The Press.
London, England, 1858-02-27 00:00:00

194

side the mark at the present day. There is
no pclitical party in the State to which it
would not be fatal ; least of all that which has
recently been defeated on a vital Cabinet
question in as compliant a Parliament as any
that could well be assembled. The Conserva-
tives are not less averso than their opponents
to the evils of the prevailing system. But
they did not inaugurate it. In 1853 they re-
signed office rather than carry on Government
subject to the dictation of others as the Whigs
had carried it on before them. To this in-
dignity they will not submit now any more
than they submitted to it then. But Govern
ment by a party less than one-half of the
House of Commons has become a necessity of
the period. It may be hoped, perhaps, that
one good effect of a Conservative Administra-
tion will be to extinguish that necessity. But,
in the meantime, none of the conflicting
parties in the House of Commons can assume
the direction of affairs with any better chance
of a permanent majority than Lord DERBY.
The Whig followers of Lord JOHN RUSSELL
are as a party unserviceable. Reform they
make of no effect by their traditions. The
spirit of their foreign policy has been too
long regulated by the late Premier to
admit of an immediate change. Sir CHARLES
WOOD is their financier, and Lord JOHN RUSSELL
himself is their schoolmaster. We need not say
how pointedly the House of Commons has
condemned both the budgets of the one and
the educational programme of the other. The
only two occasions on which the Noble Lord
has tried his strength in the present session
did not find him at the head of a " fixed
majority." But had there been any doubt upon
the subject, his vote against the first reading
of the Conspiracy to Murder Bill must have
concluded his pretensions to office.
Neither the followers of the late Sir ROBERT
PEEL nor the genuine Radical Reformers are,
we need scarcely say, in a condition to take
office by themselves. Whatever the future
may have in store, such a consummation is at
present entirely out of the question.
The word " Liberal " has been strangely
misapplied of late. It is truly an epithet of
character. It has been twisted into the title
of a creed. But, to waive this objection for
the present, if we fall back upon the so-called
Liberal party, what do we find ? Either that
it is no party at all, or a very much smaller
one than it commonly represents itself. That
it is simply the name of a genus, under which
Whigs and Radicals, Palmerstonians and
Peelites, rank as distinct species, or else that
it represents Palmerstonians alone, with a few
recruits from each of the other three. In
whichever sense we regard it, it is equally
ill-adapted to assume the functions of Govern-
ment. If the various elements are united,
they form as explosive a compound as charcoal,
sulphur, and saltpetre. If we take the latter
by itself; it is far weaker than the Tories. Of
the 215 members who voted for Lord PaI-
}MARTON on the 19th of February, upwards of
30 were Conservatives, and of the remaining
180 more than en) have no bond of union but
the foreign policrof Lord PALMERSTON. They
were returned, to recur to our language of last '
week, as the Minister's " friends," but it is
exceedingly doubtful whether he could have
held them together on questions of domestic
policy. For a certain time, no doubt, they
would have continued to follow his standard,
but probably not longer than his foreign
policy was triumphant. But now that the
Minister has fallen, the Minister's " friends "
are free. Nor is it to be supposed they will
readily encounter the chances of a dissolution
which any factious opposition to Lord DERBY
must necessitate. They must redeem their
character before they can meet their consti-
tuents. But few would be returned again ;
and the probability is that in a new House of
Commons the Palmerstonian Liberals would
no longer have a separate existence.
Thus, from whatever point of view we
regard Parliainentaly parties, the Conserva-
tives can show a better front than any
si ogle section of their opponent*. The
Whigs are in a state of solution, anti
totally destitute of resources for the construe-
tibn of a strong Government. The Radicals .