TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PARLIAMENTARY PROSPECTS.
THE past week has contributed materials of some importance to the future history of this strange time of Parliamentary transi- tion. Our readers will have perceived that we are exceedingly anxious not to pledge our faith, or peril our hopes, upon any man or any foregone conclusions, at a time when the removal of all ancient landmarks appears to make everything possible. But we entertain some sort of hope that affairs are tending in the direc- tion, which we described last week, as affording the best prospect of a renewal, in a strong and creditable form, of the government of the Liberal majority. The principal political features of the last few days have been further symptoms of the moral and in- tellectual decline of the late Administration, viewed as a body which still owes its coherence to personal passions and desires, and what is more gratifying to be able to chronicle, still stronger symptoms that Lord John Russell may prove equal to the present opportunities for public good and distinction. It has been our painful duty to describe the failure of statesmanship and leader- ship, in the Liberal party, in uncompromising terms. And we have been looking forward, with such anxious curiosity, for re- newed seriousness and steadiness of purpose, for larger liberal sympathy and action, on the part of some of the Liberal leaders, that we are disposed to welcome the very semblance with no grudging approval and support. Now we have always held the same language upon this matter. Of all the forms of Parliamentary reconstruction that can be sug- gested, we know of none that would be so satisfactory in principle as that, which should have for its basis the determination of so old and valued a servant of the state as Lord J. Russell to lead the way towards the new sera of constitutional restoration, ad- ministrative purity, and healthy foreign policy. We felt it to be our duty to give such support as we could to the movement of Committee-room No. 11, at least by way of the counsel and sug- gestions, upon which alone it seemed to us that such a movement could prosper. For any sign of positive action, any course out of the present state of vacuum in the political world, appeared to us to have some presumption in its favour. But the signs of the present moment, and the march of events since that meek insur- rection, point to a possible different solution of existing diffi- culties. The important question now is, whether the course taken by Lord J. Russell during the past week is the manifestation of a settled purpose, and whether he has fairly thought out the principle involved in his remarkable vote of Tuesday night on Captain Vivian's motion. Of late there has been so much disagreeable duty to discharge in the adverse criticism of public men, that we would gladly foster the hope that these questions may be answered affirmatively. If this be so, Lord John may at no distant time resume his natural place at the head of the Liberal party, a wiser, a more efficient, a more valuable man than ever. If this be not so, if our hopes of Lord John remain without fulfilment, the discredit will be none of ours. In cases of this kind we had rather be the dupes of a charitable desire, than partake of that ignoble foresight, which, never knowing how to believe in any man, is of course never dis- appointed in any. Such, happily, is not ihe temper of England. If we were asked to mention in what point the national mind of our country is preeminently great, we should say, in that large liberal construction, which it knows how to put upon the actions of public men ; in that patience and forbearance, which wipe out at once the record of a thousand disappointments in the past, for the sake of one bright deed in the _present. All the statesmen of the Liberal party have of late had the opportunity, afforded by this characteristic of the public mind, of gaining renewed respect and esteem. We must say that Lord John is the only one who appears anxious to profit by it. The ex-Ministers of Lord Palmerston's Cabinet have signalized themselves this week by their successive attacks on Mr. Disraeli for his speech at Slough. Lord John had, as early as the first night of the reassembling of Parliament after the Whitsun holidays, taken occasion to remark, with some severity, upon the objection- able character of that wonderful effort. And there it might well have been permitted by an opposition, prudent and dignified, that all direct chastisement of the over-vivacious Chancellor of the Exchequer should stop. Lord John Russell, from his position of comparative independence, was the best organ of criticism upon Mr. Disraeli's escapade. And the representatives proper of the interests of Cambridge House would have done more, even for their own cause, had they been satisfied with the inter- vention of Lord John alone. But to bring up to the attack, on successive nights, Lord Palmerston in the Commons, and Lord Clarendon in the Lords, was to make far too much of the occasion as a matter of mere tactics.
The country, which is keenly alive to the blank character of the performances of the session, silently but bitterly resents the series of deceptions, whereby it was led into giving an immense majority to a Minister, only, as it has turned out, to foster his pride, and cause him io break that majority into pieces. It is clear 'that the authors of the Conspiracy Bill have not been taught by three months of opposition to study how to place themselves in sympathy with the mind of the nation. Otherwise they would not have provoked for Mr. Disraeli the indulgence which they have done, by their renewed attacks upon him, and which not even the discreditable prevarications of his defence have been able altogether to quell. Englishmen never like to see a dead. set made at any man, not even the right honourable Benjamin Disraeli. And they like it least of all when the attack is made in utter oblivion of the many joints in the harness of the assailants, through jahich, as observers perceive not without pleasure and approval, the nimble gladiator of the Treasury Bench is able to pierce his antagonists through and through. Of course it is very disagree- able for the gentlemen of Lord Palmerston's Cabinet to have such a wasp as Mr. Disraeli buzzing about their ears. But, it might be remembered that there is such a thing as public business after all. Post-prandial statesmanship is not much worse than propter-prandial Opposition attacks. While India is in full con- flagration, and Europe is a seething cauldron of forebodings and expectations, it would be well if the censured members of Lord Palmerston's Cabinet did not occupy too much of the public time and attention in shrieking under the tomahawk and scalping- knife of Mr. Disraeli. If the fight were carried on in some re- tired saw-pit, the country would not care how long it was pro- tracted, or how much blood was spilt. But the arena of Parlia- ment should be occupied with more important matters, when the dearest interests of the empire are at stake. This is not precisely the method whereby Lord Palmerston can " rehabilitate " himself in the leadership of the Liberal party. It was not without interest, and some pain, that we heard this week his somewhat decided statement that he had not the least intention of "retiring." This would be justi- fiable if he were exhibiting any renewed title to leader- ship, and to the confidence of his party, by the course of his voting and speaking. But we are unable to perceive any such signs ; on the contrary,. while asserting, in this un- equivocal manner, a sort of divine right to leadership, Lord Palmerston and his late colleagues make it only too plain that their faces are set away from the tendencies and desires of their nominal party and the great majority of their countrymen. The debates on the Suez canal scheme, and on Captain Vivian's mo- tion, have afforded two remarkable tests of this fundamental difference of sympathy. Tried by both, Lord Palmerston and some of his late colleagues fall below the mark of leadership of the recon- structedLiberal party. By both, on the contrary, Lord John is proved far more worthy of the post. But it will be well to consider the spirit of both these discussions and the principles involved in them. We shall thus be enabled to show why we regard these votes of Lord John as so valuable, if he has himself rightly appreciated their scope and effect. On a former occasion we discussed the Suez project, and the relations of English diplomacy thereto, and this week we give consideration, in a separate paper, to the administrative aspects of Captain Vivian's motion. But it is with the political character of both that we are dealing now, and especially with their bearing up- on what we understand by Liberal policy and principles, at home and abroad. And first with regard to the Suez scheme. It is in the highest degree unfortunate, in the highest degree illiberal, for the safety or policy of the British empire to be exhibited, by respon- sible statesmen, as dependent upon the hindrance of any great i industrial undertaking in any quarter of the globe. It is, perhaps, not too much to say, that Parliament and Administrations have never given so much handle to the charge of our Continental enemies, that England lives and thrives by keeping other nations down, as by the vote of Tuesday night on the Suez scheme, which was given under the misguidance of Cabinet Ministers in and out of office, and especially of Lord Palmerston. The arguments upon the subject are almost too frivolous for consideration. It is ex- ceedingly unfortunate that statesmen should import Stock- Exchange arguments into political discussion. If the scheme is a bubble, the bubble might be allowed to burst, without investing England with the contemptible character of selfish obstructiveness, in which she is placed by that vote. The true and only ground for it was precisely that which Lord Palmerston adopted, that of confidence in those who have governed the country in office. He told the House that " they," the Cabinet ministerial class, thought the scheme wrong, and asked whether it could be supposed that " they " did not know best, and had not the country's interests at heart. This is not an argument for a British Parliament. And we are heartily glad to see that Lord John, voting in a small mi- nority, and although at some slight consequent sacrifice of Par- liamentary prestige, protested against the peddling diplomatic view of things upon which the opposition to the Suez canal is based, and also against the assumption of infallibility for the official class, of which, after all, he is far the most distinguished living member. Equally significant of the new ground of conflict with conser- vative obstruction, which Liberalism has to take up, and equally significant of the attitude Lord John is taking up in this contest, was the vote, upon Captain Vivian's motion, for a consolidation of the departments of the Army under one responsible Secretary of State. Of all the members of Cabinets, past and present, who have been loudest in the assertion of the absolute indispensable- ness of a single-handed supreme Secretary of State for India, for the sake of responsibility, not one, except Lord John, has had the courage and sincerity to apply the principle to the case of mili- tary administration. This will not readily be forgotten, the more .S0 as all reflective men are satisfied that the principle is one ut- terly inapplicable to the English branch of Indian goveinment, but most emphatically applicable to the organization of the Army. And even more when men remember that the real issues on trial in Captain Vivian's motion were of the most serious constitutional and national kind. In that department of the executive, which is now theprincipal object of the solicitude of the nation, not only for its brilliant services in the past, but because it is increasingly felt each day, that the safety of the empire is bound up with its reconstitution, there has reigned hitherto a complete supremacy of class interest, injurious, as we firmly believe, even to the favoured few. And besides this, perhaps as the cause of this, the patronage and greater part of the administration of the English army have been conducted by an office independent of Parliament ; so that a " system" has been established, which, by the former confessions of those who resisted the motion of Tuesday night, was fatal to the efficiency of the Army. Mr. Sidney Herbert made a somewhat ludicrous com- plaint of the difficulty experienced by independent Members in voting aright on Tuesday nights. But he might have remembered that the real business of the country is now being transacted on these Tuesday nights. To those we owe the only practical achievements of the session in the field of large policy. Govern- ment nights are now usually devoted to Utopian schemes of Indian legislation, faction fights, and the assertion of mere per- sonal claims and wants. The question whether the Army should be expanded in principle and organization to the measure of a genuine national institution, fit for the stress of any events, was virtually on its trial on Tuesday night last. The question, indeed, whether there ever is to be again another Balaclava, another Cri- mean disgrace. It is the greatest honour to Lord John that he was one of the narrow majority of two by which the question was rightly decided. While the members of the late Cabinet are only advertising themselves, or opposing these really urgent measures of Liberal policy, Lord John is thus actually leading the van of genuine Liberalism. If he [persevere, if he show himself in all respects equal to the occasion, he will find plenty of men in and out of Parliament to do his work withal, and he will wield for a long time that sweetest of all power, which consists in the active sympathies and approving judgments of his fellow countrymen. It will not be long now before it is made abundantly clear whether he is more Englishman than Whig. Mr. Disraeli has very plainly told the House that the vote of Tuesday night is not to be acted on. And it remains to be seen whether Captain Vivian is of that firm temper, which a man should be made of, who undertakes reforms so important as that with which he has identified himself. We trust the country is not to be disappointed in another man, almost as soon as he has given promise of good. No Member should take up such a question as that of military reform, without being firmly determined to fight his way, in a self-sacrificing spirit, through all opposing influences and difficulties. This is one of those questions which will not bear being trifled with. The honour and safety of the country are deeply involved in the radical reconstruction of military ad- ministration. The part which the Horse Guards plays in para- lyzing the development of the military power of this empire is perfectly understood throughout Europe, and we are satisfied that the thorough carrying out of the principle of Captain Vivian's motion would be worth a numerical army increase of twenty-five per cent at least in the scale of power. The country will not long endure that interests of such overpowering importance should be sacrificed to a class, or a clique, however important, supported by influences however august, however justly dear to the nation's heart.
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