THE CONJUNCTURE AND THE CABINET.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 32, 6 February 1879, Page 6

THE CONJUNCTURE AND THE CABINET.

(Bristol Mirror.)

Shakespeare mak-js one of the clnractors io Henry Vi. say .— ■

Lordj who would H»e turmoilei in the court, And iEay enjoy sne!» quiet walks as tUe*e ? Earl BeacoDsfiel.i i 8 essentially a man of eolitsry habits, possihiy because sucli habits are favorable to thought, and hia policy, hold aud prompt al it i& when put forih, is We know the practical outcome — iho outward aud visible sigu— of long previous pouderiii«s. To be able lo thiuk, he must be alone, ami thin, we suppose is why, whether in eeseiou or recess— whether he ia at home, or going from oue place to another— he keepa himself as much to himself as he can, consistently with the duties of the high office he has to d lsc barge. If he paeets you in his sober-colored «in K Je- horse brouaham in (be Wtst-ODd, he ia almost invariably alone : when he travels u p f rom Hu K uenden to a Cabioet Couccil, the chances are he is alone as he alights on the platform from the railway carriage ; and the Cabinet Council over, he returns to his country retirement by the same conveyance, still alooa s the only break in thesa solitary goings to and fro being the occasional company of hia trusty private secretary, one of whoae chief talents is said to ba that he Knows how to leave his mysterious, much-ievolvin« chief to hia silence. Indeed, it is said that the sole associate whom he has so little shares his coufidences, or at least hia aecrets, that he had no smpicioj his paroo was engaged on hid last brilliaot literary work until he b«w the approaching advent of ' Lotbair" aunounceJ in the newspapers. However gallantly he deports himself in ihe face of the public when the occasion requires that he shall show himself, the readioees with which Lord Beaconsfield flies back to his Buckinghamshire residence, when the necessity for pul lie appearance is over, indicates, we thiuk, how how strong is the disposition of the man to relreat when he can from the " madding crowd" to hie solitary musings. I n the high-flown eketchj of ihe First Napoleon by the. lute Charles Phillip 9 , he says of him, " Wiapt in the solitude of his etren^o originality, a sceptred hermit be eat ou lha throne," and there is ia thd habitually silent and recluse oiiura of the Premier something to give one the idaa of a "hermit" Minister, 60 indisposed to talk is he when he can be silent, or to mix with men when he can have his own thoughts for cornpauious. In illustration of this phase of his character we read now and agaiu of his tbking his walks in the wooJs at Hughenden, societimea t»)oue aud sometimes with Mr Montagu Corry as his almost unconscious, or at least unnoticed, co-pedeiirian. That the author of 'Lothair" has an eye for nature no one who reads his books cau doubt; and safely assuming that he eujoys these rare sylvan strolls, it does not seem any such freak of fancy to imagine him, as he brushes through the sere but still bright brown foliage of the beech trees, muttering to himself the words of Iden already quoted; for there seldom has been a time when it required a man of higher political courage to face the cares of the State and •• turmoils of Courts," while the quiet country walks which abound in the glades of Buckinghamshire invite to a tranquil and totally different enjoyment. It ig a season, indeed, for the peseimist to luxuriate in, and to leave a Minister of State few hours for ease. Great foreign anxieties far and near'; "settlements" unsettled, and calling for ceaseless watchfu loess; trade depression of more than ordinary severity at home; thousands, perhaps millions, of people out of employment; financial disturbances and disasters; the winter beginning with a bitter intensity, aod the need when the revenue is receding to spend more largely than usual, or to leave the interests of the nation unguarded and in jeopardy. With all this, there ia a vigilant and vindictive Opposition trying to reverse each passage of the Government policy, while showing themselves (to transpose a sentence of the old Afghan Tteity) " the friends of the enemieß and the enemies of the friends " of the country. Of such is the heavy burthen composed which now bears on the shoulders of the statesmen to whom the guardianship of Great Britain is given, and who, but for the loyal sympathy of the anfactious part of the English public, might find that burthen too heavy to be borne in the face of so much contradiction and counteraction. Looked at from the standpoint of a common-place and unheroic nature, the arduous post of Minister at a conjuncture like the present is the lecst enviable of situstioos than one could covet, and when we find a man between threescore and ten and fourscore years not shrinking from a task of B o much weight, wearing anxiety, and abiding solicitude, we are profundly impressed with admiration and thankfulness that the Kingdom possesses men prepared to aerve it, whose hearts do not misgive them, however heavy the cares or perilous the crisis with which they are confronted. Times like the

present, when to faint or to ffar might be fatal to peace or preside, are Ihe true tests ot the English statesman, and that this country has passed unscathed through many similar conjunctures we owe it to tbo courage and self-coatained-neas of ihoße who have been in officj when they occurred For mere fair* weather Government does not try or show the metal and material of which a Minister is m«de. Thackeray, in his "Huinourisifi," concluding tin 1-ctures upon Fielding, says he " reminds him of those brave men of whom onu reids in stories of English shipwreckn and dieasters, and of the officer on the African coast, when disease has destroyed the craw, ua I lie himself is seized by fever, who throws the lead with a death-strickeu hand, takes the soundings, carries the ship out of the river or off the daoyerous coast, aod dies ia the m*n!y endeavour." These are natural characteiistics, not confined to enilors, which ou^bt to he found as much in ihe true British fctttesman as in the true British tar, anJ whatever be the outcry raised by factiou ou tbe re - assembling ot Parliameut next Thursday week, wo have the utmost coufiJeoce th*t posterity, and not posterity, only but the people of Englitnd in a year or two houce — when they come to look back upon what the present Government have doae and are doing to carry England triumphantly through <ii!ficuUiriß like those we now experieucj Ht home and abroid, fnd what party animosity they have had to contend with while so doing — will acknowledge that rarely iv tbe annals of British statesmen have men beeu known to hold to an honest patriotic purpose, through good report and evil with more tenacity and conscientious courage tbao LorJ Beacoa&field and hid Cabioet have done an J ara doing.