The Press.
London, England, 1856-12-06 00:00:00

TREASURY PURITY.

Two appointments have lately been made in
the Treasury which call for some remark.
We hope a satisfactory explanation can be
given of them.
Two gentlemen named HODGSON and COLE
have been placed by Sir C. TREVELYAN and
Mr. WILSON in. situations worth 7001. a year ;
whilst clerks whom they have superseded,
and whose services have been much longer
than theirs, are lucky in retaining half that
sum. Mr. HODGSON may he a man of great
merit ; but all the merit with which the world
is acquainted, consists in the fact that he was
Sir C TREVELYAN'S private secretary !
The other gentleman, Mr. COLE, has be-
longed to the Treasury for only two years ;
whereas he has superseded men who have
worked there for twenty years. In what does
the peculiar claim and merit of Mr. COLE con-
sist? We are not aware of any great public
service performed by him. He is the son of
Sir LOWRY COLE, and is also—though no doubt
that is an accident—related to Lady COWPER,
daughter-in-law to Lady PALMERSTON ! Will
this connection be considered by Parliament
sufficient reason for dishonouring, impoverish-
ing, insulting, and degrading seven meritorious
officers in the Treasury ? We hope not.
In a small way, another very pretty job has
been done by those immaculate Reformers of
the Treasury, Sir C. TREVELYAN and Mr. WIL-
SON. Young Master FREMANTLE, who has now
been labouring in the Treasury during the
protracted period of three entire years, or
thereabouts, has at length received the reward
of his distinguished ability and merit, and has
been presented with a clerkship worth 3501. a
year—i.e., with as good an income as is enjoyed
by any one of the seven superseded clerks,
who has worked in the Treasury for nearly a
quarter of a century ! What this young
gentleman's special public services have been
we don't happen to know. But it does so
happen that this official veteran of three years'
standing is son of Sir T FREMANTLE, and en-
joys the unspeakable advantage and blessing
of being Mr. HATTER'S private secretary !

RESULTS OF LIBERAL ASCENDANCY.
IT is not often we can agree with the Weekly Dis-
patch, but the editor, in the last number of that
journal, seems to have been much in the position of
BATAAM, and to have been compelled to give utterance
tk truth which it was against his will and interest to
reveal. Speaking of the general indifference of the
people to political affairs, the writer observes :
We cannot say we regard this as a healthy state of things.
Woad not like, in a free country, where, by the theory of

THE PRESS.

the constitution, the people are called upon to govern
themselves, that they should become indifferent to politics,
and retire from the supervision of public affairs. It is the
curse of the United States that her most thoughtful and
worthiest citizens, disgusted with the vile knavery of
trading politicians, and the cunning ruffianism of stump
oratory,l retire from public life, and leave the issues of
power to the most dishonest and less wise of the popula-
tion. In England, our best men cease to take their
wonted interest in the business of the country. The " rod
of empire" is resigned into the hands of waiters upon
Providence, and Parliament is left entirely to trading poli-
ticians, who seek a vote simply to extort a place, and
who abandon the business of the nation the moment they
can get other business without it.
Power is never left to rot or to waste. If it be not in the
right hands it will assuredly yet be in some hands, and the
growing disposition of the " upper ten thousand " of the
middle classes to regard party as dead, politics as a bore,
and public life and State affairs as no longer a trust in the
hands of every good citizen, but as only a plaything for
those who will sustain the infliction of the botheration, is
a very dangerous heresy which cannot too soon be de-
nounced to the inquisition of national common sense. In
despotic countries the issues of power are sedulously
watched by the few into whose hands they are intrusted.
They may, indeed, misgovern ; but at least they do make
use of the authority which public law or might gives them.
The British Constitution assumes that the right of legisla-
tion and of executive government is in the hands of society
at large, especially controlled by its most influential and
intelligent members ; and it makes no provision for any
other alternative methods of administration. If the wisest,
best, most intelligent, and most dispassionate, therefore,
shrink from public life, and leave its affairs to pot-house
brawlings and parochial cliquism. what can result but that
England should be ruled in the spirit of a poor-law union,
and its destinies be wielded by the soul of a paving
board, and with the sort of sense that finds its way to the
chair of Coger's-hall, or the bench of the judge and jury
club. We call, therefore, upon the thoughtful and the
wise, the national leaders of society, to shake off this
apathy, and no longer to shirk their share in guiding the
operation of our representative institutions.

All this is excellent—may we say not the less excel-
lent because the substance of it has previously ap-
peared in our columns? But the writer suggests an
inference which he does not care to follow out. How
is it that the "rod of empire " is resigned into the
hands of waiters upon Providence?—that Parliament
is left to trading politicians?—that the wisest, best,
most intelligent, and most dispassionate of the com-
munity shrink from public life ? Is this the legiti-
mate result of Liberal ascendancy for the last quar-
ter of a century ? Has the Reform Bill produced no
better fruits than these?

If men of high principle, conscientious views, and
patriotic aims are driven from Parliamentary life, it
must be because they feel they have no chance of
success when opposed to the brawling demagogue or
mercenary politician. Men now commonly stand
on the Liberal platform with no better stock•in-trade
than a mouthful of lies. They pretend zeal for cer
tain Radical measures,—as the ballot, extension of
suffrage, no church rates, foreign nationalities, and
the like,—caring nothing for these schemes, and
taking no real steps to carry them into effect. They
are elected on the faith of their Liberal professions,
and then seek how they may best turn their votes to
account by supporting what is called a Liberal
Ministry. It is the constant success of this trick,
stale though it be, which disgusts the honest part of
the community, and keeps out of the representation
the very men best calculated to adorn it,—men who
scorn subterfuge, and to whom honour is dearer than
place. So long as this system prevails, and popular
constituencies willingly surrender themselves to the
Liberal delusion, the disastrous state of affairs which
the Weekly Dispatch deplores must inevitably con-
tinue. The remedy is to be sought in the exposure
and break-up of the Liberal imposture.