Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-07-02 00:00:00

THE WHIGS AND THE LIBERALS

HOWEVER it. may suit the convenience of the
Whigs just now, as we all know that, on more than
one occasion, it has done before,-. to speak of
theniselves and the Liberals as all one party,
it is evident that there is still, in act'' and deed,
a marked separation between them. The Whigs
find it essential to their party purposes to be
popularly gonsidered Liberals, and Liberals,
too, of the first water. It not only secures
for them the support of the Advanced Liberals in
Parliament,- whenever they have their own ends to
serve, but it gains them what they so dearly love,
and which they know so well how to convert into
political capital or poiklarity. Often, it is true,
have they found it "an habitation giddy .and
unsure ;" still they admire,.:.they adore, and will go
almost any lengths to enjoy it. Nor is it only that
it has . seductive charms which they cannot 'resist ;
they feel and know its influence in sustaining them
in their course.' The idea of having " the people" at
their back, as a party in the State, is full of practical
importance—popular applause being so commonly
both the law and the testimony by

which men's

judgments are formed, and men's motives are
influenced. Not that we_ mean any disparagement
of what is really and truly the popular will, as
contradistinguished from that of any privileged Class.
The people's mind has a right to be respected, and,

under free institutions like ours, it can never, even
for a while, be set at nought with impicnity.

At the present moment there is being illustrated
most strikingly, by those who have just succeeded

in regaining office, the nature 'and Operation of the
artful device 'we allude 'to: The Whigs have so
succeeded, only with the assistance of the Advanced
Liberals, and the assistance was obtained by reason
of professions and promises which already they have
shown, that they do not mean to fulfil. In the
forcible words of Mr. COBDEN'S special organ of the
Press at Rochdale, "It is evident that in their hmir
of prosperity the
.Whigs are beginning to resume
their old haughty demeanour. Lords PA.LIIERSTON
and
_RUSSELL on the Opposition benches are .one
thing H those same -gentlemen transferred 'to the
Ministerial side, with her IVlajesty's government in
their hands, are quite another. The transformation
which they undergo in passing from Opposition to
Office'—fronidesire to possession—is only paralleled
by that of a,certain personage, who, when he was
sick a monk would be, but when he got - well no
monk was he.' When the Whigs are sick—and they
soon become so when they are doomed to unofficial
idleness—the Whigs will Reformers be; when the
Whigs get well —and the first clutch of office makes
them themselves at once—then no Reformers are
they." this is evident, from the facts of the
case. It is no mere matter ofopinion now. Actions
not only speak louder, but plainer than words. And
on the manner in which they have acted, in the
-formation of their Ministry, on this as on previous
'occasions, is the. judgment here expressed most Sub-
stantially founded. Look at their handy-work. " A
.more courtly and aristocratic Caliidet," as our plain-
spoken Rochdale contemporary continues, " was
never formed. Has the blue blood' been chosen
of so pare a dye, because at the loWer end of
the Cabinet there is to be a slight infusion of
the plebian red ? Is the useless., but ornamental,
GRANVILLE, a court counterpoise :to the useful but
unadorned' COBDEN Is the,Dake of ARGYLL to
represent names and shadows of the past, because
Mr. MILNER GIBSON represents men and things as
they are to-day ? The popular voice is to be allowed
.to speak in the Cabinet ; but the three dulres; two
earls, three lords, and three baronets,' Will be its
auditors; and they will tone its counsels into courtly
fashion ere they, let them come before the 'world.
Imagine such a. Cabinet listening to the common-
sense views of a man of business like Mr. COBDEN,
and acting upon them. Does it not- seem almost
specially constructed to render such a combination
hopeless ?" Now this is just the question flat to the
point. The popular voice, as it was expressed so
strongly, so effectually, in, all that led to the over-
throW of the Derby Ministry, is in this Cabinet
powerless. The Advanced Liberal estimate in it,
through which:that voice must be uttered, is but as
a grain of wheat in a bushel of chaff. Mr. MILNER
Gussost being there is only a delusion and a snare,
and a very short time, or we are much -mistaken,
will. suffice to prove it.
-And that all this is deliberately designed and
planned, is too Obvious to be questioned. Why, for
instance, was not Mr. 1311mm:offTed a seat in the
Cabinet; if the Ministry was. to constitute, as it was -
professed to •do, an adequate ,'rePresentation of the
whole Liberal. party ?. If we are. to regard the party
in the House of Commons• as, composed of all those
who voted a want of confidence in the Derby
Ministry, we have no Ilesitation in saying that Mr.
BRIGHT is one of its ';cost distinguished members,.]
and that in any assembly of Advanced Liberals he
should be found to have more influence than any
score of mere 'Whigs combined. Why, then, is such
a man to be excluded, if their object be what they'
profess it is ? Such an exclusion, without reason as
it is, canonly'be considered as something very like
kicking -away the ladder by Which the Whigs have
again climbed into the Government. This, to say
the least of it, were rank ingratitude. And they are
aggravating it, by their weak endeavour to excuse it.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL, for example, at his re-election
for the city of London a day or two since, in evident
allusion to Mr. BRIGHT and others of that influential,
and independent class of Liberals, could talk sneer,:
ingly of individual disappointments," and pretend