THE NEW TORY REFORM GOVERNMENT. O 



But now. let us take a brief view of the address of Sir Robert Peel 

 to his constituents, which the Tory papers have pronounced exquisite 

 for the chasteness, perspicuity, and polished vigour of its style and 

 diction j and which has also been declared to be a full, ample., and 

 satisfactory exposition of the principles the new Premier means to 

 pursue. The Right Honourable Baronet himself says " I feel it in- 

 cumbent upon me to enter into a declaration of my views of public 

 policy, as full and unreserved as I can make it, consistently with my 

 duty as a minister of the crown." Let us see how far this sense of 

 incumbent duty has opened the declaratory sluices of Sir Robert's 

 well-known candour. We shall give the first paragraph which pur- 

 ports to be addressed to the people of Englacd 



"I gladly avail myself also of this, a legitimate opportunity, of making 

 a more public appeal of addressing, through you, to that great and in- 

 telligent class of society of which you are a portion, and a fair and unex- 

 ceptionable representative to that class which is much less interested in 

 the contentions of party than in the maintenance of order arid the cause of 

 good government, that frank opposition of general principles and views 

 which appears to be anxiously expected, and which it ought not to be the 

 inclination, and cannot be the interest, of a Minister of this country to 

 withold." 



This appeal is, in point of fact, an appeal to his own party the 

 disguise is too glaring not to be seen through in a moment; Sir Ro- 

 bert says that he addresses " a great and intelligent class of society 

 much less interested in the contention of party than in the mainte- 

 nance of good order and good government" telling his constituents 

 in the same breath that they are " a fair and unexceptionable repre- 

 sentative" of that class. The candour is more remarkable than the 

 cunning in this paragraph. We believe, indeed, that he does address 

 himself to those who like the (miscalled) electors of Tarn worth, are 

 still under the sway of undue influence ; and whose ideas of " good- 

 order" and of " good-government," as interpreted for them, by their 

 representatives, are " the people kept in good order by good strong 

 measures of government." This is a specimen of the open and manly 

 policy of our new Premier. This sneer at the independent consti- 

 tuencies of England is, we presume, to be considered an earnest of 

 his sincerity when he professes to govern in the spirit of the Reform 

 Bill. 



