The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-13 00:00:00

WHAT WILL LOAD DERBY DO?

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SIR,-1 have yet many things to say to you on
the above-named most important subject. Perhaps
I may be allowed just to trace the rise and fall of
the Whig party during their well-nigh off and on
37 years tenure of office. It is well known to all
readers of history that this party was banished
from office during nearly the whole of the reigns of
George 111. and IV., until they came in by a
sheer piece of good luck, owing to the Duke of
Wellington's Tory Government having in the
month of November, 1830, fallen into a minority
on the new Civil List, which it became necessary
to enact on the decease of George IV. and the
accession of William IV. I will here take the
trouble to note down the progress of the Whigs
since their complete and apparently permanent
settlement in power by the first election under the
Reform Bill. The years 1831 and 1832 were
years of transition. After the ever-memorable
election in the spring of 1831 the Whigs had,
indeed, a temporary ascendancy, but they were
well aware that their ground was not secure.
Their majority was only gained by a popular ex-
citement, and might be expected by the ebb of that
feeling to dwindle away. The old Reform Bill of
1832, therefore, became their great stock in trade,
it was the one great point at which they aimed ;
and they kept that point in view until complete
success had crowned their exertions. By the
secession of their opponents in the House of
Lords, the Whigs were enabled to carry their own
plan of representation in talk. To use the slang
expressions of those good old days, they carried
" The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill."
They thus secured themselves a House of Commons,
planned and secured by themselves. The first elec-
tion at the close of 1832 fully answered all expecta-
tion. It formed a House of Commons in which only
about 150 Conservatives were found; 500 of its mem-
bers professedly supported the " Reform Ministry,"
and of these fully 400 were staunch and obsequious
adherents. When had any Administration Eng-
land or the world ever saw commenced its career
under circumstanced so favourable? "We shall be
too strong, we shall be too strong," was Lord
Brougham's well-known exclamation in those good
old times ; strong indeed for useful action in every
requisite that Administration was. The King wassaid
to be heartily with the Cabinet ; the people had just
shown their confidence by their electoral returns ;
the house was theirs by a majority altogether over-
whelming ; the Peers cowered and waited, not in
friendship, but almost in fear. What became of
this state of things? Will the most exultant sup-
, porter of the Administration of the late Lord Pal-
merston, or of that of Lord Russell, when he was
in office a year ago, venture to deny that the 35
years have made a woeful change, or that few things
could offer a more striking contrast than the paling
state of Whiggism in 1831, 1832, 1833, and 1834,
when, be it observed, as I have now in the course of
my correspondence shown to you, our present learned
Prime Minister was an eminent member of the then
Whig Government, headed by the late Earl Grey
(the very individual who in his youthful days, in
1793, when Mr. Grey, had so highly offended the
ultra-Tory party by going down to the House of
Commons in a blue coat and yellow breeches, when
Louis XVI. of France and nearly all England went
into deep mourning). As I have already said, few
things can offer a more striking contrast than the
palmy state of Whiggism in those days than its despair-
ing plight in 1861,1862, 1863, 1864, 1865, and 1866.
About 14 years ago the late Mr. Cobden published
some letters, headed "France, 1793-1853," showing
the relative difference between the two periods.
Any one might do the same thing regarding 1833
and 1863. 1 will, however, descend from gene-
ralities to particulars, and observe the gradual pro-
gress of this decline, which brought Whiggism to
be the crawling, expiring, clinging, supplicating,
and manoeuvring thing it was this time last year,
when it brought in its last Reform Bill, which
caused its death in June last. As I have already
said in 1833 the Whig Ministry enjoyed a complete
ascendancy in Parliament. The chief diiidenz in