The Press.
London, England, 1854-08-19 00:00:00

t rOl

No. 68.—VoL. 11.

Vress.

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUSTI 19, 1854.

THE Government apologists, unable to deny
the failures of the session, endeavour to excuse
them by alleging that they are attributable to
the activity of Opposition. The good inten
Lions of the Ministry were only defeated by
adverse majorities. They were powerless, not
from will, but from necessity. If they could
have pursued their way, with no one to crl
ticise or thwart their acts, they would have
accomplished great things. Unable to make
head against the discontent of friends and the
vigilance of enemies, they were compelled to
abandon the measures they had intended to
carry. As the ordinary working of our par-
liamentary system was not suspended for their
benefit they charge Opposition with the
responsibility and blame of exposing their in-
capacity and of defeating their projects.
• As this is the latest we must suppose that it
is the best defence which the Ministry are able
to make ; and it amounts to this, that they
preferred rather to make shipwreck of their
principles and, their measures. than resign
their places. It is, in fact, an admission of
the whole indictment against them that they
consented to act on sufferance, and to retain
office after proved incapacity to fulfil the
functions of Government. By their own
showing the Opposition was obstructive, and
they stood still at its bidding ;—malignant,
and they bent their necks to its yoke ; unprin-
cipled, and they submitted to its dictation.
What more humiliating•confession of weakness
could possibly be made ?
A Government which acknowledges that it
is reduced to impotence by the policy or
strength of the party opposed to it seals its
own condemnation. The Parliament repre
gents the country, and the Ministry the Par-
liament. Its efficiency depends solely on its
power to command a majority, and, when that
power is lost, our whole political system is
unsettled. The Legislature runs riot, the
Executive is shorn of its strength. the springs
of the Constitution lose their healthy play, and
the country has in reality no Government,
though a junta of placemen may continue to
usurp the offices of Administration.
Were it true that • the Opposition had been
as violent and unscrupulous as the Govern-
ment partisans fancy it their interest to repre-
sent, it would have been the plain duty of the
Ministry to resist and overcome this hostile
influence, or to have refused to incur the
responsibility of place withoutpower Violent
oppositions are not new to our parliamentary
history ; the novelty is for Governments to
defer to them. Great Ministries have fallen
before adverse votes of Parliament ; but when
before did a Ministry, with the least preten-
sion on the part of its members to personal
honour, plead adverse votes in excuse of con-
tinuous degradation. It is only when Cabinets
lose self-respect, and are content to drag on a
humiliating existence in the midst of defeat
that an Opposition can become dominant, and

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 19,1854.

then the active exercise of its privileges and
powers is essential to the safety of the State.
The plea in this case of the violence of
opposition is not only false in principle, but
false in fact. What were those occasions when
the Opposition took an unfair advantage of the
Government? Vague charges avail nothing.
Let particular instances be given, and we shall
know how to meet them. Lord JOHN RUSSELL,
in the vexation of failure, accused Opposi
tion of conducting their warfare on a new prin
ciple, and of lying in wait for opportunities
of defeat afforded by the motions of indepen
dent supporters of the Goverment, instead of
announcing a definite policy on some great
question But he omitted to give a single
instance in support of his charge. Professing
to deal with facts, he ignored their existence.
It is true that Ministers were often sorely dis
tressed by their own adherents, but on such
emergencies the Opposition, so far from
forming an unnatural junction to' defeat the
Government, came to their rescue. It was the
Opposition who saved them from being beaten
on the ballot, and who rescued them from
defeat on the second reading of the Church-
rate Bill. It was Lord JOHN himself who
violated the spirit of the Constitution by the
strange course he took to cover his disasters.
Beaten night after night, he summoned his
supporters together two or, three times in the
session, and, like a . sinner who seeks absolu-
tion once a quarter for daily sins, conceived
be was entitled to run up a new score of
defeat when absolved by the voices of his
followers from the consequfinCes of his past
transgressions.
Opportunity would assuredly not have been
wanting had the Opposition been bent on the
overthrow of the Ministry, reckless of every
other consideration. Is it to be supposed that
no Coalition is possible except that which in-
cludes the names of Lord ABERDEEN and Lord
JOHN RUSSELL, of Mr. GLADSTONE and Sir BEN-
JAMIN HALL ? There was nothing to prevent
the Opposition from profiting by the Ministe-
rial example had they chosen to show an
equal disregard of principle. A Coalition is a
conspiracy for place. When one has been
for Med, the way is smoothed for another to
effect its downfall. It is to these unprincipled
combinations that the ruin of free Govern-

ments has been mainly owing. In countries
where party traditions and sentiments of
public honour are wanting, one conspiracy for
place succeeds another till the representative
assembly is torn into factions. Corruption
then becomes organised ; no majority is possi-
ble unless it be bought ; and the evil deepens,
till popular indignation sweeps away a system
which, having outlived its proper use, is em-
ployed, not to protect,' but to betray public
interests. Let our readers refer to France, or
Spain, or any other country where parliamen-
tary government has been tried and failed,
and determine whether we have not rightly
indicated the successive stages of its ruin.
The parties—or political sections, for parties
they are not—which suppose that they have,
by dextrous manceuviing, secured a monopoly
of Coalition are much deceived. They are
raved from having their own practices turned
against themselves only by the disgust which
their example excites, and do but secure a
monopoly of infamy. It is to the healthy
sentiment of indignation with which the mise-
rable selfishness and degraded ambition at
the bottom of every Coalition are regarded
amongst us, that we owe the safety of our Con-
titution.

PRICE SIXPENCE.

To the forbearance of Opposition it was due
that Ministers were enabled to make some

flourish of what they had accomplished at the
close of the session. The measures necessary
for prosecuting the war were supported by
Opposition from first to last. Reserving to
themselves the right of future judgment, they
expressly forbore to indulge in premature cri-
ticism, and were thanked by Lord JOHN Rue-
SELL himself for their reserve. The " vindica-

tion n of Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT, whatever might
be the merits of the Right Honourable Gen-
tleman's laboured oratory, was not applicable
to them. The attacks on the management or
mismanagement. of the war came from the
other side of the House. Not the leaders of

Opposition, but Mr. LAYARD and Lord DUDLEY
STUART, privately backed by Sir BENJAMIN
HALL, were the most troublesome assailants of

the Government.

But though the Opposition—unlike the
Whigs in old days—felt it their duty to sup-
port the Government in the war, while they
lent their aid to the defeat of mischievous
measures, and opposed so firm a front to rash
and needless changes that they were aban-
doned in alarm almost as soon as introduced,
their part in the session must not be measured
by these services alone. In all the principal
business of Parliament they accomplished the
work whi ch the Government were unable to
effect, and brought some form of order from the
chaos of Ministerial confusion.
The tuxes demanded by Mr. GLADSTONE re-
ceived from Opposition, on the ground of
the necessities' of. war, an almost unbroken
support; but it was Mr. DiSRAELI who, at the
beginning of the session, helped to redress the
financial blunders of his successor by directing
attention to the state of the balances in the
Exchequer. His statements were met by
arrogant denials ; but the subsequent publica-
tion of the public accounts confirmed in every
particular the accuracy of Mr. DISRAELI'S de-
tails, and the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER
was at last compelled to acknowledge his
blunders, and to place the national finances in
a more satisfactory condition.
On other points Mr. GLADSTONE was greatly
indebted to the superior knowledge of his
opponent, though too ungracious to confess
his obligation. Mr. Disesiti.r, in noticing
some of those mysterious operations which
the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (doubtless
with the assistance of his private secretary)
employed to puzzle the financial world, noticed
that there had been a fall in Consols between
the retirement of Lord DERBY (31st December,
1852), and the first reduction of the interest on
Exchequer Bills (10th February, 1853), of mole
than 11 per cent., and was met by a positive
assertion that that difference in price was
occasioned by the payment of the dividend,
" the amount of which it exactly described."
This reply, received with triumphant cheering
from the Ministerial benches, was proved by
Mr. DISRAELI, on a subsequent occasion, to be
totally destitute of truth. The absolute fall,
us he had at first stated, was 11 per cent. irre-
spective of the dividend. Mr. GLADSTONE has
eulogised the services rendered to him in his
department by Mr. LAWLEY. Was that gentles
man concerned in the concoction of these
figures? If Mr. GLADSTONE was deceived by
them, he was strangely unmindful of the
financial transactions of twelve months pre-
vious ; if not, he purchased dearly, by his
reckless invention, the transient cheer he
elicited from his supporters.