TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE BEGINNING OF THE SESSION. THE Session has opened tamely, too tamely by far for those who love strong debate and the bracing air of political strife ; but some work is already performed. The illusions of the recess have all been swept away. It was believed that the Tories would meet in high heart and bad temper, with their followers ranged for battle, and many sub- jects of grave complaint against the Administration. Their victories in the recess had, it was said, left them, if not with a clear majority, at least with the occasional power of com- pelling a resignation, and what is worth far more, with a sense that the voting class had swung slowly round to their side. They had, moreover, secured allies in the enemy's baggage train, Catholics ordered to vote as the whilom Orange- men bade, and economists able to believe that to save one's purse one must always yield to the thief. The armistice was said to have ceased, and the Quarterly, in sentences of the old acrid force, threatened that Tory leaders would, on a dozen subjects, call the Ministry to an account. Their want of vigour in America and over vigour at Rome, their attempts at aggrandisement in China and contempt for imperial grandeur in Greece, their excessive expense in England and excessive meanness to Ireland, their bullying conduct in Rio and truckling sycophancy in Paris, Sir George Grey's penchant for laissez faire and Sir Charles Wood's habit of interference, were all to be made the subjects, if not of great divisions, at least of furious onslaught. Lord Derby was expected to fight, and the member for Bucks to pour oil—of vitriol—into the victim's wounds. The first day showed the spectators that all these fears or hopes had ignorance for foundation. The Tories mustered mach in the mood in which they had quitted town; critical in the tea-room, but inclined to smooth things in the House ; not quick to approve the Cabinet, but indisposed to help in removing its chief. On the very second night of debate four members, all sworn Conservatives, stood up simply to declare that they should vote with the Premier, and three of the four were men whose voices imply votes beside their own. The old causes of internal dissension were still, it was clear, at work. The few Evangelical Tories—a quaint combination of fish and flesh, found, but not common, in the English political menagerie— were not going to oust the man who had succeeded in patron- izing a Pope. Stout old Orange squires, Tories by virus in the blood rather than by action within the brain, did not see what they were to gain by obeying orders from Dr. M'Hale. Men whose whole system of thought inclines them to view any Bonaparte with distrust, whose first maxim in foreign politics is that France is erratic, and that England should therefore be armed, could not be brought to perceive why they should go into harness to drag Mr. Bright on the box. The personal feeling for "Pam."—it is characteristic of the man that he is the only Premier since the Reform Bill for whom the public has troubled itself to invent a short name—and the personal dislike of Mr. Disraeli, exist as strongly as ever. There is mutiny in the Conservative camp as pronounced as it was last Session, and the army which looks so compact is dreaded by its own officers, at least as much as the enemy. The chiefs are obliged to skirmish, lest, if they came too close, one wing or other of their forces should rush gallantly out of the conflict to the embraces of smiling foes.
All the predicted subjects of debate, save one, have suc- cessively fallen through. Most of the Tory gentry are still the bitter friends of the South, but their chief, whether or not he hates the North as strongly as they, has been compelled to confess that the conduct of the Ministry in this matter has been, on the whole, most wise. Indi- viduals, he thinks, talked too much, and uttered too many and various opinions, but the collective action was unimpeachably sound. After that admission, Mr. Ben- tinck's jolly bitterness and Mr. Gregory's coming statistics will scarcely avail to shake Mr. Layard's self-command. Everybody repudiates intervention, and as recognition must produce intervention, and the Whig policy is simply to decline recognition, the House may be held to have passed a silent vote of confidence in the American policy of the Whigs. The Ionian Islands have disappeared till a more convenient season. Nobody even remarked that the action of the Foreign Office was precipitate ; and as for the cession itself, Lord Derby postpones opposition till it has really been made. Lord Palmerston has explained that the islands are not a British possession, but an independent State, and, even if they were not, still possessions acquired by conquest and not British freehold, can be ceded away by the Crown. Her Majesty cannot sell Cornwall, but she can part with Heligo- land; and that fact having been settled—which has no prac- tical connection with the matter, Ministers being responsible for acts of prerogative, as well as all other acts—the dis- cussion is laid aside, with a feeling clearly perceived in the House that, should it come on in earnest, the cession will be upheld. Then quizzing is not debate, and the papers just published show that beyond artistic quizzing the Liberal action in Rome affords no room for attack. The French account was untrue, based on that salon gossip which, when a Frenchman repeats it, is always so clever and wrong. The Pope really asked whether England would, in certain ex- tremities, afford him a safe asylum ; and as England has a good habit of offering refuge to all political fugitives, Mr. Russell replied that his Government would afford to the Pope the asylum the Pope refused to the Bonapartes. Malta being the only English possession in which Italian is spoken, Malta was named to the Pope; but there was no more idea of treating him in his exile as a Sovereign Prince than there is of so treating Cardinal Wiseman. Considering that politicians are bound to recognize facts, and that His Holiness could with a stroke of his pen remedy half the evils of Ireland, put down Ribbonism, for instance, in a week, or turn Dr. M'Hale into a vigorous upholder of Anglican rule, a little extra courtesy seemed even to Orangemen something of which politicians and, gentlemen could scarcely be bound to complain. So that dropped too. Then the "alliance" did not please the allies, those who really wanted thrift waiting for Mr. Gladstone, and those who only wanted power waiting also to enjoy it under some taskmaster less stern than the chief of the Manchester School. The woes of Ireland are soothed, for the West has been promised its pay ; and Father Daly reflects with proud satisfaction that he has tamed the Premier, who snubbed him, into making Galway the easiest place in all Ireland to leave. China has not come up, but when it does, the Tories do not ex- actly feel as if enormous influence acquired unexceptionably in the East were an evil thing in itself, and the Liberal point —the despotic secrecy of the proceedings—is not very much to their taste. The "imbecility of Sir George Grey" does not seem so manifest, now that the days are growing longer, and. , the criticism expected has subsided into a sort of groan of annoyance from a sensible, but not over strong young Peer. That all this apparent quiescence, this gentle harmony of oil and wine—things which, though both good, were never known to unite—this lull in the waves of political life, is unreal, we have often averred. The tendencies of the two parties are wider apart than ever, and their tone is perceptibly more vitriolic. Even the mutineers will, as they get heated with strife, fall back into orderly rank, and, sooner or later, the chiefs will find the point on which they can close. But they have not found it yet; the points selected for them have, with the single exception of education, been disposed of, and everything tends to confirm the belief we expressed last week, that till the budget is produced serious strife will be sup- pressed by consent. It will not be, when it comes, less sharp, because the combatants on both sides are weary of the idleness to which the Premier has condemned them, and which the leader of the Opposition seems to approve.
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