TOPICS OF THE DAY.
BUSINESS BEFORE US.
— " Every man has business and desire,
Such as it is." Hammer.
3
,TEw YEAR'S DAY did not find Europe in the happiest of dispo- sitions, nor were the "etrennes " prepared for the nations of feli- citous conception. Nay, most of the unlucky states go without a new-year's gift. To France, however, the gift is a new dispensation, baptized in blood, and ornamented with mummeries to trick out the Brummagem Consulate as like its original as may be. To ngland, not perhaps a new Ministry, but a Ministry which we are to take for being as good as new, since it is patched up with new materials. These are the etrennes to France and England ; who are expected to accept them thankfully, as boys at school must accept thankfully the benevolences of the master. Indeed, France is not allowed to be anything but be thankful : she is sum- moned to acceptance at the mouth of the pistol, with the demand of"Your thanks or your life." She is thankful !
Meanwhile, there were some other little articles that our neigh- bours and we were looking for by this season ; and, at the risk of being considered thankless, we cannot help looking back to the promises of 1851, which 1852 already so much discredits. France aid have an idea that universal suffrage would be restored ; where- as she is allowed nothing but universal " Oui." She also had a notion of some little more instalment of liberty ; whereas the gifts of the season are a press debarred from political discussion, a pro- mise of removeable judges, and other amenities of that sort. Henceforth the nation is to have no political rights, but only such political alms as Louis Napoleon, " by the grace of God," may vouchsafe. But, most of all, France did retain some sort of han- kering after an honester regime than she had endured of late ; whereas she is now under an " organized hypocrisy," which sits on a republican throne, with its feet in blood, its head in an im- perial crown, a suppressed smile of triumphant mockery on its face. France must go without the gifts she looked for—must shut her eyes, open her mouth, and cry " Thank ye !" for what comes.
In England, too, we had our little expectations. We had sup- posed that we were getting on famously in setting our material arrangements in order. It would have been a graceful gift from the author of the City manifesto in 1846, if he had presented the Metropolis with some pure water : it was not ready, and we must, for the season, go on with our old friends the shrimps. We also looked for other social conveniences, and especially, among other little hopes, for new burial-grounds : but the gift of the year, in'that matter, is an announcement that the official cemeteries are given up. Government makes a present of the idea to trading companies, with a strong intimation that they are better than official boards. Probably they are : will no intelli- gent and enterprising joint-stock company contract to carry on the Executive Government for us ? It would accord well with the official view, and would be a practical improvement: but perhaps it would not be much more than a change in name ? The happiest gifts are negations : we have no Palmerston, no Christmas offering to the Anti-Papal idol. Invention in the way of munificence is decidedly worn out: well-to-do folks give each other tokens of affection, dinners and parties ; but what is there for, oo Public P Scant bounty ; not even a new Blackfriars Bridge,nor a British Museum Catalogue, nor a Winter Garden in the Park.
There is reason io believe that this apathy will not continue. The great parties in the state have an eye to the decline of popular favour. Like the theatres, the managers find that their performers don't draw, and they are looking out also for new and attractive pieces. The pantomimes of this season are only too solicitous to be eclipsed by those of happier days ; and we have many things set down for accomplishment before next New Year's Day. It would be much if the political managers could only convert shams into realities. A Reform Bill would not be disgusting in itself; it is noisome only as a stale pretence—a sham so rotten that the only manifestation of its existence is the widespread perfu'me of rotten- ness. A real Reform Bill would have the advantage of being quite an original idea. It is an idea which seems to have occurred to nobody ; which is a curious fact, if we consider nothing more than the incessant repetition of the word. Words suggest ideas, at least occasionally, and even in the mouth of parrots. Parrots, indeed, do not keep up the reiteration so inces- santly as Reformers "; and it is said that people who live near a cataract or in the weaving-room of a factory cease to hear the babbling or the whir. Lord John talked of a representation of the working classes • and many of them are literally expecting to see a few fustian jackets in the House of Commons ! There is a good deal to be done for the moral satisfaction of that class : Lord Sohn has admitted the suffrage point, Mr. Labouchere the right to have the faculty of forming industrial working partnerships, many trusted persons in Parliament and in office acknowledge the right to i seriousimprovements in the Poor-law. The middle classes, too, want a Reform Bill; they are all asking for it in their winning way : and really anything that could supersede the national custom of system- atic agitation would be the best of gifts to a tired country. There is the agricultural class too—can nobody give to it that best of gifts, a contented mind ?
It does occur to us, by the way, that the several classes of so- ciety might do something themselves, and be ready next year to make their presents to the nation. If the working classes would only learn what it is they really wish, and would " lay their
heads together," instead of going to loggerheads, or running the said heads against every inexorable post, they might gift the na- tion with the power of helping them. They have their necessities, and much might be done to improve their condition, if they would only come to the point, and look to realities instead of " speeches " from professed agitators. As it is, they will any day run after a speech rather than a fact, and you cannot get them to stand still to be " ameliorated." The middle classes might help ; for if, instead of meeting to combine against the men in industrial pursuits, they were to show a disposition to combine with them,—if, instead of showing distrust and fear, in political matters, they were to make common cause, and to help rather than obstruct the more eager wishes of the many,—if they were to temper their over-cal- oulating prudence with a little more earnestness, they might really restore a modicum of wholesome vitality to politics. But the "aristo- cracy," what can they do P—Bestir themselves ; remember that they have a position to keep, and earn it by serving their country —not as they do now, if they do anything, by serving their party They are not without examples ' • though their general body lies under a dreadful incubus which they call the " Cui Bono." The Church, too, we understand, is about to introduce a great im- provement—a spirit of Christianity !
Her Graoious Majesty—the grateful nation already anticipates the gift which she is preparing—a truly honest, straightforward, publio-spirited, and therefore powerful Ministry. We know the ridicule which we incur from hazarding the anticipation of any- thing so Utopian ; but we believe that it is not really so wild or impracticable an imagination as may naturally be supposed. For its elements, it only needs a dozen gentlemen who are capable, who are honest and earnest in what they undertake, who think more about the work which they are to accomplish for the nation than of their own prerogatives or perquisites, who will postpone their own egotistical crotchets to a common purpose, and who are, in short, vigorous, noble-minded, and patriotic. That is all ; and why we should be laughed at for imagining the possibility of such a thing, we do not know P We need not enlarge upon the good that a Ministry so composed might effect, both in the internal relations of the several classes and in the external relations of the country. Indeed, the prospect of that master-key to all good government supersedes the interest we might feel in special measures : " good men " means " good measures." Thanks, then, to Queen Victoria, for the gift, though it was not ready for this New Year's Day.
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