The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-26 00:00:00

The Silver Mines of Nevada.

Beyond a passing notice cc a stray paragraph taken
from some American newspaper,
the English public have
learnt little from tho press, and necessarily not much
from any other source of the surprising wealth of the re-
cently discovered silver region of the State of Nevada; and
yet this district which was unsettled and almost unknown five
short years ago, and is yet in an undeveloped state, has
added to the wealth of the world more than £20,000,000
worth of silver, and is now exporting annually an amount
of bar silver equal in value to that produced by all the other
silver mines in the world. Surprising as this statement
may appear, a comparison of the mining statistics wil
prove its correctness. The news of the discovery of gold
in California created an excitement which reached every
obscure village in Europe, while the tidings that certain
parts of Australia were auriferous induced tens of thou-
sands to undertake a long and perilous voyage to a coun-
try then scarcely known; but Nevada, which is already
eclipsing in mining value both these great gold-producing
countries, has grown rapidly but silently, and almost un-
consciously, into a position of so great importance that her
fame cannot much longer be hushed. Perhaps it was that
the roar of battle and the clash of arms in the conflicts of
the two great contending armies so riveted the attention
and deafened our ears that we did not care to learn of the
important though bloodless victories which a few hundred
miningpioneers were achieving in their contest with nature
in the western wilderness. The argentiferous region of Ne-
vada is a great rocky desert stretching from the fertile valleys
and plains of California to the grassy prairies which ter-
minate in Utah. On the desolate mountains and parched
plains of this district is found no green thing to delight
the eye except the monotonous grey sage bush and the
stunted pine. Hero Nature would seem to have erected a
barrier to man's further westward progress. On every
side are plain evidences of volcanic convulsions, salt de-
posits in the crevices of rocks, croppings of granite, with
admixture of sulphur, and in some parts warm springs.
The "Great Salt Lake," on which the Mormons have
chosen to locate their " Promised Land," is perhaps the
most easterly indication of this extensive volcanic region,
and there is every reason to believe that the whole terri-
tory abounds in silver, gold, and copper ore. The subject
of this article is, however, the argentiferous part of Nevada,
which extends from the eastern slope of the "Sierra
Nevadas " to the last of the parallel ranges of mountains
that run from north to south, intersecting the western
part of the state, and which are known as the Toiyabe
range, and stretching from 36 deg. to 41 deg. north lati-
tude. This region, which a few years ago was known only
to the intrepid hunter as the refuge of the grizzly
bear, and was from its sterility and want of game
even avoided by the nomadic aborigines, exported in tho
year 1864 no less than 830,000,000, or £6,000,000 worth of
silver, while in the year 1865 the returns will show, it is
expected, much in excess of the previous year. These re-
sults have been obtained almost without the aid of any
capital or labor, except what could be drawn from the
adjacent prosperous State of California; and, though more
latterly, since the close of the war, the bankers and the
capitalists of New York and other eastern cities have in-
vested largely, thus enabling the miners to obtain im-
proved machinery, yet this movement is so recent that
the result is scarcely seen in the present returns, but will
be unmistakably shown in those of the next and following
years. Villages, towns, and cities have sprung up as if
by magic, and order is as firmly established and law as
much respected as in the older settled States of the At-
lantic seaboard. This mining territory embraces the
"Washoe" or Virginia District on the west, containing the
first discovered and most thoroughly developed mines,
among which is "the Gould and Curry," that has already
produced £3,500,000 of silver; the "Reese River District,"
on the east, which has narrower but richer veins or lodes
than the Washoe, but has not been fully prospected ; the
" Great Basin District," to the south, and the "Humboldt"
to the north of the Reese River, of which district they
are, in fact, continuations, but show wider veins. There
are also an innumerable number of other small districts of
rapidly increasing importance. In the Washes District
the silver is generally found in a native metallic state,
granulated in quartz, while in the eastern districts the vein
rock above water level shows stronger evidences of vol-
canic agencies, and contain oxides and carbonots of the
base metals, with chlorides, bromides, and iodides of silver,
generally known as "chloride ores," while below water
level are found rich sulphuretted silver ores (antimonial and
arsenical), the general term for which is "ruby ores;"
both are easily reducible by crushing, roasting, and amal-
gamating, and the silver obtained is of remarkable
purity. Owing to the difficulties of transit on the
mountainous roads, and from the fact that the Washoe
District is only about 200 :miles from Sacramento, the
capital of California, whence tools and machinery must be
obtained, while Reese River and branches are about 400
miles from this centre, Vao cost per ton for mining and re-
ducing ores at Washes is only about £5, while in the
eastern districts it reaches £8 to £lO. The moans of com-
munication are, however, improving, and it is expected
that the western arm of the Pacific Railroad, which is to
unite the towns of Eastern Nevada with San Francisco, will
be finished during the present year, while a few years more
years will witness the completion of the eastern arm of this
railroad, and will place the mining districts of the west
within five days of the Atlantic seaboard. At the present
the carriage of silver bars from the mines and of machinery
to the mines in eastern Nevada amounts to about five-
pence per lb., a sum which, though insignificant when
compared with the value of the silver bars, is often suffi-
cient to double the cost of machinery. A favourable fea-
ture is that the roads by which the silver is transmitted
are so safe that bars for San Francisco can be insured for
a half per cent. Agents of San Francisco bullion dealers
are also always ready to purchase at the mines. It is well
to bear in mind that the cost of working the ores is steadily
diminishing as improved methods are adopted and more

mills are put into operation. Twelve months ago Reese
River ores that did not yield $BO to the ton could not be
worked at a profit, but now ores that promise $5O per
ton are sent to the mill for reduction, while the ore that is
estimated to be below this return is carefully stored for
future working, when labor transit and :machinery shall
be cheaper. It is supposed that at the present time not
more than two-thirds of the silver is extracted by the
process in general use, and so well is this now understood
that several cargoes of the richest ores have been sent to
San Francisco, and have there been shipped for reduction
to Swansea, South Wales.

It is stated that most of the ores worked at the celebrated
silver mines of Freiberg, in Saxony, usually considered
the richest in Europe, are inferior to the Nevada ores that
are stored as unfit for milling. Much of the ore mined is
of surprising richness, specimen tons assaying in some
cases $3,000 to $5,000, but the average of the richest and
best paying mines of Washoe does not exceed $65 per ton,
and those of Reese River about $l5O per ton. At these
returns very satisfactory results are obtained.

Perhaps a few figures, which will show the result. of the
workings of a few mines, may be of interest. In the year
1864 the " Gould and Curry" reduced 65,000 tons, which
yielded $4,898,000 ; the " Orphir " 1,800 tons, which
yielded $1,012,365 ; the " Empire " 25,000 tons, and
$1,043,720, the average yield per ton was $65 ; the average
cat of working these Washoe mines was about $2O per
ton. The average cost of working the following mines,
which are in the eastern part of the State, was from $4O to
$BO per ton; the "Little California," in the eight months
ending July, 1865, crushed 693 tons, worth $159,630, or an
average of $230 per ton ; in 1864 the " Oregon " crushed
1,500 tons at an average of $2OO per ton; the "Midas'
averaged $230 per ton ; the "Custom Mill " $l7l per ton:;
the %Plato " in 1864 paid dividends each:month of $1,335 ;
"The Bowers," which is only 12 feet long, was rented at
$144,000 for the year, and the tenant found it profitable ;
the " Gould and Curry," which might during the past few
years have been bought for $lO,OOO, divided in 1864 among
its stockholders $1,080,000 ; the " Yellow Jacket " paid in
dividends in 1864 $1,440,000; the "Savage" paid in divi-
dends in 1864 $720,000; the "Empire Mill" during the
year built a mill and works at a cost of $300,000, and paid
in dividends over $1,043,720. It would be easy to quote
a multitude of other instances to show the enormous
wealth of this region, but perhaps a few general statistics
may be more to the point. In the year 1864 the whole of
the capital employed in the Reese River district returned
on an average 30 per cent., this being the first year in
which that district had been worked ; and as much of the
labour was preparatory, this, as an average return, must
be regarded as satisfactory. Nevada for 1864 shows that
the Washoe District, with a population of 20,000, produced
$24,000,000 of silver, or an average of $lOO or 420 per
month for every man, woman, and child in the district.
No mining district in the world will compare with this.
In 1864 the product of each stamp per day in Washoe
was nearly $45 ; in " Reese River " above $lOO ; while
the remunerative mines of California realised $l2 to $l5
per stamp, and Colorado $8 per stamp.—Anylo-American
Times.

North and South America.

The .New York Times says :—ln a country like
the United States, so vast in its extent, so diver-
sified in its soil and climate, and so rich and varied
in its capabilities, there must of necessity be a wide
divergence in the character and in the results of
the industry which is fostered in different por-
tions of the land. The welfare of each locality
and community is secured by the adaptation of
its enterprise to that which is most favoured
by actual causes and local conditions ; and al-
though these may be modified and partially coun-
teracted, they must be regarded, and cannot but
be greatly influential. With these varied circum-
stances, and with the advancement of the interests
which they suggest and promote, it is not strange
that a feeling should spring up here and there not
only of attachment to particular interests, but of
hostility to such as are or may be supposed to be
rival or antagonistic to them. Such a feeling is
the result of a disposition which too strongly exists
in all of us, to magnify the importance of our own
concerns, and to depreciate the affairs of others ;
and it may be, and probably is, greatly intensified by
leaders of public opinion, who, for any purpose, seek
to turn popular prejudices to their own account.
From one great internal strife the nation is only
now just beginning to recover. The North and
the South found themselves as sections arrayed
against each other, and nothing but war could se-
cure a settlement and restore amity. The question,
however, upon which they joined issue, was not one
of climate or of products, or of rivalry in trade.
Many would fain have made it appear to le so,
and they charged upon cotton on the one hand or
upon commerce and manufactures on the other, the
fatal division which led to such bloody strife. The
cause of the struggle lay far below the surface ; it
was between two systems historically and eternally
opposed to each other ; between ideas in political
economy and in morals which could never become
reconciled, and between which no lasting truce
was possible. The principles which regulated la-
bour in the Slave States, and those which were ope-
rative in the Free States, could never co-exist on
terms of equality, or indeed tolerate the presence of
each other within one nation. That conflict has
been settled once for all, civilisation triumph-
ing over feudalism, the rights of the masses
over the claimed prerogatives of the few. Be-
tween this terrible dissension which threatened
schism, and the differences of opinion which are
now manifesting themselves in the East, the West,
and the South, upon questions of a purely indus-
trial and commercial nature, there is of course a
broad distinction. And yet the remembrance that
just such questions were made the pretext to a
very considerable extent for the attempted seces-
sion of the South, and that they were accepted by
many of the less enlightened as valid reasons for
secession, should warn every portion of the country
separately, and every patriotic citizen personally,
against the adoption of views in political economy,
which are circumscribed, selfish or exclusive, and
against bitterness of spirit in the maintenance of
the opinions which a particular experience, or a
given field of observation, may have tended to
form. But we ask for something more than toler-
ance in this regard. We insist that these several
and separate interests are much more in harmony
with each other than is generally supposed ; in fact,
that they are essential to each other. The health-
ful prosperity of all is not only not inconsistent
with the welfare of each, but it is dependent upon
this. Our national wealth, present and pro-
spective, demands that these varying resources
and conditions be fairly and duly watched over,
for it is in this variety that the peculiar promise of
our future wealth largely consists. The United
States certainly would not attain to the highest
point of material success if all the people should
become agriculturists, or all manufacturers, or all
merchants. If all were to devote themselves to
one branch of industry, what a ruinous surfeit
there would be of the article produced, and what
an equally ruinous dearth there would be of every-
thing else. The diversity of our industry, which
varies with every parallel of our latitude, multi-
plies our ability and our strength. The interior
cannot do without the seacoast ; the manufacturer
cannot do without the miller, the producer cannot
do without the consumer. They are all interde-
pendent upon each other ; they are all certain in
the long run to benefit each other ; they belong to
one vast industrial community ; all are but parts
of one stupendous whole.

BELGIUM AND Mrxico. Senor Romero in
October last addressed Secretary Seward a letter saying :
—" As a proof of the feelings of the Belgian people in re-
gard to the question now debating on Mexican soil, I have
tbe honour of transmitting to you for the information of
the Government of the United States a copy of a commu-
nication I received from the Liberal Union of the Civic
Guard of Liege, dated the 11th of August last, together
with a copy of the resolutions passed. the day before by
that association, protesting against the proposal of Lieu-
tenant-General Peetincex, commander of the Civil Guard
of Brussels, to erect a monument to the memory of the
Belgians who fell in action at Tacumbaro, in the Mexican
Republic, on the 11th of April, 1865, because they lost
their lives in a cause opposed to liberty, and in contradic-
tion to the efforts the Belgians made in 1830 to gain their
independence. Secretary Seward, on the 24th of January,
addressed Senor Romeio a note, asking him to accept his
thanks for the courtesy in communicating the interesting
paper to the Department.
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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

_,._

" THE LONDON REVIEW" ON EPICUREAN POETRY.
—ln one of those Round-about papers in which
Thackeray's humour went engagingly slippered, the
author of " Vanity Fair" said upon the whole he
rather liked his novels " hot." It is supposed he
meant a story with a movement in which the dry
sticks of incident are rubbed so briskly together
that a certain narrative caloric is evolved in the
process. There is, however, another sort of literary
heat which prevails in a modern school of poetry, and
which we have made free to set down under the
above heading. This is put hot in the mouth after
the fashion rather of French than of English
writers. Most assuredly there is a licence for say-
ing things in verse against which people would close
their ears in prose, and critics seem to encourage
this upon the ground that poetry is the " Casta
Diva ;" that what she unveils is veiled in innocence,
and clothed in purity ; that she can say no wrong
nor think it. Of course there are more intelligent
judges who explain their leniency upon sounder
principles, but in the main the indulgence which on
this plea was claimed for the critics of " Don Juan,"
is permitted to versifiers of our time who dabble in
the same sort of wine and water. We should the
more guard against this, for despite the free draught
of opinion which keeps our moral atmosphere healthy
there are from time to time whiffs of another kind,
voluptuous gales and winds laden with the patter of
dancers' feet, and the voices of actresses degraded
by their own manager into " the handsomest women
in England," who can be seen for the money. It
behoves us at any price to keep art out of the gut-
ter, and to have its vestal flame and vestal votaries
as high examples, and a protest against the grosser
life. Sensuousness in poetry is deplorably fre-
quent. It is an excess, too, from which no
good can come. It is barren of thought and
fancy, and is both emasculating and effeminate.
Though not so bad as the tropes of Killigrew,
Rochester, or Davenant, it just inclines towards
them. We have had poems published in London
within the last few years in which women were
treated as poses plastiques. We must use plain
words on this subject, and the phrase which denotes
the most shameful spectacle of our day is the only
one to express our meaning here. Those produc-
tions were issued from houses of the first respecta-
bility, and of course the authors composed them in
that complete mail of modesty which so envelopes
the soul within that the body can walk nude and
unabashed without. Those who viewed too closely
the immaculate muse were Peeping Toms. They
frolicked in a guileless way those Cyprian poets,
and carried out their literary naturalism in the pure
spirit of intellectual White Quakers. We believe
this epicurean poetry to be originally the reaction
of della Cruscanism. In the latter the sex were
unsexed into abstractions, and every woman was
either a nymph or an angel, while a lover could
embrace nothing but a cloud. In the former we
have Romeo communicating his own fever to Juliet,
incoherent with passion, his lips trembling with
voluptuous epithets, and his language perpetually
playing wanton with desire. Shelley, Coleridge,
and Keats, in their eagerness to upset the poetry of
the full-bottomed wig period, cultivated this emo-
tive sensuality just as the Greeks might have done,
condensing even still more the feelings which the
Greeks had fixed in marble and legend into a per-
sonal and fervid enjoyment of existence and of the
poetry of earth which Keats in his daring paganism
pronounced immortal. Coleridge's " Christabel,"
which Leigh Hunt says the very letters are
descriptive, is exactly a case in point ; so is
Keat's " Eve of St. Agnes." We have then the
laureate taking up the running, his sympathies
however being too catholic to be trammelled ; he
could wake from the dream of fair women to enlist
us in the columns of the six hundred. Tenny-
son has tricks of thought which have now been
as closely imitated as Pope's metre. Some of them
have been cleverly adapted to the feeble spinets of
our poetlings, others have been stretched and mon-
strously enlarged by men of talent who can harp
with considerable power on one string. These
latter are the principal writers of the epicurean
poetry. As we put no faith in moral salamander-
ism, we cannot hold that such works are innocuous.
They are evil, not from what they say, but for what
they suggest. Coarseness may be guarded against,
and the bane is its own antidote to most well-bred
people; but this elegant impurity is infinitely more
dangerous. It extends our experience into very
hazardous quarters. It is not improbable that
there is a class for whom it would be hard to write
too high—a class who desire stimulants, and books
with enough of cynicism to stir a tired palate, and
enough of impropriety to give the dish a wild game
flavour ; but for the great middle class and gentry
of this country, a craving for such literature would
indicate a social evil very difficult to eradicate. It
is not pleasant to see a Menken sort of Godiva
hoisted upon every Pegasus with poets to urge the
steed into his paces as they do the horses on. the
Roman racecourse. There is a radical looseness in
criticism which is unquestionably responsible for
the appearance of this at all. We wonder ladies
can tolerate the impertinences of those writers who
allude to them with such an immodest freedom. It
can scarcely be possible they like it, and yet they
never complain of it, although they give us their
opinions through the press on other subjects libe-
rally enough. They surely are most aggrieved. We
have seen verses extracted from those boudoir favou-
rites, and set in the infamous collections which
emanate from the literary stews of Holywell-street.
We have kept this fact for the last, and commend it
to the careful attention of the writers and readers of
epicurean poetry.
" THE SATURDAY REVIEW), ON THE WEAK
GOVERNMENT.—There was a time in our Parliamen-
tary history when the Ministers of the Crown gave
their votes, or proposed measures of public policy,
in either house, as independent members of Parlia-
ment rather than as members of a united Govern-
ment. The period of Charles 11. and of William
111. abounds in instances of Ministers acting, not onlyindependent of each of other, but even in oppo-
sition to each other, and with the least possible re-
gard for theinterest of the country, though fre-
quently with a strong regard for the interests of the
Crown or the wishes of the monarch. Such a state
of things was probably natural in the early days of
youthfulinstitutions, impatient to develope an im-
mature vigour. But whatever strength might be
indicated by this practice, or whatever independence
it might seem to argue on the part of individual
Ministers, it was certainly incompatible with the
harmony and stability of Government. However
necessary freedom of speech may be, and however
desirable fulness of speech may be, in an assembly
which derives its title from its speaking qualities,
the world soon found out that, like everything else,
this attribute was good only at certain times
and under certain limitations. It might be as
amusing as a play or as instructive as a
schoolman's thesis to hear a Lord President
inveigh against a Lord Treasurer, or a Secretary
for one department launch his indignation against
the secretary for another ; but the system which
permitted such diversions wasted power which, hus-
banded and concentrated, would be invaluable for
the maintenance of- national greatness and the asser-
tion of national honour. It has been only rarely
since the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty that
the unity of a Cabinet has been disjointed and its
strength impaired by the personal vanity, jealousy,
or intrigue of its members, and their disregard of
that discipline which welds them into one organic
whole. The same principle which exacts joint ac-
tion exacts also initiatory action. A very little
experience sufficed to demonstrate that an Admi-
nistration which owed its existence to Parliament
was better qualified to direct legislation than the
ablest or most zealous unofficial members acting with
fragmentary and desultory concert. No private
members of Parliament can have the influence or
the following that a Government can command ;
and, speaking generally, no measure which does not
emanate from the Government is likely to have half
the support which is given to one that is stamped
with the authority of Government. If there is one
truism more familiar than another, it is the truism
that the Queen's Government is expected to initiate
the most important measures of national legisla-
tion. It is a truism, however, which her
Majesty's present Ministers seem either to
have forgotten or never to have known. At
the present moment we seem to be drifting back to
some paheozoic period of Parliamentary history,
when Cabinets illustrated the beauties of internal
dissension, and legislation exemplified by turns the
purpose of half a Ministry or the fitful vigour of an
Opposition. Two great subjects are occupying the
public mind. One has forced itself on our attention
by its magnitude and its terrors. The other has
been dangled before our eyes for months by the
Ministry. On both of these it was only charitable
to suppose that the Administration had some fixed
idea and some concerted plan. Yet on both of them
it seems as uncertain and irresolute as if it were not
the responsible Government of the Queen, but a
fortuitous concourse of irresponsible private mem-
bers. From the day of the Queen's Speech
the conduct of Ministers has been one continu-
ous course of uncertainty, want of purpose, and
want of will. For four or five months they have
seen a murrain of appalling destructiveness grow in
strength and extent until half the country is scared
with the prospect of actual famine ; yet, when Par-
liament met, they had no bill ready to meet the
urgent calamity. After Parliament met, and mem-
bers in both Houses had demanded the intervention
of the Government, a bill was brought forward
stamped with the parental features of indecision
and perplexity. It soon became apparent that
all its main principles were to be dictated by
the Opposition, or by independent members.

The Government Commissioners had pointed out
the inefficacy of the ordinary remedial measures;
Analogy and com.non sense had shown thet
;
the only hope of staying'the pest lay in stamping it
out. Yet all the provisions designed for this end
have been inserted, suggested, or essentially altered,
by members unconnected with the Government:
Isolation, slaughtering, compensation, suspension of_
railway transit, restrictions on the movement of
cattle on the high roads—all these are wholly et
partly due to members speaking in their personal
capacity, not to the Cabinet as an entirety. De"+,
this is not all. While the Government introduces
and carries one bill for the abatement of the infer"
tion, a private member introduces and tarn.
,
another bill for purposes closely connected, and
fact almost identical with those of the former. ye
suspect that there is no precedent for two biloi
supplementary to each other, being concurrently
introduced by a Cabinet and a private member o
Parliament. Nor is there, so far as we can see, any
justification for a practice so unusual. The Go'
vernment has the amplest means of collecting In'
formation from all quarters; it has the greatest.re-
sources of organising inspection and repression.
It, therefore, should charge itself with the day,
of preparing those enactments the execution
which will mainly devolve upon itself. By shirk'
ing this duty it disregards the traditions of
English government, and tends to throw Par-
hament back into that legislative chaos from
which it has for nearly two centuries been
happily emancipated. To complete the speetuel
of imbecility, when the Ministerial Bill had reached
quiet haven of the Lords' Committee, up jumped
a noble hanger-on of the Government with al
amendment directed, like Mr. Bright's unsuccessful
onslaught, to the enfeebling of that curative extll;
pation of the disease on which the Commons had;
insisted ; and he succeeded in scoring the vote e'
the Privy Seal and the voice of the Postmaster,'
General against their colleagues, their own bill, and
the effective stamping out of the rinderpest. -Lee
apologists of the Ministry will doubtless tell us thet
the details of a Cattle Bill involve no grab
constitutional principle ; that it matters 100
whether a Government or an individual pre"
poses to isolate healthy, and slaughter infected
beasts. 'The answer is, that the Government
of the country ought not to be above attend-
ing to anything which may mitigate a great national
calamity, and that it abdicates one of its chief fa"'
tions when it transfers this duty to unofficial Per-
sons. The apology, moreover, is defective in its
basis. Weaknesses generally run in couples, and
the weakness of the present Administration is n°
exception to a rule of universal application. The
same doubt and vacillation which are exhibited
with respect to the cattle disease are exhibited
with respect to a Reform Bill. Lord Russell IS
besieged by anxious deputations at the Treasu rig
and Mr. Gladstone is solicited by ingenious
inquirers in Parliament ; but the importunate
labours of each are equally in vain. The oral?.
of the Lower House is as inscrutable as that
of the Upper. The conclusion at which ordinary
people have arrived is, that Ministers have made up
their minds just as little on the Reform question aS
they had done on the Cattle question, and that they
will trust themselves to the current of events in the
one case, as they have trusted themselves in
other. A Reform Bill, it is assumed, there mu'
be ; not because the educated intelligence and enter'
prising opulence of the country have clamoured for
it, but because the Whigs have talked themselves
into it, and are now entangled in the meshes (?1
their own promises. But up to this moment it IS
believed that no three members of the Cabinet are
agreed as to what ought to be the nature of the
bill. Is it to he a single-barrelled or a double-bar-
relled bill ? Is there to be a lateral or only a ver-
tical extension of the suffrage ? Is this to be accom-
panied by a redistribution of seats; or are the ope-
ratives of the great Northern cities to be made more
powerful than ever, and the operatives of other
towns to remain just as they are new ? These are
the questions which people ask, and which the
Ministry apparently leave to time, to chance, and
the development of opinion in the House of Com-
mons. If no one should appear to take much rote"
rest in the matter, then, doubtless, the smallest of mice
will creep out of the mountain of Whig promises*
But if, on the other hand, the artisans should glue
signs of genuine excitement, if educated men should
begin generally to take an active interest in the quee.
tion, and the desire for a really comprehensive mea-
sure to manifestitself in the House of Commons, then
we may expect that on some afternoon towards
Easter Mr. Gladstone will come down to the house
determined to outvie Mr. Bright in a studied eulogy
on the virtues of the working-man, and a rhetorical
panegyric on the progress of democracy. This Os"
tem is undoubtedly very convenient to Minister!.
It saves a world of trouble both in thinking and 11
drafting acts. Mr. Gladstone probably is prepare'
to prove by the finest of arguments that it is in ex
act conformity to the genius of the British Consti-
tution. But although it would be unconstitutional,
even if it were not impossible, for any Administra-
tion to govern the country without possessing the
confidence of the House of Commons, this confi-
dence is not to be earned by the trimming and tune:
serving obsequiousness which the present Government
so persistently displays. The house expects the
Minister to lead it, but Mr. Gladstone is now follow'
ing rather than leading it. The novelty of this pre;
cedure may possibly have a temporary charm ; but
it can only be temporary. Those only who reaPe'
themselves succeed in winning the respect of others'
No Government which voluntarily cedes its own
._
right of initiating legislation to the casual occupant"
of the Opposition and independent benches can,.
count on long retaining its own position. 1-1°
Government can hope to be either respected otr
supported which allows its members to vote against)
each other on momentous questions. And 11,.,
Government would bequeath to history a re°.+.l,
ignoble memory than one which, by paltering i,"„
the manifest duties of its station, brought back Div-
a busy and earnest age the discords, intrigues, CO
tradictions, and corruptions which nearly choked
the vitality of Parliament in the latter years of tbe
Stuart dynasty.