DISPUTE IN PARLIAMENT.

The king opened the session of parliament on the twenty-fourth day of January, with a short speech recommending the despatch of the public business with prudence and unanimity. Each house presented a warm address of condolence on the queen’s death, with which he seemed to be extremely affected. Though the house of commons unanimously sympathised with the king in his affliction, the minister still met with contradiction in some of his favourite measures. One would imagine that all the arguments for and against a standing army in time of peace had been already exhausted; but, when it was moved that the same number of land forces which they had voted in the preceding year should be continued in pay for the ensuing year, the dispute was renewed with surprising vivacity, and produced some reasons which had not been suggested before. The adherents of the minister fairly owned, that if the army should be disbanded, or even considerably reduced, they believed the tory interest would prevail; that the present number of forces was absolutely necessary to maintain the peace of the kingdom, which was filled with clamour and discontent, as well as to support the whig interest; and that they would vote for keeping up four times the number, should it be found expedient for that purpose. The members in the opposition replied, that this declaration was a severe satire on the ministry, whose conduct had given birth to such a spirit of discontent. They said it was in effect a tacit acknowledgment, that what they called the whig interest was no more than an inconsiderable party, which had engrossed the administration by indirect methods; which acted contrary to the sense of the nation; and depended for support upon a military power, by which the people in general were overawed, and consequently enslaved. They affirmed, that the discontent of which the ministry complained, was in a great measure owing to that very standing army, which perpetuated their taxes, and hung over their heads as the instruments of arbitrary power and oppression. Lord Polworth explained the nature of whig principles, and demonstrated that the party which distinguished itself by this appellation, no longer retained the maxims by which the whigs were originally characterised. Sir John Hinde Cotton, who spoke with the courage and freedom of an old English baron, declared, he never knew a member of that house who acted on true whig principles, vote for a standing army in time of peace. “I have heard of whigs,” said he, “who opposed all unlimited votes of credit; I have heard of whigs who looked upon corruption as the greatest curse that could befall any nation; I have heard of whigs who esteemed the liberty of the press to be the most valuable privilege of a free people, and triennial parliaments as the greatest bulwark of their liberties; and I have heard of a whig administration which has resented injuries done to the trade of the nation, and revenged insults offered to the British flag.” The ministry triumphed as usual, and the same number of forces was continued.