The Press.
London, England, 1854-08-05 00:00:00

LONDON,S.4TURDAY; AUGUSTS, 1864.

NONE but a violent and thoughtless partisan
could find subject of unmixed exultation in
the present parliamentary condition of the
Coalition Ministry. However degrading to
the Government, it is still more dangerous to
the State. It is impossible to shut our eyes
to the conclusion, that, if persisted in, the
Constitution of this country must receive a
great shock, and that the government of pub-
lic opinion, through the agency of parties,
which has hitherto been our security against

violent political revolution, must gradually
cease. The first effect of this change will
probably be to throw the Administration of the.
country into the hands of courtiers, and, with
a popular or discreet Court, the inevitable
injury to public spirit and peril to public
liberty of such a course may not immediately
be recognised. ifo rocess of dVidation
or disorder is certain. Either a powerful.cen-
tralised Government will be established, and

its resources of multiplied corruption brought
to bear upon members of Parliament in detail,
or the House of Commons wrestling with the
Court, and seeking refuge in an unconstitu-
tional organisation, will resolve itself into

committees, and invade the various offices of
the Executive. The most corrupt form of
government in the world is that which com-
bines a centralised Administration with a
popular Chamber, as was seen recently in
France ; and the most offensive and tyranni-
cal form is that which invests a popular
assembly with executive as well as legislative
duties, as was felt two centuries ago in Eng-
land. Yet there are the possible alternatives,
which may be offered, and even soon, to the
only country in which parliamentary govern-
ment has succeeded, and which, only so late
back as 1841, gave, by its agency, to Sir
ROBERT PEEL the most powerful administra-
tion of the century. It is clear, therefore,
that it was not the Reform Act of 1832 that
destroyed, or even that impaired, party govern.
ment in England.
We are far from supposing that the members
of the present Cabinet are blind to these evils,
or not discouraged by them. Many of them
are men of great station in the country, who
have risen to public eminence iu the atmo
sphere of the House of Commons, and who, we
doubt not, highly appreciate our system of
public life. Although the distempered ambi-
tion of Lord JOHN RUSSELL has been mainly
instrumental in bringing about the present
lamentable state of affairs, it is quite impos-
sible that such a man, now that the heat and
fever of upsetting the Ministry of Lord DERBY
have passed, should be insensible to the errors
which he has committed, and not feel that,
with a little patience and constitutional re-
straint, he might perhaps at this moment have
been First Minister of the Crown, at the heg
of a homogeneous party. Lord ABERDEV

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displays, a leading part in the other House.
No one ever imputed to him any fervid admi-
ration of our parliamentary system. His mind
was formed in the Austrian Chancery : he has

always been a votary of political,- and not
public, life, of power without responsibility,
and therefore as little as possible in the public
gaze. He is now advanced in years, ambitious,
quite unprincipled, and very vain. There is
nothing he will not do to retain the position
which Court 'intrigue, and not parliamentary
following, gave him. He will make war with or
for Russia; oppose parliamentary reform, or pro-
pose universal suffrage ; become a brother of
the Oratory, or seek refuge in that Free Kirk
which his blundering legislation called into
existence. The cleverest thing that Lord
ABERDEEN ever did was to persuade the Whigs
that he meant to abdicate at the termination
of the first session of the Coalition. It was
an act of the most adroit deceptiozi since the
election of Pope Sirrus. Such a man will.not
have any twinges about the fate of the Eng-
lish Constitution, and. we doubt not, is quite
pLepared to close his career as one of those
courtier. Ministers with which his country has:
so proaigally furnished us,,and add another
to the resplendcnt list of the Carrs, the Hayi,
-said 111C-,Mutes. Nothing, however, wilLimr-,
suade us that English gentlemen, a Sir James
Graham, or a Mr. Sidney Herbert, statesmen
educated in the House of Commons, Parlia-
ment men, can, however serene may be their
countenances in public, contemplate the pre-
sent state of affairs without great disquietude
and disapproval.
It is difficult to comprehend how, indi-
vidually, they can endure it. Take the-in-'
stance of one who was described the other
night by a rebellious Liberal as " the popular
" member of the Cabinet." Lord PALMERSTON
is Secretary of State, and in his department
has, this session, had to prepare, and to intro-
duce into Parliament, a larger number of bills,
on important questions than any other mem-
ber of the Administration. This Secretary of
State has proposed to the House of Commons
to repeal the law of settlement, to establish
a general system of police, to carry a militia
bill, to institute a Government board of
health, and every one of his propositions has
been contumeliously rejected. These are not
speculative subjects. They intimately concern
the welfare of the community. The Secretary
himself tells us that confusion and disorder,
disease and rapine, will be the consequence
of the withdrawal of his measures ; and he
remains Minister, responsible for cholera,
which he says is inevitable, and incendiarism
and burglary, which he assures us will be
practised on a large scale. Yet this is the fate
of " the popular member of the Cabinet."
Eight months ago Lord PALMERSTON withdrew
from the Coalition, and the sympathies of the
whole nation' gathered round him. Never was
a man in a more commanding position, or
apparently had a grander future. He returns
to the Cabinet to find that he is unable to
carry even a bill for the prevention of nui-
sances, to be bullied by confederate bakers
who will not consume their own smoke, to
sanction the crude schemes of Lord JOHN
RUSSELL, and to be tainted by a participation
in the ambigu9us policy of Lord ABERDEEN,
and the organised corruption of the Duke •of
NEWCASTLE. Instead of rivalling the reputa4
tion of a Chatham or a Canning, he will be re-I

membered in our annals, if remembered at all,
only as a political VICAR of Bast
The runners and hangers-son of the Govern-
ment, in order to divert the storm of public
indignation from the heads of "their patrons,
have the cue to abuse the House of Commons,
and to hold up that assembly as the cause of
the inefficiency of the public service. This
will never do. It is not true that the House
of Commons, like the Ministry, has done
nothing. The House of Commons, this ses-
sion, has done a great deal. It has stopped
parliamentary reform; it has vindicated the
Protestant character of the Constitution ; it
has checked centralisation ; it has given
another blow to the scheme of secular educa-
tion, which is continually brought forward in
so many insidious forms. These are not mean
services ; and a grateful country will on reflec-
tion not fail to recognise that it is indebted for
these benefits, not merely to the House of
Commons, but to that spirit of party disei..
pline whioh still largely prevails in that as-
sembly. It is the rallying of the Conserva-
tive party that has steadied the ship. That
great operation has been effected this year
with skill, courage, prudence, and un-
ceasing vigilance. A body of two hundred and
eighty gentlemen, acting together in a apirit-
, confidence and sympaiiiy, must necessarily
(yertass a considerable coptiol over publ'a
affairs. Amid a crowd of 'hostile and rival
sections,—old Whigs headed by Lord SEYMOUR,
discontented 'Radicals pushing on Lord
DUDLEY STUART, the Manchester school in-
flamed by the indignant logic of Mr. BRIGHT,
Sir WILLIAM HEATHCOTE crossing himself at
the head of the .Tractarians, and the Popish
recusants „brooding in sullen vengeance over
the ruins of their betrayed confederacy,—there
is still in the House of Commons a numeroxis
and compact party ; not, anxious for power,.
yet not afraid to assume it, and resolved nevi;
to retain it unworthily,—annmerous and conk-
pact party prepared to uphold with all their
energies rim ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.

MINISTERS ON

THE STOC:

EXCHANGE.
UNTIL Thursday last Englishmen were in the
habit of believing that, whatever other re-
proach might rest on persons engaged in ad-
ministrative affairs, their hands were at least
free from the stain of pecuniary corruption.
Travellers in continental countries shrugged
their shoulders and smiled triumphantly when
they heard the rumour so current abroad that
this or that eminent statesman was in the
habit of dabbling in the funds. If report be
true, it is but a few months since the Emperor
of the FRENCiI, in talking with a friend, ex-
pressed admiration. not unmixed with Bur•
prise, at the purity, in this respect, of English
public life. There is an end to these boasts
now. One offence detected leads, and leads
naturally, to the suspicion of many more.
A stigma unknown since the days of WALPOLZ
rests on our public offices. It will not soon
be wiped off; the story will be repeated with
malicious alacrity among the inhabitants of
every small State which envies our national
greatness, or fears our power; and for this
humiliation in the face of Europe, this moral
weakness exhibited before the eye• of our
enemies, we have to thank the party which,

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