The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-18 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, APRIL 16, 1870.

IttouGn some of us may grudge the time occupied
by the Easter recess in a session like this, when the
business of legislation is so grievously in arrears, the
interval may be turned to good account. It will be
turned to good account if M.P.'s on both sides of
the House will seriously consider their position and
the end they have in view. That position is very
serious, that end is very obscure, except as regards
one political section. When Parliament assembled
in February the Liberal phalanx was strong and
unbroken, and the Conservative opposition was
remarkably pacific. So soon as the intentions of the
Government with regard to the two great questions
of land tenure and education were made known, and
it was discovered that the Ministry would respect
the rights of property and the rights of conscience the
Conservative leaders let it be understood that they
would offer no serious opposition to either the Irish
Land Bill or the English Education Bill. This mo-
deration on the part of the Opposition at once aroused
the suspicion of the Radicals below the gangway.
Those of them who, while vaunting their inde-
pendence, are the most bitter of partisans, could not,
in the narrowness of their,minds, conceive it possible
that measures which satisfied the Conservatives could
be otherwise than bad measures, and they soon be-
gan to denounce their leader for proposing legisla-
tion with a view to pleasing his opponents rather
than his followers. These critics received assistance
from a gentleman who has not been wont hitherto
to act in accordance with the Radicals, who,
in fact, is one of the old Whigs, and cannot forget
that as such he once held office under a Whig
Premier, but holds office no longer. He objected to
the Land Bill because it was too sweeping, and thus
there were two sets of opponents on the Ministerial
side of the House, but though opposing for different
reasons, finding, as is usually the case under such
circumstances, an excuse for concerted action.
Thus, it became apparent that the Libe-
ral party was no longer homogeneous.
Last session it acted like one man,
and the Opposition, helpless and powerless,
could only complain of the brutal insolence of a
tyrannical majority. The cause of this unity was
plain. M.P.'s were fresh from the hustings, and
there they had been told by their constituents that
they must disestablish the Irish Church or they
would not be elected. They swallowed all scruples,
they sank their individuality, and gave Mr. Gladstone
such a working majority as scarcely any other Minis-
ter in our time has enjoyed. This year the
remembrance of the hustings has waxed dim. More-
over, the Land 13111 was never before the country as
the Church Bill was, and as for the Elucation
there is no doubt that a large number of Liberal
electors, misled by the Birmingham League, do int
approve of it. So Liberals no longer feel themselves
bound to follow their leader, and they have,
throughout the present Session, been reasserting
their individuality in the fashion which has
been abundantly frequent of late years, and which
has always been the first sign of a general disintegra-
tion, of a ministerial downfall, and of the accession of
the Conservative party to office for a few months.
There it has been allowed to exist on the condition
of doing the work of the extreme Radicals until such
time as these have recovered their tamper and re-
stored their leader to power.
In the presence of this spectacle it was, perhaps,
not to be expected that the Conservative party
would maintain that judicious moderation which
they exhibited at the commencement of the session.
It is now known, as it was not then known, that
there is a division in the Liberal ranks. Even if
the 'enders had been willing to continue the truce,
the followers were not. Young hot-headed Tories,
like the sons of the Duke of Abercorn, who have
lived less than thirty -years, and who
were boys when the last Liberal Administra-
tion broke up, think that the greatest calamity
which can happen to the country, is for a Liberal
Government to be in office. They cannot see,
bcause they cannot remember, that it is a far more
serious, a far, more really revolutionary thing for a
Conservative minority to be holding -office
at the bidding of the extreme Radicals. These.rash
youths, therefore, are endeavouring to throw out
the Land Bill. Mr. Disraeli, as usual, cannot resist
the opportunity of manoeuvring, and so he, too, has
suddenly discovered that the bill is an attack upon
the rights of property, and, while secretly scorning,
openly foments the fears which that cry is sure to
excite.

Such was the position or watts at the close of the
pre-Easter Session. It bears in some respects an
ominous likeness to the position which parties occu-
pied this time four years and it is quite within the
range of possibility that before July we may witness
once more the remarkable spectacle of a Parliftmen-
tal,v trifkritv sitting on the left benches, while
minority occupies the right. Already minis-
terial journals are beginning to warn the
Radicals that they must keep in the ranks, and
to talk of the Ministry standing and falling by their
bill. But there is one great difference between
1866 and 1870. In the former year it was the
Conservative section of the Liberal party who
revolted against Mr. Gladstone because he was too
great a Radical. In the latter year it is the Radical
section which is rebelling because Mr. Gladstone is
too great a Conservative. Even in the first
crisis it was the advanced Radicals who
won in the long run, and forced a
Conservative Ministry to grant household suffrage.
It will be well, therefore, for the Conservatives to
reflect what is likely to be the result of a Ministerial
crisis if it is brought about by a union between them
and the advanced Radicals. In spite of the Adul-
lamites, Mr. Disraeli, as Premier, was compelled to do
the bidding of the Radicals. What chance, then,
would there be for Conservative legislation if he
found himself placed in office by the Radical Tote ?
We do not expect Mr. Disraeli to consider this,
for he is not and never was a Conservative
at heart; but it might be well for his followers to
consider this. It might be well for them to ask
themselves if they are prepared to purchase one or
two years of office at the cost of Fixity of Tenure
and Secular Education. That this is the price which
the/ will have to give there ca 4 ue ehadow,