Raeburn, Sir Henry; Morrison's Reminiscences of, 782 733 Rambles of the Emperor, Ching Tih Kean Nan, 455 Repeal; An Irishman's Thoughts on, Roberts' (Miss) Ruins and Old Trees, St. Andrews; Lyon's History of, Scenes in the Life of an Authoress, 72 439 477 803 197 744 7 629 61 317, 637, 693 Wives of England; by Mrs. Ellis, 264 193 370, 456, 512 765 TAIT'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1843. PUBLIC AFFAIRS. SEVERAL months have elapsed since we have offered the few remarks which we have long been in the habit of making on public affairs. There was indeed much to think about, much to grieve over, but little to talk about, while waiting for the results of the new Tariff and the new Sliding Scale, -seeing distress spreading on every hand, and lamentable divisions among those whose union was the surest foundation of the hope of better times. To have given expression to discontent and complaint had at best been idle: those from whom we had hoped better things than riot and outrage, of which they must always be themselves the surest victims, had been sufficiently punished by the vengeance of the laws which they had violated, and were more the subjects of commiseration than rebuke; and in the present awful state of the country, we hold merely factious party recrimination as worse than idle-as morally reprehensible. Party nick-names, and party tactics we have long since left to party jobbers; and having thrown all the badges overboard, we are not disposed to fish them up again. From the first hint of Sir Robert Peel's Tariff, small as was the actual advantage that could be anticipated from a measure that was, perhaps, underrated by one party, and viewed with inordinate alarm by another, Liberals were bound to be in charity with the Tory Minister, who, with however timid a hand, had fairly, though certainly not far, opened the sluices, and let in the waters which are now swelling around us. It is not less true, that Sir Robert Peel's predecessors in office had left but few of those grateful reminiscences and feelings which make this duty of charity difficult to practise towards their rival. A Session of Parliament was got through by Sir Robert, in which, one way or another, a good deal of useful business was accomplished, when its doings are compared with the latter years of the Whig administration; but of which the weightiest business was paving the way for those great commercial and fiscal changes which are now inevitable. Let us not be understood to impute the dallying with important measures, and the disappointment of the reasonable hopes of the Reformers, altogether to Whig hollowness or disinclination. The late ministry were often obstructed by the contu VOL. X.-NO. CIX. macy and factious opposition of the party whom their supineness and want of confidence in the people had allowed to rally into formidable strength; though their greatest cause of obstruction lurked within. They had got all they wanted, and nothing more was necessary save to keep what they had obtained. The means of doing so they strangely miscalculated, and so lost all. These are things of the past; and now looking forward to the coming Session of Parliament, which, whether for weal or woe, must be one of the most eventful that has yet been witnessed, we start afresh from the point at which we left off when we last spoke of public matters, and inquire whether Sir Robert Peel considers the present distress merely one in the series of periods of temporary difficulty which arise from time to time in every great commercial country, from ruinous wars, bad seasons, and a variety of causes, and are again surmounted; or whether, as is now generally held by reflecting men, he considers it the most alarming symptom that has yet been apparent of the decidedly downward tendency of England in every one of her great interests. The agriculturists begin at length to perceive that all the unjust protection that can be cunningly devised for them, cannot long uphold them, if the other leading interests of the country suffer. The present distress, arising from the same causes, and partaking of the general character of previous periods of suffering, is seen to be more broadly based, and more inveterate in its nature; and the disease has seized upon a previously debilitated frame, no longer able to repel such attacks. National decay has been coming on, now with stealthy pace, now with an accelerated movement, but ever gaining ground; and the only possible issue has been foreseen and foretold for a quarter of a century. We are not, however, disposed to exult in the fulfilment of prophecies of evil, but rather to rejoice in the indications, that the warning lessons of the justice which is wisdom, are at length beginning to be listened to. Experience, it is said, teaches fools. Falling corn-markets, on the one hand, in spite of a lately adopted magical protecting scale; and, on the other, the energetic action of the Anti-corn, B and no one doubts that, if Sir Robert means free be duped by party names, and made the tools of factious interests. Lord John Russell practised the same kind of tacit delusion. He indubitably allowed the Reformers to indulge in fond fancies of what the Whig administration was to do; and, when the time came, turned round and taunted them with their credulity :-He never had meant any such thing! If Sir Robert Peel should bubble the farmers in the same style, there is yet this great difference in the result of the deception, that his is for their ultimate salvation, and for the more immediate relief of the nation. Let us only find that Sir Robert proves himself an arch-deceiver to the hopes of selfishness and injustice; and long may the monopolists be so deceived! The more intelligent of the agricultural party do not seem to fancy that they have been betrayed. law League, and the increasing phalanx of Free- though Mr. Estcott and others seem to think this systraders, at the head of an unemployed and starv-tem of delusion will really serve the agriculturists; ing population, speak in a tone that must penetrate the most obtuse brains. There is little doubt that Sir Robert Peel, on questions of political economy, holds, at least in the abstract, the same opinions as the late Mr. Huskisson. But there is no longer place for theories and abstractions. Something must be done, and that quickly and effectually; if universal, and, it may be, irreparable ruin is to be averted; and if a last fair chance is to be given to the country to right itself. The Corn Laws must go in the first place;-and they are doomed, and are scarcely worth longer consi-est in the House of Commons! Let us no longer deration from their opponents; since some of their supporters have themselves magnanimously spoken their sentence. They remain but a question of time, and surely of very brief time, as we cannot believe that Sir Robert Peel, who has, on former occasions, had the manly humility, and true wisdom and patriotism to adopt whatever was commendable in the policy of his rivals, will pertinaciously cling to a measure proved to be worthless, even to those for whom it was devised, merely because it is not quite a year old, and was of his own contrivance. It has surely been tried quite long enough, the moment that its futility is demonstrated. We would hope that the Minister will as frankly throw his useless Sliding Scale overboard, as adopt the Whig modifications of the Sugar Duties, and, if he please, out-bid the liberality of the Whigs. His difficulties are easily foreseen; and therefore on these, and any liberal measure, or measure of liberal tendency which he may propose, it is the duty of every man who wishes well to the country, and hopes to prosper in the general prosperity, to support a Minister-Tory though he be denominated-who has already done the state some small service, and obtained credit for an inclination to do more, if he is permitted; if he is, in other words, supported by the country against the selfish imbeciles of his own party. Whatever may be the tactics, or, rather, the tempers of the wilder portion of Sir Robert's friends, the duty of Reformers is clear enough. A clamour has been raised by the Whig partisan press, because Sir Robert Peel seems inclined to delude the agricultural interest, has, in fact, deceived the farmers, The changed tone of the late great agricultural meetings is, if possible, a more heart-felt cause of congratulation than the formidable attitude, the elastic energy, and rapidly-growing strength of the Anti-corn-law League.* Those convictions must long have been working in secret which found such strong expression at these farmer assemblies, where things have not been minced or said by halves. The death-warrant of those foolish and iniquitous laws-for they are not more iniquitous than foolish-has been signed by the agriculturists themselves; which leaves no chance for a rescue, and little encouragement for the attempt. There is another advantage. Having surrendered their own monopoly, the landed interest will show no mercy to any other.+ Free trade in corn is free trade in everything. * Among their other efforts, the active and indefatigable National Anti-corn-law League some time since offered Prizes for the three best Essays on "Agriculture and the Corn Law." From those offered the Three to which the prizes were awarded have been published; and they will, we trust, be speedily circulated far and wide, among the tenant farmers and farm labourers of Great Britain and Ireland, whom they are intended to enlighten. They advocate the same principles, and use the same strain of argument to which our readers have long been familiar in our pages, and especially in the Political Register of Tait's Magazine for the eight or nine years during which the Political Register was under the superintendence of the late James Johnston Darling, W. S., with whom agricultural science was a favourite pursuit, and who understood the subject well, both practically and theoretically. The opinions advanced in these Essays, and those beginning to be avowed at the agricultural meetings, were unceasingly inculcated by Mr. Darling; and his words have not been as water spilt upon the ground. Mr. Darling was from the outset a Total Repealer, from a sincere conviction, common to him with some of the most intelligent Scottish farmers, that the deprivation of the so-named protection must be for the advantage of the farmers themselves, and ultimately of the landlords also. Nature has, under all circumstances, given a lavish protection to British farmers in the distances from which the corn supplies of the country must be drawn ; and from the superior skill, capital, and improved processes of husbandry that must be forced into play by the withdrawal of the enervating protective duties, Mr. Darling always expressed the utmost confidence in the farmers successfully competing with foreigners, if not in one kind of produce, then in others equally profitable. We rejoice to find such doctrines making rapid way. These Prize Essays form a valuable compendium of them. The galvanic throes of the Quarterly Review are to us another cheering symptom. The poor gentleman who writes about the League in that publication is evidently crazed; though there is no little malignity in his madness. Had he had a few more weeks for consideration, his very extraordinary demonstration might probably have been Income-tax, though the repeal of the Corn Laws and The main foundation of the hope on which we now rest is, that the deep-seated evils of our condition being better understood, there is more chance of unanimity as to the nature of the remedy to be administered. There is, so far as we can ascertain, no abatement of the symptoms. Trade becomes every day worse and worse. Whole communities are nearly unemployed, starving, and despairing; and a fearful relaxation of morals, and letting go of the decencies and proprieties of the humblest life that is sustained by regular industry, must be the consequence of those habits of idleness and vagrancy to which so many of the young and of the rising generation are at present condemned :Nor do we see any chance of speedy relief. Regarded merely as a Tariff, and not in its remote though weightiest results-as the hopeful entering of the wedge, in the process of overthrowing all monopolies-the Peel code promises but slender aid to the manufacturers when compared with their necessities; while another and another hostile Tariff bristles up in the face of our commerce; nor dare we well complain of receiving back from foreign nations the measure we have meted. The total repeal of the Corn Laws, however just and necessary, cannot all at once, nor yet, it is to be feared, of itself, renovate healthful production, and restore the manufacturing system to soundness and prosperity. More is required, much morethe abrogation of many burthens, and the removal of many impediments, which Sir Robert Peel has left untouched; nay, the total emancipation of manufacturing industry. And how is this mighty change to be effected?- By a more sweeping reduction of duties? That the insatiable demands of the State Revenue forbid. The nation, which is almost above measure impatient of the Incometax in its present form, would absolutely revolt" protection," but, like other industrious and inat the amount of direct taxation which might justify Sir Robert Peel in relaxing some of the duties that press the hardest upon the great manufactures of the country. Hostility to this obnoxious impost-the Income-tax, is, we fear, even more general than hostility to monopolies and restrictions on trade; and so determined will the attack already begun be, that unless the Minister has some tempting equivalent with which he can bribe the acquiescence of the country, his Income-tax must go, or he must go; however necessary both may in the meanwhile be to the public welfare. The Tariff is found to be no money equivalent for the changed into a decent adjustment of the mantle preparatory to the inevitable fall. The desperate and curious piece of rigmarole to which we allude is of great length. It revives the stale and self-refuting calumny of the manufacturers having incited the formidable outrages of last autumn. It deals hugely in CAPITAL and Italic letters, a mode of printing, according to the same Quarterly, (page 79,)" which may be defined as designating what especially demands skipping." There is, consequently, a great deal of that raw-head-and-bloody-bones article that "espeIt would put cially demands skipping." Its sting lies mainly in its tail, though its spines bristle all over. down the League with the strong hand, as " Jacobinical-raising-money, organized and affiliated;" and finally endangering" THE SAFETY OF THE STATE." Thus thirty years ago, or less, the same parties-probably the same individual writer for one-would have put down the Anti-slavery Society, which also raised money, was affiliated, and sent forth lecturers who, in Bristol and Liverpool, were even more roughly handled than the lecturers of the League have been. But the Quarterly's seribe, not contented with attacking the members of the League, also denounces the ladies who have cooperated, (as English women, to their honour, have often before done in works of charity and mercy,) as political agitators, wheedling the workmen by styling them" gentlemen" in the circulars addressed to them--and who are, moreover," the femelles de ces males" who head the League; a mode of designation sufficiently brutal in the original idiom, and not much improved in the delicate use of an English" gentleman." The article, however, places many pithy quotations from speeches and letters before the Quarterly's readers; and cannot fail to do good, especially when viewed in connexion with what has been accomplished, and the lowered tone of the Monopolists. dependent men, upon their own exertions and skill. This looks almost as great a miracle as converting the whole nation to the principle of direct taxation; a principle only of secondary importance to that of universal direct representation, which must, among other reforms, ensure a sound system of raising the public revenue. We do not wish to take a desponding view of the state and prospects of public affairs. The country has probably seen, for the present, the worst of its evil days, if not yet the end of them; for now their complicated causes and the remedies begin to be generally understood; and though we dare not be possess that commonsense qualification which alone can make the franchise in their hands safe to others, or useful to themselves. We, who consider the extended suffrage an element of safety to the body politic, as well as the right of the unrepresented, disclaim such apprehensions; without, however, being able: in the face of the alarming facts which countenance contrary opinions, to persuade our friends that their fears are fallacious. But one cause of unmingled satisfaction is the growing good sense, and frank good humour displayed of late by the farmers and a few of the landed gentlemen; whom one is disposed to rejoice over like the woman over her lost talent; to find which caus her treasure. The advocates of the Total Repeal of the Taxes on the People's Food, the LEAGUE— now "prosperous gentlemen," we already had; the Complete Suffragists we had, and highly were both to be esteemed and valued; but here is a new and almost unhoped-for accession of potent auxiliaries, who make a wise and generous surrender, instead of protracting a weak and exasperated hostility. If any part of this change is owing to Sir Robert Peel's delusions, all praise to him! He is gaining to himself in the farmers a phalanx of supporters in every useful commercial reform that he may project; for the agriculturists, if stripped of their own privileges, will have little indulgence for the monopolies and protecting duties of the other favoured interests. so sanguine as to anticipate a speedy and effectual cure, we may confidently look forward to a gradual amelioration of the more distressing symptoms, so soon as the trade in food is unfettered. Skill, enterprise, capital untold, anxiously waiting to be employed in setting busy hands in motion, are still ours, and only require free channels through which they may flow, to bring back the ease, content, and prosperity which it is, at the eleventh hour, discovered will not always wait even upon that protected class to which all the others have been sacrificed. Instead of indulging in gloom, we would rather dwell upon the blessings which chequer the bitter adversity of the hour. Peace in the East and in China-toed her more joy than the possession of all the rest of the news of which the desponding heart of the weighed-down nation leapt, as a drowning man clutches at a straw-is an eminent cause of gratulation, both from what it has given, and what it promises; and peace preserved with America is a common and inestimable blessing, not alone to the two countries immediately concerned, but to the whole human race. The finances of the country could not longer afford expensive wars; nor did consciousness of their justice strengthen us for the combat. In Sir Robert Peel, we believe, we shall have a promoter of peace, wherever else he may halt. Another ground of gratulation is found in the late indications of returning good sense among those of the "physical-force" Chartists, who, from ignorance, and the instigation of foolish, if not wicked leaders, were incited to violate the law, and who thus brought In the meanwhile, and until the hour of distress down its vengeance upon themselves, while they is past, or its worst ills mitigated, never at any have brought disgrace and discomfiture upon an former epoch in the history of the country were conhonest cause. With how many specious argu- sideration, and kindness, and bountifulness to the ments has the conduct of these misled men fur- extreme sufferers, the unemployed, so much denished the opposers of every extension of the fran- manded as they are now, and must be for months chise; who now scornfully inquire if the plun- to come. In relation to this we rejoice to see that derers and incendiaries of the late riots, are a Poor Law for Scotland is at last under the consithe sort of men for whom is demanded, as of deration of the government, and that preliminary right, a direct influence in making the laws? steps are immediately to be taken. This is a subThe insurrection,-for that, it seems, is the im-ject on which Sir Robert Peel is as well entitled to posing though incorrect name given to the late riots, has certainly no necessary connexion with the claim of the unrepresented for the Suffrage: but when some of the Chartists even boast that this was a Chartist movement, and not a strike for wages, many among the middle classes, who were previously favourable to the essentials of the six points, began to doubt if the claimants yet demand the support of the Liberals as in those commercial reforms which are expected from him; and we make no doubt that he will obtain it from the country at large, if not from the whole landed class of the North. But before any Poor Law can come into operation years must elapse, and the prevailing misery is extreme: An extraordinary crisis must be met by an extraordinary effort. DEATH-HYMN OF THE FOOD-TAXED, BY EBENEZER ELLIOTT. Tune.-"I waited long, and sought the Lord." God said to man, "Arise and toil, But men said, "No! nor food, nor work :". All ills that man can bear I bore, "Bread, bread for toil !" I ask'd of man, |