STANLEY OF DERBY.
IT was a solemn question that had to be discussed in the House of Lords on the 25th—a solemn question and a grave council. On one side there were arrayed statesmen representing most of the political parties of the state, collected into one Ministry in order to carry on the public business for the benefit of the empire at large, and on that particular night proposing to carry it on by finally extending to an important colony the principle of local self- government, and by abandoning an exception to that principle. On the other side stood the representatives of a party which holds it- self to be moved by higher considerations than the other,—a party which professes an hereditary allegiance to divine right as superior to human right; which clings to the most ancient traditions of the country, and thus, by the test of "the long run," holds itself to be more national than the national Ministry. That is the remnant which survives of the old Tory party : it has for its chief the head of the Derby branch of the house of Stanley,—a branch which was once possessed of sovereign attributes, and to whose present head has been awarded the reputation of a chivalrous spirit. That party held, that the highest principle forbade the concession because the British State is pledged to maintain the State Church of England and of Scotland in Canada. For his own part, said this representative of our old Barons, not even the chance of severance, not even the loss of the colony, could have reconciled his conscience to the relinquishment of that truth. We can well understand the resolute spirit in which Lord Derby entered the House of Peers to arrest the progress of the Canada Clergy Reserves Bill by the enunciation of that high prin- ciple. Nothing could induce him to surrender it; but one thing made him pause. He saw before him, on the Ministerial side, an array of something which appears to be more formidable than con- science, namely, votes. Perhaps he would have faced death in vthdication of the high principle ; but he hesitated to face a divi- non. .He saw behind him, indeed, to support him in that hour, the spirit of his ancestors; but he saw something before him equally invisible at the moment, but equally present, and still more appalling—he saw the proxies in the pockets of Ministers.
He saw and quailed. He came down to brave the battle, but he put it off until next week. He and his high resolve were literally "kicked into the middle of next week" by his own procrastination. For there is a practical reason why Stanley of Derby should have preferred to take the battle in Committee instead of the second reading ; because in Committee proxies are not available. There still were hopes then, of a more favourable division, if he only put it off till the konday ; which he did. Monday came, and now was the favourable field on which Lord Derby could cham- pion principle ; now this direct and chivalrous man was able to stand up for the right. He did it in a peculiar manner. He pro- posed to grant all that the enemy desired to take, and to effect his own victory in the shape of an exceptional proviso, to prevent the bill which was under consideration from conceding the very things about which the question of the concession arose. We say no- thing here as to the merits of the Clergy Reserves, or the possi- bility of promoting the Church of England by extorting obsolete imposts out of the reluctant colonists ; we are now only consider- ing Lord Derby's peculiar mode of standing up for high prin- ciple. He concedes half of it. Of principle professedly springing from divine right he will surrender a moiety ! And so dear is that principle to him, that rather than surrender it, he would be willing to surrender even existing interests. Thus this chivalrous states- man gives up a moiety of a principle, and abandons the Church of the present for the Church of the future. There is a consistency in this, which prefers something "looming in the future" to the bird in the hand; but it is a philosophy not generally received in Eng- land. Lord Derby's policy, like his late colleague Disraeli's, plac_s its strongest reliance on tomorrow, and would rather say no- thing about today. The policy is that of the easy debtor, who tells the creditor to call again tomorrow. So this champion of a prin- ciple, to keep a part throws away the rest, and even reduces what he has ad absurdum.
Lord Derby received from his formidable opponent the compli- ments due to the skill which he had shown in selecting and in conducting his approaches. "A great tactician" was he, said the Duke of Newcastle, as well as a great orator ; not only a great tactician, but a great artist. And truly he is a great artist, since, translating "no surrender" into compromise, he has discovered the art of dividing a "principle," and of turning the half of a sacrilege into a sacrifice.
The Bishop of Oxford, a shrewd mat at nice distinctions, anatomized the morals of the statesman before the laughing Peers. Bishop Wilberforce quoted from Burke the almost prophetio re- mark, "Your colonies become suspicious, restless, and intractable, when they see the last attempt to wrest from them by force or to shuffle from them by chicanery, vrhat they think the only ad- vantage worth living for "—liberty. Bishop Wilberforce said this playfully ; Lord Derby took it seriously, and was nobly in- dignant. I said it smiling, said the Bishop of Oxford. Yes said Lord Derby, a man may "smile and smile, and be a villain !" Lord Derby is not happy at retorting quotations : when Dr. Wil- berforce inflicted his polished weapon the House laughed ; when Lord Derby flourished his bludgeon the House wasconfused "- and when Lord Clarendon, urged by a generous warmth, told him; that "the House was not accustomed to that language," the re- proach was carried home to the crest-fallen champion by the cheers of the House.
But at last, after all the words, Lord Derby must join battle in the division,—in that division from which proxies are eliminated; in that division which without proxies defeated him by 3 to 2. In the combat he had lost more than the division—he had lost his head; he had staked his chivalry on a compromise ; he had reduced his divine-right principle ad absurdum. Yet is Lord Derby the licensed coryphteus of that which was once a "great party in the state." What can be expected to come from a party whose agent is thus selected, whose statesmanship is thus represented, whose affairs are thus reduced to a pettifogging warfare of technicalities and obstructions ?
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