THE POSITION OF THE MINISTRY. [From the "Illustrated London News." May 15]

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 672, 22 September 1852, Page 3

THE POSITION OF THE MINISTRY. [From the " Illustrated London News." May 15]

The position of the ministry, with reference to the affairs of this country, is fertile of subjects for the discussion of our morning and evening contemporaries ; but it changes so rapidly from day to day, that the duty of the writer -whose lucubrations appear at intervals so far asunder as a week, becomes that of the narrator rather than of the commentator. The great Free-trade Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, promulgated last week, has already lost its novelty, and been succeeded by other subjects of ministerial and personal importance. It should not be forgotten, however, by those who watch the current of events, that Mr. Disraeli has found it convenient to qualify his truthful, but, to his party, his damaging admissions of the prosperity of the country and to re-assert his determination at the fitting time to "do justice" to the agricultural interest. The Premier, in like manner, has endeavoured to rally his bewildered adherents, by a kind of disavowal of Mr. Disraeli's supposed Freetrade leanings, and if not in direct and set terms to reprimand the right hon. gentlemen, to read him a lesson on the propriety of not being too outspoken. But Lord Derby's own speech can scarcely be considered of a more consolatory character that Mr. Disraeli's, to those who hoped and imagined that the statesmen who were friendly when out of office to the re -imposition of a cornlaw, would be equally friendly to it when chance, rather than necessity, placed them in power. Lord Derby took unusual pains at the Lord Mayor's dinner, when no avowal or statesment of any was expected of him, to explain that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had, notwithstanding his budget and admissions, left himself and the Ministry at perfect liberty to legislate on behalf of the Protectionists; and dwelt at considerable — if not tedious — length upon the mutual "comprom'ses" upon which our Constitution and our whole political system are based. All his Lordship's assertions in this respect were perfectly correct, and so familiarly true as to be properly classed among the truism of statesmanship. It is clear, however, to what point they tend, and that the particular "compromise" to which his Lordship desires to reconcile his late party and the country has reference to the Corn laws. But if Lord Derby has not yet received the same schooling from figures and facts as that apter scholar, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it is likely enough that he will attain the same proficiency in due time, and that he will see by the light of an enlarged experience, that, though there may be "compromises" yet to be made between the leaders of the rank snd file of his party, the day for any compromise on the great principle of untaxed food has gone by; and that abundance is too evident, for any man claiming to be a statesman to destroy the one or to deny the other. But of more immediate imortance than the Free-trade conviction at which Mr. Disraeli appears to have arrived, and towards which the current of the Premier's ideas is running is the defeat which the Ministry has suffered on the question of Parliamentary Reform. Although, in consequence of a variety of causes, the debates and divisions on the Militia Bill have exhibited the Government as one supported by a majority in the Legislature, its real weakness has been made manifest on the very first occasion of its breaking its compact with the House of Commons, and introducing a measure that could not, by any stretch of Parliamentary courtesy, be considered one of urgency, or even expediency. The transfer of the four representations, justly forfeited by the delinquent boroughs of St. Albans and Sudbury, to new agricultural divisions *in the great county of Yoik, with a railway for the line of demarcation, however desirable a measure in itself, — opened up too large a question to be fairly discussed in the present expiring Parliament. It was besides, a breach of the covenant which the Ministers made on entering oflice; and the House showed, by the large majority in favour of Mr. Gladstone's amendmen, that it was determined to hold them to their agreement, and to precipitate one of the two constitutional result — a resignation, or an appeal to the country. Hitherto the Ministers have made no sign of taking either the one or the other course; but, in the mean time, they suffer a loss i of character and of confidence. Other defeats -of equal, if not of greater, significance are looming before them, in place of which a lengthened session of Parliament, if it did not become impossible, will most certainly become unconstitutional. The issues to be presented will be too clear and precise for any of Lord Derby's favourite "compromises" — at least, with the present Parliament — and we may, therefore, expect a dissolution sooner then the Ministry intended, but not sooner than good faith and the constitutional practice require it.