The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-28 00:00:00

',SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC.JQI7ZNALS.

The Saturday Review says that Mr. Disraeli has been
compared by some of his critics to Louis Napoleon, and
whatever similarity there is between unscrupulous
pleaded in
favour of that comparison.• But upon the newspapers of
their party the rule of these two potentates does produce
a very similar effect. It is as hard to get at genuine Con-
servative opinion, undoctored by whips or agents, as it is
to get at Imperialist opinion which owes nothing to the
inspiration of the Minister of the Interior. We do not
know what the mass of unofficial Conservatives, who have
got nothing and have nothing to get, think of the success
which has attended the brilliant manoeuvres of 1867 ; but
we shall now try to conjecture what they feel, or at any
rate what they ought to feel. It is not very easy for out-
side observers to penetrate the inarticulate thoughts of the
country squires in Parliament whose docility passed the
Reform Bill of that year. Their intellectual processes
will always remain to a great extent inscrutable. We
learned on that occasion that Mr. Disraeli can cajole them
by pretences flimsier than have been used by any similar
artist in that line since the days of Titus Oates. We can-
not be certain, therefore, how far the rude shock of the
last fortnight has awakened them even now. But even
the spectators at a country fair require some kind of coarse
success from the mountebank they are watching ; and one
would think that all the ingenious consolations of Mr.
Noel and Mr. Spofforth would be inadequate to neutralise
the figures which meet their eyes every morning now.
This at least, it should seem, is clear, that as far as elec-
tioneering results go, the course which Mr. Disraeli has
taken is as damaging to the Conservatives as any course
could possibly have been. Lord Derby laid it down that
the great object of his Reform policy was " to take such
measures as should turn his minorityinto a majority." Mr.
Disraeli told them that be had resisted the line of £7, and
accepted household suffrage, " because that measure would
not injure the Conservative party." By promises such as
these, scattered still more lavishly in private, the
Conservative members, up to their ears in anti-
democratic pledges, voted enthusiastically for the
platform of the most extreme Reformers in
the House. The " dodge" has ridiculously failed.
The Conservatives appeared to believe with such a placid
confidence that their leader's tortuous course was guiding
them to victory, that many of their opponents were
inclined to think there must be something in it after all.
At all events it was premature to draw any conclusion as
to the wisdom of their course as long as that confidence
was undisturbed. Now, however, it is safe to say that of
all the hallucinations that ever vexed a political party,
theirs stands easily at the head. The moral of it is that
respectable country squires should not try finessing. No
doubt they did it in good faith, under the advice of those
who had reasons for the advice they gave. The distance
between Liberal and Conservative is much the same as it
was before ; but both bodies have travelled in three years
over ground that, under less clever management, might
have occupied a generation. That achieveinent completes
the advantages which Mr. Disraeli has conferred on the
cause he was employed to save. To have changed a
majority of sixty into a majority of a hundred ; to have
changed their opponents from a rabble into a disciplined
host ; and to have made the Liberals into Radicals, is
about the net result to the Conservatives of the Con-
servative strategy of 1867.

The Spectator thinks the election will convince Liberals
—leaders, members, and editors all alike—of the wretched
folly of neglecting the counties any longer. They have
thought effort useless because the constituency was so
narrow. It was useless to argue, or teach, or lecture,
while a few families could, if combined, drive a majority of
the fifty-pounders to the poll. They have consequently
neglected the counties, have allowed the small county
papers to fall into inferior hands, have taught nobody, have
treated all county claims with a listless attention strongly
contrasted with their zeal in removing every commercial
grievance. They have offered the farmers nothing, not
even a patient hearing, and have allowed the Tories to
spread far and wide the idea that they represented the great
"agricultural interest," the interest which of all others
most keenly feels any even accidental grievance. Men
who at best hope only for an average eight per cent. feel
an addition to rates, an injustice about educational grants,
a special tax, a defect of communication, as tradesmen
who expect thirty cannot do, while from the constitution
of English society they are of all men least liable to feel
the contagion of new ideas. The Liberal chiefs must exert
themselves to educate the counties, to chew themselves
distinctly favourable to freedom in the corn manufacture,
to spread ideas, to infuse a leaven of liberality into the
country clergy ; above all, to remove the impression that
they, like the writers in Punch, think a man a fool because
he dresses in a way most suitable to his own business. If
this election startles the Liberals into a new attitude
towards the counties, an attitude of greater liberality, justice,
and sympathy, this year's defeat will yet be worth to then
many victories.

According to the Imperial Review the sketch Mr. Glad-
stone has given of himself and of the growth and develop-
ment of his opinions, is one that will tend to confirm pre-
vailing impressions as to his unfitness for the work of
practical politics. Mr. Gladstone is, in only too great a
degree, "a dreamer of dreams - born out of his due time."
The curious irresoluteness of temperament, the fanciful
subtlety in speculation, the indefinite character of his
views, the instability of his opinions, the plasticity of
intellect that receives all impressions and retains none,
are all traits that debar him from success in statesman-
ship. Ile has been drifting all his life, without clear
convictions to guide his course, only moved by
confused and often conflicting sympathies, of a somewhat.
feminine incoherence and a more than feminine intensity.
If the " Chapter of Autobiography" were to be generally
read, the faith of not a few of his ardent admirers in his
infallibility would be shaken. But life is short, and Mr.
Gladlitone's deliverances, written as well as oral, are very
long. And it is to be feared that the present statement
will not receive' the attention that those who hesitate to
accord political confidence to the member for Greenwich
would desire it to gain.

The London Review remarks.: How flavourless hence-
forward the dish of parliamentary salad ! Vanished the
vinegar and the oil, the pepper and the sugar, the calm
wisdom of Mill, the tart virulence of Roebuck, the elabo-
rate staginess of Horsman's oratory, the pungent humour
of Osborne. Reporters shall strain their ears no more to
catch the rapid • utterances which so inadequately con-
veyed the close and masterful thought of the first thinker
of the age. The. scornful index finger, downward point-
ing, of the rejected of Sheffield, shall have no opportunity
of rousing Tory cheers as it indicates " the right hon.
gentleman the member for Greenwich." Mr. Roebuck's
behaviour in the last Parliament disgusted all parties,
even the Tories, on whom he fawned, as he had lawnee
before on Louis Napoleon. His intemperate attacks on
the working men discredited the Trades Union Commis•
sion ; and his alliance during the recent contest at Sheffiel,l
with the Broadhead faction proved how little hones:
earnestness had underlain his former attacks upor
the unions in Sheffield. The bad taste of his speech at
the banquet to Mr. Reverdy Johnson had also something
to do with his rejection; but the main reason of his defeat
was the same that procured Mr. Osborne's—the un-
certainty of his Liberalism. This also completed Mr.
Horsman's overthrow, in spite of some forced advances to
the Democratic party. Stroud was not to be purchased
by one of the leaders of the Adullamite revolt, even when
he bid so high as to offer the whole House of Peers at a
sacrifice. And throughout the country the same tern per
prevailed. Adullamy is dead and buried ; the party dis-
cipline among Tories and Liberals is stronger now than it
has been since the repeal of the Corn Laws. The causes
of Mr. Mill's rejection at Westminster we have already
incidentally alluded to. His noblest public acts and his
gravest public errors, his eminence as a speculative
philosopher, and his private theological opinions, all con-
tributed to eject him from the representation of the City
of the Swells. His prosecution of Mr. Eyre, his advocacy of
Mr. Chadwick's claims and of Mr. Bradlaugh, and his
recognised position as the leader of the Rationalistic
school of thought in England, alienated, jointly and
severally, some powerful sections of electors who are
usully classed as Liberals. It is unnecessary here to say
how great a blow to the prestige and true worth of the
House of Commons we consider Mr. Mill's defeat, It is
now, for the present, irreversible and irreparable. Mr.
Mill is among the beaten candidates—a significant fact
enough, when we look at roue of those who have been
successful.

The John Bull says that never has her Majesty done e.
more- popular act—rarely so graceful a one—as in making
Mrs. Disraeli a peeress in her own right. The great
champion of Church and State could not be spared from
the House of Commons for many a long year, and the
Queen rightly felt that to wait till he might retire as Earl.
of Hughenden, to the calmer atmosphere of the House of
Lords, before she expressed her sense of his distinguished
services, would be a slight on the services he has rendered
the ,Crown and nation amidst unparalleled difficulties and
un;crupulons opposition. It is a trite saying that great
men have very often commonplace wives, but the history
of modern English statesmen would seem to disprove it.
The'influence Lady Palmerston exercised on the political
world was very considerable ; and if Mrs. Disraeli and
Mrs. Gladstone have made their influence less directly
felt; buth we believe to have nhared most completely in the
sorrows and joys of their husbands' varying fortunes.
:IN;une who heard Mr. Disraeli's speech at the great Edin-
burgh banquet, in which he said he owed all his success in
life to his wife, and Mr. BaiUie Cochrane's testimony to
her virtues, can doubt that amidst the unceasing harass
of a staternan's life, especially of une who has risen by his
own exertions and has had to encounter untiring jealousy,
Mrs. Disraeli has been the judicious adviser, the
Inin/steripg angel, of the stal,:.stuan- whose merits an
Admiring VO4Vgity, ontovorArixe will
appr@cilitv,