TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION OF PARTIES.
THE political juncture into which we are thrown, scarcely the less to our surprise although we have in part foreseen it, is, we believe, literally unprecedented in the history of the country. We have before had two great parties in the state" competing for the public favour ; but never before two parties, competing so eagerly, with so little professed difference between them. We have before seen " the ins" and " the outs" each endeavouring to paint their own ease en bean, the public being somewhat per- plexed between them ; but never have we seen the public so little able to grasp the facts presented to it as the test for judgment. We have befere seen the subordinate auxiliaries of party endea- 'vowing to mislead the public by false issues ; never, perhaps, attempts made so little relevant to the momentous interests at stake. The leaders of the Liberal party, endeavouring to re- organize the body, are accused of prostituting public questions to personal ambitions. We have no sympathy with these personal taunts ; nor, on the other hand, can we refuse our sympathy to men who are exerting themselves to bring the severed sections together, and to make the party once more national. If such an effort is prompted by ambition, it is a noble ambition, and political life would be extinct in a country which had men no longer actuated by such a motive. On the other hand, when we see the less prominent coadjutors of the Liberal party aesailing the men in power because they have appointed this or that person to some salaried office, we ask whether men of ability, probity, and vigour are not found on both sides of both Houses ; and whether, if similar appointments were not made on our own side, we should not hear bitter, hysterical complaints of "political ingratitude." These petty plaints are not the grounds upon which the country will decide the question between the two great competing parties. We compare, then, the claims of the two as they are presented by themselves, ready to express our regret and to correct our error if we misstate the case on either side. The Conservative parte, whose leaders are now in office, represent on their own behalf, that the opportunity for taking office was forced upon them by divisions among the Liberals ; that if they do not pos- sess a majority in the representative chamber, they form at least the largest among several minorities ; that if they have not yet foresworn their old political creed, they have made no party uses of their occupancy, but are prepared even to said the country in the improvement of its representation, while, abroad, they defend the national interests and watch to restore peace by mediation. To strengthen their case, the Conservative Ministers point to that divided party which could not carry out its own counsels in office, and whose members would be prepared to thwart each other in any well-considered measure at home or abroad. It is unlnoky when the strongest ease of any politicalrests upon the faults of its opponents ; but we are prepare tothat the Conserva- tives have fulfilled their trust under an evidently. conscientious desire to preserve faith with the public, by not turning their great opportunity to party uses ; and that, in that spirit, so much of their own creed as is opposed to the public opinion of the country has been very properly placed in abeyance. The Liberals have undoubtedly made their case stronger since the dissolution, and they have acquired strength from the course of events. On the platform of Monday's meeting they stood be- fore the country, no longer severed into three or four or more sections, but as the one Liberal party. They tell us that, if the Conservatives have professed, however sincerely, to carry on in office the principles now established by the public opinion of the whole country, they have done so with no congenial ardour ; whereas the Liberal party lives alone to give those principles ever increasing effect. The Conservatives have done nothing in order to bring -us nearer to the Reform Bill that they promised ; they have already shown, nay avowed, their inability to maintain that neutrality and that alliance with important neighbours which they confess to be necessary. It is, indeed, difficult to deny these allegations.
Let us first examine the situation abroad. Both parties abide by neutrality ; but the party in office proclaims neutrality with a manifest leaning to the Austrian rather than the French alliance ; while the leaders of the Liberal party are equally distinct in their —declaration of neutrality, but are firm to the French alliance. It is but a few weeks since Sir John Pakington rather startled the public by his confession that it might be " difficult " to maintain neutrality. For the day people hoped that Sir John had been speaking a little carelessly ; but in the House of Lords we find Lord Malmesbury using such words as these,—" rescuing a large portion of Italy,—if, indeed, rescue it can be called,—from the oppression of which Austria is accused." Lord Malmesbury, therefore, seems inclined to doubt the imputations against Austria, and not to agree in the policy of the "rescue." On the same evening in the House of Lords, the Marquis of Normanby, who used to be a Liberal, save his testimonial to the Grand Duke of Tuscany and to Austrians in general, saying that he spoke from his own " personal knowledge," while he passed a sweeping censure for incapacity as well as treachery upon most of the leading public Italians. This statement was made in the midst of one of the most twisted narratives of events which have been before the public since 1856 • and yet Lord Normanby was welcomed as a recruit by Lord Derby, in terms which implied the Premier's participation in these avowed Austrian affections. On the same side spoke Lord Ellenborongh : now at Cheltenham, five days previously, Lord Ellenborough pleaded in the strongest terms against neutrality, and advocated siding with Austria against France. Whatever, then, may be the disposition of some gentlemen in the present Cabinet to maintain a thoroughly impartial neutrality, it is evi- dent that the Premier and the Foreign Secretary, are inclined to that departure from neutrality which Sir John Pakington fore- saw, and which Lord Ellenborough demands. If these obvious predilections were indulged we might find our failing attempts at neutrality end-by our actually fighting on the side of Austria, to maintain that oppression in Italy which Lord Malmesbury doubts, but which Lord Clarendon so distinctly and so vigorously exposed at the Paris Conference in 1856.
By way of parenthesis we may note Lord Ellenborough's at- tempt to create alarm at the understanding between France and Russia. That understanding has already been explained in our own columns; and Prince Gortschakoff's memorandum to Russian representatives at the German Courts shows how his Government is cooperating in the attempt to restrict the war to the non-Ger- man provinces of Austria. The political principles which we profess to have at heart, our political influence, our trading inte- rests, are all concerned in maintaining that restriction on the war. But Lord Ellenborough is doing his best to make the Cabinet of his party defeat that restraint. No man is so intimately acquainted with the whole course of the facts relating to the present condi- tion of Italy, the movements of the Italian reformers, the views• of the Emperor Napoleon, the conduct of Russia, and the calcula- tions of Austria, as Lord Palmerston. He has shown himself no heated partizan of Italian reforms ; we have indeed taken occa- sion to complain of his being too backward. But now the re- united party of which he is the head, avows a polioy which would secure to us our material interests, our own sympathies, and some regard to the promises which we virtually made in 1856. Let us pursue the comparison with reference to the great home question. In regard to Reform, there can be no doubt as to the sincerity of any Cabinet of which Lord John Russell consents to become a member ; and in the present temper of the country, there must be strong sense of responsibility in those who accept a trust which pledges them to do their best m bringing a question so long left discreditably open to ajudicious and practical. close. That a Cabinet of which Lord John Russell was a member would indubitably produce a bill acceptable to the country as a fair in- stalment of Reform may be considered beyond doubt. So far the Liberal ease is clear.
As to the comparative means, of the two parties for carrying out their programme. Lord Derby admits that his party is not an absolute majority ; but he contends that it is the largest of the minorities. That it was so last session was proved, but it has become again a question of fact, to be tested by divisions in Parliament. Lord Derby is not able to deny the remark on the other side, that the Cabinet with which he started has lost Lord Ellenborough, through divisions in the Tory party ; lost Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley, through dissidence on the subject of Reform ; and it is at present deprived of Sir Edward Lytton, from causes which every man must join Lord 'Palmerston in heartily and profoundly regretting. Lord Derby tells us that he has en- deavoured " to obtain aid" in the recruitment of his Government "from quarters unconnected with it, but that unfortunately he has not been successful in his endeavours." Certainly these ad- missions and facts tend to corroborate the statement of Lord Hartington, that the Tories are now divided, while the Liberals are reunited. The speakers on the Liberal side tell us that with a Tory Minister continuing in office we may find the war extending, ourselves on the aide of Austria, trade impeded, and the Reform Bill coldly postponed sine die ; whereas, with a Liberal party re- stored to its nationality, we shall have the improvement of our institutions carried on, we shall remain in neighbourly amity with France, the war will be confined and brought to the speedier
conclusion, irade will be unimpeded, and the Reform Bill be in congenial hands. Events, we say, must arbitrate between these competing claimants ; we have simply endeavoured to show how far contemporary facts bear out the two cases.
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