TOPICS OF THE DAY.
ACTUAL POSITION OF THE WHIGS AND RADICALS. SomE Liberals cling to the hope that Ministers will not only " keep out the Tories: but abandon their own Conservatism ! They trust that Lord JOHN RUSSELL may yet relent, and Lord MELBOURNE take pity on the sorely-vexed Radicals. To go into Opposition—to fall into a minority — to be no longer on the gainful side—would be a calamity the very thought of which is shocking. Resolutely blind to the signs in the political world, which have been coming thick and fast upon those who had their eyes open and their faculties awake, they are startled by the recent tendency to Toryism and disavowals of Liberalism, which are in fact nothing but the outward and visible evidence of a policy more or less openly pursued by the Whigs from the passing of the Reform Bill to the present time. But, though alarmed, many of the Parliamentary Radicals will not even now give up the Whigs. The reasons for trusting them yet a little longer, were stated by Mr. WARD at the Sheffield Ballot-meet- ing : and it is marvellous that so intelligent and frank a Repre- sentative as Mr. WARD is, should continue, in defiance of fact and probability, to feed himself and his constituents with the delu- sion that the liking of the Cabinet is towards Reform, in the sense which he and the men of Sheffield attach to that equivocal word. Mr. WARD appears to regard. Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S " de- claration " not as the deliberate announcement of a settled policy, but the hasty expression of a piqued debater- " There was nothing in Mr. Wakley's amendment, or in the speeches in support of it, to warrant or excite the strong feeling which appears to hare in- fluenced the mind of Lord John Russell, and led hire to commit a double. wrong; for his speech was unfair to his true and disinterested supporters, the Radical Reform.. s, between whom anti the Ministry he erected a wall of prin- ciple that had never before existed, converting those which had been questions of time and exp. 4ieney into questions upon principle, in such a manner as to render it as unpalatable as possible to those who feel as I do."
It is true that the Reformers and Lord JOHN RUSSELL are now at issue on questions of principle ; but it was not the " strong feeling" of the moment—nothing that Mr. WAKLEY or his supporters said—which influenced Lord JOHN RUSSELL to take up his hostile position. He tells us that he had chosen it previously. On the night following the speech on the Address, Lord JOHN said—" I had considered beforehand the course I should take in tire debate on the Address:" " I (lid not speak altogether from the impulse of the moment." So much for Lord JOHN RUSSELL himself. But Mr. WARD wishes to believe that the Ministerial Leader was not the organ of the Cabinet on that occasion. There is not the shadow of an excuse for such a notion. Lord Jonsr spoke as the Ministerial Leader—in the capacity in which he must always be supposed to address the House when lie does not expressly disavow his official character. His second speech went beyond the first. After a day's interval— after a Cabinet consultation with his colleagues—be restated all that he had previously said, and fortified it by argument based on the principle that the Landed interest ought to be supreme in the Legislature. He did not, on this second opportunity, give the slightest hint that he was not to be considered as the organ of the Ministry. Several of Iris colleagues were in the House : not one of them breathed, or has since hinted, dissent from their ordinary Caryphmus. In the House of Peers, too, Lord MEL- BOURNE deliberately avowed the same Conservative doctrine; extending it even further than Lord Jours RUSSELL; for the Premier oracularly harangued on the danger of changing any important law. He warned the Tory Peers against unset- tling fixed institutions, in a way which we know was under- stood, and we believe was intended, to be taken as a declaration against the Movement. With these facts before us, and in the absence of every' thing that can neutralize their effect, we deem it no better than infantile credulity to imagine that the Ministers as a body did not concur with Lord JOHN RUSSELL in the policy of future Resistance.
For the mere declaration, however tardy, the Ministers shall not be blamed by us. Their previous mystification of the Radicals was treacherous; their avowal on the first night of the session was sincere. Yet much Radical wrath was excited by the unwelcome announcement, that it is not on matters of detail or questions of expediency, but on principle, that the Whigs and Radicals differ, The inference from this vexation is, that they only want a pretext for truckling—t hat if the Whigs would have allowed them—if Lord JOHN RUSSELL had kept up the delusion, the pseudo-Radicals in the House of Commons were ready to follow him hoodwinked through another Parliament. But it no longer answered the ends of the 'Minsters to keep up appearances with their Radical allies. Having determined to look to the Tories and stick to the Landed interest, the aid of the Represen- tatives of large towns became unnecessary, and undesirable at the expense of offending the Aristocracy and the Squires. Even the Pension-inquiry, which was extolled as proof that the Whigs were yet better than the Tories, turns out to be a cheat—a bubble that has burst already. The approximation of the two rival Factions in Parliament goes on nightly. PEEL patronizes the Ministers in the House of Commons ; WELLINGTON gives no trouble, and is even complimentary, in the Lords. The Ministe- rial newspapers sneer at the " Mountain," disown the Radicals, and laud the resolution of the Government to uphold our " exist- ing institutions," and confine themselves to the execution of,
eschewing attempts to improve, the laws. Civil contempt, some- times uncivil sneers, are what the fawning Radicals get from the Whigs. They are called " gentlemen to whom we have been indebted for much kind support "—an extraneous body, as it were, whose votes have been useful, but are no longer required— who are welcome to speak and vote as they please—servants, dis- missed without characters or wages. To close observers of the game, such, very clearly, is the rela- tive position of the Whigs and Radicals : and yet, even sensible men, like Mr. WARD, indulge the hope that Ministers can be forced back into Liberalism! There are two courses, says Mr. WARD, which the Liberals may pursue-
" One is that recommended by the Birmingham Political Union and Sir Molesworth, of direct and open hostility to the Government. The other, which I consider to be by far the wiser and more practical course, is to bring the opinion of the country to bear upon the Government, and force them back out of the false position which they have taken up. * The course of the Government will not be decided till the discussion of Mr. Grote's motion on the 15th of February, which I shall have the honour of seconding. Should it happen that on that motion the fifteen or sixteen gentlemen connected with the Government, whose sentiments are known to be favourable to the Ballot, should vote for Mr. Grote's motion, the country will consider it a practical answer to Lord John Russell's declaration."
"The country," in that case, will be duped once more. Doubt- less it would be very convenient for the "fifteen or sixteen gentle- men connected with Government" to be allowed to vote accord- ing to the wishes of their constituents. The preservation of their seats depends on their so voting. It might accord entirely with the Conservative policy of the Government to grant permission to certain officials to support the Ballot. But suppose the mino- rity swelled by the adhesion of these Members, and thereby raised to 200, the number which Mr. IV ARD calculates the Ballot- men may muster on Mr. GROTE'S motion, what practical advantage will have been gained by that solitary division ? The Ballot, opposed by the Government, will still be as far as ever from passing. For an indefinite time the, question will be cushioned in Parlia- ment. There is not the most remote chance that the consti- tuencies will be protected in exercising the suffrage at the next election. Mr. WARD, and other Members who are content generally to support the Whigs in their present course,—that is, a course of extravagance and mischief, domestic and colonial, which even the Tories, if responsible, would hardly dare to venture upon,— will find that, in exchange for a systematic dereliction of principle, a slavish support of men who spurn them, they have gained nothing of the slightest value. The Ballot may be carried by the strenuous exertions of a Liberal Ministry, backed by the Court, even against an unwilling House of Lords. By making it an "open question," the Government may hope to secure the seats of some officials who tremble to meet their constituents as opponents of the Ballot : but that concession, should it be made for their own purposes by the Government, will not be equivalent to even an ostensible resumption of a Liberal policy. It will not have the slighest influence on the general course of the Administration, but will be simply a trick to enable a few of the Whig office-holders to retain Senatorial seats. The day of grace for mere "open questions "—the accepted time, when ssch a policy might have redeemed the MELBOURNE Government,. and roused the constituencies to Tory-defying efforts in the general election—passed away last session, never to return.
It is surely best for the Liberals to look facts in the face, and, turning from Ministers, who no longer condescend to profess Liberalism, meet the changed circumstances by a different and suitable course of action. Mr. WARD talks of forcing the Minis- ters to back out from the false position they have taken up : but, supposing that it were practicable during the present Parliament, by any means the Radicals can employ, Mr. WARD'S plan must be futile. Only let fifteen or sixteen gentlemen connected with office, says Mr. WARD, vote for the Ballot, and then there will be " a large field of utility in which the Liberals may again coope-
rate with Lord JOHN RUSSELL, which will occupy us a consider- able time." The longer the better, quoth Lord JOHN—the greater
number of quarters will be ours. Truly, Radical votes must be at a heavy discount if he will not purchase them on the proffered terms. He may have them in exchange for what to him is literally worth nothing. And this is forcing Ministers from their false posi- tion On the contrary, it is encouraging them to maintain it. Why. in the name of common sense, should they give way ? What have they to fear? Does not the foe fawn upon theta ? Is there an indication of a vigorous assault? The Tories have been con- verted into allies. The Radicals in Parliament bluster one day and whimper the next : patience is the badge which they rejoice to wear.
The points which it is most necessary to keep in mind are these—that such an alteration in the electoral system as will give the Liberals a majority at the next election, is not to be obtained by supporting the present Ministry ; and that the means—if there are any means—of doing any thing for the Liberal cause in Par- liament, must be derived solely from an independent course of
action, which will rally the People round their Representatives, and compel the Minister of the day to respect them as the organs of the national will.
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