TOPICS OF THE DAY.
CONSTITUTIONAL LEADERS.
A enuirisro paper in the Times, on the miserable session of Par- liament now closing, commences in this fashion— "The melancholy fact of a session passed with scarcely one step in advance, a year all but sine lined, without one considerable addition to that work of ages which it is the boast of the British social system to exhibit, cannot but excite an honest indignation in the mind of every Englishman who cares for his country. That indignation we feel, and shall continue to feel; and if we do Rot find many to partake of it, we shall think so much the worse of the present spirit and pro- spects i of the nation. It is far from our wish to charge the fact upon any one ertY n the Legislature. We see no prospect of relief in a shifting of Cabmets. he only lesson we draw is, that reforms of great public importance cannot be safely confided to statesmen or to Parliaments. They must be worked into sub- stance, and even into shape, by public opinion. Urged from without, they are certain of ultimate success. Whatever the tendency of associations and leagues to nannwrnindedness, vulgarity, and factiousness, it is yet too clear that no reform whatever has a chance with the Legislature unless it presents itself in the sub- stantial form of a popular demand. It is a delusion to expect a Government to take the lead. The Government of a constitutional state cannot take the lead; it can only follow; and if nothing be done—if no progress be made, it is the fault of the people." Subsequently, the political critic sums up certain evil conse- quences of this negation of leaders— "Our metropolis, the greatest and wealthiest in the world, consigns to pesti- lential air and bad drainage, to unfit dwellings and vicious associations, more than a moiety of its two million inhabitants, and offers far less means of useful instruction and innocent recreation than many a third-class capital. These are only some of our evils. We are reminded of them by the last Ministerial failure. The nation cannot move a step for their correction. A mysterious necessity binds the most powerful and most energetic nation in the world to stagnate in a lethar- gic inactivity as far as regards some of the first purposes for which men came to- gether and cities were built. Inquiries, surveys, and reports are made; author- ities are consulted, opinions weighed; conclusions are termed; bills are drawn up; Ministers make it their special study and delight; speeches are delivered; success is insured; and when it seems in danger, a compromise is struck, and all is confidence again."
There is much truth in these strictures ; though they are too indiscriminate, confounding some matters that should be kept separate. The fault is not only in our political constitution, but also in our social state of opinion. By a voluntary submission, that Juggernaut of free thought, Cant, is endowed amongst us free Britons with a power more wide and absolute than it has exer- cised in many places without any "free institutions." We are paralyzed by a mutual distrust ; each citizen fears what the other will " say " of him, to such a degree, that we dare not say what we really think, and do say things that we do not think. This is called, eulogistically "a regard" or " concession " "to the feelings of others " : plainly, it may be called a cowardly waiving of our own rights and powers. Its practical effect is, that public opinion can seldom come to maturity, until, through a world of timid tentative half discussion, everybody has found out that a subject may really be discussed, or be adopted dogmatically without being discussed at all. Setting aside that social imperfection, it is only in part true that the Ministry of a constitutional country like ours cannot take the lead. No doubt, there is a tendency to prevent the public servants from being selected for their capacity as leaders of opinion. Ministers are virtually appointed by a complicated mode of election. The body that elects the Parliament is limited by the peculiar franchise to the middle and upper class, exclud- ing the working classes—nay, excluding great part of the pro- fessional classes, among whom original ideas are perhaps most active. The electoral body therefore is on the whole about iden- tical with the mean of society. Its choice is effected by a cum- bersome process, and on the whole results in forming a legisla- tive body of mean capacity and opinions. It is by striking a majority, which usually includes the mean of that assembly, that a Ministry is virtually appointed. By such a process of exhaus- tion, the Ministry tends to represent, not the leading, but the mean opinion and intellect of the country. On the other hand, there is not such an absence, even in me- diocre understandings, of admiration for power, but that each successive body is inclined to select for its representatives those among the candidates who exhibit the greatest resources whether of talent or influence. The knowledge of this fact helps much to keep up a supply of good candidates, with faculties above the average. The Joint effect of the process is, that while there is • the tendency to select men merely representing the average, on the whole they favourably represent that average. Thus appointed, it cannot be the function of our "political leaders," as they are called, to lead opinion : but their office is of a scarcely less onerous or difficult nature—it is, to find out what is the leading or dominant opinion, the will of the nation, and to execute it. But, partly from the moral cowardice which we have already described—partly from a disposition in the English mind to evade first principles, and rely on empirical deductions which may vary ad infinitum—partly from the mere immensity of the
body corporate—the nation whose dormant opinion has to be dis- covered is never unanimous. It is therefore a work of difficulty and labour to find out what opinion really does predominate ; and
those who undertake the duty can seldom be perfectly certain that they have succeeded. The Duke of Wellington's resistance to Parliamentary Reform—a resistance sanctioned by Sir Robert Peel—was a case in which Ministers did not perceive the domi-
nant opinion ; the case of Corn-law Repeal was one in which a statesman went beyond his party to descry the really dominant opinion. But even when he succeeds in seizing the real senti- ment of the people, there will always be a large minority that does not share an that opinion—a minority multiform, multitudi- nous, and blatant. Every great victory of opinion must be car- ried in the teeth of a resistance that seems as if it would be de- structive to the immediate agents of the victory. So Sir Robert Peel's victory in the matter of the Corn-law was followed by his retirement. Hence, efficiency in the peculiar function of states- manship ordained by our "constitution," demands in the states- man acuteness to perceive, judgment to weigh and discriminate, diligence to act on the earliest opportunity, determined courage to face resistance and obloquy. Such terms do not describe the Ministry whose failures suggest the paper in the Times.
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