The Press.
London, England, 1858-02-13 00:00:00

Nittraturt.

Parliamentary Government Considered with Re-
ference to a Reform of Parliament. An
Essay. By Earl Grey. London : Bentley.
WE are informed in the preface to this Essay
that a great part of it was written a consider-
able time since, and without any view to pub-
lication. This circumstance will account for
the somewhat abstract and general character
of his lordship's observations. Had these
been prompted solely by the existing crisis we
should doubtless have been led more into de-
taiMand have been carried through long statisti-
cal arguments. But we do not regret that it is
otherwise. An essay like the present was much
wanted. It was but proper, on the eve of a great
political movement, to bid men, as it were,
pause for the last time, and, ere plunging into
action, listen to a few words of calmness and
candour; to place before them once more the
true causes of their freedom, and to take care
that if bent on imperilling that noble fabric
which has sheltered them through so many
tempests, they should not do so unwarned.
His lordship's description of Parliamentary
Government, though necessary to the unity of
his plan, requires no comment here. It is
sufficient to say that it is identical with the
views frequently put forward in these columns.
His lordship fully recognises (p. 31.) the im-
portant truth that stable institutions are a
substitute for the precarious supply of bril-
liant individuals; and that party, is the
modern sense of the word, is the only machi-
nery by which Representative Government can
he carried on. These reflections will be
familiar to readers of Tut. PRESS ; and we are
heartily glad to see such wholesome truths
sanctioned and recommended by so eminent
an authority as his lordship.
According to Lord Grey, the one point in
which the provisions of 1832 were defective
was that indicated by the Duke of Wellington
in his celebrated interrogatory,—How is the
King's Government to be carried on ? That
is to say, the inefficiency of Parliament which
has led to the present Reform agitation results
from the continued weakness of Ministers. No
Reform, therefore, would, ho thinks, be com-
plete which did not provide some machinery
for meeting this defect. In one word, the
principal object for which a second Reform Bill
is wanted is to increase the influence, not of
the people, but of the Crown, in the Houses
of Parliament ; or essentially the reverse of
what the first was intended to accomplish.
Whatever be the cause, and whatever be the
remedy, of this weakness, there can, we think,
be little doubt of its existence. 'Whether
Government can ever again become the pilot
of public opinion remains to be seen; but, at
present, the constant interference of the
people with their representatives is an impe-
diment to sound legislation. This point has
been prominently brought forward in a recent
article of the New Quarterly Review, which, we
observe, traverses much the same ground as
the essay now before us, and sometimes draws
almost identical conclusions. The writer,
however, seems to think we have already
reached that stage of evil which Lord Grey
predicts from a too close repetition of the
last Reform Bill. Both, however, agree that
it is not to an increase of the democratic ele-
ment in the Commons that we must look for
improvement. Lord Grey says admirably :
Our system of representation has always given an
ascendancy in the House of Commons to the upper classes
of society, who have felt that they could not hope to retain
the great power thus placed in their hands, unless they
exercised it in a spirit of moderation and of respect for the
rights of others. If the House of Commons had been so
constituted as to render it the mere organ of the popular
will, this motive to moderation in the exercise of its powers
would have been wanting, and these powers would at the
same time have been enormously increased, because there
would have existed no appeal against any abuse of power
by the House of Commons, to the opinion of a larger
public than that by which it is elected.
At the same time, he is disposed to think that
this external influence may have now become
excessive :
Even as it is, I four that mPrnbera are far too much dig'
posed to vote against their own opinions and their own
knowledge of what is right, in deference to popular
clamour excited by ignorance or passion, and that their
tendency to do so is increasing. It is an alarming symptom