that would be utterly useless to those whose interests they were anxious to promote?" Then, close upon
the heels of Lord Stanhope, came the polite Mr. Ferrand, who, after indulging the characteristic aspiration
that, in the event of a righteous issue to the contest of protectionists and free traders, Bright might be
hanged at Manchester, Cobden at Leeds, and Graham at Carlisle, denounced to general wrath and scorn
everybody who would stop short of re-enacting the old corn law. That, and nothing less than that, was
now required to protect the labourers of this country. "It was a labour law," and "the government was
bound to re-enact it," and to "place the labourers on the land so as to give them the means of earning their
daily bread." Nor had a week passed after Mr. Ferrand, at Aylesbury, had thus exhibited social sentiments
worthy of Louis Blanc in the unsocial language so peculiarly worthy of himself, when Mr. G. F. Young, at
Ipswich, as though inspired by the odd ambition of taking the lead even of Mr. Ferrand's insolence and
violence, had the execrable bad taste to say, that "having had good opportunities of observing the political career
of Sir R. Peel, he would not allow any mawkish sensibility, on account of the fact that that man was removed
from the sphere of existence, to deter him from expressing his opinion that there never was a man who had
occupied so important a part in the counsels of this country who had been, throughout his whole career, so
insincere and disingenuous; and, so far from thinking it a public calamity that it had pleased Providence to
remove him, he thought that, having inflicted almost irreparable injury on his country, which, had he been
spared, he might have carried still further, it was a gracious dispensation of Providence that he had been
removed." The reporters of this effusion add that loud cheers broke forth at its close, with slight marks of
disapprobation. For the sake of the social decencies commonly respected by all parties, it is a pity that the
cheering should have been so loud and the disapprobation so slight; but the incident confirms that
widening difference, and incompatibility of aim and desires, which we have been exhibiting in our remarks,
and which every one now observes in men who in reality are clamouring less eagerly for Protection than
they are quarrelling among themselves as to what the word should be held to imply.

Truth to say, the times are becoming less and less favourable to the clamour in question, and the more
experienced and sagacious men of the party are not slow to perceive it. Take for example the last public
return showing the amount of money expended for in-maintenance and out-door relief "in six hundred
and seven unions and single parishes, in England and Wales, during the half-years' ending at Lady Day,
1850, and 1851 respectively." It happens that the portion of the kingdom embraced in this return is
chiefly agricultural; and that the figures show a positive decrease of pauperism, and a consequent diminution
of those local burdens which, according to Mr. Disraeli, affect real property most peculiarly and oppressively, to
the amount of upwards of seven per cent. In some counties it extends higher; reaching to more than eleven
per cent in Durham, to more than twelve in Cornwall, to more than thirteen in the West Riding, and to
more than fourteen in Warwick and Middlesex. But even in the strictly agricultural counties, such as
Bedford, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, Essex, Kent, Northampton, Southampton,
Sussex, Westmoreland, Wiltshire, and parts of Yorkshire, the average of the decrease is upwards of seven
per cent. These are figures to which there is no answer; and they triumphantly confirm the arguments
and expectations of the free traders. Free trade is already relieving the land after the very fashion proposed
by Mr. Disraeli himself; and if the landowners had any faith in that gentleman they ought now at once to
cashier and abandon Mr. Ferrand and Mr. Young.

Several fatal accidents, and one of a peculiarly distressing nature, have again directed attention to the
insufficient guarantees for public safety existing in the management of Railway Companies. If any writer of
fiction had imagined such an incident as that of the Frodsham Tunnel, on the Chester Junction Railway, it
would at once have been condemned as too monstrous to be credible. An overloaded train was started
with an utterly powerless and inefficient engine, and with carriages so crazy that the weight of the
passengers acted as breaks on the wheels. A second and a third train were dispatched after the first, with
no regard to the necessary intervals between them. No back lights were affixed to the trains; the policemen
commonly stationed at the entrance of the steep and dangerous tunnel which they were to pass through, had
been withdrawn; the guard of the second train, which had suddenly jammed against the first, never thought of
backing for any signal to the third, which he knew to be coming on; and on came the third train accordingly,
to scatter dismay and death. Nor had the horror at this catastrophe subsided, when, by mismanagement
exactly similar in respect of irregularity in the despatch of trains, the Midland Railway became the scene
of a tragedy hardly less terrible. Such occurrences render it clear that, without anything like a vexatious
interference with the general power and regulation of railway companies, the legislature might
advantageously assume some such control as would at least compel settled intervals between the dispatch of
trains, and a better system of signal lights between fast and slow trains. No fair objection could be
made to such an act of legislation, which would be simply an application to railway companies of the
precautionary measures adopted in other quarters where the public safety has seemed to require them.

NARRATIVE OF PARLIAMENT AND
POLITICS.

In the House of Lords, on Monday, May 5, Lord
Stanley presented a petition from a number of
shipowners and others, connected with the merchant
service, praying for the repeal of, or extensive
alterations in, the Mercantile Marine Act, and suggested
the appointment of a select committee on the subject.—
Earl GRANVILLE said, he had no objection to a select
committee, but the government had no intention of
making any important alterations on the bill of last
year.

On Friday, May 9, Lord LYTTLETON presented
petitions signed by many thousand inhabitants of Van
Diemen's Land, praying for the ceasing of transportation
to that colony. He contended that we are not
justified in using our imperial power against colonies
which cannot resist the pressure we bring to bear against
them, in forcing upon them a lower standard of morality
than that by which we regulate our own society at
home.—The Archbishop of DUBLIN gave testimony,
founded on a recent visit to the Mountjoy depôt
recently established in Dublin, of his belief that the working
of that prison has solved many problems which up
to this time have appeared to him incapable of solution;
and he added, that everything he has heard of late
respecting the penal colonies continued his most dismal
apprehensions that in such society the convicts cannot
be permanently reclaimed.— The Bishop of OXFORD
adhered to the clear principle, that to create a penal
colony is a great sin in an enlightened nation: the great
difficulties of the subject must be faced and overthrown.
—Earl GREY defended the exissting and improving system;
and averred that in a few years the colonies will
be contending to receive the reformed convicts.