The Press. — London, England, 1854-08-19 00:00:00

_ ,711Mc , Pm .OPP" - _ • -- ------ t rOl No. 68.—VoL. 11. Vress. LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUSTI 19, 1854. THE Government apologists, unable to deny the failures of the session, endeavour to excuse them by alleging that they are attributable to the activity of Opposition. The good inten Lions of the Ministry were only defeated by adverse majorities. They were powerless, not from will, but from necessity. If they could have pursued their way, with no one to crl ticise or thwart their acts, they would have accomplished great things. Unable to make head against the discontent of friends and the vigilance of enemies, they were compelled to abandon the measures they had intended to carry. As the ordinary working of our par liamentary system was not suspended for their benefit they charge Opposition with the responsibility and blame of exposing their in capacity and of defeating their projects. • As this is the latest we must suppose that it is the best defence which the Ministry are able to make ; and it amounts to this, that they preferred rather to make shipwreck of their principles and, their measures. than resign their places. It is, in fact, an admission of the whole indictment against them that they consented to act on sufferance, and to retain office after proved incapacity to fulfil the functions of Government. By their own showing the Opposition was obstructive, and they stood still at its bidding ;—malignant, and they bent their necks to its yoke ; unprin cipled, and they submitted to its dictation. What more humiliating•confession of weakness could possibly be made ? A Government which acknowledges that it is reduced to impotence by the policy or strength of the party opposed to it seals its own condemnation. The Parliament repre gents the country, and the Ministry the Par liament. Its efficiency depends solely on its power to command a majority, and, when that power is lost, our whole political system is unsettled. The Legislature runs riot, the Executive is shorn of its strength. the springs of the Constitution lose their healthy play, and the country has in reality no Government, though a junta of placemen may continue to usurp the offices of Administration. Were it true that • the Opposition had been as violent and unscrupulous as the Govern ment partisans fancy it their interest to repre sent, it would have been the plain duty of the Ministry to resist and overcome this hostile influence, or to have refused to incur the responsibility of place withoutpower Violent oppositions are not new to our parliamentary history ; the novelty is for Governments to defer to them. Great Ministries have fallen before adverse votes of Parliament ; but when before did a Ministry, with the least preten sion on the part of its members to personal honour, plead adverse votes in excuse of con tinuous degradation. It is only when Cabinets lose self-respect, and are content to drag on a humiliating existence in the midst of defeat that an Opposition can become dominant, and LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 19,1854. then the active exercise of its privileges and powers is essential to the safety of the State. The plea in this case of the violence of opposition is not only false in principle, but false in fact. What were those occasions when the Opposition took an unfair advantage of the Government? Vague charges avail nothing. Let particular instances be given, and we shall know how to meet them. Lord JOHN RUSSELL, in the vexation of failure, accused Opposi tion of conducting their warfare on a new prin ciple, and of lying in wait for opportunities of defeat afforded by the motions of indepen dent supporters of the Goverment, instead of announcing a definite policy on some great question But he omitted to give a single instance in support of his charge. Professing to deal with facts, he ignored their existence. It is true that Ministers were often sorely dis tressed by their own adherents, but on such emergencies the Opposition, so far from forming an unnatural junction to' defeat the Government, came to their rescue. It was the Opposition who saved them from being beaten on the ballot, and who rescued them from defeat on the second reading of the Church rate Bill. It was Lord JOHN himself who violated the spirit of the Constitution by the strange course he took to cover his disasters. Beaten night after night, he summoned his supporters together two or, three times in the session, and, like a . sinner who seeks absolu tion once a quarter for daily sins, conceived be was entitled to run up a new score of defeat when absolved by the voices of his followers from the consequfinCes of his past transgressions. Opportunity would assuredly not have been wanting had the Opposition been bent on the overthrow of the Ministry, reckless of every other consideration. Is it to be supposed that no Coalition is possible except that which in cludes the names of Lord ABERDEEN and Lord JOHN RUSSELL, of Mr. GLADSTONE and Sir BEN JAMIN HALL ? There was nothing to prevent the Opposition from profiting by the Ministe rial example had they chosen to show an equal disregard of principle. A Coalition is a conspiracy for place. When one has been for Med, the way is smoothed for another to effect its downfall. It is to these unprincipled combinations that the ruin of free Govern- ments has been mainly owing. In countries where party traditions and sentiments of public honour are wanting, one conspiracy for place succeeds another till the representative assembly is torn into factions. Corruption then becomes organised ; no majority is possi ble unless it be bought ; and the evil deepens, till popular indignation sweeps away a system which, having outlived its proper use, is em ployed, not to protect,' but to betray public interests. Let our readers refer to France, or Spain, or any other country where parliamen tary government has been tried and failed, and determine whether we have not rightly indicated the successive stages of its ruin. The parties—or political sections, for parties they are not—which suppose that they have, by dextrous manceuviing, secured a monopoly of Coalition are much deceived. They are raved from having their own practices turned against themselves only by the disgust which their example excites, and do but secure a monopoly of infamy. It is to the healthy sentiment of indignation with which the mise rable selfishness and degraded ambition at the bottom of every Coalition are regarded amongst us, that we owe the safety of our Con titution. PRICE SIXPENCE. To the forbearance of Opposition it was due that Ministers were enabled to make some flourish of what they had accomplished at the close of the session. The measures necessary for prosecuting the war were supported by Opposition from first to last. Reserving to themselves the right of future judgment, they expressly forbore to indulge in premature cri ticism, and were thanked by Lord JOHN Rue- SELL himself for their reserve. The " vindica- tion n of Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT, whatever might be the merits of the Right Honourable Gen tleman's laboured oratory, was not applicable to them. The attacks on the management or mismanagement. of the war came from the other side of the House. Not the leaders of Opposition, but Mr. LAYARD and Lord DUDLEY STUART, privately backed by Sir BENJAMIN HALL, were the most troublesome assailants of the Government. But though the Opposition—unlike the Whigs in old days—felt it their duty to sup port the Government in the war, while they lent their aid to the defeat of mischievous measures, and opposed so firm a front to rash and needless changes that they were aban doned in alarm almost as soon as introduced, their part in the session must not be measured by these services alone. In all the principal business of Parliament they accomplished the work whi ch the Government were unable to effect, and brought some form of order from the chaos of Ministerial confusion. The tuxes demanded by Mr. GLADSTONE re ceived from Opposition, on the ground of the necessities' of. war, an almost unbroken support; but it was Mr. DiSRAELI who, at the beginning of the session, helped to redress the financial blunders of his successor by directing attention to the state of the balances in the Exchequer. His statements were met by arrogant denials ; but the subsequent publica tion of the public accounts confirmed in every particular the accuracy of Mr. DISRAELI'S de tails, and the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER was at last compelled to acknowledge his blunders, and to place the national finances in a more satisfactory condition. On other points Mr. GLADSTONE was greatly indebted to the superior knowledge of his opponent, though too ungracious to confess his obligation. Mr. Disesiti.r, in noticing some of those mysterious operations which the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (doubtless with the assistance of his private secretary) employed to puzzle the financial world, noticed that there had been a fall in Consols between the retirement of Lord DERBY (31st December, 1852), and the first reduction of the interest on Exchequer Bills (10th February, 1853), of mole than 11 per cent., and was met by a positive assertion that that difference in price was occasioned by the payment of the dividend, " the amount of which it exactly described." This reply, received with triumphant cheering from the Ministerial benches, was proved by Mr. DISRAELI, on a subsequent occasion, to be totally destitute of truth. The absolute fall, us he had at first stated, was 11 per cent. irre spective of the dividend. Mr. GLADSTONE has eulogised the services rendered to him in his department by Mr. LAWLEY. Was that gentles man concerned in the concoction of these figures? If Mr. GLADSTONE was deceived by them, he was strangely unmindful of the financial transactions of twelve months pre vious ; if not, he purchased dearly, by his reckless invention, the transient cheer he elicited from his supporters.