TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE PARLIAMENTARY IMBROGLIO—LORDS ELLFX- BOROUGH AND CANNING.
TRULY England is draining the cup of legislative humiliation, anarchy, and confusion to the very dregs. The history of the past week has no parallel in our Parliamentary records since the revo- lution of 1688. There certainly have been times, before the present hour, when coteries took the place of parties, and when mere per- sonal claims have been a state difficulty. But such an utter debacle as the present has not, before the year of disgrace 1858, been witnessed in that model of assemblies, that cynosure of the eyes of nations, -the Commons House of Great Britain. We do not envy the man who can view with equanimity the painful spec- tacle of the temporary decline of power in the assembly, whose political conquests have been reckoned the most precious moral possessions of the world. And as little do we profess to under- stand the moral composition of those, who, having the power, authority, and position, enabling them to help the wheels of the Legislature out of the muddy track in which they are clogged, prefer to be worshipping their own conceits and devices and no- tions, whether about Indian legislation, or any other unseasonable crotchet. The whole force of the will and desires of every man should be bent upon the readjustment of the miserably-deranged Parliamentary machine. There is a curious parallel between the position of India and the Legislature of England, which 'suggests most uncomfortable reflections. In India and in the English Legislature alike there rages fierce rebellion and mutiny. But the supreme English Legislature, instead of facing the fact that where such mutinous warfare and anarchy exists, it constitutes a. question by the necessity of the ease previous to every other, instead of devoting its undivided attention to pacification and domestic resettlement, betakes itself, under the influence of bad leadership, to immense and abortive schemes of legislation. Just so might a man, stricken with consumption and on the point of death, lay out his twenty years' plan of travel, building, or planting. The consequences are most serious. If, two months ago, the Libe- ral leaders, instead of inaugurating the saturnalia of private piques and jealousies which have reigned of late, had devoted them- selves to the single-hearted, patriotic consideration, how the party of the majority could be reconstructed for future efficiency, both as regards men and principles, would it have been possible for the ludicrously incapable and discreditable Government of Lord Derby to play these " fantastic tricks before high heaven" in their period of brief authority, which the world has witnessed during the last ten days ? Would it have been possible for the Liberal majority to feel themselves paralyzed for the exercise of just Parliamentary censure upon the enormous blunders and puerilities of gentlemen, who can hardly with common patience be thought of as the Ministers of the British Crown, by the fear lest in ejecting Lord Derby and his colleagues from power, the grave question of Liberal leadership should be slurred over? Is it not well nigh unbearable that the leaders of both parties should so comport themselves, that Parliament and the country have placed before them only the wretched choice between a Government formally, censured in February, and one with equal formality censured in May or June ? We write while the issue of Mr. Cardwell's motion is yet -undecided : and all that we say cannot be affected by its event, however it may befall. Our simple contention is, and has been, that to attempt, as the leader of the late Government and his followers have done and are doing, in a violent high-handed manner, to bring back to power his Administration, unpurged of the censure of February, because unmodified in men and principles, is to outrage and defy the de- cisions of Parliament. And its plain result is to secure for Lord Derby's absurd Administration an immunity dangerous to the empire. For the endeavour of the exclusive Whig emigres to restore their ancien regime is met by the counter agitation or de- monstration, if it amounts to no more, of the independent Liberal Members. And so the hands of the Opposition are tied for all useful national and legislative purposes. Instead of being free to scrutinize the extraordinary course of Lord Derby and his colleagues upon the simple and unmistakeable issue of their de- merits, the independent Liberal party are obliged to consider, a prior "reason of state," the possible result of bringing back to office what would then be truly a dangerous dictatorship of persons and cliques, invested in its own behalf with practical impunity, and likely to provoke a dangerous reaction of popular indignation and agitation. But it is worth while to examine a little more closely the feast of statesmanship to which the Government of Lord Derby has treated the country within the last few days, and see what it is England and her Parliament are perhaps for a while condemned to suffer, lest a worse thing befall them. Some weeks back a draft of a proclamation, intended to be issued by Lord Canning upon the capture of Lucknow, arrived m London. Thereupon Lord Ellenborough and his friends of the Cabinet took sweet counsel together, and resolved to send to the Governor-General of India a document explanatory of their views, which for its folly and rashness deserves to be nailed to the counter for ever as a specimen of all that is spurious and hollow in statesmanship. No doubt a critical and difficult question was raised by that intended proclamation for the consideration of her Majesty's advisers. No doubt the intention to confiscate sum- marily the whole land of Oude, disclosed by it, was one that might well cause just consternation. No doubt all that has been loudly said.b-y the more thorough-going partisans of Lord Canning, since the matter came out, shout this dangerous resolve being no more than the fixat step in a highly philosophic and beneficent course of legislation concerning the land tenures of Oude, in an anti-feudal sense, is supremely ridiculous, when propounded as the true inter- pretation of a proclamation redolent of the vice victis throughout. But two considerations of a plain nature would have been suffi- cient to afford the true guide of action, upon the point, to wise and practical men. The first was, that the draft proclamation was unaccompanied by explanations, and the second that it was all but certain that the intentions of Lord Canning would be consum- mated, before a despatch from home could seriously modify the event. The case, therefore, was one, owing to the first reason, not for violent, and perhaps premature censure ; and owing to the se- cond, for a practical exposition of modifying policy, contingent in its application upon the state of things existing in India when the despatch should arrive. One extreme view might have been taken of the proclamation, upon the justice of which we do not enter, be- cause we are not dealing now with Lord Canning's policy, but with the statesmanship, save the mark ! of Lord Derby and his friends. That was, to consider the proclamation so dangerous and wrong as to render pressingly necessary the recall, at all hazards, of its author. But neither of these courses was taken. What was done was-to send out to Lord Canning, through the Secret Committee, at a blow, a document in which the policy of the proclamation is de- nounced in unmeasurdd terms; in which the writer, in utter oblivion of the stern practical duties of the statesman in this evil hour of In- dian complications, allows his mind and pen to run riot in sentimen- tal philosophizineb upon the abstract, speculative question of the re- lations of England to the people and Crown of Oude. Admitting that the practical dealing of the Indian authorities was to be affected by the views that might be entertained of this question, 7et to discuss it at large after the manner of the opposition journilisriFesiiiiit-iai an inconceivable thing ; or conceivable only upon the assumption of what is frankly avowed indeed by Lord. Ellenborough, that publication of the despatch was all along intended. It was considered possible that the English nation, out of its natural love for self-abasement, might revel in the contemplation of that dark picture of national sin, which the statesman-essayist draws as the faithful representation of our dealings with the Crown of Oude. And the plain fact is, that the Governor-General of India is invested, in the eyes of the world, by the unimpeachable authority of England's Ministers, with the character of an audacious pirate, going a little too far for the sympathies in felony of Englishmen at home. And Lord Ellen- borough and his colleagues, " disapproving in every sense," ex- hibit themselves in the amiable and dignified light of robbers whining in sentimental repentance over a stolen kingdom, which they evince no sort of intention of restoring to its supposed lawful owner. Since the world began no such spectacle of blundering fatuity has been presented to the astonished eyes of mankind. We hold firmly to the wisdom of the fiat justitia ruat ccelum. But we dislike to see this sort of " ruat ccelum" without the " fiat justitia."
Certainly it is not altogether unpardonable that the elderly statesmen of Opposition, used to power for -the greater part of their lives, and broken in to a certain decorum of discretion, pre- serving them from such follies as we have been describing, should believe their hour come, and seize the opportunity of striking a blow at once at their opponents on the coveted Treasury Bench, and at the independent flank Liberal section, which, although it begins with a ricketty infancy, has too many signs of growth and power in the future, for wise men to disregard. But the great crowning misfortune of the moment is, that they are disregarded by the old Liberal chiefs, in their plenitude of supposed power and authority. If we have been discredited, virtually say the Liberal leaders, you, who pretend to mutiny, at all events, are disorganized by jealousies, and discredited by inferior bustling politicians. If my Lord John and my Lord Palmerston cannot adjust their relative claims, it is equally difficult for the Hors- mans of the statesman-Liberal party of the future to grow toge- ther till the harvest, with such tares as the fanatical Brights and Roebucks of the Radical and Manchester schools. Accordingly, the politicians of Cambridge House pay no attention to the mur- murs of rebellion among what is, by a sort of courtesy fast growing obsolete, still called their party, and prepare the battery of Lord Shaftesbury's and Mr. Cardwell s motions. To this Lords Derby and Ellen_borough reply by the resignation of the latter, with whose acts, however, the leading membea s of the Govern- ment, both as regards the matter of the despatch and its publica- tion, have virtually identified themselves. Anotber singular
illustration of the arts of government, and a repetition of that pre- cedent of Lord John's case in l855 ; involving, it would appear, the entire abrogation of the old principle of Cabinet unity. The issues, therefore, remaining on Mr. CardwelPs motion, depend en- tirely, not so much now upon the question of the publication merely of the Ellenborough despatch, as upon the greater questions of the substance of this document, and the policy in- volved in the Oude proclamation. And it appears to ns very strongly that an-emphatic opinion, one way or the other, from the House upon those questions cannot 'but be imprudent and preju- dicial to the healthy march of events in India and at home. The House is not at present in a position to censure or praise either document; and serious consequences appear likely to flow from the attempt to do so ; because the proclamation and the despateh, taken together, present such a flagrant contradiction of purpose and policy as cannot but be deepened and made more mischievous by the House flinging itself by a vote into either scale. lime policy, justice and duty, and the true method of governmental action in India appear to lie midway between the stern seve- rity of the proclamation, and the unnecessary degradations and sentimentalities of the despatch. And it would be the truest policy, as we deliberately affirm, writing before the event of the motion, for the House to show this feeling by abstaining from a decided vote either way. And we think that the true course for the House is the same for this episode of the great Indo-Par- liamentary struggle, as for the main issue; namely, to abstain from definitive premature action, which will represent, not the in- terests of India, or the pure views of a Legislature clothed and in its right mind, but the triumphs and hatreds of a faction-fight alone. We repeat again that we view with extreme dread and anxiety that consummation which so many of the leading person- ages of Parliament are hot to effect, a summary return to power- of a disorganized party, torn by intestine dissension, upon a fac- tious India vote. We believe that, if it happen, such an event. will breed serious mischief hereafter.
But we hear politicians asking impatiently how the country is to be freed from these caricatures of statesmanship of the decayed remnant of the old Tory party. Must not the House intervene summarily to denounce follies and blunders so serious and so re- peated ? Assuredly. But only when it can intervene with effect.. We cannot reason with those who blot out from their minds Eng- lish party history for the last five years. And we cannot view with anything but deep disapproval the levity which appears ready to say to the miserable anarchy in Parliament, esto per- petua. Nor can we believe that any man truly patriotic would vote upon the " Proclamation and Despatch " in such a manner as to appear, on the one hand, to endorse an indiscriminate seve- rity which may add fuel to the fires of rebellion, or ou the other hand, principles and practices of government which must paralyze the hands of Governors-General, and which would make England first the laughing-stock, and perhaps next the helpless prey of armed Europe. We object to both these alternatives, and we say that he is no true Englishman and patriot who forces them on the- country and the House. The moment the majority in Parliament reconstitutes itself upon a healthy basis and sound principles, to which there are no obstacles save in the self-seeking of leaders, we shall be only too happy to see Lord Derby's Government hurled with all possible ignominy from office. But without this, no voting, no resolving, or memorializing can cure the Indian and the Parliamentary imbroglio. For that we want a true Executive Government, capable of vigorous action, because composed of men who act in sympathy with the country's heart, and are free from undue thraldom to the traditions of the old governing schools of the pun-Reform era. Votes which are managed, or intrigued for, or clutched from chance, or begotten by the cabal of a clique, may eject one simu- lacrum of a Ministry and replace it by another. But is it to be believed by cairn thinkers, that Parliament and Ministries can go on for ever, exhibiting to the anxious eye of a nation so glorious in its traditions, so high in its desires, so abounding in all the gifts of fortune and intellect as this England of ours, an " ever dwindling soul," without grave consequences, perhaps fatal to the Constitution ? We know what befel Poland when the absolute veto became paramount and unmanageable. And will statesmen suffer this miserable time to be protracted, when all seem powerful for the obstruction which springs from narrow minds and selfish purposes, none for the action which is born of the free manly sense, and genuine cooperation of man with man for the common needs of the State ? Three years ago, when our military administration became so questionable in the eyes of the world, strange nu-English mutterings about the advantages of Imperialism were heard in the press and society of this country. We fear that the protracted break down of Parliament- ary action will cause those murmurs to swell into outcries. We desire those, who are responsible for the protraction of this eclipse of Government in the British islands, to consider what might be the elect of a serious danger suddenly threatening this country at the present juncture. How soon should we see the somewhat cold, collected, critical attitude, with which England is viewing the vagaries-of her Parliament, changed into passionate execration ! It is not wise, it is not patriotic, it is not decent thus to tempt Nemesis. While the sky is yet not o'ercast with the clouds that lie heavily banked low down on the horizon of Europe, we entreat those whom it concerns to look to the safety of that precious ark of the liberties of mankind, the British Constitution. And we solemnly remind the Parliament and the people of Eng- land that it is averred on authority beyond question that a " house divided against itself cannot stand."
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