectator, that the Spectator, believing the country to be ripe for Peerage Reform, would be content with Ministerial neutrality. Now, if we thought the country ripe for Peerage Reform, we should see no reason for resting satisfied with a Ministerial neutrality, and it is only because we think the country not ripe for Peerage Reform that we deem it mis- chievous to press the Government to take a part in the question.