THE NEWEST LIGHT AT OXFORD.
OXFORD Urrnmasrrr, as a Parliamentary constituency, is divided by the two parties whose sole union lies in the desire to unseat Mr. Gladstone,-the Ultra-Tories, working in their vocation ; and certain Reformers, working in the vocation of the said Ultra- Tories. The motive of the Tories is obvious enough-Mr. Glad- stone is not one of them. The motive of the Reformers 15 not so intelligible. They seem bent upon establishing at once the most distinguished and most lamentable precedent for the principle of delegation instead of representation. The whole argument by which they support the opposition to Mr. Glad- stone implies that the Member should not sit in Parliament to deliberate upon the measures that come before the assembly, but should take implicit instructions from the common crowd of his constituents. Extend the principle to all constituencies, and the Members would be not statesmen, but attornies ; Parliament becoming, not the "collective wisdom" of the nation, but the collective blockheadism. The move of the Oxford Reformers is of such a kind, that if it should obtain a practical result, their enterprise would be crowned, not with the success, but with the total defeat of the party. The project is essentially incapable of success; for the Reformers cannot appoint their own man, and they know the fact so well, that they have not even such an intention; so that their only alternative, according to their own standards, is Gladstone or a worse man, and they deliberately choose a worse ! One of their arguments is, that Mr. Gladstone does not represent any party at Oxford ; which may be conceded: if he does not exactly fit with the for- mulas of the Liberals, neither is he so close a counterpart as Sir Robert Inglis may be of a certain number of Illiberals ; and there- fore the Liberals, with a perverse generosity, propose to furnish the Illiberals with two representatives. As a set-off against their repudiation since they ought not to be the men to drive Mr. Gladstone entirely from Parliament, another seat is suggestively sought for him, and it is proposed that be should be returned for Manchester ! Objecting that he does not represent Oxford, with its learning and its accomplishments, its blending of the ancient and the modern, its logic and its casuistry —for his very, faults are Oxonian—the idea strikes somebody that perhaps he might represent that most material and borne of poli- tical sects—the Manchester school !
The Anti-Gladstone movement is not limited to the local Reform- ers, but extends to that organ in the press which claims to speak for the ex-official Reformers of "the families," the traditionary mo- nopolizers of the title. The Globe, which seemed on the 1st of this month partly to accept our supposition that Mr. Gladstone may not be really opposed to University Reform, spoke on the 3d as if to show that he had made an adverse pledge, from which he could not depart. If it were to be admitted that no man can be a Re- former who is not a Whig, or if it were to be suspected that any man alien to the party who becomes distinguished as a Reformer must be hateful to Whigs, we could understand the counter-advo- cacy which binds a man down to be your enemy whether he wishes it or not.
The speech of 1850, on which this view is raised, can only be made to support it by the very grossest misrepresentation. It is true that Mr. Gladstone objected to the Commission, and he spoke, as he always speaks, not without reasons. He objected, for ex- ample, not as one of the Academic body, but as a Member of Parliament, to the Royal Commission, because it was "an en- croachment of the Executive power." The practical and present question for the Oxford men, as electors, is the state of Mr. Glad- stone's opinion now. His views for the future are not to be pre- sumed from his arguments on a past which has been superseded; for the actual proceedings of the Commission draw a broad line be- tween the past and the present. From that very speech of 1850, however, it might be gathered that Mr. Gladstone is in the very fittest mind, not for resisting, but for promoting University Re- form—for assisting, with the aid of the intelligent and authentic information furnished by the Commission, to frame, as he ex- pressed it, "careful and well-considered, but extensive, and, I will add, early changes." The subject is now exactly in the stage to be approached by the legislator. It is no longer a question whether in- quiry might be expedient or profitable : we have had inquiry, and it is very profitable. Bat the enormous blue book presented by the Commission to the Crown is not the edict of infallible lawgivers : even the " recommendations" are not the heads of a statute, but only points presented to the more ready consideration of the legislator— materials for his use. And will Oxford deem it wise to exclude from the council to which all the best practical wisdom should be brought, precisely the man, of all individuals, who possesses for the work the fittest qualities of ability, of training, of candour, of sympathy both with the long-enduring and the advancing ?
Previous page
