The Press. — London, England, 1854-03-11 00:00:00

r ►i Mori ~l~r+li MARCH 11, 1854. And we question the accuracy of this repre sentation of existing evils us applicable in any general sense elsewhere. We shall not omit the first opportunity which presents itself for discussing the probable operation of the pro posed remedies. PARTY OR FACTION—THE "CHRONICLE" ON COALITION. Soatz remarks have lately appeared in the columns of a Ministerial organ which, for their justice, merit a wider circulation than they have yet received. It is something new to find the principle of coalition denounced by its former and still professing friends : That Government by party has ceased to exist in this country is a fact which has of late been frequently asserted, and which we are not prepared to deny. How far the state of things which has succeeded the old organi- sation to which Parliament had so long been habituated is an improvement upon the ancient system is a matter which may admit of grave doubt, and which the present aspect of political affairs may well lead us seriously to consider. To us the matter admits of no doubt; and, indeed, our contemporary appears to have pretty well made up his mind. He argues that if men were perfect, not actuated by in terest, riot biassed by private feeling, wholly free from vanity—in a word, pure patriots — party would cease to be necessary. What kind of assembly a millennial Parliament might be we have never been careful to inquire, deem ing such speculation, however amusing, ex ceedingly remote from all practical concerns. But as to the present state of things the writer's opinion coincides very nearly with ours : It is a fact which we may regret, but which it would be most unwise to ignore, that the great majority of men are no more governed in political than in private life by the dictates of deliberate reason, or even of enlightened self interest —not to speak of the promptings of disinterested patriotism—and, consequently, it does not follow that, because party is dethroned, reason has succeeded to the sceptre. It might be nearer the truth to say that the in terregnum is occupied by an anarchy of passions more tyrannical than the fallen usurper. The conduct of indi viduals is not more reasonable or less factious because, instead of rallying to the old party cries, they pursue their personal animosities, or prosecute their private ends. The evils of party may, indeed, be said to be only multi plied when, former connections being dissolved, each man becomes as it were his own party, and blindly follows wherever his passions or his interests conduct him. The system of party government had at least this advantage — that the ideas and the passions of the more exalted intel lects and the nobler spirits ruled and directed the tone of their adherents; but, where men are left to their own de vices, too many will become either the dupes or the tools of designing intriguers, who appeal to prejudices or their interests. Or, as he puts it yet more clearly, " the ex tinction of party has been succeeded by the " inauguration of intrigue "—a sentiment stolen from HORACE WALPOLE, but none the less true. But who extinguished—or rather who tried to extinguish—party ? The com plaint of Lord ABERDEEN'S supporter is the condemnation of Lord ABERDEEN. Party con nection, in the old and usual sense of the word, involved no abuse and implied no degrading submission of private judgment. It was founded on the necessity, felt and recognised in all human affairs, of compromise to secure co operation—of co-operation to ensure success. In every pursuit, in every kind of labour, the organised and united efforts of a dozen indivi duals will be more effective than the exertions of the same individuals acting separately. He who refuses to stir in any business unless he can arrange it exactly to his own mind is not likely to be a useful member of society. If for unity of action an absolute identity of sen timent among numbers be required, all action will soon be at an end. There remains then only the alternative of com promise in matters of detail, for the sake of union on questions of principle. With such compromise we do not quarrel. We may not go the length of saying with Mr. DISRAELI " that a Parliament without " parties will become a servile senate," but we are sure that su ch an assembly will soon become an inefficient senate. And at this point we are already arrived. The cold sup port which Ministers recei ve is a dail y subject of complaint in official quarters. But the THE PRESS. reason of such coldness is evident. They ex cite no enthusiasm, because they announce no principle ; or, rather, it is well understood that the principles announced by one-half the Cabinet are as distasteful to the other half as they can possibly be to the Opposition. Hence a suspension of all business; hence the os• tentatious exposition of measures never carried, nor meant to be carried ; total inaction in mat tars of administrative reform, though the ad ministrative talents of the •Government are everywhere lauded by their organs ; hence silence and apathy in the House of Commons, while controversy rages in the Cabinet. Next to the statement of our contemporary we know no clearer exposition of the results which fol low on a disorganisation of party than the present situation of Lord ABERDEEN'S Ministry. MR. LOCKE KING'S DEFEAT. WE do not congratulate our readers that Mr. LOCKE KING'S attempt to assimilate the law regulating the descent of real property in the case of intestacy to the Statute of Distributions has failed, for indeed it never had a chance of success. England is proud of its aristocracy, and of their stately, historic homes standing in the old parks, with the dark woods around them. Not only Lord Jons RUSSELL'S but many succeeding new Reform Bills must pass before Parliament will strike a deadly blow at that element in our Constitution which distinguishes England from every other nation of the world. No other na tion has an aristocracy, and no other nation enjoys liberty, combined with order, in the same degree as England. The extinction of liberty in many conti nental nations occurred contemporaneously with the decomposition or destruction of their aristocracies, and with the creation of a standing army. There was a period in English history when we might have either lost our liberties cr only preserved them after a desperate struggle if the army had been false to its country. Had the army of JAMES 11. been true to him, the revolution, which then secured our liber ties, might never have occurred. But that army was officered by the noblemen and gentlemen of England; and they, though loyal to their King, owed a yet higher allegiance to their GOD and their country. Mr. DISRAELI'S remarks towards the close of the debate are pregnant with meaning " He wanted to know whether there was not such a thing as public liberty also to be considered, and he wanted to know how that public liberty could be main tained in an ancient and European country unless there were large properties to rally round. He thought this country had been greatly indebted to the tenure of land for the freedom it enjoyed." In a nation where there is no class permanently wealthy and powerful there can be no stable check on the Executive. Commercial wealth is necessarily fluctuating ; and it is from our ancient county fami lies that we obtain a class of men for the public service such as no other country possesses. The younger sons of our nobility and landed gentry con stitute a majority of the officers of our army—an army to which, as distinguished from most other armies, we can trust the liberties of civilians, be cause it shares in their sentiments, and is identified with their interests. SOLDIERS' WIVES. TnrtEz superior officers of the three regiments of Foot Guards have protested in a letter to the Times against the bestowal of public charity on the wives of those soldiers who have mutinously married without leave. The gallant colonels argue like military po litical economists : they say, " There is a rule that " only so many soldiers in eaeh regiment shall marry, " the rule is well known, and if men violate it let " them take the consequences." Well, the conse quences are that the public is willing to tax itself to relieve those helpless women whose husbands have obeyed a law of nature in contumelious disregard of a law of the service. We are not impugning the wisdom of the rule—it is indispensable—a married regiment is an impossibility, for encumbered with women and children it would cease to be military ; it would be a family, not a regiment. But there are laws of nature superior to all ordinances of man, and they assert the source whence they spring : they prove that their origin is deep in the heart of man, interwoven in the principles of his nature, by bursting through the shackles with which civil legislation and military rule vainly attempt to fetter them. Amongst these is the right to marry when you cannot keep a wife. Here Nature asserts her predominance in a conspicuous manner, for the stronger the reasons against mar- 219 riage the greater is the matrimonial alacrity displayed. How the absence of a private soldier can affect his wife pecuniarily is to us an enigma. But that the military rule does not prevent these rash marriages the number of destitute wives sufficiently proves; therefore we think the three gallant officers are a little exceeding the limits of their province when they endeavour to check the free flow of public benevo lence on the ground that " it will encourage " the breach of a military rule, seeing that the rule has been already extensively broken, not only with out encourage ment, but in spite of prohibitions. Our soldiers will not bear the standard of England the less gal lantly in the fight when they know that England guards and cares for those that are dear to them. As the old song says, The merry heart goes a' the day, the sad tires in a mile a.' Therefore we trust, and indeed have no doubt, that an ample fund will be provided for the wives of our gallant soldiers. The manner in which they can be best assisted may be a subject for consideration, but that the attention of Lord ST. LEONARD'S is directed towards it is alone a sufficient guarantee that what • ever is cont.ibuted will be applied in the most judi cious manner. "WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR BLUE BOOKS?" UNDER the above title a short pamphlet has been is sued by Lord STANLEY, recommending such an ob viously useful application of parliamentary papers that it is singular the suggestion should not have been made before. It appears that the annual printing expenses of the House of Commons have been, on an average of five years, 28,0001. To this amount, in conjunction with the printing expenses of the House of Lords, there is but a small set-off—the an nual produce of the sale of papers, averaging between 3,0001. and 4,000/. Yet to this large outlay so little would be added by the judicious distribution of extra copies, while, on the other hand, so great an Raven ' tage would thereby accrue to the public, that a com mittee of the House of Commons reported last year in favour of a free distribution of these papers, under certain conditions, to various free libraries and insti tutions. The value of this recommendation, which is good as far as it goes, is diminished by the consi deration that the mass of information contained in the fifty or sixty folios issued every session is prac tically of little service to the general reader in its present bulky and undigested form. It may be questioned, however, whether it is the province of Parliament, arid certainly it has not at present the machinery, to disseminate this information otherwise than in a raw state. At a fractional increase on the present expenditure (somewhere about a fifth or a sixth of the whole amount) Lord STANLEY calculates that these volumes might be supplied to all news papers circulating above a given number. Here, as his Lordship suggests, are the Volunteers who will take measures to give to the information thus conveyed the utmost publicity in a readable shape. The utility of these documents would be indefinitely extended, and Parliament, as the titlepage of the pamphlet sug gests, would be thus partly performing the function of a " national schoolmaster." We anticipate that this proposal will be welcomed with alacrity by our contemporaries, whose intere:•• in the matter is only secondary to that of the reading public. THE LAW OF PARTNERSHIP AND LIMITED LIABILITY. WE had•not space last week to refer to a late resolu tion of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, in favour of the expediency of modifying the present law of partnership, so that the liability of each member of any association may be limited to the amount he has subscribed towards its capital. As the law now stands, every member of any association is individually liable for all the debts of the partner ship ; hence prudent and wealthy men are slow to embark in enterprises which might be nationally advantageous, whilst adventurers and sharpers, ac cording to a pamphlet published by an experienced solicitor, Mr. FIELD, " like such risky cor,cerns " better than any other. The higher the stakes no " matter how critical the risk -" and this statement the recollection of the vanished " stags" of '46-47 amply corroborates. A man of wealth rarely originates a public company. In stating these and some other obvious truths in a letter to l.is American namesake, MT. DUDLEY FIELD, Mr. FIELD adds : " I am ashamed to trouble you with inch palpable arguments—arguments lying I bad fancied in the very rudiments of political science ; and I really could nut have done so had it been longer ago than yesterday, and from a less man than the President of the Board of Trade, and EL - ~ _5!~