NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE change which was no longer to be postponed after the divi- sion of Saturday morning has been consummated : the Whig Mi- nisters announced their resignation in both Houses of Parliament on Monday ; and the chief part of Sir ROBERT PELL'S Govern- ment has been submitted to the Queen, apprcved, and publicly announced. The list, so far as it is yet filled up, stands thus—
IN THE CABINET.
Sir ROBERT PEEL, First Lord of the Treasury. Mr. GOULBURN, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord WHARNCLIFFE, President of the Council.
Lord LYNononwr, Lord Chancellor.
Duke of BUCKINGHAM, Lord Privy Seal. Earl of ABERDEEN, Foreign Secretary. Lord STANLEY, Colonial Secretary.
Sir JAMES GRAHAM, Home Secretary. The Duke of WELLINGTON, is the Cabinet without office.
Lord ELLENBOROUGH, President of the Board of Control.
The Earl of FIADDINGTON, First Lord of the Admiralty.
The Earl of RIPON, President of the Board of Trade.
Sir H. HARDINGE, Secretary-at-War. Sir E. KNATCHBULL, Paymaster-General.
NOT IN THE CABINET.
Sir F. POLLOCK, Attorney-General. Sir W. FOLLETT, Solicitor-General.
Lord LOWTHER, Postmaster-General.
Earl DE GREY, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.
Lord ELIOT, Secretary for Ireland. Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE, Vice-President of the Board of Trade.
Earl of JERSEY, Master of the Horse. Earl of LIVERPOOL, Lord Steward.
The Duke of RUTLAND, Lord Chamberlain.
Lord GRANVILLE SOMERSET, Chancellor of the Dutchy of
Lancaster.
The Earl of LINCOLN, First Commissioner of Land and Revenue.
•
So terminates the Whig Administration; without any of that fearful turmoil at Court which was threatened on the retirement of the Whigs. All has passed off as smoothly as any drawing-room ceremony : there is no more talk of the Queen's personal or political aversions; the Queen was the best of Whigs with the old Court journals—in the new Court journals she is the best of Tories.
The readers of the Spectator have been fully prepared for this change, at least since the promulgation of the Budget. They will not be surprised or disappointed at the cast for the new drama .which now opens.. The Ministry, or as much of it as is yet before us, is composed of such materials as were accessible to the new Premier—of the leading men among his party : he had no more extended choice. Within that limit, the selection has been upon the whole judicious and the distribution of offices discreet : altogether care has been taken to avoid intrusting offices to men notoriously unfit, or placing men in power where their mere names might have created alarm. At first there was some surmise of Sir ROBERT PEEL, uniting two offices, according to precedent, and being both Premier and Chancellor of the Exchequer : the actual arrangement is perhaps better, though many would have preferred PEEL to Goinmons, on the principle of the first man of the party to the most difficult office. The mere dry office-business of the Finance Minister, indeed, will be quite sufficient to occupy one head, though it were the best that could be found. Even in the matter of finance the chief Minister will be all the more efficient for having his atten- tion free from details. But the division of offices is yet more im- portant as an earnest that Sir ROBERT PEEL means to keep himself disengaged ip the performance of his chief function as the director of the whole—that he intends to give the country what it has lacked for many a year, an acting Prime Minister. That is a policy which, thoroughly carried out, may go far to supply the defects inherent in the materials which he can command. The " country," that is the constituencies, have transferred the power of government from its late holders, not to the party of gentlemen who have consented to be Sir ROBERT Penes coadjutors—not even, it may be gathered from the thousand passing remarks of the election-days, to the Duke of VittuNaTox—but lo Sir Robert Peel and to none other : by retain-
ing to himself, therefore, a complete mastery of his Cabinet, he will the better fulfil the expectation of " the country "; and at the same time he will be better able to perform his delicate and difficult task than if he reposed any share of his power in the hands of men with varying views, in many cases probably, nay inevitably, less discreet than his own.
The new Minister's field of labour is now before him ; his tools are in his hand. He enters upon the task, he says, with confidence, but with an awful sense of responsiblity. In both particulars he is right. He never had so much power as he has at this moment : rivals have died off, become superannuated, or been outgrown by his own in- creasing reputation : he has gained additional influence by the re- fusal of place burdened with derogatory conditions, in 1837, and by the more popular dispositions which he has exhibited in the in- terval—the reckless and eager of his own party fear him more, the people less. He never had such opportunity : for he has to satisfy a people who have been satiated with promises in proportion as they have been starved in deeds. He never had so much difficulty : for it is not party excitement with which he now has to deal, but with a country's ruin or salvation, amidst large and imminent dangers and powerful conflicting interests. He never had so much expected of him : he succeeds to a Ministry who have accustomed the people to the expectation of political advancement, to the ex- ercise of popular power, and to deference from the " constituted authorities " ; and he has himself boasted of what the " Conserva- tive" party, his own creation, can do—how they are to reconcile the popular appetite for improvement with the old affection for ex- isting forms and institutions. He proclaims, and common sense anticipated the proclamation, that the old Tory rule is not to be restored—it has passed away for ever. The decade of Whig rule, with all its brilliant intentions and all its weaknesses, is likewise closed. The " Conservative " party, the new invention in politics, heir to the virtues but not to the vices of the Tories, now claims to try its hand at setting straight all that is out of joint in the world. The people look on, not without solicitude, to see the characters which are to be first inscribed in the new blank page of history.
