The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-07 00:00:00

THE WEEK.

With the past week the labours of Lord DERBY'S Administration have
come to a close. It would be affectation in us to deny that we have felt,
to some extent, a peculiar satisfaction in watching the career of the second
Derbyite Cabinet, from its small beginnings of success to the full stream of
popularity which it now enjoys. This slight display of exulta-
tion is we trust pardonable. To contrast th tnooise
the Conservative party five years ago with that which it occu-
pies at present cannot fail to be singularly gratifying to those
who have supported it throughout. The reason is that it is not the
party which has changed, but the public opinion of that party. We have
now the same men in office ; and at length a reluctant Opposition and a
bewildered public has been led to acknowledge that their former estimate
of Conservatives was fundamentally erroneous, and that the promise given
in Lord DERBY'S speech of 1852 has, now that an opportunity is afforded,
been fulfilled to the letter. Social Reform was what he promised in his
first Premiership. Social Reform is what he has given us, or is prepared
to give us, in his second. At all events, whatever may be said of the
Conservative party from any other point of view—however much they may
have fallen short of what was expected from them by influential
sections of their supporters, one thing at least stands out
clearly in their favour. Their administrative ability is now
established beyond question. This fact is all the more important because,
with all the admiration that was accorded, however grudgingly, to the
genius of their leading men, Opposition writers always assumed that they
were on safe ground when they questioned the practical talent of the Con-
servatives. That doubt is now for ever set at rest. It has been
shown decisively that men under seventy and not connected
with the oligarchy that has struggled for supremacy since Pin',
could conduct the business of the country, not only with credit, but with
illustrious success ; that these "new men " could, in fact, do what their
predecessors, grey in the traditions of office, couldn't do ; and that hence-
forward, whatever other objections might be raised to a Conservative
Cabinet by a Whig clique, the charge of administrative inefficiency
must be dropped for ever, or only recoil upon the accusers. Alas !
for the shortsightedness of mere pen and ink politicians. But six short
months ago we remember in a quarterly periodical, which, though the
youngest of the quarterly family, already yields to none in the literary
ability it displays, a statement to the effect that in another session the
Conservatives would be no more ! With that practical knowledge: of
politics which experienced journalists know how to obtain, a celebrated
weekly contemporary observed at the same time that the party of Lord
DERBY was the strongest and best organized in the House. We trust
that the position of affairs on this 7th of Auugust, 1858, may be a
warning to all political prophets to abstain from such ridiculous utterances
as the first mentioned without some real authority to back them. The
language which many Whig or Radical periodicals have employed towards
the Conservatives durin* the last four or five years has, we have always
thought, been spiteful ; it is now shown to be contemptible. The Conservative
party has held together for the last five years like the British infantry at
Waterloo. Every kind of attack has been tried against them in vain, and
now at last it is their turn to come forward. In another portion of our
columns we have enumerated the principal measures they have been suc-
cessful in passing, which fairly entitle this session to be considered one of
the most progressive within the memory of the present generation.

The county of Galway is at present interested in the promotion of an
enterprize to which it would argue a great want of generosity not to wish
every kind of success. Fortune proverbially is on the side of the brave,
and if that fickle goddess has not as yet given in her adhesion and for-
warded her name for a number of preference shares in the Galway under-
taking, it is from no want of zeal on the part of the natives to pay her proper
court or to win her favours. Fortune has smiled upon the Galway gallants by
land, in ladies' chambers has often pleaded their suit, and even galloped
with them to the great entirety of their neck across a rather rough bit of
country, but invariably disregarded and discountenanced with more than
her wonted disapproval a number of efforts they have made by sea on the
Atlantic. Galway hitherto has exhibited the spectacle of a courageous
county struggling with adversity upon an adverse element. Everything
has been against her. She has had to contend against old ships, head-
winds, and a pilot who ran their first vessel on a rock, and then expiated
either his ignorance or wilfulness by suicide. The passage of the Indian
Empire, which Galway despatched as a trial-steamer across the Atlantic,
would have been an excellent passage but for a series of contrary circum-
stances. As it was, it will be only mentioned among disasters at sea, regis-
tered, perhaps, among hapless marine occurrences. But Galway is not to be
daunted.

Her marine misfortunes all arise from the fault of the ships, the fault
of the engines, the fault of the pilots, or the fault of the somewhat arbitrary
Atlantic. What is wanted to insure the Galway Steam Company com-
plete success is the want, by no means peculiar to Galway, of a little Go-
vernment money. On Wednesday last a deputation of Irish Members,
merchants, shipowners, and gentlemen interested in the town and harbour
of Galway, waited upon Lord DERBY with the view of representing to his
Lordship the native undertaking, as far as possible, in a national light. At
the head of the deputation was the Rev. PETER DALY, who pointed out the
bearings of Galway on a map, and strenuously advocated the cause of his
county. He urged that "the port of Galway had been selected from its
" position and its great facilities and advantages as the best in the three
" kingdoms for the American traffic; but that its efficacy was greatly
" marred by want of a breakwater and pier," costing only 1.52,0001., which
sum the Galway people, a number of merchants, and pecuniary men in
general, hoped Lord DERBY world grant, the enterprize being, as they all
considered, in every sense a national one. The colloquy which ensued