The Press.
London, England, 1855-08-04 00:00:00

THE LAST GREAT JOB.

Tua Administrative Reform Society has
turned out to be one of the most enormous
jobs of the day. Its suspiciously equivocal
proceedings after its first formation raised

SATURDAY,

something more than doubts about the sin-
cerity of its promoters, and many refused to
believe if& a society started, as was said in
these columns, "by nobody knew who, to ob-
" tail nobody knew what" Its object is now
plain to the whole country, The Society is to
be Cwoolted fbr the beastit of a Cabinet in
distress. Instesd of " /Orate theatricals " at
Drury Lane, the Moneys and Tites are to per-
form the parts of electioneering agents when-
ever a Minister is anxious for his re-election.
In thelanguage of that Australian region to which
Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH has turned his at-
tention, the philosophical place-holder is to
receive "a ticket of leave" for his re election
from the Committee of the Administrative
Reform Society. A literary Radical with a
title and large fortune, who puts his princi-
ples into abeyance while he puts his body
into a Secretaryship of State with patronage
as boundless as the Colonies, is just " the
right man " for a society of organised place-
hunters, who send Mr. TITZ down to Bath.

Certainly the assurance of the leaders of
the Association is remarkable. Their cool
assumption of patriotism, and their hearty
appetite for place, would be amusing if it were
not mischievous. Lord JOHN RUSSELL may
have been wrong in saying that those were
attempts made to decry all authority ; but,
taken in connection with the tergiversation of
certain tribunes of the people, the conduct of
the Drury-Lane Reformers is calculated to
diminish injuriously the " authority," not of
office, but of public opinion. If popular
influences are to be brought into contempt,
there could not be a better mode of achieving
that purpose than by following the corrupting
example of persons who organise an associa-
tion, and thus mortgage its credit on the
Downing-street 'Change. Their flow of senti-
ment much resembles the state of Father
Thames as described by FARADAY. Their ac-
tion, instead of washing rubbish away, is only
calculated to generate infection.
It is really with feelings of regret that we
find ourselves thus compelled to censure a
society from which many persons hoped that
benefits would come. But Mr. Tim's earnest
appeal to Mr. SCULLY not to divide the
House, and Mr. MORLEY.S certificate to Sir
WILLIAM MOLESWORTH, leave fib room for
doubting that the Drury-Lane Society is
as entirely histrionic in its intention as
the locality suggests Their bye-play with
the Premier and Sir CHARLES WOOD is now
perfectly appreciated. They found a political
stage unoccupied, and, lest better performers
should take it, they grasped at it themselves,
and placarded the town with a splendid pro-
gramme, which deceived at first, and disap-
pointed afterwards. But their lease has
rapidly run out, and even if it were extended
they would play in future to empty benches.
Organised leagues have never been favor-
ites with us. No popular society could deal
with such a question as " Administrative
Reform," though it might act honestly by the
public cause. A Cabinet, really in earnest
and united on domestic questions, can alone
grapple with the defects in our official system.
Those evils can be cured only upon some plan
similar to that sketched with much ability by
Mr. DISRAELI. How can any comprehensive
scheme of Administrative Reform be expected
from so discordant a Ministry as now sits in
Downing-street ? Upon vital questions there
is no accordance between its members ; and
though the doors of the Cabinet are shut, it is
notorious that its opinions de omnibus rebus
are " open," as all great questions usually are
in a Whig Ministry.
It is to the advent of a sound and vigorous
Cabinet that we must look for Administrative
Reform. In the meanwhile, the Drury-
Lane Society should he shunned for its
deceit. Sir JAMES GRAHAM, when taunted with
being " neither a Derbyite, nor a Russellite, nor
" even a Peelite," answered that he was " not

"an ite of any kind." But the Drury-Lane
Society's members are all to a T "ites " of the
kind shown by that honourable member who
may " go to Bath " at the next election, and
come back again " a wiser and a sadder man,"
when shorn of the letters " M.P." now added
to his name.