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constant glare of red tape and red boxes has that effect on our public men . They are angry , generally , because they would have given Government carte blanche if they only got the differentiation—that point over which Mr . Hume , like Mr . Dick , can never get in his " memorials . " Ask the milder Eadicals what they will do , and they say , " I wont play Disraeli ' s game—* he ' s a dangerous man . " Ask the more ultra , and they shrug their shoulders , and say , " What ' s the use of dissolving before a Reform Bill ? What ' s the use of riddling another House through that Committee
corridor which stinks of corruption already ? " But , still , people ' s party would he more powerful if they would do what the Brigade do—stick together , and propose terms—for Lord Aberdeen is the most impressionable of men , as Lord John is supposed to know now , and as Prince Albert knew when he chose him to govern England . The great want of the Eadicals is a leader —not for the nonce—there are only too many clever men among them—but for private influence and control ; and until they get hold of a man with the position and character to fashion them into rational
organization , they will always be comparatively useless for the people , and as grumbling and unhappy a set as they are this week . Lord Goderich , promising to be the better Russell of a nobler liberalism , may see his way wheD he is older , and when Mr . Dick has finished his memorial : but when the Democracy ' s delegates go into the Chesham Place dining-room today , they will be very helpless for want of a plan : and Lord John will find the screw of dissolution effectual
for all Mr . Gladstone ' s purposes . Undoubtedly , however , the weakness of the radical position is to be traced , not only to their own bad tactics , but to the distinct accptance of the budget by the couutry . Mr . Gladstone has passed on to the first place in the eyes of the nation , as financier ; and , after all , in this country , your greatest financier is your greatest statesman . Peel won his Premiership by his practical grasp of the material
business—the management of the taxes , so as to put them in the least unacceptable form ; the great deficiency in Lord John Russell ' s career is , that his spirited generalizations about great principles have been unaccompanied by striking conceptions of finance ; Mr . Disraeli broke down , as a prominent man , from being unequal to a budget occasion ; and Mr . Gladstone , who has taken his business countrymen by storm , now must bft watched for the future as the man into whose hands
will by degrees come the wielding of Great British destinies . The " pony Peel" was a misnomer : he has succeeded to his chief as by a sort of natural inheritance . His new position in the country is reflected in the House of Commons ; and the technical " loading" by Lord John now becomes not only ridiculous , but offensive . Mr . Gladstone stands high above all his colleagues , in either House , in personal and political character—in deep and earnest honesty of purpose—and in the amplitude of his knowledge , not only of the speciality of his department , but emphatically of public afltiirs ; and obviously ho was judged too hastily (
journalists cannot help that ) in supposing that he did not profoundly appreciate the tone of the House and the spirit of the dominant bodies of his countrymen . Boundless in his ambition , such a man for the future has those around him at his service . With a Houso of Commons position of twenty years , his lead becomes a privilege which exhausted resources like those of Lord John Russell can no longer dispute , and which there is not another man to pretend to . Mr . Gladstone answers at least to Mr . Disraeli ' s description of Peel— " tho most perfect Member of Parliament in the country ; " and he in something more than Peel—ho has moro dignity in
his pose ( Pool would have succeeded even more had ho not been ho plausible ) , and a finer tono as a speaker . Tho leading journal happily said of Mr . Gladstone ' s oratorical style , that it was " copious rotundity ;" and that is exactly tho style for Parliament , on groat occasions . Mr . Gladstone , candid , argumentative , dignified , but deferential , is superb in debate ; while his only groat parliamentary rival , Mr . Disraeli , is greater iu a discussion ( thoro is a strong distinction ) , because Mr . Disraeli aims at tho " elegant conversation , " which somebody fluid , taking only one view , was the correct Houso of Commons stylo . Tho two moil should always bo vis-n-vis —¦ tho eternal Pitt
and Fox of tho time—for Mr . Disraeli is unrivalled as th « jesting , watchful , guerilla loader of 1111 Opposition ; and Mr . Gladstone is the bemi ideal of a spokesman of " her Majesty ' s Ministers . " The budget is not only a collection of proposals ; ' it is a great parliamentary performance ; und when wo speak of Mr . Gladstone's success on Monday , wo should think of him not only as an author , but as an suitor . Lord Castleroagh used tosiiy ho wished to God tho labour could bo divided , and he'd do the thinking , » f bo wore allowed to biro n follow as a talker . Mr , Gladstone is the beat talker of tho day ; uftor groat study and care , certainly ; and to have succeodod in the oratory of a budget so vaat and complox
as this year's , is a feat which places him immeasurably above every one but the Opposition leader . A budget that took five hours to talk , delivered in a musical voice—sonorous , rounded , perfectly modulated , exquisitely arranged , as a speech , to awake and keep attention , piquing and teasing curiosity , sustained and sustaining the House from the first sentence to the lastthat is something which , as an affair of voice and will , not more than half-a-dozen men in the empire could do . It is not a speech ; it is not an address ; it is a statement , a great state paper being oratorized ; and there can be no giving way to thoughts that rush up as
yougo—which would be a relief—no yielding to the suggestion of a cheer or an interruption ; there must be the most rigid restraint over the crowding ideas—the most exact accuracy in the sentences , and even in the very words chosen—the most perfect balancing of parts ; more than all , there must be no errors of commission—there must be no errors of omission ; nothing must be put wrong , and nothing must be overlooked ; and if you consider all this , and that this enormous mental process , with the enormous physical difficulty of managing the voice , keeping on the legs , and willing the most determined self-possession , goes on in a House crowded in every
corner , representatives of an eager world—with an Opposition , daring and capable , before him , and , not less suggesting nervousness , colleagues who envy him or tremble for him , at his back , —you will allow that the man who gets through the work , and gets through it with a triumph , must be a wonderful person , with an intellectual vigour you hardly supposed humanity could attain . Yet Mr . Gladstone took it all quietly , and did it quietly , and left the House and went home quietly —probably mentioning to Mrs . Gladstone , as a reason for being rather tired , that he had been saying a " few words" that evening . My belief is , that had there been no clock in the House he would have talked for a
week—Wednesday ' s papers announcing to a wondering empire— " Left speaking "—and Thursday ' s beginning with , " After these preliminary remarks , Sir . " Overshadowed by the Budget , and the calculations its consequences force on attention , the other interests of the week are few . The old contrasts which I so often insist on presenting , as illustrations of a system which is only to be reformed in this age by laughter , are yet as visible this week as in all preceding weeks of recent sessions . The House of Lords has had a
couple of religious debates : one on Maynootb , on Monday—Lord Winchilsea was telling his House that Popery was damnable , and ought not to be supported by a Protestant empire , while Mr . Gladstone , in the other , was proposing to get 3 d . in the pound out of the incomes of Irish Roman-catholic gentlemen to carry on the said empire—and one , last night , on the necessity of clergy reserves to keep the Canadians to respectable Christianity . The anxiety of the Upper House about the Protestant religion was thus sufficiently shown ; and it will be observed that last night the Bishop of Oxford—who spoke so eloquently in favour of new
bishops at the Wednesday meeting , to raise a colonial Episcopal fund—was duly in his " place of peril , " which ho defined as tho proper location of apostolical representatives . But take one or two of tho subjects of tho week to point tho reality and tho earnestness of the Christianity of Parliament . On Wednesday , somo thirty or forty Scotch gentlemen joined in stating- to the Housoof Commons that Sc jthind was so universally a drunken country that the sale of whiskey must bo restrained as wo restrain tho sale of arsenic . Every night this week the Commons have received a report fjom a committee unseating members for bribery , or
have appointed a commission practically to disfranchise some place or another for its general corruption ; so that Sir John Tyrrell , late on Tuesday , —a heavy country squire , never intended by nature to bo up till twelve , and therefore rather bewildered at tlmt hourblustered out savagely that if they wont on this way , why he'd bo hanged if thoro 'd bo a borough member left . Then , also on Tuesday , the Houso of Lords were considering tho case of an Irish magistrate who bad boon suspended from oflico in consequence of partisan conduct at an election ; and poor after peer pointed out that " intimidation" is tho universal electoral system in Ireland—ono peer attributing this to tho priests , another peer mentioning tho landlords , and both
asseverations finding jwsuranco in the evidence given before tho Mayo Petition Committee , whore it was clearlymade out that the elector in Ireland is in rather a ticklish position , for if ho votes for a IJrigudier bo losos his " holding , " and if ho votes for a Derbyito ho losos bin soul , and , as one of a pastoral and simple race , he prefers starvation to damnation . Tim Wednesday ' s sitting , and tho Scotch drunkenness discussion , was very enlivening—such a day us tho Htningors liuvn'l bud lor many a year . Observo who was loading tbo discussion , as frumor of the bill— -Mr . Forbos Mackenzie , Difrbyito whipper-in , triumvir of tbo Curlton Club collar , a member for Liverpool because
he would , and Mr . Cardwell would not , vote against the Maynooth grant . Why does he vote against the Maynooth grant ? Because he thinks Popery fatal to the souls , and temporally mischievous to Irishmen . What religion woujd he substitnte ? His own , which is John Knox's , and which , after an influence of 300 years , has had such an effect that the Scotch confess themselves the most drunken of God ' s people . Surely Mr . Mackenzie should pause in attributing social and political results to particular religious creeds ; should at least leave the now temperate Irish alone with their Popery , if they cannot have Calvinism without
the " crater . " But notice also the way in which all the Scotch gentlemen were nonplussed in the debate on their national sin by two English members . Mr . Hey worth , representing the teetotal interest , said to the Scotch gentlemen , Are you in earnest in your desire to reform your countrymen ? If bo , take the pledge ; join me , and set an example to the nation . The Scotch gentlemen laughed ; every one of them dined out , as Scotch members should that day , and with " politics on hand , " did not " leave all claretless the unmoistened throttle . " Then Mr . Henry Drummond — who is to the feast of reason in the House
what the skeleton was to Egyptian debauches—said also , Are you in earnest ? Then why do you not insist on such an observance of the Sabbath in your country that , as the people are not allowed to walk in the fields , or to see their friends in towns , you drive them into gloomy and solitary drinking at home ? The Scotch gentlemen did not laugh at that ; it was a bitter truth and told , £ vnd did good perhaps . But there are other odd facts to notice . Mr . Mackenzie , as Carlton Club cellar triumvir , distributed the election funds last July . What for ? Why , to bribe some , and to make drunk all the electors .
Observe , then , his morality ; he opens the beer casks in England , but he shuts up the whiskey shops in Scotland . Accepting all his facts , however—Scotland painted by a Scotchman—why does he not urge on his party the expediency of leaving the colonies without bishops a little while longer , and also leaving Christianity to take care of itself in Canada , in order that there may be the undivided devotion of surplus wealth ( its a place of peril for surplice wealth too ) of Tories and Protestants to complete apostolic work in Scotland ? Why issue a commission to investigate social consequences of John M'Hale in Ireland , and not inquire into social consequences of John Knox in Scotland ? His party is going to boat the Government next week
in the Lords on the Jew Bill , on the ground that it would unchristianise the Legislature . It is , therefore , taken for granted that every hon . member is a believer in the Christian faith , and that tho precepts of Christianity are carried out in their integrity in society and politics by that House . . Nothing is meant if that is not meant ; and tho Lords will gravely throw the bill out again on that ground distinctly . Lord Derby will induco tho Lords to do this ; and Lord Derby will then , next day , consult about Gladstone with Mr . Disraeli , his friend , and his lieutenant , who has openly and in a deliberate book vindicated the Jews on tho ground , that if they had not caused tho Great Sacrifice , noble lords and honourable members would never have been redeemed . That
soonis absurd ; bufc that is what tho Lords are going to do ; and that is what Lord Derby will do afterwards . Ho will subsequently send for Forbos Mackenzie , and arrange what money would bc ^ wanting , and what men could bo relied on , for an election . Ami all tho lords who wont unchristianiso tho Legislature will subscribe handsomely , as they did List time , when one of thorn gave a cheque for 10 , 000 / . Not for the new bishops . Not oven to ennblo tho poor clergyman ' s clothing society to have larger transactions in the oast end of Holywell-street and tho west ond of tbo Now-cut . Not at all . To buy tbo
country : vary the phrase as you will , ; is Mr . Mackenzie will when he speaks of it to Mr . Hrown ; but thai would be the fact : on a general election tbo country is in tbo market , and tho Tory and Protestant party think it worth buying . Happy country—so rich that it can find a purchaser ! And the election morale loads < o thn Houso morale . Tbo lioblo lords and the honourable gentlemen buy tbo country ; they , therefore , look leniently on Sir IJ- Hall ' s conviction of Mr . Stafford of Sir Junicn
having sold tho navy . Tbo House cheered Graham , who excels " » elaborated obsequiousness of compliment , when that decidedly right honourable baronet said tlmt Mr . Stafford ' s " personal honour" bad been uninipenohed . Tim loading journal does not agree with him : most people out of tho House agree with tho loading journal ; but ; mark tbo morale of tho acquittal and tho cboer . lYrsonul dishonour is in tolling a lio—that is all ; but there in no " personal " dishonour in soiling tbo service . Had Mr . Stuflbrd admitted a falsehood it would have boon awkward ; but ho denied that ; admitting , Uowovor , that ho had done
Untitled Article
April 23 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 399
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 23, 1853, page 399, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1983/page/15/
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