LORD BEACONSFIELD AND ENGLAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5457, 23 September 1878, Page 3

LORD BEACONSFIELD AND ENGLAND.

Of tbe position in which Lord Beaconsfield has placed England the Nevs York Tribune some days since said : Englishmen have boasted that their ancient monarchy was in reality a crowned republic, with its acting President, its Cabinet, and its Congress—tho authority of the sovereign being a symbol, rather than a fact. But throughout the negotiations of the past six months the weakness of tho nation has been manifest. The Premier and the Cabinet, so far as he has taken pains to enlighten it, have kept their own counsel and worked out their own plans. . Neither House of Parliament has been taken into their confidence. The nation has had no means of finding out what was going on and what the Government was aiming to do. Tho fleet was sent to Constantinople, the Sepoys were despatched to the Mediterranean, bargains were made with victor and vanquished, Cyprus was annexed, and the enormous responsibility of a protectorate of Asiatic Turkey was incurred j aud in each instance Parliament has learned the purpose of the Cabinet when it was too date to inters fere or even to discuss the measures with dignity. This protectorate scheme, which is veiled under the guise of a defensive alliance with the Porte, may bo from its political consequences the most momentous act of the century, and yet the Premier locked the secret in his breast, and only allowed his associates to mention the matter in Parliament when the nation had been dragged into a position from which it could not draw back with self-respect. This- is' something more thau personal government; it is autocratic. Prince Bismarck, who has generally had his own way on the Continent, has never found' Germany so manageable as England is to-day under the leadership of her. erratic Premier, Lord Beaconsfield has determined in secret the destiny of his country in Asia. A Czar cannot do more than that.