The Press.
London, England, 1855-02-10 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1855.

absence of two individuals who had been
Prime Ministers of England, and to reconcile
whose rival ambitions the Coalition was con-
structed.

All has been happily arranged: the House
of Commons is to support the Government
which it has condemned ; Lord ABERDEEN is
rewarded for the Crimean expedition by being
made a Knight of the Garter; Mr. SIDNEY
HERBERT is recompensed for his successful
labours at the War-office by being appointed
Secretary or State; and Lord PALMERSTON
kisses hands as Prime Minister, because, at a
moment of national peril, he has prevented
the formation of a strong Government.

WE must not, it seems, expect the final fall of
the Coalition until it has exhausted all its
capacity for mischief. It has more work to do
yet. In its case we are doomed to experience
that there may be "in the lowest deep a
" deeper still." Its chiefs are gone, and in
full view of their fate, its subordinates under-
take the task of continuing the perilous system
they founded.
The Coalition was avowedly a junction of
two parties in the Legislature totally opposed
to each other in policy and sentiment—the
Whigs and the Peelitcs; and at the head of
these parties were Lord ABERDEEN and Lord
JOHN RUSSELL. They succeeded in overthrow-
ing the Government of Lord DERBY ; they
formed an Administration of their own on the
principle of a division of power. But here
their triumph ended, and it would be im-
possible for flattery itself to credit them with
any other achievement than that they have
succeeded in pulling down each other. The
position of Lord ABERDEEN deserves not
moment's thought; he cannot hold a lower
place than Nature designed him for; but we
cannot view the degradation of Lord JOHN
RUSSELL without regret. For the last thirty
years he has borne a leading part in political
affairs. We do not sympathise iu his suc-
cesses, nor. always approve the means by
which they were gained ; but it is undeniable
that he has been oue of the most dexterous
chiefs the Whig party has ever known. Am-
bitious as he is, his present state must be the
keenest mortification he could experience.
Marius amid the ruins of Carthage does not
present a more pitiable spectacle of fallen
power than Lord JOHN on a fourth row of the
Ministerial benches, exposed to the gibes of
the party he has so long been accustomed to
lead.

The other principal in the Coalition was the
Duke of NEWCASTLE. Lord ABERDEEN and
Lord JOHN RUSSELL were its elements—the
Duke was the agent who brought them
together. It was he who prevented Mr. GLAD-
STONE and Mr. HERBERT, with their adherents,
from joining Lord DERBY in 1852, and who, by
carrying over a section of the Conservative
party to the Liberal camp, has been the
author of that political weakness which now
afflicts the nation. What has been the result
of his intrigues? He, too, falls ; and more
broadly branded with incompetency than any

PRICE SIXPENCE.

Minister in England since the Duke of ninety

years ago whose name and reputation he in-
herits.

The career of the Coalition was spasmodic
from its commencement. Hardly was it

formed when the Romanist members seceded

in consequence of a Protestant speech from
Lord JOHN, and the Peelite head of the Cabinet

was reduced to the necessity of expressly
disavowing_ the sentiments of his Whig col-
league. Next came the secession of Lord
PALmErtsroa himself, and his sudden return,

from a conviction, probably, that opposition in
the Cabinet might be a more profitable game

than opposition in the house.
During the short life of the Coalition, the
restless and erratic conduct of Lord JOHN
showed how little lie was satisfied with either

himself or his colleagues. First he was
Foreign Secretary for a kw weeks, then Leader
of the Commons without office, then President

of the Council, unceremoniously transferring
Lord GRANVILLE to another and humbler
place, and expelling ?Ir. STatirr altogether ;
then, seized with a conviction that his vast

abilities were not sufficiently exercised, pant-
ing to be War Minister ; then, quitting the
Government in a fit of disgust, just as Lord
PALMERSTON had done a year before, and
timing his resignation so well, and justifying
it on such grounds as to insure the fall of the
Coalition with his retirement.

A " strong Government " is now admitted to
be the great necessity of the time. It is re-
quired by the Queen and the country. But
what Government have we got? A weaker
one than the last. The new Cabinet is the
Coalition diluted. The Ministers commenced
by quarrelling. The whole of the Peelite sec-
tion struck for higher terms than Lord
PALMERSTON knew it would be possible to con-
cede, and they sullenly acquiesced in his
arrangements only when they saw that per-
sistance in their demands would lead to their
defeat.

The key to a strong Government for the
effective prosecution of the war, was the pro-
posed junction of Lord PALMERSTON with
Lord DERBY. With Lord ELLENBOROUGH and
Mr. DistutELl this would have been the strong-
est Government formed since that of It4l.
But Lord PALmxuaToN thought his own time
was coming. He refused to join Lord DERBY
on a fraudulent pretext. He sacrificed the
public interest to his personal vanity, de-
termined, at all risks, to be enrolled among
the Prime Ministers of England before he
died.

We do nut believe that his accession would
have brought to Lord DERBY any real increase
of strength ; but it would have done this,—it
would have disarmed opposition by showing
that no other Government was possible. In
a side office he might harmlessly have exer-
cised his desultory activity, and his own short-
comings as a member of the Coalition would
have been forgotten. But his piesent course
must be viewed with suspicion and distrust,
as he stands before the country the chief of a
condemned Cabinet.
What hope of increased energy and success
can we form from his Ministry ? Lord I'AL-
MERSTON is advanced in years—as old, in fact,
as Lord ABERDEEN. He is overwhelmed
with physical infirmities, very deaf, and nearly
blind. His administration of the Home-
office was the most incapable on record.
Never regular in his attention to business, his
energy is now flickering, and assumes, both in


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