necessity. Probably he saw, as Lord Derby did, that agitation had gone too far to be allayed by any such half-measure as his colleagues suggested to him. But he was as full of regret at the necessity as he was ready at a convenient moment to deal with it-deferring that moment, however, as long as it was possible to do so-much longer than we consider to have been judicious. What the Duke gains by these admissions for himself or his party is more than we can guess. He is probably more just in his observations on what he calls the third political party in the State, and on the occasion which called it into being :

"Now, I am bound to admit that, as we did not raise the question of Reform in the last Parliament, the present Parliament was not elected on the question of Reform. It was perfectly fair and perfectly open to any member of that Parliament who might entertain an individual opinion against the question of Reform, to oppose any Bill which the late Government might have brought in. But this I will say, that the present Parliament, partly in consequence of our conduct I admit, inherited all the timidity, all the faint-heartedness, and all the weakness of the last Parliament in regard to Reform. Under these circumstances, when the Government of my noble friend (Earl Russell) determined to introduce a Bill, we knew very well the risk we were incurring. That Bill was drawn up-I am not now going into any defence of its details with a studious regard to moderation; and we were perfectly aware of two things-the one was, that its introduction involved the greatest risk to our existence as a Government; and the second was, that if that measure was refused, no proposal of similar moderation would again be offered to the acceptance of the House of Commons. (Hear, hear.) My lords, the spirit of the late Parliament almost immediately broke out in that to which I mainly attribute the difficulties that have now arisen-namely, the attempt to frame a third party in resist ance of Reform. I have heard that a right hon. friend of mine-a member of that third party-upon a recent occasion has declared that it is with rage and grief and shame that he regards the pre

sition of affairs. And well he

may. My lords, it is a hard thing for a man of first-rate ability to find out that all his eloquence and all his exertions

perhaps I may say without offence all his

manoeuvring has ended in nothing else than this-the precipitation of those very changes which he was most anxious to avoid, and the proposal by his own confederates in what I think was a Parliamentary sin, of the very measures which he was endeavouring to resist. (Hear, hear.) But if my right hon. friend had studied Parliamentary history, I think he might have made pretty sure of what would be the result of his exertion. Third parties have never succeeded in our Parliamentary history; and why have they not succeeded? Because, my lords, they produce an anarchy of parties; anarchy? Is it not the men of extreme and who gain the advantage in times of opinions, who take the opportunity of marching to victory? (Hear, hear.) My lords, I doubt whether in the whole course of our Parliamentary history there has been such a complete collapse of any party as there is of that which endeav oured to form a third party on the quesThey are utterly gone, leaving not even tion of Reform during the last session. a glimmer of the dream of things that were; they have not even left behind them any trace to mark where a bubble that was unusually large has burst. Their very language is forgotten."

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But the Duke is not content to deplore the misconduct of his allies, and to arraign and condemn the proceedings of renegades from Liberalism; he is eloquent in his denunciation of the baseness of the Tories for taking up the question of Reform at all. noble earl has told us why he did My lords, the not choose to be made a stop-gaphe has not stated the reasons which induced him to become a weathercock." A very pretty antithesis well spoken, and compressing into short compass a great deal that has been said elsewhere. It lacks, indeed, that urbanity which constitutes a principal ingredient in the lectures which we receive from day today and from week to week in other tenderness is more than made up in quarters; yet what is wanting in wit, and, above all, it is candid. Contrast it with Lord Russell's gloomy foreboding of the conse

quences to the Tory party of their success, and observe the difference. "My belief," said the Coryphæus of the house of Bedford, "is, that the noble lord and his colleagues are entirely mistaken in thinking that these householders will always remain dependent on their Conservative leaders. I believe that a time will come when this Conservative Government, however successful they may have been for the moment, or for a single session, will have ruined the Conservative cause in the country."

It is curious to observe in how many quarters, and with an astounding sameness of phraseology, the sentiment implied rather than expressed in this sentence is repeated. You cannot unfold a Liberal journal, you cannot read an article in a Liberal review or magazine, without discovering that to the great Liberal party nothing is in reality more dear than the public or private honour and the legitimate political influence of their rivals throughout the country. No doubt they have hitherto shown the depth of their affection in a somewhat original manner. Every sentiment of which the Tories approved it was their custom to condemn; every scheme proposed for the better government of the country they have resisted. The mildest terms applied to the principles of the faction were bigotry, narrowmindedness, and tyranny. Yet somehow or another this narrowminded set of men appear to have filled all the while a warm corner in the affections of their impugn

creed which is professed by their quondam admirers, and in their practice gone considerably beyond it! Is it reasonable to be angry with this? Am I to become the enemy of a man to whom, while his principles were antagonistic to my own, I was sincerely attached, only because he has seen the error of his ways and adopted my principles ? Or must we look below the surface of things for evidence that not they who make the loudest professions of regard for the people are most inclined to trust them? The truth is, that between the Tory party and the people-not, be it observed, the Dissenting shopocracy, but the working men in towns as well as in the country-there has always been a tie of closer kindliness than between the people and the Whigs. Possibly the Tories up to the present time may have been indisposed to risk the rupture of that tie by bringing the people too much or too suddenly within the reach of corrupting political influences; and on that account, so long as resistance to the extension of the franchise was practicable, they may have resisted it. finding further resistance impossible, they took at once the common-sense view of their situation, and gave, with a liberal hand, what their rivals, as far as they proposed to go, gave grudgingly. We can quite understand how they should have incurred the hatred of the Whigs. But, for heaven's sake, let us not be at once abused and commiserated! What is done was done with the eyes of the party open. We are quite ready to stand by the consequences, but we object to being pitied as the authors of our own ruin.

But

The members of the late Administration do themselves and their party no good by utterances of this sort. They simply make apparent the depth of their mortification, and dishearten more than they encourage their followers. The journals which usually sup

port them likewise commit a great mistake in following their lead; they cease to be public advisers by degenerating into partisans. This is no concern of ours, because the country neither gains nor loses by it. But the case is different when men like Mr Lowe, Lord Cranborne, and Lord Carnarvon, persist in delivering themselves of opinions which are as extravagant as they are now uncalled for. Granting that their views were sound-that they have seen, from first to last, more distinctly into the future than anybody else what we want to know is this, whether they believe that the commonwealth is likely to be benefited by the iteration and reiteration of jeremiads which come too late. So long as they believed it possible to stay the progress of Reform-if, indeed, any such extravagant idea could have dwelt permanently in their minds since the session fairly began-then it was allowable, by every means within their reach, to put impediments in the way of what they held to be a national misfortune. But to persevere in prophesying evil, now that Reform has become an established fact, is to insure, so far as the ability of the prophet extends, the ills that are foretold. It is possible that the Constitution may prove unequal to the strain which coming changes shall put upon it; and that, in spite of all that can be done to keep its timbers together, the vessel of the State may go to pieces. This is possible; we by no means assume that it is probable. But if any thing can tend to merge a possibility in a probability, it is the rash declarations of men of high character, like the individuals whom we have named, whose judgment in other matters all classes hold in respect. Why do they keep out of view truths which, to minds less prejudiced than their own, are clear as the sun at noonday? The Tories could

not act otherwise than they did without abdicating their functions as members, not of the Legislature only, but of society. A Bill must have passed this session with or without their co-operation, at least as extensive as that which has now become law; and had they, imitating Mr Lowe or Lord Cranborne, permitted the enemy to pass it against their opposition, there would have been left for them ever after no choice except to withdraw entirely from the management of public affairs. Now,

we

can imagine no misfortune heavier than this to the country -no occurrence more sure to lead at once to a consummation most devoutly to be deprecated. The Americans live amid anarchy and misrule, because the gentry — the educated classes of the community

keep aloof from politics altogether. If the Tories had allowed the present opportunity to escape them, they too-for they make up the majority of the gentry in this country must have withdrawn from public affairs. How long the Constitution would survive that blow we leave our enemies themselves to declare.

But it was not so while the question was under discussion, and it must not become so now the question is settled. More than ever duty requires that Sir Robert Peel's dictum (which he borrowed, by the way, without acknowledgment, from Sir Archibald Alison) should be treated by the gentlemen of England as their battle-cry. In the registration courts, the great institutions of the country are to be defended; and they who value and desire to maintain these institutions must forget all differences among themselves, if any such should survive the session. We are no advocates of corruption or bribery. These, as recent inquiries show, have been for the most part rather the weapons of Whigs than of Tories. But without bribery, without corruption in any shape,

the influence of the upper upon the humbler classes of society in this country is very great; and it must be now exercised in every legitimate way towards working the Bill for the country's good. If this be done fairly, vigorously, and sinking all minor controversies, the results will more than justify our most sanguine expectations; for we join heartily in the opinion, or, to speak more accurately, the hopes, which the first Minister of the Crown gave utterance to on a late occasion at the Mansion House. It is as manly as it is well expressed :

"My Lord Mayor, this is not a time to discuss the merits of particular measures, and yet, as your lordship has alluded to that great question which has occupied during the whole session of Parliament the greatest portion of the attention of the House of Commons, and latterly of the House of Lords, I may be permitted to say that, entering on it with great apprehensions, with great anxiety as to the possibility of bringing it to a successful result, we have been encouraged by the manner in which Parliament received our overtures, by the manner in which those who did not altogether agree with us in political opinion generally, cordially joined with

us in endeavouring to come to an ar rangement which, bringing adverse parties to unite in one course of action, should once for all settle a question which, while unsettled, tended to prevent any

wholesome and useful legislation in other respects, which it was of the utmost importance to the country should be settled. (Hear, hear.) My Lord Mayor, we have made sacrifices, we have incurred taunts, we have incurred obloquy, but I must honestly say that none of these things move me (cheers), so long as I feel in my own conscience that I have in the slightest degree contributed to effect a great object on which the heart of this nation was set. (Cheers.) I will not, my Lord Mayor, enter into the details of that great question. I will only express a hope, which I am sure will be shared by all those who are present, and all who wish well to the institutions of the country, whatever their opinions as to the hazard of the step we have taken, whatever may be their anticipations, whatever their apprehensions-I am sure in the mind of every loyal Englishman there is this predominant feeling, that the liberal franchise we have extended to the people of this country may find that people worthy of its exercise (cheers); and that, as we have extended the rights and liberties of the people, we may also have extended the security and the strength of the institutions of the country."