Page images
PDF
EPUB

that it is so. Next come those who, though men of respectable capacity and moderate education, are not of the calibre of which ministers are made, and whom no one would dream of appointing; and the mere agitators, the needy, noisy, and unprincipled, whose claims are entertained by nobody but their own dupes and associates; and who, though comparatively few just now, are not always an insignificant portion of the representatives of the sister island. A much larger number of the ineligible, or rather the inaccessible, consist of men of business or professional men, who are engrossed by the various occupations of life, and who can spare their nights but not their days to the public service. It is towards this class that the public appetency at present points. It is thought that men engaged and trained in great commercial or associated undertakings, would probably display the governing and administrative faculties so much desiderated. But how few of these could be persuaded to enter the public service as ministers! How could we make it worth their while to abandon a regular, permanent, and lucrative vocation for a temporary and comparatively ill-paid position?* Successful lawyers, merchants, or railway directors, carry their abilities to a better market. They cannot be tempted by the poor rewards which

"I believe it is a well-known fact that my Lord Palmerston offered a Privy Councillor's office to Mr. Laing, the member for the Wick burghs, and, as Mr. Laing happens to be a gentleman whom I well know, I will give your lordships a short sketch of what his life has been. That gentleman took high honours at Cambridge; he went into the law; he then accepted a clerkship in the Board of Trade; after a short time he left the Board of Trade in order to try his chance in his profession, and that he was not long in making his way is evident from the fact that in that year he received in professional gains exactly ten times the amount he received under the civil service of the crown. He saved one company from almost a state of bankruptcy and restored it to a flourishing condition, and he is now at the head of perhaps the most remarkable enterprise ever known. I quite agree that is exactly the man to assist you in organizing offices which want organization; but, when he was asked, he gave exactly the same answer as was given by one of a firm of eminent merchants to the noble earl (Lord Derby), that he had consulted with those with whom he was connected in business, and at present it was impossible to accept political office. I have in my head at this moment a list of mercantile men, contractors, civil engineers, and others -men with whom I would as soon transact business as with any one; and I cannot conscientiously say with certainty that any one of them would be foolish enough to give up their professional career and mercantile business for the temporary occupation of political office. I do not mention this circumstance because I think no person may be made available to the public service. I do not agree with the noble earl as to the paucity of men in the House of Commons of a character to strengthen very much any government to which they may adhere. But I wish to correct a misapprehension that it is not simply the want of the offer which prevents men-the most eminent and distinguished in private business from ever being available to the public service."-Speech of Lord Granville's, May 14, 1855.

alone we offer the moderate, uncertain, and hourly jeopardized emolument—the loss of personal liberty-the fettered instead of the free power of action-the suspicious vigilance, the incessant warfare, the thankless servitude. Finally, you must make abstraction-before your list of candidates is reduced to its practical elements-of that numerous class in Parliament who are men of wealth and ease, whom ambition does not goad, whom office cannot dazzle, whose social position is too comfortable and too considered to be hazarded for the possibility of failure; and who have too selfish or too magnanimous a sagacity, too true and keen an appreciation of the real value of political distinctions-how shadowy the power, how substantial the sacrifice to be caught by the glittering bauble or deluded into the turbulent arena.

Fourthly. But even these erasures and limitations, sweeping as they are, are far from being the only ones. The House of Commons contains several men of eminence, ability, and ambition, who yet are seldom available for ministerial careers. They are men who have entered Parliament, perhaps in middle life, without either the political training or the preliminary education which are required for the successful handling of official functions; who have been chosen by their fellow-citizens for their proved sagacity, their success in business, or perhaps their energetic advocacy of some great popular doctrine; and who have made themselves a position in Parliament by their peculiar ability, or by their special opinions. Such are Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden. Such perhaps is, or may be, Mr. Layard. The position of these men is peculiar and somewhat anomalous. They have a substantive and high political rank. They are leaders. They are eminent and they are not young. A minister could not offer the two first of them, at least, any office that did not involve a seat in the cabinet, because this would bind them to the advocacy and practice of measures in the decision of which they had no voice: the proposal would be scarcely respectful, and its acceptance would be perilous and undignified. You could not expect men of their eminence and years to commence an apprenticeship to statesmanship as under-secretaries, especially coupled, as such position almost invariably is, with the understanding that they are generally to be silent unless called upon-that is, to abstain from the exercise of the very gift to which they owe their elevation. Yet, on the other hand, we instinctively feel that they have made it difficult, if not impossible, to admit them on equal terms into any cabinet. Their violence and superficiality, on several occasions, have shut the door of office in their own faces. With natural abilities of the very first order, with capacity and diligence and business habits

that would make them invaluable administrators, they are too committed to extreme and extravagant views; their minds are too unenlarged and unchastened by a profound and liberal culture; their notions of foreign policy, especially, have been too wild and shallow; they have often shown too much of the demagogue and too little of the statesman; and (we speak with all possible respect and regret) their tone and language are too habitually rough and overbearing, to make them feasible constituents of any cabinet in which they were not supreme and predominant; and assuredly the country is not yet prepared to be altogether governed upon their principles, and by men of their manners and calibre.

Fifthly. When all these disqualifications have been listened to, and the body to which the minister of the day is restricted in his choice of colleagues has been decimated accordingly, it will be found that the list of eligible candidates remaining is by no means large. But it has still to undergo one further reduction: those members of the House of Commons only can be chosen whose seats are secure. The inconvenience of this fetter is felt on every ministerial crisis; and those only who have "assisted" at the concoction of a new administration can know how often this necessity of re-election prevents "the right men" from being appointed to "the right places."

Now, surely the above limitations on ministerial choicewhich (except the first and the last) may be regarded as unavoidable-might have been deemed ample without any aggravation; but they are additionally and needlessly enhanced by two further restrictions, for which the nation only can be held answerable.

As the constitution now stands, a minister can choose only out of the materials submitted to him by the country. According as these are rich and abundant will, probably, his selection be satisfactory or meagre. Now it cannot be denied that the great Reform Bill, while effecting many needed and salutary changes, cut off one fertile source of supply. By destroying the close boroughs it grubbed up a valuable and prolific nursery of future statesmen. We are far from wishing to undo that clause of a just and popular enactment; but it is not the less true that it created a deficiency which hitherto nothing has been done to make good. The close boroughs introduced into Parliament a number of young men of consummate training and eminent ability, who entered the public arena with the design of making politics their study, and practical statesmanship the business of their lives. They were very generally selected by the patrons of those boroughs as having already displayed energy and talent which pro

mised to be of signal service to their party. They were usually hampered by no pledges to this or that special opinion formed at an age when their knowledge was as yet scanty, and their judgment immature. They devoted themselves to a sort of apprenticeship, in the course of which they acquired that mastery over parliamentary tactics, and that thorough comprehension of the science of government, the relations of various states, and the grand principles of history, which is an indispensable preparation for the duties of official life. In a word, they were men duly educated for the profession which they had chosen-educated not by the pedantic discipline of the closet, but by the actual strife and toil of the great gymnasium, To such men the old avenue to Parliament is closed, and no new and equally available one has been opened. The popular or semi-popular constituencies which succeeded the rotten boroughs prefer a different class of candidates-exacter representatives, perhaps, but by no means fitter ministers-better organs, it may be, but far worse administrators, and far less trained and finished statesmen. Constituencies naturally and generally look for known men-men of proved ability and avowed and rigidly fixed opinions-instead of youths still obscure, but of sure promise and of embryo greatness. The smaller towns are usually carried by candidates of family or local influence, of great wealth, of electioneering skill, or of established celebrity. The larger and more numerous constituencies commonly elect either some eminent fellow-townsman, probably therefore too old, too busy, and too rich for office, or some "tribune of the people," some man of bold front and extreme opinions, too vain to learn and too obstinate to mend, yet far too shallow and violent to be eligible for place till he had learned long and mended much. It is notorious that nearly all the statesmen of the last generation, and most of the present, commenced their career as members for patronage boroughs. Many of this class now never enter Parliament at all. The least wealthy and well-connected of them seek openings through the press or at the bar; the others, if they become senators at all, attain that honour at a later period, after much labour, and under many fetters; and many of them, before they can attain the privilege of a seat in the House of Commons, must have committed themselves to language, conduct, and doctrines which almost disqualify them for a seat in the Cabinet.

Again. It was, perhaps, quite natural that the middle classes, which comprise so much of the energy and education, and contribute in so preponderating a degree to the wealth and eminence of the land, should rebel against the notion of

being governed and legislated for by young aristocrats, or their clever nominees. In 1832 we shared this feeling: we do so in a modified degree still. It was natural and right that they should insist upon being represented and ruled by men of their own choice and of their own class. It was incumbent on them, therefore, to send up to Parliament men fitted to do credit to them, and to render good service to the state. It behoved them, while depriving the crown of its old class of embryo and rising ministers, to elect a set of men in all ways qualified to replace them. Aspiring to select and decide the future rulers and administrators of the country, they were morally bound to see well to it that their choice fell upon men rich in all the gifts which would enable them to govern with firmness, equity, and wisdom. They were bound to furnish her Majesty with statesmen of wide knowledge, large experience, comprehensive views, resolute wills, moderation, sagacity, and patience. Have they done this? Have they, as a rule, sent up superior men, wise men, capable men? Have they usually chosen even the best specimens of their own class? Have they exercised with judgment the function they so boldly claimed? Have they done credit to themselves by the samples they have selected to represent them? Have they, in a word, sent up in more than two or three instances men out of whom ministers could be made? Can we conscientiously answer any one of these questions in the affirmative? Cast your eye over the middle-class men now in Parliament, or over those sent up by the open and popular constituencies during the last twenty years, and see if you can name five to whom you would have dared to commit the government of this great empire, or any paramount voice in that government? No! Among these are many shrewd and sagacious men, many men of indomitable vigour and much rough capacity; not a few sound, sensible, and safe, and two or three of rare and commanding ability;— but of trained, sober, thoroughly instructed politicians, of possible ministers, of future Chathams, of statesmen stamped by the hand of nature for their post, not a single solitary figure.

There is nothing wonderful, there is nothing perhaps very culpable, in this unquestionable fact. It is regrettable enough, no doubt; but we adduce it rather with a view of exonerating ministers than of impeaching the people. The qualities which catch the fancy and jump with the taste of a popular constituency, will rarely be those best suited for administrative statesmanship. Brilliant parts, a ready tongue, that clear, strong, unhesitating conviction which is secured by seeing only one side of a question, which is troubled by no misgivings, and

C

« PreviousContinue »