CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DAY.
IF stir without progress is the characteristic of the time, most un- questionably the very day we are now breathing in is the centre and climax of that restless stagnation, that vast chaotic negative-preg- nant. Men, measures, parties, nations—look around you, far and near—all are in the same condition of fussy inaction. Mr. Hume, engaged in Committees, bustles away on hearing i that the. Speaker is " at prayers," and makes such good speed as to arrive too late—most punctually behind time. For long is the way : Faint and weardrthe wayworn traveller
Treads the corridors, afraid to stop" ;
and hastens in vain. Instead of " making a House," they." make a count-but." The Opposition hates the Income-tax ; yet impedes Mr. Hume's proposal to improve it. Ministers do not mean to improve the tax ; but they impede the Opposition impediment to Mr. Hume. Lord john Russell brings in an Ecclesiastical Titles Bill to include Ireland ; but when warned that. it will make a re- volution in that first flower of the ocean, he declares that it will not operate there. Mr. Walpole proposes, then, to restrict it to England ; but Lord John won't hear of such a thing. Perhaps he supposes, that as it is to include Ireland.but not to operate there, if it were to exclude Ireland, then, by some devilish cantrip sleight, it would operate there ? The Irish Members threaten to obstruct the measure with endless motions of adjournment ; and they don't persevere—they only obstruct it enough to let it go on. There is the same alacrity ins tagnation whether you take official or nonofficial measures. The Little Charter of the Financial Re- formers is in the Order-book, and they assist in the count-out. Ministers push forward a Water Supply Bill that cannot possibly be carried into effect, and that will most likely be buried in a Se- lect Committee.
It is the same, too, " out of doors." About no one subject, perhaps, are there so many and such earnest attestations of urgent neces- sity, vital importance, and so forth, as education : you have every variety of it proposed,—Lord John with his pet British and Fo- reign, Bishop Blomfield with his National Society, Lord Melgund with his Scotch Bill, Mr. Fox with his Public Education, the Man- chester clergy with their Manchester measure, the Poor-law Com- missioners with their Union schools ; but in lieu of progress, each party is vaunting its " difficulties" : the Privy Council can't get on for the Episcopal cabals ; the Bishops can't get on for the ma- nagement-clauses ; the clergy can't get on with religious tuition, since nobody can agree upon it ; the Public School Association can't get on without religions teaching, since nobody can agree to do without it; Lord Melgund can't get on with his Scotch bill, because Scotehmen are so deeply impressed with the necessity of the thing that they can't leave it to him—though practically they do leave it to him ; the Poor-law Commissioners recommend Union schools, and the Unions recommend schools; and so they go on pelting each other with recommendations.
So with political parties : Protectionists agitate, and Protec- tionist leaders manoeuvre not to be forced into complying with the very thing they demand. Lord John—who wants to resign, but stops in office—leaves the seat open to Stanley, who does not take it. The Radicals hold " the balance of power," to place it at the disposal of Whigs, and propose Radical measures in such a way as to facilitate Whig measures; the Whigs, in turn, being the only persons who prevent their own measures. The Irish Members oppose every party in rotation,—which perfectly neu- tralises their force, by making the pressure equal all round. Open the path to success, and any party shrinks back : habituated to com- promises, every party shrinks from the absolute, and dreads success as too ex.alt a responsibility, which men of these degenerate days are not to sustain. Your only constant triumph is through consistency of failure. Persevere in that ; never deviate into pro- gress, nor stumble into success, and you may defy opposition. Each party backs so much as practically to become its own oppo- site : the least true to Whig doctrines are the Whigs ; those who pass a decree of impossibility upon even the attempt to restore Protection are the Protectionists; the people to deprecate any real movement of a Radical kind, to beg off, to implore forbearance, are the Radicals.
It is the same with nations. England upholds constitutional freedom so skilfully, that it is the very thing rendered impossible wherever England interferes ; except, perhaps, that in Piedmont, in spite of the best efforts in that direction, she has failed to fail. France becomes a Republic, to be embroiled in intrigues for creating a Sovereign Minor, a Legitimate Divine-right Grand Monarch, or an Emperor. Italy moves so vigorously to eject "the Stranger," that her own convulsive limbs beat each other, and the Stranger gets more firmly on her exhausted shoulders. Germany has made such thorough revolution, that she has gone right round, back to Absolutism ; and now Absolutism is doing its best to over-
leap itself and make a summersault back into Revolution. Turkey wills to liberate Kossuth, and Lord Palmerston insists before Rus- sia upon his liberation with so much spirit that he remains in pri- son ; and Lord Palmerston's friends say that to give him sufficient strength, you must show that he acts under coercion of those im- potent things public meetings. Meanwhile, reforming. Frederick William of Prussia, Russia's prodigal son, is going to visit Ernest of Hanover on his birthday; for the once dreadful chief of English Toryism has grown almost Liberal and very old, and he complains that in his own palace he is treated like a child. Portugal revolts for " liberty," the Portuguese name for the party going into office. Spain alone is unchanged—ever arranging to pay:her debts with new loans and new insolvencies. And, coming home again, the International Exposition has been so successful in drawing trade and custom to London, that all the tradesmen are doing nought, and every other house is " to let." Just as the theatres have opened to such " overflowing houses," that they have quite over. flowed, and the houses are empty.
Yet all the while, no party will consent to make up its mind that things are so, and to rest on that conclusion ; but they go on mo- ving without advancement or present opening,—like oxen packed head to head in a drove, huddling, stumbling, butting, getting closer and closer, seeing no end to it, dreaming of green fields, un conscious of the shambles. -
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