Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-06-18 00:00:00

THE MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS.

THE progress of the Ministerial arrangements has
certainly not removed the apprehensions which so
many of the friends of Liberal principles, from the
first, had only too much reason to entertain, that the
Whigs, having once more found the road to office
open to them, would forget those to whom they were
mainly indebted for it. The Advanced Liberals
have formed the means .by which PALMERSTON
and RUSSELL have re-ascended to their official emi-
nence ; and now, their height attained, the ladder is
kicked aside. One of the indignant party, writing
from the Reform Club, has been complaining, we
see, in the columns of the Star, that the new
Ministry " looks very like a re-hash of the old Whig
Cabinets ;" which it certainly does. And our inde-
pendent contemporary himself, a day or two since,
after showing the most exemplary forbearance
towards them, in their preliminary proceedings, felt
constrained to come out with the very reasonable
inquiries—" Ts the new Ministry to be a fair repre-
sentation of the whole Liberal party ? Did Lord
PALMERSTON promise this at Willis's Rooms, and
did Lord JOHN RUSSELL frankly declare it ? Is the
promise to be kept, or is it to be forgotten the
moment it has served its purpose ? Is it compatible
with an honest performance of this promise that Sir
CHARLES WOOD, Sir GEORGE GREY and Sir GEORGE
LEWIS are to re-occupy the chief offices in the House
of Commons, and to act over again the melancholy
farce with which their names must ever be associated
during this generation? If Lord PALMERSTON, Lord
JOHN RUSSELL,-"Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT, and the
three Baronets are to sit on the Treasury Bench,
holding all the chief offices in the Cabinet, how is
the adequate representation of the Liberal party to
be provided for ? " These are questions as just and
rational, as they were pertinent and pointed; and
the praCtical answer they have so far received must
have blasted many an anxious Liberal's hopes. For

we cannot find that there has been any disposition

shown to secure " a fair representation of the whole
Liberal party ;" while now, after the arrangements
are all but complete, the question, " How is the
adequate representation of the Liberal party to be
provided for," is one that they have rendered utterly
unanswerable, - or, rather, we might say, put a
negative upon it altogether.
Another question was asked by the same out-
spoken Liberal contemporary, to this effect,—" If the
ancient hacks of the party, who have every blemish
which horseflesh is heir to, are to be trotted out
again as the only team these Leaders will consent to
drive—if eccentric statesmen who vote on all great
questions with the followers of Lord DERBY, and
have no mind of their own but when office is
tendered them, are to be admitted into a Cabient
which pretends to be an adequate representation'
of the whole Liberal party—we ask, where are the
offices and where are the men to whom the Indepen-
dent Liberals are to look as the exponents of their
views ?" And echo answers, where ! The fact is,
the Whigs don't want them. They are all well
enough, those Independent Liberals, to aid them in
"sting a Tory Ministry ; but they won't do at all in
the construction of a Whig one. So that our justly
offended contemporary saw but too much reason to
declare,-...g.
the three If the Whig plaeemen are inexorable—if
have no faith in
baronets will yield nothing—if men who
Lord PALMERSTON or Lord JOAN