which ought purely to represent the people? Is there not the King, surrounded as he is by influences unfavourable to too great an extension of popular privilege? Are there not the Lords, with all their aristocratic horror of popular encroachment? Are not these sufficient guarantees against a 'dangerous rapidity of motion' without clapping the drag-chain of tory obstinacy upon the movements of the Commons? Oh! what confusion reigns in the heads of these men of checks and balances!"
The King's speech on the opening of parliament did not contain any allusion to an improved commercial policy. Again, I believe, I expressed the opinions of a considerable portion of the community when I said:— "His Majesty congratulates houses that, with very few exceptions, the public peace has been preserved, and tells them it will be their grateful duty—to do what? To rescue the people from that depth of suffering which they have borne in a manner entitling them to the gratitude of the legislature? No! But 'to promote habits of industry and good order amongst the labouring classes of the community.' To promote industry amongst the hardest working community on the face of the earth! To promote good order' amongst those for whose preservation of the public peace his Majesty thinks the lords and commons ought to be grateful! Why was there not an acknowledgment that the greater part of the community is suffering under the load of grievous taxation, and some hope held out of an alleviation of the public burthens? Why was there no recommendation to consider how the community was operated upon, by the corn-laws, when every one confesses that the system, abandoned by the most zealous of its supporters, stands almost exploded, and that a change must be made, now that the commercial communities of this country have representatives in the councils of the nation? We have had the satisfaction of seeing that Lord Althorp, in reply to a question from Mr. T. Fowell Buxton, has expressed his confidence that he shall be able to propose a measure on the subject of negro slavery, which
