TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE COUNTER-COALITION.
IT sometimes aids clearness of conception to define an object by stating what it is not, as well as what it is. We have already characterized the fusion of parties, represented in Lord Aberdeenrs Ministry, as the union of the positive and the elimination of the negative elements of political tendencies in recent years. That Ministry furnishes a guarantee, that an honest attempt will be made to carry out all the useful ideas that have been generated among isolated sections of politicians ; and such an attempt can be based on no other foundation than on the gradually matured per- ception by the statesmen concerned, that these ideas are not con- trary the one to the other, but supplementary, capable of being the root-springs of an harmonious system of policy and administration. This is the description of what the Ministerial fusion is. Probably no man is more strikingly representative of that fusion than Mr. Gladstone ; and a perception of this fact lies at the bottom of the distinction made between him and his colleagues. The character of the constituency to which he presents himself for reelection has something to 410 with the particular form in which the distinction is enforced. But the character of the man is the real cause of that outbreak of virulent hatred, coarse, unscrupulous, and keen ma- lignity, which have given an unenviable prominence to the Oxford election, to its preliminary incidents, and to the persons answerable for them. We may find what we seek—a suggestion of what the Ministry is not—in the constituent elements of the opposition to Mr. Gladstone, and in certain peculiarities in the mode of con- ducting that opposition. The opposition is raised against an unprincipled coalition—a monstrous union of parties and persons having no object or prin- ciple in common except that of turning out Lord Derby and taking his place. The opposition, therefore, must itself represent either a party long habituated to united action, or a coalition rests ing on some high definite principle. The former it palpably fails to do; but a principle definite enough at least, does unite Arch- deacon Denison with lir. Hugh Stowell, an extreme " Evangelical " like Mr. Hambledon with the " notorious semi-Papist" Bennett of Rome. All four are idolaters of the letter—it matters little whether of Scripture or of Church tradition: Mr. Gladstone lives in a higher region' acknowledges a reason and a conscience in man, to which both Church and Scripture testify, and which both may nurture, elevate, and purify, but which neither is entitled to supersede or deaden. These MBIL exist on forma and formulas: Mr. Gladstone knows forms and formulas only as aids to appre- hend facts, as husks to enshrine principles: what greater reason for animosity need be asked? It is the world-old war between the flesh and the spirit—between the men who believe in an Unseen ever manifesting Himself in the facts of history, and those who cling to a dead past in the despair of the practical Atheism which denies that God is teaching the world new lessons every day that passes. England hates coalition, cries Mr. Denison; and probably he will experience the truth of his own adage. ' But the coalition of Mr. Gladstone with Lord John Russell is immoral. The opposition therefore is moral,; and it takes care to give theworld a lesson in morality, by the method it employs to attain its ends. Either the London press for a fortnight past has been teeming with fictions that remain uncontradicted, or Mr. Denison's morality must be like Sheridan's, which, Moore tells us was so lofty and refined, that being incapable of carrying it into practice, be quietly gave up the vain attempt, and, sickening with despair at the unattainable loveliness of the object of his admiration, drowned the hunger of his heart in a gulf of practical baseness and profligacy. Or, may be, Mr. Denison, wishing to impress upon society a horror of coalitions and their consequent immoralities, rushes into a coalition whose common bond is hatred to an eminent person, and then with suicidal patriotism resolves to prove -that coalitions so based are carried out neces- sarily by all the arts of chicanery and deception. On no other than one of these two hypotheses can we account for a movement origin- ating in a protest against political immorality disgracing itself by the means used by those with whose conduct Mr. Denison is ne- cessarily identified. The Oxford opposition to Mr. Gladstone, looking upon it, as all unbiassed men must, as one movement, has run the gamut of electioneering rascality; and whether the scale begins with Beresford the pure and gentle or with Lempriere the truthful, matters little: Mr. Denison and his clerical allies are responsible for all the " of which they take advantage. Certainly, if morality is to be a standard for office, we trust it will be of a afferent sort from that exemplified on this occasion by the advocates of the Protestant religion pure and unalloyed. Mr. Hugh Stowell has furnished another item of comparison be- tween Mr. Gladstone and the cipher whose name is used as the war-cry of the opposition to him. Mr. Gladstone, says this re- verend advocate of political consistency and pure religion, is always on a voyage of discovery. That is Mr. Gladstone submits to learn from the events of the time in which he lives—submits to the humiliation of acknowledging that the theories of the study are to be modified by the circumstances under which the principles involved in those theories are to be carried into practice. It is true, Mr. Gladstone did not finish his education at Oxford : with Solomon, he Ends wisdom to be a hidden -treasure, demanding labour and self-sacrifice in those who would dig out the jewel and turn it to the uses of life. Somehow we fancy that the English nation is singularly at one with Solomon and Mr. Gladstone in -1
this matter, and that it has arrived at its
0‘.11Q11.•
perity and power just because it has been al
moulding of experience, and has not thought be acquired ready-made in the schools, and that ihian! Wild1 bickilisbN; wise who refused to listen to the teaching of events, and chose to remain utterly ignorant of the characters and dispositions of ninety-nine hundredths of the human race, who were nevertheless necessarily the instruments of the national policy. It is because he is always on a voyage of discovery that Mr. Gladstone appears to us a fit representative for a body whose pretensions are to be the guide of the age, and to be for that purpose largely endowed with the material means requisite for the pursuit of profound and ac- curate knowledge. We thank Mr. Stowell for the phrase. It seems to us strictly to mark the distinction between Mr. Gladstone and his opponents. Their bearings are recorded in an old alma- neck, his are taken on the spot. But the Record comes to the rescue, and tells ne that Mr. Glad- stone is supported by Mr. Justice Coleridge, and by Dean lillman, the editor of Gibbon's Decline and Fall. This is a charge that cannot be refuted. More than this, it cannot be retorted; for it is certain that no one having the eminent professional distinction acknowledged in Mr. Coleridge, or the eminent literary distinction that would cause a man to be selected for the editor of Gibbon, is likely to be found among Mr. Persevere supporters. Still it may be doubted whether Oxford is sunk to that degree that it would tell much against Mr. Gladstone that he is in favour with an illus- trious judge and an accomplished man of letters. Mr. Gladstone's
to
supporters are be found among distinguished lawyers and men whose labours adorn the literature of the country. Mr. Percevars are to be found in the secret room of the Carlton, and at Exeter Hall, and in the committee of the National Club—perhaps in Bedlam. Last of all, the Church of England is endangered by Mr. Glad- stone's taking office in a Ministry whose opinions on ecclesiastical matters are neither of the Denison nor the Stowell type. Perhaps Dr. Hook, Canon Trevor, and Dr. Pusey, may be surety satis- factory to the High Churchman that Mr. Gladstone has abrogated none of his opinions. Perhaps the opposition of Mr. Denison and Mr. Bennett may persuade others that Mr. Gladstone is neither a fanatical High Churchman nor a temporizing Romanist If these two circumstances conjoined do not mark Mr. Gladstone's political position as a Churchman, all argument would fail to do so. The fact, however, remains, that those who have ever shown them- selves honest in the expression of their own opinions, liberal towards those who differed from them, still support Mr. Glad- stone; while those who oppose him are made up of the extremes and firebrands of both parties. Those, in faott who claim for them- selves the right of expressing -their own opinions, and of acting upon them within the limits of the formal documents of the Church of England, are on Mr. Gladstone's side; they who to this priv. lege would arrogate the further comfort of cursing and exooiffiu- nicating those who differ from them, are on Mr. Percevari side. In truth, it appears that Mr. Denison's notion of a perfect Church is one in which, clothed in full canonicals, he can curse his fellow Christians and defy the legal authority of the Crown. Oxford, then, has to decide whether she will support a coalition based upon a desire to effect practical good for the country, and with that object dropping differences that time has reduced to a • mere habit -of opposition; or whether she will support a coalition based upon nothing but a temporary union of hatred and party- spirit veiling itself in religions pretences. She has to decide whether she will support a morality consisting in a candid avowal that old party distinctions are obsolete and mischievous, or a mo- rality which aims at keeping up such party distinctions at the sacrifice of personal honour and truth, and a blind hostility to a particular man. She has to decide whether she will hold the Church of England to be inextricably involved in the policy of ignoring the existence and outraging the feelings of a large pro- portion of the population of the British islands. She has to decide whether she will consider the parrot repetition of old watchwords as the one test of attachment to principles religious and political. And lastly, she has to consider whether she will send a man to Parliament confessedly not qualified for the work there to be done, rather than one eminently so qualified. And after all, she must consider whether, as a religious and educational body, her move- ments are to emanate from herself, or from a secret conclave of the Carlton Club, modestly delighting in the anonymous, but suffi-
ciently indicated by the notorious W. B. being authorized to send circulars in their name. And the decision concerns Mr. Gladstone indeed, but not half so much as it concerns the future of Alford. herself.
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