TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE PARTIES AND INDIA.
WE watch with deep anxiety the play of contending purposes and desires among the leaders of Parliament, hoping for the dawn of the day when the .political atmosphere shall be cleared from the poor' personal passions which at present rage unabashed in those high places, where senatorial responsibilities, where length of years, and grave imperial necessities should impose gravity of thought, and unselfishness of motive alone. It is not without pangs that thinkino-° men, whose position leaves them free from the prejudices and hostilities of Parliamentary cliques, observe the contrast between the really awful responsibility of that task of Indian legislation to which Parliament has been rashly com- mitted, and its utter absence of moral and intellectual leadership for the work. There is something in the history of the connexion between India and the English Parliament which should have made a prudent statesman pause before embarking upon the stormy sea of that question. The more faithfully does an English Parlia- ment represent England, with its strong individual, social, and political life, with its strong action of the national thought upon the executive, with its peculiar adjustment of political mechanism, the more disqualified alified is it, unless under the guidance of states- men profound n thought and feeling, strong in the confidence and attachment of Parliament and people, to deal with such an empire as India.
When Pitt solved the problem, and laid down the constitu- tion under which substantially India has been governed since his day, he fulfilled exactly this primary and essential condition. He was young enough in years to feel the pure enthusiasm of an artist in the execution of a great political task, and old enough in faculty, as well as powerful enough in Parliamentary position, to carry out with triumph his conceptions. Moreover, his mind was eminently constructive, and his hand of that firm character which can carve out the legislative destinies of a dependency. Besides which, he had been warned into unselfishness of action, supposing his position as Minister had tempted him into dealing in the huckster spirit with the question, by the great failure of the coa- lition. And the result was that he struck out a principle of rela- tion between the Company and the Crown, which may, after all, be found to be the political philosophy and wisdom of the subject ; the essence of which is an independent Legislative Council, with practical initiative, but subject to the final veto of a Minister, re- vonsible to Parliament ; a scheme of government in which the Minister and Parliament should intervene but little in the actual legislation of India, and in which the paramount power of the Crown should be felt in matters appertaining to war and the foreign relations of India alone.
Further reflection has confirmed us in the opinion that the India question and the home question have both gained immea- surably by the suggestion of Lord John Russell, to which Mr. Disraeli's resolutions are due. Not, indeed, in the production of the resolutions, which, upon a careful examination of them, pre- sent but one single feature of superiority, to the bill, that the ab- surd franchise of the towns, and the more absurd mercantile qualification of councillors, are omitted. But it is a gain that Parliament is furnished with the opportunity of discussing and re- solving whether or not it is expedient that the transfer of India to the Crown should now take place, in order that the direct su- perintendence of the whole empire may be placed under one exe- cutive authority." And be this decided affirmatively or nega- tively, the decision will carry greater weight as being given upon the direct issue itself, rather than upon the bill either of Lord Palmerston or Lord Derby, with all the collateral party and personal passions involved in them. It will be more satisfactory to England and to India that this principle should be affirmed after solemn debate, rather than hastily submitted to at the dic- tation of a Minister. And if it be, indeed, expedient, that "her Majesty, by one of her principal Secretaries of State, should have and perform all the powers and duties relating to the government and revenues of India, which are :or may be now exercised and performed by the East India Company " ; let Parliament assume the responsibility of affirming a principle involving such tremen- dous issues to the empire, in the direct and categorical form pro- posed ; and not by the mere sidewind of apparently innocent le- gislative clauses alone, give to a Secretary of State of the British Crown supreme legislative authority over thirty millions of re- venue and a hundred and fifty millions of men. Taken in this naked shape of resolutions, the most frivolous-minded 6f politi- cians can appreciate the magnitude of the question far better than when it comes veiled in the technical phraseology of a proposed statute. And this alone is an advantage beyond price—placing the mind of Parliament in the proper judicial temper regarding the question. And it is this wise thought which we presume actuated Lord - ;elm Russell when he first suggested that if Parliament was to legislate on India at all, its action should be prefaced by reso- lutions. It should be known and borne in mind in coming dis- cussions, and remembered in that verdict which opinion will pass upon the deeds and words of public men in this critical and distracted hour, that this suggestion was made by Lord John— not, as is now ;toted, for the first time the other night, to rescue Lord Derby's Government from an impending attack. The opinion was first given by Lord John to Lord Palmerston's Gc- vernment as far back as last autumn, when it was communicated to him that it was intended in the coming session to legislate
upon the government of India. It is the special misfortune of an era of divided parties, that acts of the most consummate political wisdom are liable to be distorted by misrepresentation until they wear the aspect of mere factious selfishness. And
perhaps there is no sign more sure of the decay of political chivalry which is the most marked and distressing feature of the moment, than the vulgar virulence which has assailed of late the man, who whatever may be his faults of temper, or demeanour, or statesmanship, has always been sincerely true in intention to a genuine if somewhat stereotyped and antiquated form of Liberalism. Infirm of purpose, and hasty in impulse Lord John Russell may be. But it is the very crazy malignity of faction, of which unfaithful friends only could be capable, to charge him with unpatriotic guile, foreign to his nature, and to suppose that he would deal with such a question as that of India upon the paltry ground of a private pique or animosity. But the resolutions, however wise may be the principle of con- sidering the government of India in that express andjudicial form, are not it appears absolutely agreed upon as the basis of the coming discussion. There is a technical difficulty, which ap- peared at first to be likely to be made a convenient excuse for party passion ; that resolutions of the House are too late after the introduction of a bill. We are observing the actions of leading public men at this moment with special and almost exclusive re- ference to the question which we have agitated the last two weeks, 'whether the leaders of the Liberal party can or will gene- rously and patriotically unite to replace Lord Derby's Govern- ment by a strong and sincerely progressive Administration. And it was not without curious and anxious interest-that we observed how Mr. Horsman put Lord Palmerston to this test the other night by suggesting that, since this technical difficulty existed, it would be well that the bills should be withdrawn, inas- much as all parties were agreed " to proceed by resolution." Here was an admirable opportunity afforded to Lord Palmerston to serve the. India question by taking away from it those disturb- ing elements of party passion, for the indulgence of which, in re- ference to so august a business, history will hereafter reserve the most unmeasured reprobation. And we suppose that Mr. Hors- man, who is attracting to himself hearty admiration and sympa- thy by playing the part of touchstone to try the sterling quali- ties of statesmen for the work and Ministries of the future, had some such thought and purpose in propounding and suggesting that removal of the difficulty. But surdis canebat, and Palmer- ston would not have it so. All were " not agreed" : the ques- tion should not be brought into the clear daylight of unpreju- diced, unfettered Parliamentary discussion ; the bill of the Go- vernment should not be suffered to drop, but should perforce re- main as a convenient handle for ejecting them. No time or thought should be given to the question of a genuine reorganiza- tion in leadership of the party returning to power. It would seem, therefore, that Lord Palmerston appears resolved to go back to office as the Legitimist leader of the party : nothing short of a recognition of a leadership by divine right will satisfy him. He wishes, apparently, neither to learn anything nor to forget any- thing, and would return to the Treasury-bench only to be hurled from it again by the Parliamentary combination which was stig- matized at its first operation as an unprincipled coalition, but which in its second was plainly the necessary result of the rela- tion between Ministry, Opposition, and the independent Liberal elements in Parliament. 11Tot ;even the genial bonhommie, and past services, and popularity of Lord Palmerston can save this course from being deservedly stigmatized as the supreme alike of infatuation and of cynicism. For the immediate present, the reorganization of parties, and the restoration of vital power to Parliament, must depend upon the adjustment of the antipathies or pretensions of Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston. We should view with more of equanimity, if not less mortification, this struggle of personal aims, if so great an empire as India had not been chosen as the special apple of discord. But we must be content, for the moment, to witness the playing out of this ignoble farce, while events at home and abroad are big with more solemn dramas; which will peremptorily require—unless there be a prompter regeneration of public men than we have as yet reason to expect, whatever we may hope—other and far more dignified, impassioned, and power- ful actors on the scene. We have uttered words of earnest solemn entreaty to Lord John not to trifle with this great business of the reconstitution of the Liberal party ; to stem by vigorous action and the bringing out of new elements to , mingle with old associations, the rising tide of popular contempt and disgust, and disbelief in the old Parliamentary men and system. There are wretched days in the history of a nation when the hearts of men fail away from their allegiance to the political order in which they have been born, when the faults or follies of statesmen, and the collapse of governmental power, make men an easy. prey to revolts from above or below, absolutist or democratic, against liberty and law. Symptoms of incurable decadence in the present order of governing men and influences are abroad, and specially of a dan- gerous oblivion of'the nation on the part of statesmen as a creature of highly organized life, whose ministers and servants they are, not a mere brute mechanism to be moved and governed by an adjust- ment of influences, public and private. Is it not time for Lords Palmerston and John Russell to look about them, and infuse a new and higher purpose in their action, when democratic journal-
ists can find' their account in dragging to the light of public dis- cussion all the sacred privacies of their domestic lives, and put in vulgar competition and contrast the characters and associations of names too delicate and unfit for the rude arena of party passion ? We do but glance at this. To discuss it further would be to par- take of the degradation which has made it possible : but which is inevitable when statesmen attempt to govern great nations through drawingroom influences practised on its parasites and flatterers, rather than through the sympathies of its great heart, and the fulfilment of aspirations suited to its high destinies.
The time, we believe, is drawing to a close, during which it will be possible for the old leaders of Parliament to disappoint and stul- tify a spirited party and a feverishly anxious nation. We spoke last week of the reticence of Mr. Gladstone, Sir J. Graham, and Mr. Sidney Herbert, and repeat that it may be pardoned, if it 'covers effective action suited to the exigencies of the hour. If this be not so, their silence •and their inactivity, are a practical and complete abdication of the right to occupy the foremost places of administration. It is not enough to criticize and over- throw Ministries. Under the peculiar circumstances of confusion in which parties are placed, those who do so are bound to follow up the blow by acts of political, and party, and Ministerial con- struction. All the splendour of Mr. Gladstone's eloquence pelts in importance by the side of the acts of leadership on the part of Mr. Horsman, which stamp him at this moment with a character of authority, and which drew the other night from Lord Palmerston the petulant, and perhaps prophetic re- mark, that the right honourable gentleman " spoke as though he could wield the Liberal majority." The party is very willing to belong to its ancient leaders if tliey can spare a little attention to its needs, and the sovereign national purposes which it repre- sents, from the more important business of settling the previous places in administration which are due to themselves. For leader- ship vindicates itself not by the claim to lead, but by the fact that the leader is truly making felt the weight of a superior faculty, and the guidance of a more vigorous hand. Parties and nations can well bear a defect of sympathy in their rulers for them, when they see character and a ruling will. But feebleness and self-seeking, combined and protracted beyond the endurance of men, may make it indispensable to wrest from the hands of rulers those symbols of authority which represent no longer anything save Parliamentary stagnation, national discontent, and dead reputations. That this chaos of the majority must not be protracted is a thought which must press with irresistible force upon all those who rightly understand the working and meaning of the British constitution. It is no paradox but a simple political truth, that the position towards Parliament taken up by Lord Derby's Go- vernment, is an utter abrogation of all the sound conditions of Ministerial existence, and a sacrifice of the monarchical principle of the constitution. Lord Derby, through his colleagues of the House of Commons, has virtually expressed his willingness to be the servant of Parliament, rather than of the Crown. It is thus that Lord Derby fulfils his mission of stemming the rising tide of democracy. So true and so inevitable is the operation of the law, which causes the follies and misdeeds of the occupants of the executive power of the constitution, to be followed by encroach- ment of and submissions to the elective and popular element. So true is it that Crown and Aristocracy alike have their rightful place in the constitution endangered by the torpidity of will, or insensibility of soul, or incurable crotchetiness of intellect in the few men who monopolize the mysterious and sacred right of being " sent for."
The course of events is clear. Yet a little while must be given to the leaders to try to lead : to try to form an enduring, healthy, and sound Government, of the type which we suggested last week. But if it should at last appear that the magnates of Parliament and the Liberal party have reached that stage of political ecstasy in which the contemplation of their own perfections renders in- superably difficult all attempts to combine for patriotic and effective government, no course will be left to the party of progress, save to raise the cry " To your tents, 0 Liberals There may have to be a coup d'etat in English party, to add one more to the many coups d'etat with which the later history of the world is studded, and the leaders may have to be set aside for newer and stronger men, more in accord and sympathy with the actual life of the time. It will be hard if safety and honour can be found only in the political extinction of those whom, could they but be wise in time, the nation and Parliament would still gladly follow with loyalty, with renewed and increasing reverence unto the end.
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