THE WANT OF 1852. (From the "Spectator")

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 658, 4 August 1852, Page 3

THE WANT OF 1852. (From the "Spectator")

A politician could scarcely express more comprehensively his desire for an improved management of public affairs in England, than I>y wishing for a strong Government. That would* involve, or cause, all special improvements ; as to the lack of it may he ascribed all the special deficiencies of the last few years. A strong Government is one I which, having convictions, intelligence, and energy, secures thereby faithful Parliamentary suppoit, and general confidence from the public. It ib the fashion to excuse the inadequate performance' of) its duties by the Government, by repeating that parties have "been broken up, and that faith in party leaders has ceased to be a bond of union among political men. The old parties have broken up, because those who composed them rallied for the most part round measures J rather than principles and the measures being carried the combination has been rendered useless and hrs indeed ceased to have any strength of i cohesion by being without purpose ; or, wliere it still holds any sway, it is through merely personal rather than political influences. Moreover, faith in party leaders naturally shares the fate of party itself; it either ceases altogether when they have helped to carry the measure or measures their advocacy of which drew men to their banner?, or it becomes a mere personal attachment, necessarily narrow in extent and weak as a political influence. This we believe to be the case with our present Ministers. Whatever services any of them have rendered in time past — and those services are not to be gainsaid — the public does not feel that they arc likely to be efficient for the time to come ; feels, indeed, that they have long ceased to be so. Whether the Whig leaders ever thoroughly sympathized with popular progress, may perhaps be doubted : they passed a Reform i Bill much more democratic than they intended, and the impetus of which they were not masters carried them on through a series of other measures ; but that impetus from without exhausted, what have they done since, but perpetuate family and clique arrangements, to the detriment of the public service and the sttoppage of practical reforms ? We do not mean to deny that useful measures have been passed during their tenure of office, — as would have been the case during the tenure of any conceivable Ministry ; but they have no policy of their own, coherent, distinctive, and complete ; nothing that belongs to them as representatives of a once great political party, but a pack of traditional names and phrases, a considerable amount of official repulsiveness and impertinence, and a devouring rage for the stimulating diet of loaves and fishes for self and families. These, oven combined with average abilities as Parliamentary debaters, are not sufficient qualifications for the leaders of the English people in such times as ours. The times demand a government which has a policy, and can carry it out ; and bo it remembered, that to have a policy is more than half-way towards carrying it out. We believe there has not been any period within the memory of mail at which a Ministry that knew its own mind and could embody its intentions in properly-framed legislative mepsures would have met with less factious opposition, in Parliament or out of it. The great body of the English people is of one mind as to such questions as ask for solution at the hands of Minister. The danger would rather be, in the erse of a bold, energetic Minister, that the Opposition, which the late Emperor Alexander thought so useful a national institution as to talk of establishing one in Russia, would be wanting altogether ; that his schemes would not be sufficiently tested by discussion in Parliament, excent for the leading of the press. Free Trade and Protection having agreed to a tmce, it would be difficult to name a question on which a Minister, thoroughly conversant with the facts on which he had to operate, and uniting that amount of boldness and prudence which England has a right to expect from her experienced statesmen, might not be secure of carrying with him a vast preponderance of the sense of the nation. It is the idlest of excuses for the leaders to say that the people would not follow. The political indifference has arisen from the imbecility of the leaders. The trumpet has sounded not at all or with an uncertain sound; or worse, still the leaders have fought for selfish ends, have marshalled the people to popular cries which have after all meant nothing but place and pelf for the generals. Let but a genuine great man rise up in the political arena, and proclaim, I a genuine national cause, and lie will be followed with the same ardour and zeal with which great men and great causes have always been folllowed, and often, in want of them, very little men and very paltry causes. Let but any man who has practical knowledge of affairs, and position to turn ideas into actions, show that he comprehends any one of the unsolved social problems that are accumulating round us, and that he can lead the nation to a solution, and we will answer that he shall not want followers or acclamations. It is evident that the revolutionary sera, initiated in 1789, has passed through the period in which the characteristic was the struggle of the individual to be free from all control of authority or guidance, and has passed on to that nobler character of longing for vise guides — of desire for true government. " Feeling the weight of too much liberty," human thought in all departments is recurring to a consciousness of limitation, of dependence, and is recognizing pride, conceit, and self-will, as the bane of knowledge and of progress. In politics as in everything else, men are crying, " Who will show us any good V* and the great need of our time is, that those who fill high political positions should either show themselves capable of grappling with the great questions of the day and of the age, or should give place to those who can and will. A more perfect definition of anarchy could scarcely be given than that it consists in the accumulation of unsolved social problems, — in the existence amongst large masses of the population of misery, ignorance, and vice, in such excess as renders them dangerous and discontented members of the community to which they are locally and historically attached. This is a condition to which the long continuance of an incapable Government may bring us before we be aware of it, and which, when we become conscious of it, may have gone so far cs to be incurable. It takes a complex state of society like our own no such very long time, under a proper amount of slothful, blind, and selfish government to reach that condition so finely epigrammatized by the Roman historian, " nee vitia nee remedia potest pati."

It appears fiom the official tables" of the Board of Trade that theie h,id been an increase in the quantities of tea entered for home consumption. In the eleven, months ended the sih December, 1849 f the quantity was 4C,077 69 bs,; m 1850, 47,392,173 lbs.; and in 1851/ 49,764,193 lbs. 'lhere had been a decreas in the quantities of wine and spirits enteted for home con* sumption in the three years mentioned. On the 9th of February, Mr. Feargus O'Connor, M.P., was charged at the Bow street Police Office with having created a disturbance at the Lyceum Theatre, on die previous Sa»ui day evening. The offence being fully proved, Mr. Henry committed the ' honourable member" to the House of Correction ior seven days. Barclay and Peikins pay the income tax Commissioners ,£'6ooo a year, which estimates the great breweis' profits at £200,000 a year. As one of the cu&toms lockers was on bis wny home to Oxton, near Birkenhead, he was stopped by a gigantic robber, who demanded his money. The officer pulled out a huge pipe; the robber, mistaking the pipe for a pistol, toolc to his heels and fled.

CiiANO/invn n s Invasion. — Not long 1 ago, General Cbang.irnier declined himself ready, with only 10,000 troops, io enter the metiopolis-, anil the old soldier has kept <m msialment of Jus wotd. Chanpimier himself ia in London, but the remaining ten thousand are yet to follow. — Punch.

LiTTr.E Boy's. Faiiii. — A little boy, who had been lost in a <le s" 1 foiest, nncl was out all mglu, gave tbe following account of 11->1 1-> conduct at the approach of (Witness • — "Tt jfrcw dailr, )iii(J I Unoeled down and asked God to talve caie of little Johnny, and then wont to sleep*"