We had meditated some remarks upon the extraordinary aspect of the political horizon, more especially in reference to various important religious questions, the bearings of which no Christian patriot should overlook in the event of being called upon to exercise the elective franchise; but the resolution which Sir Robert Peel is about to propose to the House of Commons, (the result of which will not be known till this sheet is at press) may so materially alter the position of affairs, that the discussion we had intended might be irrelevant or premature. Should he succeed in his motion-of which, unless some strange coalition occur,we can foresee no reasonable doubt, after the late majorities against her Majesty's ministers; and embodying as it does a doctrine which every sound constitutionalist must acknowledge to be consonant to the spirit of the British polity-the nation will probably be spared for the present the many inconveniences of a dissolution of parliament, and the great evils of a general election under strong political excitement.

We have said that no sound constitutionalist can doubt the correctness of the doctrine involved in Sir R. Peel's motion; for though the resolution makes no direct mention of the Crown, much less denies the right of the sovereign to choose the ministers of state, it affirms it to be unconstitutional for a Cabinet to persist in holding the reins of government, (which it can do only by irresponsible court favour,) when proved to have so completely lost the confidence of Parliament, that it cannot carry into effect the measures which it declares to be essential to the public welfare.

That Lord Melbourne's Cabinet has long stood in this serious predicament cannot be denied by its warmest advocates. Some of its measures it has carried by sufferance; in others it has been defeated; and others it has feared to propose, though declaring them to be highly important, from acknowledged inability to bring them to a favourable issue. Surely this is not the condition in which the executive officers of the British constitution ought to stand. If they considered that they possessed the public_confidence, as well as that of the Crown, and that their measures were defeated by a factious parliament, they should long ago have advised her Majesty to CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 42.

appeal to the people; but if they believed that the House of Commons only uttered the national sentiment, it was their duty to tender their resignation to the sovereign, on the ground that they could not advantageously conduct the business of the state. It is always our wish to avoid the acerbities of party-spirit in our remarks upon public affairs; but we see not how any man, looking calmly at the questions at issue, with the feelings of a true patriot and an enlightened friend of our admirable wellbalanced constitution, can refuse to acknowledge the justice of these conclusions.

The special circumstances which have led to the present crisis, are but a necessary sequel to the whole history of the Cabinet, since its resignation two years ago, upon the ground that it did not enjoy the confidence of parliament, and its return to power solely by royal prerogative-without any alteration in its favour-rather the contrary-in the relation in which it stood to the representatives of the people. Then was the constitutional moment, either to have persisted in withdrawing from office, or to have advised the sovereign to dissolve parliament. Several similar occasions have since occurred; but especially the recent defeat, or rather succession of defeats, on the Irish Registration bill; which was a favourite cabinet measure, and declared by its proposers to be essential to the public welfare.

But the decisive issue has been brought about by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's plan of finance. The deficiency in the revenue is serious, and required some large and well-advised remedial measure; but the particular scheme proposed by the Cabinet, if it was really deliberately devised and agreed upon solely upon public grounds, without any reference to party objects, certainly had the ill-fortune to come before the public at a very inopportune moment for impressing such a conclusion; for so it was, that it was first disclosed at the precise moment when either the resignation of the ministry or a dissolution of the House of Commons seemed inevitable; and it embodied a course of policy of which the leading members of the Cabinet had often declared their disapprobation, but which was certain to divide the nation, in the case of a general elec3 C

tion, into two marked and opposing sections.

The general proposed plan of finance was, instead of adding to the direct taxation, to remove certain commercial restrictions, with a view to enlarge the revenue by means of moderate duties upon articles imported, in return for British manufactures. Three important articles were selected for the experiment-sugar, timber, and corn. Now, as a general principle of political economy, it is desirable to buy in the cheapest, and to sell in the dearest market; and neither Sir R. Peel, nor any other speaker of intelligence and weight on either side, has denied that free trade should be the rule, and restriction the exception. But then it is argued, and we think with much force and fairness, first that these propositions were brought forward with a view to political effect, at a pressing crisis, and were therefore party-spirited rather than patriotic; and secondly, that they are pressed without duly considering, or allowing for, the complicated relations of the common weal. The only one of the questions which has been hitherto argued, except in partial incidental discussions, is that which relates to sugar, on which there has been a debate protracted during more than a week. Her Majesty's government proposed to admit foreign sugars to the British market at a reduced scale of duty; a measure which, if viewed only abstractedly, would be excellent; for it would have the threefold good effect of lowering the price to the consumer, creating a demand for British manufactures, and benefiting the revenue. But after the great changes which have recently taken place in our sugar colonies, by the slave emancipation act, it surely cannot be wiselyjudged to disturb the beneficial arrangements which are in progress, by seiz. ing this eventful moment for hastily sweeping away the last relics of the commercial protection which they enjoyed under the old system. Air, rain, and sunshine are promotive of vegetation; and yet we rightly keep a tender seedling for a time under glass, till it gains strength to bear exposure. Then again we have but lately admitted India to a fair share of our commercial favours, and have opened an equitable market for her sugar, which is begining to attract capital, and awaken skill and industry; and would it be wise to crush the nascent hopes of that vast and much injured empire, by a rapid and needless change of our course of

policy? But these two arguments are feeble in comparison with the third, which involves a large question of expediency, humanity, duty, and religion. The sugar, which it is proposed to admit at reduced imposts, is slavegrown sugar; and we cannot consume it without largely encouraging the slave-trade, which we are strenuously endeavouring to extirpate; and slavery, which we expended twenty millions of money to abolish in our own colonies. We should be offering an enormous bonus on the slave-trade and slavery of Brazil, Cuba, and Louisiana; and should rivet the chain upon thousands and millions of miserable captives, who would be ground down in the bitterest bondage, and fall untimely victims of remorseless cupidity, in order that Englishmen may purchase sugar a trifling fraction cheaper than at present: and this at a time when the increased demand has begun to stimulate our own colonies, and India is also largely increasing its cane culture, so that there is every prospect of a copious supply.

We are not unaware of the selfish and hypocritical manner in which the question has been argued by some of the litigants on either side. We have heard with contempt the new-born eloquence of some of the old West India faction, who defended slavery to the last, as their predecessors did the slave-trade ; but who have awakened to a most edifying horror of both, now that they are in other hands, and happen to clash with their own interests. Sir R. Peel, to the honour of his candour be it spoken, did not affect a compunction he did not feel; he had not aided the abolition of slavery, and he would not pretend to be worked up to this theatrical shudder at the thought of tasting slave-grown sugar. Then again it is said on the other side, "Why object to home consumption, while you allow the article to be imported and refined for foreign use?" There is, we think, some difference, since in the latter case we do not create a new market; but we would take far stronger ground, for we do not think we ought ever to have allowed slave-grown sugar to be bonded or refined in England: and should rather have endeavoured as much as possible to repress its cultivation. But again it is said, "You use slave-cotton.” We should reply, that we ought never to have used it; but till of late our own imports from our own colonies were slave-grown, so that our conduct was consistent; but even now we think it would be right to give such decided

preference to free-cotton, as would discourage and ultimately suppress, so far as Great Britain is concerned, its slaveculture. But practically it is not cotton, or coffee, that sustains slavery in its direst horrors, but sugar. It is this chiefly which grinds down the slave, and requires constant fresh importations to cultivate new pestilential swamps under the lash of the inexorable driver; of which fact the friends of the antislavery cause are well informed; and therefore, if we have reprobated the hypocrisy of those quondam West Indian pro-slavery advocates who have suddenly become so sensitive in their abhorrence of what they once approved or palliated; still greater is our indig. nation at the conduct of those political anti-slavery partizans who have now forgotten their humanity in their selfish polities. In the House of Commons, Dr. Lushington has proved a bright exception to this tergiversation; and we need scarcely add, that out of it such men as Sir T. F. Buxton have continued faithful among the faithless, notwithstanding their political predilections.

The government proposition upon the sugar clause was met by a resolution proposed by Lord Sandon to the effect that the House would not sanction the government plan on account of the encouragement which it would give to the slave-trade and slavery; whereupon Lord John Russell moved as an amendment, that it was practicable and for the general welfare of the country, to supply our inadequate revenue by differential and protective duties, without materially increasing the public burdens; and at the same time "protecting trade and affording relief to the industrious classes." In this proposition Lord John Russell sacrifices humanity, and also his dignity and consistency as an enemy to slavery and the slave-trade, in order to catch the votes of such politicians as Mr. Hume, whose whole moral feeling seems bounded by the most sordid pecuniary considerations; and also to gain the suffrages of what he calls, in the slang of Radicalism, "the industrious classes" (is his Lordship himself not industrious? is the bishop of London idle? or Lord Wellington? are merchants, or physicians, or the clergy, not industrious, because they do not weave or delve?) but we are mistaken if he has not here overshot his mark, for we do not believe that our smaller shopkeepers and artisans will be swayed in their votes by the miserable bait thus held out to them. Lord John Russell has lost

much moral weight by this time-serving proposition; and we believe that not a few persons who incline to his general opinions, were heartily glad that upon this question he was baffled-and this by a decided majority of thirty-six votes.

The proposed timber and corn duties being at present in abeyance, we shall not dwell upon them. Canadian timber is far inferior to Baltic, and the injudicious encouragement given to it has been highly injurious; but the present moment is the least fitting possible to unsettle and irritate Canada, and too probably to provoke new disorders, which will cost us far more to quell, than we shall gain by a revised scale of timber duties during many along year. We do not think that a mother country is bound to take bad merchan. dize from her colonies when she can advantageously trade for better elsewhere; but we could have borne even with dry-rot a short time longer, rather than mar the returning tranquillity of Canada at this perilous crisis.

To the corn question it is not clear that the ordinary rules of political economy fully apply. No less a man than Dr. Chalmers-an advocate for liberal measures-wrote a volume to prove that restrictions on the importation of corn are upon the whole wise and useful; and the Duke of Wellington has expressed his opinion that a considerable degree of dependence upon other nations in regard to this primary article of food would be dangerous. We have always thought that the enactment of the corn-law at the conclusion of the war, (when wheat had been often at a famine price,) in order to prevent its sinking down with the other interests of the country to its peace-level, was unwise and partial; and that the landowner, the farmer. and the consumer, would in the end have all been better off, if the matter had been left where our ancestors judiciously left it: nor had we any fear that we should not grow corn enough at home to prevent our being dangerously dependent upon foreigners; or any doubt that the mutual interests of intertrading nations would promote peace and prosperity among them. But the matter does not now stand out in this naked form. Sir R. Peel's alteration of the currency, (excellent as was the measure) the heavy fiscal burdens which press upon the land, the large question, how far it is desirable to render England almost exclusively a manufacturing nation, and many other considerations, make it neither politic

nor just to deal rashly with interests so extensively national and undeniablycomplicated; and especially to awaken popu. lar agitation on the subject for party objects, with a view to influence a general election. We now turn to other, and to our minds more congenial subjects.

The anniversary meetings of our numerous charitable and religious societies in the month of May, have become an important portion of our national annals; and we wish we had space for more than some brief allusions to a few of them. They were preceded this year by an assembly convened under the auspices of the Archbishop of Canterbury, aided by the Bishop of London, and other right reverend and reverend brethren, and lay members of our Church, to commence a fund for the endowment of additional bishoprics in the colonies. The meeting was densely crowded; the addresses were highly impressive; and so intense was the anxiety to promote this great and good work, that subscriptions to the amount of nearly £28,000 were reported before the meeting broke up. We have so often expressed our opinion as to the duty and importance of widely extending the episcopate to our colonies and dependencies, that we will only pause to offer our gratitude to Almighty God for baving stirred up his servants to address themselves to the work; and we cannot doubt that the munificence of the members of our church will be extensively called forth to promote it. An Episcopal church, without a bishop locally able to exercise efficiently the duties of his function over it, is a strange anomaly. There was a passage in the Bishop of London's address on this occasion which we will quote, as it was alluded to at the meeting of the Church Missionary Society; and the proposition is under serious consideration. His lordship remarked:-" I have always been of opinion that the great missionary body ought to be the Church herself. It seems to me to follow, as an inevitable consequence, from the very definition of the Church, that all operations which are to be performed for the advancement of the Saviour's kingdom upon earth should be the Church's operations. At the present moment, as I have observed, those operations are carried on by two Societies, both in connexion with the Church; one which has now for nearly a century and a half directed its principal attention to the maintenance of true religion amongst the settlers of Great Britain in distant parts; the other, which is of more re

cent origin, devoting its energies and applying its resources to preaching the Gospel to the heathen; both most important branches of Christian charity, the comparative importance of which I will not, on the present occasion, stay to consider. But there has not been that perfect unity of operation between them at least, not that uniformitywhich ought to characterise the proceedings of one undivided pure branch of Christ's holy catholic Church. Now it does appear to me far from impracticable that a plan might be devised which should remove the evil and do away the seeming anomaly-if it be not a real anomaly-which now I know, from my own experience, necessarily impedes the progress of both Societies in the holy work which they have in hand. I think that, under your Grace's sanction, means might be devised, and those not of a complicated nature, by which both Societies might be induced to carry on their operations under the same superintendence and control; I mean the superintendence and control of the heads of the United Church of this kingdom. When I use the word control,' I do not mean a control which shall be exercised in the way of invidious or captious interference-I do not mean a control which shall limit, except within certain recognised bounds, the operations of either Society; but I mean simply that kind of superintendence and control which, with the willing co-operation of both Societies, shall secure for both a strict and regular movement within the limits of the duty which they owe to the Church. I forbear from specifying particularly the details of the plan to which I allude it may be sufficient to say, that if it were carried into effect, it would leave both Societies at perfect liberty to prosecute the holy work which they have in hand unimpeded and uninterrupted; while at the same time it would prevent the deviation of either from that straight line of spiritual policy which seems to be marked out by the very principles of the Church itself. I think it is impossible not to perceive that the present time, when we are preparing to extend the full benefits of our ecclesiastical polity, in all its completeness, to all the dependencies of the empire, seems to be a peculiarly appropriate moment for taking this work in hand, and for making provision for the time to come, that the Church, in her foreign and missionary, as well as in ber domestic operations, shall present an united front to the world, and shall not leave

:

it in the power of her adversaries and traducers to say that we differ amongst ourselves upon the very first principles of our duty. I persuade myself, therefore, that if your Grace were disposed to take this suggestion into your serious consideration, and to appoint a certain number of persons deeply interested in the welfare of both societies to consider whether it may be carried into effect; if they apply themselves to the work in an honest desire to give it effect, and with prayer to Him upon whom they must depend for success, we shall have the unspeakable gratification of completing the good work of which we this day only see the commencement."

The annual statement of the affairs of the Christian Knowledge Society indicates increasing prosperity. The receipts for the year are £95,017; being an excess of £2500 over last year. The books distributed areBibles......

New Testaments

144,687

136,024

Total... 3,937,944 The annual report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel is not yet issued; but a greatly enlarged measure of support has attended the Society during the last year; and its labours are becoming increasingly useful and important; and we earnestly pray that they may be abundantly blessed by the supreme Head of the Church to the furtherance of his glory and the salvation of mankind.

The anniversary of the Church Missionary Society was eminently interesting. It has pleased God to continue to bestow much success upon its missions; and many new fields might be hopefully occupied, and old ones be greatly enlarged, if its resources allowed of such extension. The receipts for the year were £90,604; but this annual income will not allow the Society to keep up its operations to their present scale, - (for the very success of a mission augments its expenditure,) much less to expand them. The suggestion contained in the above extract from the Bishop of London's address at another meeting, was alluded to by Lord Chichester, the Bishops of Winchester and Salisbury, and Mr. Bickersteth, with much satisfaction. The details of such a measure would however require careful consideration.

Of the meeting of the Bible Society we need say nothing, as our readers

are able to refer in extenso to the addresses delivered on that occasion. We rejoice greatly in the prosperity of this invaluable institution; the friend and handmaid of all other societies designed to promote the glory of God and the salvation of man; but the rival of none. The Society has added to its list a variety of the cheaper Bibles, for which there has been of late a large demand: the text being the same as that of the other copies; but with some inferiority of paper and printing. The matter has arrived at the issue which we pointed out in our Number for last December. We then stated that we considered some restrictions upon printing the authorised version necessary, in order to secure a correct text; but that the privileged presses, by reason of their large sales and certain returns, could more than compete with any private trader; and that the object being to secure accuracy, not to confer lucrative monopoly, it is the duty of the Universities to print at the cheapest cost consistent with due remuneration to all parties concerned. The authorised presses have nobly addressed themselves to the work; and, by the admission of their reprovers themselves, now furnish Bibles on lower terms than private printers could afford; though the cheaper editions are somewhat inferior in paper and workmanship to those hitherto issued by the Christian Knowledge Society and Bible Society. Our own predilections we confess are still in favour of the better copies for a few pence' difference in price is a trifle in comparison with durability and comfortable reading; and we wish to see the word of God, as also churches dedicated to his glory, arrayed with comeliness and convenience. the chief subject of our remarks related to the purity of the text; and this is now, blessed be God, likely to continue to be guaranteed: the authorised presses having effected such large deductions in price, that the agitation to procure unrestricted printing has abated; nor could a private tradesman accommodate the public upon terms equally reasonable.

But

The Lord's Day's Society continues its eminently useful labours; and with great public utility, though disappointed in its pious efforts to procure the aid of the legislature in promoting the due observance of the Christian Sabbath ; and sadly crippled in its plans from the inadequacy of its pecuniary resources. Its reports shew that the hallowed claims of the day are increasingly acknowledged throughout the land, not