SELDOM has the opening of Parliament been looked forward to with less of public or party excitement than at present. The country is in a remarkably tranquil mood, disposed to take all things very quietly. And yet the circumstances of the time are full of grave interest. An unparalleled disaster has befallen the gigantic fabric of our manufacturing industry; and abroad we behold an array of events which, a few years ago, would have sufficed to produce among us no small degree of uneasiness and excitement. But ever since the convulsions of 1848 broke up the long peace which settled on Europe after Waterloo-still more since the ambition of the late Czar led us to renew our experience of the realities of war-the people of this country have been becoming used to crises. Since 1859, especially, when the conviction was forced upon us that French Imperialism is still very much what it was in the days of our fathers, the public has begun to "discount" the contingencies of the future, and to insure itself against damage from their occurrence. We have made ourselves secure at least as secure as needs be in present circumstances against external attack; and we are well assured that we have no enemies at home-that never before were all classes of our people so united in bonds of mutual sympathy and goodwill, or so universally contented with our national institutions. A country so circumstanced is virtually impregnable; and therefore we can look forth from our happy island-home upon the troubles or wars of other States, not indeed in selfish indifference, but with a sense of security and a consciousness of power, which invest us with a tranquillity that may be mistaken for apathy.

The great and sad feature of the internal condition of the country

VOL. XCIII-NO. DLXVIII.

is the cotton famine, which for a year past has weighed like a nightmare upon our manufacturing districts, extending its baleful influence over four millions of our people. The calamity came upon us so suddenly that there was little time to prepare for it. It is true, our liability to such a calamity had been pointed out, in language of serious warning, by one or two of our ablest political thinkers, and foremost among these by Sir Archibald Alison. But the parties most interested, the great cotton - lords and the manufacturers generally, despised the warning, and took no measures to avert disaster. Their faith in the doctrine of demand always producing supply blinded. them to their danger. It was a noble fabric of industry, truly, which they had reared up- a mighty addition to the wealth and resources of the country-a vast field of employment for the everincreasing population of our isles. The effect was as beneficial as if several thousand square miles of productive land had been gradually added to the narrow area of the British Isles-affording remunerative employment to hundreds of thousands of our people who must otherwise have emigrated, and proportionately adding to the power of the country and the resources of the State. But any thoughtful man, as he viewed the annually increasing growth of that great industry, must have trembled for its permanence; and now that the blow has fallen, every one must recognise the improvidence exhibited by the great chiefs of that industry. "We will buy only in the cheapest market," they said: "an efficient demand will always secure an adequate supply." And as long as there was the least hope of the cotton-dearth being over in a year or so, they resolutely declined to take any steps to obtain new sources of

R

supply. They had overstocked the markets with their goods, and as long as there was a prospect of their old source of supply being available again by the time those surplus stocks had run off, it seemed to them better to content themselves with working their mills only half-time, than to procure future stability for their industry by an outlay of money. That outlay, indeed, would amply repay itself in the long-run; but no one likes putting his hand in his pocket; and month after month of increasing distress passed away without the manufacturers showing any disposition to move. Recently this inaction has partially given way; the continued dearth of cotton at length left the manufacturers no alternative but to open new sources of supply, or see their own fortunes ruined. The pressure of adversity is hard to bear, and we have no desire to scrutinise too closely the conduct of the manufacturers in this most trying crisis. Yet as a mere question of fact, as a singular political souvenir, it deserves to be noted that an influential body of these free-traders par excellence-men who had denounced bounties and privileges of any kind as alike unjust and impolitic-actually memorialised the Government to procure cotton for them in India, by encouraging the growth of cotton by means of bounties from the State! Mr Bright himself has recently advocated the same proposal. We trust, however, that the manufacturers are now convinced of the hopelessness as well as impolicy of such a project, and that they will do what every other class has to do-act for themselves, and with that energy and ability which so eminently distinguish them. The country has responded, and is still responding, nobly to the bitter cry of distress from Lancashire; but it is no part of the duty either of the public or of the Government to procure cotton for the mill-owners by the offer of State bounties.

Lamentable as is the distress

which thus weighs upon so numerous and industrious a portion of our population, it is consolatory to know that never yet was a material calamity so redeemed by its moral aspect. National virtue never before was so strikingly displayed. We may thank Providence that the disaster has come in its present form. In the opinion of many good judges, the distress which now so lamentably prevails in the manufacturing districts, would have come upon us in the natural course of trade, as the result of the over-production of previous years. In such a case, it is not to be thought that public sympathy would have been so widely and heartily displayed, and that the accusing voices of the operatives would not have been heard against their masters. But happily the calamity has come in a shape which silences cavil, and unites the hearts and hands of all in the mitigation of the distress. The cause of the disaster was beyond our control; and the very over-production of previous years now proves advantageous-for the gradual sale of the surplus stocks at good prices (which in other circumstances would have continued to glut the market and check production) now helps to compensate the mill-owners for their losses, and enables them to act with liberality to the suffering operatives. And that, as a class, they do so act, we have the testimony of the noble Earl who, with princely munificence, generous sympathy, and statesmanlike intelligence, heads the movement for the relief of the distress. All classes, both high and low, are nobly doing their duty. The patient endurance of the suffering working-classes is heroic; the lively sympathy and active co-operation of the other classes of the community on their behalf are without a parallel. The change which has taken place, in this respect, during a single generation, is something marvellous. Formerly, under the pressure of hardships less great and equally

beyond the power of any one to prevent, the working-classes became reckless and broke into outrage; and the rest of the community, which had done little by its benefactions to avert this outbreak of suffering, found itself compelled to take stringent measures against these organised conspirators against the public peace. Now all this is changed. It is needless, and it were unjust, to throw stones at the old times. What is now could not have been then. If we examine the causes of the great change which has supervened, we shall find it first in the increased intercommunication between all parts of the country; and, secondly, in the spread of education and intelligence. Railways and newspapers now bind together all parts and all classes of the country. Ignorance is the mother of apathy and disunion. When each city, or district, or class knew little of the character and concerns of the other parts of the country or classes of the community, it was vain to expect the ready sympathy and general co-operation on behalf of a suffering locality, such as, we rejoice to say, has become common now. Moreover, wealth has increased enormously in this country since the beginning of the century-and it is only the surplus wealth of a community that is available for the relief of distress. Let us thank God that we are as we are, without charging it as a social crime against our fathers that they acted differently. Let us rejoice that, heavy though the calamity be, it has at least become a means of uniting all classes of our people-classes who have so often warred with one another-in the bonds of sympathy and confidence; and that the British nation has at length perfected its social existence, by growing into a compact and harmonious community, every part of which knows intimately and sympathises heartily with the condition and concerns of the rest.

It is a not less remarkable feature of the times that in politics also

all England now is nearly of one mind. We say "nearly," for there is one class which is an exception, and the existence of which has an important influence upon the relative composition of the two great parties in the State. But, unquestionably, the great bulk of the nation is now of one mind in regard to political questions. In a country like England this is a truly remarkable condition of affairs, and suggestive of but one inference. Homogeneous nations under a centralised form of government - as in France-may readily conceive a universal passion for change, the nation acting together in its wisdom or madness like one man. But the case is very different in this country. The United Kingdom is an aggregate of the most opposite forces-it is full of conflicting interests, each intrenched in some vigorous organisation, whether of aristocracy, church, commerce, corporations, leagues, or companies. In such circumstances, a universal agreement of opinion in favour of altering a single part of our constitution, either in Church or State, would be an event little short of a miracle. Unanimity of political feeling in England, therefore, cannot possibly signify anything else than political contentment-the wish to rest and enjoy, satisfaction with the form and machinery of the Constitution, and a desire only to see the machinery of Government ably and honestly worked. And what else is this than Conservatism? It is Conservatism adopted by the whole nation. It is a mistake to attribute this universal Conservatism to the breakdown of democratic institutions in America. The "Conservative reaction," to adopt the common but exceptionable phrase, had unmistakably manifested it self before a single shot had been fired in America-before the bloodless bombardment of Fort Sumter announced the approach of that deplorable conflict which has served to expose democracy in its worst

and most contemptible form, and to reveal, in the bosom of republican America, a mass of corruption, imbecility, meanness, and malignity which, taken together, have never been equalled in the whole world. But if a Conservative feeling had been steadily growing up in England before the "bursting of the American bubble," it is equally true that that great collapse of democracy has done much to give to that feeling its present universality. Abstract reasoning cannot affect mankind with the same force as actual experiment and practical demonstration. Every sensible man in this country now acknowledges -what nearly all sensible men for some years past felt, but lacked the courage to say-that we have already gone as far towards democracy as it is safe to go, and that another step like that proposed by Lord Russell would have carried us irretrievably over the precipice. This is the great moral benefit which we have derived from the events in America. The vast superiority of our mixed Constitution is now so demonstrated, that every man may now say what he thinks publicly and without reserve. Even men who have been all their lives supporters of the "Liberal" party -men who, up to the last moment, were in favour of a farther degradation of the franchise-now see the folly of their course, and, moreover, have an excuse for avowing their change of opinion. Hence it is that England is now all of one mind. And what is that, we repeat, but that all England is Conservative, and that the Liberal party in office is an anachronism?

There might be some excuse for this anomalous position of affairs, if the Liberal Ministry ever professed to believe that Liberal principles are still popular. But they do not-they cannot. After nearly ten years of selfish and most reckless trafficking in Reform Bills, Lord Russell himself repudiated his own work. He abandoned it in the same spirit of selfishness as

he took it up. It was in the hope of reviving his faded popularity that he first proposed a further Reform Bill in the end of 1851; and, backed by a party as insincere as himself, he kept playing off his precious Bill, year after year, as a convenient party manoeuvre against his Conservative rivals. But no sooner, when reinstated in office, did he and his colleagues find that they were about to be "hoist with their own petard," than the Bill was shelved. Reform was not only abandoned, but treated with contempt by the Whig occupants of the Treasury Bench; and the Minister who had once shed tears when forced by his colleagues to postpone his Bill, at length, on the 5th of February 1861, not only buried Reform, but, like a wild Irishman, danced upon its grave! In their projects of ecclesiastical innovation, the members of the present Ministry have been equally defeated. When baffled in their attacks upon the State, they still thought it was a popular thing to assault the Church. In this also they have at length been undeceived: and now what have they left to do? They have not a single card left to play. Their whole list of measures, after having been deliberately considered by the nation, has been condemned and rejected with contempt. Like the Federal generals at Fredericksburg, they have tried attack after attack upon every part of their rivals' position, and with every man they could muster, only to see every attack fail, and recoil in ruinous loss upon themselves. The Federal general, when condemned to inaction and menaced by a superior force, wisely abandoned his ground, and put a river between himself and his foe. It is time the Whig Ministry should execute a similar "strategic movement," if they do not wish to fare worse than General Burnside, and be kicked across the Rappahannock, instead of avoiding a catastrophe by a timely retreat.

We have said that there is one exception to the unanimity of poli

tical feeling which now pervades this country, and that exception, we need hardly say, is the party of Radicals whose mouthpiece is Mr Bright. We can no longer call this the "Manchester" party; for, whatever may have been their sentiments hitherto, we have reason to believe that the views of Mr Bright are now repudiated by the greater part even of our manufacturing classes. But Mr Bright is incurable. All his life he has been a man of one idea, and one-ideaed he must be to the end. There must always be men of this kind. We must lay our account to have Radicals. Like the poor, they are always with us. And they are not without use in their way. This is a free country, and a few eloquent or blustering Radicals serve to "let off the steam" of their class, and serve to remind the sober-minded portion of the community what a very mad and drunken thing Radicalism is. Mr Bright and his followers may hold a place in political England as usefully as the drunken Helots did in the social usages of Sparta. But though we have no great zeal for the conversion of this Abbot of Unreason and his motley followers, we think the country will agree with us that they ought not to be taken by the hand by those in high places, and allowed to play their pranks in the government of the country. Yet this is just what must happen in the present anomalous position of parties. The country has no objection to hear Mr Bright speak on any subject and in any way he likes, either in or out of Parliament; but it cannot regard with indifference a position of affairs which makes his support indispensable to the existence of a Ministry. The Tories are not only the strongest party in Parliament, but now equal in number the Whigs and Radicals put together. By a slow and steady growth the Conservative party is regaining the predominant position which it held from 1842 to 1847, when a question, not of constitutional but of com

mercial policy, so lamentably disrupted its power. Now, as in 1841, the Whig Ministry is at its mercy, and is only spared for the sake of the gallant old statesman who heads the motley crew, and is worth all the others put together.

We see nothing surprising in this recovery of the Conservative party. The only surprising thing would have been if it had not taken place. It is not necessary, nor would it be correct, to attribute the recovery to any extraordinary generalship on the part of its leaders. In the five years which followed the Reform Bill, the Conservative party made almost as great a rally as they have done in the fifteen years which followed the split on the Corn-laws; and yet that split was not on a constitutional question, and the Conservative section which left the main body might have remained as good Conservatives as ever. The Conservative "reaction," now in progress, and nearly accomplished, has been slow and tardy, but it promises unmistakably to be proportionately enduring. In the opinion of all, the work of Constitutional Reform has been carried as far as it is wise to carry it; and in the opinion of all, the Whig Ministers who, for a dozen years, have been urging us towards further innovations both in Church and State, have proved themselves to be unsafe leaders.

As the sole means of retaining office, the Whigs now repudiate their old measures and principles-everything that was peculiar to them-and act the part of unwilling Conservatives. Now in regard to constitutional questionswhich are the grand tests of difference between Whig and Tory-there is a notable difference between a change of opinion on the part of a Liberal and of a Conservative. The greatest and not least illusory boast of the Liberals hitherto has been, that all their distinctive measures have been carried in the end, and have been accepted by the Conservatives themselves; and, therefore, that the Conservatives have