TOPICS OF THE DAY.
RESULTS OF THE SESSION JUS1' 'CLOSED.
Nov in the annals of the British Parliament will the history of 1849 be sought; for in positive political :results, no less than in specific measures, the fruits of the session are not striking. Of " bills" which have been consummated,. the one to repeal or mo• dify the Navigation-laws is the mostskriking; but it was the ine- vitable and anticipated sequel to trlie series of measures com- menced in 1842, and the intereeir in it had been " discounted." Its practical effects have to Welearned : our commercial marine is not yet broken up to siwIy the immense metropolitan demand for fire-wood ; nor has, lord Palmerston achieved any new reci procity treaties. The Bankruptcy laws have been consolidated,— a measure useful in itself and important as a step towards a gene- ral codification of our statutes. Ministers have promised a plan of improvement and retrenchment in the Ordnance department to follow the reform of the Admiralty. Ireland has had a crop of special bills—the one to facilitate the sale of encumbered es- tates, the new poor-relief, the rate-in-aid ; a few grants, of 50,0001. and 100,000/., besides 500,0001. for railways ; and some minor acts. This completes the list of prominent measures. A sequel to it will consist of measures not consummated, like the still deferred Jew Bill ; the "maximum " .part of the Irish Poor-law ; the Scotch Registration and Marriage Bills ; and the Australian Colonies Bill. Every part of the empire has had its disappointment.
If we glance beyond the specific bills to the merely political or moral fruits, we still see negative results. On the whole, we believe that there has been less of hollow cant, less humbug, less talking for talking's sake. The most like it, perhaps, was the motion by Mr. Disraeli on local burdens ; Mr. Disraeli being in the awkward predicament of desiring not to lose caste with his new and flattering clientela by being an inactive Member, nor to lose intellectual caste with other parties. But even he had a practical object, which he might have magnified if it had promised more— if it had not broken down at the very outset. There has been less attention wasted on manifest unrealities.
But among the negative results, achieved by a timid and faineant Ministry, is one that may have startling and perilous consequences—the serious and repeated infraction of the old Eng- lish rule of Ministerial responsibility. Ministers have supplied their successors with a practical example of evading responsibility in every possible way—evading it in prop,oundin' conducting, and fulfilling legislative acts. They referred.tieir Insh plan, like their Estimates, to a Select Committee, and compromised the recom- mendations; they had an extra-official conference with the Irish Members on the rate-in-aid; they affected to copy "a part" of Sir Robert Peel's suggestion ; they accept the mutilation effected in the maximum clauses of the Poor-Relief Bill by the Lords. They venture nothing except upon authority or compulsion ; they do not carry out any part far enough to brave resistance; and if resistance comes, they disarm it by cowering. Not they, but somebody else, is answerable for everything ; they have left them- selves not much more responsibility than " the clerk at the table." Thus they have outlived the session by evading positive or sub- stantive action ; as a creaking patient survives another sea- son by dozing through it, awaiting the gradual progress of in- ternal decay. It is stale to repeat that Ministers have retained their posts solely because there is no one to oust them; but the truth goes be- yond that fact—the old men in Parliament have manifestly nothing further to propose, and the anticipated rising of young men who were to take the lead has not happened. Statesmanship in Par- liament is quite stationary. The Premier Russell has repudiated. the dogma of finality, but he has not acted in opposition to it, except by passing the marine supplement to the economical mea- sures of 1842 : the three Secretaries, Grey, Palmerston, and Grey, merely carry on the Government administratively, with no grasp of any statesmanship to place the country or its government in a better position; Lord Lansdowne has fallen into the duty of a mere mouthpiece for his colleagues in the House of Peers; and Lord Clarendon appears to have been stifled by the official night- cap. But if the Ministry is somnolent, other parties are not less so. The Protectionists yield to the general apathy : Lord Stanley could not muster an effective resistance to the Navigation Bill ; Mr. Herries proposed his "moderate fixed duty" on corn as a traditional ceremony rather than a thing to be done ; Mr. Disraeli has made speeches to vindicate the Protectionist faith in his own powers, but not to increase the power of his party, and yet he has achieved something more like action than any of his compeers. Sir Robert Peel slumbers after his labours, occasionally awaken- ing to remind the world of what he has been, or to help the Min- istry. Sir James Graham keeps people in mind that be is out of office, without doing mischief enough to frighten anybody or bar his admission. Rumour assigns him a place as principal recruit in a coalition Cabinet ; but his admission would scarcely make it a coalition—Sir James is not a statesman, but an executive minister, very clever and powerful in his way, but not calculated to create a policy or give any new spirit to a party. The. Manchester school has not fulfilled expectation in Parliament : Mr. Cobden's threatened demonstration against war proved to be a compromise ; his attempts at retrenchment have had no fruit except the little makeshift compromising scraps of retrenchment which Ministers Opted in the details of their official arrangemnts. And as to the "young men" whose existence in Parliament had 'been ispe4g..._where are they! Certainly they have not simian -iletfiselves.: Lord Lincoln, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Adderley have 'Vine some good service in Colonial affairs ; but they have not rdenoise enough to awaken. their great leader, and it seems that none of their party are prepared to go on without him. We descry no party of young men who are making a study of the great political questions out of doors.
Yet .thati is the school in which our young statesmen must etudy, if they would distinguish themselves by restoring some kind of life to our- statesmanship: Parliament, directedly the old bands, is now going on 'after a fashion of its own, altogether irrespective of -what is going on in the world itself. The most "independent" Members have fallen as much into a routine as the most servile officials, and Joseph Hume is still pouring forth the. Radicalism of 1819. Contrast the blank history of the ses- sion with theteeming history of its season, and ask yourself in what the two correspond? Whet has Parliament done in regard to foreign affairs ? Per- haps the moat signal act of Parliament in that direction is the permissive portion of the Navigation Bill, which almost supposes a .continuance of diplomacy undisturbed by the dislocations of 1848. The annals of Parliament boast a complete ignorance of the events that have shaken Europe, and will shake it. Our Colonies are mostly in a state that makes men talk of " separation." Canada murmurs and moves with an insurrection deferred ; the West Indies resent the arrogant trifling of the Co- lonial Office, and also cast about for some plan which shall render them independent of that office ; the Cape colonists talk of resist- ing the proceedings of the Imperial Executive vi et armis ; and our colonies beyond the Cape cry out with every sort of grievance. i What has Parliament done in accordance with this dangerous state of affairs? what has it done for the sake of justice, to satisfy the mast perfectly reasonable claims of the colonists ; what for Policy, to secure the integrity and safety of the empire ? It has complacently listened to Mr. Hawes while he represented Lord Grey in the play of constitution-making ; and to Mr. Labouchere, whilehtemade a humbugging use of the Canadian disaffection in support of the Ministerial Navigation Bill. Parliament has burked effective inquiry into the state 'of British Guiana and Ceylon.
In what have the proceedings of Parliament accorded with the march of events in Ireland ? In nothing : Parliament knows no- thing about the march of events in Ireland : it has granted half a million for a railway, .apd much smaller grants for the Irish poor; it ha l enabled the _Executive to. put the landed, estate branch of Ohancery business in commission. Mr. Horsman's summingisp of work done and to be.tione might have been de- livered at either end of the session. The most positive act of statesmanship in Ireland has been to stop the stamps of the re- vived Nation.; a foolish piece of Polignacism which has been rescinded Meanwhile, Mr. Duffy and Mr. Carlyle are travelling Ireland together, to look at the facts by mutual and opposite lights; a conjunction which signifies more for that land than all the bills and despatches of Bird Cage Walk. But in England here—what is doing amongst us that Parlia- ment knows? Nothing. Yet for all its "tranquillity" the country has not stood still. " Chartism " only slumbers while disturbing influences distract the operation of its permanent causes. The great labour question has had another year's growth. Prince Albert's narrative of a journey to the Portland Roads migha.inform our statesmen on the condition of the natives in his route: the same race of " Dorchester labourers" that once caused so much anxiety ; the same class no better prepared for times of trouble—not at all prepared to cope with the agricultural consequences of free trade—not at all prepared by a single word of recognition to bear the next season of difficulty with patient' fortitude. Lancashire is as fertile as ever in a redundant popu- lation anything but prepared for an enforcement of the Malthu- siert decree against sitting at the board of Nature. The working classes have not turned non-political : though they have been as inactive as the Whigs, they have not come to the end of their philosophy ; though the Charter is in abeyance, they have not abandoned it. Something is going .on in those regions; but it is quite independent of the Parliament. The history of the coun- try and of its Parliament are independent of each other; and that, we believe, is not a safe or reasonable state of matters. The "grand inquest of the:nation " is for the time functus officio: but that which becomes useless perils its tenure of existence. It is true that not a few of the measures formerly deemed great, have been accomplished, and that a reaction is natural; and we believe that " Reform" and its appendixes have exhausted the creative faculties of " Reformers." Nor is change desirable for the sake of change. On the contrary, stability is the better thing; but the very question is whether we have attained the legitimate foundation of stability. • The question is, not whether certain "great measures" have been passed, but whether the legislation, and "representation " of this representative state have been brought to a condition which fits with theactual condition of the people,. socially and politically; because until that adjustment be accomplished, undoubtedly to delay the requisite changes is to court, net to avoid elanger. While the Parliament has a separate history from that of the country—. separate and more sluggard— the machinery 'of order is kept in Jeopardy. It is not because Par- liament hits passed few "bills" that the last session is unsatis-
factory, but -because it has shown more,tlitinitty pieytOMIAltlaien tl
how little tittiParliainent of " the three.gre tvi.ea niAnieskte e
is the Parliament of England, its people an tnra.
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