GOING UP AS A DEPUTATION.
Jr"county meetings are a farce," surely deputations "going up to Ministers are a niaiserie, and, the show of deference tradition- ally paid to them is now scarcely observed. A party of gentle- men particularly well versed in some subject go up in a body, are admitted to an audience by a gentleman, who sits and listens "with an austere regard of control "; they 'withdraw; and that is all. Why hinder themselves and him for so little fruit? The re- ception varies indeed. Sometimes the Minister or Ministers (for it does occasionally happen that there are two) will set up a show of controversy with the deputation ; which is then much dated by the flattering antagonism, and goes away full of respect for the statesmanly candour. Oftener the Minister only listens, smiles, and promises to consider: then the deputation is charmed with the "courtesy" of its reception. Occasionally the Minister tells his visiters brusquely, that theirs is "the maddest 'Project that ever entered the brain of man " : or perchance he will say, that Government has done in times of yore some portion of what is now asked—that he does not mean to discuss the matter—and that he has an engagement ; a bow of diamissal filling up the significancy of the hint. And then the deputation goes away with the feeling of k hungry man who has entered a cook-shop to buy a dinner, but has found his purse empty, and so departs with the void both of hunger and of hopelessness in the pit of his altomach. Now, why court these vanities and vexations of the spirit ? Say, ye gentle- men of deputations, what you ever got on behalf of hops, paper, steel-things, or any other "interest," that was worth the " bother"? • If you must go up on deputations, go up in such fashion as to enforce attention. Get a few constituencies—" registered elec- tors "—to stand by you, and show that manifesto : it will save a world of argument. Or take up half-a-dozen blunderbusses or even half-a-dozen bamboos : put the Minister in terror, like Irish Ribandmen, and make him swear to obey your decree and never to divulge the coercion. Point your arguments in some such forcible style and you might extort concessions more fertile than smiles or "attention." But the best of all ways, we should say, is not to go up at all: it is only realizing the old. song-
'
, Rare we go up, up, up,
• And here we go down, down, down ; Here we go backwards and forwards, And hey for London town."
It is true that you can go up and down both, for threepence each way, by omnibus ; but really it is not worth threepence. You had better spend your sixpence in a bun and a bottle of ginger beer, or in any other regale that suits your palate, more or less homely : you would positively make a better and more substantial investment of your money in that way. Nay, we are content to take it at ginger beer alone : one bottle of that explosive is worth all the Minister will give you, to the full as piquant and salutary; lea • ' you twopence in your pocket : and assuredly from him you will carry away nothing so weighty and valuable as twopence. That should be the plan, in future : when gentlemen feel the it coming upon them "to go up as a deputation," let them adjourn in a body, have so many bottles of ginger beer, count the twopences, compare that treasure in hand with the promises in the official bush, and then confess if the fit has not passed off.
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