NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE number of Members elected to the next Parliament ap- proaches nearly to five hundred. Of these, the smallest possible ulajority—not exceeding one at present—is on the Liberal side. It is now nearly certain that the Tories will muster in stronger force in the MELBOURNE than they did in the PEEL Parliament. Their gain in England will not be less than a dozen; and the Liberals will hardly succeed in displacing as many Tories in Scotland and Ireland as will balance the account. This is a sorry sequel to the triumph of the Whigs at Court.
On looking closely into the causes of success and defeat, it appears probable that there would have been no loss, but the re- verse, if the policy of the Government had been more decided, and the conduct of its supporters more independent and manly—if the Ministerial candidates had taken, in time, the course which insured
success to Sir WILLIAM MO t.E INORTH at Leeds and Mr. LEADER in Westminster. True it is, !hat in Bath, Liverpool, and Hull, men in the front rank of the Movement have fallen ; and, as was remarked last week, they who have been in the van when the word was "onward," are generally among the killed or wounded when the retreat is commenced; but still it is found, that, when the savendae foe hoe been driven back—when any of his strong positions have been taken—the good service has been done by the Toast resolute and eager combatants. To drop the metaphor, it 'will be found that where the strong Tories have been turned out, they have been replaced by Radicals, not by mere Whigs. For example— In Leeds, Sir JOHN BECKETT was beaten by Sir WILLIAM MOLES- WORTH; ... Westminster, Sir GEORGE MURRAY by LEADER; Leicester, GOULBURN and GLADSTONE by DUCKWORTH and EASTROPE ; ... Bristol, FRIPP by BERKELEY; ... Northampton Ross by RAIKES CURRIE ; ... Worcester. ROBINSON by DAVIES ;
... Oxford, HUGHES by ERLE ; ... Oldham, LEES by JOHNSON;
RidpOrt, BAILEY by JERVIS ; ... Beading, RUSSELL by EYSHE PALMER; ... Halifax, WonTLEv by PROTHERO ; ... Scarborough, JOHNSTON by STYLE; ... Wigan, KEARSLEY by STANDISH ; ... St. Andrew's, JOHNSTON by ELLICE.
Now the successful candidates are all Ballot-pledged Reformers; and a mere Whig would not have had the slightest chance of beating the Tories in any one of these contests, which were all of them severe, and some very close indeed.
Look at the list of losses. It will be found that, with some half-dozen marked exceptions,—those of HUME, EWART, HUTT, ROEBUCK, Titompsoar, and W ASON,—the men of strong opinions and decided conduct on the Liberal side kept their ground. And with regard to Mr. HUME, his defeat bears this character of retri- bution, that lie, above all the men of his party in the House of Commons, contributed latterly to bring about that drowsiness of the nation, which has proved tile stimulus to Tory activity, anti the effect of which is seen in the lamentable results which we are now reckoning up. Admitting, however, the losses just men- tioned. the Radicals generally have maintained their position far better than the Whigs: they have repelled assaults which would hare demolished the mild gentlemen of the Juste-milieu. It is Worthy of remark, that a class of Members upon whose emersion the Government might have relied on the hypothesis that its tendency is towards Conservatism, have been almost with- outexception excluded from the next Parliament. The muster Doubtfols" will be very meagre, in the absence of SCOTT, MOSLEY, AGNEW, JOHNSTON, MAXWELL, HUGHES, STEWART, 211dRonINSON. Some Tories have been returned whom the Whigs would rather lee Anywhere than in the House of Commons. We allude to the experienced tacticians and Whippers-in, PLANTA and HOLMES, who will make theTory Members tell on a division far better than Ross and BONHAM ; and to Sir EDWARD SUGDEN, who has pre- cisely that description of knowledge, joined with intellectual sharpness and acidity of temper, which will make him disagreeable to such amateur talkers on law as Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and by no means a welcome critic on Sir JOHN CAMPBELL'S professional exhibitions. As to DISRAELI, he no doubt expects to be the terror of the Treasury bench ; but we shall be agreeably disappointed if he turn out to be any thing better than a buffoon.
But though the Tories have got HOLMES and PLANTA, they have lost Sir GEORGE CLERK—one of the ablest, most plausible, hard-working, and really formidable men of business in the House. Sir GEORGE IS too serviceable to his party, whether in office or in opposition, to remain long without a seat. That of' Edinburgh- shire—which, by good management in the art of putting fresh votes on the register, has reverted to the Whigs in the person of Mr. GinsoN CRAIG—was doomed a twelvemonth since, and has long been drawn upon as one of the sure Ministerial gains. Though we some months ago predicted a contest, with costs, to Sir HENRY PARNELL, we never thought his seat positively in peril : but his friends did : great was their anxiety last Week while the doubt lasted, and pleasant the relief this week, when the return for Dundee solved it. Sir HENRY was the hardest-pressed, by his Reforming constituents, of all the Government men. He passed the ordeal, first, by virtue of a strong conviction in the constituency that their late Member was a valuable public ser- vant in his administrative capacity, and that his failure as a Re- presentative was Lord MELBOURNE'S fault; secondly, he took much pains and succeeded in persuading them that he was tho- roughly in earnest for the carrying of the Ballot and other im- provements dear to true Reformers ; thirdly, the defeat of Sir HENRY PARNELL would have been a triumph to an unpopular local party, which the Dundee Liberals would not permit. Sir HENRY, therefore, is reseated with flying colours : the blame will be his own should it be for the last time. On the next occasion when Parliamentary seats in Scotland are proffered to leading J.:rgIL:7! Radicals, there may be less squeamishness. But if the constituencies, throughout the country, would look around them in time, for candidates properly trained and proved, there would be no need for applying at the eleventh hour to strangers, much less for complaining of party confederations to limit the supply.
The sharp lessons of our present adversity may be turned to future profit. The Liberal House of Commons is become al- most Tory ; another general election will complete the transforma- tion, and yield a clear Tory majority. It is manifest that, with- out essential improvement, the " Reformed " representative system will become as instrumental to the purposes of Anti-Reformers as the old one. Will the People then demand (to denten(' earnestly,
is to obtain) the required improvements? If they do, we shall make a gain of a loss, and convert defeat hit° victory. If not, we must prepare not only to " let the Tories in," but to see them kept in. Why is JOSEPH Hums rejected? Not on account of his imperfections and faults—not on the belief that he was guilty of any of the offences imputed to him by the Tories; but for hie valuable qualities—his dogged, indefatigable exposure of abuses. Under the old rotten system Mr. Hume was fostered, matured, and supported: from the Reformed Parliament he is excluded f
