t it must be some modification applied to a
fixed duty, every body knew; but of what nature Lord John declined to
tell us, until he should reach a committee which he had no chance of
obtaining. This affair, which surprised every body, is of little
importance as regards the particular subject of the motion. But in a
more general relation, it is worthy of attention. No man interested in
the character and efficiency of Parliament, can fail to wish that
there may always exist a strong opposition, vigilant, bold,
unflinching, full of partizanship, if you will, but uniformly
suspending the partizanship at the summons of paramount national
interests, and acting harmoniously upon some systematic plan. How
little the present unorganized opposition answers to this description,
it is unnecessary to say. The nation is ashamed of a body so
determinately below its functions. But Lord John Russell is
individually superior to his party. He is a man of sense, of
information, and of known official experience. Now, if he, so
notoriously the wise man of "her Majesty's Opposition," is capable of
descending to harlequin caprices of this extreme order, the nation
sees with pain, that a constitutional function of control is extinct
in our present senate, and that her Majesty's Ministers must now be
looked to as their own controllers. With the levity of a child, Lord
John makes a motion, which, if adopted, would have landed him in
defeat; but through utter want of judgment and concert with his party,
he does not get far enough to be defeated: he does not succeed in
obtaining the prostration for which he man[oe]uvres; but is saved from
a final exposure of his little statesmanship by universal mockery of
his miserable partizanship. Alas for the times in which Burke and Fox
wielded the forces of Parliamentary opposition, and redoubled the
energies of Government by the energies of their enlightened
resistance!

In quitting the subject of the corn agitation, (obstinately pursued
through the session,) we may remark--and we do so with pain--that all
laws whatsoever, strong or lax, upon this question are to be regarded
as provisional. The temper of society being what it is, some small
gang of cotton-dealers, moved by the rankest self-interest, finding
themselves suffered to agitate almost without opposition, and the
ancient landed interest of the country, if not silenced, being silent,
it is felt by all parties that no law, in whatever direction, upon