When Mr. Gladstone took office in December 1868, he was surrounded by a powerful and enthusiastic band of colleagues and supporters, amongst whom the following names were then conspicuous:-Mr. Cardwell, Mr. Bruce, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, Mr. Bright, Mr. George Glyn, Mr. Monsell, Lord Enfield, Mr. Layard, Mr. Ayrton, Mr. Winterbotham, Sir Robert Collier, Sir John Coleridge, Sir George Jessel, Sir James Moncreiff, Mr. Young, Mr. O'Hagan, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Dowse-and to these must be added, though not in office, two men of the highest distinction, who rendered inestimable services to the Government, Sir Roundell Palmer and Sir George Grey. With the exception of Mr. Bright, who must be ranked as an invalid, not one of these eminent persons now sits in the House of Commons. No less than ten of them have been translated to the House of Peers, where we rejoice to think that the country may still command their services. But to the House of Commons they are lost for ever. This considerable portion of the active forces has passed into the reserve. They were the survivors of an illustrious generation which had already sustained great and premature losses by death. The vessel is almost a derelict as regards her old crew; the captain alone remains at the helm. Mr. Gladstone has not retained about himself in Parliament one of his own contemporaries and confidential friends. Such a position, for a Minister who has been thirty years in and out of office, and who is not yet an old man, is, we think, unprecedented. If the duty were suddenly to devolve upon him of reconstituting a Cabinet, it would not be possible to name eight Commoners of the first political rank to fill the great offices of State. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Lowe, Mr. Forster, Lord Hartington, Mr. Goschen, and Mr. Stansfeld, are the only remaining Liberal members in the House of the rank of Cabinet Ministers, setting aside Mr. Bright and Mr. Childers. We draw no inference from these facts, but they may suggest many considerations. It would seem that the Liberal party has failed, of late, to produce and train in sufficient numbers the men required to supply the demands and waste of office. Long office uses men up. Many men accept appointments here and there-in the colonies, abroad, on the bench-some are worn out by official life. Opposition, on the contrary, stores and concentrates the resources of a party for the coming time. Hence it seems that an incoming government is rich in men, an outgoing government poor. The brilliant Whig opposition of the first thirty years of this century shone conspicuously in debate, but they reserved all their resources for Parliament; they had not to govern the country. Again, the confidence of strength and the carelessness of success relax party obligations. Many of the young men of promise who might, if they had chosen it, have occupied a very different position from that in which they now stand, indulged their crotchets, their love of independence, or their temper at the expense of their party, to which in fact they did incalculable harm by bringing it into ridicule and contempt. They have now to learn the great lessons of public life in a harder school. But we do not complain. Nothing but a period of opposition, sufficiently protracted to train a body of statesmen and to drill their followers, will suffice to re-organise the Opposition, and to qualify it successfully to resume the administration of the country. This is a great task, demanding time, prudence, discipline, and consummate judgment. But it is a task far less difficult than that which Sir Robert Peel undertook in 1834 and brought to a successful termination in 1841; or that which Mr. Disraeli has carried on for more than twenty years, until it led to the results which have recently crowned his exertions. For these politicians were labouring to stem the current of Liberal opinion, which flowed strongly in the hearts of the people. The members of the present Opposition may rely upon it that the power which will one day bring them back to office is still there; it rests with them to direct it and to call it forth. The work is to be done out of Parliament quite as much as in Parliament. The candidate who aspires, now-a-days, to win a seat and to turn the opinions of a constituency, must work at it assiduously for years, and devote his talents and fortune to their service. No tactics would be so mischievous to the permanent interests of the party as a system of violent and desultory attack against a superior force. The duty of the Opposition in Parliament is to watch with incessant vigilance the conduct of the Government, and to resist the slightest attempt at abandoning the ground already gained. For the rest we must be content to await the course of events, when events arise, as they will arise, to test the wisdom of the Government both at home and abroad. But above all, the Opposition must restore and establish its own influence by union, by the moderation of its language, and by a firm resistance to wild and visionary schemes. A compact, well-regulated body, however small at the commencement, which should have the courage to stand upon its own principles, and to leave the intemperate sections of Home Rulers, Ultramontanes, and other agitators to their devices, would in the long run obtain the confidence of the nation much sooner than men who seek to enlist wild popular passions and delusions in their cause. What we should seek to reconstitute is not a party of agitation, which will only strengthen the hands of the Tories, but a party of government which may one day succeed them. It would be premature to enter into details. It would be invidious to canvass names, although there are names to which we cease not to look with confidence and hope of future greatness and power. But no superstructure can be attempted until we have secured a solid foundation-a foundation of concrete and not of sand -and in our judgment that foundation consists in those constitutional principles which are identified with the traditions of the Whig party. Nɔ. CCLXXXV. will be published in July. INDEX. B Bismarck, Prince, his policy to the Church of Rome, 368. British Museum. Central Asia. See Libraries, Ancient and Modern. C See Eastern Toorkistan. Church and State in Germany, review of works treating of, 360-the Coleridge, Sara, Memoir and Letters of, review of, 44-her parentage, Competitive Examinations, reports in relation to, 330-first tried as a D Diplomatic Service, the, review of works relating to, 68-Lord |