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    THE PRIVILEGES OF THE COMMONS.

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    Now his failure i 3 plainly and exclusively due to the complexity , vastness , and inconsistencies of his scheme . Since February trade has increased , and the revenue has increased . The whole ' nation is now extremely prosperous . 3 £ v < ju the shipping ittterest las ceased to grumble . In the first three months of the year , ifehe IBritish tonnage entered inwards and outwards was 133 , 95 . 2 tons in excass of 18 5 9 . The warehouses of Liverpool are insufficient for ifche imports ; the capitalists < of Lancashire want labourers ; the farmers want hamls , and there is every probability that the revenue will exceed in the ensuing year , as it exceeded in the year which has just elapsed , the Chancellok ' s -estxuaates . What is it then which , in spite of Mr . Gladstone's great talents and commanding eloquence , makes him always fail ? 4

    The man seems to us a series of contradictions , lie was educated in the diligence of the eounting-rhouse and the Toryism of Oxford . He can master minute points of . grammar and casuistry , but not great principles . His . mind is extremely subtle , but not profound . It was imbued with . servility to authority when t hat was the fashion , while his public life has been a constrained submission to principles of freedom . These he was bred up to counteract , and . cannot therefore understand them . His reverence for- ' the'doctrines of the Church exceeds his reverence

    cellor of the Exchequer is emphatically , in these quiet times , to be rather a damper than a stoker . Could Earls Cowpeb and SHAJFTJ 3 SBUB . Y , with other friends -of Lord . Palmehstox , have warned him' of the rock ahead befone voting iigaiast hiiia , he might have been served and saved . Had « oine TuEVEiLyAN started up with authority from amongst Ibis colleagues some eight or ten weeks ago , and explained to the Hawse .-of Commons and the public the probable conseq . uen'ces of Mr . Ox a © stone's

    liiirhly-recoinmended scheme , the country would have been spared great inconvenience , considerable trouble , and some disgrace . Had it been supposed that the maintenance of his mellifluous infallibility was the one thing needful , such a Tbevelyan would have been summarily dismissed , and Mr . Gladstone would liave continued to be the idol of the House of Commons , though it might have led to the revolutionising of the country . " Infallible men administering a faulty system are very analogous to the Inquisitors of a former day , and can only be preserved in power by injustice and crueltv .

    for the rights of huuranitryv Obliged by circumstanoes to profess liberality , or cease to be a politician , he desires one thing and is compelled to do another . The teaching of college and the teaching of the world have given him" -a double aim , which he cannot reconcile . Excessively active , and equally ambitious , he is continually engaged in finding out and expressing reasons for contradictory lines of policy . He has always apparently more to hide than to express , and confuses himself as well as his hearers by his many explanations .

    * His capacity is great , but being neither a stubborn adherent to usage , nor an enlightened advocate of progress—for ever trimming betwixt them , liei is for ever employed in a subtle advocacy of the side he for the moment -embraces . Sach a man is more sure to get the Government into difficulties than carry it successfully through them . Our system is by no means perfect , and his ambitious activity , shooting out in all directions , only makes anomalies more sticking . It may indeed be doubted , from his example , and the example of the two clever men who are now at wordy war in India , whether the system be not rather endangered than served by having skilful , active , ambitious administrators . Certain it is , that since it has become the

    practice to educate official men with increased care , and import into the public service talents from other quarters , the deficiencies of the system have been made extremely palpable . Mr , Gladstone is a type of a class of highly educated officials . They are more clever than wise , and better acquainted with what has been done , 4 h-an—with-the-enlarged--pr-ineiptes-by-which—niodewi—statesmen must guide their conduct . If it be true that Mr . Gladstone omitted all consideration of poundage in estimating the yield of the income tax , and so overstated the amount , we must infer that lie is better acquainted with , the writings of Homer , and the doctrines of the 'Church , than with the business of the country . Nevertheless , lie is one of the cleverest of the lot , and his repeated failures are bringing the whole to their proper level .

    A Custom House commissioner , or a clerk of the Inland Re venue Office , might know as well as Mr . Gladstone that it was xight to remove trifling duties from the tariftVarid get rid of the excise on paper ; bvit a statesman , taking all the circum . stanqes of the -country into his consideration , should know the proper time and proper mode of doing either . Mr . Gladstone had quite < euaugli on his hands ,, us we « aid tUrac ¦ Hioaiths ago ., to meet the exigencies forced on him hy the o © minereinl treaty , without introducing a heap of other itiscnl changes . He was bound to . know the men aaul the circumstances with which he had to deal , aa well as the amount of revenue required , and the best means to raise it in the present y « u \ He was bound ,

    therefore ,. so to steer his course as to carry his measures ,,. and carry the . ministerial bark successfully to the end of the sessional voyage . Instead of whipping ivp the House of 'Commons and the press into a ( paroxysm of enthusiasm by liie unrivalled oratory in iawour of . a confused , contradictory , and impracfcicabile budget , it was his business to consider all the obstacles iu his path , J , io wp aa . mucli . led « wt » y « it is now evident , by > his own eloquence as iiis . auditory , and has done great injury to the cause and the party he ought to -have served . lie hits dumaged the House of ConunonB by inducing it to support what itumns out to be an imprncticablo measure . He is too subtle few this plain world , and to be inxsitcoeesful in an -expedient politician is antiunount to being drinunnl .

    Ma \ LtLivdstoniK hns the same nun-it us Mr , Srfiruarccm . Ho tarries away his ihenrers from practical matters , mid Jtmves ^ hieni vith a sorrowful conviction that eloquence is very ( Etforeirt Orcmi vistiam . It is « good motor , but n wad guide ; imd the Chan-

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    fjMHE day before the Lords rejected the Bill for the repeal of JL the paper duties by a majority of 89 , speculations were rife as to the result of the division , and it was considered that no striking defeat of the Government measure would take place , unless Lord Palm erston was , if not actually privy to it , at least not hostile to such a result . An examination of the division list , arid a perusal of the Premier ' s announcement on Tuesday , coituteuance this supposition . It is inconceivable that a large number of Lord Pal-steuston ' s friends , including his relative and ecclesiastical patronage dispenser , Lord SHAFTEsiiURYj should have opposed the Bill , unless they had felt certain that they could reckon upon the indifference , if not the active support of their chief ; andmany newspapers , representing reactionary views , at once expressed their confidence . ' that " the Government would

    take the matter as quietly as possible . The House of Commons and the country were entitled to a distmct and definite announcement of ministerial plans , but were pi ' it off by LordPALMjeusTON in a . manner that justifies grave suspicion concerning the integrity of his intentioTisr if committee is-to seek for precedents , and ' ¦ " Hew Majesty ' s Government disclaims any intention of taking any step that would be calculated to place the two Houses in a state of hostility . " No one will expect that Lord -Palmeustox or any other premier should endeavour to create hostility between different portions of the Legislature ; but a patriotic minister would acknowledge the gravity of the occasion , and throw upon the 'hereditary llanse the odium and the . danger of any collision which its own . conduct provoked . The question at issue is a far larger and graver one than the good or linriii likelv to follow from the

    - . abandonment" ©! a source of revenue , or fhe ' reinovarol an excise tax from a particular couunodity . The House of Lords hns , no doubt a theoretical right to reject any money bill , but the House of Commons $ ias an equal right to sfco | 3 the supplies until the Croivn ihas made a sufficient batch of new peers to bring the old ones to tlicar senses . The hereditary peei-age of England is a dirious ¦ anomaly , and must long ago have been replaced by an ¦ elective Upper Chamber , if its mein'bei's 'had not quietly surrendered claims and privileges which were incompatible with the growing weailt'h and intelligence of the Commons . .

    Lord Ltndhckst explained that the-Lords had abandoned . their old claim to alter and originate money bills , -simply because they icauM not help it , and "it was idle to insist irpon privileges winch t'hoy had no power to enforce . " The noble Earl , proceeded to Tivulicaifcu thoir aolion on the j > resent occasion ,. 'by citing a few cases in which bills for the repeal of taxntion , whieh had passed the Commons , wer « rejected liy the Lords , and Lord Ckais' worth replied ; b y denying t'hnt any of the instances were really to tho point . The question is , howevftr , one tlnit cnnaiot be decided by antiquarian researches . Constitntionnl law rrmst ha viewed in the digiht of the times in which we live ; and when n budget has been iput together , whether ekill ' ully or not , in such n manner thai levying taxation in one irlnoo corresponds witfli its rerluotion or tibnudomnont in nnother , the iflousc of Commons will he untrue of

    to t ; he principles of popnlnr liberty , and ^ mmindful its own dignity , if it pennrts the 'hereditary nnd irrcsponsi'blc tTpper ¦ Chamber to-ncoopt Uto propoerM'k to 'levy now taxation , and at the same time ( to rt'ject those . of an . opposh ' te kind . To claim , in these dlnys , ibr-flvc lionsc oT Peers n ng-ht to lay 1 > nrdens on the poopkj , . and interoqjt menaures of relief , is to adopt n conrscj ivhich must ewdl ; in conflict between popular power mid tl >« pretensions of a privileged class , in whiefh there can be no doubt as to tlve irnml result .

    Lord Chanwobth affiiwod , 1 'hat if tho- eourae nrlrocrrted by Lrorola MofN ^ EAGPLK , liYXtDutT'jtfiT , nnd Druhy " was not unicoMBtitutionnl , it was ¦ so thrnly eopurflted fr '(» n it , that the cHtterence wquM be wimfeMiffibio . "

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    4 ^ 3 The Leader € md Sddmrla ^ ' ^^^ . fMAY 26 , IS 60 .

    The Privileges Of The Commons.

    THE PRIVILEGES OF THE COMMONS .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 26, 1860, page 488, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2349/page/4/