31 JULY 1852, Page 12

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE DODGER IN DOWNING STREET.

A WIT of the last century defined the duty of an ambassador to consist in lying, abroad, for his country's good. Lord Derby has adopted the maxim with the variation necessary to suit his case, and would seem to imagine it to be the function of Prime Minister to equivocate at home for his own good. This obvious interpreta- tion of his conduct, as read by the light of the last six months' ex- perience, is confirmed the more closely his speeches and declara- tions are scanned. Yet so little are the people of this country affected by such a fact, that, instead of indignantly hurling him from his' seat of power when the opportunity was in their hands, they have cushioned it for him and made his tenure easier than befere ; and if he now fails t; retain office, it is from the in- herent weakness of his grasp, certainly not from the vigour of his opponents or the scant confidence of his friends. The question throughout the elections has practically been a question of confi- dence in Lord Derby ; and with no disappointment, but with much regret, we are forced to recognize that public conduct of a mean and equivocating character is no bar to the entire confidence of a very large proportion of the electors of England. The least ex- cusable of the motives that have weighed with the parties thus com- promised in a career of political profligacy has been, doubtless, the belief that, somehow or other, Lord Derby's tenure of office would be conducive to their personal or class interests. Such a motive will bring its own severest punishment in its sure disappointment. A more plausible excuse is, that no leader and no policy stood forth well-defined to canvass for popular support by the promotion of popular interests, and to excite popular enthusiasm by the an- nouncement of popular principles. A third reason, perhaps as effective as any, is the distinction people always have drawn be- tween the morality of public and that of private life. The higher prizes of public life are so splendid, invested with so much tradi- tionary and historical glory, so much actual distinction, and con- fer on those who gain them so much real power, that all men feel some sympathy with the ambition that seeks to grasp them, and are tolerant of faults committed for their sake. The relations, too, of public life, and the duties and delicacies—the major and minor morals—thence arising, are not so clearly defined and familiarly appreciated as those of private life, so that a large margin is left for an unscrupulous man; and the consequences of a dereliction are not so immediately pernicious to others as to call down on the of- fender the reprobation that arises in ordinary cases of moral of- fence from the instinct of self-preservation in men. Still, in a country like this, where political education is supposed to be going on every day by means of our machinery of local self-government, our periodic reconstruction and constant supervision of the ma- chinery of imperial government, our voluntary associations for political, religious, and charitable objects,—the national feeling of the binding nature of political obligation, the closer approxi- mation of the morality of public and private life, and the consequently finer sense of departure from a high standard in political morality, ought to be ever growing among us; and a fact such as this indifference to the moral aspect of Lord Derby's conduct as leader of a great party, and holder by that means of the highest office in the kingdom strikingly and disagreeably reveals or recalls to us how slowly our processes of education are operating, and how short a way we have advanced to a very conceivable point of moral cultivation.

For what in reality have been the conduct and policy of this man for the last six years viewed by the light thrown upon them

by his five or six months' of office ? -Unable to follow, and not choosing to obey, the rapid conclusions of Sir Robert Peel on the necessity for a complete development of commercial freedom in this country, he headed the schism that shattered the party of Conservative Reform, and threw out of office the ablest Ad- ministration this century has witnessed. For six years he has kept up the strife and animosity of classes, professedly with an object which he now declares to be impracticable, and which his audacious Chancellor of the Exchequer informs the gaping bumpkins of Buckinghamshire was never seriously entertaaned or wished by the leaders of the party. All this while, he has been wasting the time and energies of Parliament in factious motions and discussions, having for their sole aini and justification the solemn assertion of the principle which his leader of the Com- mons now unblushingly contemns as "exploded politics." More than this he has prevented the farmers and the landlords who trusted him, from putting forth their strength, and throwing themselves on their knowledge, skill, enterprise, and capital, in the cultivation of their land; telling them, by his conduct if not in so many words, to wait a while, and their toil should be made remu- nerative, not by their own eforts, but by a tax upon the people's bread and a limitation of the people's market. On those who were duped by him he has inflicted the fatal curse of struggling against, instead of studying the lesson and profiting by the teaching of facts ; and most of the distress and difficulty which exist among farmers may be attributed to the egregious and criminal selfishness of this reckless nobleman, whose pride has been pampered and his vanity flattered by being the spokesman of a party and the war- cry of a faction. Such is the aspect of Lord Derby's conduct up to February last. Every ugly feature has been aggravated in ugliness since : meanness and equivocation have seldom reached such gigantic proportions—have seldom so nearly swelled into crimes. This master of clear speech has never been able to shape

"the pure Saxon of his sounding style" into an utterance distinct enough to be understood by those who heard him. Grey has snapped at him, Newcastle has expostulated, in vain—the oracle was dumb, or more often ambiguous. He could not even in- form the public what his intentions were about dissolving Parliament, without two or three quite contradictory speeches, which needed al, the tolerance of the nation and all the in- genuity of the leader of the Commons to save from the op- probrium of far transcending the conventionally-licensed am- biguity and reserve of a Prime Minister. His only apparent policy on every party question has been to "hedge "—not caring what horse won, so long as his " book " was safe. "Whatever you like, good people, Protection or Free-trade, Popery or Orangeisni, cant or conviction, I am agreeable so long as I keep my place." Who would pretend to say what the avowed policy of Lord Derby's Go- vernment is at this moment with respect to Maynooth—itself an unimportant detail, but immeasurably important as typifying a change or continuance in a liberal policy towards Romamsts, and immeasurably important as a means of heating or cooling the bad blood that rages sufficiently strong without any more provocation? Who would venture to decide whether the concession to the National Society, so sneakingly smuggled in without notice given to Parliament, was simply an election-dodge or that and some- thing more, the herald of a Clerical as contradistinguished from a Church policy in this important matter?

But, say Lord Derby's friends, what then ? "Do you expect Lord Derby to play his game into your hands, to fight his battle just as you bid him ? If Lord Derby satisfies us, what right have you to complain ? If we choose to place implicit confidence in him, and ask for no pledge, for no disclosures of policy, you surely have no claim upon him, except for a good beating, which you have got." This is just the crowning immorality of which we do com- plain, that Lord Derby has carried into the highest office of the state the tactics and the tone of a mere party chief; that every word he has uttered since he obtained office, every declaration of every member of his Cabinet, has been shaped with the simple view of keeping in office ; that in order to do this he and his friends have been all things to all men. This is dishonest in a party chief, degrading to his self-respect, and tends to lower the public morality; but in the First Minister of the Crown it is worse m proportion'as his responsibility is greater, as his conduct more directly affects the legislation of the country. No man has a right to aspirb to that lofty eminence who has not political convictions, and the talent and energy requisite for clothing them in the practical form of law. The only ambition which history consecrates and posterity reveres is the ambition of guiding the destinies of a country, shaping the future of a people : and this ambition must be a stranger to the soul of the man who refuses to announce a policy lest he be so far committed as to be compelled to 'resign office ; who shrinks from branding with reprobation a popular pre- judice or a fanatical delusion lest he lose the support of those who are interested in the one or bigoted to the other ; who makes office —in itself a mere gratification of vanity or avarice—the be-all and the end-all of his political activity. And to this conduct of Lord Derby must be in great part attributed the fact that a new Parlia- ment has been collected with no distinct object before it, with no conception of its mission—no sense, in fact, of any mission or duty at all ; nor is it likely, to lose during the years of its duration the taint of this original defect. A period of chaos must follow the years of fighting a battle that had been previously decided. The next six years may turn out as fruitless and weak as the last six, and all because Lord Derby would not see what was plain, and when he did see it would not acknowledge it. Such are the practical evils that result from one man's immoral selfishness—from his low standard of political morality, and his vain aspiration after an office he has not energy, boldness, or independence enough to fill worthily. What then are we to think of the people who let him govern them—who give to such a man carte blanche, make him a semi-constitutional Louis Napoleon ? Some of them may say that he has carried more practical reforms than any Minister before in the same time. He did not carry them ; but supposing he did, that has nothing to do with the moral aspect of his means of getting and keeping power. If one's butler came with a forged cha- racter, he could scarcely justify himself when detected by boast- ing of his admirable taste in wine, or the splendid polish of his plate. Others would urge that they wanted no better guaran- tee of Lord Derby than that he would oppose the further progress of Democracy among us, and support the Church. This is the favourite plea among the educated men who support Lord Derby, and to our minds the strangest of all: What is it that gives to the name of demagogue its traditional vileness; what is it that makes most of us instinctively glow with sympathy when men like Lord Derby hurl at the character of demagogue all their withering contempt and blasting scorn? Why, just that which Lord Derby has been doing his best to imitate, with admirable success. Just because demagogues do not guide the popular will or exalt the popular intelligenbe for the good of the community, but for their own selfish ends excite- all that is fiercest in the passions and pre- judices of ignorant human nature—this is why demagogue has be- come a term of reproach. , Except on homceopathic principles it would be difficult to see how Lord 'Derby can stop Democracy. Ind for his support of the Church, will anything he can do make the Church more popular and more useful? Is there a sane man, wearing a gown, who thinks that Lord Derby will let his little finger ache, or that his party would give up sixpence a quarter on wheat, for all the clerical privileges from Hildebrand to Henry of Exeter? Of all the shams, this Church cry is the purest humbug, the most transparent moonshine. "Protection" is dead ; "No Popery," the screech of an owl in the 'wilderness ; "Church in. danger," the muttering of a paralyzed old woman dreaming of lang- syne. Nothing is, but something is to be—what that is remains deep in the Semitic heart. Sir James Graham hints that when the curtain rises, Benjamin Disraeli is prepared to jump into a quart- bottle. We hope when he is fairly bottled some genius will see that he is tightly corked. Then, when the kaleidoscope is no longer in motion, the agricultural and upper-class public may perhaps be able to perceive the worthless nature of the bits of old coloured glass, of which the gorgeous visions looming in the future were in reality composed. Repentance is the first step to reformation, open eyes the necessary condition of repentance.