What, then, was the question which has been put to the constituencies, and answered? It was not that of Free Trade or Protection. The question was one of a far wider description. Lord Derby, in February last, stated in terms the question which he sought to have answered; a question not of details, but of principles, relying on the estimate formed of his character by the country, for its allowing him to carry these principles into operation.
“These are the PRINCIPLES on which I shall make my appeal on behalf of myself and colleagues. We are threatened with far more serious difficulties than opposition to a five shilling, six shilling, or seven shilling duty on corn. It is a QUESTION, whether the Government of this country can be carried on, and on what principles, and through what medium. Will you support a Government which is against hostile attacks; which will maintain the peace of the world; which will uphold the Protestant institutions of the country; which will give strength and increased power to religious and moral education throughout the land; and which will exert itself, moreover, I will not hesitate to say, to oppose some barrier against the current, continually encroaching, of democratic influence, which would throw power nominally into the hands of the masses, practically into those of the demagogues who lead them?”
This was, indeed, a Great Question, and it has been Answered satisfactorily to all lovers of constitutional freedom.
1. Reise nach Persien und dem Lande der Kurden. Von Moritz Wagner, 2 vols. Leipzig: Arnold. London: Williams & Norgate. 1852.
2. “Ararat and the Armenian Highlands.” Blackwood’s Magazine, No. CCCCIII.
3. “Caucasus and the Land of the Cossacks.” Blackwood’s Magazine, No. CCCC.
4. Reise nach Colchis, &c. Leipzig, 1850.
5. Fallmerayer—Fragmente aus dem Orient.
6. The Sultan’s physician.
7. “The decrease of the Irish population from 1841 to 1851 was 1,659,330, of whom 1,289,133 emigrated. But as there was no considerable emigration till 1846, and the famine occurred in that year, there can be no doubt that down to the end of 1845 the population had advanced at its former rate, which would make the inhabitants in 1845 about 8,500,000, and the decrease since that time fully 2,000,000.”—Emigration Report, July 12, 1852.
8. See Blackwood’s Magazine, Feb. 1852.
9. The Moor and the Loch. By John Colquhoun, Esq. 3d Edit. Edinburgh, 1851.
10. “The Great Question.” June 1852. No. CCCCXL.
11. See our April Number, “The Earl of Derby.”
12. Tuesday, 20th July 1852.
13. New Series, 14th March 1839.
14. Hansard, 3d Series, vol. xlvi. col. 694–5.
15. Page 403—“The Earl of Derby.”
16. In a similar strain ventured to speak a certain Mr Serjeant Murphy at Cork. “Who is their Chancellor of the Exchequer? I’ll tell you what he is. He is a political adventurer, who speculates on politics as a black-leg on the turn of the dice and the fluctuating chance of the turf—a political trader!” And the refined and complimentary Milesian proceeds to utter a supposed bon-mot concerning Mr Disraeli’s speech on the Budget, which, he says, he himself heard, “while sitting near the Duke of Cambridge, with whom I have the honour of being acquainted!”
17. Wednesday, 14th July 1852.
18. 21st July 1852.
19. 21st July 1852.
20. See our June Number, p. 763.