THE SHUFFLING OF THE CARDS.
THERE have been numerous rumours, which are not un- usual at this time of the year, and very often have a foundation in fact, of some alteration and reconstruction of the Ministry before the reopening of Parliament. Mr. Raikes,— Tory, of course,—not long ago said that Mr. Gladstone had contrived 'to get all the round men into square holes and all the square men into round. Now, though we don't at all agree with that view, we are not so prepossessed in favour of present arrangements as to doubt that there are changes which might very much strengthen the Ministry, and enable it to meet Parliament with far more prestige. If Lord Spencer should press to be relieved from the Irish Lord-Lieutenancy, as he is understood to have wished to be for some time back, and any of the present Ministers could be persuaded to take his place, his retirement would open the way for possible reconstruction of a very useful character. It is quite conceivable, for instance, that Lord Kimberley might not object to return to the Lord-Lieutenancy ; and though his unlucky speech declaring the perfect security of Ireland, within a very few days of the outbreak of the Fenian movement, when the Government certainly ought to have had intelligence that all was not right, has not gained him the credit of a very sagacious ruler there, and though his administration of the Colonial Office has been exceedingly successful, yet it is not by any means unlikely that such a change would be welcome—rather for the other alterations it would render possible, than for its own sake. Or it might be, though we do not think this probable, that Mr. Chichester Fortescue would not object to take the Lord - Lieutenancy and a peerage. No better or more popular ruler of Ireland could be named, but influential politicians seldom like to descend into the position even of great Executive subordinates of the Home Office, unless they have some special private social or political hobby which a great Executive position would gratify. Either of these changes, however, would open the way to a number of others, some of which are conceivable but unlikely, and some really probable.
The two conditions of a real improvement in the cast of the Administration would be the relegation of Mr. Bruce to some office more suited to his special powers and character than the Home Office, and the removal of Mr. Lowe from the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, where he has innumerable opportunities of giving needless offence without special scope for his special powers. Nobody can deny that the Home Office and the Exchequer have been sources of weakness under their present chiefs,—in the former case as a consequence of great difficulties for which Mr. Bruce was not exactly the man, in the latter case in spite of very favourable circumstances for which Mr. Lowe was not at all the man. We want a stronger, steadier hand at the Home administration, and a more manage- able, communicable, intelligible, mind at the National finance. Of only one of these changes however, is there any real chance. The personal importance attaching to Mr. Lowe among his colleagues is singularly great. He is not a man anybody likes to offend. His keen and brilliant understanding is even over-appreciated by those who are habitually holding intercourse with him, and as everybody knows, he is about to have the satisfaction of disposing of a large surplus. That is not the situation in which any one would like to have to propose to him to change offices with another and less im- portant Minister, and we may feel pretty certain that no such suggestion will be made. Nevertheless Mr. Lowe is quite the most remarkable specimen, not so much of a square man in a round hole, as of a man of an altogether unprecedented number of very sharp edges,—a sort of icbsahedron of a man,—in a hole made for a man of ordinary shape. The true place for Mr. Lowe,—who is, no doubt, extremely useful to the Ministry, with his pithy, brisk, awakening remarks,—is a hole which has any shape its owner gives it,—the Duchy of Lancaster, for ex- ample, where there cannot be said to be any hole at all, except what the Minister makes for himself. There Mr. Lowe would be able to play his true part in a Oabinet,—that of Advocatus Diaboli,—sharp and sarcastic critic of everything proposed by everybody else, a most valuable kind of duty, without involv- ing any danger such as he incurs at present of upsetting the balance of reason in the City by refusing to suspend the Bank Act (an Act expressly made to be suspended) at a crisis, and without embarrassing the Ministry by indulging in clever intellectual retorts on Deputations which don't understand them, but do understand they are made light of. Mr. Lowe is a sharp tool that should be kept for fine work, —that of chiselling away the incoherences of his equals. At the Exchequer he has never yet made a good defence of his proposals, though he has made good proposals ; he has no command of the art of financial exposition, has lowered the prestige of his office, and brought an extra- ordinary amount of needless odium on the Government. He ship of the Directors of the Bank of England, will certainly should be in the Duchy of Lancaster, or nowhere,—unless, dispose of his large surplus himself. And we hope he may indeed, he were put temporarily at the War Office, just to stir not find that he is nearly the first Chancellor of the Excher up everything and bring everything to light, after which a more quer who ever had to do a very agreeable duty, and did it ordinary genius might avail itself of the revelations he without making himself agreeable by the doing of it. would be sure to have made. Mr. Cardwell is the true man for Mr. Lowe's place. He has the regular Peelite cestketie feel- ing for finance, the sense of decorous joy in figures which THE DUO DE GRAMONT'S REVELATIONS.
always prudent ; he would deplore a nronetary crisis in the style Germany has always been a puzzle to politicians, the most soothing to the jarred nerves of the City, which has key to which is as yet undiscovered, though it must be sought, never got over the shock caused by Mr. Lowe's saying that we believe, in the character of the Austrian Emperor. The the Government had nothing to do with the rate of discount ; natural course for the House of Hapsburg as a dynasty—and —and Mr. Cardwell would suspend the Act at the very moment that House is before all things dynastic—would have been to when Lombard Street thought it right. Now a Chancellor of assist France in her attack upon its ancient rival, who had the Exchequer ought to be thus intelligible to men of busi- inflicted upon it so recently so cruel a humiliation, and the ness. Mr. Lowe is not so. A riddle, and a detonat- reasons which induced the House to remain quiescent are ing dangerous sort of riddle,—half-riddle, half-squib,— among the most carious problems of modern history. We at the Exchequer cannot be anything but a source of weakness believe that it did not intend to remain quiescent ; that the to the Government. Nevertheless, this is all idealism. Mr. Due de Gramont's story, however indiscreet, is substantially Lowe will stay at the Exchequer, and Mr. Cardwell at the true ; and that the iudecision of one man prevented the war War Office where indeed his administration has been far from becoming European. Originally, no doubt, the Austrian stronger than any one expected, though it might be stronger Government was opposed, as its advocates affirm, to any still. immediate action on the part of France. The notion which, But unquestionably a change at the Home Office is by no as we understand him, the Due de Gramont wished at first means unlikely, as well as very desirable. Nor should we be to convey—that the Emperor Napoleon had not rushed into surprised if the prediction of a daily contemporary that Mr. war without an ally—is clearly unfounded, because the Childers may go to the Home Office be verified. We believe Viennese Cabinet wished, above all things, to postpone a it would be a good appointment. Mr. Childers has many struggle for which they were not prepared. Their finances admirable qualities as an administrator,—a temper not merely were in ruin, their army was a mob armed partly with muzzle- unruffled, but incapable of being ruffled, great evenness of loaders, and their prestige within their own dominions was energy which keeps all the various official affairs he has in down at zero. It was with the greatest difficulty that the hand, the little as well as the great, pressed on steadily and Emperor could keep his German subjects from open insurrec- simultaneously, none over-driven and none forgotten,—a remark- tion, while Hungary was only pacified by the concession of able mastery of business, and a very firm will. He has had in every right that had hitherto been refused. Count Beust Australia special experience of the working of a measure not wished for future vengeance, not for immediate action, and it unlike what we may expect for the County Administration Bill, was not until the Emperor Napoleon had taken the bit .a kind of bill in which, whoever introduces it, the Home between his teeth and resolved upon war, that the Secretary, who is in regular communication with all the County Chancellor and his master allowed themselves to express Magistrates, must have a very important share ; and he is any portion of their secret hopes. These hopes were of himself, as the descendant of a long line of squires,—a fact too the most natural and simple kind. Count Beust, a man of often forgotten in the recollection of his Australian experiences, real, though exceedingly thin ability, who would make a good —sure to understand the feelings of the Squirarchical classes. English Home Secretary, but who has never throughout his We should hope for a considerable success for Mr. Childers at career comprehended clearly any forces except those of opinion, the Home Office, where he would have none of the extreme believed that France would either win or fight a battle which difficulties which encountered him in the reorganisation of the a reserve army might turn into a victory, and was of course Admiralty, and none of the risk into which he fell there of delighted with the notion of holding in his hands the European .centring too much anxious responsibility on himself. balance of power. His master, on the other hand, sore with The Colonial Office, under Lord Kimberley, has been so well his expulsion from Germany, sore with his endless internal administered, that so far as it is concerned no change for the difficulties, sore with the loss of military prestige, was attracted 'better is probable. But if Mr. Chichester Fortescue were to by any hope of punishing the Hohenzollerns who had inflicted take it in case Lord Kimberley retired to Ireland, the upon him, out of mere ambition, as he considered, such an Colonies themselves would be sure to be well pleased. They infinity of misery. The two were masters of Austria as far as entertain a very gratefal recollection of Mr. Chichester despatches were concerned. The two were convinced, know- Fortescue's Under-Secretaryship,—he was the most popular of ing France, that retreat for Napoleon after the declaration of Under-Secretaries—and it is a subject to which he is known to war was impossible, and consequently we do not doubt the two have given a great deal more attention than to Trade. If any concurred in the despatch of July 20, 1870, quoted by the such change were made, Mr. Monsell, who has had a kind of Duke de Gramont, which expresses an ardent hope of French experience at the Post Office at least far more akin to that victory and an intention of assisting to secure it. They honestly needed for the Board of Trade than Mr. Chichester Fortescue intended this if an opportunity occurred, and had the Austrian had ever had before taking that office, might usefully enter Emperor been the man he was ten years before, they would the Cabinetas his successor at a time when the Irish Univer- have announced this intention and poured an army into sity Question, to which Mr. Monsell has given more attention the Southern States, thereby depriving Prussia of a fourth than any one of the Liberal Ministers, unless it be Mr. at least of her army and much of her moral support. The Chichester Fortescue himself, is to be the chief difficulty of Austrian Army was not then in a position to undertake a the Session. The Irish Catholics would be far more easily great foreign campaign, but it could have flooded Southern .contented with a measure to which he had assented on their Germany, and have acted as a serious diversion. The internal behalf, than to one arranged by a purely Protestant Cabinet ; obstacles, great as they were, would have been overcome for a and as an administrator Mr. Monsell has always been moment—for no army that ever existed disobeys marching successful. No one has the true Ministerial modera- orders, and this army, disorganised as it was, was burning with tion in a greater degree ; and it is quite certain that humiliation and rage—money could have been obtained from while he would never ask anything that Parliament might France, and victory would at once have restored the full not be persuaded to grant, the Irish Catholics would be authority of the Crown. Had Francis Joseph been the man satisfied with less given under so considerable a guarantee of he was in 1860, daring, opinionated, and flushed with success, bona „fides, than they would from a Cabinet in which they he would, we believe, have taken this course, in spite of all believed Lord Hartington's influence to be in the ascendant, obstacles, and the whole course of history might have been And if the measure is to pass at all, it ought to be one that changed. The French would have gained the moral courage will for them settle the question. the Prussians would have lost. The Danish invasion of These are the changes which would seem to us to make the Schleswig, which was all prepared, and which was the true prospects of the Session brightest for the Government. And explanation of the immense army of the North gathered under one or two of them at least are, we think, by no means un- General Falkenstein to "watch the French fleet," would have likely. Mr. Lowe, however, who fits his particular position occurred, the Dutch Army would have been put in motion, almost as well as Voltaire would have fitted the Chairman- and the war in three months would have become European. ordinary amount of needless odium on the Government. He ship of the Directors of the Bank of England, will certainly should be in the Duchy of Lancaster, or nowhere,—unless, dispose of his large surplus himself. And we hope he may indeed, he were put temporarily at the War Office, just to stir not find that he is nearly the first Chancellor of the Excher up everything and bring everything to light, after which a more quer who ever had to do a very agreeable duty, and did it ordinary genius might avail itself of the revelations he without making himself agreeable by the doing of it.
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