Every political treatise referring to events which have engrossed the attention of the day, either as modifications or as changes of our social system, must be valuable in later years. It must necessarily recommend or condemn measures on account of their probable operation in the time to come; it must in some degree be a prophecy, or else it is practically worthless. The politician studies the past merely as his guide for the future. If he is learned, wise, and at all an adept in the science which he professes—than which no other is of so momentous an import—he will consider past history as the barometer which must guide him in predicating the approach either of a tempest or a calm. Temporary clamour or occasional obstruction will not lead him to forsake clear principles of action, or to recommend a grand constitutional remedy in the case of a trifling local disease. He must look forward beyond the sphere of immediate action—resolute in this belief, that one false step, however small, may upset the equilibrium of the State. Expediency, the modern idol, finds little favour in the eyes of the true and sagacious statesman. He tests measures by their intrinsic value, regardless of the “pressure from without;” and he looks upon Parliamentary majorities as of less moment than the maintenance of the real interests of his country. If we apply these remarks to our later political history, and to the conduct of those men whom circumstances have elevated to the highest stations in Government, we shall at once perceive that the first great principles of practical statesmanship have been abandoned. The welfare and integrity of the Empire has been made a subsidiary object to the triumph of party ambition; and accordingly, CONSISTENCY, that grand test of a politician’s sincerity and soundness, is the very quality which is wanting. To consistency, indeed, neither Lord John Russell nor Sir Robert Peel, for many years the rival chiefs of party, can lay the slightest claim. They have been playing a long, and, doubtless, an interesting game, with the map of Britain and its dependencies before them as a chess-board: they have directed the whole of their energies to giving checkmate to one another; and with this view they have again and again altered the relative positions of king and queen, bishops, knights, castles, and pawns. To counteract the last move of his adversary was the great object of each of these ingenious players. It was a pretty trial of dexterity and finesse; but we trust, for the sake of the chessmen, that the match is finally concluded. Talent of this kind may, indeed, be available when it is necessary to contend with a foreign adversary; but it is worse than mischievous when practised systematically at home.