The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1871-08-22 00:00:00

THE MINISTERIAL BREAKDOWN.

It is the strangest feature of the breakdown of the
Miniatry this Sewiion that it has been for the most part
• peraonal breakdown. The leading Ministers have got
the Ministry into a merc became they haae blundered
each in his own depaqment. o:her causes of their die-
oomfiture there certainly have been ; but all these causes
are as nothing be•ide their personal failure. Mr;
Gledstone's sole duty this Scuba has been to lead the
house, and he flu so led it as to provoke the maximum
of rebellion. He ha been constantly unsettling the
minds of men with vague hint' that he is getting ready
for all sorts of new fundamental changes in the existing
order of things. He announced that after the Ballot
was carried women might very well have votes. There
are very largo questions vet to be settled, he hinted oe
another occasion, es to toe distribution of the franchise
and electoral boundaries. He did his best to foster •
feeling against the House of Lords by his ostentatious
parade of unwilling deference to them in the framing
of the Universities Bill, by his violent use of the pre.
rogetive to abolish purchase, and by pressing on a
Ballot Bill as if for the main purpose of throwing on
them the responsibility of rejecting it. He awakened
the terror of his supporters by his seeming coquetry
with the Ultramontanes on Mr. Fawcett's Dublin
university Dill, ana atter ell his denunciation. el lk•
impediments thrown by unscrupulous opposition in the
way of legislation, he used his Irish Solicitor-General
to talk the Bill out of the Bonze. lie blew first hot
and then cold on the Westmeath Coercion Bill, and
after having had the full horrors of Ribboniem brought
before the public, announced nearly a month after the
Report of the Committee had been published that
neither he nor his colleagues bad had time to attend to
It. His @tramp whim of considering the rights of the
Crown over waste lands as merely an instrument for
getting • few pounds for the national Exchequer
subjected him to a decisive defeat in the division on
the Epping Forest enaloaures,and would have subjected
him to • defeat equally decisive with regard to the
Mince embankment, had he not avoided • division.
He was obliged to yield to the remonstrances of his
followers when he attempted to prejudge the Report
of the Indian Finance Committee by plaiting on it peers
who had filled the office of Indian secretary. And yet
how faithful to him hive been his followers and the
sustimencies I Ile has been supported as scarcely
one Minister has been supported. He got his Army
Bill—a bed Bill worse defended—carried by unfailing
majorities. He ordered his party to segment the Inoome
Tex, and they obeyed. lie instructed over three
hundre I Liberal* to be dumb on the Ballot Bill, and
they were all as dumb an mice- The constituencies
have never wavered in upholding him. They were
indifferent to the out when he wished to abolish pur-
chase • they were indifferent to the strain he put on
the COastitution when he abolished purchase by •
sudden exercise of the prerogative. Everything be has
aaked has been accorded to him, and everything he has
done has been forgiven him. It is the man who
formed the Government that, assisted by the copious
blunders of his subordinates, has shown how nearly
he could summed in breaking the Government 1111.
Lord Hatherley came in as • Law Reformer and this
Session he has not stirred a finger to help the reform '
of the law. Mr. Goschen, who had previously earned
well-deserved credit by his administration of the Poor
Law Board, signalised his exit from that officio by his
Local Taxation Bill, which threatened to disturb the
relations of owner and occupier, and widish proposed to
burden the national taxpayer by the unnecessary appli-
cation of the House Duty to local purposes; and he
signalised his entrance on the office of First Lord of the
Admiralty by sending the Megrims to sea. Mr. Cardwell
never could or would give any Intelligible 11.0001111 i of
the scheme of which the Army Bill was • part, and at
last he had to cut the Bill in two, and to acknowledge
that the grand scheme for giving England the advan-
tages of the leieoes of the war had dwindled into •
proposal to abolish purchase. Mr. Brame has followed
without intermission the career of unmitigatadblunder-
ing which he use pursued ever since he came into office:
He has gone on with that melancholy process of taking
things into his consideration which is the grave of every
promising proimt of social reform. His Licensing
Bill, which was • bundle of crotchets intended to please
different parties, was speedily stamped out by the
irresistible fury of the publicans, who thought the
sacred right of selling unlimited beer invaded, and who
by making the Ministry lose a seat at Durham, gave •
sufficient hint of what more they could do if they liked.
lie allowed himsef to be mobbed by • set of rampant
people who came to declaim at him about the Con'
tagions Diseases Acts. He almost surpassed himself
by an ingenious proposal with regard to the Trade
Unions Bill, that picketing by one man should be
rrimist•Lly piataiola.l if It was anno In one pl•••• •aell
it it was done in another ; and finally, after using the
police to put down the unfortunate metokimakers, he
first forbade and then allowed the assembling in
Trafalgar-square of a meeting to inveigh against a
grant to the Royal Family when this meeting was called
by the redoubtable (Tiger. By an unhappy coincidence
an as-embly of a much leas dangerous kind, for it
neither threamned Parliament nor loterfered with a
thoroughfare, was forbidden at Dublin, and was dia.
perseil by the pollee after • Severe struggle ; and thus
could
who
increase h
could have irritation
believed which
the Government has managed to please itself equally in
the wrong by its weakness and Its firmnesa,
the
irrita
It is almost unnecessary to add that Mr. Ayrton did
what
general conduct of the Ministry exalted. Built was
the Budget that was the chief cause of disaster
to
ot lihette
oy ho
era oumndt, to
and nerul
it possible that Mr. Lowe should have to produce
three Budgets in a week, and should force 011 the House • foal Budget framed in direct contravention of
the finanmal principles be had advocated • few days before?
The distrust of the Ministry with regard to the Army
Bill was turned into derision when a little time alter'
wards it was discovered that orates had
the army auth * utterly collapsed in arranging for an • t
in Berksh could ire. They found they num
campaign not manage It,
and said the lateness of the harvest was their
reason.
Teo weather, as if to confute them, immediately me.
gunny and bright; but the weather cannot make ineom.
patent men competent; and the end or all the grand
schemes for re-organising the army has been that the
payer of Income Tax has to pay two es extra without
the slightest shadow of • reason for ioe n
believing that the
army is in • better state than it was before (Immolate
and Sedan were supposed to be teaching
us their stern
lessons.

- - - -
The numb .r of wrecks reported last week was 25,
making for the present year 1,168.
A New York telegram atstes that 11. Jo.sto Arosemr '
has been appolated Columbian Minister to England.
The Scotsman asserts that the Emperor Napoleon
visited Edinburgh 111,19Ri1l for several days last week.
There is a rumour that Lord and Ludy Sommer are
anxious to be reli,vel from the duties and reopen.
utilities of the Viciroyalty in Ireland, ant that Mr.
Chichester Fortesous, basin; been first raised to the
peerage, will be appointed to succeed his lordship.
MIL MILIGHT.—Tne Daily News is glad to be able to
state on the best authority, that Mr. Bright's health
justifies the hope that he will be able to return to his
essrliscientary duties next Bastion, 114 completely
restored to mental and physical vigour 04 was the ow
after the illness of similar character sad iteration which
Wel him fifteen yeses ago.