In our opinion, the country has answered these questions decidedly in the affirmative, and thereby placed firmly in power an able, united, Protestant Conservative Government. It is easy for newspapers, day after day, and week after week, to repeat the cuckoo cry that Ministers are impostors, and that their policy is, in the vulgar phraseology of the hour, “a sham.” The progress and the result of the general election of 1852 demonstrate that these paper pellets cannot batter down the rock of national firmness and good sense. Had it been otherwise, Ministers must have fallen ignominiously within the first week of their presuming to take office; for the wordy batteries of the “Liberal” press have been blazing upon them, double-shotted, from morning to night ever since. Yet the Funds have never gone down, and Ministers remain in their places, not with downcast looks and desponding hearts, but with cheerful confidence and resolution, satisfied that the voice of the nation has pronounced in their favour, and has also declared that it will regard their acts with indulgence and forbearance, and will not tolerate faction or intrigue. There is now a fair prospect that a united and powerful Government may do incalculable good to the country and the Sovereign which has called that Government into existence. Its mission is to act, where its predecessor could only talk; to consolidate and strengthen, where that predecessor could only disturb and unsettle; to terminate the wretched strife of classes, by a just, cautious, firm, and comprehensive policy. Its mission is, further, to repel the insolent advances of Democracy and Popery, which will now find that the day of vacillation and vicious concession has passed away. We say it with pain, that we believe the interests of Protestantism are no longer safe in the keeping of Lord John Russell, though individually he may be true at heart in his abhorrence of the wicked and tyrannical spirit of Popery; but his political exigencies have fettered his will, and chilled his spirit. His fondness of power inclines him to compromises and sacrifices, which very often look only too like sacrifice of principle and conviction. In like manner we fear him in his dalliance with Democracy. In tampering with the great political adjustment of 1832, he is seen standing irresolutely with his foot upon the steep inclined plane which leads to confusion and anarchy, surrounded by those who are incessantly goading and jogging him into commencing the descent. We believe that in his heart he despises the clique of Cobden, Bright, &c.; he has in fact contemptuously told them so to their very faces;[[20]] yet are we grievously apprehensive that he is now prepared to join them, faintly protesting, but suffering them to impel him infinitely further than he himself thinks it safe or wise to go. That he has lost the confidence of the country, few will question; and is that confidence now extended to Sir James Graham? His recent career, especially his undisguised sympathy with Popery, would at once irritate and alarm the country, if it saw his advent to power a probable event; and, indeed, he must have gazed with dismay on the successive disappearance from Parliament of so many of those to whom he had recently allied himself, in reliance on their efforts to consolidate and work his influence. A very few months, perhaps a few weeks, will see the erratic baronet the close ally of the Manchester School—at once its leader and follower; he will declare for a perilous extension of the suffrage, and support it with powerful and plausible arguments, but, at the same time, with that semblance of dignified candour and moderation, which he has been latterly showing such anxiety to assume, and acquire credit for. He will co-operate with Mr Cobden, very quietly at first, to reorganise the Liberal party; and if their efforts obtain any considerable share of popularity, Sir James will be seen one of the most eager and swift in the race towards the goal of revolution. Both he, Mr Cobden, and Sir Charles Wood, at present know well that they have grievously lost ground in the country, and that what they have so lost is now in the possession of Lord Derby and his Government.
Of one thing we are quite certain, that Ministers will not meet the new Parliament unprepared to carry into vigorous operation a well-considered and determinate policy, which will abundantly satisfy any degree of reasonable expectation. Nor shall we be surprised to see them disposed to bring matters to a speedy issue, if encountered by factious opposition, come from what quarter it may, and disguised under never so specious an aspect. Those interests which have suffered so severely from precipitate legislation, will be well represented in the new House of Commons, and have to deal with a friendly Ministry, which it will be at once their interest and their duty to support steadily, against all hostile and sinister combinations. The cause of law reform will be safe in their hands; nay, the first four months of their existence have shown that it cannot be in better hands, and we venture to deny that it can be in any other hands so good as theirs. They have indeed shown a thorough heartiness in the sacred cause of law and justice; and what they have already done in this great department, of itself is sufficient for ever to signalise their hitherto brief tenure of power. We shall not concern ourselves, nor amuse our readers, by speculations as to the precise number of supporters with whom the election returns are rapidly surrounding Lord Derby and his Government. It is now, as we have already stated, upwards of a week ago since the present Chancellor of the Exchequer distinctly declared in public, that the Government “would meet Parliament, in the autumn, with an absolute majority;” and we are not aware of a single journal that has ventured to contradict the statement. Every day’s returns tend to corroborate more and more strongly the truth of that statement, which was one calculated to challenge vehement contradiction, could it have been given consistently with fact. There was a will, but no way, to do so. Our own over-zealous friends may have been too sanguine in their expectations, and hasty in their calculations; but those of our opponents, at least of the more eager and unscrupulous, are preposterous, impeaching their good faith, or their capacity as political observers. We entertain no misgivings as to the position and reception of Ministers in the new Parliament. Their majority, on vexed questions, may not be large, but it will be sufficient; and against faction, it will be decisive.
What, then, was the question which has been put to the constituencies, and answered? It was not that of Free Trade or Protection. The question was one of a far wider description. Lord Derby, in February last, stated in terms the question which he sought to have answered; a question not of details, but of principles, relying on the estimate formed of his character by the country, for its allowing him to carry these principles into operation.
“These are the PRINCIPLES on which I shall make my appeal on behalf of myself and colleagues. We are threatened with far more serious difficulties than opposition to a five shilling, six shilling, or seven shilling duty on corn. It is a QUESTION, whether the Government of this country can be carried on, and on what principles, and through what medium. Will you support a Government which is against hostile attacks; which will maintain the peace of the world; which will uphold the Protestant institutions of the country; which will give strength and increased power to religious and moral education throughout the land; and which will exert itself, moreover, I will not hesitate to say, to oppose some barrier against the current, continually encroaching, of democratic influence, which would throw power nominally into the hands of the masses, practically into those of the demagogues who lead them?”
This was, indeed, a Great Question, and it has been Answered satisfactorily to all lovers of constitutional freedom.
Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh
[1]. Reise nach Persien und dem Lande der Kurden. Von Moritz Wagner, 2 vols. Leipzig: Arnold. London: Williams & Norgate. 1852.
[2]. “Ararat and the Armenian Highlands.” Blackwood’s Magazine, No. CCCCIII.
[3]. “Caucasus and the Land of the Cossacks.” Blackwood’s Magazine, No. CCCC.