The Press. — London, England, 1853-05-07 00:00:00

MAY 7, 1853. years one choice has lain before the judge►ent of statesmen, viz.. the main tenance of those institutions, nay. of those habits of thought, which prese►ve monarchy.—or that gradual change into absolute democracy to which Tocquevillo somewhat rashly considered all the tendencies of our age impel the destinies of Europe. It was this choice that Lord John could never p►evail on himself to make with unequivocal and systematic decision : it is by seeking to evade or to toy with it. and by attempting to dignify vacillation into political prudence, that. under the leadership► of Lord John. you have year after year thinned your ninks and damaged your influence. And now the sole principle upon which you can defend your coalition is based upon precisely the same error—that of playing Conse►vatives against Radicals, and obtaining a►►jjorities that ►ave no faith in your policy and no heart in your cause. Yet your true position was so directly in sympathy with the views and wishes of the great middle class—of which as Whigs you aspire to be the fittest representatives—that you had but to understand and maintain it, in order to render yourselves indispensable to the necessities of the state. Let us pause and examine. The Parliamentary Reform Bill was the great work of the Whigs. From that epoch dates the influence they gained with Lord Grey, to lose at last under Lord Aberdeen. You had thus created a new constitution, amidst the loud hurrahs of the people. What was your obvious and easy task? Was it not to identify your selves inseparably with your own work, and to be :Alit:fly the censer vatives of the liberal constitution you had formed ? But you imper- • fectly understood that task when, through the mouth of Lord John, you declared yourselves for finality. A problem like the Reform 13111 entails the task of solving its corolialies. To conserve this new consti tution, you ha►l first, it is true, to maintain its roots, but, secondly, to establish the value of its products ; in other words, your task, as the au thors of a fresh charter between the throne and the people, was to main tain the charter intact from denu►crtttic invasion. and to disarm demo cracy itself, by proving that it sufficed for all those ends of practical government the failure of which alone excuses his own creed to the democrat. Firmness to defend the reformed constitution, unrelaxing energy to work out its legitimate results,—this should have been your twofold aim—this was Lord Grey's. Anti had you proved yourselves equal to that position you would have carried oil' from Conservatives on one side, and Radicals on the other, a majority all your own. For you would have become the representatives of the real sense of the public, and rapidly have formed the Third Party amongst the electoral constituencies which has withered away under your hesitating discou ragements. For why did the Government. of Lord John gradually die of exhaustion ? Because it unsettled much as to the new constitution, and settled nothing, that was expected to be the result of it. And just towards the close, at the moment most inopportune, when insur gent populations anti tottering thrones throughout the Continent, when quick successions of excess and despotic reaction rendered it most unwise to tamper with settled institutions at holm., and disposed the public least to demand a change, my Lord John collies down to the House of Commons with his notable proposition—to undo the Reform Bill ! Six years of languid legislation, six years subsistence on the legacy of Free Tuttle, six years and nothing done, that could show the innate vigour of the existent constitution to remove all grievances, and advance all progress, contrasted by a spasmodic vio lence against the Reform Bill itself, and it classical dissertation, by the very Premier who had been most in collision with the democntts. during all his tenure of office,—on the advantageous construction Of the word democracy ! All this explains why the Whigs had fallen at the commencement of the present Parliament into so great disrepute. They had not only thrown away their right position, they had per versely taken up the wrong one. They had done nothing to prove that Reform works well ; and their only pretence to what the jargon of the day calls " Liberal opinion " was in the abortive attempt to create agitation against the very title-deeds of the possessions they haul obtained from the state. Could it be supposed, then, when thus thrown out of power—meeting the present Ptn•liument with reduced numbers, internal divisions, popular discredit—they would obstinately insist again on precisely the same error? Anti yet is not that error the very basis of their present coalition, or rather submersion ? They form a Government on the principle of a farther Reform Bill when ever Mr. Gladstone and Sir William Molesworth can concur in amal gamating the opinions of the Reform Club with those of the Carlton. Every attempt to viii icate the constitution is put off for some indefinite plot on the constitution itself, on which, if it he possible to form a rational conjecture, not two of the conspirators can possibly agree together. It is true, meanwhile, that you have assisted to swell the reputation which you, above all men. are forbidden to share ;—the reputation that Mr. Gladstone has procured from a budget of which the chief popular merit is in its signal contrast to all your own finan cial principles, and its covert blow to the policy by which you have hitherto supported Aristocracy as an element necessary alike to the safety of freedom, and the duration of monarchy. What in this be your gain shall be considered later. Here I pause for the present. hi my next letter I shall endea vour to show that the Govenunent of Lord Derby assumed precisely that position which you, the Whigs, had thrown away ; and - I shall take leave to inquire if you then took the best. Means to reunite your forces, regain your ascendancy, and identify your natural leaders with the cause they profess to cherish. MANII.IIOI. THE PLEDGE TO GOD AND THE PLEDGE TO MAMMON. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN ENGLISH FUNDHOLDER AND A CANADIAN CHURCHMAN. FUNDROLDr.R. Happy the man whnse safe invested heaps, Proud of its trust, a jealous nation keeps; No falling shares his nightly rest prevont— No crash disturbs his two pound ten per cent. : All heedless he. though sands and mines unfold The solid nugget and the dust of gold : Though the pale usurer tremble for his store. Its worth still lessening as its bulk grows more; Though lords. once dipped. their cumbered acres free. And debts paid ow astound the mortgag ee . Though railway magnates mink with growing cares. Wrecked in one KnutsL. their passengers and shores. FOr forty years, secure from every shock. A nation's honour guards her new-made stock Then take. my soul, thy dividends and ease, For England pays and Gladstone guarantees. A nation's honour ! cross the Atlantic wave. There seek the pledge that nations honour gave. A king bestowed the designated sod. And vowed the gift for ever to his God. A senate's voice, while senates yet were' just, In after years confirmed the sacred trust. Where now the auspicious infant. born to prove The mutual pledge of Church and statesmen's love? spurn'd by its parents, eurst by faction's cries, In thirteen years the puny bantling dies. Frxunot.nEn. It moves not me, Admit your tale be true, A Church is easier cheated than a Jew. Vows made to God provoke but God's revenge Vows made to Mammon touch the Stock Exchange. Who now believes in heavenly vengeance shown For broken faiths, or altars overthrown? If fever burn, our drains the pest have made; If tamine pinch, we only want free trade. Not thus our funds. Let Nlammon's temple reel, A world-wide trade the fatal shock shall feel, And worldly vengeance, kindled by disgniee., Shall hurl the bankrupt Minister from place. CnrneuMAX. 13 = 'Twits said of ohl. and some believe it still, Who robs a church will hardly spare a till; And many an nneient moridist declares A people's promise binding on their heirs. Our modern statesmen no such rule allow, Aims imam ehany( i : things are altered now. But. lest my angry muse too rudely mil, I'll cloak my moral in an tmeient tale. Once on a time, old N.sop tells the fable, 'two brother pilferers sought a tavern table: In parts assigned, they shared the knavish feat-- The first purloined, the wenn(' kept, the meat. Charged with the theft, " I have it not," one cries; " I took it not," his brother rogue replies. 0, father lEsop, who would e'er have thought A statesman's lesson in thy tale was taught? A nation's promise is the pilfered meat, A .joint-stock llinistry the triek rep eat Whig, who promised, vows he ne'er betrayed It; The Peelite. breaking, swears he never made Pause, England, pause, ere History's stem decree With brand undying stamp thy deeds and thee ; Pause, ere the blot that stains thy rival's name Damn thee, like her, to everlasting shame ; Ere, doomed to mark historie glories fade, Merged in the of thy darling trade, With kindred infinity thy annals shine, And Punic faith with Punie wealth be thine. Pause while thou enlist. Let restless Faction still Hound to the charge her tribunes of the Mill, (Faction whose robe, with tawdry eiitton spread. Apes the wild weeds that twine round Freedom's head i Let social Seienee still crude dreams dispense Of worlds unchecked by meddling Providence ; Still inovk the heart-poured prayer, that fruitless springs To move the unbending laws of human things ; Still let minute philosophers essay To file our faith, our h o pe, our creed away, .And Strauss and Homell in their cloudy brain Rule their brief hour, like Tindal and 1 Dill Paine. Let modern lights their flickering ghlim advance— The German Pantheist, Communist from Franey, And foiled assassins from their homes expelled Half+ treasons still, beneath the exiles shield. Yet, if there be whom noble pride inspires To rialto as sons the history of their sires, Who trust, to guide each piddle word and deed, A nation's eonseience, and a nation's creed, Who feel their souls indignant turn to hear The sophist's statecraft. and the scorner's sneer, And still, unmoved, whatever wiles assail, Keep their hearts steadfast, though their reason fail,-- if mull there be, though dark the prospect lower, Calinly we wait our eountry's trial hour. What though, unmarked, some noxious weeds have crept, And elabpol their fibres rotund her as she slept, Though rank the growth of indolence and ease, Still, God be thanked, our England is not these. It . • THE PRESS.