TOPICS OF THE DAY • THE PARLIAMENTARY STRUGGLE.
THE Parliamentary chaos is regaining form. The object- less discussion on the budget, with which subaltern Tories wearied the country for two whole days, was ex- changed on Monday for a tournament, exciting if not too real. The leaders of debate stepped into the fray. The budget was reviewed by Mr. Horsman, in a speech which had much the effect of the passage of a musk-rat over a cask of wine. Nothing is changed, but the pleasant aroma of the liquor is irremediably destroyed. It was defended again by Mr. Bright, in a spirit so joyous, that he actually, in his ex- ultation, pardoned the Peers. Even his triumph, however, could,not induce him to forego a fling at official honesty. He always believed in a surplus, he said, because the instinct of Governments was to ask for more. As usual, the budget 'came out under his speech, like a picture under a restorer, glaringly clear, particularly in its worst points. Mr. Glad- stone, in his more dignified way, endorsed Mr. Bright's general view of a surplus, but proceeded, nevertheless, to prove his own in a very careful, and, on the whole, very convincing speech. So at least it must have appeared to Mr. Disraeli, who calmly, not to say patronizingly, allowed Mr. Gladstone's premises, and announced the Tory resolve to overturn his conclusion. He should, he said, resist the reimposition of the war duty on tea. With masterly tact he replied to those who contended against taxes on knowledge, and for the relief of trade from the shackles of the fisc. As for the "taxes on knowledge," they ceased when penny papers became possible, and the paper duty was now a mere revenue device. As to trade, the best chance for immediate trade was with the four hundred millions of China, and the way to inerease that trade was to increase the import of the Chinese staple. Mr. Disraeli did not add that the Chinese spend the profit of increased demand for tea on opium, and not on piece goods, and the argument was the more effective for the omission. The menace of a division, with which the speech concluded, reduced Lord Palmerston to gravity. In his best and most fearless style, the Premier accepted the challenge, as fair constitutional opposition, and pledged the Government to the support of the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer.
The pledge was required. Throughout the debate the Op- position assumed a tone of separate hostility to Mr. Glad- stone. Mr. Osborne boldly challenged the Premier to throw over his colleague. Mr. Disraeli was most reluctant to im- peril the safety of the Ministry, though he must of course resist erroneous finance, particularly when the financier was a rival who went to Ionia and did not return a Conservative. This policy was even more distinctly expressed by Lord Derby, who at a Mansion House dinner, on Wednesday, con- tinued the debate. In his speech, which like all his speeches reads like the effort of a grand orator who has been an attorney, Lord 'Derby explained the position of his party, slipping in three splendidly clever bids for his adversaries' support. His object, he said, and that of his patient pha- lanx, was not office for themselves, but a strong Government for Great Britain. For this reason they had supported, and would support, an Administration which "it was little to say that any week or fortnight they had the means" to over- throw. It is a quaint idea that of a strong Government. The man whose strength is kept up by the assiduity of his nurse is usually deemed rather rickety than strong; but we may let that pass. Lord Palmerston, for aught we know, may quite enjoy being cosseted into health by the contemptu- ous fondness of his foes. With this chivalric view Lord Derby strove ably for additions to the strength which is to support any Administration but his own. He mourned plaintively, "and justly, over the union between the Whig Party and Liberals of every shade, and gracefully recalled the days when Grey, and Brougham, and Mackintosh were associates of his own. On foreign affairs he entertained, with the majority of Englishmen, a strong sympathy for countries striving to obtain or extend constitutional liberty, only these must not be under the influence of "Powers which fomented secret intrigues"—and in fomenting gave those" countries" freedom. And then, well aware that jealousy of the Lords inspired more votes than love for the penny Journals, he affirmed that the right of imposing taxes be- longed "exclusively," and "of regulating taxes almost ex- clusively" to the House of Commons, who "need not ap- prehend again a collision" with the Peers. The "just rights" of the Peers were struck by anticipation out of the debate, and the effect was felt in the division of Thursday. Both parties exerted themselves to the utmost, every avail- able member was whipped up to his place, but the final majo- rity for the Ministry was, as Mr. Disraeli said, "only in its teens," the numbers being 299 to 281. The debate itself presented few features of interest, the only strong point being one made by the new Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir S. Northeote contended that the surplus was delusive because it was only obtained by reimposing the war duty of 1s. 5d. npon tea. He held it absurd to talk of a aurplus produced by reimposing an expired tax, and then employ it to remit an- other which had not expired. As a party contest, however, the division was most important. It showed the real equality which exists between the two sides of the House as organized parties, and gave hope of a Government at no distant date which shall be strong because watched by a powerful and united opposition. Nothing strengthens good metal like compression. On the substantive merits of the question at issue our position has already been defined. As compared with the tea duties the paper duty, we think, ought to have the pre- ference. It is a bad tax, restricting the development of what ought to be a growing and profitable trade. No relief which an impost can obtain from a reduction of thirty per cent. can ,possibly equal the relief conferred on a trade by the total removal of an excise. Nor can we accept the idea so widely prevalent that any great boon to the penny press incidentally increases a bad kind of democratic influence. The effect is directly the reverse. A successful press is driven by the first law of its existence to employ able men, and able men will not condescend to the vulgar form of radicalism, the effort to reduce everything to the level of the uneducated which it is essential to resist. It is not men of the stamp of Douglas Jerrold, extreme as their opinions may be, whom society has to dread. As to the alternatiye offered, a low duty on tea is, of course, very -much pleasanter to everybody than a high one. But when Lord Derby calls tea a "necessary of life," he says what only washerwomen thoroughly believe. Tea, though costermongers drink it, is still an article of only quasi necessity, one which can very well wait for the next inevitable surplus. As against tea, we plead for paper ; but this is not the time for permanent reductions at all. With Europe bristling with bayonets, "six respectable wars"—to quote Lord Palmerston—ready to our hands, armaments demanded at -once by the Premier, Lord Derby, and Mr. Roebuck, and a navy still in the agonies of reconstruction, it is inexcusable to throw away a tax which can never be reimposed. 'If the money cannot re- main in the Treasury till the Chinese indemnity arrives, let the income tax be temporarily reduced. That can be reim- posed with sufficient facility—as the tax payers painfully admit—and that, and not the tea duty, as Mr. Disraeli affirms, is first of the war imposts to be removed.
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