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i^ hiir Miri m "'
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by the educated classes ; and it is vaunted as the method of obtaining divine aid without the trouble of loving or trusting in the source of that aid . On Sundays , indeed , the new commandments readnot always in the most animated or impressive manner ; but really in the practical business of life , especially in the coercive laws over pauper or bankrupt , ' nether jmrts of the tradesman and labouring classes , the other and opposite rule of piety to self is the one enforced .
CHKISTMAS . Cheistmas comes round again , to find numbers in our own " privileged" island very mindful of roast beef and plum-pudding , but not very mindful of the two new commandments , of which the day ought to be so sacred a memento , — to love God with all their hearts , and to love one another . Possibly both might have been better observed , if those who specially make it their profession to enforce both , did not render obedience so impossible . " Help yourself" is the grand rule taught
Still we are moving , perhaps to better days . The most wonderful means of communication are bringing the families of man nearer tog-ether , and each is unloosing the more readily its own exclusive privileges . The discoveries of gold have displayed vast treasures providentially lodged in the most opposite regions of the globe , as great prizes and guarantee funds for human enterprise : on the strength of these natural
treasures , immense numbers of our people are leaving us for America and Australia ; and new means of transit are in process of formation . One company is projecting ships of ld ., 000 tons burden , 040 ft . long—to bridge the seawitMloating palaces . The continent of America is about to be bisected in its central node by a ship canal , at last actually undertaken under the supervision of Sir Ch . 'ii'les Fox , and under the sanction
of the groat Powers . California and Australia are becoming mere oil-lying gold beds for the commerce of London and Now "York .
Our domestic season will be marked by a startling amount of absences in the Christmas circle this year . One , wo fear , will be that of the Chrismas pudding in many a . house ; for the crop of ( lie Corinth grape runs short—dried " curranth" are two-pence a pound dearer , and many families resist the rise of price on principle . Thus do our most cherished institutions fall ; for is not . tin ; Corinth grape one outpost of the national church ?
Hut there will be more senoiiK absences . Scarcely a family in there that does not recal familiar faces now " prospecting" in California , or . Australia . Well , they are gone to a , fortune tolerably certain ; and ( hey will return , like the " Uncle fro in . India , " in Krencli novels , all wealth and welcome . And already we have a fore ( ante of the good luck in the happy " prosperity " which has vi . sited our own land , and made 1 he present . Christinas so much more cheerful in many alioinn than it ha * been for ninny a , season , with a bright prospect lor the opening year . Unless ( hose lovers of " order , " who enforce
" peace on earth , " and teach " good-will amongst men , " render the oppression oi'lCuropc intolerable , and fall to fighting with each other f 01-41 . supremacy in tyranny . Hut . peace on earth and good-will amongst men do not wholly depend on the sufferance of the Hourbons , K < minnows , 11 npsbiirgers , or Louis Napoleons . And by I he blessing of (< od , the next season of action will unleach the foremost nations , that , ellenimale policy which has made men raise self as the idol representative of heaven , and trust the custody of pence to royal armies . Already we nee sunshine beyond thai , next slorm ol' wickedness .
KOK 1 Y 1 ATION OKTIIK NKW MINISTRY : Till-IMI'KDliUKNT . T 1110 orthodox and recognised oflieial clasH , thai claws whose members alternate in and out of
office , finds it more easy to upset a Government than to construct one . The reproach , came with a bad grace from Lord Derby , who could not even find a decent pretext for remaining in office ; but it is levelled at the new Ministers whoever they may be , by force of the facts . Our official class has fallen to the level of the revolutionaries whom it would so much despise : it can overturn , but it is not facile at constructing . ' Throughout the week there have been endless reports and rumours as to the difficulties of forming a Cabinet from , the abundant materials that appeared to offer themselves . The abundance was part of the difficulty . There were two or three parties , each having enough to fill a Cabinet of its own ; there were , therefore , thirty or forty men to fill a dozen or so of places ; and the carpet-bag of the Cabinet could not possibly hold them all . But the men excluded , however unselfish and disinterested in their views , could not hut recognise in their own exclusion a political offence ; for to himself each man embodies a political truth , and to deny him is to deny " the Truth . " "Why cannot they join us without reserve ? " asked the Liberals of the
Peelites . " How can we admit Tories ? asked the Radicals , " when they are Liberals only in ? ree-trade ; they must adopt our principles , on the suffrage especially , or they have no right to come in . " " How can you expect to fill the posts , " cried the Peelites to the Whigs , " when , you cannot keep them , and cannot agree amongst yourselves ? " So the Whigs complained that the Peelites intended to monopolize all the offices ;
the Peelites complained that the Whigs wanted to intrude everywhere ; and the Radicals complained that they were forgotten altogether . Humours corresponded with these ebullitions of feeling . The first idea of a Ministry picked from the prominent sections of all parties gradually melted away ; the next gloomy report was , that it was to be a Peelite Government , with Lord John Russell in dignified closet office ; and lastly , we have the report of a Cabinet composed of the heads of many official sets .
Although we may not have the final relation till Monday , it may be gathered that a Ministry representing a solid majority in Parliament is not easy to form . We can only have a Ministry representing the party minorities into which Parliament is divided . But there is not only a theoretical violation of constitutional doctrinethere is a practical inconvenience both for Public
and Ministry . In such a state of affairs , it seems that the Ministry for the time being may have to encounter an Opposition which could always put a veto upon its proceedings . Thus no party is able lo give effect to its own views . But for the public , the case has been still worse : it could not attain fulfilment of its own wishes , because it must act through a party ; and even that instrument is frustrated whenever it reaches to
any A'igorous action . This impracticable position—so inconvenient , . so painful , so humbling to official men—we trace to the diminished communication between the ruling | 'Iass and the people . That communication has been diminishing steadily for sonic generations , while society has broken up more into cliques . The official class lias carried that disruption still further ; and each party , as it is called in Parliament , is not only a , minority within the walls , but is in more than a minority out of doors . On ( . he simplest view , it , represents
only a fraction of the enfranchised class ; that id to nay , only a fraction of the minority of the whole people one-third , or less , of" one-sevenlh of flic male population of the United Kingdom . Hut , in point of fact , ( ho fractional nature of the representation is still more minute . The representative party at head-quartera does not , in most eases , actually reach that section of the country , - —meaning that section of the enfranchised class in whose nanio it professor to act . The ollicial gentlemen at head-quarters
communicate wilh certain election agents and " inlluential persons , " - —that , is , busy bodies and trading politicians ,- and these busyhodies and trailing politicians deal with local busy bodies ; mid t hey arrange matters . The constituency ol any borough or county has no opportunity of choosing n representative , that is , ol Helectiiig a person who can really convey its wants and sentiments in the legislature ; but it only hMs a choice outof people- belonging to a clans different , from ifHelf the ollieial or Hcnii-ollicial class at head-quartern ; and it has no means of
communicating with , the man thus imperfectly chosen save through the mute channel of the poll , or the untrustworthy medium of the busybodies . The zeal with which parliamentary politician s have devoted themselves to special interests Railway interests , Agricultural interests , City interests , and the like , —has tended still more to limit their sympathies with the nation itself They are surrounded by connexions who conceal from them the view of the real people ; and . whereas the theory of our constitution
contemplates a Ministry nominated by the majority of the people as represented in Parliament , the fact is , that Ministries are alternately nominated by small sections of wealthy and active classes unknown to the people , and knowing very little about the people . Hence , we verily believe , the conflict of minorities , which can never end in total defeat or thorough victory of any one . Each one attaining to the envied opportunities of office , will find arrayed against it a majority composed of the rest , which can prohibit its enjoyment .
Amongst these official and parliamentarv classes at head-quarters , we might as readily seek a Cromwell as we might in a parish vestry . ISTay , there may be some blessed vestry , in which a mute inglorious Cromwell is now hidden ; but assuredly there is no such person amid the parliamentary rabble at head-quarters . There is no man that can appeal to the sympathies of more than a class , because he has no sympathies beyond . One statesman may speak to certain lords and some agriculturists ; another may speak
to the middle class in certain boroughs of the United Kingdom ; and a third may speak to a traditional circle of liberally inclined old families ; but these circles are not the nation . To the working classes , but one or two can speak at all ; and we are not sure that there is even one man hardy or hearty enough to address the whole body of the people for action . If we were to seek for national feeling , we might perhaps find most of it in the sister services of arms , ashore and afloat ; where there is much of caste , much of absolute power , but much also of constant intercourse between highest and lowest . If any Statesman , with sagacity and boldness enough , desired to over-ride " the combined minorities rivalling his own , there is one course that would be infallible . It would be to make a direct appeal to the people—in short , to add the people to his minority . The new Ministry might try it .
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MR . DISRAELI AND HIS COLLEAGUES . If Mr . Disraeli is a lost man , it is by his own choice . Displaying many talents , he has displayed also many weaknesses ; but among tho latter list appears to be his incapacity for appreciating political forces , both in their relative power and in the nature of their origin . It is his ambition to treat politics scientifically , to
make his calculations by rule ; and he brings to bear upon that art not only much cultivation of mind , but much information also , collected from history and the observation of different countries . He has collected the materials for making an artist in statesmanship . That be must have some sympathy with the feelings that stir human nature at largo is to be presumed from the very fact of his selecting an artistic method .
Perhaps tho grand origin of Mr . Disraeli ' s error has been in viewing statesmanship too much from a distance—in drawing back from tho canvas , as it wore , instead of mingling amongst the real people whom ho was studying- Ilenco his policies have been pictures , not actions ; and he lias mistaken groupings in the view for distinctions that had no reality . He has surveyed English history from the Rial to ; and , qualify ing if rather as a , traveller than as a resident , has guided bis public course ! by literacy ideas . . Hence his exaggerated conceptions us to 'I ' nn "
liquify and present ; virtue of our " territorial aristocracy , " and as to the balance of classes amongst us ; hence his scientific adjustments of our public allairs according to theories in books . England , however , has long declined to conform itsoll to any philosophical rules ill its public life , and has most expressly reduced its every classification to confuaion . The growth of wealth lias confounded our territorial aristocracy " . There ih scarcely a family that can boast tlio antiquity with which Mr . bisrneli is familiar in the pedigree of every house in Venice . The classes 01 society meet and mingle at ovtwy turn ; and fh ° grand distinctions which still remain , those be-
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There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothinr ; so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep thmr-fs lixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —Dr . Arnold .
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tt SATURDAY , DECEMBER 25 , 1852 .
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1230 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 25, 1852, page 1230, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1966/page/10/
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