THE CONSERVATIVE DEMONSTRATION. [From the "Morning Herald," April 4.]

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 555, 9 August 1851, Page 4

THE CONSERVATIVE DEMONSTRATION. [From the " Morning Herald," April 4.]

JuoatNr. by an aiticle which appeared yesterday in the Daily Neiit,, wo suspect that the Radical party are not particulaily well pleased— indeed, it would bo strange if they were — at the result of that great Coneervative demonstiation which at this moment is the theme of all tongues from oae end to the other of the British islands. The criticism of our contemporary ia the more amusing, because it evinces, combined in no ordinary degree, the determination to pick a quarrel with something or somebody, together with a consciousness of utter inability to find reasonable cause of censuie. The writers ingenuity in cavilling' is really a study in its way. First he ascertains (does be imagine that the discovery is exclusively confined to himself?) that a similar banquet wai given to Sir Robert Peel in 1838; and forthwith the dinner of 1851 is pronounced a bad copy — a servile imitation— and, like all imitations, a failure. Now, we apprehend that so far from disputing or disavowing the fact here alledged, the followers of Lord Stanley would be the first to put it prominently forward. On the oocasion alluded to, Sir Robert Peel bad recently strengthened his political connexion by the accession, among others of less note, of the Duke of Richmond, of Sir James Giaham, and, above all, of Lord Stanley himself. Side by side during two years the chiefs of opposition had fought the constitutional battle, and at that hour, •when victory seemed nigh at hand, and when those who had already been united in debate were on the point of being for the first time united in offioe, the approaching triumph of their common principles was announced and foreshadowed by the solemn inauguration of Sir Robert Peel as the leader of that interest then and long afterwards predominant in the state. The predictions then littered came true, and within three years an Administration which, both in point of influence out of doora, and of intellectual strength, no parallel uad existed since the days of Pitt, assumed the reins of power with so firm a hand that but for the voluntary abdication of 1845 they might ereu to this hour have retained tl>em. Was it then unwise — was it natural, that recalling in 1851 the triumphs of 1841, and confident of their renewal at no distant period, the same men who then hailed the advent of a Conservative regime, and welcomed him to ■whom thav looked as their deliverer from the organised anarchy of the Melbourne Government, should now, at a moment of even greater national depression, but also nt a moment when the darkness which overclouds the whole political horizon is relieved by the prospect of a brighter future, repeat with more than ordinary fervour the expression of their confidence in one whom they Lave long known — implicitly followed — often tried— and never yet found wanting ? If this be a copy of the display of 1 838, we can only say that for our part we prefer it to the original. We cannot, it is true, feel certain that even such a demonstration as th»t.of Wednesday, is a guarantee for immediate victory ; but of this, at least, we are well assurod, that if, in despite of all probability, and against the almost universal expectation of the country, the success of the good cause should be for a time delayed, that delay will arise from no cause of which any honest partizan n«ed feel himself ashamed ; for on the side of Lord Stanley there will be neither treachery nor reserve — on that o f hia friends neither disunion nor shadow of doubt. " But," says the Daily Newi, " what did Lord Stanley say? What pledges did he give?" We answer — All, j and more than all, that were asked at his hands. It is, j os far as we know, a practice confined to democratic constituencies to tie down their representatives to every i minute detail of public conduct with the cautious precision of a customer driving a bargain with a tradesman of rather doubtful reputation. Two plain and unmistakeable declarations Lord Stanley has made : he promises to obtain for the suffering agriculturists that fair and moderate protection which they justly claim as their due ; and he undertakes to vindicate the national honour, threatened by an "insolent, though not insidious" usurpation, without trenching in any, even the slightest, degree, on the civil rights and privileges of the Roman Catholic community. What more was expected ? A full exposition, entering into every particular of the financial, commercial, and constitutional measures to be submitted to Parliament, not now — not at this special juncture — but at whatever time, and under whatever circumstances, a majority of the constituencies of England shall place Lord Stanley at the head of the Treaaury? Why, the idea is too ridiculous to be seriously refuted. It shows only how hard pressed must be our opponents for materials of attack when they Tesort to euch puerilities as these. Yet even this is not all. For though the Daily News admits that the precedent of 1838 does not here apply, and that the announcements then given to the world were infinitely fewer and less explicit than those of Lord Stanley, yet the inference obviously deducible from this acknowledged fact is evaded by the following notable argument j — " If Sir Robert Peel had told his party nothing," says the writer in substance, " we should have concluded that he chose to keep his own counsel ; but when Lord Stanley tells them nothing, it can be only because he does not know •what he is going to do." Now, we certainly shall not think it necessary to waste words on such a piece of reasoning ; but in passing we may remark, that if there be one quality more than another for which credit is due throughout the recent Ministerial negociations to the chief of the Country party, it is the almost unique combination of raution and frankness which haß contrasted so singularly and so honourably with the tortuous intrigues of othpr aspirants to greatness. Those who thought of Lord Stanley only as they had Inown, or fancied that they knew him in days long gone by — who remembered him chiefly as the matchless orator, the ready debater, armed at all points for the Parliamentary warfare — never known to decline a proffered combat, nor ever worsted in any — those whose memories, passing over the later and more matured triumphs of his genius rested on those early battles for Reform, for the Coercion Bill of 1833, and against the Irish Appropriation Clause, which drew from Lord Althorp the memorable exclamation, " That the days of Pitt and Fox were come again" — those, too, the envious or malignant critics of his greatness, the genuine descendants of that legal worthy

" Who ihook his head at Murray as a wit — " all that numerous class of frondeurs (we hare not the •word in English, though we have the thing) by whom the tax of admiration is at every time grudgingly paid, and never more so than when it is demanded for an individual on more than one account— all these, when the late crisis commenced, looked eagerly ojj in the expectation, perhaps in the hope, that from the lips of the statesman so unexpectedly summoned to the most arduous task which can devolve on man there might fall some casual or unguarded expression, whereon to hang, -with some show of plausibility, a charge of rashness or precipitancy. That in the result they have been disappointed we need no better evidence than that of the querulous critique before us. No one can profess ignorance of Lord Stanley's views ; yet no one can affirm that those views have been either too ostentatiously paTaded or too early disclosed. That speedy success will reward the perseverance and courage of the Conservative party, we see every reason to believe ; and manifold as will be the blessings which every interest may tope to derive from a change of policy in the state, we do not tank it as the least important among these, that an the accession of Lord Stanley to power the same lesson will be taught anew which Lord Stanley himself so lately deduced from the congenial career of a departed friend. They will learn that in public as in private affairs, good faith, frankness and honesty, do not often in the long run go unrewarded ; they will see, illustrated by example no less than by teaching, "how obstacles may be surmounted, how difficulties may be overcome, how honour may be won, how parties may be consolidated by the exertions of one who brings to the task devoted energy, indomitable assiduity, and perfect integrity of purpose."