The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-05-24 00:00:00

THE SALVATION OF THE COMMONS.

DISMISSING the narrow constitutional question

nvolved in the recent movement of the Lords, i

does appear on the ground of political ethics as

if a great and necessary function had been dis-
charged in a manner peculiarly agreeable with
the traditions of the Constitution. The very idea
of what-legists call a " hi-cameral" legislature is,

;hat whiiv one branch symbolises the spirit o:

progress and adventure, the other is charged with
the counterpoise of wisdom and caution. Now,
certainly" a plain man will see in the past history
of this session nothing more clearly than those
necessities on the one hand, and those dangers on
the other, which demand the association of these
two functions. We cannot exactly say, that the

popular branch of the legislature has shown well
on the point of dignity, in this competitive action

between the two Houses. The fact is, the Lords
have saved the Commons from themselvei—or
rather from their imperious dictator. Lord PAL-
MERSTON'S leadership, as chief of the Government,
has been nothing but a traditional fiction under
cover of which the spirited cavalier of the
Nchequer has turned the. national finances and
the Commons of England into his hobby-horse,
and ridden them both with bit and spur at wind-
mills and stone walls. The general aspect of the
House of Commons, under Mr. GLADSTONE'S dic-

tatorship, has been enough to move the pity of men
who considered themselves to be even disinterested
spectators. No one can, doubt, that, as repre-
sented by the feeble majority which generally
votes with Lord JOHN RUSSELL , the House has
moved uneasily and helplessly as in the toils of
some greater power. Beneath the flashing eye
and uplifted whip of Mr. GLADSTONE, who dared
to call his soul his own, when he had witnessed
the terrible flood of retribution brought down on
an unlucky and more adventurous brother by the
sligh test hint or hesitation of dislike ? What
can we do then but congratulate the House of
Commons, if what it could not do, or dares not
do, even with the aid of Mr. DISRAELI'S almost
invincible weapon, it has left the Lords to do for
it ? Have the toils been beaten through, is the
spell broken, is the magician's wand split in two,
is the ch arm dissipated and the House of Com-
mons once more free ? Then let them not look
the gift-horse in the mouth, but acknowledge the
timely aid that has done it ; despising all the
rubbish about constitutional forms, courtesies, and
precedents. That the miserable slave-driven
majority of nine has not landed them in the
qnaginire, is a, piece of good fortune whieh they
scarcely deserved, and which if they put their
necks again into the toils, they will very pro-
bably another time just as little obtain as deserve.
it is not difficult to understand, therefore, that
Liberal prints should include even the noble
Premier himself among those many obedient
allies of Mr. GLADSTONE, who are secretly
rejoiced at this blow aimed at his brief but
iron supremacy. It was an unexpected source
for help to come from in a necessity
fast growing urgent ; and probably the inde-
pendent action of the Upper House has nerved
Mr. GLADSTONE'S doubtful supporters in the
Commons, to regret that they did not pluck up
courage at an earlier stage of the Budget. No
one could have expected, that the hobby driven at
full tilt against a diminishing revenue and increas-
ing wants ; against a strong opposition with a not
pusillanimous chief—and in short, against all the
practical good sense of the country, would, after
preserving its rider through all these trials, be
turned back ignominiously by the, weak barrier
of an effete and anomalous institution ! Now
while we pick up Mr. GLADSTONE tenderly, and
console him for his fall, let us whisper in his ear
the certain moral of the whole ; namely, that the
inheritance to which great politicians, as well as
ordinary mortals, are born, is that of theories
modified by circumstances ; desires never to be
more than half satisfied ; ambition obliged to
mince and pipe it humbly now and then ; and
favour among our fellows, even well earned,
always liable to a reverse when streteld a point
It
too far, or too presumptuously-..-' • ,*-
Yet who ever enumerated among the probable
functions of the House of Lords, .a tendency to
check the lavish expenditure of the repre-
sentatives of the people, and to be over
jealous of the national revenue? The true
explanation of this anomaly is, that the LoWer
House has been coerced in spite of itself into
the blind following out of a pretentions scheme
to which it thought itself committed ; that
it was told to shut its eves,and that it
would see what it would see—next year. In
fact there was not even this much allusion to the
future. The nation was bid to let the future take
care of itself, and at present to confine itself to
the wild and foolish schemes of a brilliant theo-
riser, who was bent on showing how much he
e-onld be unlike his self of former years, and above
those rules of political Koresight, and, indeed, as
• •
lie himself said, honour, which' he 'ha(i. so vehe-
mently pressed upon other Chancellors of the
Exchequer. We say, then, fearlessly; that the
House of Lords has come to the rescue of the nation,
and done what the House of Commons knew it
ought to have done, and did not. It has ante-
dated the period of retribution which next year
probably charged with for Mr. GLADSTONE'S
head. The House of Commons allowed itself
to be blindfolded ; and would not look at the
short future. Was the Rouse of Lords to imitate