A POLITICAL INDICATOR.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5423, 2 July 1879, Page 3

A POLITICAL INDICATOR.

Sceptical minds are often superstitious, and Lord Beaconsfield's is not free from this infirmity. B(e is Baid to have fallen . into a state of great depression upon observing the attitude recently assumed by Sir Robert Peel towards H.M.s Government. His well-stored memory is; able to produce a long array of instances, in which Administrations had fallen very sobn : ; after . this Liberal-Conservative baronet had declared against them. Immediately after entering Parliament, Sir Robert, although sitting upon Liberal > benches, took part with the Protectionists. in an attack upon Lord Russell's Government, and it fell a few months later, in February, 1852. After having left Lord Palmerston's Ministry, Sir Robert, in* 1858, denounced the Conspiracy Bill in a powerful Bpeech, and the Cabinet were beaten and displaced. It was not until after he had gone into opposition to it that Lord Derby's, to which he had been at first friendly, was turned out. Upon the death of Lord Palmeraton in 1865, Lord John Russell dismissed Sir Robert Peel, who took • part in some of the attacks upon Mr Gladstone's Reform Bill, which proved fatal to the Administration. In 1868 Sir Robert joined in the Irish Church movement, under which the Tories succumbed ; but his appearance in opposition to Mr Gladstone was again the prelude to the collapse of a party and a Government.