MINISTERIAL DEFENCE OF SANITARY PROCRASTINATION.
THE art of Ministerial support in journalism has not been restored since Sir Robert Peel discontinued. the practice of retaining Minis- terial papers. The Whigs, it would seem, attempted to restore the practice, but they did not restore the art ; or if any of the old Swiss are to be found, they must be sought among the ostensible ranks of the Opposition. It is in the high Tory Protectionist Absolutist ally of our Liberal Foreign Office that true and hearty support of Ministers is to be discovered; it is in the columns of the independent super-comniercial Leading Journal that they possess their most skilful backing : the one paper that occupies the Whig market, undisturbed by competition, cannot advance in the Swiss art beyond the haeknied and antiquated tactic of exposing the weak points of the officialposition by defending them, and of calling names. The Globe, it appears, watches our columns to see whether we "can allege any remarkable Whig sin of omission or commission," and if we do not, the anxious retainer is " sure the Ministerial leaders of our party have a pretty clear score for the week." Be- cause we are "-dogged" in the unconscious performance of a func- tion so convenient to the party of Lord John Russell and the Globe, our contemporary, with a style of philology that, from its obliquity, must rest on Whig principles, calls us its "weekly cynometer." A cynometer, or dog-measure, that "worries Minis- ters," must be as remarkable a phsenomenon as that which amuses Dr. Coplestone in his burlesque review of young Mr. Milton's Allegro—" a tripping crank.' Our contemporary is so alarmed at us, we fear, that be would take a recruiting standard for a recruit, a dog-whip for a dog. Those who are familiar with "the dan- gerous classes" report that they dread a`-vigilant house-dog more than any other kind of wateh. We cannot reckon our contempo- rary among the dangerous classes; though it is evident that he goes in fear of the dog : he is not the housebreaker, or the area-sneak, that dreads the watch for himself—he must be the Whig "pal" on the look-out in case the beak should come. Shall we return his eonapliment by making " the Whig Pal " his future style and title ? Last week we stated the ease respecting Metropolitan Inter-
ments as it lies between Ministers and the Board of Health, and we endeavoured to confine that statement to the record as closely as compression would permit ; leaving the reader in great part to draw his own inferences. But if supporters of Ministers are in- capable of perceiving the bearing which the plain facts have on the position of the responsible officials, it may be necessary to set forth those inferences somewhat more distinctly. We are reminded of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said to last week's deputation, about the way in which extramural in- terment is attained in Edinburgh through " private companies "; and we are told that " to have blindly adopted all the schemes" of the Board of Health, " on water-supply, sewerage, and sepulture, would have been a serious error, involving a still more serious responsibility." Perhaps so ; perhaps private companies may be the better organ ; and unquestionably, if Government defeats the plans of its own Board, private companies will be the only resource available to the public. But pleas of this kind cannot decently be urged on behalf of Ministers, against whom they are really an aggravation of the charge ; since the Treasury had adopted the scheme of the Board of Health for buying up all private cemeteries.
Nothing but discredit can be reflected on the responsible officials who plead at this day that the Board of Health did not find the money for its projects. The Board was not a financial department. If its projects were to be self-supporting, they must have been so by the returns derivable from their practical working ; and if it is not puerile to a pitch of idiotcy, it is dishonest, to charge the Board with a want of cash which it was in the very nature of things that the Board should both need and lack. Neither Lord Carlisle nor Lord Ashley, Mr. Chadwick nor Dr. Southwood Smith, could be expected to supply the money out of his own pocket. The Treasury knew that the revenue of the Board must be derived from the returns of its practical working : it was on the strength of representations precisely to that effect that the Treasury sanc- tioned the proposal of the Board to buy up all private cemeteries. The Treasury sanctioned the proposal of the Board to borrow money in default of a Government advance—which would have been much the better financial operation ; and the obstacle to the loan was that very defect which, as Lord John Russell now says, "might have been remedied"—the want of permanence in the Board. It- is impossible to follow transactions of this kind without the most painful impressions as to the good faith and sense of honour in those who now repudiate the acts of the Board. But the Minutes to which we referred last week disclose some- thing worse than repudiation. The Treasury did at last consent to make an advance of public money—for what purpose ? To carry out the bill for the purchase of the Nunhead and Brompton Cemeteries ; a measure which the Ministers carried through Par- liament in spite of the repeated protests of the Board against it, as inflective for its purpose and altogether objectionable. That mea- sure passed as the measure of the Board : it was forced on the Board, which had to undergo the discredit of so paltry a makeshift. But why do we look to the Board, or to its members ? What cares the public for Mr. Chadwick or Dr. Southwood Smith ? They are responsible to the Ministers of the Crown ; the Minis- ters it is that owe an account to the public. It is with them that we must deal. The First Minister of the Crown entered office on the strength of many promises, including that of Sanitary Re- form ; and what has been done therein ? Where is the systematic drainage, where is water-supply, or extramural interment? What has he done during these last five years ? Drainage he has taken from the Board that was at least in earnest, and has turned over to another Board, the Commissioners of Sewers, that was at the best lukewarm, insomuch that he was obliged to remodel it by a most sudden and revolutionary measure. In the matter of water-supply, the only thing done is to prevent the existence of new private companies. And now, after adopting a plan by the Board of Health, that plan is to be undone, and extramural inter- ment is to be turned over to private companies. Is not this trifling with the entire subject ? What is it but official pettifogging ?
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