FATAL SYMPTOMS IN THE NEW MINISTRY.
NEXT week we shall see a little better how the present Govern- ment is to get on with the labour which it has set itself in endea- vouring to reconcile the Toryism of the eighteenth century with the progress of the nineteenth ; but in the mean time we already see one of the most serious embarrassments which it is likely to encounter, in the effort to reconcile itself with its own members. If Lord Derby's Cabinet could accommodate itself to the majority in the House of Commons—if a dissolution could enable it to arrange matters with the constituencies—still it becomes difficult to understand how it could settle the differences between its " young blood " and its veterans. In the course of the reelections these diversities of feeling and opinion have been brought out in strong relief, and have enabled us to understand what appears to be a leading principle in the. construction of the Government,— a principle which looks promising for those who formed the Cabi- net, but is likely to prove very embarrassing for those who have to carry it on. The differences are brought forth on almost any of the many interesting subjects that the new Ministers have had to handle, and before the Government has been a fortnight in pos- session it has had to rearrange its plans of action, somewhat to the inconvenience of its members.
On the Indian question, for example, Mr. Henley led us to be- lieve that Lord. Palmerston's- bill would be adopted by the new Government, only rendered " less objectionable in its details." It is now stated with great probability, that we are to have an en- tirely new measure, strongly contrasted with Lord Palmerston's in its very principles and in its whole scope. Theview of the French question, both with regard to the provo- cative and: to the plan of action, is equally conflicting. Some members of the present Government receive the despatch, of Count Walewski in perfectly good part, and throw the whole blame of the late embarras on " the impolicy and infatuation " that in- duced our Government to bring in a bill under circumstances which had at least the aspect of foreign dictation. That is Sir John Pakington's view. "As to the despatch itself," he said, " it has, I believe, been the cause of more offence than ought to have been, for it has not been conveyed to the English people vary accurately, not having been very well translated ; and I am quite convinced that the French Government intended no offence by sending it." So that Sir John sees nothing offensive, nothing particularly blameable, in the conduct of the French Govern- ment; and he is careful to show that the new Ministers have no objection to the bill which Lord Palmerston introduced. If we look through the whole round of the new Ministers, we scarcely - find any two agreeing upon those points. Lord Stanley hopes that no legislation will be necessary, and is at all events for inquiry
• first ; and if we were to judge by the result we might suppose Lord Stanley to be a more influential member of the Government than the First Lord of the Admiralty, since it is now understood that there is to be no bill. Mr. Disraeli hopes to get out of the - complication by " means and methods " which he does not very distinctly explain ; but he points out that " the Emperor will [he means ought to] place confidence in the laws of England, the efficiency of which has not even yet been tried, to obtain for him the just remedy which he solicited." But Mr. Disraeli, if he ob- jects to the late Government, is still more severe in his attacks upon the French Minister or some of his colleagues, whom he characterizes in terms of the roundest censure. He traces the present complication to the fact that the Emperor Napoleon has been too busy to attend to everything, and has "left matters to . his Ministers and to subordinate agents." We have had before, he intimates " eases of mismanagement and misconduct " on their part; and the Emperor "will not suffer his great principles of policy to be sacrificed for want of intelligence or from deficiency of judgment on the part of those individuals who have had the pre- vious management and conduct of these matters."
On the third great measure of Parliamentary Reform, the di- versity of opinion and counsel is still more striking; it runs the whole round of the Cabinet, and even below the Cabinet. Lord Derby confesses that he "would have been well satisfied if it had been the pleasure of Parliament that no legislation upon a subject so exciting should be called for or demanded of the Go- vernment.". Sir John Pakington finds the late Government not very much to blame even if they are yet undecided upon so diffi- cult a measure as Reform, although they had twelve months for consideration of the subject, and his own colleagues, when he spoke, but ten days : yet, he thinks, if education be extended, so may the franchise ; but he wants time for deliberation. At all events, he is not ready. Lord Stanley does not believe in the existence of a statesman who " considers or calls the bill of 1832 a final- measure." He is quite clear upon the "anomalies and practical abuses" which demand removal by legislation ; he only wants time to consider the question as a whole. Mr. Disraeli is anxious to prove that it is not the Tories who have been obstruct- . ors of a Reform Bill from 1851 to 1858 ; but he condemns as " hypocrisy" any mere pretext of delay, and promises for next year a bill which " shall deal largely and completely with all those questions connected with the subject which are entitled to consiueration,"—a positive but not a very definite promise. Sir Fitzroy Kelly goes into details, and adunibrates some better dis- tribution of representation on the basis of population ; he is against all measures of disfranchisement, and his " policy is all for extension." It will be observed that in this recapitulation, the men whose language is most hopeful with reference to Reform are either the new men or those that have gradually taken a stand remote from old Toryism ; but when we come to Mr. Henley, more than, once the spokesman of the Conservative party in Oppo- sition, we find ourselves brought back to the standard of Lord Derby three weeks ago. Mr. Henley, indeed, admits the neces- sity of dealing with a question that has been continually before the eyes of the.: nountry, but he does not stand pledged. Before he will undertaIe to- support Lord Derby's bill, he must see the bill. " I stand completely. free on the subject," he says ; and the context makes us understand that he will look at any Reform Bill with a suspicious and stern eye. In Lord Derby's new course of Reform, therefore, as it has been struck out by Disraeli and re- duced to something like practical reality by Stanley and Kelly, we foresee formidable obstructions in the persons of Henley and Derby. How is it that a party thus uncongenial has been brought to- gether either within the doors of the Cabinet or in the highest executive offices ? We can only explain what is an obvious his- torical fact by its antecedent facts. Men are to a certain extent unconscious of the circumstances by which they are surrounded ; they are sanguine that they will rub on somehow," without foreseeing today the difficulties of tomorrow. They perceive that party distinctions have to a great extent died out ; they hope that the distinctions between their own set and other influential men in Parliament have been reduced almost to nothing ; and this en- genders the not unnatural hope that the difference between themselves may be abated when it comes to the time for practical bargaining. This hope is naturally the greater since they have lived in that state which is called r‘ acting together" : they have used the same words at elections, have sat on the same side of the House, have dined together rather more frequently than with political opponents ; and, like members of the. same family, they suppose themselves to have the same feelings, views, and objects in life. But in the mean time, a change has been going on with- in their body, as it has in the rest of the world. Some members have taken up special subjects of study, as intelligent men of leisure at present launch into particular pursuits of inquiry—go in for the Pyramids, make the tour of the United States, study India in situ, borrow the hammer of the geologist, or bring home an aquavivarium' and plunge amid sea anemones, marine insects, and zoophytes. Conservatives who had a good deal of politbial leisure thrown upon their hands have taken up like Sir John Pakington the subject of education, like Lord Ellenborough the subject of India, or Lord Stanley that of church-rates ; and on such topics these Conservatives have become, at least pro bac vice, Liberals. Having continued, however, to " act with" members of the Conservative party, they are in a false position. In the matters by which they are most eminent they are Liberals; but have no standing with the politicians that sympathize with them. In subjects which they have not made a special study they are not Liberals, and they are thus compelled to lay their own public fame under the feet of the party whom they attempt to lead but cannot command. It is in this essential condition of the present Reforming Tory Cabinet that we see the congenital seeds of death.
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