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    [ O ¦ times 4gg The Leader and Saturday ...

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    THE PHIVILEGES OP THE COMMONS. rpHE day ...

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    The Gladstone Hash. Whate Vtsr Be Theres...

    ZSFow his failure ia plainly and exclusively due to the complexity , fastness , and inconsistencies of his scheme . Since February trade has . increased ,. and the reveniue has increased . The whole nation is now extremely prosperous .. Even the shipping , interest has ceased * to grumble . In the first three month * of tlie year , iJhe British tonnage entered inwards and outwacdsr waa 133 y 9 5 2 . tons in excess of 1859 . Thewarehouseaiof Liwecpobl are iaasud ^ ei eatfor fehe imports ^ the capitalists , of Lancashire want labourers ; , the farmers want hamlsv and there : is every probability that , tiie revenue : will exceed in the ensuing - year * as it exceeded , in . the year which has just elapsed , the Chancellor ' s estimates / What is . it-then which , in spite of Mr . Gladstone ' * great talents and commandingeloquence , makes him . always fail ?

    , The man seems to us a series- of contradictions . He w-as educated in the diligence of the counting-house and the Toryism of Oxford . He can master minute points of grammar and casuistry , but not great principles . His mind ia extremely subtle , but not " profound . It was imbued with servility to authority ¦ w hen that was the fashion , while his public life has-been a eonstrained submission to principles of freedom . These he was bred up to counteract ,, and cannot therefore understand them . His reverence for the doctrines of the Church exceeds his reverence

    for the rights of humanity . Obliged by circumstances to prof ess liberality , or cease to be a ' -politician ,, he desires one thing and is compelled to dp another . The teaching of college and the teaching : of the world have given him a double aim , which he cannot reconcile . Excessively active , and equally ambitious , he is continually engaged in finding out and expressing reasons for contradictory lines of policy . He has always apparently more to hide than to express , and confuses himself as well as his hearers "by his many explanations .

    His Capacity is great , but being neither a stubborn adherent to usage , nor an enlightened advocate of progress—for ever trimming betwixt them , he is for ever employed in a subtle advocacy of the side he for the moment embraces . Such a man is more sure to get the Government into difficulties than carry it successfull y ^ through them . Our system , is by no means perfect , and his ambitious activity " shooting out in all directions , only makes anomalies more striking . It may indeed be doubted , from his example r and ^ the example d £ the two clever men who are now at wordy war in India , whether the system be not rather endangered than served by having skilful , active , ambitious administrators . Certain it is ,, that since it lias become the

    practice to educate official men with increased care , and import into tjie public service talents from other quarters , the deficiencies , of the system have been made extremely palpable . 3 \ Cr . Gladstone is a type of a class of highly educated officials . They are more clever than wise , and better acquainted with what has been done , t"lunr ^ ith ^ ire ~ eTrr ^ must guide their conduct . If it be true that Mr . Gladstone omitted all consideration of poundage in estimating the yield of the income tax , and so overstated the amount , we must infer that he is better acquainted with the writings of Homer ,, and . the doctrines of the Church , than with the business of the country . Nevertheless , he is one of the ' cleverest , of tlie lot , and his repeated failures are bringing the whole to their proper level .

    A Custom House commissioner , or a clerk of the Inland . Revenue Office , might know as well its ' Mr . Gladstone that it was right , to remove trifling duties from ., the tariff , and get rid of the excise on paper ; but , a statesman , taking , all the circumstances of . the country into . his- consideration , should know the proper time nrid proper mode of doing cither . Mr . Gladstone had quite enough on 1 us hands * n » we stud thiree months ago , to meet the exigencies forced on hiiia by the commercial treaty ,, without introducing a heap of other fiscal changes . He was bound to know the men and the cireumstuncea with which

    he hnd to deal , aa well as the amount of revenue required , and the best , means to raise it iu the present year . He was bound , therefore , so to steer his course ns to carry his measures , and cairry the , ministerial bnrk successfully to the end of the- sessional voyage . Instead of whipping up the House of Commons ami the press , into a paroxysm of enthusiasm by liia unrivalled oratory in favour of a confused , contradictory , and impracticable budget , it , was his business to consider nil the obstacles in his

    path . Ha was aa . much led awayr it ia . now evident , by hisown eloquence as his auditory , and has done , grant injury to tlie cause and the party he ought to have served . Ho has damaged th < ff House of ; Commons' by inducing it to , support what turns put to bo nu impracticable measure . He is too subtle for this plain world ,, and to be unsuccessful in an expedient politician is tantamount to being criminal . Mv . Gladstone has the same merit us Mir . SpwimEow . He

    carries away his hearers from practical matters , and hraves them fvitka sorrowful conviction that eloquence is veiy , different , from wisdomi It is . a , good motor , but u bnd guide ; and the Chan

    cellor of the ¦ ¦ Exchequer is emphatically , in these quiet times , to be rather a damper than a stoker . Could Earls Cqwpek and Shaetesb-Uue ,, with other friends , of Lord Palmebston , have warned him of the rock s ^ ad befoca voting against him * he might have been , served and saved . Had some Tkeyblyan started up with authority frarn amongst his ; colleagues some eight or ten . weeks ago , and explained . to- , the House of Commons and the public the probable consequences- of Mr . Gladstone's hiuhly-recommended scheme , tlie country would have been

    spared great inconvenience , considerable trouble , and some disgrace . Hid it beeu supposed that the maintenance of his mellifluous infallibility was . the one thing needful ,, such a Trevelyan would , have been summarily dismissed ^ and Mr . Gladstone would have continsued to be the idol of the House of Commons , though it might have led to the revolutionising of the country . Infallible men administering a faulty system are very analogous to the Inquisitors of a former day , and ean only be preserved in power by injustice and crueltv .

    [ O ¦ Times 4gg The Leader And Saturday ...

    4 gg The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [~ MAt 26 , IS & O .

    The Phivileges Op The Commons. Rphe Day ...

    THE PHIVILEGES OP THE COMMONS . rpHE day before the Lords rejeeted the Bill for the repeal of X the paper duties by a majority of 89 v speculations were rife as to the result of the division , and it was considered that no striking defeat of the Government measure would take place , unless Lord Palwbrston was , if not actually privy to it , at least not hostile to such a result . An examination of the division list , and a perusal of the Premier ' s announcement on Tuesday , countenance this supposition . Tt is incqneeivable that a large number of Lord Palsterston ' s friends , including his relative arid ecclesiastical patronage dispenser , Lord Shaftesbury , shonkl have opposed the Bill , unless they had felt certam that they could reckon upon the indifference , if not . the active support of their chief ; and many newspapers , representing reactionary views ., at once expressed their confidence that the GoVenimerit ^ vpuld take the matter as quietly as possible . The House of Commons and the country were entitled to a distinct and definite announcement of ministerial plans , ' but were-put off by Lord Paljierston iii amaianer that justifies grave suspicion concerning the integrity of his intentions . A committee is to seek for precetlents , and " Her Majesty ' s Government disclaims any intention of taking any step that would be calculated to place tlie two Houses in a state of hostility . " No one will expect that Lord Palmerston or any other premier should endeavour to create hostility between

    different portions of the Legislature ; but a patriotic minister would acknowledge the gravity of the occasion , and throw upon the hereditary llonse the odium and the danger of any collision which its own conduct provoked . The question at issue is a far larger and graver one than the good or harm likelv to'follow ' . from the abandonment of a source of revenue , or the removal of an excise tax from a particular commodity . The House of Lords hns , no doubt a theoretical right to reject- an-y money bill , bnt the : House of Commons has an equal right to stop the supplies until the Crown has made a snfficieiit batch of new peers to lxring the old ones to their senses . The . hereditary peerage of England , is a

    curious anomaly , and must long ago have been replaced by an elective Upper Chamber , if its members htiet not quietly surrendwed ; claims and privileges which were incompatible with the growing wealth mid intelligence of the Commons . Lord LYTJDiruiisr explained that the Lords had abandoned th « iv old claim to alter and originate money bills , simply because feliey corild not ; help it , ami "it was idle to insist upon privileges which they had no power to enforce . " The noble Earl proceeded to vindicate their action on . the present occasion , , by citing' a few eases iii which bills lor the repeal 1 of taxation , which had passed the Commons , were rejected by the Lords , ami Lord Ckanwotttii implied by denying that any of the instances were really to the point . The question is , however , one that ennnot be decided- by

    antiquarian , researches . Constitutional law must be viewed in the light of tlie times in which we live ; and when a budget has been put together , whether skilfully'or nofc , in such a manner that levying taxation in one plnce corresponds with its reduction or abandonment in another , the House of Commons will be untrue to the principles of popular lilxn'fcy , and unmindful of its awn dignity , if it permit ? , the hereditary and irresponsible Upper Ohorarber to accept , the proposals W levy wm tKjcnrtiany nncl nt the sawiw time to reject those-of an ' . opposite- kind . To claim , in these doy 3 > for t \\ a House of Peel's a right to lay burdens on the pcoplw , and intercept measures- of relief , is to adopt' a course which hiuat end in conflict between' ]) opular power and'the pretensions of a * privileged class' , in which them ean be no doubt'as to the final result .

    Lord Ciianwqbth affimied , that , if tlio course advocated by Lords Montbaolk , Lynt > hurst , ami Disicuy " was nofc unconstitutional , it , wa * so fchin-ly wparatcd from it , that the difference would' bo wnintclligibit * . "

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 26, 1860, page 4, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26051860/page/4/