Page:The Annals of Our Time - Volume 1.djvu/23

JUNE against Ministers :—" It will be observed that the anticipations of certain Insh Roman Catholics respecting the success of their war- fare against the Protestant Church and State, under the auspices of these not untried Ministers, into whose hands the all but infant end helpless Queen has been compelled by her unhappy condition to deliver up herself and her indignant people, are to be taken for nothing and as worth nothing but the chimeras of a band of visionary traitors. When they boast that her Majesty will in the end turn Papist, or that she will marry a Papist, or in any manner follow the footsteps of the Coburg family, whom these incendiaries describe s Papists, it is clear enough that the circulators of such insane slanders have carefully concealed from the dupes who listen to them that the legal consequence of such lapse into Popery would be an immediate forfeiture of the British Crown."

—Forty bills, public and private, re- ceived her Majesty’s royal assent to-day, being the first passed in her reign. The ceremony led to some trifling mistakes in consequence of the officials of the House having been so long accustomed to say "his Majesty" and "le Roi le veut."

30.—The Budget introduced to the House of Commons by the Hon. Spring Rice, Chan- cellor of the Exchequer. The gross income for the ensuing year he estimated at 47,240,000l. and the expenditure at 46,631,415l, The Customs he considered likely to produce 21,100,000l., and the Excise 13,800,000l. The amount of tea cleared for home consump- tion in 1836 was 49,844,000 lbs. and the duty 3,886,000l.

Considerable political excitement through- out the country during the past ten days con- sequent upon the preparations for a general election to the first Parliament of the young Queen. Lord John Russell writes to the electors of Stroud: "I have endeavoured to strengthen our institutions by reforming them; to obtain complete and full liberty for every religious opinion; to give to Ireland the fran- chises of Great Britain. But in so doing, I have been cautious not so to innovate as to admit any principle by which our ancient insti- tations might themselves be endangered; not so to define religious liberty as to weaken the Es- tablished Church; not so to provide for the wants and wishes of the people of Ireland as to break or disturb the unity of the Empire. In this spirit I must always oppose any propo- sition for the adoption of an elective House of Lords, or of the voluntary principle in religion." To the electors of Tamworth, Sir Robert Peel wrote: "In cordial concurrence with that powerful Conservative party with which I am proud to boast of my connexion, looking rather to the defence of great principles than to the mere temporary interests of party, I have given a zealous support to a weak and inefficient Government, whenever it has of- fered an opposition, however lukewarm and hesitating, to projects of further change in the system of representation or in the balance of the constituted authorities of the State." Sir F. Burdett retired from Westminster at this time in favour of Sir George Murray, Tory, and mention is male that Maidstone was to be contested by Mr. Disraeli, the younger.

July 3.—A Bill for carrying on the govern- ment of the country in case of a demise of the Crown when the next heir was not in England, read a second time in the House of Lords. It provided that the great officers of state, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and an indefinite number of persons to be named by the heir-presumptive, should carry on the government in the event of the Queen’s death.

4.—Grand Junction Railway, from Liverpool to Birmingham, opened.

5.—The King of Hanover issues a pro- clamation calling in question the Constitution of 1833, The Consitution, he affirmed, was neither in form or substance binding on him, and he was not satisfied that it gave any gua- rantee for the permanent prosperity of his subjects. Writing to the Duke of Buck- ingham, he says: "I had a most difficult card to play, and until I could see my way plainly I could not act true to my principles. Radicalism has been here all the order of the day, and all the lower class appointed to office were more or less imbued with these laudable principles. . . But I have cut the wings of this democracy."

8.—The Earl of Durham having been con- sulted by the Reformers of his own county on the approaching elections, writes to Mr. Russell Bowlby : "I wish to rally as large a portion of the British people as possible around the existing institutions of the country—the Throne, Lords, Commons, and the Established Church. I do not wish to make new institutions, but to preserve and strengthen the old. . . . It has been my ruling principle throughout my poli- tical life to endeavour to bring all classes— especially the middle and lower—within the pale of the true, not the spurious, constitution. I have ever wished to give the latter an interest in the preservation of privileges which exclu- sion would render obnoxious to them; to make them feel that whilst the Crown enjoyed its prerogatives, and the upper classes their honours, they also were invested with privileges most valuable to them ; and, moreover, that all, separately and collectively, rested on the common basis of national utility." A Durham Ministry was spoken of at this time, and several candidates for the new Parliament avowed themselves to be supporters of his lordship’s policy.

— The late King William IV. buried this evening with great solemnity in the Royal (3)