TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD STANLEY SENT FOR.
loan STANLEY could not go down to Fakenham, because he had to go down to Knowsley on Wednesday night. The chairman sus- pected that some " state occasion" kept Lord Stanley away from the Fakenham educational meeting; and the Times " believes it is not impossible that Lord Stanley may become a member of the present Government." What does this oracular announcement mean? Has Lord Stanley been "sent for "P Is Lord Palmerston making over the Premiership in succession to Lord Derby ; or to the son for the father ? And are we to have another Coalition, in the shape of " all the talents" not yet included in the pre- sent Government ? In spite of the present fever for "juvenile " promotion, we do not very confidently expect this solution of the mystery.
There is another alternative. Is Lord Stanley summoned to join the existing Cabinet, recruited as that Cabinet has been from all quarters ? There appears but one difficulty in the supposition. It is not that he is the eldest son of the house of Derby, for Derby himself during the last crisis was in communication with Lord Palmerston.' Lord Stanley is separated from all parties—" open to all, influenced by none." He appears to be disqualified in no way for accepting office with any Premier, were it not for his marked and recent advocacy of a peace to be concluded forthwith. We do not rest upon reports as to Lord Stapley's eoquettings with the suspected Coalition ; we do not refer to still obseurer hints that he has been engaged in some possible relations with the newspaper republic, according to which the ubiquitous scion of the house of Derby might have come forth as a Lord of the Fourth Estate. We refer to his own speeches delivered on public occasions. He seemed to be the hope of the Peace party. Are we then to have a special Peace element intro- duced into the War Ministry of Palmerston ? There have been many amalgamations—we have had to grow used to amalgamations of late ; but this combination of an acid with an alkali to form a neutral salt would be likely to create an effervescence. There is yet a third supposition. Parties are so completely broken up, or broken down, that no one finds itself in possession of the support enabling it to man an effective Cabinet or lead the majority of the Commons at its back ; and Lord Aberdeen rescued the country from government under the larger one of many mi- norities, by forming a Ministry of influential leading men taken from various sections of party. The idea at that time was simply to combine men of influence in order that the Queen's Government might go on ; but as party is not likely to be reorganized until some great guiding principle, accepted by a majority but not by all, shall revive distinctive separations and create distinctive com- binations, we shall probably have this eclectic form of Cabinet per- manently ; and instead, therefore, of treating it as a provisional arrangement, we must make the best of it. The subject is well handled by a.writer in the new number of the North British Be- view ; who shows how we lose real advantages while seeking the imaginary advantage of a supposititious harmony in the Cabinet.
"The desirable arrangement—that which would most contribute to the welfare and glory of a nation—would undoubtedly be that by which the ar- rangement of each special department should be in the hands of the states- man who most thoroughly understood that department, and whose views re- m it were most sound, i. e. most in accordance with the constant, de- berate, enlightened opinion of the country, even though his notions on matters oonneeted with other Government questions were by no means cor- respondingly judicious ; and that he should be able to impress upon the rest of the Cabinet the stamp of his own mind, and to imbue them with his doctrines as far as related to his own sp4cialite, and no further. By such an arrangement, we should combine the advantages of a perfectly united and a perfectly judicious Cabinet."
[Thus, for example, it is assumed "that Mr. Gladstone is a consummate master of the principles of financial policy ; " . . . . " that Lord Clarendon is the man of all others whom the nation is anxious to intrust with the direction of its foreign relations ; " . . . . that "Lord Grey would be incomparably the best man to be at the head of the civil administration of the Army ; . . . . and that Lord Elgin best combines sound principles and practical experience for the Colonial department.]
"A Government composed of these men—with colleagues equally eminent severally for their special qualifications, and each giving the tone, controlling the policy, and speaking the decisions of the Cabinet on questions relating to his own branch—would be such a Government as the country has always wanted but has never seen.
"Now we will assume further—what notoriously is partially and might easily be wholly true—that these several statesmen, so wise and sound each
in his own department, are wise and sound in that department only the Mr. Gladstone, so unrivalled a master of finance is utterly astray on the sub- ject of our foreign policy ; thatLord Clarendon has a screw loose on the sub- ject of Colonial administration ; that Lord Grey holds strong but quite erro- neous notions as to affairs of revenue and taxation ; and that Lord Elgin differs altogether from the latter as to Army reform, and fancies he knows a great deal upon the subject, when in reality he knows absolutely nothing."
*Under the present theory of the necessity and reality of Cabinet agreement, the Ministers must seek to obtain harmony by oom- promising their individual opinions ; as the maker of the keyed instrument, unable to fit each note at its exact pitch to the key- board, renders each one too flat.
"Mr. Gladstone gives up or modifies some of his well-considered and consistent schemes of finance to humour the errors of Lord Clarendon or the crotchets of Lord Grey,—perhaps even risks failure by surren- dering some essential though apparently secondary feature of his system. Lord Clarendon—finding Mr. Gladstone dead against him as to the treatment of this court or the despatch of those ambassadorial instructions, and as un- bending as conscientious men are apt to be—gives way, introduces perplexity and confusion into a previously clear policy, and perhaps, by giving an im- pression to foreign powersof vacillation or timidity, leads to future bloodshed or imbroglio."
" The wisdom of the Cabinet has been sacrificed to its union— or rather to the supposition, shadow, and simulacrum of that union." . . . . " We pay a solid and heavy price for an imaginary gain." A yet more serious evil is entailed by the collision of the actual facts with the theoretical morality of public life. Pretending that we have united Cabinets, we establish a huge lie ; and the pub- lc knows that it is a lie. If Lord Stanley be admitted to the Ministry on the new plan, Cabinets will begin to tell the truth, according to the principle of the North British reviewer. The plan would make each member of the Cabinet Premier in his own line of business—suppose Lord Stanley, for example, Premier in Colonial affairs. That would be very well, if all business were only departmental. But a Cabinet has, on the most important occasions, to speak on questions too large for any department ; its conviction, and utterance, and action, must then be national. The present war, for instance, is not a departmental war, to be transacted entirely at the Horse Guards or even behind Gwydyr House ; it is a war in which the Colonial Minister has to confer, in the name of the nation, with sympathizing Colonies. And we have before found how mischievous it is to have in a War Cabi- net men who were not hearty in the war.
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