to grapple with these questions, so important to commerce. It equalized the sugar duties, and at the same time reduced the drawback, or rather the bounty, on sugar exported. It also achieved an act of tardy justice in favour of the West Indian Colonies, which had so long borne the weight of the four and a half per cent duties;- a branch of revenue most oppressive in itself, and misapplied to purposes wholly foreign from those which had originally justified its introduction. During this Administration, not only has perfect publicity been given to the affairs of the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, so long shrouded in mystery, but the heavy burden borne by Tin (that earliest article of British trade), has been entirely removed. What was the public feeling against the Pension List prior to this Administration? what jobs did it cover ? what jealousy did it create ? The people, judging of cases unknown by abuses apparent, applied to the whole list Lord Liverpool's epigrammatic_endorcement on the Memorial of a certain noble marquis,- This

is too bad.' A committee was appointed-an enquiry the most searching took place, in spite of the vehement indignation of the Tories-the whole case was submitted to a fair tribunal. The principle on which Civil List pensions should be hereafter granted was made part of the law itself; responsibility to Parliament, effective and immediate, was secured; and an arrangement founded on just economy reduced this branch of the public expenditure to less than one-half its former amount. The complete success that attended the treatment of this question, is apparent in the complete satisfaction it has given to the public mind. Since the Report of the Pension List Committee, what candidate finds at the hustings a popular grievance in pensions— now made the fair rewards of intellectual labour or public service ?

Such have been the principal financial measures of the last five sessions; and contemporaneously, the great work of consolidating the Excise Acts has been steadily persevered in; while two great operations, the West India Loan and the Funding of Exchequer Bills, have proved at once the validity of the public credit, and the readiness with which the Government encountered a temporary obloquy, from their determination to secure to the public the most advantageous terms. On occasions of this nature, it is easy to purchase popularity at the expense of the people. It is precisely because, by the resolution of the Treasury, the profits of the monied speculators were reduced to a minimum, that the chorus of applause which hailed the loans of Mr Pitt, subsided into an angry murmur against a Treasury that considered itself the guardian of the public purse.

Turning from these financial measures, we see effected by this 'feeble Government' others which no Tory administration ever felt itself endowed with the vigour and the courage to propose— the English Municipal Bill-the English Tithe Bill-the adjustment of Irish Tithes-the Irish Poor Law (a still more difficult question than the English,)- the Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt by Mesne Process. Those Ministers whose hands are said to be so weak, have shortened by nearly two years the noviciate. of African liberty; they have struck a deadly blow at the Slave Trade in other countries; they have prepared new paths for commercial enterprise in Turkey and in Russia; they have commenced for Literature negotiations for the greatest boon it can receivean International Law of Copyright; they have established the great principle of Popular Education, without exclusion of religious differences; and they have closed the last arduous session (for we will not narrow this boon by classing it amongst the mere financial arrangements), with obtaining, for every class of the people, the commercial, literary, and social benefits arising from the cheapest possible intercourse by correspondence—preceding in this, the most vigorous and most popular states in the world. These have, in four or five years, been some of the acts of the Ministry charged with utter inefficiency! Whether it be much or little, the charity of the Opposition is to give nothing. They remind us of the story told of Antigonus. A Cynic asked him for a drachm of silver. 'Pooh!' said Antigonus, that is not a 'present that should come from a king.' 'Give me then a talent.' Pooh!' said Antigonus, that's not a present that should go to a Cynic.' With those who censure the niggard generosity of others, there is always the double excuse for their own thriftthe too much or the too little.

6

We repeat it for we will nail down these facts upon the memories of those whom we address-there has not been an abuse upon which public opinion has been expressed with energy and decision, of which the reform has not been either effected, or advanced, in the nine years' administration of these Do-nothing Whigs.' Look back to the mock Parliament of Rotten Boroughs-it is reformed; to the jobbing Corporate Oligarchies— they are opened to popular control; to the disease that, in the banded mendicancy of the old Poor Law, rotted away the sinews of industry-it is healed; to the bar to improvement in English tithes-it is removed; to the Rathcormac butcheries of the Irish tithes they are at an end; to the wholesale famine of the Irish peasantry-the Irish Poor Law opens an asylum to starvation; to the intolerable grievance of a pension list for titled paupers-it is rooted from the land; to Colonial Slavery-it is no more. On

what abuses, yet existing, are the opinions of men attached to popular rights the most warmly expressed? The coercion of Electors-the monopoly of the Landowners;-the Government has advanced as far in remedial measures as numerical force will allow. The Vote by Ballot, and the Repeal of the Corn Laws, are Open questions. Let the people look back when they please to the struggles of this Ministry-it is the people's banner that floats above the contest-it is the people's cause that has triumphed, and which yet animates to farther exertions.

But there are some persons who persist in regarding only what the Ministry has not done. In vain we point out to them what it has done. They are worthy rivals of a certain Pere Londre, who, in a Register of the times, thus recorded the battle of the Boyne: The battle of the Boyne-Schomberg is killed there at the head of the English.' Certainly Schomberg was killed; but it is no less true that his army achieved a great victory. No doubt, in any new edition of his Register, the worthy Pere Londre would still pertinaciously print- The battle of the Boyne-Schomberg is killed there at the head of the English!' Do what you will to explain the whole truth, there ever are in politics Peres Londre enough to dwell only on the one fact! Tell them all that the Government has done, and they still persist in recording their deeds by a reference to something that the Government has not effected. They can never allow the victory gained; they can only insist on their Schomberg killed.

The great questions not yet settled, we have no doubt the Government, whatever the result, will fairly grapple with, at the commencement of the next session. We look with sanguine expectation to their strengthening our colonial empire, by a matured and comprehensive scheme for the constitutional pacification of the Canadas. In domestic reforms, we hope for an efficient amelioration in the Laws; and we cannot here withhold the expression of our trust and belief, that, amongst the earliest measures laid before Parliament, will be one for the better and more effectual working of the machinery of the Reform Bill.

We make no apology for entering at such length into the circumstances connected with last Session, the acts of Ministers, and the state of Parties. The condition of the country and the aspect of the times fully warrant our details. With the fate of the present Government rests, for a time at least, the result of that most momentous experiment which the Whigs have been the first to make in the history of this country, namely, WHETHER REFORM IS TO BE A PRINCIPLE OF OPPOSITION OR OF ADMINISTRATION. As yet they have succeeded in the noble attempt

to enrol amongst the servants of the Crown the advocates and champions of popular improvement. The struggle carried on is, in fact, that between a portion of the aristocracy and those most influenced by the habits and prejudices of aristocratic policy, (not scrupling to seek an alliance wherever political intemperance can be found,) and a Ministry supported by the Commons and favoured by the Crown. In this crisis, we may be forgiven if we have too largely expressed that interest in public affairs which all men of all parties must deeply feel.

NOTE to the Article on the Ministerial Plan of Education.

AVING, since the above article was printed, received a copy

H of the Minutes of the Privy Council relative to the appli

cation of the late Parliamentary Grant for Education, we think it may be useful to make our readers acquainted, by means of it, with the Regulations by which the Council have resolved to regulate the appropriation of the Grant for the present year. We therefore here annex the Minute containing them.

EXTRACT from Minutes of the Committee of Council on
Education, 24th September 1839.

The Lords of the Committee deliberated as to the best manner of effecting the objects contemplated in the vote of the last Session. The sum voted is L.30,000; the number of applications is already 307; the number of scholars to be educated in the proposed schools is 58,302; and the amount applied for is L.48,590.

'The Lords of the Committee observe, that, in a large proportion of the applications now before them, the memorialists have commenced, or undertaken, the erection of schoolhouses, in the expectation of receiving pecuniary assistance from her Majesty's Government, upon conditions similar to those which were required by the Lords of the Treasury; and the Lords of the Committee resolve to be guided by the regulations contained in the Treasury Minutes, in so far as will be consistent with the terms of her Majesty's Order in Council of 3d June 1839.

The following Regulations will therefore govern the appropriation of the sum intrusted to the superintendence of the Committee for the present year :

' REGULATIONS.

1. Every application for a grant is to be made in the form of a memorial, addressed, "To the Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education."

2. The Committee will consider the memorials in order, according to the dates at which they have been or shall be received.

3. The right of inspection will be required by the Committee. in all cases. Inspectors, authorized by her Majesty in Council, will be appointed from time to time, to visit schools to be henceforth aided by public money. The Inspectors will not interfere with the religious instruction, or discipline, or management of the school, it being their object to collect facts and information, and to report the result of their inspections to the Committee of Council.

4. Before any application for aid shall be entertained, the Committee will require to be satisfied-by reference either to the Inspectors, or to the National or British and Foreign School Society, or, if the school be in Scotland, to some competent authority there

Ist, That the case is deserving of assistance.

2d, That there are no charitable or other funds or endowments which might supersede the necessity of a grant. 3d, That the site of the school-house has been obtained with a good legal tenure, and that by conveyance to trustees it has been duly secured for the education of the children of the poor.

4th, That it is reasonable to expect that the school will be efficiently and permanently supported.

5. The Committee will require that every building, on behalf of which any application is entertained, shall be of substantial erection, and that in the plans thereof not less than six square feet be provided for each child.

6. All recipients of grants will be required to bind themselves to submit to any audit of their building account, and to furnish any reports of their schools which the Committee of Council may require.

7. The Committee will require that the certificate hereto annexed shall be signed by the applicants and presented to the Committee, before their Lordships will authorize the payment of any grant which may be made to a school.

8. In all ordinary cases, the grants will be made in aid of the erection of School-houses (exclusive of residence for master or assistant) upon the following further conditions: