THE PAST SESSION. T HE Session has been one of faded
interests, languid poli- tical passions, and attenuated jokes :—neutrality in fo- reign affairs, with a more neutral tint than ever ; paper duty redivivus, or rather redimortuus, dying its second death ; and Sir Baldwin Walker. It is a diluted form of its predecessor, being to it "as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine ;" or, rather, it is a weak reflexion of it, like a secon- dary rainbow with washed-out colours. Almost all the interests have been the same, but they have been waning interests. The trail of little difficulties that follow great and accomplished events cannot excite the same deep inte- rest or be discussed even by organized parties with the same fervour. What the troubles in Naples are to the revolu- tionary exploits of Garibaldi, the rumours concerning the cession of Sardinia to the annexation of Savoy and Nice, the Appropriation of Seats and County Franchise Bill to the Whig Reform Bill, the controversy with the Lords as to a single Money Bill to the controversy as to the power of the Lords to reject a Money Bill if they chose—in short, as the budget of 1861 is to the budget of 1860—Mr. Laing's Indian finance measures to Mr. Wilson's—that has the Ses- sion of 1861 been to the Session of 1860,—a weak and pallid reflex. Only in one respect has the public interest been deeper and stronger, and on that subject the Houses of Par- liament have observed a studied silence. The public hatred of slavery has just contrived to neutralize the aristocratic antipathy for the North ; the tide has balanced the current ; and "made a silence" in the House. And this distracting influence has, indeed, done a good deal towards blanching still further the already colourless Session, for it has diverted substantial interest from patriotic efforts on the part of party politicians to get up a contest, which might otherwise have been successful. No parliamentary struggle can be im- portant which is not fed by the eager cheers and hisses of the outside world.
Next to, if not before, Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone was the leading political figure in the last Session. He was the Achilles whose wrath, so long disastrous to the Whigs, at length consented to come back to the leader with whom he had quarrelled, and to redeem the losing cause. This Session, next to Lord Palmerston, Sir G. C. Lewis has been the episodic hero ; not, indeed, that he has achieved many great feats of battle against the Tories ; but that he has de- tained the Tory leaders so long in friendly colloquy on the field, giving them arguments in return for votes, "gold for brass, what was worth a hundred oxen for what was worth nine." The policy on all subjects, even on finance itself, has had in it a flavour of Sir G. C. Lewis's clear-headed but sceptical laissez-faire. Even the budget was a compro- mise, which it must have cost Mr. Gladstone a struggle to make. No doubt Sir George Lewis would have preferred to keep the paper duty another year, and merely abandoned the income-tax penny. We believe ourselves, apart from the political considerations which recommended some bribe to the Manchester school, that it would have been the wiser and safer course. Already the small balance which Mr. Gladstone prophesied has been reduced by the supplementary vote of 250,000/. for iron ships. And the Chinese money is still in China. But looking .to Mr. Gladstone's personal pledges, and the fear of Mr. Bright, the policy actually adopted was as nearly a Lewisian one as we could expect. The half-year's delay in the repeal of the income tax which it entailed; must have done great violence to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's feelings, and considerably softened the sa- crifice to the Home Secretary. The budget of 1860 was of pure Gladstonian blood—that of 1861 has some taint of the indolent and sceptical wisdom of our new Minister-at-War. But we are anticipating, for it was not with finance that the Session opened, it was with the abandonment of Reform, Lord Jobn Russell renouncing in the debate on the address itself all further share in that movement which he had heralded in the previous Session with considerable pomp. He had then remarked to the House the "auspicious" augury that the first reading of the new bill was fixed for the anniver- sary of the day which saw his introduction of the great Re- form Bill in years gone by. This he had said in 1860, but he had since felt that this generation was one" which knew not Joseph," which could not feel for such anniversaries, which must be left to reform itself. Accordingly, he handed over Reform to Sir George Lewis and his manipulation of the four seats, and, waiting a decent time lest it might be thought that this disappointment had entered into his soul, he passed away to join the ranks of those whose traditional occupations, like his, are gone. Foreign politics, the great success of his later years, may be cultivated with as much advantage in the calm retreat of the Upper House. But he could not leave the Commons till he was indeed assured that there was no chance of winding up the constitutional epic of his life with an epilogue that would match the prologue. It was not to be.
A Bankruptcy Bill has been characteristically enough the one important fruit of the Session. Even this was menaced by the Lords, where a substantial element in it was expunged before Lord Westbury's advent, and even its restoration endangered by the unjudicial and inju- dicious warmth of the new-made Chancellor. With this exception, Sir George Lewis has certainly been the presiding genius of the Home administration—a negative genius, at- tempting nothing dangerous, and, above all, nothing that could be let alone. In his bill for apportioning the va- cant seats, be carried this principle of making no ap- peal to public faith even a little too far. Proposing a mea- sure, in which no one saw the deficiencies so keenly as himself, in order to avoid the labour of persuasion, he gained for the Government a reputation which his somewhat sar- donic speeches on all the various Wednesday questions of ecclesiastical policy tended to confirm—a reputation of despising the concessions which they thought it their pro- fessional duty to advocate. Perhaps Sir G. Lewis only differs from many of his colleagues in his greater honesty. Not the less is it a profound evil that liberal principles should be re- garded as a vulgar embarrassment—a mere concession of thoughtful men to the unthinking age. We particularly regret this tone on ecclesiastical matters,—which has marked the Session throughout. The unfortunate policy of the opponents of church rates has so thoroughly vulgarized the whole question, that statesmen who know the importance of preserving the full nationality of the national Church, cannot sympathize either with Tory or Dissenter. Not the less would it be well if they would speak out ; ,and while proving their real abhorrence of anything like pressure on the con- sciences of men, explain, each for himself, the mode which seems to him most feasible of keeping the national Church as the inheritance of the nation, not of any ecclesiastical party in the natioti. The policy of leaving to agitators the exclusive property in a grievance, because their own way of dealing with it would not give political satisfaction, has been carried this session to its furthest limits.
It is true that the great function of Parliament is not legislation, but to choose and strengthen the administration, and to express the convictions of the English people on all questions of European importance. But even thus, Parlia- ment has done its duty languidly and inefficiently. On foreign politics, indeed, it has probably said all that was re- quisite, except on Austrian and Hungarian affairs. There the prejudices of Ministers have intercepted the convic- tions of the English people—which, however, can only happen when the country at large is not very well informed, and not very deeply interested—and have done less than justice to the English nation. But in general it may be said that if Parliament has said little on foreign politics, it is because there was little to be said, that what was doing was in the right direction, and we had only to acquiesce. But with regard to its influence on the Administration there has been real indifference and sluggishness. Here again the House of Commons has .caught the poco-curante tone from its leaders, and deliberately preferred inaction to the risk of change. There was much which might have been done. No thinking statesman doubts that our Admiralty system is ruinously extravagant, or that Mr. Gladstone's wish to reduce expenditure might be met without acquies- cing in Mr. Gladstone's heresies as to the defences of the kingdom. But allfinancial matters are regarded as trouble- some and dull. No one will see that at bottom frugality is the root of all rational policy. A saving Administration will have power with the people, and will be omnipotent abroad, where a spendthrift Administration will be repudiated and humiliated—and very justly. If another Session begins without some earnest effort in this direction, if when we next meet the Government we find a Galli° "caring for none of these things," the English people are not as sound as we believe them, unless they are driven from power. It is true we can look far nothing better, or so good, from Mr. Disraeli. But the Liberals must be taught that honest fru- gality is the only guarantee of a nation's greatness. The Session has made little change in the politicalpersonnet of Parliament, and that change has not been of an encouraging kind. Mr. StansFeld, the Member for Halifax, has confirmed the promise which he gave last session, of evincing a higher tone and broader sympathies, as well as greater eloquence, than the party with whom he usually acts. The new Member for Bradford, Mr. W. E. Forster, has laid the basis of a solid parliamentary reputation. But no new statesman or orator has emerged from the crowd. The Government, searching for fresh elements, has only been able to furbish up articles that it had formerly rejected as useless ; and the country is not sanguine as to the new trial. The heavy atmo- sphere of general indifference is not favourable to the appearance of new force. The disappearance of Mr. Sidney Herbert from the Commons was a sensible loss, at a time when no one feared the catastrophe impending over him ; and yet it could scarcely be said that he bad, like Mr. Gladstone, shown the metde or moving force of a germinal Premier. The dearth is great when Lord Stanley and Mr. F. Peel are pointed to, by the whispers of rumour, as the coming men behind the cloud. If this be so, there is some- thing even yet duller than "the Rockingham Administra- tion" in store for us or for our children.
It is, perhaps, well to note one result of the pallid cha- racter of our momentary politics in a visible transfer of influence from the Commons to the Lords. In colourless times good judgment is everything, and an unorganized popular assembly is the last place for the exercise of sound judgment. There is no chaos like a really popular body without fixed currents of party-conviction. The popular element then only produces turbid confusion, for numbers, though they add much to the force of conviction, add nothing to the sagacity of deliberation. Hence the debates in the Lords have really had as much influence on the country during the last Session as the debates in the Commons ; and partly as a consequence, ,partly as a mere coincidence, the strength of our Liberal statesmanship is drifting to the same quarter. • This would be of less consequence if the somewhat crude step taken in 1856, which was to have introduced life Peers into the Upper House had been successful. That guarantee for an assimilation between the two Houses is yet unconceded. But if the signs of the recent Session are not merely temporary and delusive, Earl Russell may yet com- plete his epic career with a constitutional epilogue far more useful to this generation than the late unfortunate offspring. of his old age, if he will devote himself to the task at securing for the Upper House that claim to public con- fidence which he secured at the beginning of his cr_reer so effectually for the Lower.
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