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    ^m THE LE A PEE. E^^TOgAY,

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    THE STRANGE DINNEE-PARTY IN POWER. A Tre...

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    THE RE-0M5NED FIELD VOll BEFOBMMi 1 ^ On...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    The Late Ministry. Yes, We Have At Last ...

    of the counties anew and special rural borou g h constituency , to rehabilitate **? . J ^ " ^^ electorate to restore their vitality—the Abishai which the tribe of Coppo . _ was to bring to cherish the expiring Whig-David ! The last official act of their Premier was a petty , taunting triviality , the important motion pro > form 4 , Jha t Lord Pahnerston and Mr . Bernal should bring in the Militia Bill . Lord John had a right to make such a motion ; but how many statesmen , standing before the senate to make their last state of such

    act , would have availed themselves a rio-ht ? Imagine Caesar , Mho covered his face , and died folded in the robe of his own ^ dignityimagine Caesar , instead of that majestic submission to Destiny , falling , with a gesture of impotent defiance , and " taking a sight" at Brutus As in 1841 , Lord John goes out with an eleventh-hour measure , a boast , and a promise . The offered sugar of 1852 is the Whig-restoring Reform Bill . The boast and the promise are , that he shall continue to maintain free trade , extended suffrage , and peace—peace , which he has

    endangered , without providing against aggression , by the mockery of a Militia Bill!—free trade , of which Peel effected nine-tenths , and John Rus-Bell has been in office for six years without being able to accomplish the residue!—extended suffrage , which he neglected for those six years , except when he tampered with it to no . purpose , and finally gibbeted it in his ridiculous new Reform Bill ! But let us remember , that if he did so , he could not help it : Mr . Cobden has reminded us of the excuse—most of the late Ministers have

    reached that time of life when energy , activity , and efficiency are physically impossible ; if some few are not old in years , they are evidently so in constitution . The one man who was not so , was too strenuous for their quiet notions , and they turned him out . The ~ young and energetic man whom they took in , Dr . Layard , was an antiquarian . If they boast tliat tli « y Jittend still to work for their nation at great national enterprises , it is the harmless boast of superannuated memory , which , according to its wont , is mistakine- the future for the past . Many Reformers

    are declaring that they will have no more to do with the Whigs : they may as well abjure Grandfather Whitehead . When Lord John introduced his Reform Bill , the funds rose one-eighth—no one knew why : when his resignation was known , they fell one-eighth : half-a-crown , then , is the price which the public puts on Lord John ; exactly the price that the tailor asked King Stephen for his Ibreeches , and yet "he held them all too

    dear ! " If the chief of the party is worth twoand sixpence now , what will lie be a year hence P No , no ; we are not going to be troubled with the Whigs any more . They are gone—Budget Wood , of chicory renown ; Borougb-mongering ReformRussell ; Grey , Beloved of Colonies ; Hawes , the Silver Tongue of Truth;—gone all the Elliots , the Russells , and the Greys—gone the mealymouthed dealers in " measures from time to time suited to the occasion ! " Peace be to their manes !

    ^M The Le A Pee. E^^Togay,

    ^ m THE LE A PEE . E ^^ TOgAY ,

    The Strange Dinnee-Party In Power. A Tre...

    THE STRANGE DINNEE-PARTY IN POWER . A Treasury entrusted to Lord Derby!—an Exchequer to Mr . Disraeli ! - —the Free-trade of Downing-street surrendering its place in Parliament , for Protection to try its hand at making a majority ! England , Liberal by every sign winch society and statistics can furnish , handed over to the government of the Tories ! Such is the strange aspect of the crisis which has given us a Derby administration . But the case is not quite bo bad as that . It is inoro absurd , but not so

    desperate . In the first place , despite the " constitutional " figment , the country has not called Lord Derby to power ; but the Crown has done so , and has done so , probably , on the advice of Lord John Russell . Such a selection is not by any moans unprecedented , although it somewhat violates the rationale of the constitution . Lord John'Russell , rosigns bocauso he is boaton b y a majority ; tho head of that victorious majority .

    howover , was not Lord Derby , but Lord Palmorston . Lord Derby was notoriously leader of a minority in the Representative House ; still tho Crown has solectod him as Prime Minister . By tho existing constitution , tho Crown lias a perfect right to inako that choice , and wo have no disposition to quarrel with it ; wo aro only keeping tho facts distinct . The choico of tho now Premier , wo say , was not , in any rospoct , tho affair of "tho country / " tho nation / ' "tko

    neople /' or the Parliament : it was arranged by the Crown , probably with the advice of the outgoing Minister . . ,. How far Lord Derby was justified m accepting it with so striking a want of men to form a Cabinet , without a majority in Parliament , and without a policy that the country would countenance , it is not for us to ~ judge He ^ is responsible , and by the same constitution still' existing , he has the full right to undertake the responsiiui ;^ TT *» -n ^ n tirnim Wv bfi Dunished , not by tne

    obsolete penalty of the block , but by the more shocking penalty of defeat and ridicule . Meanwhile > for our own part , we are not sorry tnat tne Protectionists should have one more trial , a last opportunity of showing what is m them , and what , in their patriotism , they can do for their country . Nevertheless , we cannot close our eyes to the probable fate awaiting such an experiment and those who undertake it .

    The deplorable want of men is shown by the composition of the new Ministry , which is remarkable in several respects . It has been observed that , of the Cabinet , only four have previously been in office—an observation not strictly accurate when it was made , since Lord Lonsdale and others have been in office before ; but the remark is not far from the truth . No objection could be made to the introduction of " new blood , " but the search for men beyond the old ex-official bounds cannot be without its

    peculiar significancy , when it is so sweeping . The " new blood" is furnished almostentirely by the class of " private" Members or unobtrusive Peers , intelligent men , who are not entirely strangers to the public , and whose abilities have , in most instances , been meted long - ago . Mr , Walpole , the new Home Secretary , is a gentleman in every sense of the word , and has a rising parliamentary reputation ; but he will be regarded as virtually the Under-Secretary . Indeedmost of the gentlemen newly * introduced

    , belong , by parliamentary standing and by repute , to the secondary grade . Together with that underrating of the offices , there is a curious misallotment of offices . Although Mr . Disraeli ' s appointment to the Exchequer has been very generally reqeived as a joke , we are not inclined to go with those who laugh , having a strong expectation that the historic artist will acquit himself creditably in

    any part that he may perform ; but unquestionably the public would have been less surprised to see him entrusted with Foreign Affairs ; and if it was a mere question of making him leader of the Commons , we all remember that Lord John Russell held that post while he was a Secretary of State . Mr . Herries is not appointed to the Exchequer , the duties of whichhe might have fulfilled with a certain respectable regularity , but is shelved as President of the Board of

    Control . Mr . Disraeli , who has strong opinions on foreign affairs , is not appointed to the Foreign-Office , but tho Earl of Malmesbury , grandson of a known diplomatist , who did some unpleasant work with a good deal of clever tact , including the marriage of George tho Prince Regent . Tho ± irst Lord of tho Admiralty is the Duke of Northumberland , once upon a time a sailor ; but the Earl of Hardwicko , who has marked convictions as to tho efficiency of the navy , is made Postmastor-Gonoral . Altogothor , the composition of tho Cabinet indicates a deficiency in men of mark ; but such as arc marked , aro mostly put whore they will have least opportunity ; as though tho

    compoundcr of the Government wished not to make it too pronounced in its tone or action . Without a majority in Parliament , tho Ministry must seek to make a majority by a goneral election ; but it cannot do so without disclosing its policy ; and tho question is whether it has a presentable policy . We write before ? wo have tho advantage of hearing tho Ministerial explanations ; but certain broad facts aro obvious , oven beforehand . A question huH been raised whether , tho now Ministry had not hotter tide over tho session , and dissolve afterwards-. At a very early hour , tho experienced Tory Standard anticipated some such policy when it ' said , —

    'f Tho Whigs aro oxit , and wo aro thankful that they aro , but in our gratification at fchoir expulHion , wo must not forget that wo havo to < loal with a subtlo and unscrupulous faction , or rather with two mich fuctioiiH , for tho Poolitcs will , of course , fall in with tboir eouopinioiiH in opponition ; and if wo would koop out Whiga and PoolitoB , wo imjflfc bo careful not to press our friendH to u hasty and imprudent course , It is tho great

    advantage of those who act upon principle , and not by ex » P dients , that their measures will bear keeping back Tf our principles are , as we know they are , somtd , everv day will more manifestly demonstrate their soundnes Some suffering must necessarily attend delay in the * plication of these principles , but this is the price ' which miist be paid for every human good . ; A whole moun tain of falsehood , ; the Collection of inany years of misre presentation , must be cleared away before the mass of the people can be made to understand their actual noo "

    tion and their true interests . Time is 3 even in defiance of a dishonest Government , doing . something to reduce the heap that conceals the truth , but time , with an honest administration of public affairs , will make much shorter work in overthrowing the rei gn of falsehood It is by no means improbable that the House of Commons may prove its loyal subriiission to the will of the Sovereign , and the sense of the inconvenience and danger of a general election , entertained by some of its members , by supporting the minister of the Queen ' s

    choice . It has since been understood that Lord Derby would dissolve forthwith , and try to gain his utmost by a surprise ; yet later , that he will not dissolve atpresent , but try the " loyalty" of Parliament . He has not a majority in " the country , " and can only make one by a process of propagandism . To attempt ah election without that process , or to put off the election , and set an example of postponing principles while asking the Protectionist party for new exertions of " enthusiasm "—such is the choice ascribed to the new

    Ministers by their own friends ! What , indeed , can stich a Ministry do , except die . They know that it is nothing -. they have no vocation in office ; they go in because they can't help it , since they cannot for the third time decline the opportunity held out to their party . Yet they know that they go in t ? be a Ministry of agitation— a Ministry to agitate among the people for thejidoption of an impracticable policy . Lord Eglinton may go to Ireland , and amuse them with Celtic _ antiquities in pageantry ; but will that suffice to master the excitable nation P The

    Orange party will expect a restored ascendancy , and if-they do not get it , not Protectionist rage at Peel would equal Orajag © rage at Derby . The [ Roman Catholics will expect coercion ; and if their instant resistance be met by conciliation , they will construe the kindness into fear . Mr . Disraeli may advance a budget more epical in its construction than Sir Charles Wood's , and is

    very likely to prove that imagination and figures are not incompatible ; he may render the Incometax more equitable in its incidence ; he may do something to remove or compensate the " special burdens" of tho landed interests ; but we know beforehand that the landed interests regard that thrice-proffered boon very thanklessly ; that they would be content with nothing but relief from the Income 4 ax , and Malt-tax , and tho restoration of Protection ; and that all the ingenuity of the most ingenious man in the new Cabinet cannot devise a policy which will at once content them ana

    be practicable—which will not exasperate w *>™ with disappointment , or rouso tho general country to resistance . Mr . Disraeli is doomed to study mo interests of the minority , of a declining party—a party declining bocauso it has declined in puww virtuo , in the " aristocratic" paternity towards « e « pendenta , in chivalrous vitality of all kinds , xi Ministry which his Premier has constructed " deficient in men , bocauso men lit for such po ^ havo abandoned tho principles to winch U > w Derby adheres , through a boyish fighting ousunacy—to which most of his friends adhere thrW lack of tho ratiocinative faculty , and to which in « a i « " \ r ,. «~ i .: « ., rk : ^ - »«« . i : « r ] li /»< aa in the SPir * "

    knight-errantry . This weak party , with tins ou soleto policy , is going to tho country on tuo av porato enterprise of convincing tho poopi ? dear broad is a good—that tho aristocracy w &" nn aristocracy in tlio chivalrous I ^ ' , K sonso of the word—and that all Lho nation of , to think with Lord JJorby and Ucorw * rodtiJ YounL ' . It wiuiiot ovaclo tho fmicUUil ontm ' t »^» liecauHo it Iuvh no kind ' of claim on public aw tion except Protection . Tho entorpnao is m loss for thonisolvos ; but in tho course oti > % country will bo stirred up to some now i " action .

    The Re-0m5ned Field Voll Befobmmi 1 ^ On...

    THE RE-0 M 5 NED FIELD VOll BEFOBMMi ^ Onwaud once more—the path is cloarod of ^ sickly leaders who blocked it up , and on * ' it heels wo were bidden not to trend . A " ** ' jl 0 of their XVlMiwcnlivry Topofloutfttivofl w

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 28, 1852, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28021852/page/14/