nd inefficient reply.

[Page Head: WEAKNESS OF THE GOVERNMENT.]

Nothing would be more unfortunate than a change of Government as
the result of this blow aimed by the House of Lords, and under
the auspices of Roden, the leader of the Orangemen. Ireland is
the great strength of the present Government as it is the weak
point of the Tories; and if they went out, and Peel came in upon
Ireland, and the principle on which he should govern that
country, he would never keep his place, and nobody could tell
what troubles might not ensue. It is Peel's interest that Irish
questions should assume such a shape, and make such a progress,
before he returns to office, as should render their final
adjustment inevitable. If things were left alone, and time and
the hour permitted us to run through the present rough days, it
would be impossible to prevent great changes taking place before
long. The country is beset with difficulties on all sides, if not
with danger; besides the ever rankling thorn of Ireland, there
are the Chartists and the Anti-Corn Law agitators, to say nothing
of minor reformers in England, and the whole of our Colonial
Empire in a most unsettled, precarious, and difficult state,
requiring the utmost wisdom and firmness in dealing with Colonial
interests, and our relations with America demanding firmness,
temper, and sagacity. But, while the country has thus urgent need
of all the ability and experience which can be enlisted in her
service, from the curious position of parties in the House of
Commons, and the mode in which power is distributed, we have at
once a Government miserably weak, unable to exercise a will of
its own, bolstered up by the interested and uncertain support of
men more inimical than friendly to them; while the most
distinguished statesmen and the men who are admitted to be the
fittest to govern, are effectually excluded from office. While we
have a Cabinet in which there is not one man who inspires
confidence, and in which, with the exception perhaps of John
Russell (who is broken in health and spirits), there is not one
deserving to be called a statesman,--to this Cabinet is committed
the awful task of solving the many difficult questions of
domestic, colonial, and foreign policy which surround and press
upon us; while the Duke of Wellington and Peel are compelled 'to
stand like ciphers in the great account.' The great
characteristic of the present time is indifference: nobody
appears to care