28 FEBRUARY 1852, Page 12

TOPICS OF THE DAY. -

THE NEW MINISTRY.

THE Ins are out and the Outs are in. The curtain has fallen and has risen again, with a celerity which has given the gossips of the pit no time for the speculative criticism proper to an interregnum Here are the performers marshalled, bedizened, waiting to begin. What is the play to be ? The Game of Speculation, in which is displayed the marvellous art of living handsomely on nothing a year. It must be confessed, the actors are well fitted to take part in a performance with such a title, if to carry on the govern- ment of a great country without political reputation or public con- fidence be, as we believe it, not less difficult than to keep up a first-rate establishment and embark in grand commercial enter- prises on the magnificent revenue of a cool assurance and a plau- sible tongue. Were John Bull simply speculative, he might per- haps be satisfied with any change that promised employment to that faculty ; and it would take a good many philosophers to solve the problem of how the Queen's Government is to be carried on by the gentlemen who at present fill its offices. Or were that respect- able impersonation simply risible, he would have no fault to find with the changes, as no conceivable phtenomenon in public life could more certainly affect his risible muscles with premonitory twitches, or more certainly shake those well-known jolly sides of his, than a first, second, third, half-incredulous perusal of the list of the Queen's present Ministers. Sir John Pakington spelling out the British Colonies in a newly-purchased pocket-map of the world, and cram- ming "Montgomery Martin" at meal-time, instead of quietly digest- ing, as a chairman of quarter-sessions should; Vivian Grey poring over a long-division sum that will not come right, or put in the corner for spoilingthis copy-book with "Semitic symbols • what a picture for Punch ! Lord Malmesbury is credibly reported to have

a sufficient knowledge of French; still every supposed at first

that his appointment was mythical—a " 's," in fact. Lord

Hardwicke's abilities are perhaps equal to the duties of the Post- master-General, and his well-known objection to "pay the 'pike" is met by the appointment. Here is amusement enough for John Bull in all conscience. Simple curiosity to see how the Marionettes will work without a master to pull the strings' may keep him good- tempered for a few weeks; and he has besides been for some time past used to such wooden acting that it will take time to show him the difference between the worst sticks of men and the most manlike of sticks. Still, the thing cannot last long, especially as it is no gratis exhibition ; and John is upon the whole -a serious phlegma- tic animal, fond enough in his way of a practical joke, but not likely to starve himself for hikwhim's sake, and soon getting angry and calling for the police if a Punch stays too long squealing and grimacing before his countinghouse-window. Seriously, here we are at last with a Ministry at which we are all laughing; Protectionists among the number biting their lips, and trying to look grave, as if they believed the reality of the show,—the government and guidance of twenty-seven millions of us in the British Isles, of many more millions of our kinsmen in every quarter of the globe, in the hands of men of whom the ablest has hitherto shown himself only a brilliant de- claimer and a dexterous weaver of statistical and financial cobwebs, and whose chief has earned for himself by a long Par- liamentary, activity, only the equivocal sobriquet of the "Rupert of debate! Of thereat, should any soliloquizing Barber ask, "What have your Lordships done to earn all this ? " the only possible answer would be, " Vous vous etes donne la peine de naitre." And yet this Government is the sole possible alternative, to such a pass have our foibles or our misfortunes brought us; and folly and misfortune are linked in political philosophy as cause and effect. This Government is Nature's sarcastic comment on our national conduct for some years past,—a practical reductio ad absurdum of all we have been doing as a nation ; a stern contemptuous reproof from the unerring oracle of fact; an imperative command to search into ourselves and mend our ways, or worse will follow. For is not an -unwise incapable government, as an admitted neces- sity in a society, just the most plain and unmistakeable symptom of folly and incapacity pervading, dissolving that society ? Every rotten crumbling stone in a building is a source of weakness, but if the keystone itself have no strength how is the build- ing to stand? We, boasting ourselves a race whose charac- teristic is the faculty of self-government, stand here, in the middle of the nineteenth century, by our own confession unable to perform the primary process of self-government, the process of se- lecting from our citizens those to whom the governing functions are to be intrusted. Is it that these functions have fallen into abeyance—that there is no farther call for them ? or is it that we do not comprehend them—do not understand their uses and ap- pliances—do not see what needs to be done, or how it is to be done ? There is but one other alternative—one we should be reluctant to admit—that, seeing the need of governors, seeing the vast amount of genuine work that our age has to get done somehow or other, we yet have no men among us capable of doing it. Those who think that there is nothing for Government to do, or at best only routine, had need think a little on that question of pauperism, so well named "the Condition-of-England question"; or, on that other not less important of National Education, being, if it is looked into, no less than this—whether the community shall or shall not make it a concern of theirs whether the children of their fellow-citizens, those whothe plough and work the looms which supply the material wealth which is our boast, are to succeed to their inheritance of toil with the moral and intellectual equipments of the civilized man, or to add to all the physical hardships of an unequally distributed luxury the minds and souls of something lower than the nomade savage. And if the capacity for genuine social and political work be doubted, look only at what a blind brutal ambition, without a gleam of true insight or honest intention or loving sympathy, can do in France ! Surely to that counterfeit greatness there must be a real greatness answering somewhere ; answering to that dumb angry submission to tyranny, there must be a true and willing obedience to resolute will, clear purpose, and tender compassion. We gladly fall back upon our second alternative, and suppose that the fault must lie in Englishmen not perceiving to their full ex- tent what the functions of government are in these days—what wise and bold men might do if the nation would take the trouble to find them, and "when found make a note" of them, and invest them with such powers, support them with such confidence, watch them with such diligence, as are needed to sustain them in their great task and keep them faithful in its discharge. This must be the conclusion at which any one would arrive who is not inclined to despair of the destinies of the human race, and of the English portion of it in particular,—unless at least he hold that our Anglo-Saxon destiny is, as Sydney Smith suggested, simply and solely to manufacture calicoes. The cause may per- haps be found in the marked predominance which has been as- signed in the legislation of the last twenty years to middle-class interests. The middle classes—for in this country ten-pound householders belong to the middle classes—have got in twenty years political privileges and substantial benefits more than they would have dreamed of before ; and, being themselves satisfied with their condition upon the whole, or at least afraid to try for more lest they lose what they have got, they naturally think that Government can do little more than keep things pretty much as they are. Some of the boons especially intended for these middle classes have indeed been of advantage to those below them ; but what sincere man would pretend that the new Poor-law or the repeal of the Corn-laws was directly aimed at anything but the easing of property, the removal of restrictions on the employment of capital ? Now the great social problems would seem to lie rather below this middle class ; and it may be that an essential condition of a strong government is that it should be ever grappling with one or other of these problems, as necessity may dictate—that from such conflict alone can arise the enthusiasm which excites a nation to rally round a government and cheer it on its course with sym- pathy and acclamation. If this be so, it is plain enough why since the Corn-laws were repealed no enthusiasm has so rallied round. the Government—why, on the contrary, the Government has gone on from party-support to general indifference, till at last it has gone out like an expiring candle, amid universal holding of noses and cries of" Take it away!" Man is, after all, a being of noble nature, and that nature must be fed upon ambrosial food, upon great actions and lofty ideas. One does not honour: one's grand- mother because she supplies one's youth with gingerbread, or puts half-a-sovereign into one's hand upon bidding good-bye for school; nor will a nation make heroes of its governors for remitting here and there a paltry tax, much less for not doing so but only promising. So, till the middle classes can interpret the wants of their brethren hitherto moaning somewhat inarticulately, or till a statesman rises up who will venture to speak out the truth that is in him and stake his public career on the chance—may we not call it certainty ?—of gaining the public sympathy and attention for measures aimed directly at the elevation of the condition of Eng- lish workmen—till then, a strong government may be waited for. It cannot come before, for the elements of it are wanting. The Government that passed the Reform Bill was a strong one— the Government that reinvigorated our commercial system was a strong one—both because i they grappled boldly and wisely with great wants of the time ; and n both cases popular enthusiasm carried class interest and the inertia of habit before it as the wind carries a withered leaf. So it would be again. Patriotism and party alike summon the "coming man" to his task. Meanwhile, to descend from general to particular causes—from philosophy to personal polities—there can be little doubt that the " fix " the country is now in is attributable directly to the shame- less obstructions presented by the family influences of the late Ca- binet to such a union with leading statesmen of known capacity and liberal opinions as would have led to its reconstruction on a broader basis, and enabled it to meet the country with an assurance of good intentions and ability such as no mere party-cry could have sup- plied it with. The result of such a combination would have saved the country from perhaps years of legislative stand-still, if from nothing worse. We cannot, however, even as it is, suppose that Lord Derby can seriously intend to reopen the question of whether the people of this country are to pay fictitious prices for the benefit of the British landlords, or to buy such corn as they want at the price that natural laws determine, and with the commodities which are the product of their own labour. Should he entertain so mad a design, let him recall a day in his hot youth, when on the table at Brooks's he denounced the Duke of Wellington "as a fool, yes! as a fool" if he thought to govern this country in the teeth of the wishes and opinions of the people.