THE MINISTRY AND THE PARLIAMENT. 119 



the other, and which must come on for discussion at an early period 

 of the session. If ministers will not settle these questions themselves, 

 and settle them to the satisfaction of the country too, they must 

 vacate their seats to make room for men who will. 



And here we may observe that their legislation of the last session 

 was as deficient in sound policy for themselves as it was devoid of 

 principle. Had they only met the righteous demands of the people 

 half way, the people would have been satisfied ; but this they re- 

 fused, and the consequence has been that, with the refusal, the 

 people's demands have been raised. Had the Dissenters been last 

 year relieved from the payment of rates to support a church of 

 which they disapprove, and from which they derive no benefit what- 

 ever, they would have been contented ; and the church might have 

 existed for some time to come. Now, however, unless we are 

 grievously mistaken, nothing will satisfy the country short of the 

 overthrow of the church as an establishment. It is the same with 

 tithes and other matters, to which we need not particularly refer. It 

 is surprising that Earl Grey could have been blind to all this. It 

 needed not the aids of profound philosophy to point it out ; the fate 

 of his predecessors in office, and the causes of that fate, were before 

 him. It was the refusing to grant a little reform, when that little 

 would have sufficed, that led to that large and universal demand for 

 it, the resisting of which crushed the Wellington government, and 

 in which the Tories have been since forced, however reluctantly, to 

 acquiesce. 



The rock on which ministers are in most danger of splitting, is 

 an over-estimate of their own strength. In their late manifesto,* 

 that strength is greatly magnified. In a counter pamphlet entitled, 

 " A Protest against the Reform Ministry, and the Reformed Parlia- 

 ment, by an Opposition Member" (understood to be Mr. J. Kennedy), 

 it is proved that the ministry, so far from being strong, possess the 

 elements of weakness in so great a degree, that their holding to- 

 gether so long is rather a matter of wonder than any thing else. 

 On most of the great questions which came before Parliament last 

 session, their majorities were so small as to be tantamount to a de- 

 feat. On Mr. T. Attwood's motion for a committee to inquire into 

 the distresses of the country, they had only a majority of 34, out of 

 a house of 354. Their majority against Mr. Robinson's motion for 

 a committee to inquire into the present system of taxation, with the 

 view to the substitution of an equitable property tax, was only 66, 

 out of a house numbering 376 members. Mr. Tennyson's motion 

 for the repeal of the Septennial Act, was lost by the small majority of 

 49, in a house of 381. Their Slavery Bill was carried by no larger 

 a majority than 58, though the members present numbered 370. 

 Against Mr. Buckingham's motion for the abolition of impressment 

 of seamen, they could muster no greater a majority than 5. In se- 

 veral most important instances, the ministers were left in an actual 

 minority. Sir William Ingilby defeated them on the malt tax, by 



* The pamphlet entitled The Reform Ministry, and the Reformed Par- 

 liament." 



