22 MAY 1852, Page 12

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE DISSOLUTION IN JUNE.

PARLIAMENT, said Lord John Russell on Wednesday, is to be dis- solved in June ; and he was not contradicted. It is a curious fact,

that all these reports are to be traced to Whig authorities; Minis- ters preserving an obstinate silence as to the period of the dissolu- tion. The country, therefore when the time at last arrives, is to be as much as possible hurried into the long-foreseen event. It is no great matter. Preparations for the election can be of little use to the country ; not of much use even to the party cliques whose paid managers batten upon elections. The country is in the worst possible condition for the purpose ; but no prepara- tions can make it better ; and everybody knows as much, without needing us to proclaim it. Parties are broken in pieces like pot- sherds: questions are rent into shreds like the garment of a saint, each scrap the "only true." The country could not agree to any issue upon which to base a broad choice of Members. Yes, it will act upon two issues, but will scarcely take sides on either. One will be "Free Trade or Protection "—which is settled.

The other will be "No-Popery or Unrestricted Toleration "—which cannot be settled. Much apparent fighting about them, much confusion on either account, but always intestine confusion ; Pro-

tection will breed confusion among Protectionists, No-Popery among Anti-Papists. Universal insincerity and disbelief, in a constant circle of mutual reproduction, will nullify any sort of conclusion. The country is incapable of concentrating its ideas— it can scarcely be said to have any applieate ideas. It is useless, therefore, to inquire what course might best be taken. There is no course : not even the usual "three courses." The country will elect it cannot tell whom ; the indefinite Some- body, whose actual working opinions the universal humbug ren- ders inscrutable, will be elected, for no one knows what pur- pose. The Parliament thus elected can be no more than a pro- visional Parliament, the very reverse of a delegate Parliament like the House of Commons chosen in 1831 to pass the Reform Bill ; it will be a Parliament returned to legislate on nothing but open questions—except the two, whereof one is already closed, and the other never will be closed.

The selection of men on old -party grounds will be utterly thwarted ; their appointment to enact specific laws will be im- practicable. Old votes and prospective pledges will be equally worthless as tests. We can foresee the dreadful bother of elec- tioneering men' surveying old division-lists as the test, and vainly trying to classify men under the old heads of "Liberal" and "Tory "—when there are no Tories except Lord Londonderry, and as many people are "Liberal" as are styled " Esq." It is all confusion : will you class Lord John Russell among earnest Re- formers? or Mr. Disraeli among real Protectionists? Obviously, such a Parliament cannot legislate. It will be less of a Legislature than of a Convention sent up, by those who can- not do it for themselves, to work out all the impossible propositions afloat, to work out all the political sums that have got into a mess. What, therefore, can be its "bills," but the worthless fishing claims extracted from a bankrupt's chaotic accounts—guesses in the formal tenour of decrees ? what its acts, but blunders to be repealed by the next real Parliament? No; it will be but a Caucus, to talk about things in general, and to stumble on some conclusions if it be so lucky. It will not even be able to prepare for the better election of the succeeding Parliament. The Caucus about to be elected will have no authority to pass any new law of suffrage or election. The best duty on which it can fall in the chance-medley will be, to fight out some of the questions of the day, in the total route once more to take sides, and so to let the pieces of questions, again running into each other' reassume workable proportions. Contend it will, more truly thanthis dying Parliament has done. No stage- fighting ! The unsettled quarrels of the election—old grudges of Liberal against Liberal—of Protectionist who means Protection against Protectionist who means Pitt Free-trade—of conforming candidate who has been out-professed, against more conforming candidate—of Members who have paid exorbitant fees, against the waiters on Providence who have sold seats of precarious tenure, double benevolences for a fortnight's seat,—all these quarrels, and more, will be carried into the moving, the debating, and the vot- ing ; bitterness will lend reality to the contest ; men will terribly mean what they say, when it can hit hard some successful intriguer ; and in the desire to turn the position of the extreme manceuverer, unscrupulous men will resort to truth. If they were all good men in such a conflict,—intelligent, informed, thorough- going,—it might result in some trustworthy issue : but with the elements cast into the cauldron, who can calculate the ultimate pro- duet? If a crazy chemist were to cast into his retort an ounce of everything in his store, and let it explode, he could as easily fore- calculate the ultimum quid. But Parliament, however chaotic, may luckily kill some questions in the chance-medley ; and then the survivors may go to the country, whose worst paroxysm of confusion will have been performed for it by deputy; so that OR the thinned crew of questions it may pronounce judgment, next time, with faculties less unsettled.