The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-24 00:00:00

2 /b S 9 IN LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 24, 1858. No. 273.—V0L. VI. STAMPED ....SIXPENCE. UNSTAMPED..FIVEPENCE. THE CLOSE OF THE SESSION. THE session of Parliament is practically over. All the measures of any importance, which are to become laws, are already agreed upon ; and nothing but a few formal proceedings remain to bring us to the day of Prorogation. We know no reason whywe should stand idly gazing until the last forms have been gone through, before we take a rapid glance at the results of the Parlia mentary year. The session of 1858 has been one of the most remarkable ever known. Its results have been those which no one could have antici pated. It commenced by throwing out of office a Minister who imagined his seat to be the safest possible. Lord PAtmErtwrost had seen a House of Commons elected, especially to support him. He felt so secure, and so proud of this support, that he told men like Mr. GrADSTONE and Mr. DISRAELI, that he treated their opposition with entire disregard." In this same spirit of self confidence, he flung up the reins, one fine morning, in the belief that neither the Queen nor the Parliament could get on without him, and that his return to office must be solicited as a favour in the course of a very few weeks. To his surprise, he found that he had miscalcu lated; and he then commenced active measures to force his recal. Before the new Government had been two months in Downing-street, Lord PALMERSTON began to call meetings at Cam bridge-house, with a view to drive the Derby Administration from power. Although his return to power was not solicited, as he reckoned that it would have been, he never doubted for a moment that he was quite able to compel the Sovereign and the Legislature to ask a renewal of his services, whenever it suited him to take the usual steps. But his second hope failed, as much as his first had done. Office had not " come to him ;" and now when he stooped to scheme and plan for it, his schemes and plans all failed. The Cardwell battering-ram broke down, before its first stroke could be applied to the Ministerial citadel. The second hope of the expectant place hunters failed as signally as the first had done. A third anticipation, however, remained. The Palmerstonians, as they slunk away from the Cardwell discomfiture, consoled themselves with the prophecy, that "notwithstanding their lucky "escape, the Ministry would not be in office another month." The India Bill was coming on—the Government would be defeated on every material question, and it was impossible that, with a mere minority of the House, they could ever see the 10th of June as Ministers of England. But this last hope was as signally disappointed as the former had been. The Bill for the better government of India was read a second time. and went into committee. Now was the time for Lord PALmEßsros to put forth his strength, and to show that the " sufferance" hitherto granted to the Derby Ministry was at an end; and that he meant at last to take matters into his own hands. There was no great alacrity in the Noble Vis count's movements; but at last the time came when abstinence was no longer possible. He joined battle, and made three assaults on the Bill in the course of a single evening. Each attack was repelled, and considerable majorities, declaring on the side of the Government, made it quite clear that the dominion of Lord PAL MERSTON in that House was at an end. From that day to this the progress of the Ministry has been unvarying and unchecked. Ridiculed in April for the preposterous expecta tion that they could carry on the Government with a wretched minority, they have now arrived at the close of the Parliamentary year without suffering a single defeat. It would, perhaps, be too much to assert that a single session can es tablish a Parliamentary practice—or we might say that in future, whenever it was asked, "Can a Ministry carry on the public business without an assured majority ?" the reply might be made, with reference to the session of 1858, " Why not?" The true explanation, however. of this new and unexpected state of things is found in the fact., that, if the Ministerialists are not a majority in the House of Commons, they are still quite the most numerous party in that assembly ; and that the cluster of parties known by the general term of Liberals do not, and will not, act together. It is the fashion to talk of " the Liberal majority of the House of Commons." But this is a phrase implying some kind of unity. A majority is a body of men who will go into one lobby, or con sent to be counted as one mass. Now, there is no such majority in the present House of Com mons. Two attempts have been made, within the last three months, to form an organization of this kind. But it is found, immediately the trial is made, that "the Liberal majority" will not cohere. They cannot be brought to act together, and this for the best of all reasons, because they do not, in fact, think alike. The Liberal press makes this fact clear. We have in London twelve daily journals, of which at least nine call themselves Liberal. But of these nine Liberal journals, no fewer than five assert, day by day, that a Derby Ministry is preferable to a Palmerston one ; and that we may expect more liberal measures from the present Govern ment, than we ever should have obtained from the last. These newspapers, too, only echo opinions which are common inside the House of Commons, and explain the votes of many " Inde pendent Liberals," who, in most divisions, are found supporting the present Ministry. But here we approach the only doubtful and perilous point in the whole case. Mr. Mutt., in his Nonconformist, lately said : " Meanwhile, the Conservatives are polishing up the last few measures which remained in the Whig repertory, and are giving them, one by one, to the people as inevitable concessions. They are probably thereby sowing the seeds of their own destruction, by producing disaffection in their own ranks, while unable to conciliate the confidence of their opponents." Now this is a real danger. It is a repetition, as yet on a small scale, of the alienation and disrup tion of the Conservative party in 1845-1846. That fact, as well as the similar fact in 1829, are now matters of history. Thaw members of the present Government who are inclined to coquet with Liberalism, and, to use a common phrase, "to be as Liberal as they can," ought to bear these things in mind. It is as certain as any one fact in history, that Sir ROBERT PEEL'S Liberalism of 1829 threw him out of power the neat year, and gave the Government to the Whigs for twelve years after. It is equally beyond a doubt, that his return to " Liberal notions," in 1845-6, again ejected him from office, and reinstated the Whigs. Such were the results, the natural and just results, of two desertions of Conservative prin ciples. And there can be no doubt that similar causes will again produce similar results. To gain the favour of many of the Liberals, then, is not all clear profit. There is a hollow ness and uncertainty about it while it lasts; but there is no uncertainty as to the alienation it creates among the best of the Conservative sup porters of the Government. One perilous symptom of this kind we have recently seen in the concession of the Jewish claims. 'We would not exaggerate its impor tance, or treat it as a fact altogether fatal to the Conservative party. We know that it is mainly a giving way to weariness on the one hand, and to a hope that the affair, after all, might be looked upon as a matter of little practical importance. These were the temptations, the motives, for giving way. But the practical result is evil—all evil. Look at the contempt and derision with which the yielding of the Peers was greeted in the House of Commons. Not within the memory of man has that august assembly had to bear so much scorn as was poured upon it in the House of Commons on the morning of July 21. The case differed from that of 1832, or that of 1846. Grave and serious national perils were placed before the Lords on those two occasions. Civil war and famine supplied weighty grounds for reconsideration. But in the present case nothing better than mere womanish weakness was or could The higher branch of suffered much in standing , to the "advanced Liberals, of exultation than of really value the British the reverse. So closes the session , not quite satisfactorily. ' l 4 T Ls, W 111 be appealed to. f the Legislatso- c *nkas .ing and vpniailitn ! :, 3erala," Ina 4 - ,) regret. 41 1 . Constiar• • t, r-- ' ••• • A ASbt