The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-29 00:00:00

demanding permission to preach in West minster Abbey. If there are numerous per dons who would be aggrieved by the refusal of a rector to marry them. there are still more who are aggrieved by being excluded from the use of our churches altogether. The Romanists will say they built all our ecclesiastical edifices. The Dissenters will say they have long contri buted to support them. Why are they not to get something in return? If the doctrine that the churches belong to the people be once generally accepted, we see no impediment to this conclusion. It is a logical result, and it is certain to be worked out. - - If somebody will not stand firm against this piecemeal demolition of the Church, farewell to the English Constitution. " Church and State " will soon become an empty idea, for there will be no Church to embody it. In fact, if this system be fully carried out, we don't see how any class in the community can expect to preserve anything which a small body of pertinacious men choose to say they dislike. But the Church is exposed to peculiar danger. She has no voice in Parlia ment, except through a channel peculiarly exposed to Ministerial influence; and, unless she forms an integral part of one of our great political connections, is utterly helpless. Her defence, then, must not be left to individuals, however zealous and able. Somebody, we repeat, must stand fi7m who is able to do so with effect ; and that resistance can never be consummated without the formation of a strong and united Church and Conservative party. In our articles of last year we pointed out the necessity of this alliance simply to pre serve the framework of the Church. Sooner than we expected the necessity has been practically proved. A determined onset was made upon one of the foundations of her inde pendence, and found the friends of the Church disunited and disorganised. When we see the closeness of the divisions both in the Lords and Commons, it is impossible to doubt that if the Church and the Conserva• tives had been as intimately united as of old, her resistance would have proved successful. A political party ought not to interfere with doctrines. The Conservative party can be neither High Church nor Low Church exclu sively. It cannot carry out the favourite tenets of either section of Churchmen. The ques tion is, is the Church herself worth pre serving? Would not the clergy of all parties answer it in the affirmative ? If so, let them support those statesmen who with the cordial assistance of the clergy themselves would alone be able to check the designs of her enemies. _ _ _ We sincerely trust that during the recess some measures will be taken for restoring the lost confidence between the Tories and the clergy. United they can do much to restrain the spirit of destruction in every department of politics. Dissevered they can do but little. They are old allies ; and, for the sake of a close union, it is surely worth the while of either to sacrifice a few crotchets. If the Churchman abuses latitudinarianism ; the lay man will abuse sacerdotalism. These words must ho hushed. Neither must pettishly throw away any substantial good for the sake of visionary projects which can never be realised. WHAT IS THE WORTH OF LORD PALMERSTON? No domestic question of a political character is worthy of more attentive consideration than the degree of value which should be attri buted to Lord PALMERSTON. Recent circum stances have considerably shaken the faith of his admirers as to his special pretensions to the fame of a great Minister. When the sub ject of calling out the Militia was mooted, the Premier immediately vetoed it. His colleague in the War•oflice echoed the indifference and easy assurance of his chief, and after valuable time had been lost, and when hands pre viously idle had found employment in gather lug the harvest, then our prescient Minist r THE PRESS, AIIGMT 29, 1857. sends the recruiting-sergeant among reapers Not merely weeks of time, but companies of men have thus been lost. No only did Viscount PALMERSTON dis member several regiments and reduce many battalions, but he dissolved the whole Militia, which had been got up at such trouble, and he took no measure for keeping up a nucleus of this constitutional force. India was left to less than its usual complement of soldiery. Hectoring and browbeating, small European States, and hurling invectives against the King of NAPLES, this martial Premier was completely blind to the dangers threatening us in India. Unfortunately, that is not all which is to be condemned in the recent conduct of the Pre mier. At a critical moment, big with the fate of our Indian empire, Lord PALMERSTON had the vaunting rashness to embark in a Persian war, although the state of India must have been known to him ; and if it was not known to him, after having been Prime Minister since 1855, great is the shame, and most . „ heinous is the culpability, which attaches to him personally. Let us see what a dreadful price we have paid fcr the reckless propensity to pick a quarrel which has always been the bane of Lord PALMERSTON. The large force which was withdrawn from the Presidencies of Bombay and Madras was the virtual cause of vast numbers of our un happy countrymen being butchered, without hope of immediate vengeance and of condign chastisement. The withdrawal of those troops, and the transference of them tr) Persia, is a most lamentable incident in this enormous tragedy. For it is evident that want of men paralyses all our operations. We could not spare for the Bengal Presidency the troops which remained at Bombay and Madras, after the numbers of these latter had been reduced by the forces sent to Persia. Either Lord PALMERSTON was aware of the condition of the Indian empire, and of the enormous hazard that he was running by rush- ing into a Persian war, or he was entirely igno rant of the state of things in the East. From either position the public can deduce only one result, that the Premier is preposterously exaggerated as a Minister. The Persian war was almost a second edition of the Crimea, and of sending the Guards to Malta, while making terms iu the contract for bringing them back next week ! Persia was more stubborn than was anticipated. The troops were obliged to invade, and while we were gaining dubious results, and winning no laurels, the Indian mutineers saw the oppor tunity, and sprung at us. The terrible event caught Lord PALMERSTON unprovided. He was taken by surprise. He did not lose his jauntiness. He had joked while the army was rotting in the Crimea. He had never uttered a word of disapproval of the way in which things were managed in that dire winter of MI. He then earned from Mr. CHARLES DICKENS the name of The Comic Old Gentleman." He appeared weekly in Punch as a grinning mountebank. And although Sir CHARLES NAPIER warned, and numerous Indian remonstrances were addressed to the home authorities, the Premier took Indian affairs with jocular good humour. The storm lowered, the Viscount laughed. He was told that a hurricane was at hand, and he scoffed it as a cloudy humbug. At last the outburst came. Our friends and brethren in India cried for aid, and the Vis- 835 count resolved to send them " some regi ments," but not to call out the Militia, " it was not necessary." Then at the last moment this pliable and supple politician changes his mind, and agrees to call out the Militia. Is that statesmanship? Is this a great Minister for England? There is no extricating the reputation of Lord PA LMERSTON out of this dilemma— namely, either the Noble Viscount thought that it was quite right that the army should be reduced, or else he thought it wrong, and had not courage to oppose it, and stand or fall by his convictions On either horn of the dilemma the Premier must be gored. But when at any titno did Lord PALMERSTON ever make a stand for a principle? Did ho not serve ten Prime Ministers, the Duke of PORTLAND, and Mr. PERCEVAL, and the Earl of LIVERPOOL, and Mr. CANNING, and Lord GODERICH, and the Duke of WELLINGTON, and Earl GREY, and Lord MELBOURNE, and Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and the Earl of ABERDEEN, and then coquetted with Lord DERBY? is not such exactly the kind of yielding . , facile, fluctuating politician, who to secure his leadership would succumb to any cry that threatened to come from a majority ? In his prolonged career his admirers cannot point to a single instance where the Viscount ever made a stand for a principle. He was once well told by Mr. CARDWELL " that there " was more of the willow than the oak in his " nature." His object, firstly, and secondly, and thirdly, has been o f fice—office—office ; and the means by which he has sought to gain it and regain it has been the vulgar expedient of canting with the current cant. The Duke of WELLINGTON seems never at any time to have expressed a high opinion of Lord PALM ERSTON'S abilities. The Duke knew well his dimensions, and Lord ELLENBOROUG H a couple of years ago told the House of Lords that, in the Huskisson affair, the Duke, when called out of his room at Downing-street, said, " It " was only PALMERSTON. He's but a small " bird." In subsequent years the Duke of WELLINGTON had abundant opportunities of judging of Lord PALMERSTON'S abilities, and none of the Premier's adulators can point to a single passage in one of tne Duke's speeches or letters in which respect was avowed for the talents of the present Premier. Yet his Grace often, in his manly way, acknowledged his high opinion of the public talents and the per sonal characters of several of his Whig anta gonists. He did so in the cases of Earl GREY, Viscount MELBOURNE, Lord BROUGHAM, Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and many others. The fact is notorious that the Duke of WELLINGTON placed a low estimate on the powers of Lord PAL - ME RSTON. The Noble Viscount is adroit in dealing with individuals, but where are there any proofs of prescient sagacity, of lofty views, of great designs skilfully conceived and stur dily executed ? He was never chief of any political connection until the precipitate con duct of Lord Joh N RUSSELL enabled the Noble Viscount to vault iuto the vacant seat. And this is the Prime Minister whose weighty powers are fulsomely adulated by the para sitical politicians who kneel at the footstool of official power ! Since this wicked and ferociously savage mutiny broke forth Lord PALMERSTON hi,s done nothing superior to what his " appen - dages " might have performed without his aid. In his speeches on India these has been nothing great, heartetirring, or intel lectually grand. His vehement vituperation of the Chinese last spring contrasts with the languid and conventional tone of the Noble Viscount's recent addresses. He is an accom plished man of the world, but he is an ambiguous politician ; he is a skilful Parlia mentary tactician, with a hand for every party and a heart for none, but he is not a masterly Minister; he has vast experience, but he has not inspiring energy. A man clutching through life so tenaciously to mere office is not the ruler capable of wielding the sword of State ' with the resolution that cheers friends and crushes foes.