A GLANCE AT THE SESSION.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 61, 28 February 1843, Page 4

A GLANCE AT THE SESSION.

(From the Illustrated London News.) The first session of the Peel Parliament is fast drawing’ to a close, and we learn that a few more weeks, of a merely technical existence, will bring its labours to an end. It may not, in the meanwhile, be amiss to see what those labours have hitherto achieved, and how far the country is likely to be advantaged by the exercise of its legislative powers under the immediate direction of the ministers in place. It is with regret, then, that we find our retrospection rather the reverse of cheering, and are forced to admit, that a fair examination of the political acts of the session, present but few rays of hope for the future, and but too little reason to glory in the past. We admit all the difficulties of legislating amid the dilemmas which have been so long gathering upon the path of statesmanship, obscuring its vision, obstructing its healthy advances, and demanding the most stern decision —the most vigorous intellect —the most far-seeing mental power, as well as the soundest policy and most exalted principle, to cope with them, to grapple and destroy. ' '

But while all these difficulties were full before us, and although we did not expect to see them encountered and mastered by any of our present race of statesmen —no matter of what creed or party —we yet did look with hope, to see the practical experience of our legislators applying some healing remedies to the public distress; we did place some reliance upon the high-sounding promises of the last elections; and we did believe that Sir Robert Peel, with the great and almost unparalleled power ot his position, would have enforced measures of conciliation, and sought, while replenishing the coffers of the national treasury, to have studied the constitution of the national mind. The case, however, has, we fear, been otherwise ; the minister has made “ necessity” his great absorbing and paramount plea for every measure of oppression that he has propounded — and his obedient and weil drilled majorities have made laws for the million that have in them all the elements of tyranny, and but too few of the remedies for want.

It cannot be denied, that by building up the Income-Tax in the void of an empty exchequer, a new inquisition is established upon our soil. Some politicians, admit its principle as a panacea for dreadful and dire emergencies, but all men fear its operation, and dread its working as a law. Pressing unequally, as it cannot fail to do, as long as toiling industry is to pay its contributions as heavily as realized wealth —goading with most irritating influences —with secrets elicited—trade confidence thrown open and blown abroad—exposures distressingly given, and credit, perhaps, too often destroyed—it seems directly in contradiction to the whole commercial spirit of England; it invades the domesticity of the empire, and is an intrusion into every home, but little compatible with the principles of social liberty, of which it is the character of the nation to be so boastfully proud. It was, in a word, a daring tax to pass —as in these times of trouble it may also be difficult, and even dangerous, to collect. But, we believe, with all its oppressing disadvantages, even the Income-Tax would have been peacefully, though reluctantly, borne, and the Minister might have won forgiveness for its tyranny, had popular concessions been made in other measures to the crying grievances of poverty and public want. The Poor-laws afforded a fine opportunity of presenting to the people a boon of humanity, which they would have accepted with gratitude, and hailed with joy. The grinding commission which was expiring might have been palsied in its cruel action by clauses of sympathy and indulgence, that would have wooed the affections of the people ; and the manhood of the country might have been vindicated in some noble and civilizing enactment that would have wiped a stain from the scutcheon of our constitution, and shed lustre and honour upon Victoria’s reign. But all this opportunity was more than avoided—it was sneered at and defied. Ministers took a tone of indomitable strength of purpose to continue, with only trivial modifications, the most obnoxious and unpopular of the English laws, and that at a time when they were almost finding a fellow to it in the dangerous imposition of their new and desperate impost. This the people most bitterly feel—it is the saddest and uneasiest of their disappointments. On the other hand, we are willing to admit that some concessions have been made to them in the modification of the Corn-law, and the extensive alteration of the Tariff. For both these measures we give the session its meed of praise. With regard to corn, it is possible that no minister under the last elections could have maintained his position, if he had attempted any more important changes than that which. Sir Robert Peel was successful in achieving; an 4 upon the question of the Tariff, we do sincerely believe, that the reductions effected are both numerous and important, and calculated to lighten the depression of our domestic life. We must not shut our eyes to positive benefits, merely because we are too painfully sensible of positive wrongs. The measures of Lord Ashley, with regard tp mines, collieries, and factories, which have

been carried by the common-sense humanity of all parties alike, are boons of legislation, too, for which, although not taking tlieir origin immediately with the Government, we have every reason to be grateful to the State. They are at once civilizing and just—they will elevate thousands in the moral and social scale of being and they stay, in many of the most popular districts of England, the rapid degeneracy of the human race. But in these few topics we find all the good that Parliament has achieved for us during the present session, and the rest of the retrospection is full of hopeless and miserable gloom. The Income-tax levied —the Poor-laws stringently reinforced —no great measure devised to relieve the far-spread wretchedness of the lower classes —no relief application to the desperate present want —no lowering of the complaints of poverty —no raising of the spirit of trade. It is further a melancholy reflection, that while the aspect of public affairs is so appallingly frigliful, legislation should be not only inactive, and half paralyzed by the dangers in its teeth, but be sacrificing its |own dignity, and wasting the nation’s time in hopeless brawls and squabbles, arising out of acts of its own corruption, and which its own body were not too scrupulous to commit. The election rows that have been, and are still, in agitation in Parliament, are disgusting scenes, in which the personality is degrading, the disclosures humiliating, the aspersions angry and undignified, and the whole spirit obnoxious to gentlemanly feeling, and unworthy of what should be the deliberate wisdom of a senatorial assembly. With these displays, however., the whole session has been rife, and we look upon that portion of it which they have wasted, with blended indignation and disgust. It is one of the most painful points of contemplation in the progress of public affairs, and grates harshly against the sad condtion of the suffering population. "While the country is in extremis, with distress-endurance, the givers are squabbling like, growlers over a bone.' There are only six weeks to elapse before Parliament will be prorogued*'but does not the justice of our observations upon the little that has been done, suggest also an imperative necessity for conceiving and executing in the brief time that remains some enlarged scheme of public good —something to meet the exigencies of the country, to give life and hope to drooping commerce; and, above all, when the doors of St. Stephens shall close upon the labours of our lawgivers, to carry relief into the hovels of our starving poor. No Minister can effect to be insensible to the voice of our starving poor. No Minister can afford to be insensible to the voice of popular distress, and we implore Sir Robert Peel and his powei’ful Conservative majorities, to let it urge them into the carrying of some practical measure of humanity, as the closing act of grace of a session which has been in nearly all the other stages of its. existence only too barren of lustre and of good.