PARTY.
Taiga has recently been some discussion in contemporary, columns on the question of party government. Mr. Du Cane may be said to have raised it by his bold statement that, at present, the true place of the Conservatives was in opposition. Mr. Bou- verie tarried it forward by relegating the Conservatives to the eter- nal snows of opposition, and the journalists came in to point out that this would not do, because a party deprived of all hope of office would be very, inefficient as an opposition, and because a Government deprived-of an effeetive oppoaition, that is, one which could succeed to power, would become tyrannical and intole- rable.
There is a certain modicum of truth in all these views. A hope- less opposition would be either a nonentity or a nuisance, a nominal drag chain, or a mere factious mob. So that Mr. Bou- verie's views, if indeed the interpretation put upon them is one he would admit to be fair, are out of court. Mr. Du Cane was nearer the mark when he ascribed to the Conservatives the tenure of opposition for the present, that is, under existing circumstances_; and when he broadly asserted that they ought net to return.to power by favour of a fortuitous -concourse of atoms, like that effected by the wave of Lord Derby's hand in 18.58. A not come legitimately into office until it commands an effective majority. There is an universal repugnance among all classes to a Ministry on sufferance which is sure to be what is vulgarly called a squeezable Ministry. Yet it is precisely this kind of Ministry which Lord Derby, supported by the eager counsels of Mr. Disraeli, has twice formed. the Conservatives have not since 1841 taken office with a sound. and legitimate majority. They have twice succeeded Ministries broken.up by Whig quarrels, of which they have taken advantage to enjoy a breath of power.; but in neither instance have they legitimately gone into Downing Street.
Why is this ? The vulgar designations of parties are the Ins and the Outs ; designations- which imply the desire of place as the predominating motive of politicians. We do not concur in the fitness of the designation nor in the motive it implies. But the conduct of the Conservatives gives too much warrant to those Who use these epithets. They not only came into place fortui- ' tously to succeed others who could not agree, and without a ma- jority to sustain themselves when in, but they adopted the main features of the policy of their adversaries, showing that they neither had a policy, amajority, nor, as it has been lately stated, even a newspaper. They were simply alternately Outs and Ins.
We quite assent to the common notion that our constitution requires government by party. This only makes it the more necessary that the party should be a legitimate power in the State,—in fact, the representative of the majority for the time being. A party governing without a majority is an interregnum, a waste of time. Such were the two Conservative Governments since the death of Sir Robert Peel. They were political inter- regnums. Time enough has elapsed since 1856 to found a really effective Conservative party: There has been no lack of great questions calculated to excite natural differences among men starting in political life with -the contradictory beliefs, the one that all should be stationary, the other that all- should be pro-
gressive. There has been no lack of real Conservative feeling, so much of it, indeed, that we hear vaunts of a Conservative re-. action. The Whigs or Liberals have not been supremely happy in the conduct of affairs upon the progressive principle. Why, then, have not the Conservatives made more way towards.
stability ? The reasons are not far to seek. In the first place, they were incapable of devising a bold policy in har- mony with their principles. Next, their most influential leader their man of genius — was not a man bred and born in the cradle of the party. He was a recruit. In conjunction with Lord George Bentiuck, he gratified party malice and party prejudices, and, for the sake of securing a sharp and sarcastic tongue, the Mouse of Commons accepted him as their leader. They have endured the consequences. Shifty and adroit, Mr. Disraeli has availed himself of what seemed the popu-
lar cries of the day, the popular items in the programme of the statesmen he supplanted, and being unable to realize them has brought discredit on his party by his egregious failures. We need only cite the attempt to equalize the Income-tax, the con- tradictory vote on the Conspiracy Bill, the adoption of the pro- posal to extinguish the political existence of the East India Com- pany, the Conservative Reform Bill. Even in respect to the
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French alliance, the credit of which, we believe, is considered a patent right by Lord Malmesbury, the Conservative leader out
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Hauled Herod in his adulation of the Emperor Napoleon. The only genuine bit of Conservatism we have had was the conduct of negotiations in 1659, and everyone knows, except the Tories, that they lost office, as much in consequence of their foreign policy as of their Reform Bill. It is not, therefore so much the hopeless- ness of the Conservative cause as the want of a true Conservative policy, nay, the want of any policy, which has rendered the Con- servatives unable to hold office. Lord Derby's name is a tower of strength, no doubt, but Lord- Derby evidently, yields, when pressed, to the seductive and delusive nrojects of his lieutenant. A good opposition is a very valuable thing. A good opposition would succeed naturally to office, when it had proved itself better than the, party it opposed. But a stout and valid opposition is not to be built up on principles, or rather expediencies, like those which have ruled in. the Conservative camp since 1847. If there are to be parties, with distinct and separate existences, those par- ties must be founded on separate and distinct principles, only merging and dewing into each other in great national con- junctures when unanimity is essential to national safety. ' When the Conservatives can find a leader who will really lead them by finding means to put in action or keep in action their 'own distinc- tive principles without borrowing, 'begging, and stealing, and without quackery, they will stand a good chance, not only of winning, but of keeping substantial power. Until they de find such a leader, they will only come into power, not by over- mastering their opponents, but by some accident, and they will keep it only long enough to illastrate the folly of reposing con- fidence in one who is with them, but not of them, and who has used them only as a stopping-stone to his own glorification.
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