TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE PARLIAMENTARY RESIGNATIONS.
SOME Members, recent converts to the Peel views of Free Trade, but mindful of past professions, and substantially as well as ti- tularly honourable, have escaped the difficulties of their situa- tion by resigning ; and two notable instances have come before the public in the form of letters.
Lord Ashley resigns his seat for Dorsetshire, because he is a -convert since the election of 1841. Although he gave no pledges, there was an honourable understanding that he was chosen for his support of Protection ; and therefore he returns his trust to those who gave it. In some very temperate remarks on the sub- ject, the Morning Chronicle blames Lord Ashley for two points in his conduct,—for the manner of making his announcement ; and for not having taken some pains to ascertain the sentiments of his constituents before resorting to so decided a step as resigning.. We presume, however, that Lord Ashley means to offer himself again ; and, in that case, it would not be easy to point out a more legitimate and " constitutional " way of ascertaining their sen- timents. The manner of making the announcement, indeed, is in some sort rather calculated to defeat his object. He ex- presses approval of the Ministerial measure ; but his tone is de- pressed and desponding enough to make his constituents shudder at the very notion of having anythin,o. to do with the enterprise of so melancholy a swain. The merchant in the Arabian Nights who is on his way punctually to keep an appointment for being killed by a genie does not utter a more miserable tone than Lord Ashley does while inviting the electors of Dorsetshire to pass . judgment on him : he makes his political will, and fairly gives up his political ghost, in very anticipation of the sentence. He ceurts martyrdom, not for the triumph, but for the defeat of his cause. To judge him severely, it might be said that in such a demeanour there is the dishonesty inherent in timidity : crouch- ing before the power he presumes to be offended, he betrays to contumely and reverse, in his person the cause which his conscience tells him to vindicate. He does not desert to the 'enemy—he does not actually run away ; but he betrays a fear -Which, before a battle, is the most dangerous of all traitors in the ranks.
The course taken by Lord John Manners is still more equivo- cal. It is ingenious in the way by which it makes honesty play the part of knavery, and twists an attempt to reconcile conflict- ing: duties into the betrayal of both. If Lord John had set him- self seriously to discover how an honest and intelligent man could play the part of a knave and a fool without seeming to be -exactly either, he could not have devised a better plan. The bur- aesque on sense and decorum is ingenious to a Chinese degree of inverting good sense. He, like Lord Ashley, is a convert since the election of 1841; but, unlike Lord Ashley, he is open to a communication from his constituents. In default of such a com- munication authorizing him to vote for the new commercial prin- ciples, he will vote against them ; though he will not again accept a seat on the same terms. On the face of it, this is a clever way -of reconciling opposite duties ; but its ingenuity and honesty are only skin-deep. We do not mean that Lord John is dishonest ; but we say that if he rightly understood such a course he would 'know that it is not really an honest one. It violates the consti- tution. The Members of Parliament are representatives, not -delegates. Although the work of selection is divided among separate constituencies, the Members when once elected, act for the whole empire. Lord John, elected by Newark, acts as much for Manchester or Yorkshire in all imperial questions. He enters the House of Commons not to perform a task set him by certain persons on the poll at Newark, but to act with as free but con- scientious a judgment as if they were there present in his person, taking part in the discussion, observing the play of events within the Legislature, and open to conviction. Lord John Manners is • sent by Newark, at the time of election ; but as soon as he has • entered the House, within those walls, and for the term of Par- liament, he is Newark ; when he votes, Newark votes in him ; if he is convinced, Newark is convinced. If he goes on voting -against his conviction, he annuls the advantage which Newark
has in being present, by him, in the Legislature, to deliberate and 10 act on that deliberation. If he is right, legislation need not he debated within the House ; for debate might stop with the 'Speeches at the hustings, and the work of legislation have no finer instrument than the rude preliminary process of voting at the poll. And while Lord John is really frustrating. his mission to Parliament, he is betraying the broad interests of the country, by teaching that its vicegerents in the Legislature may take counsel one way and act another.
Both these examples might have more untoward results, were they not too "crotchety " to exercise a very serious influence -on minds of stronger mould. As it is, they may even have -some useful effect : they attest the extent to which the pro- cess of conversion has gone, and its powerful sway, when honest men are thus forced to make sacrifices to novel convictions. There can be no doubt that the same process has been going on out of doors ; and, taking the joint hint of the Chronicle and Lord John Manners, Free-traders could perhaps engage in no more useful task than the preparation of memorials from electors to Members, with carefully authenticated signatures—not the whole- sale street-corner autographs which encumber the cart-loads of spoiled parchment annually sent to Parliament : such genuine documents might restore courage to wavering Mannerses or Ash- leys meditating surrender.
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