The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-09 00:00:00

THE BESo :LUTIoNs'oN PRECEDENTS

The session of 1860 seems destined to be memor-
able for the changes it has seen, the delusions it has
dissipated, and the principles it has established.
It opened with no feeble promise for the success of
the Radical school of politicians. Powerfully re-
presented in the Cabinet, possessed of the depart-
ments which regulate the finance and watch over
the trade of the country—supported outside by a
body in Parliament which, although not very nume-
rous, could count among its members one great
orator and several promising speakers, and having
the presumption in its favour that the people of
England would be sure to range themselves on the
side of the most democratic policy, Radicalism
seems to have fairer prospects than ever, perhaps, it
had before. At first everything favoured its as-
pirations; the Budget was introduced in a speech '
of transcendent power, and the country was induced
to believe that in a Commercial Treaty with
France we had found the antidote against all future
wars, the lucrative and agreeable substitute for
ships and soldiers, for rifles and cannon. For a
moment the martial spirit of the nation flagged for
a moment it was believed that Mr. Cobden had
charmed to sleep the restless spirit of aggression
which broke forth so fearfully last year on the
banks of the Po and the Mincio. It was but for a
moment. The annexation of Savoy dispersed these
brief delusions of the public mind, and brought us
back face to face once more with the stern reality
of things. The nation began to arm, the Treaty
was allowed to take its course, and thus melted
away the first great dream of 1860—the dream of
an enormous extension of commerce and perpetual
peace.
Then came the Reform Bill. We were told that
public Men were deeply pledged to this measure—
that it would redress the inequalities of our Con-
stitution, and, by establishing it on a broader
foundation, give our Government that stability it
so much needs. Oa the altar of Reform, Radi-
calism sacrificed its favourite nostrum of electoral
districts and household or universal suffrage,
content to gain an instalment of what it desired.
But the country perceived that the faults of our
system, whatever they may be, would be exagge-
rated, instead of diminished, by such a change as
was proposed, and the Reform Bill fell under cir-
cumstances of so much ignominy as to leave but very
indifferent prospects for its successor. Still there
was hope. The Budget of Mr. Gladstone aimed a
deadly blow against the balance between direct
and indirect taxation. The Peers saw the oppor-
tunity of s'indicating their own position, expressing
the will of the nation, and directing a heavy cen-
sure against the author of this financial revolution.
A Money Bill was rejected which, if not the key of
the whole Budget—for we believe it was an addi-
tion tacked on after the scheme was complete—was,
at any rate, a very important portion of it. The
hopes of Radicalism revived once elem. Here at
last was a breach between the two Houses, an op-
portunity for still further humbling and lowering
the non-elective portion of Parliament, and thus
increasing the influence of the unreformed House
of Commons, which it would in its turn hand over
to its regenerated successor. The result of these
anticipations the week that has just passed by has
witnessed. The Resolutions that were proposed
by the Prime Minister were not in themselves of
any great importance ; they were the result of
compromise, and by their vagueness and their
platitudes probably conciliated a support which
would have been denied to more clear and logical
propositions. Lord Palmerston, no doubt, intro-
duced these Resolutions with the consent of his
own Government, and he received by virtue of
that consent their unanimous support ; but the
speech in which he proposed these Resolutions was
of a very different character, and may, indeed, very
possibly, form an epoch in our constitutional
history. Although professedly based on ancient
precedent, the speech took up essentially new
ground with regard to the House of Lords. For
centuries the language of the House of Com-
mons, whenever any dispute has arisen as to the
limits of the jurisdiction of the two branches of
the Legislature, has been that of angry and even
menacing remonstrance. The tradition had not
died out of the days in which the Commons alone
• were the bulwark of the liberties of England, (slid
• when every attempt to check the increase of their
power was treated with an asperity corresponding
to the harshness with which every success against
the popular party was abused. But Lord Palmer-
ston spoke a different language—the language of
moderation and conciliation, dictated by the con-
sciousness of power, and by a consequent in-
difference as to its forms and trappings. The
speech, it must be confessed was not so much
an assault upon, as a vindication of the conduct of
the Lords, containing the most express
admission of their legal right, and very doubtfully
and vzry slightly impugning the manner in which
they had exercised it. Something. at any rate,
there was in it which proved too much for the irri-
table nerves of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Not being exactly able, according to the rules of
official decorum, to attack the head of the Govern-
ment to which he belotir,s, Mr. Gladstone astonished
the House of Coin monsly a violent attack upon the
Opposition for tamely acquiescing in the inactive
course proposed to them by Lord Palmerston. Ile
could not by name censure the head of the Govern-
ment, so he was driven to indemnify himself by
censures against those who did what the head of the
Government wished them. The debate flashed up
again from its embers, and the prospects of the
Radicals once more seemed to brighten, but the
only remarkable result was the eliciting from
Mr. Horsman a speech which will probably be
remembered in future times, as maiking the ex-
treme point to which the tide of Liberalism receded
(luring the days of the great reaction of 1860. So
extravagant were Mr. Horsman's positions, so en-
tirely did he overlook or neglect the established
precedents and doctrines upon which the position
of the House of Lords with reference to the House
of Commons is founded, that he overshot the wishes
and opinions not only of the Tories, but probably of
the Peers themselves, who must have listened with
sonic dismay to an orator claiming on their behalf
privileges and immunities which, if they were the
law of the land, as they happily are not, could not
possibly be tolerated, and must be almost the im-
mediate cause of proceedings more or less revolu
tionarf. The people of this country believe that
tlielo
and thisuseof Peers
withouteershasust rendered them a groat
service,
ovtrstepping the limits
of the powers granted to them by the Con-
stitution ; -but they are not prepared, with
Mr. l torsman, to separate the plea a of repre-
sentation and electioh, or to admit that it is
the duty of the House of Peers to audit the public a
es:vomits and control the inlblic We
have not been slow to justify what the P,"Yrs have
dote while the quest lea was yet doubtful, and we
shall not draw back from that opinion now that our
viou:ofl!to-hYee mouseeeila‘otlf
rf;sliol
n 1 tz t
ceaortid!mbayt oanmlat3ioa.
(sty unprscedently large. But we have been care-
ful to justify our opinion on the ground that the
Peers' act was strictly legal, and the opeasion such
as to render tilpiv ilitdrpslo(lll dpsirable, and not on
any assumed equality between the Lords and Cora-
ryons in their right to deal with gliestions of Miance.
It is enough to justify the ease on its own merits,