The Press. — London, England, 1857-02-28 00:00:00

FEBRUARY 28, 1857. did not perceive all the bearings of the question, or that he designedly hid them from his col leagues. The Cabinet, "by a very considerable majority," refused assent to his proposals. He was supported only by Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Sidney Herbert. Lord Stanley was from the first ono of the most determined opponents of the Premier. Some injustice is done him, as the memoir does not contain the argument which he addressed to the Premier against his proposals. We gather, however, that he pierced the real intention of the Premier, and that he con tended that Repeal of the Corn Laws, if ne cessary or essential, should be carried by the party in opposition. Sir Robert rather hypo critically replied to him : I will not enter into any controversy with you upon it at the present moment. I must, however, observe that 1 have not proposed to the Cabinet that we should recommend to Parliament the repeal of the corn laws, still less that we should offer our advice to the Queen that the corn laws ought to be abandoned. Tho Cabinet separated on the 6th to meet again two or three weeks later. On the 22nd appeared Lord John Russell's celebrated letter to the electors of London, declaring for total and immediate repeal. The Cabinet met again on the 25th, and continued to sit on subsequent days, the Premier pro ducing several elaborate papers stating his sense of the necessity of corn-law revision. On the 2nd of December Sir Robert made a step in advance. He sub mitted a scheme for the total repeal of the corn laws, something like that which ho sub sequently carried into effect. By this time he had gained over many of his colleagues. The Duke of Wellington declared:— My only object in public life is to support Sir Robert Peel's administration of the Government for the Queen. And he added : My own judgment would lead to me to maintain the corn laws. Sir Robert Peel may think that his position in Parliament and in the public view requires that the course should be taken which he recommends ; and if that should be the case, I earnestly recommend that the Cabinet should support him, and I for one declare that 1 will do so. The Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Stanley, however, continued firm in opposition, and Sir Robert, feeling that his chances of success would be doubtful, decided on resignation. Lord John Russell was summoned to her Majesty's councils, and that negotiation corn meuced in which, by dextrously concealing his hand, Sir Robert managed to get himself recalled. Lord John was anxious to know what kind of support he might expect to receive from Sir Robert and his friends. Sir Robert replied it would be embarrassing were he to suggest the details of a measure. He thought there should be " liberal dealing as "to pecuniary burdens,' and such " provi " sions as caution and forbearance might Bug " gest," to " prevent alarm and the risk of " disturbance.' These generalities were perplexing. Lord John saw how easily he might be tripped up by his rival,if he could commit him to nothing more definite. He might hid too high or too low for Sir Robert's support. He might promise the landed interest too much or too little ; and might be defeated in one case by his own free trade supporters, in the other by his protec tionist opponents. Lord John showed much mono caution than rashness on this occasion. He endeavoured to balance himself as care fully as if he were dancing on a tight rope. He proposed through the Queen to send the outlines of his proposed measure for Sir Robert's approval. The wily statesman, gain • ing hope from Lord John's hesitation, replied in a tone of mild indignation. He urged a number of constitutional reasons against the course proposed, and hinted that Lord John would probably find he had far greater diffi culties to encounter than he yet thought of : A plan of adjustment might possibly embrace a series of measures which can hardly as yet have been carefully considered. After consideration they might admit of change and modification, which your Majesty's servants ought to retain full liberty to make. The subsequent explanation of such changes or modifi cation to a person not in your Majesty's service would be full of difficulty. Suggestions on his part with a view to modify or improve a measure thus communicated would be equally tombarrassing, THE PRESS. Lord John made one more attempt—a des perate one—to extricate himself from the toils of the Retiarius he saw in prospect con fronting him on the floor of the House of Commons. He intimates that he should pro pose a measure for the total and immediate repeal of the corn laws. Would that plan meet with Sir Robert's support? Sir Robert's ingenuity to evade a pledge was quite equal to Lord John's resolution to extort one. Again, Sir Rot.ert presented "his humble duty " to her Majesty ;" again he asserted his earnest desire "to co-operate in a private capacity in " the adjustment of the question of the corn laws ;" but— Sir Robert Peel humbly expresses to your Majesty his regret that he dove not feel it to be consistent µ•ith his duty to enter upon the consitl4ration of this important question in Parliament, being fettered by fa previous engagement of the nature of that required from him. In a subsequent communication Sir Robert stated more fully his reasons for his reserve. He could not tell who the new Ministers might be ; he slid not know what fiscal arrangements they might propose; he could not consent to relinquish his power of free and independent action, &c. Lord John was beaten. In a final letter to the Queen he enumerated all the difficulties which would have beset him, and he retired on the pretence that as Lord Grey declined to act in a Cabinet with Lord Pal merston, he should not have the united sup port of his own party. It is probable that so clever a tactician as Lord John foresaw the advantage that must result to himself and his party, by allowing full scope for division and strife in the Conservative camp. When Sir Robert Peel came to take farewell of the Queen, she met him with the welcome ex clamation :—" So far from taking leave of you, " Sir Robert, I must require you to withdraw "your resignation, and to remain in my " service." It is apparent, even on the face of this memoir, that this was exactly what he desired, though he had hardly dared to hope for such good fortune. His exultation appears in a note he addressed to the Princess Lieven : " I feel like a man restored to life after his " funeral service had been preached." He did not at this time anticipate the resistance he would have to encounter, nor the sacrifices he would have t o make. At the close of this memoir Sir Robert answers at length the question often put, why he did not prepare his party for the change he contemplated, and attempt to reconcile them to it? His answer is twofold, and in part contradictory. He states that, but for the unforeseen events of the autumn of 1845, it was his intention to have called his party together, and to have entered into friendly communication with them on the expediency of considering a plan of corn law revision before the discussions of 1846 could com mence. That is one answer to the question (p. 318). The second answer is that, had he apprised his supporters of his actual plans previous to promulgating them in Parliament, he should only have provoked factious opposition : I should have had on the part of the most moderate a formal protest against the course I intended to pursue ; to the most violent I should have given facilities for organised opposition; I should have appeared to be flying in the face of a whole party, and contumaciously disregarding their opinion and advice after I had professed to consult them ; hut ( what is of infinitely more importance) I should have failed in carrying the repeal of the corn laws. Now I was resolved nol to fail. I did not fail ; and if I had to fight the battle over again, I would fight it in the same way. These two answers, though not absolutely contradictory, do not well harmonise, as the disclosure of his intentions might have afforded time for opposition in the one case as well as in the other. There is another in consistency. Sir Robert. always pleaded the potato failure as the reason for his change of views on the corn laws, whereas this memoir represents him as contemplating eventual repeal before that event occurred. In a pre vious passage t) that last quoted, Sir Robert, in remarkable words, states that he was well satisfied to sacrifice his party to the end he desired to attain : It was impossible to reconcile the repeal of the corn laws by me with the keeping together of the Conservative party, and I had no hesitation in sacrificing 209 the subordinate object, and with it my own political interests. The result might have been widely different had Sir Robert cordially assented to the prin ciple laid down by Lord Stanley, Out it was for the Liberal party to carry corn-law repeal, if carried it must be. There can be little doubt that Lord John Rudsell's scheme would have been more liberal to the landed interest, while the Conservative party would have been saved front the division which has rendered it power less for the last eleven years. The memoir, notwithstanding its elaborate statements and justificatory tone, still leaves On the mind an impression of Sir Robert's insincerity. He never trusted his followers. He thought not of convincing, but of managing them, and treated them as a bundle of preju dices to be humoured and cajoled, not as rational beings to be swayed by truth. It would have been impossible for a great mind to have fallen into the contradicti o n s whi c h marked his career. By his own showing, one pint of his life was spent in building up pre judices, which the other part was spent in knocking down by Act of Parliament. We have seen him styled the Great Ambiguity of his age—he should rather, if the paradox may be allowed—be styled its Great ➢lediocrity. That he should have been endowed with so high and so low an intellect—with a mind so nearly approaching to originality yet never reaching it—with an organisation so sus ceptible, yet never veined with the electric fire which transforms clay to genius —must be classed among the metaphysical mysteries which are fitter for marvel titan criticism. The literary merit of the memoirs is less than we should have expected from Sir Robert's distinguished talents. The narrative is not always consecutive, nor is its egotism ever relieved by a touch of elegance or a striking thought. As a collection of pieces justificatives, the memoirs are valuable, but they do not heighten our estimate of their author's charac ter, though they show his great business talents, and his capacity for the active affairs of political life, to the best advantage. Essays, Critical and Imaginative. By Pro fessor Wilson. Vol. HI. Loudon : Black. woods. THE latest volume of Christopher North's lucubrations contains seven essays, of which the first, upon " The Genius and Character of Burns," occupies about the same space as the remaining six put together. It is an elabo• rate eulogy and vindication of the poet from every species of detraction. The Professor will not permit a single fleck to rest upon the brightness of his name, and is dissatisfied even with the laudatory and discerning critique of Mr. Carlyle. In the present essay the poetry of Burns, his moral character, and his worldly circum stances, are all most carefully analysed. Wil son and Carlyle both agree in attributing the excellence and popularity of the first to its " indisputable air of truth "—its " intense " life-pervading and life breathing trutll," but they differ in their estimation of the rank which it is entitled to hold in the Temple of Fame. Carlyle thinks that he perfected nothing, and that only a few gleams from the light that was within him pierced through the clouds which darkened his brief career. The Professor, on the contrary, believes him to have accomplished some of the most complete works of art which poetry can boast of; and as for the clouds, as we shall see presently, if he does not altogether disbelieve their ex• istenee, he at least scoffs at the idea of their extreme blackness. Mr. Carlyle points to Milton and Locke, and maintains that if Burns had possessed the same earnest reli giousness which these men did, his worldly distresses would not have hindered him from producing a great work—but that he lived for enjoyment, and consequently was oppressed by physical privations. Wilson, as might be expected from his own high animal spirits and keen relish of life, takes a widely different view. He thinks a great deal too much has been said about the poet's unhappiness. " Through life " says Carlyle, "he enacted a " tragedy, and one of the deepest,"—" he died " without ever having lived." Wilson holds