THE GLOBE. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1927, 28 April 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 1880.

The cablegram concerning the personnel of the now ministry in England will hare been read with much interest. When it was announced that Mr. Gladstone had been sent for, much doubt existed as to the description of ministry which would be got together. Had Mr. Gladstone broken with the Whig section of the Liberal party ? was the question uppermost in the mind of the reader. We now know the real facts of the situation. What we suggested on Monday as being likely to be the case has turned out to be the truth. A thorough understanding has been arrived at between Mr. Gladstone and the section led by Lord Hartington, and a ministry has been formed most moderate in its tone and most influential by reason of the talent comprised therein. The radical and ultra-radical sections of the Liberal party are not represented, and special care has apparently been taken to keep out of the new combination those members whose irritating peculiarities had much to do with the ultimate unpopularity of the last Liberal Ministry. But the question arises, will the new Ministry be a long-lived one ? Does it possess the confidence of the nation at large and those staying qualities which will enable the party to maintain the majority which the general elections have given it ? The answer to these queries it will £be next to impossible to give until some further details as to the situation have arrived. There may be very heavy weather before the new Ministry if some understanding has not been arrived at with the radical section. Messrs. Bright and Chamberlain and their following represent a largo section of the nation, a section which would be almost indispensable to a Liberal administration, and if that section is adverse to the present organisation, a long tenure of office cannot be predicted to Mr. Gladstone’s Ministry. Looking at the members that are to form the new Administration, it will at once strike the reader that no new names appear in the list; indeed. Lord Northbrook is the only one who has not before figured in a Ministerial capacity before the public, although even he, besides being Governor-General of India, has before held two under-secretaryships. All the others are old stagers, men who have already won laurels, and whose capacity may bo relied upon. “ There are no Pitts now-a-days,” suggests a contemporary. That may be true enough, but the remark will be little likely to shake confidence in a Ministry formed of men who have already passed successfully the fire of criticism.

By examining the names parcelled out to the various portfolios some idea of the development of certain burning questions may be recognised. The enormous increase of importance given to Indian and Irish affairs may be seen by the appointment of Lord Hartington and Mr. Forster to the Secretaryships of State for those countries. The late leader of the Opposition and the man who in 1875 was first chosen for that leadership, but refused it, are the two to whom have been given the two posts of danger. The conclusion of the Afghan war and the settlement of our relations with Russia in the Bast have been handed over to Lord Hartington, while to Mr. Forster has been given the unpleasant task of fighting the Irish Brigade in the House and of through initiating measures for the good of a people many of whom are not at all likely to be satisfied with anything less than a policy of confiscation. Mr, Forster, in his electioneering addresses, said that he was determined to maintain the Union, but was also determined to do what in him lay “ to make Irishmen as anxious as Englishmen and Scotchmen to maintain the Union.” Ho will now have an opportunity of carrying his theories into practice, and will certainly start with this advantage—that very few will expect him to succeed, and that consequently, if he fails, the sting of such failure will be but small.

As far as regards the popularity of the new Ministry in the colonies little can he said. It may he taken for granted that, as a whole, the Conservatives are in Australasia more popular than the Liberals, notwithstanding the fact that the freedom of colonial institutions is due almost solely to the latter. But there is here no decided ill feeling towards the Liberals. The feeling is rather one of sentiment, and was nourished by the last Gladstone administration in a manner that will bo avoided in all human probability for the future. The colonies are proud of the position of the old country, and of its influence in the councils of the world, and are not anxious to see the bonds that unite the mother to her children in any way weakened. The Conservatives have struck the first chord, while the Liberals were careless with regard to the latter chord. Lord Granville’s “ ostentatious indifference ” when, from the year 1868 to 1870, he was Colonial Secretary, did much to offend colonists, who were hurt when told that separation from the Mother Country was a question rather for their consideration than for that of England. But the march of events will have taught the Liberals a lesson. They will have learnt the value of maintaining the integrity of an empire built up with so much care and energy, and they will have learnt to temper that strictly commercial spirit for which they are noted with a tinge of a loftier and more unselfish enthusiasm. Colonists will recognise the truth of the assertion that the Conservatives have raised the tone of patriotism in the British empire at large, but at the same time, they will be ready to welcome the Liberals, to whom they owe so much in the past.