TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE TORY PROGRAMAIE.
Tories of 1831 became the Conservatives of 1845, and seem about to become the Clericals of 1863. At least, that is the only way in which we can explain the utterances of their most powerful, or perhaps we should say, most pro- minent public men. Mr. Disraeli has told the Church that the time for concessions is past, and openly pledged his fol- lowing to the cry of "no surrender." Mr. Walpole, a man with Liberal instincts, and but lately scourged by the leader whom he declined to follow, is so delighted with the new prospect that he publicly condones his punishment, and full at once of enthusiasm and weakness, joins the English Ultra- montanes. Sir N. Knatchbull, in Kent, avowed that he had no objection to Lord Palmerston on any broad point of policy, but would resist his Government upon all clerical questions. And now Sir Stafford Northcote, economist to the party, with a brain full of figures and finance, tells his partizans in South Devon that Tories, to be appreciated, should be observed only on Wednesday mornings. It is not in the evening debate, the discussion on broad questions or great lines of policy, that the country will understand them. At such times the party "only discusses some miserable question or minor Ministerial delinquency." As the party which boasts of Lord Derby, Mr. Disraeli, Sir Hugh Cairns, and Mr. Whiteside is certainly not silent for lack of orators, its atten- tion to "minor details" and "miserable questions" can only be explained by its perfect agreement with the Liberals upon all matters of public importance. It has, in fact, on the nights of high debate, no separate personality, no raison dYtre, no excuse for considering itself anything except the Premier's hidden but faithful and well-disciplined Army of Reserve. But behold it on Wednesday, as Sir Stafford Northeote glowingly said, "under the broad light of morning," when independent Liberals "are leading an onslaught on the Church," and its utility will be recognized. The Con- servative then becomes the Clerical, and under the banner of the priests the Tory party, according to this leader, marches triumphantly to crush every attempt to advance opinion, to free honest men from shackles, or to remove some useless cause of ecclesiastical difference and bickering. The Night Poaching Bill, nevertheless, under which the police have just arrested a respectable man for buying a rabbit at a poulterer's, and the justices have refused him redress, was not carried on Wednesday; Tories then discovered that they were a distinctive party, and sat on night after night, "united to a man upon the great principle" that God created hares in order that the gentry might have sport. We may, however, let that pass, satisfied that Sir Stafford Northcote is either ashamed of that feat, or ranks it among those "miserable ques- tions" upon which the country ought never to watch the conduct of the Conservative side, and with that exception nothing franker was ever said. Sir Stafford Northcote acknow- ledges that his party has no policy except to resist on Wed- nesdays, no distinctive ideas except on the connection between Church and State. It has nothing to say on taxation, but is eloquent on Church-rates ; nothing to propose as to criminals, but full of suggestions on bishops; nothing to resist in foreign policy, but infinite reasons to offer against removing the indelibility of orders. These were their feats on Wed- nesdays last session, feats which left on the mind of the public the really unjust impression that the party would never sur- render anything belonging to the Church except its prin- ciples. Can a policy of this kind, a policy which brings religion into the lists, the bound Rebecca for whom the champions are to contend, by possibility succeed? We can understand why Napoleon, aware that his throne rests on peasants, and that peasants are priestaidden, thinks that in linking his cause to priests he secures the safety of his dynasty. We can comprehend, though with difficulty, why Mr. Disraeli, whose ideal is Bolingbroke, and who never understands Englishmen, should fancy that he can raise again the Church cry which carried Bolingbroke's friends to power. But we cannot comprehend how an average Tory brings himself to believe that a policy exclusively ecclesias- tical can possibly command the votes of Englishmen. The country gentry are strong, but the leaders they are to support must have ideas on Greece, as well as on new vestments; on malt, as well as on the proper person to pay for the sacramental wine. The country clergy are strong, but they, though justly and deeply concerned in all discussions which affect their position, have some slight notion that Christianity requires efforts not confined to English parochial practice, that slavery, for example, ought to interest clerical men, and that a Protestant Government should scarcely be zealous for Rome. Or does Sir S. North- cote, with the unconscious sneer so characteristic of the Disraeli school, really believe that the educated gentlemen scattered as vicars and rectors over England will sell Ameri- can freedom for liberty to distrain for rates, and barter the hope of destroying the Papacy for the chance of saving a Romish dogma? The tenant farmers have many votes, but they have also grievances not to be removed by promises that, whether they attend church or not, they shall still pay for repairs, and proofs that their members are only efficient when there is nothing of moment on hand. We can scarcely be- lieve that such a policy will succeed, even for the short period during which a Tory in power transmutes him- self into a Whig. The Conservatives of Ireland have already announced that they hold friendship to Italy immeasurably more important than any possible paro- chial arrangement, and that they will to a man support the Premier the Ultramontanes hope to uproot. The independent Liberals, whom Mr. Disraeli has courted as Raleigh courted his Queen, by trailing his cloak in the mud, are exactly the section to feel and resent this programme of exclusive devo- tion to Church and State ideas. Even the IT1tramontanes, though bound together by the strong bond of hate for the Minister who menaces Rome, can hardly go into the lobby to vote for the maintenance of a rate which is to benefit heresy, or to support the indelibility of orders which their masters the priests call null. An order of battle which drives both wings to retreat before the engagement can hardly be described as a wise one, nor is the war-cry which irritates all allies sup- posed to indicate a general's skill. If this be the true and the only programme of the corning session, Lord Palmerston is as safe as if he were President of Great Britain.
This incessant hunt after a new idea, this straining after a "good cry," this morbid anxiety to secure a trumpery vantage- ground, is as unnecessary as it is unscrupulous. The Tories have a policy to pursue in opposition, which, though it has nothing theatric and little novel, is, we would submit, more dignified than this eternal attempt to elevate the cassock into a banner. Their function, until their chiefs arc prepared to accept the reins, is to insist that changes shall not be made until proved to be required and accepted by public opinion ; to build the dam in the stream, which, though it checks the current, deepens the reservoir and trebles the motive power. In the exercise of this function they must necessarily submit every measure to a severe and hostile revision, prune away all ex- crescences, and so prevent the introduction of points not fully and carefully argued out. It is no part of their business at any time to initiate changes of principle, least of all when in opposition, or to attempt to perform the work which only the party of progress honestly cares to achieve. They represent the vis inertia of the nation, not its motive power, and, by supplying the resisting medium, supply also the one condition without which regulated progress becomes a dream. That function is not a mean one, and to desert it simply to serve as van- guard for the parti prelre is a course which could attract only a mind as erratic as Mr. Disraeli's, or as wanting in breadth and vividness as that of Sir Stafford Northcote.
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