The Press. — London, England, 1856-10-04 00:00:00

938 the House of Commons, or of public opinion. Has Mr. LAYARD succeeded in producing a scheme for " Army Improvement"? Or has Mr. TITS laid even the groundwork for "Administrative Reform"? The truth is now visible to all that the Li beral party has always worked too much with men of the hustings and the platform. Its tone is not of that measured and serviceable kind which is, after all, more appreciated in England than tribunitian talents. We are convinced that the Conservative gentry pos sess in a peculiar degree the special qualities for taking an active part in public atlltirs. Their tone and measures are more suitable to a mixed community than the eager and ex aggerated vehemence common to noisy do claimers and mere provincial politicians The management of extensive properties fits them for the business of life; their knowledge of the world is drawn from varied intercourse, and their natures are not narrowed by constant calculations of loss and gain. We may indeed admit that in political acti vity, and in zeal for putting themselves for ward before the public eye, the Conservative gentry are not equal to the " Liberals," who understand tho arts of notoriety, and who might even give hints to Mr. BARNUM. Good taste and proud self-respect preserve them from such vulgarity. But we think that in some respects the inaction is carried too far, and we could desire that more zeal and energy was shown by some of our respected Conserv ative representatives. Many amongst them are recognised as having talents of the highest order. The Marquis of CHANDOS is univer s Illy admitted to be an excellent man of Lusiness ; in that (as in other respects) being a worthy representative of the Granvilles. Sir JOHN PAKINGTON has won great honour by his practical legislation on various subjects. Lord STANLEY'S indefatigable industry is known to the public. It might be invidious to enumerate all the Conservative Members whose talents for business admirably fit them for active Parliamentary life in an age like the present. As the Liberal party has so decidedly f ►iled to produce practical legislators, and as Vie commercial representatives have lost in vague and popular confidence, a great oppor tunity is now presented to Conservative Mem bers. Superior to sordid objects or vulgar place-hunting, they occupy a distinguished p - isition before the country, and we earnestly hope that they will prove how superior they are in practical ability to the declamatory pro• fessors of Liberal principles and retrograde copyists of bygone Cabinets. MR. STAFFORD AT NORTHAMPTON. IF there was one thing at least universally admitted in this world of uncertainty and contention, we had assuredly thought it was the difference between a town and country population. We read of it at school, we dis -6 iss it at debating clubs, and we act upon it in mature life. And yet, because Mr. STAFFORD has grounded a very innocent and customary compliment to the farmers upon this conviction s and has quoted M. DE MONTALEMBERT ill sup port of his remarks, it is insinuated that he him self is,jesting, and that M. DE MONTALEMBERT is a perverse-minded hypocrite. It is certainly very unfortunate for those politicians who have now for so many years been proclaiming that the commercial interests of England were paramount to every other, and that the farmer was but a hewer of wood and drawer of water to. the merchant, to discover that, after all, they have not been so right as they thought ; to find that the two most deen thinking political writers on the other side the Channel, with opportunities of judging far superior to their own, have come to conclu sions hostile to those opinions they have been so long and so confidently thrusting upon us : to observe that America, too, announces the results of her experience to be the same, and that her Minister has the audacity to assert in public that the prosperity of the United States is icUlldod upon agriculture. All this THE PRESS. is, doubtless, a grievous humiliation ; and it is too much to expect that such an error should ever be formally confessed. But the weakuess of the arguments with which the statement of French opinion is encountered is every whit as good as a confession. " Do the Northamptonshire farmers know " who the intelligent foreigner is," says the Times," of whom Mr. STAFFORD is speaking ? " He is a Legitimist, and as perverse as any of his school ! Now, we own ,ve are somewhat at a loss to understand in what this perversity consists. A man is thought to be perverse when he refuses to see what every one else sees plainly enough. But is any liberal journal prepared to say that all the world sees plainly that hereditary monarchy is obsolete? In the face of all the European Governments at the present day, this would seem rather an extravagant assertion. Why then is the Legi timist perverse? Is it because he endeavours to account for the overthrow of hereditary mo narchy in France, like M DE TOCQUEVILLE, and for its preservation in England, like M. DE MONTALEMBERT, on grounds distasteful to the Liberals? We profess we can see no other reason for the charge. As for the accusation of wishing to stir up strife between dif ferent classes in this country, it is really too ridiculous, and, as we shall show presently, recoils upon the accusers. It is not strange that a believer in aristocracy should wish to point out to the landed pro prietors of this country the rocks on which they wrecked themselves in France. He sees in England the great stronghold of that senti ment, that kind of liberty, and those institu tions which he would like to see restored at home. Is it wonderful, therefore, that he should offer us the aid of his experience and reflection towards the business of preserving them here? His attachment to a political theory is stronger than his attachment to a party or a person. And as long as England remains the best witness in favour of that theory, he will share none of those feelings im puted to him, because she may be indifferent to the claims of HENRY V. He is a patriot more than a partisan, and a philosopher more than a patriot. To return to the agriculturists themselves, we cannot admit that it is even a matter of opinion whether they do, or do not, possess the particular kind of superiority at the bare idea of which the Radical becomes furious. Of what constitution of mind is loyalty and love of existing institutions the product? That is the question to be solved. And will any one deny that a country life, and country pur• suits—the mere fact, if you will, of gaging upon fields, woods, and rivers—gradually pro duces a tone of thought distinct from that generated by the life of cities and the pursuits of commerce? There all is constant, here all is change ; there the influx of new opinions is slow, here it is so rapid that the discoveries of yesterday are the prejudices of to-day; there, consequently, sentiments once imbibed have time to make deeper impressions ; there traditions linger, and become interwoven with local attachments and associations to which the town-bred man is a stranger. Now, it is just this which goes to form that constitution of mind of which we have above spoken ; this it is which our greatest poets, whom critics tell us proclaim the highest truths, have con stantly eulogised. Why do we refuse to recog nise their authority directly something practi cal is at issue ? Either three-fourths of what has been written and believed of the poet's mission, and insight, and didactic office, is so much rubbish, or we must accept this view of the rural as opposed to the urban popula tion. Any dispute as to the comparative import ance of commerce and agriculture has usually seemed to us rather verbal than real. Agricul ture is the foundation, commerce the super structure, of national greatness. One contri butes the element of stability, the other the element of splendour. Without the first the prosperity of nations becomes dependent on the fluctuations of trade, which may drift into other channels, and leave a hitherto flourishing people stranded and impoverished. Without the second, art and literature, and all that constitutes social refinement,which contributes to glorify SATURDAY, the national life, and ameliorates mankind at large, can never attain to maturity. Each possesses its own virtues and its own vices. The mercantile class is liberal and in formed, but at the same time restless, specula. tive, and cosmopolitan. The agricultural has more confined views, but is steadier, more pru dent, and more home-loving. The one kind of life sharpens the intellect, the other nourishes the affections. Each ham its proper place in a well-regulated commonwealth„just as in a well developed man ; each has its work to do, and it is folly for either to step Out of their proper province, and claim to be what they are not. To recur more particularly to Mr. STAFFORD'S quotation, no fact is more clearly established by history than these two::—First, that the agri cultural classes are more attached to mo narchy, and secondly, that they are fitter for war, than the commercial. In all re volutions and rebellions it will almost invariably be found that the towns are on the side of innovation, the country on the side of existing institutions. The only class in France which stood up for the monarchy were the peasantry of La Vendee, where the provincial aristocracy still retained their ancient authority, and enjoyed the confidence of the people. In England, as we well know, the great civil war was a contest between town and country. Nine-tenths of the towns were fur the Parliament, nine-tenths of the coun ties for the King. In regard to fighting quali ties the same difference is observable. had not a general of extraordinary abilities ap peared at the critical moment in the ranks of the Parliament, the armies of the King must eventually have gained the day. It is no disparagement to the man of the loom that he is a worse shot and a worse rider, possesses a less hardy frame, and is more acutely sensitive to danger, than a ploughman, a huntsman, or a gamekeeper. It is the necessity of his position. " The robust "rural Saxon" says Mr. EMERSON, " degene " rates in the mills to the Leicester stockinger, "to the imbecile Manchester spinner—far on " the way to be spiders and 'needles." But then he has his owu peculiar value. He is the creator of that vast wealth which en ables us turn the physical energies of the rustic to the best advantage. In time of war, commerce finds the money, and agriculture produces the men ; without the one we could never have colonised the world, without the other we could never protect ourselves. To carp at this just and obvious distinction which the experience of ages has sanctioned, appears to us to be rather more perverse than anything that M. DE MONTALEMSERT has said or dune. If it be said that a great many of these ob servations verge upon truisms, the reader must remember that when a truism is denied, there is no alternative but to simply restate it. If a man tells us the sky is green, we can only answer that to us it appears blue. We have essayed nothing more in the present article than to recapitulate the grounds, both a priori and d posteriori, on which it is usually believed that agriculturists are, as a rule, more conservative and more soldierly than mechanics and tradesmen—which, we take it, is all that is meant by saying that they afford " the safest barrier against convulsions and invasions." As to their being more loyal, the phrase does not occur in ➢lr. STAFFORD S speech ; but has been dextrously assumed by his assailant for the purpose of exciting the commercial class against the agricultural , and creating a prejudice against so powerful a reasoner as the author of " The Political Future of England." CONSERVATIVE INTERESTS AND ROMAN CATHOLIC INFLUENCE. ALTHOUGH " sociology," or practical measures relating to society in the gross, must continue to claim the principal place in our domestic affairs, it would bo a great error to suppose that all questions connected with " party " must be completely laid aside. Whatever bo the rule of action applied to English govern ment, the number, education, and property of Conservatives must be proportionately repre sented. Mr. DOUBLEDAY (a Radical political