NEWS OF THE WEEK.
AFTER all Mr. Disraeli has led his party in a faction fight against Lord Palmerston's Ministry ; showing that second thoughts are not always the better thoughts. Mr. Da Cane's notice of motion was perfectly fair, and did credit to those with whom it originated. It was only intended as a cheval de bataille, and would have served to raise at once all the general questions connected with the Budget and Treaty. Why was it not brought On at the outset ? That is a secret Mr. Disraeli pos- sesses anti which he has not revealed to us. The leader of the Opposition, without consulting his party, without that sound of trumpet which usually precedes a challenge, almost furtively placed a notice of a new amendment on the paper on Friday evening. He took objections to the form of procedure, and de- sired to discuss the treaty before anything else. The prospects of success must have been strong indeed in his imaginative brain when he thought he could surprise a victory, and stop the con- sideration of the Budget ab initio. Mr. Disraeli's reason for taking this extraordinary course cannot have been the real reason. Mr. Disraeli said he discovered that if one amendment were put on the motion for going into Committee on the Customs' Acts, a second could not be put. As this shut out Mr. Du Cane, Mr. Disraeli must have judged that he had a better chance of success on a question of form than on a question of substance, on a sadden whip and a prompt division, than on a prolonged de- bate and deliberate division. It was the work of his own hand, this substitution of motions, his only counsellor being Sir Hugh Cairns. The result of a motion to burke the Budget was, as might have been expected, a disastrous failure.
Mr. Disraeli could not have concealed from himself that his motion, if carried, would destroy the Ministry. Yet he asked the House of Commons to destroy that Ministry on a question of form. He asked them to do more—to consider and vote upon the engagements in the treaty—a course which would have led the House into the unheard of position not only of interfering with the prerogative of the Crown, but of debating and deciding what duties should be levied in the ports of France. His for- mal argument was that Ministers had not proceeded strictly upon the precedents of Mr. Pitt; as if the order in which a minister submits the various branches of a great measure to Parliament should, without regard to the changes in the circumstances of the nation, be slavishly adhered to. Ministers were perfectly right in their reply when they said that they had strictly followed the precedent of Mr. Pitt in substance, though not in form. On the subjelt of constitutional forms, Mr. Disraeli can neither compete with Mr. Gladstone nor Lord John Russell. Mr. Gladstone hit the right nail on the head when he said "the real sin of which the Government have been guilty is, that they have combined the Budget and Treaty in one." And the reason for this is con-.
elusive ; they do not contemplate legislation which shall affect France alone, but all the world. Next, they mix the Treaty with the Budget because that form of proceeding is one which enables the House to inflict the least amount of inconvenience, perplexity, and suspense upon the great branches of trade and industry. In point of fact, the rashness of Mr. Disraeli's pro- ceedings had committed the Conservative party to the advocacy of a course hostile to the prerogative of the Crown and injurious to the interests of the country. Neither the verbosity of Mr. Dis- raeli, nor the special pleading of Sir Hugh Cairns, nor the anti- Gallium tirade of Mr. Horsman could blind the House to the real question at issue, and the House answered the demand to reject the treaty and turn out the ministry by a majority of 293 to 230. Such was the result of Mr. Disraeli's tactics of forcing an engage- ment on the threshold of the question.
And what is the consequence ? The Conservative party was indebted for a further and better opportunity of discussing the measures of the Government to the magnanimity of the Govern- ment itself. Mr. Disraeli had superseded Mr. Du Cane' and it was only by the generous permission of the House that Mr. Du Cane was allowed to move his resolution on Tuesday as a sub- stantial motion. The debate upon it was inferior to that of the previous evening both in substance and spirit. Beyond the fact that it carried us one step further in these proceedings, it is hardly worth notice. The Conservative party had evidently not recovered from the stunning and unexpected blow which it had received on the preceding evening. On Thursday the debate pro- ceeded more briskly ; brought out Sir Francis Baring in opposi- tion to Ministers ; Mr. Bright as the advocate and expounder of the treaty ; and Mr. Whiteside in support of Mr. Du Cane.
While Mr. Disraeli was making his grand attack in the House of Commons' Lord Derby conducted a spirited skirmish in the House of Lords, which however had no other result than that of bringing out more clearly the advantageous position which Go- vernment have assumed, and of giving Lord Grey the opportunity of repeating his protests against commercial treaties.
