The Press. — London, England, 1855-10-13 00:00:00

966 and of very small traits of littleness were finely brought out while to gaping loons and rustic admirers the Lord of the Manor held forth from his carriage as if he were sovereign lord of the public opinion of Europe. The whole thing would have been perfectly amazing if it had not been supremely absurd. "It was arranged that the Corporation of " Romsey should accompany Lord PALMERSTON " to Broadlands, and that his Lordship should " address the crowd from his carriage, and not " from the platform." Ahem ! Was that in tended as a sly cut at " platform politicians ?" It is not the first time that such folk have been snubbed by the Viscount, who can plead the affectation of popular principles with the haw-haw air of condescending arrogance better than any living exhibitor of that peculiar school. A bashaw concealing his enormous egotism under a histrionic assumption of " jollity" is the type of character seen in Lord PALMERSTON ; and it never was more forcibly shown than in the jovial way in which, like a Little Pedlington Chatham, he gasconaded before his lieges in the illustrious town of Romsey. But the speech itself was far worse than ridiculous. It was mischievous, ill timed, and arrogantly assuming. We need not quote it in parts. We characterise it as tersely as truly in saying that its logic was defiance, and its rhetoric was the tautology of brag. As usual, there was an exceeding quantity of verbiage on the Viscount's lips, but there was also a vehement chuckle about his manner on this occasion, as if he meant to convey the idea—"'Twas I did it all." It recalled to us the Tory days of Lord PALMERI3TON'S youth, when CANNING made such game of the Whig Opposition, and applied to them the story of Dennis, the critic at the play—" Zounds, sir, " that's my thunder!" The fire from the trenches was PAM'S ; ditto the capture of the Malakoff; ditto the heroism of General WINDHAM and the stormers. Yes ! it was Lord PALMERSTON stormed Sebastopol, sunk the fleet, blew up the magazines, smashed the Czar of all the Russias, and utterly bam boozled the whole world of—Romsey. Amaz ing man ! Astonishing statesman ! Marvellous Minister ! " Our own landlord, too !" PAM and Brag for ever! His Lordship forgot to recount who ap pointed General SIMPSON to the command of the army, who had the whole management of the Militia last year, and who—but, on the blunders and dismal errors of official personages he was silent. Even "Abby" was never mentioned. He was responsible for them, and he desired to leave them to oblivion. He took for granted, what in some respects is unhappily the fact, that the public has a very short memory, though it has singular fecundity of imagination. In Romsey the Viscount beheld the mirror of opinion, and he was content to swagger for a day as a mighty British statesman Barnum-wise. He would show Romsey and all the earth that though the American " Woolly Horse " was as pure an invention as fables about a Privy Councillor commencing life with five shillings, that a Pugilist Premier was a dreadful reality, and that England must pay largely for such a show. And such is certainly the case. The tone of Lord PALMERSTON'S Romney speech was not above that of those adventurous athletes who strive after a coarse celebrity as " fighting men." It was " Boxiana " interleaved with extracts from his own post-prandial orations. Though Romsey was before him, with its old market-place and quaint church, yet the Viscount recollected Islington and its pot house deputations, and "judicious bottle holding" consequent thereon, and Reform Club banquets to the invincible "Old Charley," and most injudicious bottle-emptying conse quent thereupon. (We recollect—SirJames!) The Viscount would be "at it" again ; and accordingly the First Minister gave us a mere boxer's speech, full of chaff, swagger, and that political slang which rolls with such fatal facility from lips unequalled for lubricity. At home we can afford to make merry over such a characteristic display of rhodomontade, THE PRESS. delivered in the Viscount's rattling style of Wizard of the North sleight-of-hand ; but abroad—ah ! there, indeed, it is painful to reflect on the reception of such an aggressive, swaggering, contemptuous address from the Prigte Minister of England. His words will be interpreted as sbesning more than the Viscount intended. Here we take a large discount of from his bills on opinion drawn as a. British dictator. We know that his political credit is only that of an accidental Prime Minister. But on the Continent his rhetorical self-conceit will look bigger in the idiom of foreign countries. It is not of the small great man of Romsey—the lord of the manor—the owner of Broadlands, with its sunny lawns, and pleasant hospitable house, and its amiable hostess—that the readers at Berlin, Vienna, and Paris, will be thinking. They will have no distinct vision before them of the jolly old gentleman acting " great man," not stamping on Russia, but standing on the comfortable carriage -mat, avoiding cold Baltic timber foi the sake of his venerable gouty toes, and blandly thanking the " people " of Romsey for their cheers for the Queen and the Emperor of the FRENCH. and for himself, and for " Lady PALM ERSTON," and for the Corpora tion of Romsey. The neighbourly hospitality at Broadlands in the evening, and the noisy rejoicing over flowing cups of the persons whom his Lordship entertained at the hotels of the town, cannot be appreciated abroad as, doubtless, they were at home in Hants. Here we are all content to smile at such a scene as a phase in the rural life of England where small boroughs are assiduous in offering copious incense to the 'magnates of their vicinity. But the whole exhibition will be viewed with different feelings abroad. In any case the scene had much that was con temptibly small. Only try to imagine a Wal pole, b. Chatham, a Pitt, or a Canning, stooping in a great European war to hear their toadies chaunt their praises through the " corporations " of such a Lilliputian town as Romsey ! But, apart from the petty absurdity of such trumpery ovations—such pop gun hurricanes of mock applause—the mischief remains, that a blustering speech was made utterly un• worthy of the First Minister of the Queen of ENGLAND. At such a critical time its language will only inflame national animosities, and embitter hostilities. It is by such taunts and boasts that wars are indefinitely prolonged, and their original purposes forgotten, amidst the passions aroused by men of unscrupulous— ambition, we were about to write, but we must substitute vanity. THE RUMOURED COALITION. WHAT is the object of those rumours so in- dustriously propagated just now of a Coalition between the Leaders of the Conservative party and Mr. GLADSTONE and Mr. BRIGHT ? Do they proceed from ignorance or design ? The parties who circulate them must be grossly misinformed or very malignant. The rumour is indeed natural, considering the quarter from which it proceeds. For a number of years past the Whigs have never moved without intrigue. Their policy has been conspiracy. They have arranged their plans in secret conclave, and have upheld their rule by infamous combinations. At one time they have plotted with Irish Romanists, and at another with English Tories. With reckless disregard of principle, they have only considered how they could obtain a majority in Parliament, and they now imagine that their opponents must be employed in turning their own tactics against them. Poor crea tures ! their fright is pitiable. The very thought of a Coalition inspires them with panic, blinds their eyes, and berefts them of sense. In one and the same breath they assert that the Coalition which their fears suggest would be a bidding for place, and would be scouted by the whole nation. Its imagined authors would hope to seize the government by a combination which would meet with little or no support in Parliament, and would be universally reprobated by the nation. What SATURDAY, is to be apprehended from a Coalition which we are vehemently told would be without character, without influence, without even numbers to support it, When politicians coalesce, they act with tolerable certainty of immediate success ; their policy may not be very longaighted, but it is quite keen enough to count noses, and make up a safe book for the division-list. The Conservatives are to bid for place by a policy which must inevitably close to them the doors of office. Is it to be supposed that they are really so silly? Why, the experience of the men who run open-mouthed about the clubs venting their alarm by the propagation of the rumour might teach them better. When men discard prineitile, they do so from a cool calculation of profit. The history of Coali tions in this country is a history of imme diate success followed by decisive discomfiture and of long and withering disgrace. Are the quidnuncs satisfied ? We are not surprised that our opponents have not the most remote conception of a policy which, calmly contemplating all the circumstances of the war and the state of Europe, looks on the real dignity and welfare of England, irrespective of all those mean and dirty motives which fill the minds of mere place-holdeis and place-hunters. Inca. pable of the slightest elevation of view, they measure other men's thoughts by their own grovelling instincts, and fall into the most ludicrous errors simply through the baseness of their own notions. There is no analogy between a Coalition formed by men of opposite opinions for selfish ends and that unanimity of action which springs from identity of sentiment on leading questions of the time. We believe that there is a general agreement among the soundest heads of the nation that the purpose for which the war was undertaken may now be accom plished ; and it would be a fortunate circum stance if the whole body of Conservatives, sinking minor differences, could be brought tb act together on this point, and re-establish that union which never has been, and never can be, broken, without throwing the State into confusion, and destroying the healthy action of our government. CONSERVATIVE POLICY. THE Standard is a good authority on the meaning of the term Conservative, as we be lieve that journal was the first to give a poli tical signification to the word, and to employ it for the designation of a party in the State. We subscribe to the general tenor of the Standard's remarks on the essential character of a Conservative policy. It should look abroad as well as at home. Its aims should be rightful ; but we hesitate when we are asked to give to it a retributive action. If nations were, in their corporate capacity, exempt from the possibility of error—if the voice of the people were the voice of GOD, not as regards power alone, but as regards right also—we might subscribe to the Standards reasoning. But we have no such assurance. In the quarrels of nations the line between right and wrong can seldom be so sharply drawn as to entitle either belligerent to claim for itself the special favour of Providence, and to insist on sitting in judgment on its ad versary as supreme arbiter of its fate. How ever we may claim this privilege from Heaven, nothing but absolute irresistible conquest—the sway of the sword—will ever give the title to exercise it. And it is this pretension which has commonly made wars so obstinate and bloody, and has so terribly embittered national contests. The Standard thinks it would be consistent with Conservative principle to reduce Russia to the state in which it was a century ago. 'lO be candid, how would the application of this, not Conservative, but Retrogressive principle suit England or France? Such backward glance is futile. The progress of every nation in history is deeply stained with errors and crimes ; but for that reason shall we attempt to cancel the progress? Europe may feel secure in presence of this fact, that Russia has