TOPICS OF THE DAY.
WAR, REFORM, AND THE MINISTRY.
IT was not " Thersites " of the Opposition, but Lord John Rus- sell himself, who raised the most important question as to the position of the Ministry. Repelling the personal taunts levelled at himself individually, Lord John declared that "he should not resign his post until he should be of opinion that the conduct of the war is not safe in the hands of the present Govern- ment "; until he should believe "that the present Government is not more likely than others which could be formed to carry on the war successfully and to conclude it by an honourable peace." Thus, on the statement of that Minister who unites in his own person the greatest number of suffrages from the public of this country, the present Cabinet, established to continue the policy of Free-trade' to restore the dignity and working efficiency of our administrative organization, and to pursue an uninterrupted course of temperate and well-considered reforms, has contracted its mission into that of a government to carry on a war. Perhaps the several members of the Government might differ if they were asked for their view as to the particular mission which it is the duty of this Government to carry on; but here we have the state- ment from that member who was most especially supposed to be in charge of the reforming and legislative duties intrusted to the present Government ; and it is the Reform Minister par excellence who claims on behalf of himself and his colleagues that they shall be judged exclusively as War Ministers. This, indeed, would proportionately contract our estimate of the present Government and its value. The conduct of the war is a duty which at the present moment stands foremost, but it is a duty which peculiarly belongs to the Executive ; and it is perhaps carried on better by an Executive without the encumbering sup- port of a Parliament. If there is any use in a Parliamentary ma- chinery during the prosecution of a war, it is, that the representa- tive body may sustain attention for domestic wants which the Ex- ecutive at such a period would be more likely to forget. And if the action of the Three Estates is to be now engrossed entirely by the war which the Executive could carry on singly, we are in the con- dition of a country with a representative constitution whose Par- liamentary business is suspended. We are quite aware that Ministers have had something to say, at each successive step, on behalf of the course which they have taken ; and we have on a former occasion admitted that they are not without a degree of justification. The sequel, however, has thrown a doubt upon the soundness of that concession. When the question of postponing the Reform Bill was at first broached, on the pretext that the war would interfere with the conduct of Par- liamentary business, we observed, that however executive officers might be absorbed in the duties of the military department, the whole time of the Members of both Houses could not be taken up in the same way. But we also noted the existence of treasonable tendencies in the Liberal ranks' and whilst we marked the con- duct of Members who desired to frustrate a Reform Bill lest their own seats should be sacrificed, we pointed to a corresponding treason amongst the subordinates of Government, who thought more of the votes on the next division than they did of a better adjustment of the representation and an honester basis for divisions hereafter. Knowing the habits of public men, we could even then estimate the degree of pressure upon Ministers ; but the events which have since occurred induce us to think that the course they have adopt- ed, although the easier, was not the best nor the safest. It was a recommendation of their measures, that they were frfuned to hang together; and Ministers themselves have been the first to perceive that the abandonment of one, and that one the most important of all, involved prospectively the abandonment of others. When they gave up the Reform Bill, they also necessitated the giving up of bills which were appendages to that measure. Unless they could have safely reckoned on the conciliation gained by their yielding, the result which happened might have been expected. They have gained no conciliation ; on the contrary, their yielding has stimulated the ardour of the Opposition for further attacks; and each successive surrender on the part of Ministers has been made at once a reproach against those Ministers and a reason for extorting more. The consequences, indeed, have shown that while the course of concession as a matter of expediency has not realized the profits which might have justified the speculation, it has entailed serious losses. While it has excited opponents to more active obstruction, it has disheartened sonic friends, and it has created perplexities for others. In the late division on the Oaths Bill, there were many Liberals who would have been willing enough to secure the final emancipation of the Jews, but they were misled by the jargon about opening the door for Roman Catholics. The confusion of ideas under which these conscientious persons acted speaks ill in- deed for the standard of intelligence in the House of Commons ; but some part of their perplexity must be laid at the door of Ministers, who did not do all they might to render the duty dis- tinct and imperative. The very speech with which Lord John Russell moved the second reading, and the whole course of the debate, intimated, as plainly as if the Words had been uttered, that Ministers themselves had not that complete confidence in their measure, or that paramount sense of the duty, which would have made them stand or fall by it as an act of justice. And Members who would have supported Ministers in anything that was de-
dared to be peremptorily necessary, accepted the option, and voted against their Parliamentary leaders. On a hasty review of the measures advanced by Ministers, they might in one sense be divided into two classes, each class with a fate peculiar to itself. One consists of those measures respecting which Ministers had formed for themselves a distinct conception and had a resolute determination to carry them ; the other class, of those about which their conclusions were more vague and un- settled, and which they were prepared, not to carry, but to try. The Oaths Bill and the Exchequer Bonds Bill suitably re- present these two classes. Ministers had come to no absolute and final determination on the Jew measure. They had indeed agreed upon the general object, but their own measure they treated as a triviality, which might or might not be enacted; and they threw it on the House of Commons to try its fate. Perceiving that Min- isters were not resolved, their ordinary supporters acted accord- ing to their own caprice of the moment ; the triumph of the hour was handed over to any party which could seize it by the assertion of an absolute idea ; and Lord John Russell saw a number of his usual supporters follow his usual adversary into the Anti-Papal lobby. The Exchequer Bonds Bill appealed to interests of a more material kind arrayed against the measure ; but Mr. Gladstone had himself framed a distinct conception of the mode in which the new kind of instrument would work ; he saw the benefits to be derived from it, and determined to persevere in carrying it out, Parliamentary opposition notwithstanding. The public, through- out the country as well as in the City, is gradually acquiring an insight into the idea which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had already matured. It was evidently worth his while to persevere, and he knew it. He grasped his bill, therefore, in a firm hand; avowed that he was resolved to carry it through Parliament ; and the union of party with pecuniary interest and straggling discon- tent was powerless to resist him. Yet it may be said that there was a larger amount of opinion available for the resolute lead of Ministers on the subject of the Oaths Bill, with all its complexi- ties, than on that comparatively new and more complex but less morally important question of the Exchequer Bonds. Although the measures of Ministers may, with respect to their success or rejection, be divided into those two classes, in another respect they are all included in one class. The measures claimed the support of the public on the ground that they were reasonable. But if they are so reasonable as they were represented to be while they claimed the public support, what title have Ministers to cast them aside without insuperable necessity ? Why risk the Oaths Bill, any more than the Exchequer Bonds Bill ? why postpone the Education Bill, any more than the University Bill? and why con- sider the prosecution of reform less essential to a Government con- structed on the very condition of carrying forward reform, than the prosecution of a war, for the right conduct of which a competent Executive would suffice ?
We have not the materials for answering these questions; the Government alone can answer them. But what we do know as a fact becoming only too conspicuous is, that a Ministry enjoying the largest support which any Cabinet in this country has enjoyed for a long series of years, is rendering itself as remarkable as any of its predecessors for the failure of measures which it declared to be necessary for the public welfare, and which the public ex- pected from the individual members of the present Cabinet. In the absence of any distinct explanation of the reason, conjecture is driven to ask, whether it is that the accord amongst Ministers is not so great as their language has induced us to suppose ; whether it is that some minority in the Cabinet is permitted, as gossip as- serts, to disturb their councils; whether any effeminate scruple to exercise " dictation " over the House of Commons weakens their resolve ; or whether they act under a still more questionable desire to diminish their own responsibility by shuffling it off upon the shoulders of the Commons ? Whether it has operated con- sciously as a reason for the conduct of Ministers or not, there is undoubtedly a growing tendency to avoid Ministerial responsi- bility by taking the Commons into partnership with the Exe- cutive and making the House share the Executive responsi- bility. This introduces a total confusion into the very na- ture of responsible government, which it in fact neutralizes by more than diffusing the responsibility, for it enables Minis- ters to drag into a complicity with their acts the Parliament, which is the arbiter of their Ministerial life and death. It may be a mode of evading pressure from without ; it may be a device for avoiding the consequences which hang upon the heels of a Ministry undertaking very complicated legislation and desiring to carry some measures by the sacrifice of the rest, or to remota in office for their chief mission by surrendering their conviction upon minor points. But the ultimate result of such a course, if it should be carried on long enough and far enough, would be to change the eonstatution of our country by a process which is assimilating the House of Commons to the American Congress. This, then, is the result of a course adopted because, no doubt, it was thought wisest and safest. "Conciliation" has proved re- sunless in gain, and productive only of defeats : would a course of firm perseverance have been less safe, even if it had in- volved the necessity of dissolving the Parliament elected by Lord Derby under influences of the "W. B." order ? Or would the temporary retirement of the Cabinet itself have been so hazardous for the constitutional interests of this country as a course which converts the function of the Cabinet from one of restoring the posi- tion of the Executive to that of Americanizing the Executive ? If all-useful legislation is to be suspended, it would be better to make tained in the Roman Catholic oath are, first, a promise to defend
the Commons vote the remaining supplies in the lump and close the session next week.
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