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No. 259.—V0L. VI.

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1858.

STAMPED ....I
UNSTAMPED..

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duced, moulded together, and made available,
why is it not brought forward ? But whence is
it to be obtained ? If we turn from the present
Treasury benches, and survey the rest of the
House of Commons, wo search in vain for a
possible Ministry. Lord PALMERSTON has the
largest body of supporters ; yet he was con-
signed to the Opposition benches, simply be-
cause his supporters were too few. He was
outvoted; ho saw no way of cancelling or re-
scinding the vote ; and therefore he had no
other course than to wait upon the Queen, and
inform her Majesty that he had lost the con-
fidence of the House of Commons. On his
resignation, no other leader of the Liberal
party offered himself to unite and reorganize
the broken phalanx. Lord JoHN Rassam, had
not one hundred followers ; Mr. MILNER
ChesoN had still fewer. Hence it is, that
when the Liberal journals have exhausted all
their weapons of scorn and contumely, we can
turn round upon them, and tranquilly inquire,
" If you have the majority of the House at
" your back, why do you not expel the present
" Ministry, and set up a Liberal Government
"in its room?" To which they could give no
other answer, with truth and honesty, than
this, " We don't, because we .sawt."

phalanx obeyed his command, and nearly
100 members who had voted against conces-
sion in 1828, voted for concession in 1829.
Sir ROBERT PBxc had thus swept away" Romish
disabilities," but with them he had swept away
much more. The Duke of RICHMOND, and
many other Protestant Tories, indignant at
the conversion of so many members of the
House of Commons, declared for " Reform.'
The whole system of representation which had
endured for many generations was destroyed
by the popular indignation which followed the
treachery of 1829. And of course the old state
of things, once terminated, was terminated for
ever. The close boroughs could no more be
revived than we could restore the Corn Laws,
or resuscitate the Druids.

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1858.

THE DUKES QUESTION STILL

UNANSWERED.
WHAT a series of eventful years has passed
over our heads, since the old Duke, with his
sagacious mind and eagle glance, swept away a
mass of rubbish and rhodomontade with the
plain question, " But, my lords, what I want to
" know, is, How the Queen's Government is to be
" carried on!" Since that day various statesmen
have tried, in vain, to find an answer; and
the question nover appeared more pertinent,
or needful to he answered, than it does now.

But one result of their abolition has been, that
instead of a settled !tate of things, we have
had, ever since 1832, constantly recurring

Let us take the view of the actual state of
things presented in the Times, in its first three
papers of the present week : a view, dis-
torted and exaggerated, it is true, but still one
upon which we are entitled to found an argu-
ment. That journal, then, thus describes, with
the natural spleen of an ejected placeman, what
lit deems the present condition of affairs:—

changes. The

of Lord Luisa-

root. lasted for about sixteen years, and had
a life of the usual length been granted to its
head, his Premiership might have continued
for a second period of the same length. But,
in the twenty-five years which have elapse d
since the Reform Bill became imr, we have
seen the Cabinets of Lord Gorr, of Lord
MELBOURNE, of Sir RORIXT PEEL, of Lord
JOHN RUSSELL, of Lord DERBY, of Lord ABER-
DEEN, of Lord PALMERSTON, and now of Lord
DERBY again. Eight Ministries in five and
twenty years give au average of about three
years to each. But we have not quite stated all,
the facts. Lord MELBOURNE'S resignation
1839, and Sir ROBERT PEEL'S in December,'
1845, are not included in the above list. These
would raise the number of completed or com-
menced changes• to ten, in about twenty-give
years ; giving an average duration of about
two years and a half to each Government.
The absolute loss of time for the pur-
poses of good legislation, which is in-
volved in this system of perpetual change, is
evident. A Cabinet requires a year to adapt
itself to its position ; in the second year it
addresses itself seriously to the work of
legislation ; and in the third or fourth year it
is suddenly expelled. Does not the question
very naturally occur to the mind, " How is
the Queen's Government to be carried on

" The majority has turned itself out, for its
own sins and those of its leaders, and has put
the minority to- reign in its stead. . . . The
House of Commons, so recently elected to
represent the feelings of the Liberals, has set
the Tories to rule over them . . . When the
people return a majority of members to Par-
liament they ought to be secure, and they
have hitherto felt secure, that Government
will be can•iod on in accordance with the ex-
pression of their will ; but if Government is
to be carried on by minorities, what atarantee,
we may ask, does our elective constitution
afford us?"

Such, then, is the practical working of that
system, the weak point in which the Duke of
WELLINGTON detected in a moment, when he
asked, "How is the Queen's Government to
he carried on?" Probably, to understand the
real bearings of that question, the best way
will be to take a rapid retrospect of the Minis-
terial changes which have taken place since
the passing of the Reform Bill.
The grand achievement of the Reform Bill
—that which made the change so real and so
important—was the abolition of that element
of fixedness and permanency the close
boroughs. From the days of PJrT to the time
of the death of GEORGE IV., the close boroughs
had been so systematically dealt with as to
give any Conservative Ministry a considerable
array of plelged voters in the House of Com-
mons. The Whigs had, it was true, many
family boroughs under their control ; but
still, on a balance of the account, the Tories
could reckon on many more close-borough
votes than the Whigs. And to begin with 100
firm votes, to be aided by a majority of the
county representatives, and by nearly a
moiety of the open-borough representatives,
made any Ministry, guided by Lords LIVER-
POOL, SIDNOUTH, ELDON, and Sir R. Past, feel
tolerably safe, from the death of Wrttraar Purr
down to the close of the reign of GEORGE IV.
That state of calm security was terminated
by Sir ROBERT PEEL'S first deflection. Not
convinced, he said, of any error, but yielding
solely to circumstances, ho resolved in 1829
to concede those " Catholic claims" which he
bad for twenty years resisted. His obedient

" The House of Commons is hardly in a
condition to follow the light of reason or of
the Constitution. It is too conscious of having
to thank itself in a great measure for the cha-
racter and position of the Administration, and
is forced to connive at imbecility which it
would be ashamed to recognize and punish."
" The House in its present mood, no doubt,
thinks a great deal ought to be sacrificed rather
than incur another change of Ministry; but
there are limits even to the spirit of toleration,
and perhaps even the pleasure of being ruled
by a Tory minority may be considered too
dearly purchased if it is to cost us the over-
throw of our Parliamentary practice, and of
that responsibility which lies at the very foun-
dation of Parliamentary Government itself."
Such is the picture offered to us, in the
Times, of the present position of affairs, and
of the prospects of the Government. Let us add
to it one mare feature, that we have now the beat
Government that is possible at the present moment ;
and surely we need add nothing more to throw
the minds of men back upon the Duke's saga-
cious question.

Another most important difference between
the old system and the new is, that, before the
passing of the Reform Bill, changes of Admi-
nistration generally arose from deaths or other
changes, internal to the Cabinet itself. Mr.
Paacavais Cabinet was broken up by his
death; Lord LIVERPOOL'S, by his mortal ill-
ness. But every Cabinet since the passing of
the Reform Bill has been cashiered by the
House of Commons. Lord GREY, it is true,
voluntarily retired, but he ascribed his retire-
ment to the inconvenient pressure of the

We say that the present Government is the
best that is possible; and surely it cannot be
necessary to prove so self-evident a proposi-
tion. If a better Government can bs pro-

House of Commons. Sir ROBERT PEEL'S
Ministry of 1835 was defeated, and forced to