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THE CRISIS . For some days England has been under the rule of a Provisional Government . Lord John Russell suddenly converted his Cabinet into a Provisional Administration , There was no obvious necessity for the rash act ; no blow had yet been aimed at it severer than Whig Cabinets have been accustomed to bear ; but the Executive of the countrybroke down through sheer failure of Government . It could not go on . It was not killed , but died of decline . And when the duty was fchus cast upon the Crown of providing a new Administration , Queen Victoria experienced the utmost difficulty in finding any man ready to take Lord John's place . The crisis continued without any obvious reason , and every day was expected to plunge the country into confusion through the sheer incompetency of any party to take a fair hold of " power . " Not a man felt himself to be strong enough . The little difficulties * the small motives , which actuated our statesmen at the juncture , exhibit their pigmy state , and show what sort of degenerate men it is that we have ruling at the top of this great nation . The stories current in lobby and club may not all be strictly " correct , " but that some of them are substantially true , that all picture the real truth , we know . Much mystification was created by the act of Mr . Disraeli in doing what people have popularly called " giving Lord John the lie " : Lord John had stated in the House
of Commons , on Monday , that Lord Stanlejr had declared himself " not then prepared to form an Administration "; Mr . Disraeli intimated that that was not a true statement ; and Lord John appealed to Lord Stanley . It is observed that Lord Lansdowne made the same statement in the House of Lords uncontradicted by Lord Stanley ; but we observe that . Lord Lansdowne thanked the other for his "forbearance . " What , then , was the suppression of truth in Lord John ' s statement ? It is understood to be that he
suppressed the terms which supplied Lord Stanley ' s reason for declining—that the Queen refused to grant a dissolution of Parliament because it would spoil Prince Albert ' s Exposition of Industry ! It is not probable , indeed , that the Queen would give so " unconstitutional" a reason , but much more likely that a fear of confusion at that busy and crowded season was the real motive . Much has been said in club and drawing-room of the discrepancy chronological between the fact and Lord John ' s statement that he resigned on Saturday ; whereas he is said to have resigned on Friday , in a huff , without the knowledge of all his colleagues : and his friends arc not slow to circulate an anecdote confuting his statement : it is related how he
met a junior Lord of the ireasury , going down to tho llousc on Saturday , and considerately said , " You need not go down unless you like : I have resigned . " Lord Lansdowne supplies the explanation : the ormal resignation was made on Saturday , but on Friday " her Majesty was" led to believe it was probable her Majesty ' s servants would resign on the day following : " ko that Lord John had virtually re-signed on Friday . Besides the ridicule thrown upon hi . s colleague ' s budget , the close division on Mr . 1 , ) iHiueli ' s motion , the total rout on Mr .
Locke King ' s , the desertion of Irish allies alienated by bin Anti-Papal Hill , and the defection of Con-Hftrvative allies no longer able to keep up the damaging acquaintance—besides those public events which rendered the future formidable to Lord John ' s view , one slight occurrence is understood to have Htung him to his sudden resolve : Mr . Cobden had ventured , in the name of " tho country , " to express satisfaction at the suffrage measure which Lord John \\ iu \ promised if he wore in office ' next session ! " and Mr . King seemed so far impressed by the Radical approbation of Lord John ' s
pledge that he looked as if he meditated a fulfilment of it by abstaining to press his motion ; but a free-trader not less distinguished than Mr . Cobden , —a sturdy man , whose very prejudices partake of the stoutness of the old Puritan Commonwealthman , cried , in a loud voice / ' Don ' t trust him " : Lord John looked angrily towards the speaker . As the division approached , Sir James Graham—object of so many speculations—deliberately took his hat and walked out . That Lord . John might have obviated the fatal embarrassment which brought on his downfal , is tolerably certain , if he had only possessed the strength of will so erroneously ascribed to occasional fits of vehemence . That Mr . Herries had
come to a conclusion in favour of remitting the Income-tax was known , known that the Stanley party had deliberately accepted Mr . Herries ' s view . It also became known that Sir James Graham had been attending to matters of finance , and by an independent process of calculation had come to the same conclusion with Mr . Herries . Lord John heard of this instinctive , coincidence of opinion ; "Let us take that , ' he said ; but Sir Charles Wood , wiser in his generation , refused—and produced the Wood budget ! Lord John is not answerable for that invention , but he is responsible for permitting it ; and the more he disapproved of it , the more does his permission stamp him with incompetency to command .
• Such have been the little motives and small difficulties besetting that class which arrogates to itself the privilege of supplying our rulers . The old Ministry broke 'down like an old cart on the smoothest of roads , foundered like an old ship in a calm ; and when Queen Victoria wanted a new Ministry , . not a man felt strong enough to undertake the office of forming it . For some hours , it was supposed that Lord John would get rid of Sir Charles and his budget , and patch up his crazy Administration with a Graham alliance ; but what could he have done with his poor Anti-Papal Bill ;
or how could Sir James have consented to govern Ireland in conjunction with "Lord Mumme , ry John , " how consent to be party to such a suffrage bill as could pass through Lord John's little hand ? Lord Stanley was " sent for , " but he hesitated : how was he to avoid an attempt at renewing " Protection , "how to succeed in any such wild revulsion ? The Queen sent for Lord Aberdeen : how could he follow suit on the Continent after Lord Paiinerston ; why should Europe be handed over to him , when the
Liberal Viscount had helped to get it into the Absolutist entanglement which is preparing another inevitable revolution ? One journal modestly hinted that Lord John might have found strength in a recruitment from " the more advanced section " of the free-trade party , and people were thinking that the hundred headed by Cobden and Hume might have crept into a share of office : but what public strength has that party ? Its strongest men , just now , are gagged by its more timid " average . "
In fact , there is no party that is strong in the confidence of the People , not one . The Financial Reformers might have obtained a good position out of doors , in their " Parliamentary" avatar ; but they too are the victims of " averages , " and the manifesto which they have just put forth is so clipped and softened that it cannot possibly attract a single acclaim of popular feeling . Lord John himself might have issued it .
Not one party leader possesses the strength derived from the confidence of the People , because not one has thrown himself upon the People . Not one has devoted himself to material reforms which would , directly and manifestly , conduce to the comfort of the great body of the People . Not one that has not studiously hold back from complying with tho long and clearly expressed \ vinhes of tho People . Not one that could go forth Haying , " 1
will be your leader , " and ho carried into of lice on the shoulders of the People . Public men are now feeling the inconvenience of forgetting or studiously omitting the People from their plans : we have had a political crisis , the part of the People omitted by apecial desire , and not u party has found itself able to command : it has been a miserable conflict of tea parties . Such in the degenerate Htato of England in her public men .
The Future ?— -It is dark to alt the political parties whose Leaders expect to be " sont for . " The same difficulties which have hind red the construction of a Cabinet paralyse the future action of pftrtins . Any Ministry with Lord John Runsell at its head can linrrtly fling ovtfr his Anti-Papal Hill , and must , therefore , face civil war with Ireland . fWe have
enemies on . -the Continent . ] The Protectionists must try Protection—with a new Free-trade commotion . The Peel lieutenants have done nothing to acquire a position or following—they can only enter office on speculation : and would Mr . Gladstone consent to satisf y the Protestant furor which Lord John has raised ? The Radicals , call them by what name you will , are known to the People as those who studiouslv keep short of truly popular
measures . Now is the time for some stronger men to come forward , if such men there are . Any one with will strong enough and heart bold enough to make the appeal , ingenuously and clearly , could have the support of the largest of all parties—the People . Such a man would save the country from the confusion which weaker men can provoke but cannot avert .
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RIGHT OF ASYLUM IN SWITZERLAND . Reaction is making the tour of Europe . All bends or breaks before it . It has now taken the last bulwark by storm . The turn has come for Switzerland . Little or nothing is known of the designs of the German powers , great or small , against the Swiss Confederacy . There were hundreds of thousands gathering on the frontiers of Baden and Bavaria . The bullying , at any rate , has been prodigious . Switzerland , we grieve to say , knows neither how to resist with spirit , nor how to yield with dignity . With the internal affairs of the country , with the various experiments that arebeing applied , both to the Central Government and to the constitutions of the
several Cantons , Nicholas of Russia himself would not venture to interfere . Swiss democracy is even more venerable by age than Russian autocracy . It is woven into the great web of European policy . It lives by sheer force of Conservatism . Nor is the question of Neufchatel of greater moment . Prussia has enough to do to keep the breath in her own body . She has gambled away her great destiny : made her own name and that of Germany a bye-word among nations . Were she
ever so strongly backed by insidious Austria , were she ever so tempted by the faction of purse-proud watch and trinket-makers in the old Principality itself , she could not seriously dream of a revindication of her unmeaning titles over that petty territory . It would be here the case to repeat the words of Louis XIV ., when the Genoese came to negotiate for the cession of their country to the French crown , " Vous vous donnez a inoi , et inoi je vous donne au diable "
No , no ; the real point at issue is simply this . Is Switzerland to continue in the enjoyment of unlimited right of . asylum ? Are the " mischiefmakers " of all nations to establish their headquarters amongst the mountain fastnesses of the central European chain , hence to organize expeditions and perpetuate civil wars ? Austria and Germany , occasionally also France and Sardinia , contend that it should not be suffered . The Swiss Diet itself shifts and shuttles , stands up for her rights to day , and gives in on the morrow .
Ihe question , he it observed , is neither new nor accidental . Remonstrances , threats , actual violence , have equally been resorted to against Switzerland in the palmy days of Guizot and Mettemich . The Diet had to parry tho thrusts of Conservative diplomacy as it best could , by shifts and dodges , by anything but a manly arid straightforward course . The refugee that waa nominally banished from Geneva was allowed to play hide and seek at Lausanne . The printing-press that was broken u ]> at Lugano came out with redoubled activity at Capolago . Between the time-serving Diet and its blustering neighbours there was a kind of drawn game , certainly neither fair nor dignified .
Nor is Switzerland , seemingly , now in a condition to look her difficulties full in the face . She seeks to evade , not to define and determine , the law of nations . She knows not how to choose between her interest and her honour . She forgets that refufredH are her guests , not her prisoners ; that she has no right to confine them to a peculiar district , to prevent them from choosing their own residence , pursuing their own course , forwarding their own objects , subject to no restraint , save only the laws of the country . Switzerland ( mould not legiHluto for the benefit of Havana or Austria . So fttr as individual liberty and freedom - of the press are concerned the Htxanger within her doors muni be put on a par with her own citizens . It is not just that it should be otherwise — it in not expedient -it i « not practicable . Doe « it not exceed all limits of absurdity to hear France ,
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There is nothing so revolutionary , because there ia nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —Dr . Arnold .
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SATURDAY , MARCH 1 , 1851 .
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March 1 , 1851 . ] & £ ^ fLtaii tt . 199
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Leader (1850-1860), March 1, 1851, page 199, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1872/page/11/
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