TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE PROXIMATE PREMIER—SECOND SITTING.
Tan writer who differed with us last week about Sir ROBERT PEEL and his prospects has sent us a second letter. Our esteemed correspondent seems to have been rated by his party for the too great fairness which he showed before ; a sin not chargeable against his present production. He passes into another key, but without modulating; and the mind is startled by the abruptness of the change and harshness of the discord.
" I think in your comments on my last letter you misapprehended my notion of your hopes of good government from Sir ROBERT PEEL. I never once argued on the supposition that you or any one else ima gined that be was to change his principles, and become what Liberals would call a Liberal Minister. I described with some minuteness the course which I conceive that you expect him to take, when I described the policy of what I called a Minister of Concession. I described such a Minister as being neither an open deserter from the Tory party nor a Liberal in disguise, but as one whose sympathies are with the few,' who is 'jealous of the advance of popular power, and of the adop- tion of new principles of government '; whose' purpose ' is to yield only to necessity, and to concede as little and as late as possible.' I de- scribed hint, however, as one pursuing these objects with temper and prudence ; as not shaping his policy according to the violent passions and antiquated prejudices of his party, but endeavouring by timely concession of what cannot much longer be upheld to conciliate public opinion, and keep together the great bulk of the present system of pri- vileges. What other course can PEEL pursue, if he is to give us those practical good measures which you lead us to expect from him ? A Tory Minister must be one of two things—he must be either an Ultra- Tory, a blinister of mere resistance, governing by the aid of mere aristocratical influence, and the few Tory prejudices that yet prevail in the great mass of the electoral body, and fearlessly doing violence on most points to public opinion ; or he must be what I call a Minister of Concession, and pursue the course which I have described. The Duke Of BUCKINGHAM is a kind of man to take the first of these courses ; a course in which I believe in my conscience that a majority of the Tory party in both Houses would like to follow a Minister, if it could find one capable of leading them ready to take such a course. I don't be- lieve PEEL or any other of the rational leaders of the Tory party are inclined to attempt any such folly. A Minister, however, who will not take it, must inevitably be a Minister of Concession. He may pursue his course with more or less skill, and more or less consistency : he may get more or less credit by appearing to originate what he is com- pelled to adopt; or he may subject himself more or less to the ignomi- nious imputation of being the shuttlecock of contending opinions and the instrument of other men's purposes. Rut whether be play his part ill or well, whether he succeed or fail, his policy will still be that of concession to Popular interests and Liberal opinions. You make PEEL OUI a Minister of Concession, as I do : only, it appears to me, that you think it requires very little skill and consistency to play such a part ; that any man may at a moment's notice take it upon him, provided that he is in the humour to be sufficiently pliable, and let a Liberal Op- position squeeze good measures out of him. I, on the contrary, main- tain that such a coarse requires great skill, great foresight. great steadi- ness, and great boldness in the man who takes it; and that PEEL, having none of these qualities, will enter on such a coarse doubtfully, conceive it imperfectly, execute it feebly, and fail in it before he achieves any of those practical results which you expect at his bands. "In my last I attempted to show from the whole of PEEL'S past life that he is deficient in the qualities of a man of action ; that great as may be his merits as a debater, he has none of the higher and more essential qualities of a statesman. I thought it necessary to go back to his past career, because people seem too apt to forget the great warning which it gives us respecting his future conduct. From what he has done before, I think we may foresee where, and how, and why he will fail. But I am not left merely to such inferences from general character and bygone blunders. When I maintain against you that he will not have the success, and not do the practical good that you anticipate, I am strength. ened in my conviction, by seeing that he is even now exhibiting the faults which I impute to him ; that he has already begun a course of blunders similar to what I expect of him ; and that he is steering straight upon the rocks which are before him. He has already in a great measure put it out of his power to take the course which it would be best for him to take, and which I have no doubt he would be inclined to take. I have no doubt that his wish is to make great concessions to public opinion ; that be has some vague purpose of doing so. But mark his recent career ; and see how not only has he taken no steps towards enabling himself to do so, but how on all the great matters on which concession will be required of him, he comes into power pledged to some of the worst violences and bigotries of his party. He comes in for instance, pledged to Sir ROBERT INGLIS'S Church-extension. No one supposes that he will keep this pledge : but think of the foresight of a man who, with power actually in his grasp, has, by voting for such a monstrosity as that, subjected himself to the imputation of having given this dishonest vote for the temporary purposes of opposition ! But take stronger cases still : take the great difficulties of Government at the present moment—Ireland and Free Trade. I suppose, if he has a notion of preserving the public tranquillity as well as his own power for twelve months, that he means to govern Ireland in a spirit of concession and moderation. And how does he come in ? With Lord STANLEY for his colleague, and Lord STANLEY'S Registration Bill for his first practical measure I Why, you see as well as I do, that such a measure implies a policy of fierce defiance, provocation, and coercion in Ireland, from the outset. No concession, no moderation, is com- patible with that : and if once an Irish conflict begins on that ground, we may bid adieu to every hope of practical good, seeing that Parlia- ment will be an arena for Irish brawls while such a bill is passing and until it is repealed. Lastly, take Sir ROBERT'S course on the Corn- laws : a man of common foresight would have seen long ago the neces- sity of ultimate concession, and consequently the necessity of taking such grounds in opposition to the Ministerial plan as would admit of
creditable concession hereafter. On the contrary, he has committed himself to the verg worst principle of the present Corn-laws ; and, come what may, he cannot hereafter give up that worst principle without convicting himself either of the most culpable inconsistency, or of a want of foresight almost as culpable. He has so taken his ground, that he cannot hereafter admit of any useful change in the Corn laws,
without being guilty of a very naked apostacy, or very transparent shuffling. All this, I believe, springs from mere want of foresight. He thought when he took his course, that the landed interest would give him a majority and office. He has got his majority, and will have
office in a week : and he is pledged to a principle which no power that
office or majority can give him, will enable him to uphold. He won't concede : he has not the moral courage to play over again the game of Catholic Emancipation. He won't take the bold course of resistance; look on unmoved at distress, use his majority to impose new taxes, and raise a yeomanry to quell complaint and collect his revenue. He will do neither; but invent some middle course of hesitating between concession and resistance—that is, blunder somehow, and faiL " A Minister who means to concede must enable himself to do so by acquiring a perfect mastery over his own adherents. No man (except,
perhaps, Mr. Prrr) ever made himself so necessary to a party ; and no
man, at the head of a party, ever acquired so little of its confidence as Sir ROBERT PEEL. Suspected of treachery, even before he commits its he possesses little of the influence that would induce his unwise and ram- pant followers to accept at his hands the reforms which he may judge to be necessary peace-offerings to public opinion. The Duke of Rice- MOND'S speech on Tuesday was a sample of the feeling entertained towards him by many of his own party ; and it is probable that he has received many a private intimation similar to that given by his Grace, to the effect that those who bring him into power are ready to turn him out again on the first indication that he gives of abandoning their interests. " A great error, which he seems now to be on the point of commit- ting, must in part be attributed to his uneasy position with his own party. A Minister in his position, who is not popular with the mass of his countrymen either on account of his general political principles or his past career, must count much on earning general support and good- will by the efficiency of his Administration and the abilities of the persons to whom he intrusts the great offices of his Government. In Sir Roaster's case this is particularly necessary, on account of the ex- cessive unpopularity of some of those who must necessarily be his colleagues. Indeed, according to the ordinary party notions of a kind of aggregate strength made up by the individual influence of the various members of a Cabinet, PEEL'S Cabinet will only be a drawback on himself, and he would be strongest if he could govern without any colleagues at all. As his colleagues bring him no popularity--con- ciliate towards him no masses of public opinion—it is essential that they should at any rate have special fitness for their particular offices ; se that their administrative merits shall to a certain extent make up for their political unpopularity. Now, if we are to believe common report, and the very confident statements of the Times, we are to have a Cabinet imposed on Sir ROBERT by the ordinary necessities of his party, and men thrust into their offices on any ground but that of selec- tion for any especial fitness for them. " In the first place, there is to be what I may call a principle of Re- storation. Office is to be got by a claim of ancient possession; and whatever post a Tory once held, he is to be held to have a claim to be put into again. Thus, they say, we are 'to have Lord LYNDHURST as Chancellor. He is now eleven years older than when he was last in that office, and illness has broken him even more than age. He was never in his best days a good Chancellor ; for even his great legal acu- men and eminently judicial cast of mind were inadequate in that office to compensate for his want of Chancery law, coupled with his indo- lence ; and now he has in addition the rust of nearly seven years' cessa- tion from all legal business whatsoever. And yet he is to be Chancellor again, though it seems physically impossible for him to hold his office six months, and though this is of all offices the one in which it will be most difficult as well as most essential for a Tory Ministry to present a successor who may be decently compared with his predecessor : and this simply because he had it before, and because, therefore, it will be possible to stave off for a few months a rupture with SCGDEN. Lord STANLEY is to have the Colonial Office; in which, of all the offices of the Government, except the Foreign and the Irish, his peculiar faults are likely to render him the most mischievous to his country and his party, because that was the last office he happened to hold. Here, too, the man who is to be replaced is Lord JOHN RUSSELL, who has won golden opinions from men of all parties by his administration of the Colonies; and he is to be replaced by a man whose proverbial indis- cretion and want of temper make every Colonial Tory shudder with apprehension. The Irish Lord-Lieutenancy is to be given to Lord HADDINOTON, because he held it for six months in '35 ; though his name is associated with nothing but the Orange flag which waved over his head in the Theatre. I cannot suppose that Lord CANTERBURY is really to be sent out to replace Lord SYDENHAM in Canada; but it is but too probable that that office too will be given to satisfy some worn- oat Tory, whose only claim to employment is the having exhibited his incapacity in office before the Reform Bill. There is nothing that Sir ROBERT PEEL should avoid more than the semblance of the restoration of the old Tory Ministry. Whatever may be the strength of the Con- servative party, there is no attachment among any class of men to the recollections of old Tory Ministries. -Sir ROBERT should try to keep them out of sight, and prevent their being awakened by the reappear- ance of his ancient colleagues in their former places. " Nor does it appear to me that Sir ROBERT is prepared to exhibit any of that firmness in resisting the unreasonable claims of powerful members of his party, which is so essential in his position. The sen- sible and moderate portion of the world are startled at the idea of seeing the Duke of Boon:sons)t in the Cabinet. Then what does all this controversy about the " tainted " mean, except that certain powerful and idle Tory noblemen, whose extravagance has rendered salary ne- cessary to them, and who are fit for no office requiring capacity or in- dustry, are pressing him to thrust them into some of those easy offices about the Court, in which their immoralities happen to render it rather indelicate to put them? We hear of a host of ex-officials and ex-diplo- matists who expect a provision to be made for them in Colonial Govern- ments and other important appointments, for which they have no earthly qualification. Sir ROBERT PEEL is placed, in this respect, in a position of peculiar difficulty. He has to gratify the expectations of all of his party who have been ten years out of office, as well as of those who have been ten years working in Opposition. But if he has not the firmness to grapple with this difficulty, and in his arduous enterprise secure himself the aid of the best men whom his party can supply, he is no man for his position. I think all present indieations of his intentions in this respect show that he u ill do wrong, and mill consequently fitil. " Here, after all, is a very speedy test of the accuracy of my anticipa- tions of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S course and fitness for his position. In a week we shall have the list of his appointments. If his Ministry is a mere Restoration—if he surrounds himself by incompetent men—if he wastes the competence at his command by putting fit men in unfit offices-1ton 'will, I think, be brought round to my belief,that PEEL has learnt and forgotten nothing in Opposition, and that his Ministry will be a mere revival of a Tory Ministry, and give us mere Tory measures. If he avoids this rock, and shows sagacity and courage in the choice of his colleagues and subordinates, I shall have hopes for the country, and, I hope, be able to dissemble my despair for my party."
In the main, this letter is a series of assumptions, or a practical disregard of the reality of things. In the first place, our esteemed correspondent has read the Spectator rather through the spectacles of his party prejudices and Mars than by the light of his reason. The Spectator never held out great hopes from PEEL'S disposition ; never painted him in such flattering colours as those of our corre- spondent's letter of last week. Quite the contrary. We took, upon more than one occasion, a survey of his position, and pointed out the gain that would accrue to himself and Conservative prin- ciples from a course of action in accordance with the nature of time and circumstances, whilst we predicted an uneasy seat and an eventual fall by adopting any other. But we have never held out any distinct hopes that he would take this course, and we have never denied the difficulty of his position. On the contrary, we affirmed it in express terms. After reviewing the position of parties, in a late paper on "the Government and the Country," we observed- " Under average circumstances, therefore, Sir Robert might calculate upon a certain tenure of office for the next Parliament, if he confined himself to little more than carrying on the government ; if he actively applied himself to mature and carry those measures which have no relation to party politics, his tenure of office might endure for his life. But he is beset by difficulties and compelled to action."—Spectator, 31st July 1841. t may be said that a certain degree of character is necessary to enable a man to see what is for his own interest to do, and to do it. This is no doubt true ; but we may suppose that the man who is confessedly at the head of the House of Commons—whom our cor- respondent himself, when writing last week in the natural key, made out to be really a better man than any in the existing Ministry, and whom the country admits without question to be the only known man fitted for the post of Premier—has that certain degree of cha- racter. If this be assumption, it is not greater assumption than our correspondent falls into, when, by implication, he denies "great skill, great foresight, great steadiness, and great bold- ness," to Sir ROBERT PEEL; for we think that facts dis- prove three-fourths of this negation. To raise a minority of 150 to a majority of 360, shows " great skill"; especially when the party to be raised was a party so hated as the Tories were, and so hot-headed as some of them have showed themselves. Sir ROBERT PEEL displayed " great foresight" when he warned his party that " the battle must be fought in the Registration Courts' : it was the exact thing—neither more nor less. " Great steadiness" he has displayed in the caution and Fabian character of his Opposition tactics, despite of the eagerness of his party, the taunts of opponents, and some baits that might have tempted a person without steadiness. • Even " boldness" he dis- played, when he coolly pushed aside the opinion of the Duke of WELLINGTON and the Conservative Peers upon the Canadian Union Bill. However, we have considerable doubts as to his ha- bitual steadiness and boldness. Had we not, we should never have doubted about him—described him as "beset by difficulties," and pointed out upon more than one occasion the possibility of his failing to obey the necessities of his position, and that the Liberal party might soon be set up again through his failings. Had we, however, been the friends of Sir ROBERT PEEL, instead of critics upon his position, we might have assumed these qualities in him, with quite as much justice as our correspondent assumes the non-existence of certain qualities in the teeth of facts. Time and circumstances change all men, and in one particular they have changed PEEL. When Ttaireev, CANNING, and BROUGHAM were in the House, his estimation as a debater was scarcely higher than third-rate. Now he is admitted to be the first. If time, opportu- nity, and the responsibility of position, have worked this change in his intellectual character, some change may have taken place in his morale. But this is the point to be proved by experiment ; as we have all along stated in effect, if not always in terms. One attribute, however, Sir ROBERT PEEL'S Cabinet will possess whilst it lasts, which is wanting in the Whig—it will have a real Prime Minister. Lord MELBOURNE'S Government is one of de- partments—himself a mere Mayor of the Palace : its positive poli- tical character, such as it is, has probably been derived from Lord Joins RUSSELL. No one looks to Lord MELBOURNE : if he is asked about any thing that his Government is doing, he never • knows, but he will inquire. With Sir ROBERT PEEL the oase will be different : on him, and on him alone, will the country fix its vigilant regard ; from him will the account be exacted. With the responsibility, he must acquire much of the influence and power of a man practically at the head of affairs ; and, difficult as it may be, it is yet possible that we shall see something like effective dis- cipline in his Administration. There are subordinate points in our correspondent's letter, also built upon assumptions, which only invite a passing remark. It escapes him, that if PEEL be so weak a person as he asserts, what must those be whom he has displaced under every disadvantage? The Opposition vote for Church-extension and the support of Lord STANLEY'S Bill do not " pledge" Sir ROBERT to bring forward or even to support those measures as Premier. A wider survey would have taught our friend, that his party in office had dropped many things they had mooted in Opposition, without difficulty. The mere theory of the sliding scale is not the worst feature of the Corn-laws : it is the jump, not the slide, which is so objectionable; a fixed duty might be as bad as a variable one ; the nature of the duty is the point in both cases. The statement respecting Lord LYNDHURST is perhaps trifling ; but trifling as it is, it is not strictly accurate : Lord LYNDHURST was in full work at the Exchequer within these seven years; discharging his judicial duties in a way that drew much business from other Courts, which we believe Lord A BINGER speedily lost. As to PEEL'S appointments, we shall judge of them when we know what they are : but both his Ministerial and Household appointments were distinctly pointed out by us, a month ago, as a means by which lie could "very soon destroy himself." It is possible that once, within a fortnight, he may give the Movement a lift and Conservatism a blow; but we will not predict that future as certain which is only probable, or say a thing is sure till we see it is so. Neither had the discontent of sonic of Mg. party escaped us; but we said he was "now strong enough to cord to offend." There is perhaps no occasion to give a political conge to the Duke of RICHMOND, but if the Premier allow a LENNOX to touch a penny of the public money, or to advance a single step in any public employment, he will show himself not only devoid of " boldness," but devoid of spirit and policy. When this insolent Corn-law Duke, however, talked of "turning out" PEEL, lie forgot the rather important question, whom could he put in ? The fact is, in the present balanced state of opinion, Peet. can destroy the whole of them : the garrison is his, and if he quit it the enemy must enter. It is below the mark to say he holds their destiny in his hands—he holds their existence. And here is the great secret of his power, if he dare to use it. Whether our possible expectations from the proximate Premier, guarded upon every point where he might fail in action—or whether the hypotheses of our correspondent, based upon some facts which are contradicted by history, and upon assumptions of personal cha- racter that have possibly changed—are the more correct, is to be proved by future experiment. At present it is clear, that PEEL is the inevitable Minister : the country does not even dream of any other; the Queen, whatever she may wish, cannot have any other: Mr. ROEBUCK himself announces that Sir ROBERT PEEL is the choice of the constituencies, and that constitutionally he is the Minister. Under these circumstances, it is perhaps as prudent to endeavour to bring bethre the all-but Premier the true nature of his position, as to show that he cannot do any good, by hypothe- tical assumptions, some of which are, and all of which may turn out to be, untbunded.
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