The Press.
London, England, 1858-07-17 00:00:00

accession

IVIIIG CONSERVATISM.

TEE motley aggregate of Parliamentary dupes
and expeetants, who still sigh after the restoration
of a Palmerstonian despotism, or languish for the

revival of a Russellite oligarchy, are just now in
a pitiable plight. They have rung the changes
on Liberal, semi-Liberal, and ultra-Liberal corn-
binat ions—have drawn post-obits on the existence
of Lord DEnny's Government till even the ex-
chequer of corrupt, promises was exhausted—
have forgotten old pledges and " bolted" new
ones—in brief, have "gone the entire animal" in
faction, yet all in vain. As the session draws
near and nearer to its close, hope sickens within
them and doubt settles into despair. Rather
would they endure for a month longer the
blended sweets exhaled from the reeking banks
of the Thames—" the dregs of Limehouse, and
" the tribulation of Tower-hill," than realize
their defeat and retire to fresh breezes and ever-
springing regrets. The inevitable recess offers
no rest to them—only a pillow of thorns or bed
of torture. They will be hag-ridden by the
memory of adverse majorities appalled by
menacing spectres from the haunted chamber of
"Committee-room No. 11." Poppy nor man-
dragora—Highland moor nor
" shall medicine them again to
"that they owed "—it seems bu

on the Treasury benches, wi
LEWIS on his legs and quarter-d:
We could really pity their
would preserve a little dignity, c

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674

in its manifestation. We are not disposed to
criticize their newspaper utterances severely,
either for their bitterness or their stupidity.
Ill-
luck is a common excuse for ill-temper, and
dejection is constantly the parent of dulness.
But the outrageous inconsistency of their com-
plaints, the absurdity of their abuse, and the
bra zen assurance of their self-laudation, destroy
all claim to our compassion. They shift their
ground as rapidly as our Indian mutineers, with
as little power to defend their positions, and ex-
hibit Onental fickleness, as well as dishonesty,
both in their boasts and their vituperations. One
day we are told how dreadful a thing it is to
have a " Tory " Government, pledged to the
maintenance of every abuse, actual or possible !
The next, Lord DERBY'S Ministry figure on the
" Liberal " canvas as a knot of reckless innova-
tors, heading the mingled host of Radicals and
renegade Conservatives in an attack on all our
" time-honoured institutions." Duly contrasted

with these incongruous indictments, appear
varying eulogies on the Palmerston-Russell
" fusion," and pious offerings to the manes of
extinct Whigdom. The same journals, which in
June devoted their columns to fancy-sketches of
all the reforms that would have been carried if
the nation had only had faith and patience
enough to bide Lord PALMERSTON'S time, in July
are tremblingly alive to the perils of change, and
panegyrize the high-souled Conservatism of the
men who paid the Pope's Brass Band, dallied with
Chartism, and rode into office on the Appropria-
tion Clause !
Now, as to the inconsistent attacks to which
we have alluded, we can afford to dismiss them
with little notice. On the one hand, the country
will not readily be persuaded that a Conservative
Government, as such, is pledged to the perpe-
tuation of abuses. Thinking men will rather
hold that those who arc most averse to violent
experimental change will generally have the most
leisure and energy to devote to practical improve-
ment in the working of existing institutions.
Could a body of men exist anywhere with that
characteristic of mere obstructiveness which Whig
pamphleteers delight to assign to' a " Toryism"
of their own imagining, no rational man will
believe the present Administration to be such a
body. They are statesmen—not mere place-
holders ; working bees—not official drones.
On the other hand, Lord DEany's friends
need not complain if the public attention is drawn
to their activity as reformers of abuses. While
contrasted with their opponents by resisting the
ten-pound county franchise and the abolition of
Church-rates without a substitute, they may be
content to have aided in abolishing a fictitious
qualification and removing obsolete services from
the Prayer-book. In fact, if an ingenious con-
temporary could persuade the nation at large
that the present Government ought to be re-
tained in office until all nuisances are removed,
we might be well content to see his conclusion
accepted, without troubling ourselves with his
premises. We know that the Whigs have always
exhibited more aptitude for jobbing than for
useful work, and we can scarcely wonder that, to
alai/Want of the old exclusive school, the sight of
real diligence and energy in the high places of
Government must seem as portentous as it has
lately been unusual.
But when we find the pseudo-Liberal clique
who have so long traded on the memory of one
reform and the promise of more, who have been
kept in office by cajoling the most advanced
Radicals, or have regained it, after merited ejec-
tion, by conniving at the most destructive
schemes against Church and State—when we
find these men trumpeted forth as the " real
" original Conservatives," our patience fails. It
is as if a homeopathist, after twenty years puffing
the wonderful virtue of his globules, should
suddenly turn round and claim the support of
the public on the ground that his infinitesimals
were absolutely powerless ; or the vendor of a
pointer that proved useless in the field should
vow the animal was worth twice the money as a
house-dog. - We never charged the Whigs with
really wishing to reform anything, but the
country will bear us out in affirming that for the
last twenty-five years their desire to " conserve"
has been mainly confined to their own places.
In office, they have resisted organic changes by
the aid of a Conservative Opposition, because
they shrank from increasing the power of their
Radical supporters, and so strengthening the

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