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Crown and the power of conferring favours were really the mainspring of Parliamentary Government, as Lord Grey asserts, what is the mainspring of the party in opposition? Not the mere hope of distant favours and advantages, for they may be indefinitely deferred or extremely remote. Yet it is notorious that men contending for their principles in opposition are commonly more closely united and far better disciplined than those. who enjoy the favours and emoluments of office. The real source of the force and power of Parliamentary Government lies not in these things, but in an honest confidence in a good cause and a capable leader. Venal support is, after all, but sham support; and no party can stand which is not actuated by earnest convictions directed to a practical object.

But this is not all. In England, at the present time, when the public attention is much directed, and very properly and beneficially directed, to the distribution of patronage, we hold it to be certain that a Minister loses more than he can gain by every deviation from the best use of it. To give a place to one man, or to promote the protégé of one member of Parliament, is commonly to give offence to half a dozen competitors, who think that their vote is worth just as much in the market as that of their more successful colleague, if the appointment is to be determined by influence. The effect of such transactions is well described in the pointed language of a French minister, who said, on bestowing a favour for some such consideration, 'J'ai fait dix mécontens et un ingrat.' But an appointment resolutely given to merit, or bestowed on public grounds, in opposition to private solicitation and interest, ought to excite no jealousy or resentment; and every such appointment obtains for a Minister, in the form of public gratitude and respect, ten times the strength he could derive from making it the means of a parliamentary bargain, discreditable alike to him who gives and to him who receives. If we might presume to tender a recommendation to Ministers engaged in conducting the business of Parliamentary Government in this country, and anxious to maintain its just authority, we would entreat them to deal, on broader and higher principles, with this duty of patronage in the selection of public servants. No action is more welcome to the people of England than the recognition of merit for advancement; no action is more fatal to a Minister than the suspicion that offices in the State have been filled for personal or mere party motives. To raise the standard of purity and honour among public men, in the discharge of this national trust, is a far more laudable policy than to make the traffic in places the mainspring of parliamentary power; and we hope to

see the day when it will be thought as shameful to confer an office unworthily, as it is to speculate with the balances in a public account. Competitive examination has been resorted to, and is just now much in fashion, as a means of correcting these abuses but its operation is in reality unfair, because the success of a candidate depends not so much on his own attainments as on the relative attainments of the other competitors. The same individual may be certain of an appointment if sent up with two blockheads, who would be defeated if he came in contact with two men who had enjoyed better means of education than himself. No doubt the introduction of a preliminary examination is a positive gain to the public service; but no examination can test several of the most essential qualities of official life; and for this reason academical examinations are of less value than official probation, where that can be had. But this mechanism may lead in turn to abuses not less serious than those of indiscriminate patronage; it is by no means applicable to the higher class of offices, which are the most important, or indeed to any stage of promotion beyond admission into the service; and we should see with regret the introduction of any system which should release the Minister of the day from the responsible duty of selection, which is one of the most important of his public functions.

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These views, however, do not materially differ from those which Lord Grey himself expresses in his chapter On the Exercise of Patronage under Parliamentary Government;' where he admits that the strict control under which the exercise of patronage has been brought, and the reduction of its amount, have had an important, and upon the whole, a highly beneficial effect on the working of our Parliamentary Govern'ment,' though not unmixed with some inconvenience: an opinion entirely at variance with the monstrous proposition that Parliamentary Government derives its whole force and power of action from the exercise of an influence at least akin to corruption, which we have previously cited from a former chapter of this book. Hasty and contradictory assertions of this kind are unluckily of frequent occurrence in Lord Grey's productions, and they materially detract from the confidence we should otherwise be disposed to place on his acuteness.

We have endeavoured to point out in these pages some of the causes which have contributed to bring about a temporary state of public affairs which we greatly deplore, and to exhibit in their true light the fallacies by which this state of things has in some quarters been justified and defended. The results we have witnessed in the course of the past Session of Par

liament are precisely those we anticipated rather more than a year ago, if on the one hand union and organisation were not restored to the phalanx of the Liberal party, which is still infinitely the most powerful party in Parliament and in the country, and if on the other hand the Government of the day did not actively, resolutely, and earnestly persevere in that career of progress which the Liberal party is entitled to expect. The Tories have taken advantage of the mistakes of their opponents, and by a daring and unscrupulous abandonment of their own distinctive principles, they have for a time acquired and retained office on the condition of assenting to the very measures they had combated and impeded when in opposition. But these measures have been carried by a sacrifice of principle and a dislocation of the regular operations of Parliamentary Government which materially detract from their value, and must eventually recoil on the heads of their authors. We trust, however, that the lesson of the last few months will not be lost on the country, and that at no distant period the representatives of those principles which have extorted acquiescence and submission from their bitterest opponents, will again find themselves united as the supporters of a government formed on a broader basis and prepared to achieve fresh victories in the cause of freedom.

No. CCXX. will be published in October.

VOL. CVIII. NO. CCXIX.

X

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

OCTOBER, 1858.

No. CCXX.

ART. I. Memoirs of the Court of England during the Regency, 1811-1820. From Original Family Documents. By the Duke of BUCKINGHAM and CHANDOS, K.G. 2 vols. 8vo. : 1856.

IN a former article we followed the history of the Ministerial changes which occurred in this country between the resignation of Mr. Pitt in 1801, and his death in January, 1806; and we showed how, at the renewal of the war with Bonaparte, after the Peace of Amiens, there was a general wish among the leading statesmen for the formation of a comprehensive Administration, independent of party connexions; which wish was frustrated by the King's refusal to admit Mr. Fox into the Cabinet.* As the exclusion of Mr. Fox from the counsels of the King involved the refusal of Lord Grenville and his friends to join the new Government, the second Administration of Mr. Pitt never acquired the strength which his first Administration maintained throughout its long existence, and at his death it lost not only its principal, but almost its sole, element of vitality.

The King, indeed, made an attempt to infuse a posthumous life into Pitt's Ministry after the death of its founder and chief. The first step which he took upon this event was to authorise the Home Secretary, Lord Hawkesbury, to form a new Administration. Lord Hawkesbury requested a short time for consideration, and then declined the task. But though he did

*Edinburgh Review, vol. cvii. No. 217.

VOL. CVIII. NO. CCXX.

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