THE OPENING OF THE SESSION.
The Session has commenced under circumstances so unfavourable to the Ministry that even their most sanguine friends are dejected. The omens are unmistakably against them, and the auspices are corroborated by the more palpable evidence of hard facts. The Session was barely a week old when the first division took place, and left the Ministry in a minority. It was a Government question, but the Opposition motion, brought forward by Mr Peacocke, was carried by the large majority of 113 to 73. This was a bad beginning; and, unenlightened by the result, the Ministry have since then exposed themselves to, and undergone, two similar defeats. The events of the same week out-of-doors brought them a worse and less avoidable disaster. Two elections went against them. We certainly do not claim the Cambridge election as any great triumph of Conservative principles, but it was a blow to the Ministry. Lord Palmerston’s reputation is deservedly great, and in not a few elections the Ministerial candidate has escaped defeat by proclaiming himself simply a Palmerstonian, and asserting that the Premier was as good a Conservative as any member of the Opposition. The ex-member for Cambridge, Mr Steuart, although returned as a Conservative, subsequently became a “Palmerstonian;” but no sooner did his constituents obtain an opportunity of showing their sentiments by their votes, than they declared in favour of a Conservative who avowed himself an opponent of Lord Palmerston. This, we say, may be called a trifle, but it is a straw which shows which way the wind is blowing. The other electoral contest—at Devonport—was a very different affair. In former elections for that borough the Liberals had won the day. Moreover, owing to the large Government dockyards, the constituency of Devonport is peculiarly amenable to Ministerial influence. In spite of all this, the Ministerial candidate, although strenuously backed by the whole influence of the Admiralty, and himself a Grey to boot, has been defeated, and one of the most stanch of Conservatives, and a thorough party-man, Mr Ferrand, has been elected by a majority of thirty. This is a triumph for the Opposition too remarkable to be explained away. The Government has been defeated in its own dockyard. Driven to candour by the very magnitude of the disaster, a Ministerial journal[11]says:—“It is a surprising innovation. Constituencies like Devonport, where the Government is a great employer of labourers having votes, have hitherto been considered almost as nomination boroughs.” Even the Whigs have got sick of “innovations” now, finding they will no longer go down with the public; but such an innovation as that accomplished by the constituency of Devonport must cut them to the heart. If they can no longer get their candidates returned even in Government pocket boroughs, what are they to do? In Ireland a Government appointment went a-begging for a year, because no Whig member would risk the new election that must follow his acceptance of it. It would seem that the Government are now in the same sad predicament on both sides of the Irish Channel.
Obviously the “Conservative reaction” has entered upon a new phase. The country is resolved to have not only a Conservative policy, but a Conservative Ministry. At first, when it was seen that the Whig Ministry abandoned its mischievous attempts to degrade the franchise, many constituencies contented themselves with electing men of Conservative tendencies, even though they gave a general support to the Government. But this feeling is dying away; neutrality is being abandoned for active opposition. The change is doubtless due to more causes than one. But the chief influence in producing the change is a love of fair-play. This is peculiarly the case in regard to the English constituencies, where public opinion is more calm and better balanced on political questions than it is in the sister kingdoms. There is a striking difference, we may remark, in the modes of political feeling and action which characterise the three great sections of the United Kingdom. Party-spirit and religious zeal (which, though generally, are not always coincident forces) predominate in Ireland. In Scotland, although the ecclesiastical spirit is very strong, the peculiar characteristic of the people in politics is their attachment to ideas pure and simple: they are the great theorists and innovators, and will go all lengths in the logical application of their principles. Fortunately the English constituencies are admirable ballast, and keep straight the vessel of the State. They care little for “ideas,” but a great deal for good and safe government: they are businesslike and matter-of-fact, and, above all things, are lovers of fair-play. In many an English constituency the representation, by mutual agreement, is divided between the rival parties. A Whig and a Tory are returned together, or two Tories and a Whig, or one Tory and two Whigs; and in some boroughs, where there is a great landed proprietor who owns nearly the whole area of the borough, the duke or other magnate is allowed to name one member and the majority of the constituency the other. This is a businesslike compromise which aptly illustrates English character. Every one knows that property must have a great influence, whether wielded by a territorial magnate or by a millowner; but in assigning one seat to the magnate, the constituency is, by a well-understood agreement, left free to choose its own man for the other, without any interference on the part of the magnate’s influence. In the other case (which generally occurs in counties), where the representation is divided, equally or unequally, between the rival political parties, the same spirit of compromise is apparent. It saves many contested elections, and it is likewise a virtual adoption of the principle of the representation of minorities. Scotchmen would do none of these things: a divided representation would seem to them as good as none. As long as any party in a Scotch constituency has a majority, however small, it will insist upon carrying its own men. The spirit of compromise which distinguishes English constituencies arises partly from their love of fair-play, partly from the fact that they are not such fervid politicians as the Scotch, and deal with politics not as an affair of immutable principles or scientific deduction, but as an ordinary business matter, which they decide by striking a balance of the miscellaneous considerations which affect them. Now, that balance is turning every day more strongly against the Liberals. The Scotch may think it best to have Liberals in office even though they carry out a Conservative policy. But Englishmen don’t like this. In the first place, it is not fair. Each side should have its innings, and the Whigs have confessedly played out their game. Office has its sweets, and John Bull thinks that it is more than time that the Tories should get their turn of the good things. A man cannot live upon politics any more than upon love; and although to the leading statesmen on both sides the emoluments of office are as nothing, the tenure of political power by one party or the other makes a material difference to each. John Bull understands this. Moreover, if the retention of office by the Liberals is not fair, it is also not manly or honest. John Bull, like old George III., does not like “Scotch metaphysics.” He does not appreciate the casuistical reasoning by which it may be shown that a Ministry which took office to do one thing, may stay in office to do the opposite. Since the Whigs have given up their principles, he thinks they should also give up their places. Doubtless too, if he takes any interest in the morals of Whiggery (which we greatly doubt, seeing they are so purely speculative), he must come to the conclusion that the principles of the party are rotting so fast on the Treasury seats that it is high time to give them an airing in the bracing atmosphere of the Opposition benches.
The country now sees that, if it had known the truth four years ago, the present Ministry would never have been in existence. The Whigs and Radicals overthrew the Conservative Government in 1859 by means of false statements and false professions. It took some time before the real state of the case could be demonstrated, but gradually it was made plain by the conduct of the Liberals themselves. Slowly but steadily the truth has dawned upon the constituencies: they feel that they were duped by the present occupants of office, and they are now conscious also that they did injustice to the Conservatives. The Whig chiefs who, before they got into office, deemed Parliamentary Reform a matter of such urgency that they promised to hold a special session in November in order to pass a Reform Bill, first delayed to fulfil their promise, and then threw up the matter altogether. The excuse which they plead is, that they found Parliament unfavourable to any further tampering with the constitution. But if Parliament was right, they themselves were condemned; if it were wrong, why did they not dissolve, and appeal to the country? Had they been in earnest, they would have dissolved: but they knew that a dissolution would have been followed by the election of a Parliament still more hostile to them and to their measure. And therefore they chose rather to remain self-condemned, and to be pointed at with the finger of scorn, by the one party as recreants, by the other as impostors, rather than save their honour at least by the sacrifice of office. This tells against them now. The revulsion of public feeling was not, and could not be, immediate—for the duplicity and insincerity of the Ministry only revealed itself by degrees; but it was certain from the first, and has now become overwhelming. The Ministry have come to be regarded with contempt, and every new election is taken advantage of by the constituencies to give expression to their censure. But this is not the whole of the change which the last four years have wrought on the public mind. Alongside of the consciousness of the sins and demerits of the present Ministry, there has arisen the conviction that the principles of the Conservative party are the right ones for the country. The constituencies now feel not only that the present Ministry is a bad one, but that its predecessor was a good one. They have become sensible that, if any Reform Bill were needed at all, the Bill brought forward by Mr Disraeli was the one that best deserved to be adopted. They are now conscious that if any change at all were requisite in the matter of Church-rates, Mr Walpole’s Bill was well deserving of support, and that the measure of total abolition to which the present Ministry have pledged themselves is wholly out of the question. Finally, and for a good while past, the country has come to see that, led away by the misrepresentations of the Whigs, it did gross injustice to the foreign policy of the Conservative Government. We do not know by what fatality it was that Lord Malmesbury’s despatches on the Italian question were not published until too late to affect the division on the vote of want of confidence in June 1859. Had they been published earlier, we believe the issue of that division would have been different. Every one may remember (or may see for himself by referring to the file) the effect which the publication of those despatches produced on the ‘Times,’ and how the leading journal, thus enlightened as to the facts, frankly, and without any reservation, admitted that Lord Malmesbury had been right throughout. And certainly no one can forget how Lord John Russell, when taking farewell of the House of Commons, took occasion—or rather made occasion—to say that he approved of the policy of his predecessor, and that (which is more than his colleagues could say) he had been of that opinion from the beginning. The impression, originated and studiously fostered by Lord Palmerston and his followers, that the Conservatives are unfriendly to the cause of freedom and independence in Italy, is totally unfounded. They have certainly mistrusted the disinterestedness of the policy of the French Emperor, and have cautioned the Italian Government against seeking to reach the height of its ambition by machinations which would only redound to its own disadvantage: and on both of these points the Italians themselves must now be convinced that the warnings and advices of the Conservative statesmen were wellfounded. At all events, taught by a bitter experience, the Italian Government is now following the very course which the Conservatives recommended. We may add a word on our own part. The Magazine will certainly be admitted to be as sound an exponent of Conservatism as is to be found either in or out of Parliament, and we can refer to our own pages to demonstrate how heartily we have sympathised with the Italian cause, wherever it was not marred by such secret traffickings with the French Government, as the Italians themselves now regret and condemn; or by violations of law which, though natural to times of revolution, may be condoned, but cannot be approved.
The Ministerial programme for the present Session contains another confession of errors on the part of the Government, and a fresh proof of the wisdom of the opinions of the Conservative party. Destitute, as usual, of the capacity to originate measures of useful legislation, the Budget is to be brought forward early, to cover the prospective barrenness of the Session. And what is the feature of this year’s Budget, upon which the Ministry rely to cover their flagrant incapacity in other matters of administration? It is a reduction of the naval and military estimates! It is the adoption of the very course so earnestly advocated last year by the Opposition, and so strenuously resisted by the Government. Hardly eight months have elapsed since Lord Palmerston and his colleagues confidently and haughtily maintained that no reduction could be made upon the large sums voted for the support of the national armaments, without destroying the influence and safety of the country. Mr Disraeli, during last Session, argued strongly in favour of making such a reduction, on the ground that so heavy an expenditure was uncalled for, and was in reality damaging to our military power, by trenching so deeply upon the financial resources of the State. Again and again he pressed these views upon the Government—it was his constant theme all through last Session; but the Government refused to accept the warnings, and resolutely maintained that no reduction could be made. What, then, are we to think of them now? In what respect is the attitude of the times more favourable for a reduction now than it was eight months ago? In so far as there has been any change, the change has been clearly for the worse. There has been a revolution in Greece, of the issues of which as yet we have hardly seen the beginning. Servia has been arming, by the secret assistance of Russia; and the Danubian Principalities, and northern provinces of Turkey generally, are in a more unquiet state than they have been for years. And now we have a revolution in Poland, which is throwing all Central Europe into agitation, and furnishing fresh opportunities for the intrigues or intervention of other Powers. So far, then, as there has been any change in the situation since last summer, the change, we repeat, has been for the worse. Nothing could demonstrate more strikingly than this the consciousness of the Government that they were wrong last Session, and that the Conservatives were right. It is a new triumph for the Conservative party—a fresh condemnation of themselves by the Ministry. The trump card with which the Ministry are to lead off this Session has been stolen from the hands of the Opposition.
It is high time, indeed, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer were retrenching his expenditure; for, weak as the Administration has been in other respects, the management of the finances has been peculiarly disastrous. Although the present Ministry took office with a surplus, which they owed to their predecessors, in the two succeeding years (1860–2) in which Mr Gladstone had the exclusive direction of the finances, his mismanagement accumulated a deficit of four millions sterling. Nor is this all. For in the same period Mr Gladstone anticipated the revenue of the country to the extent of £3,200,000,—namely, £2,000,000 anticipated upon the income-tax, and upwards of £1,200,000 upon the malt-credit. This enormous deficit—seven and a half millions sterling—was, moreover, accumulated during a period when the national Exchequer enjoyed windfalls such as very rarely come to the aid of a Minister of Finance. The falling-in of the terminable annuities has reduced the charges on the National Debt to the extent of £2,000,000; and there was also the unexpected repayment of a portion of the Spanish loan. Mr Gladstone, therefore, has enough to do with the surplus which he will obtain by the proposed reduction of the expenditure. He has first to restore the Exchequer balances to their proper amount, by repaying the £2,684,000 which he abstracted from them to meet his exigencies between March 1860 and March 1862. He has likewise to get rid of the addition to the National Debt which he created, to the extent of £461,000. And, finally, he has to cease his forestalments of the revenue. When he has done these things, where will be his surplus? Mr Gladstone, in former times, used to denounce the slightest forestalment of the yearly revenue as a flagrant “violation of political morality;” and there is no question that such a procedure can only be excused under exceptional circumstances and to a very small amount. The House of Commons, therefore, as watchful guardians of the public revenue, will surely call upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer to restore matters to their normal condition before he does anything else. The same must be done in regard to the Exchequer balances. And if it be not an equally pressing necessity to pay off the £461,000 of new debt, surely Mr Gladstone, who aspires to the reputation of a great Finance Minister, will be ashamed to leave unpaid off a portion of the national obligations which will hereafter be known as “Gladstone’s Debt.” Unfortunately, when we think of 1853–4, we must allow that this is not the only portion of the National Debt which may be thus designated.
Most financiers, and all sound ones, in such circumstances, would devote the surplus of revenue which might accrue to redressing the adverse balance of former years. But Mr Gladstone belongs to a new school. He leaves the balances to come right as they may, or bequeaths them as an embarrassment to his successor; while he goes on in his seemingly endless process of devising financial alterations, which always leave him deeper in the mire. He loves to carry every inch of canvass—he crowds all sail as he drives his financial pinnace through strange waters; but he has shipped so many seas that the Exchequer has become waterlogged. He had better bale out the water before he goes any further. But this is precisely what he will not do. He must have a “sensation” budget. He must reduce some branches of the revenue and experiment with more. Already he lifts up a corner of the curtain to give us a glimpse of the grand tableau of jugglery which he has in store for us; and in due time the House will be wheedled and overwhelmed by the suave rhetoric of the great financial juggler. Possibly, however, the country will think that it has had too much of this already. It thinks of the cheap paper and cheap wines, and cannot see anything in these changes to atone for a deficit of seven millions and a half. Mr Gladstone’s abolition of the paper-duties was done not only at a wrong time, but in a wrong way. He not only landed himself in a deficit, but he landed the papermakers in a dilemma. He struck off the excise-duty on the one hand and the import-duty on paper on the other, and called it “free trade;” but while making free trade in the manufactured article, he ought to have taken care that there should be free trade likewise in the raw material. Several Continental countries send their paper, untaxed, to compete in the English markets with the produce of our own paper-mills, while at the same time they place a prohibitory duty on the export to our shores of rags. Our papermakers do not object to fair competition, but they object to be subjected by legislative enactment to so serious a disadvantage. If the crop of cotton in America were to fall off in extent (as it has done during this civil war), and the Americans, when peace is restored, were to place (as they have talked of doing) a prohibitory duty upon the export of cotton, while we did not retaliate by placing an import-duty on the manufactured article from their ports, what would our manufacturers think of this sort of “free trade?” Why, such a state of matters would produce a calamity in our manufacturing districts equal to that under which we are now suffering, and ruin the cotton industry in this country permanently. Yet this is the condition of affairs which Mr Gladstone voluntarily chooses to impose upon our paper manufacture, in deference to the clamour and exhortations of his Radical friends. What has become of the touching picture which the eloquent financier portrayed of paper-mills springing up all over the country,—when every hamlet was to have its little factory, engaging the surplus labour of the lads and lasses; and every glen that had a streamlet was to be made musical with the noise of a paper-mill? We have not heard of any such results—we have not heard of any extension at all of the manufacture; and as for Mr Gladstone’s arcadian dreams of paper-making, while foreign Governments act towards us in the way they do, he surely cannot possibly hope for their realisation—unless, indeed, he expects the whole country to go to rags under his financial mismanagement.
The other basis upon which Mr Gladstone founds his reputation as a great financier, and as an ample compensation for his past annual deficits, is his reduction of the duties upon French wines. We readily admit that these wines have been poured into this country in greatly increased quantities during the last eighteen months; but will this continue? And what is the advantage we derive from the change? “Gladstone’s wines” has become a current name for these beverages, but it is certainly not a “household word.” Any one who confesses, with rueful face, that he has made acquaintance with these wines, never fails to explain that it was at another man’s table, or at some villanous restaurant’s,—never at his own. No decanter will circulate if its contents are known to have been favoured by the legislation of Mr Gladstone. People have become wary and suspicious at dinner-parties now; and a Paterfamilias may be heard giving the caution which old Squire Hazeldean gave to his son when about to dine with Dr Riccabocca, “Whatever you take, Frank, don’t touch his wines!” Those “cheap wines” have been tried—or, at least, if tried, have been condemned and discarded at every respectable dinner-table. They don’t suit the middle classes; that is an incontrovertible fact. We are not less sure they are equally ill suited to the tastes and requirements of the working-classes. They have hitherto been tried largely as a novelty; but they do not improve on acquaintance, even if we could forget the much better use which Mr Gladstone could have made of his opportunities. Depend upon it, Nature knows better than any Chancellor of the Exchequer how to provide for our bodily wants, and supplies the essential wants of each people from the products of their own country. Let our working-classes get good beer at its natural price, and it will be infinitely better for their health, and more to their taste, than giving them cheap foreign wines, whose thinness and acidity are not suited for our climate, and which cannot compete with beer as nourishers and supporters of the bodily strength. When we remember, on the one hand, that seven and a half millions sterling have been lost to the country in Mr Gladstone’s financial experiments; and, on the other, how much better would have been a reduction on the duties of tea, sugar, and beer, it will be admitted that he could hardly have wasted so much money with less benefit to the community. Abundance of acid wines and plenty of paper—it is a curious prescription for Mr Gladstone to found his reputation upon.
But Mr Gladstone is resolved to proceed in his eccentric course. His crotchet this year is to cheapen tobacco. Three and a half years ago (in November 1859) Mr Bright delivered two orations at public meetings in favour of the abolition of the duties on tea, sugar, and tobacco, and the substitution therefor of an enormous income-tax. But Mr Bright thought that the tea and sugar duties were more deserving of reduction than the duty on tobacco, whereas Mr Gladstone gives a preference to tobacco. How is this to be accounted for? On the surface it appears a new piece of financial eccentricity; and in every view of the matter the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we should think, will find no small difficulty in obtaining the consent of Parliament to his proposal. There can be no question that tea, sugar, and beer have each and all prior claims upon the favour of Parliament, if the wellbeing of the community is to be consulted. But Mr Gladstone, in the speech which he made when introducing his proposal, propounded the extraordinary doctrine that a Chancellor of the Exchequer (and of course the Government which must approve his acts) has nothing to do with the wellbeing of the community. His only duty, says Mr Gladstone, is to get as much money as possible out of the taxed commodities. Judged by this rule, Mr Gladstone has certainly been a most unsuccessful Minister. We cannot, indeed, accept this view of a Minister’s obligations to the country; but, even if it were accepted, it would not furnish any justification of Mr Gladstone’s proposal. He says that the present duty upon tobacco is so high that smuggling is carried on to a large extent, and cannot be prevented by the Custom-house officers. This would be a good argument for abolishing the duty or reducing it to a trifling amount, but it is totally inapplicable to the case when he proposes to leave a tax of five shillings a-pound on manufactured tobacco, which is more than equal to the price of the best manufactured tobacco, freight included. The smuggler would still make a profit of more than a hundred per cent on the value of the commodity; and does any one believe that smuggling would cease, or even be sensibly diminished, when the premium upon smuggling is so great, and when (as Mr Gladstone states) the facilities of evasion are so plentiful? If Mr Gladstone were honest in the plea upon which he rests his proposal for this reduction of customs-duty, he would be labouring under a great delusion. But we take another view of the matter. It seems to us that his real object is secretly to carry out Mr Bright’s scheme of finance, and with great craft he begins with the duties on tobacco, where his operations are least likely to excite suspicion, but which, if accomplished, will render the subsequent steps of the scheme not only easy but inevitable. There may be little to find fault with in the present proposal considered by itself; but what is its bearing in regard to our financial system? Reduce the duty on tobacco, and what other customs-duty can be maintained? Mr Gladstone was never more eloquent and plausible than when proposing to reduce the duty on foreign wines; now he is playing the same artful game in regard to tobacco. Can Parliament be any longer blind to the course to which he is committing it? Honest financiers, who could afford to make a reduction of taxation, would begin with tea, sugar, and beer, as the duties on these can be remitted with the greatest advantage to the community; while those on luxuries, such as foreign wines and tobacco, could be maintained without inconvenience or complaint. But just for this very reason Mr Gladstone, who aims at accomplishing Mr Bright’s scheme of taxation, begins at the other end—knowing well that if he can reduce the taxes on tobacco as well as on foreign wines, theabolitionof the other customs-duties will follow as a natural consequence. A reduction to the extent of one-half the duties on luxuries cannot be balanced save by totally abolishing the duties on the necessaries of life. We have a strong conviction that this is his game; for the good reason that upon no other supposition is his conduct intelligible. Mr Gladstone is not a fool; he must have an adequate motive for this seemingly crotchety course; and we believe we have named it. Let the House of Commons look to it, before they are led too far into the toils to be able to recede.
Plausible in the extreme, and ever seeking to conciliate or overreach his audience by all the arts of rhetoric and casuistry, Mr Gladstone changes his arguments and mode of dealing with the House almost every year, as may best suit his plans. Financial principles he has none—save the great one which he conceals. All arguments are fair, he thinks—all professions of opinion justifiable, in order that he may carry his point, and lead the House step by step unwittingly towards his goal. We need not allude to the rhetorical craft by which, in 1860, when he wished to gain the assent of the House to an increase of the income-tax, he maintained that there was a deficit of twelve millions; whereas, in the following year, when the balance was worse by 2½ millions, but when he eagerly desired to obtain the abolition of the paper-duties, he boldly represented that there was a surplus. At one time he represents that the proper way to proceed with a Budget is by a multiplicity of separate bills; at another time (when it suits his purpose better) in the form of a single bill. But his disregard of financial principles, or rather his alternate adoption and repudiation of principles the most opposite, is a still more glaring offence. In the case of the French Treaty, he was wholly in favour of Reciprocity; in the case of the Paper-duties, he represented that it was right for us to abolish them without any attempt at obtaining reciprocity, and although some countries actually prohibited the export of the raw material of the manufacture! He reduced the duty on French wines on the ground that the reduction would benefit the morals of the working-classes, by enabling them to drink light wines instead of strong spirits; he now justifies his proposed reduction of the duty on tobacco on the very opposite principle—to wit, that a Chancellor of the Exchequer has nothing whatever to do with the morals or wellbeing of the people. His dogma for the hour is, that his only duty is to make the taxes as profitable as possible. We have shown that it is very doubtful if his present proposal will have that effect; but, in any case, how would his new dogma accord with his policy in the last two years in wholly abolishing the duties on paper and other commodities? He is the most dangerous Minister that has ever been intrusted with the management of the British finances. He has not only involved the country in an accumulation of deficits, but he has had the art to persuade Parliament to do this with its eyes open; while at the same time he leads it onward, with its eyes carefully bandaged, towards the goal of democratic finance—which of late years has become the cynosure of his policy, and which he knows would at once become unattainable if his real purpose were avowed.
Now that we are to have a surplus—in consequence of the Ministry at length adopting the views of the Opposition—the first duty which devolves upon the House of Commons is to retrieve the financial mistakes of the past, and to rid us of its burdens. What the Conservative leaders advocated last session was not reduction of taxation, but retrenchment of expenditure. The Government had incurred a deficit of £7,500,000 in two years, and the first thing to be thought of was, to reduce the expenditure, in order that the deficit might be cleared off. Let Mr Gladstone do this—let him clear off the serious deficits in his previous years of office; and then—but not till then—ought he to propound new reductions of the revenue. But such a businesslike proceeding would not make a sensation budget; it would not surround the Ministry with that bright gleam of popularity which is to retrieve their position, and carry them through another session of barrenness and humiliation. In all probability Mr Gladstone’s proposal is to ignore the past deficits, and devote the whole of his prospective surplus to the reduction of taxation. By a reduction of taxes the country is to be bribed into forgetfulness of the past, and rendered placable to the appeal for respite on the part of a falling Ministry. It is not to be expected that Mr Gladstone will confine his favours to tobacco: he must support his great remission of duty on this luxury by minor reductions on articles of more usefulness. While striking four shillings a-pound off tobacco, he will strike a few pence or farthings off the price of tea and sugar. In fact, he will probably, in his usual way, give a trifling sop all round, in order that he may be allowed to carry his great point in the reduction of the duties on tobacco. The House will do much better to abolish, or greatly reduce, the duties on hops and beer. Surely it is intolerable that foreign luxuries, like tobacco and French wines, should receive the favours of the Legislature, while the produce of our own soil and industry, constituting a healthy element of the national food, should be subjected to heavy taxation. This is a matter which affects urban constituencies as well as the agricultural interest. Put it to the vote in any town or county in the land, whether they will have five shillings a-pound struck off the duty on tobacco, or get the fiscal burdens removed from beer, and there cannot be a doubt that the whole suffrages would be given in favour of beer, and against tobacco. Therefore if Mr Gladstone—as is most likely—be resolved once more to play anad captandumgame, we trust the House of Commons will be on the alert to see that any possible reductions of taxation are effected on articles which enter largely into the food of the people, and not wasted—with what ulterior object, we need not repeat—upon an enormous remission on the duties on tobacco and cigars. But it still more behoves the House to see that Mr Gladstone’s previous deficits are cleared off. Mr Gladstone must put the finances in the condition in which they were when he took office. We do not presume he will venture to continue his practice of forestalling the revenue payments; but he has to refund the two millions which he abstracted from the balances in the Exchequer in the two years subsequent to March 1860, and he has also to pay off about half a million sterling which has been added to the National Debt during his present term of office. Let him do these things first; and then we will see how much he has to spare for promoting the introduction of cigars for the million! Let us clear off our past deficits, before, under the leadership of this financial sophist, we plunge into others that we know not of.
The past month has furnished a most singular proof of the want of sagacity which has characterised the commercial policy of the Whigs since 1847. On coming into office at that time, their only thought was, how to rival Sir R. Peel in his highly popular reforms of the tariff. Unable to equal him in administrative sagacity, they simply travestied his policy by carrying it to excess. They abolished or reduced customs-duties, and totally relinquished the Navigation Laws, without a thought of how the country would fare in its future commercial relations with other countries. Again and again they were warned that they were rashly and foolishly relinquishing a valuable vantage-ground without even attempting to obtain those advantages for our commerce which other countries would be willing to cede in return. What has been the consequence? The ‘Magazine’ has so often in former years predicted what would be the result, that we need not now go over the old ground. Fortunately the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs has told the tale of Ministerial failure so well, that his speech on Feb. 17, in answer to Mr Fitzgerald, completely substantiates the correctness of our old predictions. We print it here as furnishing ample matter for reflection to politicians on both sides of the House:—
“When the hon. member for Rochdale went to Paris to negotiate the French treaty, the first thing he was asked was, What had he to offer? If he had gone to Paris with his hands empty, it was not probable that he would have succeeded in obtaining the concessions which the French Government made to him. Fortunately, however, the hon. gentleman had much to offer. There were heavy duties on wine and other articles of French produce and manufactures, and in consideration of a reduction in those duties the French Government consented to various changes in their tariff which had proved very beneficial not only to this country but to France. It was necessary to bear in mind that in our domestic legislation we differed from France. We at once gave the whole world the benefit of the concessions which had been made to our ally. France, on the other hand, withheld from others the privileges she had conceded to us, and thus retained in her hands the means of bargaining with other Powers for mutual commercial concessions. When one nation sought any favour from another nation, there were various grounds on which the request might be based. An appeal might be made to the generosity of the other Power, but it was doubtful whether that would have much effect; or an appeal might be made to a treaty which gave the applicant the privileges of the most favoured nation, and a claim advanced for certain privileges which had been granted to another State. Therefore it was, above all things, desirable that when one had no concessions to offer in return for the advantages sought, some other Power, which possessed the means of bargaining, should commence the negotiations. That was the reason why France had been allowed to precede us in the present instance, and every concession which was made to her gave us a right to claim the same. If we had taken the initiative, the Italian Government would very naturally have said, ‘You have nothing to give us in exchange for what we give you, and if we freely concede your demands we shall be placed in a bad position in making terms with France.’ So far from Her Majesty’s Government not having endeavoured to make treaties of commerce with other nations, the fact was that there was scarcely a Power in Europe with whom negotiations had not been opened during the last year or two. The Belgian Government were asked to make a treaty of commerce with us, as they had done with France; and it was pointed out to them that it would be an unfriendly act, having entered into a treaty with France, to refuse to negotiate one with England. They replied by asking what we could give to them in return, and they suggested that if they gave to us what they had given to France, we [having nothing of our own to offer them] should consent to capitalise the Scheldt dues. Now, the capitalisation of the Scheldt dues had nothing whatever to do with a treaty of commerce, and our Government [nota bene, having nothing to bargain with!] at once refused to admit the principle of purchasing a treaty. [And yet, in the very year previous, they had “purchased” the treaty with France!]... The House was aware that last year the French Government were negotiating a treaty with Prussia and the Zollverein. As soon as that fact became known, our Government applied to Prussia and the Zollverein to make with us a similar treaty of commerce. The reply was precisely the same we received from Belgium—that negotiations could not be entered into with us until those in progress with France were concluded. France, it was said in effect, can give us an equivalent. You can give us none.”
During the present month the conflict of parties in the Legislature will be suspended as far as the business of the country will allow. The nation and its representatives will have little taste for polemical discussion during the month that is to witness the joyous event of the marriage of the heir-apparent to the throne. The country will be in jubilee, and London will be absorbed in the fêtes and royal ceremonial attendant upon the nuptials. The good wishes of all flow out to the young Prince and his Danish bride. The hopes of the nation centre in him. The hearty greetings of the people await him on this happy occasion. He has proved himself worthy of the esteem which he so fully enjoys. Since the days of the Black Prince, no heir to the throne has given so many happy auguries of his future. Unlike the peerless son of Edward III., we trust that he will be spared “long to reign over us,” after the evil hour for us when his royal mother shall exchange her earthly crown for a better one. Before the royal pageantries and popular illuminations begin, and the acclamations of the first nation in the world arise to greet him and his beautiful bride, we tender them our sympathies, our congratulations, and our best wishes for their happiness. The union promises to be a happy one for the royal pair. It is a present happiness, and we trust it will be a lasting comfort, to our beloved Queen. It is the first gleam of returning sunshine to her heart after the darkness of sorrow and bereavement which so suddenly settled down upon her fifteen months ago. We know no drawback upon the general joy. Even in a political point of view this alliance is fortunate, and desirable above any other that could be formed. The country is thrice happy to know that this is a union of hearts as well as of hands, and that the bride-elect possesses in an eminent degree those advantages of person, charms of manner, and piety and amiability of character, which captivate affection and secure domestic happiness. While as a good princess and queen she will win our hearts, it is an additional pleasure to feel that, as a Scandinavian Princess, she will rivet an old and national alliance, and draw into closer bonds the kindred races of the North.
Though there will be a temporary truce, we fear the conduct of the Government, whether as represented by Mr Gladstone or by Lord Russell, will not be such as the Conservative Opposition can approve. Even apart from its acts, the position of the Ministry is so unnatural, and its reputation so tarnished and discredited, that it cannot possibly hope for a much longer respite. Every week its position is becoming more untenable. In vain do its friends endeavour to frame apologies for its defeats and pleas for its existence. In vain does the leading journal at one time claim as a merit for the Premier that he has “no principles;” in vain does it, at another, seek to intimidate electors by declaring that “unprincipled constituencies make unscrupulous Governments.” We should have thought that “unprincipled constituencies” were the very ones to support a Premier with no “principles.” However, as the subsequent election at Totnes showed, the threat was no idle word: and Government influence and the most tyrannical pressure were employed to coerce the free action of that constituency. But this course also has failed. At Totnes the Government simply escaped defeat: Liberals were returned as Liberals had been before. But at Devonport, another pocket borough of the Ministry, the Government was defeated, and for the first time for several elections a Conservative headed the poll. Ministerial tyranny had been carried too far. It succeeded in the first instance, but would not be brooked in the second. The “unscrupulous Government” has received a check in the corrupt exercise of its powers which it can never forget. It was at once a triumph for Conservatism and for the principle of freedom of election. We do not wonder that Mr Ferrand, when he took his seat in the House, should be received with hearty acclamations from the Conservatives, who crowded the Opposition benches to do him honour. The Conservative party is now stronger by eleven votes—counting twenty-two on a division—since June 1859, when the united Whigs and Radicals succeeded in overthrowing Lord Derby’s Government by a majority of only thirteen.
It is amusing to see the subterfuges by which the Whigs seek to conceal their discomfiture. Feeling themselves going downhill very fast, disintegrating, expiring, they cry out that “there are no parties nowadays.” Some of them even go the length of saying that there are “no principles;” the correctness of which statement we shall not dispute as regards themselves. They should know best; and, indeed, as all their old principles are dead and gone, dismissed into the limbo of vanities, we do not see how they can have any left. It is certainly suspicious that the Whigs should have innocently discovered that the age of party is past, at the very time that the Tory party has regained its old ascendancy in the Legislature. Plain people will not be at a loss to assign a reason. The Whigs as a party are extinct, and, like Chesterfield and Tyrawley, “they don’t wish it to be known.” The only thing that can keep the Whigs alive in the imagination of the public, is to show that party is dead. Happily the country has only to look at the Opposition side of the House to see that the Tory party is alive, and exuberant in strength and hope. It is fortunate for the interests of the State that they are so. The main attack upon the bulwarks of the Constitution has been decisively repulsed—the legions of “Reform” have been scattered in such hopeless rout that their leaders have thrown away their standards and disavow their cause. But the fight still goes on against another front of the Constitution, which, until lately, was but ill defended. This combat, so interesting and important, is itself a test of party; and seldom have the organisation and discipline of party been more strikingly displayed than in this keen warfare. Party dead! No, truly. “An opinion has been industriously promulgated of late,” justly observes a contemporary,[12]“that party distinctions have ceased in public life, and that there are no contested principles between the two great political connections of the State. Yet simultaneous with the propagation of this doctrine has been the most systematic and successful assault in Parliament upon the Church of England that it has encountered since 1640.” Repulsed from the political front of the Constitution, the waves of combat still dash furiously against our religious institutions. It is time that the Conservatives should overthrow the enemies of the Constitution in this quarter also by a decisive victory. It will be their crowning triumph. In truth there is no other beyond it. When they have terminated this combat, the Conservative triumph is complete in the Legislature, as it already is in the country. The Church is part and parcel of the British Constitution; and very heartily do we approve of our ecclesiastical contemporary’s exhortations to Churchmen to look after their special interests. The Church is a party question, like any other; and in the intense competition of a constitutional country, the Church must organise its press, like the other institutions of the land.
There is a good time coming sure enough, and the cause of its coming is easily understood. The Conservative party are superior alike in sincerity and in statesmanlike ability to the party which has so long prided itself in the advocacy of organic changes. Moreover, they represent the normal feeling of Englishmen. Conservatism is the distinguishing feature of the British character. The public of this country has no love for those theoretic ideals of government, those paper-constitutions, which have so often fascinated and brought misery upon other nations. The reign of Innovation is ever short-lived with us; and the supremacy of the party who represent that principle must be equally transitory. The Whig party, who became champions of innovation in order to regain the power which they had lost, now find that their old vantage-ground has slipped from under them. They have had their day as rough-hewers of the Constitution, and now give place again to the more masterly artists who know how to chisel the marble while preserving the lineaments of the noble design. This natural decline of the Reform party has been rendered more inevitable by the very efforts they have made to maintain themselves in power. Everything portends the speedy ascendancy of the Conservative party in Parliament; and the leaders of the party are the very men to lend to such a cause the lustre of personal renown. Derby, Malmesbury, Disraeli, Bulwer Lytton, Pakington, Walpole, Stanley, Cairns, Whiteside, are names of which any party and any cause might be proud. They have the advantage of years, too, on their side; for, compared with their rivals, they are all in the vigour of life, and in the prime of states-manhood. The tide of public opinion has long been rising in their favour, and they have not long to wait. They are strong, and therefore are calm; they are patriotic, and will not imitate the factious tactics of their rivals. But their final success is at hand; and their triumph will be all the more glorious, inasmuch as it promises to partake less of the character of a party-victory, than of an ovation offered to them by the whole enlightened classes of the community.