The Press. — 1858-07-10 (London, England)

WIDE AND SOLID BASIS."  "Tr is the interest of the Government to obtain the widest possible support." So says the Standard ; and the fact is undeniable, whoever may be the propounder. Our wish, too, is, that the Government may take that course which will secure for it " the widest possible support." Indeed, without a large amount of popular support, no Government in England can long continue to exist. To object to a Government's propitiating as far as possible the support of the people, is to recommend it to commit suicide. There is no difference, then, between ourselves and the Standard as to the end in view; but we differ considerably as to the means. We both desire that the Ministry should propitiate public opinion. But how is this to be done? "By conceding the Jewish claims," says the Standard. Yet, in our view, the Government loses ten times as much popular support, by conceding those claims, as it can possibly gain. If a question is to be conceded because some persons loudly and pertinaciously press it, the abolition of Church-rates had far greater recommendations than the alteration of the Jewish oath. Not a score of petitions had been presented for the admission of Jews to Parliament, but the petitions for the total abolition of Church-rates were more than seventeen hundred! If concession is thought the surest way to popular support, it might have seemed more politic to concede to the seventeen hundred than to the seventeen.  they, let us shut our eyes ;—walk, as much as possible, in his footsteps, and take our chance of falling as he fell. The favourite idea, in some quarters, seems to be that a policy of concession is a wise policy for a Conservative Government. A policy, we mean, of concession of principle. We are told to hope that such a policy will accord with " the wishes of the country," and will gain "the widest possible support." Now this notion, we boldly assert, is opposed to the whole experience of the last five and twenty years. The history of the Conservative party teaches an exactly opposite lesson. The Conservative party was formed, in 1834-5, expressly to maintain, and to defend. Lord MELBOURNE'S Government had avowed its intention of " appropriating " some of the revenues of the Church of Ireland to educational purposes. The Conservative Leaders, Sir ROBERT PEE!., Lord DERBY, and Sir JAMES GRAHAM, united, for the first time, in withstanding that attempt. The first effort of the Conservative party was directed to defend and maintain the Protestant Church in Ireland.  PEEL, in his early days,—his reforming days,— and not in his later, is that which every Conservative Minister would do well to follow. We are now told that the " descent before no is not precipitous." We have no doubt that it commences gradually enough. It is all the more to be dreaded. But what alarms any discerning Conservative is, that we should be urged to begin any descent at all. We wish to make our Christianity, as a nation, more emphatic, more decided, —not less so. We wish to make our National Churches more effective,—not less so. We wish to raise the tone of morals and of religion. We wish, in fine, to have no downward steps—no flirtations with democracy ; because we believe, upon the testimony of all experience, that the overthrow of a well-balanced and ancient constitution leads, not to freedom, but to confusion, to anarchy, and, at last, to despotism.  But again we ask, As we desire the Government to gain popular support, by what means is that support to be gained ? And here we know no way of arriving at a just conclusion so safe or so sure as the old trodden path of experieZa docet.  It is just five and twenty years since the Conservative party was firstformed. Sir ROBERT PEEL had ruined the good old name of Tory by his foolish weakness and his still more foolish stubbornness. He gave way on a question involving religious principle, and thereby offended all the earnest Protestants in the empire. He then made a firm stand for the rotten boroughs, whose preservation could involve nothing higher than expediency ; and by these two blunders he made the name of Tory thoroughly distasteful to the people. He had conceded when he ought to have been firm, and had stood firm when he ought to have conceded. He had acuteness enough to see the necessity of taking up new ground. Waiting two or three years, therefore, for an opportunity, he commenced a new party under the title of " Conservative." The history of that party is known to all men who have reached the middle of an ordinary life. We know when and how it bean, when and how it flourished, and when and how it drooped and declined. The causes of its prosperity, and of its decline, are palpable, and entirely beyond all question. Commonplace men would say that this brief history ought to be of great use to us; and that the facts of the rise of the Conservative party, and of its decline, ought to regulate mainly our present course of politics. But some men who would hardly like to be thought commonplace, seem to consider that it is better to forget all the chief facts of the history of political parties since the passing of the Reform Bill, and to work out some new and ingenious scheme of politics, wholly independent of the lessons of the past. It will be more expedient, they seem to think, to forget as much as possible the whole history of the last five and twenty years, and to act as if none of those facts or changes were of the least importance to us. Sir ROBERT PEEL reduced himself; in five short years, from being the leader of three hundred and eighty members of the House of Commons, to a condition of desertion, disregard, and almost contempt ; yet our wouldbe tutors tell us that it is not worth while to ask how this wonderful fall came about, or what were the errors he committed. Rather, say