LORD BROUGHAM AT HIS TRICKS AGAIN.

ALTHOUGH the Edinburgh Review is no longer anxiously ex- pected and eagerly read, as m its former days of power and bril- liancy, yet it occasionally demands attention from the circumstance

of being the organ of a particular ps i

rty,-1 r u) v. indeed, frequently of certain individuals of note. Of these, the pria Lord BROUGHAM and VAUX. They who wish is know what L BRouGHAsi would be at, turn to the Edinburgh Review ; where they generally find some indications of what must, in courtesy, be termed his policy. The Number for October, published this week, contains an article on the " Last Session of Parliament," which is universally ascribed to him ; and which, though he probably did not actually write—only retouch it, (for it may be convenient by and by to say, " I never wrote that article")—is evidently the product of his inspiration. It is rambling and dif- fuse : errors, inconsistencies, rash and unfounded assertions, strike the reader in almost every page : at the same time there are several good things, well put. The manner in which the House of Peers is defended—its use as a court of revision, with the enumeration of its services in legislation—frequent references to Lord BROUGHAMS own measures and pet projects, with insi- dious attempts to magnify their importance—indicate the noble and learned author,—mind, we do not say writer; for, except occasionally, it does not strike us that Lord BROUGHAM actually held the pen. We regret to see Lord BROUGHAM take this course. It seems too plain that he is still on the look-out for office—perhaps ex- pecting it. His object is to persuade the Country that the Go- vernment is weak—weak because wanting BROUGHAM. But, as we have repeatedly said, though Lord BROUGHAM may be very useful as an independent member of the Legislature, as a Minister he would be—as he has been—mischievous to the country, and a nuisance to his colleagues. Why can he not discern that his mission lies in another direction?

It is the unhappy eagerness for official power and influence that misleads him. The acute and vigilant Tory partisan, the Standard, sees that in this very article he has been playing the game of the Tories; and is consequently eager to give it extended circulation,— at the same time that, according to his custom when any reputed Liberal is doing mischief to his party, our contemporary profusely lauds the talent, acuteness, and constitutional feeling of the noble and learned author. The Standard calls the article in the Review a " remarkable and truly useful essay "—a "powerful Conservative article"—" not unworthy of his Lordship's talent and comprehen- sive views "—" a most important contribution to the Conservative cause "—which they must give " copious extracts " from, and " recur to often "—with more of the like sort.

The Standard is right. Under the thin pretence of rousing the People to support Lord MELBOURNE, the author of the article has done his best to give him a shake; in the vain, infatu- ated expectation, that the BROUGHAM alliance will be courted as a tower of strength by the tottering Government. Regarding this "remarkable essay" as a "contribution," though not a " powerful" one, to the " Conservative cause," we proceed to examine some of its strange positions, and to expose some of its unfounded statements : and if our strictures shall appear deficient in the lucidus ordo which is so desirable, we beg our readers to bear in mind the erratic course of the per- sonage with whom we have to deal.

The Radicals are blamed by Lord BROUGHAM for the change of' Ministry in last November. "The abusive tone taken by many at public meetings, and by some through the press: this, and this alone, was the cause of the change in November 1834." Again, it is said that the People are" to blame " for the " fatal increase" in Tory strength at the last election. • This is a con- venient doctrine for the unpopular members of the GREY Ministry. But how came the Ministers to be abused ? how came the People to be supise ? Had the latter become indifferent to Reform Y—No such thing. But the People saw, that in the futile attempt to conciliate the Tories, Ministers were throwing Reform overboard. The tone of the Ministerial press was insolent : Lord BROUGHAM wrote articles in the Edinburgh Review to point out how little the Duke of WELLINGTON and Sir ROBERT PEEL dif- fered from Lords GREY and ALTHORP : he made speeches in praise of the Peers, who had rejected the Local Courts Bill, the Irish Tithe Bill, and the Warwick Borough Bill ; and told the People, that though little was done in the last session, less would be done in the next. The real Reformers were disgusted : they took Lord BROUGHAM at his word, and, for the time, saw little difference between Whig and Tory. The Radicals were not the only disaffected Liberals. We knew and stated, in the early part of the session of 1834, that many of the regular Whig supporters of the Government privately declared that their constitutents were dissatisfied, and that their Ministerial votes put their seats in jeopardy. Who forced Lord STANLEY and his friends to retire, If not the alarmed and displeased majority of a House in which there were only about a hundred Tories and not so many Radicals? Who compelled Ministers to emasculate their Coerl cion Bill?--No, no, Lord BROUGHAM : the discontent among the Reformers had become very general before you undertook your famous tour into Scotland ; where ycur speeches did the MEL- BOURNE Ministry vast injury among the multitudes, who were not in the secret of your essential unimportance in the remodelled Cabinet. The result of the unpopularity of the GREY Ministry

was visible in the elections. The People stood by those at the hustings who had stood by them in the House of Commons. Scarcely a Radical lost his seat ; but the Whigs were smote hip

and thigh. Suppose that an election were to take place now— not a supporter of Lord MELBOURNE would make way for a Tory. IV hence this change? It has arisen from the change in IV hig policy ; which policy is very different from what it was under the GREY dominion. It is indeed said in the Review, that the Irish Coer- cion Bill was Lord MELBOURNE'S, and therefore that the MEL- BOURNE Ministry is no better than the GREY. What misrepre- sentation! — Lord MELBOURNE'S Government, of whomsoever composed, (for that is a secondary question,) took the milder measure, and has since rendered it unexceptionable. It is not as an individual member of the GREY Cabinet, but as the head of his own, that Lord MELBOURNE has deserved and won "golden opinions." The Country knows the difference between the present and the GREY Ministry, and prefers the present; even although Lord BROUGHAM, as Earl GREY'S Chancellor, would fain mike it appear that there is nothing to choose between them. It is one of the gross inconsistencies of the article we are exa- mining, that while in one page the author professes to view " with feelings of extreme pain, somewhat mingled with indignation," the comparisons drawn between the GREY and MELBOURNE Ca- binets, " all in disparagement" of the former,—while he speaks of the " gross absurdity" of such disparaging comparisons, and says the only reason for the Radicals' preference of the MEL- BOURNE Cabinet is that they "helped the Courtiers to dismiss the Government of 1834, and are now defending the Government of 1835,"—it is gross inconsistency in this writer to assert, as he does truly in another part of the same essay, that " other Admi- nistrations have known and felt that their existence depended upon the favour of the Court, and the countenance of the Peers, and to a certain degree on the favour of the People; this feels and knows that its existence depends on the People's support alone." \Vhy, is not this a sufficient justification of the pre- ference given to it by the Liberals ? It is the cause of that preference. Where is the " absurdity " in the People's choosing to support a thoroughly.popular Ministry, rather than one which looked to the " favour of the Court and the countenance of the Peers, and only in a certain degree to the favour of the People?"' In the sentence last quoted, Lord BROUGHAM has pronounced the condemnation of the GREY and the just eulogium of the MELBOURNE Ministry. The Reviewer goes on to say, that the present must transpose the rule of former Ministries, which courted the Aristocracy, and only sought not to offend the People; for this must do " nothing offensive to the Aristocracy and the Crown, but seek first of all to- please the People." Ay, but suppose what pleases the People is offensive to the Aristocracy and the Crown ?—Lord BROUGHAM's- policy is not fitted for the times. He cannot serve both God and Mammon ; he cannot please the People and the Peers. His sys- tem of government is not workable; and as be has tried it and failed, he ought to know as much by this time. The present state of parties is described as one in which " this very worst of mischiefs must oftentimes befal us—that small knots of men, or even single individuals, rising into an unnatural and most inauspicious importance, are enabled to dictate to the- Government what line should be pursued, and thus become ar- biters upon measures of the greatest moment:. This is intended for a blow at O'CONNELL ; whose personal importance has eclipsed that of the Ex-Chancellor, though in 1830 his personal influence was so great and " unnatural " that he forced Lord GREY to make him Chancellor. But it is a consolation to all good citizens to know, that the importance of the " individual" alluded to by the Reviewer, is based upon his patriotism : when he deserts his coun- try, the People will desert him. He has no influence independent of the People ; to whom he must cleave, or, like the once powerful HENRY BROUGHAM, he will fall from his high estate. This is e very different kind of influence from that possessed a few years ago by knots of Boroughmongers; which was " inauspicious,'. and in a free country " unnatural." We have hinted that one of the objects of' the article in the Edin5urgh Review is to make out a case for the House of Peers. With this view, the Lords are represented as stopping the Im- prisonment for Debt Bill, only because they had not sufficient time to discuss it. This was not the real cause : Lord HARE WOOD said distinctly, that he should oppose the bill because it rendered their Lordships' landed property liable to the Bankrupt- laws—it made land liable to be taken in payment for simple con- tract debts.

We are told that the excuse for throwing out the Roman Ca- tholic Marriages Bill was an unwillingness to touch the Marriage-

law until it could all be recast : but where was this pretence when Lord LYNDHURST'S bill was passed ? Did not that affect the Marriage-law in a most important part? Lord BROUGHAM is forced to admit that another bill was rejected because Mr. O'CoNNELL was friendly to it : " that was quite enough to decree its doom—the bill was lost." This is quite enough to settle the position, if not to " decree the doom," .of the Lords as a legisla.

tive assembly. Then as to the pretence of wanting time, they could have sat longer, in order to get through necessary business. The apology for the Peers is most lame and impotent.

The necessity for a second chamber, "something in the nature of the House of' Lords," is declared to be " perfectly manifest, ' because Mr. LAMB'S Justice of the Peace Bill was sent up to the Lords by the Commons with a bad clause in it, and because " the most valuable clause" in Lord BROUGHAM'S Patent Bill was struck out in the Commons I These are positively the only in- stances of mischievous legislation by the Commons, (and of them d'fferent opinions are entertained among men as wise as Lord BROUGHAM,) adduced as a justification for assuming it to be " perfectly manifest" that we must have something in the nature of a House of Lords.

" We test our belief," says the Reviewer, of the necessity of a second chamber, upon the necessity of a reconsideration in a less occupied assembly, to prevent fatal oversights and other errors.'' But in the next page, lie objects to the election of the members of a second chamber by the same persons who choose the House of Commons, because an assembly so elected would be " a dupli- cate of the House of Commons." Well, if it be true that the necessity of having any second chamber arises from the necessity of reconsidering measures in a less occupied assembly, why might not a " duplicate of the House of Commons" answer the pur- - pose? What is to prevent the " duplicate" from performing the process of reconsideration ? Again, it is urged that if we are to have a second chamber elected by the same classes as elect - the first, we might as well divide the House of Commons into • two, " making one half revise the proceedings of the other half." And why not ?—if it be. true that the necessity of revising mea- sures is the ground for having a second chamber. But the " du- plicate will in most cases only repeat the errors which the first has committed : that which secures discussion and gives the probability of real revision and correction, is a second chamber being differently constituted from thetirst." Why, we ask—why? The inquirer looks in vain to the Review for a sufficient answer. The dealings of the Lords with the Justice of the Peace Bill and the Patent Bill are not sufficient ; especially when weighed against the constant oversights and perpetual blundering of the Peers. Great stress is laid on the necessity of a strong Liberal ma- jority in the Commons, as a means of inlluencine; the Lords; and the reader is asked what reforms the Lords threw out in 1832, 1833, and 1834? We reply, that they threw out the Reform Bill, the Local Courts Bill, the Irish Tithe Bill, and so mutilated the Church Temporalities Bill that Lord GREY hesitated whether ho should proceed with it. The Scotch Burgh Bill was smuggled 'through the House of Peers, its importance not being understood: this was plainly stated in the House last session, as an excuse for the blunder. But there is another point—what measures were Ministers prevented from bringing forward, by the knowledge that they would be swamped in the House of Peers? Lord JOHN RUSSELL has declared that the whole policy of Government was crippled by the consciousness of the hostile intentions of the Peers. And this was the case with a Liberal majority of 250 in the Commons. The Lords seem to care little for the " prepon- derating force of numbers?

We agree with Lord Beouniesst, that nothing can be done effectually in the way of Peerage Reform with a bare majority in the House of Commons; but if we believed, with him, that a large majority of the property of the country is in Tory hands, we should have slight hope of any improvement. We, on the con- trary, concur with another part of his article, which declares that the present House of Commons is, in its proportions of Tory and Reforming, nothing like a fair representation of the People. But, on the supposition that, as a first step, a larger Liberal majority of the Commons were returned, we should not think much of his sug- gestion of a Free Conference. There must be two parties to agree to the conference : the majority of the Commons would not choose to be outvoted by the Lords; nor, vice versa, the Lords by the Commons.

There are some other points in this strange but amusing essay —such as the indications of a desire to perfect the Representative system by shortening Parliaments and extending the suffrage

which would afford scope for remark ; but enough has been said to prove how replete it is with blunders and inconsistency. It only requires to be read with attention to be quite harmless ; and the Tories are perfectly welcome to Lord BROUGHAM'S " impor- tant contribution to the Conservative cause."