THE POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 386, 16 July 1856, Page 8

THE POSITION OF THE GOVERNMENT

(From the " Spectator. ") In mid march of successful action abroad, our Government draws attention to its position at home by bringing upon itself various defeats. No one defeat is of gre.it importance, yet each contributes to a generally detrimental effect. Most of those reverses are brought on in the attempt at some kind of " reform " ; though, by the by, one dilemma of the Government seems to arise from th" attempt to stop a reform—the reform of the Military Executive. The judicial bench required recruitment, and the Lord Chancellor was permitted to introduce Baron Wensleydale as a Life Peer. The Lords mutinied; and Government,

intending a practical reform, not altogether in a bad fashion, though certainly not in the best way, incurs a disastrous rout. Several imposts upon the shipping of the United Kingdom, levied by local bodies, have long been" marked for removal or abatement; successive Cabinets have had the subject under their consideration ; Mr. Lowe introduces a bill; the boroughs of the United Kingdom rise in rebellion ; and Mr. Lowe's bill pas abandoned by his chief, Lord Palmerff.m. The boroughs and counties are sounding the tocsin against Sir George Grey's Police Bill: they are flushed with the expectation of victory, while Ministers show a corresponding depression, as if they anticipated defeat. The reconstruction of the War Department was rendered imperatively necessary from the unfit state of our or.o-anizatiou for war under the present circumstances of the world ; the improvements began under the Duke of Newcastle, and they were continued under Lord Panmure, better than some persons anticipated. There has been unquestionable improvement in the working of the administration ; but the official Commission sent out to the Crimea, under the necessity forced upon Ministers by the Sebastopol Committee, has fastened serious charges upon three officers, whom the Horse Guards have promoted with the sanction of the War Department; and thus the newest section of our Government, the most prac-acal improvement at the present day, incurs an odium equivalent to defeat, through administrative bunders like those that we might have expected from the Horse Guards unredeemed. Ministers have acknowledged that it was equivalent to defeat, by the appointment of a second Commission to revise the report of the first. Thus the Horse Guards is put upon its trial by the War department for acts which the War Department had sanctioned; and while executing this judicial duty, the War Department declares that it does not act separately from the Horse Guards. This is like avowing that it should be in the dock with the prisoner, and that all past reforms have not yet given our responsible ministers a sufficient control over the military administration ; yet Lord Panmure promises no more reform, but courageously resolves to stand or fall with the Horse Guards. This is anticipating defeat. These successive reverses have cerlaiuly shaken confidence in Ministers.

We had grown into the habit of looking upon Lord Palmerston's Cabinet as an established institution; forgetting that it was practically called into being for a distinct function. As the Aberdeen Ministry was formed for the simple purpose that her Majesty s Government might b-; carried on when no one party appeared capable of presenting its own leaders for an Administration, so Lord Palmerston's Cabinet was constructed for the purpose of carryinsr on tae duty whicu he inherited from the Aberdeen Ministry, under the altered circumstances of war in lieu of peace. Lord lalmersiWs Government, therefore, is to administer our public departments during war; and sa long as it performs that duty surhciently, it justly deserves the qualified confidence that until within these few weeks 11 possessed. Lord Palmerstou did not govern as the chief of a 'reforming" Cab- »'«; reform is not the function of his Government. We never expected for him f d b"c.c^sful career in that direction ; and l le has not disappointed our expectation. If he has principles for the fiance of his political course, the public fra LleVei" discoveretl them. His power of to 1* i B-' aS We remarkecl when he acceded panieVhf* seat in the Cabinet, is accomTh c by an unwearied power of reserve. c public, which cannot find his princiatoJh SOmetlmes thinks thathe has none ' - er tmaes that they lie too deep for

common apprehension. Whatever may be his own object in political life, however the one undoubted fact is, that the public has generally obtained from Lord Palmerston, at any time, that which is distinctly wanted. We are not aware that he has originated any mission, shaped any policy. Give him a specific employment, and there is not a public servant who could execute it with a greater show of work done. Thus we spoke a twelvemonth back, and we have but to repeat the words now : Lord Palmerston's specific employment is, to carry through the War Administration.

It was natural, and quite proper, that the Government should turn its attention to domestic business, and should attempt improvements. We should all have been impatient had it clone otherwise. Yet perhaps it committed a mistake; for at least it was not competent to undertake reforms that would be resisted. Most reforms must cut into some interest; the interest will nse in resistance, and it can only be put down under the force of strong political impulse. The proper Ministry for a special reform is a Ministryborn of that political'lmpulse. Such a Ministry cannot, like Lord Aberdeen's, be composed of members taken from different parties, and having a corresponding difference in their sympathies, if not in their practical convictions. Nor can it, like the present, succeed to office for simple administrative purposes, as the heir of another and a non-political Cabinet. Lord.Palriierston's Cabinet, therefore, is not discredited if it cannot accomplish successes which belong to political Cabinets. Some improvements, no doubt, might be accomplished. If the lawyers can agree upon a mode of carrying forward Law-amendment,' the present Executive can countersign the measures as well as another. If the Railway departments can proceed with Lord Dalhousie's or Mr. Chamber's course of progressive measures for improving the government of railways, there appears to be nothing that should incapacitate the present Ministry in particular. But reforms demand a political momentum, and must await a political Ministry.

The just censure which the present Government has incurred lies, perhaps, in " taking up" with reforms for the sake of the credit, without considering their true bearing ; as if, possessing limited political duties, the Government were independent of political liabilities. It would seem from the results as if the guiding spirit, the leading members, had left particular measures in eacli case to " the department," or to some gentleman introduced into the Cabinet for the purpose of adorning it. The Lord Chancellor is left to introduce Life Peerages if he likes ; Mr. Lowe, to cut a slice out of Corporation propertj r ; Sir George, to legislate on Policy; and Lord Panmureto throw the shield of the new War Department over the Horse Guards. The Cabinet as a whole, with the Premier that christens it, takes up or drops measures as matters of indifference, while it parades the authors as " young blood," or the name of the measures as an attestation of some reforming qualification. 'This is trifling with public business ; and a Ministry that might have rested its repute entirely upon its conduct of the war and upon its sober , attention to uncontested improvements, incurs and deserves discredit when it advertises itself as something which it is not —when it pays for the advantage of having smart recruits licensed to experiment on the legislation of the country. The business of the present Ministry absolutely lies with the war, or the peace : when the duty connected with the defeat of Russi or the conclusion of a treaty shall have been accomplished,, the business of the present. Cabinet will be done ; and we shall have a new Government, constructed for the immediate purpose of the day, whatever that may be.

[advertisement.]] Fellow Colonists. —An attempt is being made to create another placeman with a large salary ! ! payable out of the already overburdened resources of the Colony. See the leader of the Canterbury Standard, of this day, advocating the appointment of a Resident Judge, and, to support the argument in its favour, stating that " we believe " the appointment was recommended in the presentment of the Grand Jury at the late Assizes. As one of the Grand Jury, I publicly state that no such recommendation was embodied in the presentment, and, if proposed, would have had the immediate and most strenuous opposition of the majority of the Grand Jury as1 being impracticable in our present financial state. -.\ Are the Canterbury Colonists., always to remain the victims of official greediness'? Yours, &c, Leveller. Lyttelton, 10th July, 1856. 7124