TOPICS OF THE DAY.
HOW TO BEGIN.
" LEAST said soonest mended." is often a good rule, but not always : " Leave alone " is also a good rule, but it may be carried to excess; as it isjust now by the public at large in matters poli- tical and social. Yet somebody must begin to move, unless we are content to drift passively on to disaster.
We must not look to Ministers; for, evidently, they have no mind to make up—no collective idea, except to be, with Lord Derby at their head—no purpose. Entering Parliament on a mental re- servation, they have changed even that disguise of their constituent principle ; and, bound together by no common object, they are as much a fortuitous concourse of dissimilar individuals as the tra- vellers at a table-d'hote. Entering office with only the pretence of a mission, they are going to the country with only the pretence of a proposition. They are an organized uncertainty. The late Ministers are a disorganized uncertainty. They relin- quished office because they had nothing more to say for themselves, except that perhaps they had better retire. And now they have nothing to advise the country, except that they themselves don't like Lord Derby's being in office. The Commons have no purpose, except that of sitting till they are dissolved. They see the state of respectable anarchy; but they encourage it rather than otherwise, to avoid the trouble of planning for a restoration of government. That is nobody's busi- ness ; no Member is bound to make a motion if he does not feel inclined. Sufficient unto the constituency is the bother thereof. Evidently, the honourable gentlemen have no intent to shorten this Interregnum of the Beadle. Parties are purposeless, stripped of all cognizable signs, all ob- ject in life. In a low fever, like Peter Schl:mihl, they have lost their hair, their nails, their teeth, and their shadows ; their very names have got loose, and are lost somewhere on the road, to be picked up by the first tramp. Factions are replaced by fractions. An election without party classification is approaching. Candidates are individually in the same state of disorganization. They have no principles, no objects, no purpose. They can't even distribute themselves on any plan, but collect round the constitu- encies like fish round a dead body thrown overboard, each biting for himself.
The electors are in the same condition. They cannot classify themselves. They have no future, for they only know that they a are condemned. If they are Liberals, they belong or have be- longed to supporters of Lord John, or of some other " Reform" man or party, who has had, and perhaps will again have, some plan for swamping the present constituencies. If they are not Liberals, they are nothing, belonging to some expired party—some extinct species.
Doctrines there are none, at least available in practical politics— all out of date, or not yet due; old bills of exchange, dishonoured bills, and bills not yet mature. Political convictions are negative : practical politicians are only able to say for certain, that they don't think certain things—that they don't like the doctrinal Dr. Fell of the particular place.
" The People "—what is that ? It is twenty-six millions of souls, more or less. Politically it is nothing. Once the People used to exercise a rough, clumsy, never-in-time kind of interven- tion in politics; but it has given that up. Of late years the People, or the ultra-popular part thereof, grew doctrinal, and gave up the ghost in the attempt to force a particular statute on Parlia- ment, which they called " the People's Charter." " The People," soi-disant, did not understand its business so well as the Barons eight hundred years ago. " People" is a statistical expression ; it has nothing to do with the election or political affairs at present. Possibly the exigencies and indignation of the Colonies might force our public men into some definite course, though it were only on Colonial affairs? No such chance : the Colonies would rather cast loose ; but that chance has been palliated for the day by Sir John Pakington's assiduities—though the Sydney petition has an ugly look.
Abroad is there not some extraneous influence to act as a "pressure from without " ? Possibly. Austrian finance has been regarded as our natural protection, because Austria could not keep up, so economists told us, vast armaments with sinking means. But she does ; and her means are rather improving. There was a chance that she might have been stripped of her fiscal sources, if her dependencies hat] cast loose ; which they would have done with the slightest help : but they did not. Meanwhile, Europe and America are growing more military than they ever have been, the former since the middle ages ; and we are less so than we have ever been : but what of that ? Nobody knows. Somebody has passed a Militia Bill; but, as everybody dislikes the subject, in deference to publio opinion it has been made, like the baby that had no certificated right to come into the world, a very little bill, scarcely worth baptizing. What next ? Nothing in particular : our official people, indeed, seem to be getting into little squab- bles,—as with Austria in Tuscany, with America in the Virgin Isles, and with Burmah in the Rangoon : but there is an excellent understanding with the Government of Louis Napoleon Bona- parte ; and our economists are confident that pecuniary difficulties would prevent foreign states from having very large armies, or using them if they had them. So that we have no public views on that class of subjects ; no evidence as to facts, and no present intentions.
Now time and nations go on, even when they have no inte or re fosight ; and when men drive on without intent or heed, th re
r\ie often beta's some accident. That is our prospect. What can done, then ? Assuredly something useful. A beginning can be made. The next opportunity, probably, will be the election ; not a very good opportunity, but still available to those who have their wits about them, and any modicum of public spirit. It may hap- pen at any moment. What principle, then, should guide us ? A very simple one : choose always the best man. Not always, per- haps, the man you most " agree with." That would do if von had any prospect of carrying out your own objects ; but you have not. The most you can do is, to contribute what help you may towards giving the best turn practicable to the next chapter of accidents ; and the best means to that end is to make as strong a House of Commons as possible. The larger the number of keen, sturdy, positive men, with some public spirit, the better, whatever their theoretical party, view. Avoid trimmers, dreamers, vague goodhearted men Milk of human kindness is a fine thing, but milk will not be the thing needed in a little while. Liberality is a good thing, but liberal feeling will not do as a substitute for the power of stern action. Choose not, indeed, a bad-hearted or ill- famed man, but always the man that is active in faculties, vigorous, downright. To cite a few only as specimens of the choice which we advise,—and it will be seen that we have no respect for party,—at Manchester, Bright is a better man than Denman, because he is more positive, more absolutely represents a real opinion and class, would more resolutely put his shoulder to the wheel, with heart in the push ; at Oxford University, Gladstone is a better man than Marsham, in every way, as the man to advise, guide, and sustain, a national effort—Inglis himself is as much better than Marsham, as the pre- sentment of a powerful bigotry to be overcome is better than a pass- ing jest; in the Tower Hamlets, Newton is a better man than Thomp- son, because he can speak intelligibly and sturdily for his own class, the working men, and Thompson speaks for the Rajah of Sattara, or Peace principles, or anything; at Leicester, Walmsley is better than Wilde, because he has proved a pertinacious and thoroughgoing Suffrage Reformer, and Wilde has proved nothing except his relation to the late Chancellor; in Southwark, Moles- worth is better than Apsley Pellatt, because he has large know- ledge, he can make that knowledge available for the national coun- cil, and he does not flinch in maintaining his conviction; in North- umberland, George Grey is better than Ossulston, because he is an able and unimpeached official, a working administrator, and not a middle-aged dilettante; in Abingdon, Thesiger, the brawny Tory, is better than Caulfield, the faint Radical ; in iiverpool, Cardwell is as much better than Forbes Mackenzie, as one of Peel's appren- tices can be better than a mere trimming whipper-in ; in Berk- shire, Philip Pusey is as much better than Vansittart, as complete and intelligent development of the Conservative doctrine is better than the " parfum " of the memory of the Georgian (era ; in Edin- burgh, Macaulay is as much better than Cowan, as the history of Britain is greater than her stationery.
For ourselves, we do not " agree with all the men whom we have named as preferable—in some instances far from it; but the larger the proportion of strength, whether of mind, will, or public spirit, in the next House of Commons, the better for the prospects of the country : and the composition of the House is the first step over which we have any control, out of the present respectable and Sybaritical Slough of Despond.
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