TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE TORY CABINET.
CABINET-MAKING is not pleasant work ; there are so many of the old men wanting power, such a cry for new men to be brought in, so many jealousies to appease, and so many necessities to meet, that every new Premier must sympa- thise with Sir R. Peel, who never in his whole career appointed a Bishop he liked. Mr. Disraeli, however, unless the rumours be unusually wrong, has succeeded in forming a Cabinet which is, to say the least, as strong a Committee of Government as the country can obtain from his party. Among all his appointments, perhaps, the one which was most inevitable, and the one which satisfies the country best, is, in our eyes, the most doubt- ful. Lord Derby's powerful common-sense, his admirable lucidity of diction, and his great rank, not only in his caste, but in the esteem of the people, would make him invaluable in any post except the one he seems to occupy by his own, volition. He is not a strong Foreign Secretary, and he never can be. He writes excellent despatches, and can hit hard when pressed, on paper ; but when it comes to action, his extraordinary caution makes him hesitate and draw back, or even, as in the Luxemburg affair—quite the worst affair of his last teim of office — explain that he did not mean the things he wrote, and that a guarantee is some- thing nobody, need regard. All that can be said for a man who in any other capacity would be a power, is that he may temper Mr. Disraeli, whose real policy in foreign affairs is an unknown quantity, but who has always chosen, it may be deliberately, to put forward the most viewy of all his views thereupon ; who has talked of the Temporal Power as a necessity, and of his respect for that binding guarantee which pledges us to secure to Prussia the slice of Saxony which she obtained in 18] 5. On the other hand, if, as seems quite certain, the " terrible Marquis " and Lord Carnarvon re-enter the Cabinet in their old posts—the Indian and Colonial Offices—Mr. Disraeli has obtained a treble advantage. He has healed a schism, he has clinched his hold upon the House of Lords, which, while the seceders were outside, was never half so certain as it looked, and he has secured two men in whom the public has a confidence, all the greater because it must have taken a strong sense of duty in both to induce them to take office again. The whole country has seated Lord Salisbury in the India Office, not, we fear, to cure the famine, which may rise to heights past cure, but to do all that human energy and will' can effect to do battle with the catastrophe. Lord Carnarvon, on the other hand, worked out the federation of the Canadian Colonies, a work at first sight almost impossible, and founded that Dominion which may yet develop a second nationality on the North- American continent. Both were for months the aides of the Duke of Richmond in the Upper House, and if Lord Derby does not care for double work, we should not wonder if the old arrangement were repeated, and the Duke of Richmond, in one of the lighter departments, led the Upper House. He is liked there, he leads with sense, though he expresses himself so carelessly, and though Dukes must be in the Cabinet, still it is not the best Con- stitutional policy to give them departments about which the House of Commons is always more or less jealous, and will this time be as critical as if somebody were going to re-estab- lish Purchase, and do the nation out of the money it has paid. Remember that Lord Cairns must be Lord Chancellor instead of Lord Selborne, sprinkle strawberry-leaves everywhere, and the mixture in the Peers, though not a new coup of the chef's, will be found sufficiently full of strength.
There remain the members to be talon from the Commons, who must, even under the Tories, exercise an effective control, and whom Mr. Disraeli, who can make a Duke, but cannot make a great Commoner, to do him justice, is not inclined to slight. The first office there and the first in the Ministry is filled by himself, and we all know everything about him except one, —how he will beseem himself when for the first time he finds himself leader of an ample majority, and actual as well as ac- knowledged head of the stronger party in the State. We should not wonder, with his gift for surprises, if he suddenly turned humdrum, rebuked opponents with courtesies instead of epi- grams, and led like a passed Speaker, instead of a man of liter- ary genius. That will be very convenient to one lieutenant, at least, if Sir Stafford Northcote, as everybody says, will be the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is not exactly humdrum, but he makes no mistakes, he can explain what he is doing,. he has the confidence of the City—which had a dim notion that Mr. Lowe despised it, and with Mr. Gladstone was half jealous of a skill greater than its own—and he thoroughly understands the business of finance. He knows how to dis- tribute a surplus if he has one, and though we do not envy him his position on Budget nights, can sit through the kind or analysis Mr. Gladstone will bestow on him, without feeling too strongly that for him there will be no to-morrow. Next in im- portance to the Exchequer, or before it, is the War Office • and' it is not impossible that Mr. Disraeli may feel, first, that he had rather the chief in that department were not sitting exactly opposite Mr. Cardwell ; secondly, that he cannot put four Secretaries into the Lords ; and thirdly, that in the present position of affairs throughout the Continent, he should like to see his strongest man there. If he does, and if he must select from the Commons, and if he can induce him- to undertake the most worrying and vexatious of all offices, the- only office the public suspects, and the only one in which every third officer has a grievance, Mr. Hardy may yet be tried in that- new work. He has pluck, independence, and a power of ex- position—it is odd how completely his speech at Rye escaped attention—and might, we should say, succeed, more especially in ridding the Tory.public of a notion that Mr. Cardwell's lines are bad. lines to build on. How he is to be replaced at the Home Office we cannot even _conjecture, unless Mr. Disraeli is going to do some daring stroke in the way of promotion, a stroke of which he has shown no sign • but. Mr. Ward Hunt, the burly country gentleman, who has been Chancellor of the Exchequer, could, we presume, fill either that office or the Admiralty,. where, it should not be forgotten, it is not etiquette to put a. professional expert, and where no First Sea Lord ever quite desires to see a sailor put over his head. There remain still the Local Government Board, the Board of Trade, and the Vice- Presidency of the Council, and of these incomparably the most. important is the last.
We still earnestly for Mr, Smith, the Member for West- . minster, as Vice-President, and we believe that hope would be, very loudly expressed indeed, but for a fact which it may be as well to deal with at once. Mr. W. H. Smith, though certain to. rise some day, if not now, into the Cabinet, has one extremely- strong impediment in his way. He is the greatest news-agent in the world, and the public have a notion that he is always,. and therefore, sure of newspaper support. There never was a greater delusion. What he is sure of is unnecessary neglect,. a dead silence about his merits as a Member, lest those who- praise him should be suspected of wanting his good-will_ He will find this a real obstacle in his career, a great impediment to becoming known, and the fact may as well be stated plainly and at once. The truth about him as a politician, however, is that he was made for- the Ministry of Education in a Conservative Ministry ; that he, and he only, of the party, except poor Sir John Pakington, possesses the needful knowledge, firmness, and moderation. Mr. Disraeli has spoken a great deal too ex- plicitly about the Twenty-fifth Clause already, and high as he, has raised the Tory standard, there must be some moderation and good-sense and willingness to listen in that office. There is every manner of rock and shoal in every turn of that river,. and if the pilot cannot steer cautiously there will be an over- turn. If the Ministry is wise, it will take the one fit man it has got, and not lose a very curious chance for any etiquette or any deference for Mr. Smith's own wishes on the subject.. We have not the faintest idea what they are, but no Peer, whatever his rank, can manage Education without worrying the House of Commons into chronic ill-temper, and we do not know in the Lower House a Tory man who can be moderate and yet decided enough to keep it tolerably quiet.
Previous page
