that those who are in power and in office ought to be most careful that the use of that particular authority and power which office gives them should not be influenced by party considerations. I for one will not be influenced by them. If I were to submit to such influence, certainly party considerations might induce me to give my vote in support of this motion. I complain of the course intended to be adopted towards the present Governor-General: a right honourable Gentleman opposite proposes to move a vote of censure upon that noble Lord: I think that vote unnecessary and uncalled for here is an opportunity for retaliation; but I decline being influenced by any such feelings." Nor could he forget that in 1840, when he was in Opposition, the subject was equally open to debate, and they then possessed nearly all the information that they now had. "We had at that time the means of judging of the policy of the operations: the papers then produced gave us that power; but while in Opposition no motion was made founded upon those papers; and I must say, that now we are in power, I will not be the man to adopt a course which I did not adopt in Opposition, and at a time when there were better grounds for doing so." When he had opposed the grant of money to Lord Keane, some of those who were now loudest in reprobating the principle of the war were then loudest in approbation of it. If this committee were granted there ought to be another on the Syrian War. Such a course would end in transferring the Executive Government from the Crown to the House of Commons. Because, if on every point of ques

tionable policy this House were to have a Committee of inquiry—if such Committee were to have the power of sending for persons, papers, and records-if it were to ransack every public office for of ficial documents, and summon every Minister of the Crown to give evidence before it, the practical result must be that the Executive Government would be suspended. Sir R. Peel bore testimony that the published papers were not garbled, but that they gave such an account of the motives for undertaking the expedition as enabled the House to form a fair and unbiassed judgment on the policy which had led to its adoption. The proposed inquiry would lead to a development of all the grounds of suspicion against Russia; Russia might retort with complaints of English agents in Circassia, and avow that her agents had been sent to Cabul in retaliation; and the inquiry would be forced on at a time when our relations with Russia were on the most friendly footing, and when by the new treaty, the foundation had been laid, and it was but the foundation, of a more liberal commercial intercourse with that power. That Russia had taken no advantage of our military disasters in Cabul proved the sincerity of her friendly disposition. On the contrary, her influence had been exercised in attempting to save the lives of Colonel Stoddart and Captain Conolly in Bokhara. The power of the British arms had been vindicated on the scene of their reverse, and our unfriendly relations with Affghanistan had ceased. Let not the House, therefore, establish a precedent which would be at once prejudicial to the public interest, and the peaceful relations at

present subsisting with foreign

powers.

Lord Palmerston contrasted the harshness of Mr. Roebuck's terms with the weakness of his arguments; and remarked, that it was singular that members should have lain in ambush for four years, and then attacked those whose position now was altered, and who had not the same means of defence. He declared that the accusation of garbling was false and unfounded; the letters of Sir A. Burnes were printed with no omissions such as Mr. Roebuck had alleged. Sir Alexander urged the necessity of active measures in Affghanistan, though at one time he was disposed to favour Schah Soojah and at another Dost Mahomed; points of difference which related merely to the mode of operation. Lord Palmerston read extracts to show that the "hallucination" which Mr. Roebuck only had not shared, extended at the time to the press, quoting the Times, a paper not favourable to the Government of that day. It was said to be a fault that we did not attack Russia herself; we did go to St. Petersburgh, though not with a fleet; an explanation was demanded; Russia disclaimed hostile intentions, and disavowed the acts of her agents; and they were called. How, therefore, could the British Government have sent a fleet to the Baltic? and how could such a step have cured the anarchy in Affghanistan, fomented by Russian agents mistaking the intentions of their government? Lord Palmerston commented on the designation of Akhbar Khan as a "mistaken man," him who had treacherously murdered Sir William M'Naughten, and massacred thousands of our conntrymen and

re

defenceless camp followers? He proved the unpopularity of Dost Mahomed by the fact that his own army would not fight for him; and he finished by asserting that the policy of the late Government had proved successful in all parts of the world.

Sir R. Inglis was not one of those who idolized the privileges of the House, but still he did not wish to see it abdicate its just functions; and he wished to be informed if it were not to inquire into such a case as had now been brought forward in one of the most remarkable speeches he had ever listened to, on what occasions were the functions of the House as regarded inquiry into public transactions to be exercised? Was the House to be confined to the considering how far sheriff's officers should be arrested for executing legal process, and to allow cases of alleged misconduct on the part of the Crown's highest officers to pass uninvestigated. Sir Robert Inglis censured the defences which had been set up for the war, amid loud and significant cheers.

The Motion was supported by Mr. Borthwick and Lord John Manners.

Mr. Roebuck began his reply by congratulating the late Ministers on the support which they had received from Sir R. Peel; and he made a prophecy that the time would come when it would be suggested in party debates-" Oh, recollect the painful motion on which we treated you with candour and generosity, and from which we rode off on that happy mode of getting out of a difficulty, namely, that that was not the proper time for such a motion. Recollect that we, in our generosity, opposed it with all the influ

ence we possessed." He justified the language which he had used, which had been called "libel," "abuse," "calumny," and "vituperation;" he had said, for instance, that Lord Auckland's proclamation set forth as facts what were not facts; was not that "false" As a further precedent to satisfy Sir R. Peel, he referred to Lord Porchester's motion for inquiring into the Walcheren expedition. He adduced further evidence that Sir A. Burnes's despatches had been garbled; referring to a despatch to Sir William M'Naughten, dated Cabul, July 26, 1838.

The extract given in the Parliamentary document went no far ther than to say that Dost Mahomed had designs on Peshawur, and there it stopped; but reading on, it appeared that the writer added, "It seems that the chief is not bent upon possessing Peshawur, or on gratifying his personal enmities, but that he is simply securing himself from injury." All this was left out. The despatch went on to say that the

views stated were worthy of consideration, and the more so when an avowed partisan of Dost Mohamed Khan supported them Any man might see why those parts had been left out; and he did maintain that it was an instance of very gross falsification. "Here was Burnes, your own Minister, sent to the court of Cabul, stating distinctly that Dost Mahomed did not desire to make an attack on Peshawur, but only to defend himself against aggression; and yet you came forward and declared as broadly as it was now denied, that Dost Mahomed had such designs on Peshawur, and that he did make certain demands in furtherance of those designs." He had adduced one instancethe book was full of similar instances. In conclusion he threatened, that if he found in the estimates one tittle of charge towards payment of the expenses of the Affghau war, he should exercise the right of inquiry which it was incumbent on the House to exercise. On a division, the motion was rejected by 189 to 75.

of that question. The advocates of total repeal, who were, of course, entirely dissatisfied with the modification of the protective system, which Sir R. Peel had introduced, continued, through the agency of the Anti-Corn-Law League, and by the efforts of their speakers and lecturers, to stir up the public mind in favour of the complete removal of duties; they also availed themselves of almost every vacancy that took place in the House of Commons, to try the strength of public opinion upon their cause, though only with occasional and partial success. On the other hand, the classes more immediately interested in the prosperity of agriculture, manifested strong symptoms of disquietude and anxiety, feeling in their full force the evils necessarily attendant upon change and unsettlement, in a matter of such urgent and critical importance, and being sensitively alive to the apparent precariousness of a system on which their welfare so deeply depended. The promulgation by some Members of the Government of principles which, however qualified and abstractedly stated, seemed to go great lengths towards the broad doctrines of Free-trade, had excited considerable uneasiness and even distrust, in the minds of some who had looked to the present Government as forming their only bulwark against those principles, and a jealousy was manifested in some quarters, which threatened a breach between the adherents of the Conservative Ministry and the more zealous champions of British agriculture. The debates to which we shall refer, in connection with this subject, will show the state of opinion prevailing among the different parties in the

country, and the cautious tone and policy adopted by the Government under circumstances of so much delicacy, between the opposition of one party and the alarm and distrust of an important section of their own supporters. The subject was first opened by Mr. Ward, the Member for Sheffield, who, on the 14th March, proposed a resolution similar to one which he had brought forward without success in the preceding session :

"That a Special Committee be appointed to inquire whether there are any peculiar burdens specially affecting the landed interest of this country, or any peculiar exemptions enjoyed by that interest; and to ascertain their nature and extent."

He admitted that in bringing forward a similar motion last year, he had been guilty of some mismanagement; but now, in proposing it as a substantive motion, he had avoided that. He assumed the Corn-laws, which put money into the pockets of the growers at the expence of the consumers, to be an evil: and he adopted Sir R. Peel's principle, that the real interest of the country was to buy in the cheapest market, and to sell in the dearest. He glanced at the history of the Corn-laws; remarking that for the last hundred and fifty years the opposite party had been begging the question in favour of the landed interest. He mentioned instances in which the peculiar burdens on land were adduced in justification of the Cornlaws, by Lord Lincoln, lately, at Newark; and by Mr. Gladstone, who had quoted a statement, as from Mr. M'Culloch, that land was more heavily taxed than any other species of property in this country, and that if so an equivalent pro