THE NEW TORY REFORM GOVERNMENT. 



Sir Robert then proceeds to decline wasting a word on the merely 

 personal concern, as to whether he was actuated by motives of ambi- 

 tion when he accepted office, hinting that the power and distinction 

 it confers is not a sufficient compensation for the heavy sacrifice it in- 

 volves. To this the shortest answer is Fudge ! The man who can 

 have made up his mind to let his political character go at so heavy a 

 sacrifice as Sir Robert has done, is just the man to feel that power 

 and distinction are cheaply purchased at any sacrifice. But he pro- 

 ceeds thus 



" The King in a crisis of great difficulty, required my services. The 

 question I had to decide was this shall I obey the call, or shall I shrink 

 from the responsibility, alleging, as the reason, that I consider myself, in 

 consequence of the Reform Bill, as labouring under a sort of mortal dis- 

 qualification, which must preclude me, and all who think with me, both 

 now and for ever, from entering into the official service of the crown ? 

 Would it, I ask, be becoming in any public man to act upon such a prin- 

 ciple ?" 



We can readily conceive that an old placeman must be a long 

 while ere he can make up his mind to the conclusion that he is la- 

 bouring under a moral disqualification, which must preclude his 

 taking a place. But it might, perhaps have struck Sir Robert that 

 " in consequence of the Reform Bill," which he had so violently op- 

 posed as a Bill pregnant with irremediable mischief to the country ; 

 it might have struck him, we say, that he was not precisely the 

 fittest man to administer that Bill, and its inevitable consequences ; 

 and having so struck him, his moral disqualification might have pre- 

 sented itself. But we are prone to believe that in Sir Robert's men- 

 tal representation, the moral franchise is very low ; and that every 

 petty shop-keeper sentiment is permitted to vote. 



" Was it fit," he continues, " that I should assume that either the ob- 

 ject or the eifect of the Reform Bill has been to preclude all hope of a suc- 

 cessful appeal to the good sense and calm judgment of the people, and so 

 to fetter the prerogative of the Crown, that the King has no free choice 

 among his subjects, but must select his Ministers from one section, and 

 one section only of public men ?" 



It was not fit, we answer but it was done by Sir Robert Peel 

 himself. How often were we told that the passing of the Reform 

 Bill would assuredly lead to these consequences. Mark, also, this 



