THE

NORTH OF ENGLAND

MAGAZINE.

TO OUR FRIENDS AND THE PUBLIC.

We present you with the first number of a Magazine, not unworthy, we trust, of your support. It is for you to judge, with what success we have catered for your instruction and amusement. On this we are determined, that our viands and cookery shall be of the best procurable quality, and, with such claims, who will grudge us a shilling for a hearty meal.

The present Publication is of a character distinct from any to which Periodical Literature has given birth. Its object is to represent the feelings, and advocate the interests of the Manufacturing and Commercial classes. Upon them it must depend for existence-supported by them it must flourish-deserted by them it must fall. The proprietors, however, are inclined to hope, that a Community so powerful will see the advantage of possessing an organ, through which their wants and wishes may be honestly expressed. It is notorious, that, hitherto, their true condition has been very imperfectly understood, and that all legislative measures affecting them have been founded upon incorrect or insufficient information. The NORTH OF ENGLAND MAGAZINE proposes to remedy this defect-to paint the true position, and advocate the real interests of those who have made England what she is. Every thing connected with the Northern Counties shall command our best attention, and it is intended to take up in succession subjects interesting to each particular locality. To effect this co-operation is necessary, and it is earnestly invited.

The projectors of this Publication, are perfectly aware, that amusement must be blended with instruction. "Men are but children of a larger growth," and Robinson Crusoe is, we are disposed to believe, a considerably more popular person than Adam Smith. For ourselves, gentle readers, we confess our inclination is rather towards the gay, than the grave; and, like kind

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doctors, if you will but take our pills, we promise you, they shall be gilded as prettily as possible. In his spirit, we give you, in the present number, embellishments, such as no shilling publication, of the same character, has ever attemped to produce; and we have made arrangements to ensure to ourselves a continuance of similar attractions. The assistance of many able writers, in the different departments of Literature, has already been secured; and, in these our northern Districts, so fertile in mines, we have little doubt of opening many a rich vein of wit, humour, and romance.

Music and the Fine Arts shall receive due attention, and are entrusted to those, upon whose taste and knowledge we can confidently rely.

In the Drama we are much interested; it appears to us to be powerful, alike for good and evil, for the improvement or corruption of a Nation's manners and morals; and our best assistance shall be given to any efforts made to restore it to its legitimate

uses.

Professions of Critical impartiality have usually little meaning in themselves, and still less weight with the Public. We may say, however, that our position is such, as to afford no temptation to, and leave no excuse for dishonesty.

Our Political Creed is simple. We are uncompromising Free Traders; and, therefore, determined enemies of the present system of Corn Laws, and of those ill-judged and selfish restrictions upon Commerce, which are now paralysing the energies of the Nation. We are the advocates of all well-considered social and legislative reforms, and deeply attached to the principles of Civil and Religious Liberty. No man, however, shall be attacked by us because his political or religious denomination differs from ours. If our principles be worth any thing, they should be defended by sound argument, and not by personalities. The great cause of human improvement is not one of sect or party, and to this cause we are earnestly, we may say, exclusively, devoted. Our wish is, to be useful in our generation to be labourers in the field of Popular Education to identify ourselves with the Many-to guide them in the knowledge of right and wrong, justice and injustice, good and evil-to benefit them in mind and body-and thus work out the principles of practical Christianity.

If, in this effort, we are destined to fail, we fail in a good cause; but, if, as we believe, our success be certain, we trust for a long and pleasant acquaintance with those to whom we have now thus briefly introduced ourselves.

February, 1842

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OUR POLITICAL PROSPECTS.

We are glad that Sir Robert Peel's majority is a large one. Let not our friends wonder-we repeat that we are glad of it. No shock less powerful could have restored to health the diseased functions of the body politic.

The late position of parties appears to us to have been fraught with mischief to all classes of the community. From the Peers and members of the, so-called, lower House, down to the unrepresented artizan, there was not an individual, upon whom it did not excercise a baneful influence. Leaving, however, for the present, their Lordships to enjoy a dignified repose, we shall consider the principal sections of the House of Commons, in which, (the ultra Tories having vanished, with the exception perhaps of the three gallant Colonels), the Whigs and Conservatives contested the battle field, and a smaller body of non-finality Reformers, now aiding the former in the struggle against the common enemy, now carrying on a sort of guerilla warfare for themselves.

To each of these three parties its position was a dangerous one. The Whigs, carried into power by the People, but gradually deserted by them, were naturally anxious, in their extremity, to have recourse to any assistance, which held out a prospect of relief; and, finding that assistance in the Court, they formed an alliance with it, so "compact," that it may well be doubted, whether both parties did not suffer somewhat by the union. The Crown may, for a time, have appeared to prefer personal predilections to the expressed wishes of the constituencies. All true Whigs must have regretted a concurrence of circumstances, which compelled them to rely upon the favour of the monarch, for that strength, which they should have gathered from popular support.

The Whig party, however, was exposed to other and continually recurring temptations. With a force, now barely exceeding that of their adversaries, now sinking somewhat beneath it, when the victory of to-day might be followed by a defeat to-morrow, they had little chance of carrying, and were therefore unwilling to run the risk of bringing forward any important measure of reform. Amid the turmoil of a strife so closely contested, there was little time to consider the interests of a third party, even though that party were the People. In a struggle for existence, classes of men, as well as individuals, are betrayed too often into selfishness, and the cries of their victims are unheeded or unheard.

"Let me not be tempted above that which I am able to bear," was a petition well suited to such circumstances as we have described; and if the Whigs were found wanting in firmness, we

had rather forget the "faults and follies" of those, with whom we have fought in common many a good fight, than dwell upon mistakes, which it needed no common energy to avoid. To all true reformers a bright career is open. Let them enter upon it in concord.

As we care but little for the Conservative party, we shall devote but few observations to them; yet, even for them, we desire, that they should fight, as Englishmen ought to do, under their true colours; and that parties should be ranged, as they are attached to the interests of the Many, or the few, as they legislate for the People, or for a privileged class.

Such a course as this, however, the Conservative party had not the courage, or the honesty, to adopt. Excluded from the offices, of which they once seemed to have possessed an almost hereditary tenure-exiled from court, under peculiarly unflattering circumstances, and despairing of success from a firm adherence to their original opinions, they had recourse to a number of artifices unworthy of a great party-leaguing themselves with those with whom they had no principle in common-assuming to themselves all the advantages to be gained by the No Popery Cry, and similar ingenious devices;" and thus concurring, at least tacitly, in the advancement of doctrines, upon which, we are fain to believe, they dare not, even if they desire to, act. That their character has not been damaged by this dishonourable style of warfare, few, we think, will be bold enough

to assert.

Turn we to those Reformers, who, possessing a bolder creed than that of the Whigs, were yet compelled to make continual sacrifices in order to exclude the common enemy from office. Of all sections of the House of Commons, their's was the most unfortunate position, and deeply did many of them feel it. Scarcely a day passed, in which they were not called upon to practice some forbearance; to do something, of the propriety of which they were doubtful, or to abstain from doing that, to which their principles urged them ;-an adverse vote-an ill-timed motionan accidental or intentional absence-an embarrassing questionnay, even, an unfortunate selection of an opponent to pair off with, might, in the cant of the day, have upset the coach.' Expediency ruled every thing, and principle was compelled to remain for a time inactive. What wonder was it, that, in such circumstances, public, as well as private, character should have suffered; that constituences should have begun to distrust those, who professed so much on the hustings, and did so little in the house that honest men, afar off, unable to understand the complicated machinery of party, should have grown careless of exerting themselves, where activity seemed fruitless; and that the very individuals, who were exposed to these continual embarrassments, should begin themseives to doubt the soundness

of principles, which were never called into action. If, as moralists have asserted, an adherence to virtue" is not only right in itself, but also improves the character"-while deviations from rectitude" are not only criminal in themselves, but also deprave the inward constitution; and, if those originally upright, become corrupt and depraved in their settled character, proportionably to their repeated irregularities in occasional acts," it would follow, that no course of conduct can be more dangerous, even to the most honest politician, than that, which daily calls for a sacrifice of principle to expediency, and tempts him from the straight path of public duty, into the bye-ways of party.

That all who were exposed to this ordeal should have come out scatheless, was not to be expected; some there were, who preserved nobly their moral independence, yet even to them it should be matter of rejoicing, that the time of temptation has passed by.

But how fared the People? for whom we care more, than for Whigs, or Tories, or Conservatives, or Radicals. Alas! they fared wretchedly. Suffering under gradually accumulating distress,for which they saw no chance of relief-believing themselves deserted by many, to whom they had been accustomed to look up as their friends and protectors-understanding little of, and caring less for party contests; but feeling the canker worm of famine gnawing at the heart strings of themselves and their families, they began to think that, God and man had forsaken them in their extremity, and, in some instances, were mad enough to rely upon their own right arms to work out their salvation. What cared they who was Speaker of the House of Commons, or whether Prince Albert should have thirty or fifty thousand a year. They were an hungered, and we gave them no meat; they were thirsty, and we gave them no drink; naked, and we clothed them not." They turned, as they ought to have done, in disgust, from our unworthy squabbles-and the late elections shewed the depth of that disgust.

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We have now better prospects, and we re-assert, that the large majority of Sir Robert Peel will eventually be useful to us. The Whigs have been taught a bitter, but a salutary lesson. They have learned, that the memory of past benefits is not sufficient to secure the support of a people, whose condition requires present and efficient assistance. There is truth as well as severity in the definition, which makes public gratitude "a lively sense of future favours." The man, who is starving for want of bread, is but little thankful, that, some few years ago, you gave him a vote for the borough.

Their defeat, then, is likely to be serviceable to the Whigs. It has been so complete, as to leave no room for doubting either its cause or remedy. They have but one road open to political