TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE RESIGNATION OF THE TORY GOVERNMENT.
MR. DISRAELI has made a dignified retreat from an .1.11 untenable position. He understands electioneering thoroughly, and knows perfectly well that when all this talk about the county reaction, and Lancashire conversions, and City defections is over and forgotten, the broad facts will remain that his party is in a hopeless minority in the country, and that his Government, as he himself expresses it in a circular to his supporters, "cannot expect to command the confidence of the newly elected House of Commons." Party divisions in this country are not affected by geographical considerations, nor does the Speaker ask whether the Noes come from an agricul- tural county or a smoke-stained borough. It was open to Mr. Disraeli, no doubt, to insist that the House should formally express its decision ; but many causes may have impelled him, as a politician and as a party leader, to anticipate and avoid the inevitable vote. He wished, we can imagine, to show the world that in spite of plausible accusations he did not adhere to office for office' sake ; that he was playing the game fairly, and that he had really preferred dissolution to resigna- tion, in order that he might obtain the verdict of the new constituencies. That once ascertained beyond doubt, to bow to the decision, as he says, without losing "a day," was for him at once the manlier and the easier course ; the manlier because he had himself selected the arbitrator, and could not honestly resist the award ; the easier, because with his resignation his greatest difficulties disappear. With a Cabinet containing men of such conflicting opinions, to draw up a Queen's Speech on the very subject of their con- flict was nearly impossible, while the vaguest paragraph would have placed the Queen in the highly disagreeable posi- tion of recommending, or at least appearing to recommend a policy which the House of Commons would instantly reject. This reluctance to embarrass the Crown is the more credit- able because Mr. Disraeli has, on one or two occasions, shown a disposition to use the name of the Sovereign as a weapon of offence, to drag forward the Throne to a position where it might one day be in danger from advancing wheels. We are bound to add that in all the incidents of his resignation as yet made public, Mr. Disraeli has exhibited a spirit of straightforwardness and consideration for his foes for which we have hitherto scarcely given him sufficient credit. He has recognized Mr. Gladstone as an opponent worthy of his steel, has cut asunder a hundred webs of intrigue which might have hampered, though they could not have fettered, his great rival ; and has tendered to his Sovereign just the advice which the nation demanded, but which, had he been less disposed to recognize that his own dignity is bound up in his opponent's, he might possibly have evaded. It would, as the Tinzes has said, have been within precedent to advise the Queen to send for the late Liberal Premier, and it might have been possible to pass in many other ways a slight upon Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Disraeli has avoided all such discreditable trickeries, and on this occasion, at least, has behaved as an enemy whom it is an honour to subdue.
We believe, or shall we say fear, that he has also acted as a -wise strategist. By retiring before Parliament meets he has avoided that clear revelation of inferiority which so often dis- heartens a party, and always discourages the waverers without conviction, and that clear committal of every new member which it is the interest of a Ministry with a large majority to secure from the first. He has also avoided that confession of a split in his own ranks which is inevitable whenever he makes—if he ever makes—a serious proposal on the subject of the Irish Church,—a split which would have cost both him and his party half their clerical allies and all their little remain- ing popularity in Ulster. Above all, he has left himself free to take up any position he may please, to hoist the Orange banner of no-surrender, or put out the old Whig flag of com- promise, or even, should the chance ever recur, to plead, as in 1867, that he, and he alone, can secure completely the end his enemy is seeking to achieve. The details of the great measure will give him ample opportunity for attack, more especially if Mr. Gladstone yields to his habitual dislike of revolutionary energy in legislation. He can now avail himself of any opportunity, any reflex of opinion, any outburst of that weariness with which the British people often regards a question that has been discussed to death. And he can make his attack, if his soldiers will let him, from any point, on any ground, and under any colours. He may even let the Irish question go, trusting,— as, we believe, under a total misconception of the national mood,—that with the object of the war once achieved the victors will once more resolve themselves, like the old Italian armies, into disorderly bands of free lances and desperadoes. He has, *short, left himself free, and to be free, with Mr. Disraeli, is to be very dangerous to the Liberal cause. Whether his party will quite see this we do not know ; but we rather doubt if they will. Country folk admire dogs which must be killed before they loose their hold. The rank and file of the Tories,—apart from their lawyers, who will probably be silent after their recent feast of fat things, —are, we admit, by no means distinguished by excessive greed for office. Men whom the Premier once described as " acred up to their lips, consolled up to their chins," do not as a rule care much for the enjoyment styled in England "power," that is, the right of working twelve hours a day on poor pay, and with the chance of being lectured every morning. But then country gentlemen of this sort are just the men who love a battle, who regret the extinction of cock-fighting, who think it to the credit even of a fox if he bites hard in dying. They are in a mood, too, these gentlemen, to make disappointment very keen,— puffed up as they are with local victories, bemused by party fibs, bewildered by artful phrases about reaction. They have an idea in their heads of what they are pleased to call moral triumphs which has raised their pulses like wine, and they are half inclined to think their consequent increase of self-satis- faction equivalent to an increase of actual power. We shall be a little curious to see how the Squires take a surrender accom- plished before the echoes of their shouts of victory have died away. There are men in the Carlton, we believe, who still think the Liberal party will go to pieces before the victory is achieved, and hundreds of voters in the country who looked for some marvellous device by which their trusted Premier was, in the very hour of defeat, to save the citadel from the advanc- ing hosts. "There was no end," they said, "to Mr. Disraeli's resources." Such men will be sorely wounded by the resig- nation, half inclined to doubt whether, after all, their idol is quite so powerful as they believed, whether his generalship is quite a sufficient substitute for an army, whether, like a wizard of old, he can always cheat the dogs by assuming a new form. The lingering belief in many county circles that the Tory Premier is not as other politicians, or even as other men ; that he possesses somewhere some supernatural fund of wile which might come from above or below, but was always at the disposal of his party, will be dissipated, and we should not wonder if Mr. Disraeli found that one of the best acts of his life had cost him some of his hold over the imagination of his adherents. That section of the party which loves to see Tories in power because patronage then comes their way will be even more exasperated. They will acknowledge that they expect honest players when they lose the rubber to pay the stakes, they will extol their favourite's honesty to the skies, but all the same they will miss the " wrangle " they expected, and not bet so confidently next time.
Mr. Disraeli's resignation will greatly facilitate public busi- ness, but it will not, we think, render the meeting of Parlia- ment unnecessary. There is no longer any need for a great division ; but political explanations are best made before the House of Commons, and there is a necessity for the election of a speaker to facilitate the issue of writs. Great offices ought not to be held for months by men who have ceased to be members of Parliament, and by one of the imbecile customs imbedded in our Constitution, the re- presentatives elected by the United Kingdom are compelled to ask whether certain cities and counties approve the choice of the realm. Greenwich, having just elected Mr. Gladstone in order that he might be Premier, must be asked if she dis- approves that her object has been secured. The Cabinet formed, the explanations made, and the elections over, there will remain, however, two months for the preparation of measures, for agreement upon the Estimates, and for the greatest work of all, the removal of the absurd apprehension that under a " Radical " Cabinet the Queen's Government will not "go on" as quietly as if every office were held by a Duke or a Duke's son.
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