THE NEXT REFORM BILL.
Balm effort with little hope marks the commencement of the poli7 tidal season. We have assurances that the Government is apply- ing itself with diligence to the prevention of long-neglected do- mestic business ; but the assurance is made in a tone rather to disarm criticism than to claim confidence. The cross-voting, the compromises, the absences statistically presented in our Supple- ment, show at once " the declining efficiency of Parliament " and the indifferentism which has crept over the House of Commons. The Ministry is declining ; the Opposition is losing heart as well as political objects ; and parties have assisted. each other in break- " down their own ranks.
What of the new Middle-class party, brought out by the Re- form Bill, gifted with power on the passing of the Free-trade Measures, and avowedly ambitious to take its place as the young power in the state ? It has no place. The Memberwho has most often found himself left to act as its leader has been content to take up with secularization of public schools, with catechizing of Min- isters _in the Peace interest during a popular war, with cross-ques- tioning witnesses wherever any of the existing parties could be put into a difficulty, but without any definite substantive purpose for his own party. The chief of the party, in the very infancy of its accession to power, retired, like politico-economical Cincinnatus, to his Sussex estate ; and the strongest man of the faction, exhausted by the anxieties of a false position, has been compelled to retire to the water-cure and medicinal indolence. The very idea of the party's appointing a Cabinet, with a leader to be sent fore' is a joke. The common explanation of this paradox is, that our aris- tocratic classes are so strong as to prevent any but the well-born from obtaining office ; and this explanation is repeated in spite of the fact that the well-born parties in the state have been incessantly begging for recruits from the other classes, because alone they are not able to man a Cabinet. The true reason is, that by the time the Middle-class party had obtained an influential position in the House of Commons, the objects of its existence had been obtained. It has disclaimed any of the ordinary ambitions that actuate par- ties. It disavows those more generous aspirations which have won for particular classes the support of other classes. The Mid- dle-class philosopher disbelieves in the disinterestedness of human actions; he applies to all questions the test of profit and loss, in a narrow sense ; he denies the existence of national feeling, dis- credits the old belief that there is such a thing as national pride and love of national power ; doubts the influence of the arts, of literature, of religion, except as influences that promote the material comfort and tractability of the commonwealth. Whe- ther these propositions are true or not it is not our purpose to inquire ; but undoubtedly their very nature is to neutralize the influence of one man over another, and to separate the whole com- munity into an indefinite multiplication of number one. The party fulfilled the object of its political existence when it established free trade in commerce. While it was out of power, it did indeed cooperate with those more numerous members of the working classes who were seeking the extension of the suffrage ; but no sooner is the object of free trade attained, than the Mid- dle-class patriot drops the question of suffrage, maintains a conservative support of laws intended to keep the working men under a class control, and professes nothing more than a philanthropic anxiety to benefit the inferior orders by a species of paternal patronage ; the political, legislative, and administra- tive power remaining in the hands of the middle class. With the primary object of its existence attained, none but negative objects to pursue hereafter, no respect for the classes above it, none from the classes below it, the middle class, which possesses the oppor- tunity of the day, has neither the incentive nor the capacity to go firther. In familiar terms, it " has no legs" ; its mission is ended. But it does preoccupy the place of the new party of the day, and deprives the country of the advantages which could be derived from the existence of a young party newly arrived at the threshold of power. It is a party without an aspiration, a pride, or a creed ; but in lieu of an aspiration it has a greediness, in lieu of pride a contempt for others, in lieu of creed a disbelief in anything not tangible. -There has been a talk about "the young men" of the existing parties, especially the aristocracy ; but they have not confirmed our hopes. The best of them appear to be well-meaning, and they study to deserve commendation; but they have not mastered any problem for themselves. They have nothino.° to 'propose ; they have raised no flag for their countrymen to rally round ; and although possessing means and opportunities that political agita- tors of brisker days would have envied, they are content to fall back upon the administration of their estates as a kind of heaven- born- parish-officers , whose best merit is that they administer the parish affairs according to the lights of our age. We turn from parties to the people, and survey a vast multi- tude oblivions of political movement, intent only on the journey- man's work of the day. There must bo a reason for this weaider- ful change which has come over the most numerous political class of the English people ; and the reasons are not difficult to define. In the first place, we have had a considerable share of prosperity,, which is always a sedative for political feeling, except among those' classes who have learned in the hereditary exercise of power a more generous ambition. In the second place, the prosperity has been succeeded by some slight degree of economical difficulty, not enough felt to make the working classes murmur, but quite enough to make them attend to little else than their own do- mestic affairs. In the third place, some "traitors--and their name was legion—succeeded in throwing upon the last movement of the working classes an amount of ridicule unknown to any national movement that we remember. The hoax in the signatures of the monster petition effectually demonstrated to the working men that they had wasted their toil in following incompetent leaders —squandered their faith upon traitors. The disappointment was immense ; the working classes retired from politics in disgust, and the time has not been long enough to satisfy " the Million" in its sulks.
This survey seems to tell us that there is no political party which is competent to take up the action of the day : and such is the fact. The young party is content to drift with the stream, as listlessly as the oldest in existence. It is' quite consistent with the views of the commercial faction that we should -go deeper and deeper into the millennium ; and we are going accordingly. Par- liament will continue to decline in efficiency, as parties continue to sink. In process of time, the prosperity will be succeeded by a season of adversity : " the belly " will assume itspolitieal import- ance; the discontent of the working classes will become anger; they will assert themselves, claim the extension of the Suffrage, and infase a new vivacity into our political life : or some provi- dent statesman will anticipate that day by another " Reform Bill," and the element of the working classes will be introduced into the electoral body, only with a smile instead of a scowl.
Without expecting that a " Reform Bill" will work the won- ders that are always anticipated from every nostrum, we must look forward to it, at all events, as the portal between the present unsatisfying millennium and the next political epoch.
Previous page
