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Leader (1850-1860), 3rd February 1855, Edition 1 of 2, Page 111, Untitled Article

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      Mr . Gladstone -were proposing a real , educational measure in the abolition of the newspaper stamp . As Peelite « ,. Lord ' Aberdeen , and your—with the knowledge gained by the Earl of Iiineoln—may recal attention * to- the fact that you are the only party-who succeeded in governing Ireland- You we ' re Colonial : Secretary duringthe time that Canada became affectionate— -you completed the conquest com- ; meaced by General Wolfe- ^ -Australia is prosperous , and the West Indies content . It is Peelite policy ¦ which is the governing policy of Great Britain . But , charged with failure as Statesmea and Administrators , you and your colleagues of your party hiive not succeeded in , the war . That ia the ' accu-r satimryou have to < face .

      Tour party did not rush into the war ; - you at least estimated as statesmen ics difficulties . You had not precluded alliances in the war by insulting , the Emperor of the French , like Sir Charles Wood , or sneering at the Emperor of Austria , like Lord John Rfussell—who also commenced the Brisish suspicion of Louis Napoleon by turning out the colleague ¦ who , perhaps- prescient , perhaps only polite ,, was . eager to recognise the new Imperator . And you had not increased the difficulties of a future peace by speeches like those of Lords John Russell and Palmerston , wherein they denounced the Czar , the one as a barbarian , the other as a liar . Whatever the horrors of the war ,, your caution had seemed to anticipate them ; and whatever the good fortune of your

      position , with Fr-ench and German alliances , and the isolation of Russia , it is : to your foreign policy that the acquisitions are to be traced . And your statesmanship , in the war , is not to be criticised apart from that of the Emperor of the French . If you are failures , so is he . You did not stay on the shores of the Bosphorus and Black Sea and admit an Austrian occupation of the Principalities , without his company and his leave ; and with him—perhaps be £ ause _ of his desperate and dying Marshal—you went to tbe Crimea " . He , a great military power , has not been complete in his military calculations ; he calls out a reserve ; he enlarges a foreign legion . Can he be a great statesman , while Lord Aberdeen ' Government is such a failure ?

      Now ,, as to your conduct as an administrator , I do not see that you are to blame . The system required that the Minister of War should be a Parliamentary chief . You depended upon military men : —if they have misled you , and mismanaged , say so , and why they have mismanaged . You did your work . You picked the only possible General . You sent out a great army : You are sending out new great forces .

      You sent-out stores in abundance . __ . Forthe _ civilian Minister of a commercial nation , you did miracles . If the blame of partial failure does not lie at your door , it is-your duty to yourself , it is due to your country , to say where the blame does lie . If the fault of a system , denounce—destroy it . If of men , name them . Recount to Parliament what you have done to modify the system and obtain men . You have created an Order of Merit . You have thrown

      open commissions to the valiant of the ranks . Turn now from the defence of yourself to the defence of your , Government . The defence I have sketched will bo pronounced adequate by all my readers . And if you would dare—and as a desperate man you ought to dare—that line of defence , you would make yourself the leader of that great , as yet unorganised party , which is eventually to supersede Whig Lords , Tory Lords , and conspiring Coalitions . The . public holds ( and I rejoice iu a

      conclusion so largely logical ) that it ia the incapacity of the governing aristocracy which renders war a dangerous game for England . But it may bo suggested that it is the peculiar character of our public which constitutes us a nation- incapable of consistent heroism in war . This character is exemplified in the sacrifice of a Ministry because of the loss of an army—because the exploits of our admirals and generals are disproportionate to the expectations fomented by the national vanity .

      For the purpose of assailing you , in the debate of last Monday , several speakers seized upon points of invidious comparison in the parliamentary career of your'ancestor ,, the borouglnnongering Pel ham . Fuirfy interpreted ^ all these points are iu your favour . " They'totmed out the Ministry and they saved the army , " said Sir Bulwer Lytton ; Who turned

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      " THE STRANGER" IN PARLIAMENT . [ The responsibility of the Editor in regard to theso contributions ia limited to the act of giving thorn publicity . Tho opinions expressed are those of the writer both tho Leader and " Tho Stranger" benefit by tho freedom which Is loft to his pen and discretion . ] A crisis gonorally lasts nine days—tho period to which wonder sustains itself ; and , therefore , there ought to bo no disappointment that last night brought ho settlement . As yet only a few speculative Radicals have advanced to the idea of forming a Cabinet out of . the House of Commons , under Mr ; Gladstone and

      without the aid of the old" Lords , and ! the practical rumours are therefore stilt confined to a choice , or . a coalition , between the Earl' of "" Tweedledum and Viscount Tweedledee . And it" illustrates at Onc £ our actual self-government and our perfect liberty , that , fully believing our public opinion is' determining , who shall be Ministers , we do not hesitate to propound the most ludicrous solutions of the

      evershifting party and personal problems of the hour ; Jones , of the Pantechnicon Club , has the whole " story—fresh- every day . Why did Lord John" go out : of course the pretext was a fib ? Of course ; he went out because the Queen would not recal Lord * Raglan : it . was a Whig intrigue against the Cornet i Prince Albert is at the bottom of it , Sir . Why would not Pahnerston join Lord Derby ? Why , Sir , PaTmerston knows that no Ministry can stand without

      Gladstone ; and Gladstone is a religious man , Sir , and means to keep a vow he made never to sit in the same Cabinet with Disraeli : and Lord Derby itf a plucky fellow , and won ' t sacrifice Disraeli ; Sir : and it would be an awful shame if he did . Well , who ' s to come in ? Here Jones is less dogmatical : here his invention fails : this British citizen confesses that ; the destiny of his country might not be improperly arranged if Lord Lansdowne , Lord Palmerston , Lord Clarendon , Lord Granville , and Lord Grey were to toss up for the Premiership .

      It is so very true , the singular discovery made by Lord Aberdeen , that all these old lords mean precisely the same thing , though now and then Lord John Russell may seek a resuscitation of Whig principles by annoying the Court through the Court General , that we can afford , even in the thick of A . deadly war , to allow the personal interests of the crisis * to employ all our attention . Lord Derby is rebuked by the Morning Censormorum for joking at such a moment on the internecine inanities of the late Coalition . But really that is the public feeling of the moment . I never heard the Peers laugh so loud

      and heartily as they did at Lord Derby ' s finished though too pre-Raphaelesque " picture of the interior . " Englishmen know that their country is in no ? danger : already there is a reaction from the partial gloomine ss under which Mr ^ Roebuck effected the magic division of Monday night last . The Ministerial crisis , consequent on Tweedledum and Tweedledee falling out , is not a national crisis ; and TO ought to be obliged to Lord Derby for a fair joke . After all , afe we not more interested in the inquiry why Lord John went out , than in the investigationas to who is to come in ? Does not all the

      conversation of society—at least of London society , which is clubby and cynical , and not provincial—which is merely English ^ earnest ; and national—indicate that we are occupied with men rather than with things ^ that we watch the crisis as Romans watched the gladiators — masses of muscle—representatives of nothing ? And , in that light , there are great interests in the crisis . The most careful of political students must confess to one or two surprises . Surprise at the enormous power possessed by Lord John Russell . His intellect meagre , his character whining , and his conduct in regard to the

      Duke of Newcastle disgraceful to a gentleman , he is yet not destroyed—he was enabled to destroy a Government . Why ? Because of his position . He ia the head of a great party ; and that great par ty * whatever it may think of him , must sustain him , ia order to sustain itself . He and Lord Derby are the only two really strong men : as presentable debaters ,, holders of proxies , managers of elections , correspondents with county chieftains , confidants of statesecrets , chosen agents of the great families . And ,, in the present position of English politics , the Houseof Commons aristocratic , tho middle classes

      unprepared to take power , these two men only could form strong Governments . Lord Aberdeen , leaning upon tho court , and patronised by Lord John Russell , couldj construct a Government of capable men , dependent for its success upon its measures . But as ^ w « have seen , Lord Aberdeen could not stand on houiy though still supported by the Cou rt , when deserted by the etrengfch represented in Lord John Kuswl * . Lord Palmerston ia popular—not powerful . So fiuy . ho ia in the same position as Lord Chatham wheu , th » Newcastle Ministry was destroyed * But Chatham did not attempt to otend alone oat hto'popnlwtoy * He kept Newcastle , who owned half tke Houa * < d

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      out the Ministry ? The very classes and men who had forced Walpofe . from a . peace-policy ! But why didi they turn out < the Ministry ? Because Admiral Byng had lost iris presence of mind ^ -and bec ause > a lordly general—the Earl of Loudoun—was found too old ! In a word , because the Ministry was not allowed , tinie to redeem « asnal . disaster , B , ut . a . comparison between the House of Commons of that « lay andthe Houseof Commons of this day-cannot sucely be intended . In the first place , the Duke of Newcastle and the Duke of ; Bedford of that day had the majority in their pockets . In the next place , Pitt was brought in by an intrigue . Some people suspect that the ' eircumstances are but slightly changed : but surely , even to ruin . you ,, none of your class would support that suspicion by such a parallel ;

      Who is the Pitt now ? "I can serve the country , and no one else can , " said Pitt . A comparison between the Ministry of the . Duke of Newcastle and that of the Earl of Aberdeen ; ia absurd . The Duke of Newcastle baaed bis Ministryon tlie exclusion of all . but abject courtiers and subservient WhiggL The Earl of Aberdeen coalesced all the first statesmen of the day—he bought in all the Pitts , and to say that his Ministry fails is to say the intellect of the governing class fails .

      But was the change of Ministry productive of success ? .: In a short time Pitt was found out proposing to redeem Minorca by the sale of Gibraltar to Spain So dangerous is a " vigorous" Pitt , or a clever Palmerston ! And he had his Sebastopoi—his Baltic campaign ! For the public clamour rose against him when the fleet arid army returned , baulked , from Rochefort . Popular impatience was illustrated by a singular alternation from mourning to joy . One

      day a despatch arrived from before Quebec , stating that Wolfe ' s army was at its last gasp . Was not this a case for a committee of inquiry ? But three days _ after _ another despatch arrived : Quebec was taken—England was in ecstasies—Pitt was again popular . In all the subsequent cases of disaster it was the Ministry which had invariably to suffer from the vicissitudes of war , or the incapacities of Generals . The last instance is in the Sikh campaign . There was a panicJbecause Lord Gough had suffered

      a check ; Sir Charles Napier -was applied to in a panic ; and yet Sir Charles Napier was not necessary . In the retreat of Sir John Moore , the Government was shaken . When Wellesley was retreating behind the lines of Torres Vedras the Government was shaken . All such instances suggest that the momentary disgrace of a Ministry , or of a Minister , is often unjust ; the general lesson is that a people , entering on war , must learn patience . If your

      Grace : could have" annou ^ when you met Parliament , you would have been popular until the next reactive disaster . Thus , when the army was sailing from Varna for the Crimea , your ability in organising so grand an armada was extolled , as it deserved ; and after the battle of Alma you were the greatest of War Ministers . You will have this consolation—as the war is likely to be a long one—that you will leave your successor , not only in office , but in unpopularity !

      The political chaos in which this great empire 19 now risked is consequent upon the monopoly of Government by one class , which class is degenerated in over-civilisation and degraded by two centuries of political vice . Our Queen must seek safety by resorting to the men who make the life of the nation . But the " intellectual vulgar" could not yet do without a lord ; and if you give them party prestige , they will give you the premiership . Your class has crushed you ; will you help us to crush your class ? Non-Elector .

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      WyjmiAjm 3 , 1855 . ] TrBCT ; Ii 3 B A 3 > fB ^ Ri i&k

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 3, 1855, page 111, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2076/page/15/