itittrs in t4e Eititor.

PARTIES OR S TA TESHEN.

Slit—Some months back,* you were good enough to print a letter of mine under the above heading. Since then, recent events have forced some of the subjects with which I dealt in it still more forcibly on my mind.

Parliament will probably shortly be prorogued, while our relations with America are still unsettled. Till the beginning of next year Lord Palmer- ston will be almost as uncontrolled a despot as his brethren at Paris or Vienna. He may plunge us into a war with any nation he pleases ; he may to a great extent involve us in what expenditure he pleases ; he may bombard Washington, sack New York, lend a few millions to the King of the Mosquitos, with no sort of responsibility except the chance of a censure from a Parliament which remains in abeyance till January or February. And when that Parliament meet, the utmost it could do would be to say that Lord Palmerston's conduct deserved censure. We should still be in the mess into which he would have led us ; only we should have to find somebody else to lead us out of it. Possibly, Parliament might not even go so far as this ; very likely, good faith, national honour, the integrity and in- dependence of the Mosquito empire,. might be held to bind us to persist in any wicked and ruinous policy to which the reckless ambition of one man is quite competent to commit us. In fact, with all our talk about constitutional government and responsi- bility of Ministers, it is not very clear what the functions of Parliament are on these points. It is ruled to be "inconvenient," "prejudicial to the public service," and what not, for the House of Commons to pronounce any opinion on a question till it is irrevocably settled. That is, the people through their representatives must not announce their wishes so long as those wishes might have some practical influence on the course of events. Nor is it very easy to obtain even -a retrospective judgment. AS you your- self hint in your last number, many will say, The thing is past, you cannot alter it ; why rake it up again ? Others say, An expression of opinion will weaken the Ministry, perhaps make them resign ; therefore you must not express your opinion, unless you and your friends are prepared to take their places. But if Parliament mly neither give advice for the future nor pro- nounce judgment on the past, it may as well altogether abdicate its func- tions as "the grand inquest of the nation." It is this way ofelooking at everything with a view to the keeping in or turning out of a Ministry which seems to me to prevent any question from being fairly discussed on its own merits. The Ministry are like too many domestic servants. They will not take either advice or reproof; they keep their "situations" as long as they "give satisfaction" ; if they don't give satisfaction they had better leave. You must not say anything unless you are prepared to replace them. We have just had a remarkable instance. The first man in the House "speaks one way and votes another." He de- livers e telling and unanswerable speech against the Ministry, but refuses to join in the vote which was to censure them. No one will suppose that Mr. Gladstone ever spoke or voted in any way but that which he believed it to be his conscientious duty to speak and vote. And the shape of the question precluded any, formal inconsistency. To vote against Mr. Moore's motion, did not, in its terms, imply any approbation of the conduct of the Ministry. Those might fairly vote against it who thought it inexpedient to pronounce any judgment at all, as well as those who were prepared to pronounce a judgment favourable to the Ministry. But surely it is a strange state of things when a man like Mr. Gladstone is obliged, from fear of conseq_uences, to refrain from carrying out his convictions to their natural result. He holds that the Ministry is blameworthy ; he says so ; but because he is not pre- pared to turn them out, he refuses to put his avowed sentiments in the prac- tical shape of a vote.

Surely,

this is not a healthy state of things. Surely, if we are to be a con- stitutional state, there ought to be some means of advising and even cen- suring the executive power without necessarily displacing it. Surely Mem- bers ought to be able to express their sentiments both by speaking and voting Without taking in the question, Will the Ministry stand or fall ? As long as that is really the question at issue, no matter of foreign or domestic policy will ever be really argued on its own merits. Is there any :amain in the nature of things why a Minister should not listen to the voice of Par- liament before he has acted irrevocably and it may be fatally ? Is there any reason why he should not patiently accept a censure without either re-

signing or dissolving ? It is surely possible that Parliament may a man on the whole the best man for his place, may on the whole put more confidence in him than in anybody else, and yet think it expedient either to give iiim a few general instructions for his guidance or even to express its disapprobation of some particular portion of his conduct. No Minister was ever more trusted by his Parliament than Aratua was by the Aehrean Assembly. Yet that Assembly epee passed a vote that if Aratus chose to make war upon Sparta, he must do it at his own expense. Why should not the House of Commons give Lord Palmerston a similar friendly caution with regard to America?

The truth i,s, that so long as everything goes by parties and minis- * See Spectator, February 2, 1856. tries, so long as there is one set of men anxious to retain power and another set anxious to turn them ont of it, no question ever will be discussed as it ought Ur be. Surely, on great and momentous ques- tions of peake, war, and alliance, the thing most wanted is to have them fairly and dispassionately discussed by the best men of all sides.

It could do Lord Palmerston no harm if he were enabled or even obliged to talk over every matter quietly with Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Cobden, and Sir

John Pakington. Surely, to have matters well sifted from their four points of view' would be more likely to conduce to a right decision than our present method. Surely, a measure in whose favour all or a majority of them agreed

would carry a recommendation with it which no measure can over obtain at present. As it is, the Minister takes counsel only with his Mends and confederates, who are supposed to take the same view of things as himself. In Parliament he encounters only hostile criticism from men anxious to supplant him. Friendly consultation, or anything approaching to it, be- tween men of different parties, is something wholly unknown. In matters of this sort, one must be contented to throw out very crude hints, to have one's views laughed at as impracticable and to think oneself wonderfully lucky should a alight step be taken in their direction a genera-

tion hence. But I must confess a certain attachment to the old constitution of King, Lords, and Commons, in preference to the new constitution of Ministries. Would it not be possible to give the Sovereign a sort of Execu-

tive Council, composed of the best men of all sides, who might carry executive measures by a majority ? Might not Parliament be at full liberty to express

its opinion on public affairs either before or after the fact? I of course imagine such a Council not to be liable to be removed with every adverse vote, but to keep their places for a fixed time. On the whole, I am inclined ' to think that the American system of tenure for a fixed term is better than our system of precarious tenure. It has some great disadvantages, but I suspect many of them would be alleviated if the immediate reilection of the President were forbidden.

I said above that the Ministry could practically involve us in what ex- penditure they please. The nullity of Parliament was never more clearly shown that in the debate on the Turkish Loan last year. I of course utterly objected to applying the public money to any such purpose. But I per- cetved that in the debate able financiers objected to the measure on purely

financial grounds, without any reference to the justice of the war or the

merits of the Turks. I am no financier, and I do not pretend to Judge of the strength or weakness of purely financial arguments. But this I clic] ob- serve, that the Ministers made not the slightest attempt to answer those ar- guments. All that they could say was, You must confirm the loan; the national faith is pledged to it : Louis Napoleon will be offended if you don't. Now, if the consent of Parliament was still necessary, it is clear that the national faith was not yet pledged to the measure ; and if Parlia- ment is to abstain from doing this or that for fear of offending Louis Napo- leon, why, we want sonic guarantee for the independence and integrity of the British empire.

Well, for above half a year Lord Palmerston has unlimited power of dis- turbing the world. Ile may make what treaties he pleases' and declare war

on whomever he pleases, without the control of anybody but his own col-

leagues. He may send out what ships he pleases to America; he may an- nex what kingdoms he pleases in India ; he may occupy what countries he

pleases in Europe, provided always they are not "great powers " ; he may send troops to put down either Christian or Mussulman revolt- against our Ottoman Mends; he may guarantee as many despots and surrender as many independent nations as he thinks good, till next January. And then pro- bably all that he will do will be to postpone inquiry as long as he can stave it oil; and when the day of reckoning does come, he will pass it off with two ' or three merry jests, which will send the Great Council of the Nation into : "roars of laughter."

If the people of England approve of this state of things, I have no more to say ; but surely they ought to have some better means than they have at present of saying whether they do or no. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, E. A. F.