ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 54, 3 February 1843, Page 2

ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

THE TARIFF AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

The House of Lords having swallowed the Income tax/ has now gulped the Tariff, 'with just enough of resistance, in the way of Anti-Free-Trade speeches, to put a decent cloak upon the miserable dereliction of principle, with which the Peers have acquiesced in a measure, when brought forward by a Tory Government, which the whole force of Conservatism would have been summoned to crush, had it originated with Lord Melbourne, instead of Sir Robert Peel.

Four Peers, and four only, were found impracticable enough to abide by their own' convictions ; —Lord Stanhope, who is alwaVs honest, as well as eccentric; —the Duke r bf Richmond, who, for very shame, could not refuse Lord Stanhope his vote, after his vaunts about the duties of Landowners last year;— and two other hereditary sages, about whom nobody cares. The rest were all absent, or mute. Only fifty-nine Peers voted, and we hear of no proxies. The spirit of Toryism remains unchanged, and unchangeable, but it bends to the necessities of its party as the price of place. The Debate requires little comment, for all that can be said has been said a dozen times already in the House of Commons, or by the Press; and it is wearisome to follow LordRipon round the mill-horse track, which his abler leader traced, preaching alternately Monopoly and Free Trade, until, as Lord Stanhope told him, he beat the German juggler ' hollow, who left his audience in doubt whether a ball, which he held in his hand, was white or black, since. Lord Ripon aspired at convincing everybody that his ball was both white and black, on the same side, and at the same time. The best speech was undoubtedly that of Lord Monteagle, who has the merit of having been the first of the Whig Ministerial ,men to speak out honestly upon the Corn-laws, and to hold them up to the country as the main cause of its distress. He did this in his last speech as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he proved on Tuesday, by an able dissection of the Tariff, that the Tory Reforms have all began at the wrong end, —quoting Mr. Deacon Hume’s, well-known opinion, that all freedom of Trade must commence with a Free Trade in Corn. — ' and giving it as his own deliberate judgment that more inconvenience and suffering, than immediate benefit, would ensue from changes, that expose all the minor branches of Trade to foreign competition, while they hold sacred the monopoly in food. There is no novelty in this, but there is truth, and truth in the House of Lords is valuable as an indication that it cannot be resisted much longer. The mischief is that the country cannot afford to wait. The amplest concession will be useless in another twelvemonth. A low fixed duty, which, if adopted last year, would have placed our trade in a comparatively healthy state, would be of little use as a remedy for the coming winter, if assented to. now; and must be utterly unavailing if deferred until after the definitive settlement of the American Tariff.

And so things go on in this best of all possible worlds ! The, House of Lords is just-learn-ing to tolerate sound principles, when sound practice is peremptorily required;. and by the time that it is prepared to add. practice to theory, it will be too late to relieve the difficulties that are accumulating, and threatening us with an absolute dissolution of social ties.