GOVERNMENT BY HER MAJESTY'S CONSERVATCvE OPPOSITION.
THE Whig and Tory journals honour us with so much of their notice just now, that we cannot but pay them some attention
in
return.
The Times, the Standard, and the Post, have lately vied with each other in representing the Spectator as being convinced of the necessity of a Conservative Government. Such is indeed our ev nion, founded upon the results of the general election; but only in a particular sense of the word Conservative, and not in that Of the Tory journals. They cannot or will not see more than one sort of Conservative Government, namely, a Government coma posed of Tories : whereas we have distinctly said, and now repel; —begging our Tory contemporaries not to omit it when they quote us again—that the inevitable Conservative Government mai be composed either of Tories, or of Whigs and Tories in coalition, or of Whigs only. The first case, being the only one that the Tories can contemplate with entire satisfaction, is the least pro. bable of the three, since it supposes that the Whigs will quit office rather than abandon any of those questions to which they are deeply pledged, and on which they might be outvoted in the MELBOURNE Parliament ; and the case of coalition is so difficult to manage, by reason of rival wants and vanities, that the last case—that of a truly Conservative Government carried on by the present Whig Ministry—seems the most likely to happen. We are not surprised that the Tories, hungering as they are after the pay and patronage, should be blind, or pretend to be blind, to this, the most probable consequence of their gain by the general elec- tion. Still, on public grounds, what more can they desire? Will their organs of the press oblige us with an answer? Ex- cept on account of' the pay and patronage, what can be their objet. tion to a Government really directed by themselves as her Majesty's Opposition? And even with a view to the pay and patronage, sooner or later it must happen that all the Court favour in the world would be insufficient to sustain the Whigs, utterly dies graced by becoming Conservative for the sake only of pay and patronage; and then the Tories, taking office to continue the Conservative system of the Whigs, would have nothing to fear from a Whig Opposition. Really, the case which we suppose most likely to happen, may be viewed in a light by no means unfavourable to Tory ends. Patience, good Tories : carry on the Government for a year or two through the Whigs, without pay or patronage. and then indeed you may come at the pay and pa- tronage. But not yet—pray understand and rept esent us aright— at present the only Conservative Government which is inevitable, aupposing you cannot agree with the Whigs about dividing the pay and patronage, is one composed of Whigs, and really directed by the Tories in opposition. Some of the Whig journals have equally misapprehended us. The Ministerial Courier, for example, has devoted several of its columns this week to articles founded on the assumption that we had asserted the necessity of a Conservative Government of Tories. See how he has mistaken us.
" Our contemporary has not been deterred by the uses to which the Tories, s week ago, turned his declaration of the ' obvious necessity of a Conservative Government' from reiterating his conviction that even at that last forlorn pros. pect we are actually arrived. He still assumes that Reform is at an end for the present '—that is Whig-Radical Reform ; and threatens to apply himself ' to such measures of practical improvement as may be attainable under a Con. servative Government,' whether composed of 'furies, Whig-Tories, or pure Whigs. With such a conviction, this is to be the Spectator's line of conduct. It is to take the goods the gods provide, and not ask the name of the immediate instrument. It cannot get the organic changes which it has sought as a means of practical improvement, and it is now to content itself with such practical im- provement as may result from Ministerial changes. To this point the decla. ration of the Spectator goes. It has said ' it will be strange if a Governmei t avowedly Conservative, and therefore destitute of pretences wherewith to gull the earnest Reformers, should not bid for popularity by promoting adminis. tiative improvements.' Here then is an eye 'open as day' to the Peel. Wellington entry into office. A Conservative Government, however com- posed, will be found very much preferable to a Reform Government, merely so e riled, existing upon many pretences, and the one reality of its alliance with Mr. O'Connell. Any thing is better than being cheated.' Here, then, our old fellow-Reformer openly exclaims—A Peel Ministry before a NIelbourne Ministry ! ' A Conservative Government will make no dupes, but Will pass for what it really is.' Here his cry is, for a Tory triumph in the Melbourne Parliament to match the Liberal triumph in the Peel Parliament ! " ^ This mistake is the very same as that of the Times, the Standard, and the Post. We have not " cried" for any sort of Government; still less have we had "an eye to a PEEL-WELLING- TON entry into office." We believe that the Whigs will not sacrifice their places for the questions on which they are pledged, but that they will sacrifice those questions for their places. We believe, therefore, that the Tories will not be able to turn out the Whigs, but that the Whigs will keep their places, carrying on a Conservative Government under the direction of a Tory Opposi- tion. In saying this, we do but repeat what we had stated before in the plainest terms. Considering that the MELBOURNE Parlia- ment is more Conservative than the PEEL Parliament, and always excepting the possible case of a coalition, we fully expect that, for sonic time to come, the Government, though composed of the very same men as now, will be essentially Conservative,—that is, really tinder the direction of the Tory Opposition. This is the sort of Conservative Government which seems to us inevitable : does the Courier understand us now ? We mean a WEI.LINGTON7 PEEL Government with the Whigs in office : is that plain enough ?
• Courier, Wednesday 211 August. Another article, in coutimiation, appeared on
ppeared on
Thursday. The Spectator paper in question was pUbil$111.4 013 (his clay lortnight t will be fiiund among the Topics of the Day, under the title" Tory Ascendaucy."
We mean a Government composed of Whigs, but so thoroughly apposed to all " Reform"—so truly Conservative—that the Tories shall have to wait for office and govern in opposition until such a Whig policy of mere pay and patronage shall come to its natural end : will this be misapprehended? i
The Ministerial Globe objects, indeed, to our view of this sub- ject, but merely on the score of time. He says— ,g It seems to be assumed, by those who entertain extreme opinions on both sides, that the policy of Government must be necessarily Conservative during the next session. '1 he Spectator declares its conviction that such must be the ease, and the Post appears to adopt this as a true representation. It may, however, be doubted whether these anticipations are not somewhat premature. It is rather early to decide what will be the nature of the modifications, if any,
i
that Ministers will introduce in the policy they have previously pursued." Nothing here about a Government composed of Tories: and as for a really Conservative Government composed of Whigs, it is only !' premature to anticipate" and "early to decide." Of course it is ; but we spoke only of probabilities; and when a Treasury paper, like the Globe, thus admits the possibility of the Whig party becoming essentially Conservative, the probabi- lity of our being governed by PEEL and WELLINGTON through the Whigs is very much strengthened. If the Courier will not mderstand us, let him take our meaning from the Globe, who is evidently quite prepared to support the approaching Government of her Majesty's Conservative Opposition.
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