ART. X.-THE ATTITUDE OF PARTIES-THIS SESSION. THE causes of the weakness of the Liberal cabinet-the feature of the session-have been two,-the content of Englishmen with the internal administration of England, which is called by some the Conservative reaction, and the chaotic condition to which new and varying forms of sympathy with the politics of the Continent have reduced all party organisation.

The root of Conservatism is content; and the middle classes of Great Britain, who, since the Reform Bill, have been the depositaries of power, are, as respects internal affairs, contented. They have found in that measure an instrument exactly suited to their feelings, as well bad as good, to their love of practical improvement and their distrust of broad ideas, their antipathy to visible misgovernment, and their selfish dread of any policy based on principle rather than expediency. Aided by accidental circumstances, a long cycle of peace, the accession of a female sovereign, her marriage to an able and temperate statesman sincerely devoted to the constitutional experiment, tolerable prosperity among the people, and the spread of a series of sound economic ideas, the new governing power has in one generation changed the aspect of English political life. The old motive powers have lost their potency. The mingled dread and dislike of the throne which, from the accession of George III. to the death of William IV., permeated all classes, and lingers still, it is said, among the greater nobles, has been replaced in the popular mind by a sentiment curiously compounded of loyalty and of thankfulness that the subject of loyalty is outwardly so quiescent. The jealousy of a privileged class, which, in 1831, threatened the peers with extinction, has given way to a secret conviction that the old aristocracy of birth and wealth now serves as an outwork for the new aristocracy of political power. With the exception of those which impede the easy transfer of land, all the laws obnoxious to the middle class have been steadily cleared away. The draconic laws against crime, which they hated, partly from benevolence, partly from an exaggerated idea of the importance of death as an incident in the soul's career, but chiefly from an instinctive belief that they were part of the old oligarchical scheme, have been swept away with a completeness which has begun to produce a reaction towards a severer discipline. Every restriction on commerce, from the elaborate code devised to keep up the price of corn, to those laws which, by forbidding partnerships en commandité, kept capital out of trade, have been one by one removed. The ancient claims of the poor, which threatened small proprietors

with extinction, and tenant-farmers with pauperism, have, by a great and courageous measure, been reduced to a right to bare subsistence, under conditions needlessly unpalatable, but which have corrected finally the tendency to dependence. The ultimate though not the direct control of the administration has been carefully preserved; the army has been subordinated in practice though not in theory to a parliamentary department; all the more visible administrative abuses-the great sinecures, the avowed practice of jobbing, official intimidation at elections, and the last vestiges of personal corruption-have been cleared away, and the House of Commons has been raised to an undisputed ascendency over every department of the State. And finally, the middle classes, partly enlightened by the rise of a school of sound economists, whose ideas found acceptance among the class usually chosen as members of Parliament, and partly dismayed by the spectacle of too much suffering below them, have readjusted taxation, and, while releasing trade, have accepted almost their just share of the imperial burden. No man occupying a house of less than 20l. a-year rent-double the electoral qualification-now pays any direct tax whatever, and, income for income, the property-holders and wage-receivers contribute about equally to the State. The result of all these changes has been to convince the middle classes, not only of the reality of their own power, but of its wisdom and righteousness, to make them in fact, on internal affairs, a contented and therefore timidly conservative aristocracy.

The new spirit was very conclusively displayed in the debates of 1860 upon Lord John Russell's Reform Bill. It is easy to argue that the ministry, in bringing forward that bill, never intended it to succeed; that they were false to their own convictions; that they relied on the Lords to throw out a measure introduced to satisfy hustings-claims. The facts remain, that the mover was strongly in earnest; that the ministry were, if not earnest, not reluctant; that the aristocracy had given way; that the House of Lords would not have ventured to resist for more than a single session; and that the measure was not so much rejected as stifled by the secret or avowed taste of the voting class. They did not want to be swamped, and saw no reason in the aspect of English affairs why they should run the feeblest or most nominal risk. The House, however elected, could represent them no better, and, as usual with Englishmen under those circumstances, they stolidly refused to move. The appeal of Lord John Russell to the constituencies fell upon

* The direct control, i.e. the business of administration, is slipping again to peers and peers' relatives. English politicians must be rich, and rich middle-class men are busy.

cold ears, and did not influence a single election; and at the next parliamentary raising of the subject the Premier was applauded for laughing reformers down.

This tone of contented quiescence has been greatly developed by two other circumstances, the full scope of which has scarcely yet been perceived. The impulse to advance in Great Britain has almost always come from below, but for some years past the masses have been singularly unwilling to move. The artisans of the towns were for a few years ardent in seeking a wider extension of the Reform Bill, and in 1848 they were ready, or seemed to be ready, for revolution. The events of that year proved, however, even to themselves that they had lost the power to menace. Frightening eight or nine hundred landowners was one thing, and terrifying a million of voters another and very different thing. The new aristocracy was quite deter mined not to be bullied out of its place, its alliances reached to the very base of society, it commanded all organised bodies, and in the capital it possessed, as the 10th of April showed, a preponderance of physical strength. The country labourers had, except in Wales, no sympathy with the Chartists; and preparations which were to have ended in an armed march on the Legislature terminated in a gathering dispersed by a shower of rain. Sir Robert Peel had taken the bones out of the Chartist organisation. The people had one grievance intelligible without argument, the artificial dearness of bread. This was remedied by the repeal of the Corn Laws; and with its disappearance disappeared also the wish to coerce the Legislature into justice. Since then the masses have been strangely apathetic to all political ideas. They have given up the Charter, given up voting to a most annoying extent, and turned with fresh interest and avidity to schemes for social improvement. There the middle classes could and did follow them. Owing to causes which we have not space to discuss, but some of which are by no means so creditable as they appear, the middle class sympathise with the lower in their crave for physical comfort. They will not concede them power-are, indeed, on that point recklessly selfish and blind, but they will go almost any length to improve their material condition. Every kind of benevolent project finds, and for thirty years has always found, the heartiest sympathy and support. Law after law has been passed to make the popular insurance system, the great but half-tried idea of benefit societies, more and more efficient. The vote for the education of the poor has become a visible item in the estimates. A tax which presses upon the poor is, when once that fact is recognised, a tax doomed. The State has broken its ordinary rules to establish a vast system of banks for the poor; a system

so elastic and so extensive that in a generation it may even modify the national character, and make the only spendthrift race in Europe as close-fisted as the French. Scheines which in other countries would be denounced as socialist are in England regarded with favour; and a proposal, for instance, to lend state funds for the construction of cottages, as they were lent for the construction of drains, would be debated wholly upon its merits. The masses, if not contented, have at least arrived at the conviction that they are not wilfully injured; and, with that source of irritation removed, seem disposed rather to watch than to shove. Even the terrible distress caused by the suspension of the cotton-trade has not stirred them to political agitation; and the old motive power, the fear of requests from below to be supported by menaces of physical force, has for the present lost its efficacy. The new aristocracy, if inclined for sleep, sleeps in peace.

The last and least-noticed cause of the quiescence of internal politics is the altered tone of the Press. For nearly ten years Parliament has assented to all proposals tending to abolish restrictions upon newspapers, and therefore to cheapen the periodical press. The advertisement-duty went first, then the heavy stamp, then the compulsory penny stamp, and lastly the paper-duty. All these measures were intended undoubtedly to "popularise" the Press; but they had another result. The great bulk of the newspapers throughout the country dropped their price to a penny, and it may safely be assumed that no new daily will ever be started except at that price. The penny papers proved, however, strangely conservative. It was found that, owing partly to the spread of education, partly to the immense influence possessed by the upper classes, and partly to the fondness which even savages display for eloquence, the people sought for good writing. The proprietors, freed from excessive taxation, were able to invest in the coveted article ; and the control of the penny press passed at once into the hands of educated littérateurs, the class, that is, of all others trained at once by education and by the habit of criticism to a horror of subversive ideas. The journal, therefore, which has the largest circulation is as conservative as the Times; has, for example, like the Times, stood steadily by the slave-owners, while the Radical organ, the Sto, would have been considered by the men who hurrahed for Sir Francis Burdett a feebly liberal paper. The unstamped Press has gone out, and workmen and landlords are now addressed in the same tone of moderation, and often by the same men. The agitators are powerless; for if uneducated, they cannot stand up against the pitiless knowledge of their rivals; and if educated, they acquire, in spite of

themselves, that critical faculty which is so fatal to all unreal, and therefore all violent plans.

This content, or rather quiescence, spreading through all classes, has, of course, immensely benefited the avowedly conservative party. Englishmen, though not logical, like instinctively to see fact and theory in some degree of relation; detest a clergyman who, preaching contempt for riches, buys advowsons; and distrust a politician who, calling himself progressive, advances no whither. They turn with new readiness to the party which avows that the content which all feel is its own rule of action, which resists all change not clearly shown to be inevitable, and is disposed to tolerate all abuses rather than alter the basis of power. The upper section of the voters, wanting nothing, is as willing to vote for them as for their rivals. The lower section, wanting much, will nevertheless not leave its immediate business in order to protect a party which does not advance. Every election, therefore, shows a slightly diminished vote, and an increase of Tory voters. Then it is in quiet times that the influence of property tells; and property, on the whole, though with some large exceptions, rests with the Conservative side. Intimidation, useless in times of excitement, becomes, when the voters are anxious only for their personal interests, the strongest lever of power. These facts alone are, we believe, sufficient to account for what is termed the Conservative reaction, that tendency of those who feel content to side with the party which admits that it is so.

In Parliament the prevailing tone of content operates even more strongly. Parliament is composed almost exclusively of men who, like eldest sons, feel that no change whatever can benefit them; of squires, to whom change, beneficial or otherwise, is always an object of suspicion; and of middle-aged gentlemen, far more conscious of obstacles than of the necessity for facing them. The partial extinction of the proprietary boroughs, with all its excellent results, has had the effect of keeping young men out of the Lower House; and, except in the case of a family of vast territoral influence, or of men of very unusual wealth, the election of a man just of age is an event. The substantial citizens, who control the smaller and middle-sized boroughs, look on any such candidate as a boy, and reject him without a hearing. The Liberal leaders, moreover, feeling no impulse from without, hearing no sound of menace, unstirred by any current of enthusiasm, obey their natural inclination to trust the men of their own generation, caste, and, in too many cases, family, and cease by degrees to seek for new blood or call for aid from the young. Not one young commoner has been brought forward by the Whigs for years. There is not a