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the most incapable nobles who ever got pre-eminence in the most stupid of Upper Houses . The demonstrations of the division are , however , not confined to the Tories ; There is confusion in all the other parties . Mr . Bright ought to be convinced , now , that Radicalism is a silly and helpless theory , unless it be organized into compactness : and the " Irish party" must see that against the present Government the tactics of intimidating a cabinet out of Tenant Right are not absolutelycertain of success . Yet the minority has its consolation : Government will give way a good deal in committee : and , whether or not , it is clear that there was
more public virtue in voting for the amendment than in voting for the bill ; and Lord Stanley , who , as the result shows , could not have had very factious motives , may be assured that there was some glory in leading Mr . Disraeli and Mr . Bright into the same lobby , in a cause the most sacred—the preservation of Hindoos from the precipitate red tapeism of a dismal Yorkshire squire . The triumph of the Government is not so clear as the disaster to Lord Derby : votes were given in many cases on some understanding that everything was to be made right in the Committee . The cries of " divide , divide , " when Sir Charles was " summing up "
( fancy that !) on Thursday , and the yawns when Lord John was talking his feeble commonplace on Friday morning , were no signs of a strong government , which at least gets respect to its face . The jeering laughter which was brought out by Mr . Disraeli ' s ironical references to the Reform Bill , on which the Cabinet is supposed to be divided in advance , was no intimation that Lord John and Lord Aberdeen are greatly reverenced for restraining their natural instincts- —to fly apart . A whipper-in knows best when a Government is strong ;
and Mr . Hayter will tell you of what he went through duringjthese India debates : —he went on his knees to beseech men not to speak , an 4 , other men for God ' s Bake to come and keep a House ; and he was treated abominably . He has given away this week a fabulous number of gaugerships and clerkships , and yet he could not get the commonest . attention , —and ho begins to notice that buttons are just now very badly sown on Coalition coats , which may be because of the turning .
The India debate of June will be remembered for two of the greatest speeches delivered of late years in the House of Commons , ' —Mr . Bright ' s and Mr . Disraeli ' s , both this week . Great in their complete contrast to one another , Mr . Bright and Mr . Disraeli were the only orators who , in these discussions , filled the House , or in the least excited it , —a proof that it is an assembly which , certain general rales being observed , admit of success to vast variety of style . Mr . Bright succeeds because he is so intensely English , earnest , and natural ; Mr . Disraeli is a House of Commons hero , because he is so magnificent an actor , so superbly historical and impartial , and so elegantly artificial . Mr . Bright is the most English looking man I ever saw , and Mr . Disraeli the least Enjrlish looking man I ever
saw ; and the characters correspond to the looks : they view public life from completely different points , nnd they deal with every subject in a totally different manner . Their morale is as different as thoir style is ; and it is , consequently , of Home interest to study ( it is recommended to rising men ) how the same position could have been got by each in the House of Commons , where , after Mr . Gladstone , they nro now the two greatest personages , with the two greatest features of any men of their time . Mr . Bright and Mr . Disraeli went into the samo lobby on India , because tho one looked at India like am honest Englishman , anxious that Engshould do her
land duty there , nnd tho other like mi intelligent foreign gentleman , learned in the Asian mystery , fully cognizant of British peculiarities in India , nnd sympathising more- with the 150 , 000 , 000 Hindoos than with the 050 members of tho House of Commons who do not liko trouble , or even than with tho English nation , which idiiowH nothing of , nnd ( ho supposes ) cures as littlo for , tho 150 , 000 , 000 . On Foreign politics , that foreign tone of Mr . Disraeli ' jh , with all his art , perceptible ; Mr . Roobuck detected nnd denounced it when , in tho dobato on Lord Palmer . ston ' n Don PaciHco quarrel , Mr . Disraeli hinted with insufficient melancholy that a
lenguo of Oainbray was * getting up against , tho Venetian constitution ; and it wan very perceptible on Friday ovoning that lie whs not an nrdont admirer of Great Britona in their '' relations with Hindoos . And whilo exciting this suspicion in the patriots who dino with East India directors or rare stock , or have tho routine British faith that Great Britain is a blessing to tliono Bho conquers , ho did not win that enthusiasm * Voin Mr . Bright ' H party which was raised by tho passionate and magnificently manly declamation of Mr . Bright . Perhaps Mr . Disrnoli cared as much for Engltah on Hlnaooa ; but hie tone waa tho tone of a man talking Rnd noting history from tho more artistic
ppint - -of view , coldly and critically destitute of the human passions which give an interest in humanity . It is one advantage-of a Jew gentleman to be a gentleman without a country ( as Sidonia is made to suggest ) , and it gives a strange . power to Mr . Disraeli , as a speaker in the House of Commons . But the secret of the power seems to be beginning "to be understood , and it is a question if , when the truth is detected , the man who can be thus impartial and critical can expect again to head an English " party , " which , whatever its cry , exists on the condition of being blindly patriotic . On the other
hand , earnestly honest , Englishmen like Mr . Bright would seem to be at the same disadvantage ; for give Mr . Bright his way , which is to let the natives have theirs , and where would the Indian empire be ? He talked in his vehement way , on Monday , of " eternal justice ; " but British statesmen can scarcely afford the luxury—it isn't " practical . " So that , of the two , Mr . Disraeli ' s point of view may , in the end , be the most business-like . But a better statesman than either is Sir James Graham , who on Monday joined in the debate , and talked affable technicalities , which patriot members , though they wouldn't stay to hear , took care to read , and which influenced the votes Mr . Disraeli and Mr . Bright lost . Cursed with no comprehensive mind , little history , and a sluggish
political conscience , Sir James sees only what it is "to the purpose , " and " . practical" to see ; and as far as he could see about the 150 ^ 000 , 000 , why , his right honourable friend , the President of the Board of Control , seemed quite good enough for them . ( Hear , hear , from Sir Charles Wood . ) Therefore the House divided for Sir James Graham ' s plan , which was not , as Mr . Disraeli proposed , to substitute elastic bands for the red tape performing Thuggee on India , and not as Mr . Bright proposed , to hand the 150 , 000 , 000 a scissors ; but to change the knot . Sir James is celebrated for that plan ; and is ever ready to be Thug on any subject , in any department . By the playful smile on his copious countenance you canjjee his desire that the party should be , at least , comfortable .
It may be taken for granted that the great debates of the session are over with that on India . We may have much talk in committee . We may have much fictitious enthusiasm on the Education Bill , though it was said last night about the House that Lord John , " in consideration of the lateness of the session , " will not proceed with that infelicitous measure . There is something liko a , certainty that Lords and Commons will have a say about Turkey , Russia , Lord Clarendon , and Baron Brunow . But this year , liko every other year , the oratorical member begins to sink in the market , and the useful member begins to rise in the
market . With July begins tho real busmess-hke doing of business , for then tho Houso begins to think of the breezy sea-side and the grateful pasture lands . In July Disraelis go out and William Browns come in . Mr . William Brown , the liberal member for South Lancashire , may be mentioned as the type of the class of which the House of Commons and this country has great reason to be proud . They are tho body of tho House ; the wheelers doing the work tho . leaders appear to do . Men of business , of energetic and industrious characters , and thereforo revelling in the sensation of moving and moving with that mighty world
which circles round the committee rooms , and mazes among the standing orders of tho House of Commons —these gentlemen , to whom towns and corporations , and 'Changes , and great companies , and promoters of all sorts of bills look up , write up , and deputation up , with confident revcrenco and dependent awe , arc pushed and perplexed out of their way , for tho first fcw months of tho session , lose their temper , as the orators lose their flesh in July , and after that month , up to tho prorogation , they get their day sittings , most of , tho night sittings , and manage in , six weeks , with qi / iet tact and easy assiduity , to do all that their con-Btttiuents , and connexions , and " interests" want done , and in tho doing which they find thpir chief pleasure and main glory as members of Parliament . Tho eager .
ness of cortain sections of the House , on Wednesday and Thursday , to get Uio Liverpool writ issued is explicable , beciuiHO in July Liverpool , which lms always millions dependent upon somo red tapory board of trado bill , keenly misses a . representative able to look after tho commercial business in progress . Certainly Mr . Win . Brown , ns the county member , is a member for Livorpool , who has conferred on \ na community tho countless benefits which it is in tho powor , only of thoso men to bestow , who by their force of cluiractor and modest onorgy manage to . obtain what is called " woight" in the Houso , and n hold on tho MiniHtore , and their usually insolent aubordhmtoH . But Liverpool needd moro than one moinber , and that a man who has all Lancashire " interests" to steer aafo , and docs it , too , with little effort ; nnd though of course
the Tories had a political object in view in getting the rapid issue of the writ—in order to take the Liberals by surprise , Liberals never being ready with their candidates—the strange movements in the House on this matter * were , in a great measure , the result of local influence insisting at the Catftton and elsewhere , but principally at the Carlton , on being supplied with members to oppose theBoard of Trade and the Treasury on the Pilotage Bill , the Customs arrangements , and so on . As the session draws to a close , and when this class of M . P . ' s become prominent with the work to which they devote themselves , an account of them : and of their mariners
and customs , may be given here , with some useful public results . The discussion of a committee * when a bill is really modelled , and when principles of legislation are really settled , is never reported by intelligent ' stenographers ; as witness the reports in this morning ' s papers of the most vitally interesting four hours' debate last night on the Successions Duty Bill ; and the result is—however high they stand in the opinion of those other classes of the House who , on such nights , are at west-end parties and plays—that the " useful member" is not discovered to , and is never analyzed for , the public , whose general notion is , that the House
of Commons is a place where gentlemen rise up , one after another , to speak two or three unreadable columns of dreary rhetoric . Happy constituencies which- get hold of men conceiving and declaring themselves to be Protean personages!—^ who are Disraelis up to July , and Browns till August—who are at once ambitious orators and unpretending workers * ' ¦ As , for instance , Mr . Milner Gibson , who last night , on the question of the advertisementduty > made seven speeches for every five of Mr . Gladstone , who moved a new amendment every ten minutes , and contrived , by his ingenious tact , to take the question back three months—the House having again , without this time knowing what it was doing ( no doubt we
must have a son of a Duke Serjeant-at-Arms in the Commons House , but why a son of an Earl as Chairman of Committee ?) , declared in favour of the total remission of the advertisement duty , but , practically , with no more immediate effect than proceeded from the first division , before the Budget was brought onv For the matter will all have to be gone over jigain , and wellintentioned Mr . Gibson may lose , by his obstinacy last night , even that boon which the enlightened Chancellor of the Exchequer , proud , as a patriot of the freedom of the British press , at first proffered . It may be suggested to Manchester that it has no right to a double Bright . Better take the Liverpool plan : which is to catch , two members , one of whom shall be
ornamental and the other useful . Thus , she had a lorbes Mackenzie and a Charles Turner ; and , in regard to the Turners , she has that consolation which occurred to tho lady of good family , reduced by circumstances to tho crying and selling of water-crosses— " Thank God , nobody could hear her . " " A Stranger . " Saturday Morning .
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THE GOVERNMENT BILL FOR INDIA . ( From a Correspondent . ) A SPEECH from the renowned member for Edinburgh is an event so rare , that we might well give prominenco to it whatever might happen to bo its subject ; when , however , it is occupied with the affairs of India , to which tho great powers of Mr . Macauloy havo been devoted for many years , under both the obligations of offico and the incitements of literary taste , we may well devote some spaco to a careful examination of it . Pushing aside the opposition of thoso who advocate delay in legislating for India , for tho Hake of more information , while they themselves profess to be so fur informed as to have plans of future Government ready for tho occasion , tho distinguished speaker supports the bill as one of progress admitting of further progresssays that tho Homo Government is not tho most important part of tho subject—accounts for its occupying 80 much attention on the ground of its proximity , ami alludes to tho importunities of the canvass . Ho then argues that the Government in England must necessarily be double—for it must consist of a Minister of the Crown coming in and going out with tho rest of tho Ministry ( and commonly on question !* which have
nothing to do with India ) , together with , a Iosh fleeting council , composed of men conversant with Indian affairs ; and bo tho mode of nomination of that council what it may , the principle of a double Government is Btill involved . Nor , says ho , is this tho chief question , or its alleged obscurity and inconvenience * tho most important consideration ; for India must bo governed in India ;—tho time requisite for consultation with England cannot / often bo permitted ;—tho Government of India has been practically and thoroughly independent of the Homo Authorities , as ia proved by thoir having often adopted and maintained measures which woro strongly disapproved in England , but not rovemed . Bo then , hiu argument proceeds , tho Government in
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640 THE LEADER . . [ Saturday ^
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Leader (1850-1860), July 2, 1853, page 640, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1993/page/16/
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