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    offer was made to him , it was to exclude from the public service a man who had a right to take a leading post , and to deprive the public of one of those servants whose value has been attested . We do not know by what Tule Lord Elgin was excluded from office ; for there is some rule , though ib is not stated in any statute , and is perhaps nowhere to be found in words . It is an understanding that certain men who agree together shall assist each other in turn to take the governingplaees ,

    rights by the mere force of writing on parchment . While the English people leave it all to official managers , official . managers will exclude the people , and , laugh at any individuals who pretend to intrude upon , the authorised departments . While the different classes and circles of the English ? people remain separate , there will be no means

    of recovering the control that a constitutional state ought to possess over its own public servants ; and nothing , we are convinced , will be done in this country , nntil individuals , who feel thab they have the interest of their country at heart , who are conscious of the courage to begin a great action , confer with eaeb . other and act in concert- Until that time we shall drift on at the mercy of chance , of departments , and of foreign schemers , like Waljswski .

    and keep out those who are not initiated in their freemasonry . The effect is , that at the present day some of the most useful men are kept out of the public service , and appear to be altogether thrust aside from politics . Men who give voice to the strongest opinions , the most distinct wishes , and the keenest anxieties of the public , are exactly those who are not

    permitted to take charge of the public interests . " We might run up a long list of those who have evinced the strongest sincerity in their convictions- —IElgin to begin with , Newcastle , Cobden , Roebuck , Layabb , and others , who would make a list at least as various as this . To > think of any of these men coming into office juat now would be almost a ioke .

    The ignorance is not quite reciprocal . If the English people are totally ignorant what their official governors are doing , the official governors are not altogether ignorant of the movements of the English people ; they industriously know th& worsts Por again their channels of information are those by which they obtain information of foreign * affairs . They know nothing about the people from the people . They are perfectly informed of the movements of their own class in foreign countries and in this . Tne MAXMESBTraYS or PaTiMEbstqns know what -the

    Mettebnichs or BuoL-SoHAUENSTEiNS , the Nessei .-B . ODES or GOBTSCH AUDITS , the BoTJBqueneys or Walewskis are doing . They also have a machinery by -which they learn what a particular class of men can observe . The leaders of the Republican party are in the habit of comforting themselves with tile idea that they succeed in Evading the spies of Governments , foreign and domestic ; we believe that there is no delusion greater . We have strong reasons for supposing that the chief heads of the [ Republican party are known , are watched , are permitted to pass unmolested by the spies of Austria , Bussia ,

    Jnrance , and of Governments supposed to be more constitutional , for the very purpose of concealing the fact of the espionage , and of keeping up those little republican irritations which justify Austrian occupational The bureaucratic order ; therefore , on the Continent and in England , is perfectly informed on all movements that . spies can observe . But what do spies ever learn ? What ' they capable of learning respecting the opinions , the feelings , the purpose of' people ? It is the same at home . There is not a

    meeting of the people which is held at which numbers of the police are not present in plain clothes , taking notes of the proceedings . The professional statesmen , therefore , know as much as they can ' lea ^ n through policeinen and qpics , respecting the c 6 nduct of the people . All this , we repeat , is strictly by the sufferance of the people themselves . " The people never possess any immunities which they do

    not take . When they waited for " tho Charter" to give them the suffrage , thby reversed every proceeding by which ouv national constitution was framed . The Tights which were recorded in Magna Charta were ta'ken by the people , before they were recorded ; and they were retaken by the people , because that Charter wns powerless itself to maintain

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    THE CABINET . When Lord Abebdeest surrendered the pre ^ miership to Lord PAXMEESTOisr , an administration was established solely fox the vigorous prosecution of the war . The war having been prosecuted to anend , the Cabinet is in the position of being without a policy . It is an indescribable Cabinet . It is not Whig , or Toiyy or Illiberal . It takes neither name Hor colour from its measures . It is simply Lor 4 . Paimeestok ' s Catoinetj and whenever it attempts to carry out a home measure , the

    jneasure almost invariably falls through . The few useful reform s of last year , with the exception , of some important administrative improvements , were inheritances from the Coalitionw , All that it endeavours * and all that the nation seems to eare for , is simply to " get along . ' * ., There are some motions on the papers of the two Houses , which may force the Government to take up some intelligible position . That relating to America would be the most formidable were Lord Palmebstox to

    absolution that must follow a defeat of Ministers ; Lord Palmebston resolved . last year to adopt this alternative , ? rather :, ; than be driven from office ; but he was ,, unwitting to disperse a Parliament only three sessions old . The traders in disclosure and mystery , to astonish the wide-eyed populace , pretended that an influence at the Palace deterred the Premier from the dissolution . But it is certain that Lord PaiiMebstoh would not

    have hesitated to take the step had it been necessary ; and in all probability , this being the fourth year of Lord Debby ' s Parliament , he would have no aversion whatever to an electoral conflict to pass judgment on the war and the peace . Ifc would , at least , give him the Ministerial boroughs filled under the influence of the Tory Premier . But there is a difference between a defeat on a measjare of policy and a defeat carrying with it the reprobation of the Legislature .

    The Opposition , if cast upon the " country , " i . e . the irregularly scattered minority vested with electoral privileges , would go to the hustings flushed with ' political success , pointing to a censured Government , and enabled to claim the credit of having averted an American war , or punished the authors of the disaster at Kars . The Tories , however 3 no less than the Whigs , shrink from the enormous expenditure which , in . spifce of the purity laws , is implied by a general election . Besides , what are to be the rallying cries ? Peace with America would be , at best , the

    negation of an evil not very probable under any circumstances . Lord Bebby exhausted his programme in 1852 , and Iris administration was a ridiculous failure ; not—as it is pretended in the factious Conservative print which , writes weekly a panegyric upon itself —because the Irish members we ^ but because the country woulcl not put confi- ' dence in Lord I ) eb , by , or tolerate llr . Diseaeli . Is Conservatism more enlight ^ ened or liberal now ? Has it gained any accession of talent or popularity ? . It seenis to have forgotten , that it ever had a policy for ita organs find nothing ; to write except feeble and malevolent personalities . .. " ,

    If the Government were prepared with a policy , the nation might be stimulated to support the Government ; but Lord Palmejkston was called iu as " the pilot to weather the storm" at a time when " vigour" was the one thing needful . That crisis being past , what does he claim to be ? A reformer in . the right direction , his apologists say . In . administrative reform , it is easy to allow that he has superseded the popular associations . But his proposals in Parliament on other

    subjects of domestic interest , have for the most part been abandoned or defeated . The Conservatives , in anticipation of a dissolution , have worked with energy to obtain a popular vote on the Maynooth endowment , and have won many suffrages by their policy on the balloting system . Government , on the othefc hand , acts with all the hesitation of insjn , ; - cerity ; allows bills to be introduced , debated and withdrawn j suffers adverse , majorities ; to accumulate on the Opposition benches , without being stimulated to energy or eloquence ,

    and seems to reckon upon . the ., perpetual apathy of the nation . The nation , however , is not altogether apa ! thetic . Ifc is absurd to deduce from the collapse of the Administrative Reform * Association , that the people at large are lenient ; to administrative corruption . It is absurd , also , to argue from the blackness of darkness that descended on Sir JoshIja . Wajmb * lex ' s motion , that thei -people at large- arc satisfied with their parliamentary system , No rational man could have expected that 8 subject of that importance would be enter ? tained by the Government or by tho Mouse

    sume a tone of defiance and bluster , which lie will not do * unless under tlie influence of some inconceivable feeling . - The forces of the Conservative opposition , and of the indepen-, dent Liberals are likely to "be combined in this debate . The only reply on the part of Ministers likely to quiet the public apprehensions and . conciliate Parliament , would be an assurance that the American difficulty is in a fair way of settlement , and an appeal to the Legislature not to risk a change of Government in the midst of complex and delicate negotiations .

    The Kars debate will try the Btrength of the Government . Nothing in the official correspondence explains , to the exoneration of the Cabinet , why that important position waa sacrificed—why the sixty-one despatches addressed by General Wijexiams to the British Ambassador in Constantinople were unanswered- ^ -why no timely relief was sent to Kars . There must have been neglect , or there must have been interference . If there

    lias been neglect , the House of Commons is not likely to let it pass without censure ; if there has been interference , no public explanations can be given ; but , in either case , the debate may produce a parliamentary crisis ., The elder and younger schools of Conservatives are agreed to act against the Government ; tho more imnetsuous of the independent members will join them . Nor doea the

    Premier enjoy any longer . the advantage of being allowed to appeal to the situation of tho country in , deprecation of party attacks . At the signal of the Treaty of Peace , party politics return to tho arena . The contingency that mitigates the enthusiasm of ' tho Conservative party , . and keeps eve » its most eager followers ailont-on the subject of ' a , strong government , " ia the dis-

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    Apko , 26 , 1856 J THE KIAHIB . , mi ?

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 26, 1856, page 397, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2138/page/13/