THE PEELITES AND CANNINGITES.
IF two of our most eminent statesmen were to be judged by the position of their followers at the present moment, we might pro- nounce Canning to be the immortal, Peel the perishable man. The scattering of the " Peelites " has for the time been completed. The " Canniugites " are gathering round the banner of power.
• Lord Hiu.rowby leaves the Cabinet to make room for Lord Clanri- earde, and the present Ministers might almost consider themselves the heirs, administrators, and assigns of George Canning. His pupil is the Premier; his son is Governor-General of India ; his cousin is returning from the East clothed with diplomatic lau- rels; his son-in-law Clanriearde is taken in to recruit the Minis- try. It is a Canning Government. At the same time, the very family and retinue of Peel have dis- appeared from office. Before his death, the man himself had re- tired, not into the Opposition, but into independent statesman- ship, exercising a kind of patronage over the Government for the
time being. His most eminent concaves, who were with the Ministry when the Russian war broke out, retired from it for one reason or another : Aberdeen and Newcastle, because they were too sincere and straightforward ; Graham, Gladstone, Sidney Herbert, because they could not reconcile themselves to the po- sition of the country. Peel's sons have both retired. Even Card- well left office, and was for a time excluded from Parliament. The Peelites are essentially out of office, and appear to be doomed to act neither with the Government nor the Opposition.
It is true many of the changes have been made for personal reasons that had little to do with general politics. Some are
• strictly of a private character. Lord Harrowby, it is -understood,
in declining health, wishes to be released from the anxieties of office in order to attend to personal affairs. Again, Lord Clanri- earde is brought into office, not because the Government desires to strengthen itself with the resources of his political virtue, but be- cause it wants in the House of Lords a man strong enough to meet the powerful antagonists in practical questions of Indian adminis- tration. Nevertheless, the fact is that the most efficient men of the day—those who adapt themselves best to the particular task of - the moment—are neither the pure Whigs the Russells and Greys
who stand aloof, nor the Tories who Whigs, excluded, nor the
Peelites who have failed to inherit the administrative supremacy of their chief; but the Conningites, men who might have been considered to be obsolete. The grounds of the preference are re- • markable, and perhaps not uninstructive as to the present bearing of politics. Robert Peel was a thoroughly typical Englishman. Strong in
the desire to carry measures practically advantageous to this country' bred in Tory principles, with Tory connexions' slow to develop his own opinions or his own policy, he laboured out the Liberalism which was natural to his own mind and constitution, by very slow degrees. It was the keenness of his sense which enabled him to elaborate the problems of the day; and before others of the Tory party had got to the core of the grand ques- tion, Free Trade, he had completely mastered it in its details and
- in its scope. Among the Conservatives, or the Conservative Whigs, were some few men of very active or refined reasoning powers, who perceived the logical fitness of Peel's position, and they lent him the support of their influence. If he worked to his position by the sheer force of common sense, English feeling, and a perception of business, the Gladstones, the Sidney Herberts, the Cardwals, followed him by the exercise of more purely intake- - bid faculties ; and Graham jumped to the conclusion of support- ing him by a species of political wit. Thus Peel found himself surrounded by lieutenants who became so through the refinement of their understanding, while he had stepped to the chief position by the thoroughly solid, prosaical, practical turn of his genius. When - Peel was removed, his lieutenants for a time retained the pres- ' lige attendant upon the past supremacy ; and their own great ',osiers of understanding enabled them still to have a large in- - fluence in Parliament. But, by degrees, the essential want of sympathy between themselves and the community brought on estrangement, nice questions of political ethics led them into bypaths into which the public could not follow them. One of Peel's sons, Mr. Frederick Peel, seemed likely to be useful to any Administration, from the fact that he was more distinguished by
- striking administrative faculties than by strongly-pronounced po- litical opinion ; and the heir to the title, Sir Robert Peel—a gay, dashing, young country gentleman, ultra-Liberal in feeling—ap- ' pearedto be available as a popular feather in the cap of a Ministry
whose acting principles he did not very materially influence. But even these two have, on different yet personal grounds, followed in the general exclusion of Peel's political heirs. Although they were called "Peelites," because they had acted under that chief, the lieutenants of the party were by the very force of their minds, by • the nature of their powers, essentially alien to the spirit of Peel's
Government. They were not suited to carry on the policy which belongs to his name ; and thus the title of " Peelite" has be- come, not a proper designation but a mere nickname, which has ceased to have any applicability.
With regard to George Canning the case is exactly reversed. Liberal by disposition, ready in his fancy, he began life with sport- ive aspirations that gradually sobered down into a more practical reality. Of a genius to be before his age, he consented to be be- hind it in order to form part of "the governing classes." As Peel joined the Liberal party from the heart of the Tory ranks, Canning formed the leader of a school of expedientists—men who accommo- dated the arbitrary spirit of Toryism to the tone of Liberalism. Peel bent the Tory party to do work desirable for the great body of the people ; Canning set the example of reconciling Liberal proclivities to Tory tenets. Peel was naturally a leader of the people accidentally placed in office ; Canning was essentially an official accidentally born out of office and working his way thither. Peel appeared upon the scene at a time when the substantial in- terests of the English people were delayed by the punctilios or the dissensions of party, and he broke down those artificial bar- riers in order to accomplish the great wants of the day. We have arrived at a season when there are no very distinct and determi- nate wants calling for the action of the whole community, and officialism has a holiday ; but it must still enjoy that holiday in a country governed by Liberal institutions, and at a season when the freedom of public discussion, the development of the press, and the education of the numerous classes, have obliged our administrative rulers to adopt the style and dialect of popularity. It is just the time when the compromising school of Canning ought to be in the ascendant.
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