THE RESIGNATION OF THE CHANCELLOR.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1442, 28 December 1886, Page 3

THE RESIGNATION OF THE CHANCELLOR.

The resignation of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer by Lord Randolph Churchill, is characterestic of that mercurial statesman, wholovessurprises, and who, had he happened to be born a member of the proletariat instead of the peerage, would probably have been found a warm partisan of the Orsini or O’Donovan Rossa of his time and country, especially if there were any chance of his being entrusted with the bomb-throwing of his party. Only the other day he startled the world by promulgating a new creed with a new shibboleth “the Union of the Unionists,” and just at the moment when, his diminutive stature notwithstanding, he bulked largely in the public eye, and stood out in bold relief as one of the foremost leaders of the day, he suddenly resigns his office. This is a most unexpected act it is true, but considering the actor, it is for that reason just what ought to have been looked for. People, however, will naturally be curious to know precisely why Lord Randolph has taken so complete a somersault, and it will, we think, be found that there have been more reasons than one operating in his Lordship’s mind. The reason stated in the telegrams, viz., that the Chancellor did not agree with his chief as to the Army and Navy Estimates, and declined to ask for votes involving additional taxation, is a sufficiently weighty one of itself, and the peep thus given behind the scenes shows that Lord Salisbury and his Cabinet, Lord Randolph excepted, favor a policy on the part of England which necessitates ber army and navy being put on a Stronger fooling—in a word that a line has been determined upon in connection with European affairs, which admittedly involves the risk of hostilities with some or other of the great military Powers; and it is not a little curious that Lord Randolph, of all men in the Ministry, should favor a policy approaching more nearly to the lines of the Birmingham section of Liberals —the peace-at-any-price party. True, Lord Randolph may be playing lor high stakes, and, it so, he probably knows that the surest way to the affections of John Bull is to figure as the hampion of reduced taxation; and hence, perhaps, the reason given for bis resignation may, so far as it goes, be a true one. But we cannot help thinking that there is yet another reason, namely, that he has probably found that the bouleversement of Conservative traditions embodied in his recent celebrated Bradford speech has been too much for the digestion of the more Tory section of his Conservative friends, and that, as he could not carry his own views in Cabinet, he has found it necessary to separate himself from his colleagues. The drift of events, indeed, we think points to the Conservative camp being split up, just as the Liberal camp has been, and that in the end there will be a new political crystallisation, which will bring together Lord Randolph and Lord Hartington as the leaders of a great central party, as opposed to an Ultra-Radical and an Old-Conservative party. However, it is early yet to predict the course of events, though we think they are fast shaping themselves in the direction we have indicated.