The Press.
London, England, 1854-06-24 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

a confederacy of statesmen has dwindled to
an assemblage of clerks, representing their
several departm,ents in Parliament. Is this
language at variance with facts? Look to the
history of the last week. Lord PALMERSTON
announces a measure, framed with care, deli,
berately matured, sanctioned by the approval
of himself and el his colleagues. It professes
to deal With nod smail matter—nothing less
than tiis 'reorgAisation of our national polies
on a new footing, in adeordance with the print
ciple of centralisation." There arises an oppo
sition to the measure-out of doors, an opposi-
tion net formidable, net vioicAt•
mainly with the parties whose interes s were
affected by the bill, and whose hostility must,
therefore, have been anticipated. What does
the Home Secretary do? He will not allow
that he is wrong ; yet he succumbs without a
struggle, earning thus, in the eyes of those to
whom he yields, the double discredit of having
attempted to injure them, and of failing in the
attempt. This is the history of the Reform
Bill repeated on a smaller scale. Lord JOHN
RUSSELL condemned the small boroughs as
unfit to exercise the electoral franchise. He
has, notwithstanding, left that franchise in
their hands, and thereby warned them of what
they have to expect if they suffer him to re-
main in power. Lord PALMERSTON condemns
the provincial administration of police affairs ;
yet, surrendering his opinion to a slight ex-
ternal pressure, he leaves that administration
untouched. Here are two classes arrayed in
hostility against Ministers as a necessary
consequence of their acts. How long can
such a system last ? To unsettle without
settling—to handle great questions with a
feeble and hesitating grasp—to exasperate the
enmity of contending interests without making
one effort towards removing their causes of
difference, is the acme of political folly or
dishonesty—folly without the excuse of inex-
perience dishonesty without the popular
palliation of success.
Never have the Coalition tactics been more
clearly exposed than in the debates of
Wednesday and Thursday. On the first of
these days the Church-rate question was dis-
cussed. Lord Jolts had in former years sup-
ported the dissenters in their attempts to get
rid of an impost necessarily vexatious to
them, and little profitable to the Church. He
introduced one bill to that effect in 1834,
another in 1837', both accompanied with ob-
jectionable provisions, and both of which
failed accordingly. Since that time the ques-
tion has made progress in popular opinion.
On both sides greater willingness is shown
to accede to any arrangement which may put
an end to degrading and profitless strife.
Does Lord Joss seize the opportunity? So
far from it, he holds language which the Con-
servative party in general repudiate, while it
alienates the great bulk of his own supporters.
He speaks of danger to the monarchy, to the
aristocracy, and to the Church, if rates be
abolished; forgetting that itis the Church itself
which in most cases deprecates their reten-
tion, from the knowledge that a contested
rate becomes a nucleus of nonconformist
agitation. Mr. GLADHTONE'S language is,—we
say it with due deference to his undisputed
ability,—even more childish. He wants to
draw a distinction between urban and rural
parishes ; unaware, it should seem, that the
limits of town and country, however easily
defined in a purely agricultural district, are
impossible to be fixed in such counties as
Lancaster and York, where large tracts of
country, for many Miles together, are little
else than one continuous town. Again, he
would distinguish between parishes where
rates have been refused, and parishes where
they have been granted without contest, as
if any such difference could be embodied in
a law, or as if the effect of it would not be
to provoke a contest in every parish which
contained a single nonconformist, and thus
to multiply indefinitely the existing causes of
dispute. The result of such argument was
What might be expected. The Minister, sup-
ported by a large body of the Opposition,
could barely command a majority : and, of
the 209 Members who voted in his favour,
probably not twenty agreed with his speech.
Such a victory is a virtual defeat, and in this
is regarded by all parties