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to electoral abuses was vividly distinguishable, he was a cypher in the great Reform agitation; a mild free trader, with very clear perceptions of the general argument on which free trade rested, he never took high ground enough to be otherwise than a cypher in the great free-trade agitation. He was a statesman of the telescopic school rather than the microscopic; who grasped the sweeping outlines, but never went deeply enough into the organic relations of vital domestic questions to satisfy the strong feelings and intense perceptions of those who discussed them on the basis of right and wrong. The study of wide international questions is scarcely a good preparatory school for the narrower, deeper, more concrete politics of a nation in rapid growth. Lord Palmerston first gained the ascendant when the nation became an undivided unit in time of war and all interior questions had been laid to rest. And during peace he kept it, chiefly because the peace was an armed peace, in which external and international relations were of far more importance than the interior relations of class with class.

absence of positive contracts, you can build international policy, that they are always in danger of overlooking the minuter and closer relations of interdependence between the various constituents of the same national society and State, which give rise to the higher sentiments of political justice and equity. Lord Palmerston's political character was moulded in what we may call the international period, before the end of the great war, when politics meant almost the same as policy. The feeling for the deeper obligations between various classes, founded less on mere interest than on the knowledge of the mutual injuries each is capable of inflicting, and the mutual help each is capable of giving to the other, came later, when the more superficial but more noisy quarrels of the nations had been partly settled. Lord Palmerston always applied the easier principle of external expediency to these deeper and narrower questions. "Although I wish the Catholic claims to be considered," he said as early as 1813, "I never will admit these claims to stand upon the ground of right. To maintain that the Legislature of a country has not the right to impose such political disabilities on any class of the com- And the same training which determined munity as it may deem necessary for the his province as a statesman, determined also welfare and safety of the whole, would be his peculiar power. He was above all things to strike at once at the fundamental princi- a masculine, lucid man of the world, appealples on which civilized government is found- ing to men's interests and honour rather ed. If I thought the Catholics were asking than either their passions, conscience, or for their rights, I for one would not go into their sentiments. There was a good hard committee." So, too, when the question of grain in everything he said and everything Reform came on, he was always for giving a he did. What a public school boy is to a little, early, in order to prevent the demand homebred boy, that was Lord Palmerston for much, later on. "I supported all the to most other English politicians. Nothing proposals for limited reform," he said, "be- was more characteristic than the way he cause I clearly foresaw that if they were pushed aside considerations which he refused we should be obliged to have re- thought womanish. When Mr. Disraeli course to wider and more extensive changes," in 1859 complained of the language used and the same line of policy-policy in the towards the Tory Government as ungene:Foreign-Office sense was always taken by ous or unfair, Lord Palmerston asked if Lord Palmerston in discussing the questions they were a pack of children, to come whinof the deepest interest touching constitution- ing because they had received the usual al reform. Hence the grasp he had of home blows of party fight instead of giving back affairs, and the influence he exercised in as good as they got. When he was charged relation to them, was much slighter than in 1848 with neglecting the old alliances of that of some of his younger colleagues. To England, he replied sharply," As to the the end, indeed never more than during romantic notion that nations or governments the Ministry closed by his death, Lord are much or permanently influenced by Palmerston carried himself towards domestic friendships, and God knows what, why I questions in the same diplomatic attitude, say that those who maintain those romantic rather weighing the strength of the de- notions, and apply the intercourse of indimand for change, and the price of satisfying viduals to the intercourse of nations, are that demand, than entering into its intrinsic indulging in a vain dream. The only thing justice. Hence he never yet was the repre- which makes one government follow the sentative of any intense or even eager advice and yield to the counsel of another party, on domestic questions. A mild re- is the hope of benefit to accrue from adoptformer so long as the malaise of society due ing it, or the fear of the consequences of

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opposing it." And he acted on the principle. He was sometimes given credit for an extravagantly French policy because it was his first policy, and his last, and because he thought it our interest to be the first to recognize Louis Napoleon after the coup d' état. But no English statesman ever gave France harder blows, or shook her off more easily when he saw that she showed no respect for this country's interests. No pet methods of international action were ever allowed to override the clear, bold counsels of policy. Lord Palmerston was not a man to let his favourite instruments mould his ends. No doubt he stuck by the acts of his subordinates on principle, for he knew that he could never get masculine and independent agents if he disowned all their errors and availed himself only of their hits. The same necessity which makes fidelity to personal engagements the first point in the world's code of honour, made it one of the first in Lord Palmerston's code of policy. But though he would defend an agent who had blundered in the due exercise of his responsibility, he never allowed a mere mode of action to influence him after it had ceased to be efficient. He threw over a useless alliance with as much alacrity as if the language of friendship, which between nations only covered decently, he thought, the promptings of national self-interest, had never been used.

The same habit of mind, however, which made him thus bold, decisive, vigorous in dealing with the clear interests of men, gave a certain baldness and inefficiency to his style in dealing with those half-moral, halfsentimental sides of life, which press themselves upon the public speaker. Nothing could afford a greater contrast than speeches of Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone, on any subject whatever, say, Italy, or commerce, or peace. Lord Palmerston's speech was, so to say, all skeleton, the dry bones of clear self-interest just peeping through a little ineffective flesh of oratorical terms. Mr. Gladstone's is all living nerve and tissue, with perhaps even too little indication of the hard bone beneath. This it was that made Lord Palmerston's not unfrequent theological dissertations and eloquent moral sentiment so grotesque; when, for instance, the Catholic disabilities were repealed, he said that the labours of that session would form "a monument - not of the crime or ambition of man not of the misfortunes or convulsions of society-but of the calm and deliberate operation of Benevolent Wisdom watching the good of the human race." Lord Palmerston's feeling was always bald.

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There was no natural growth of sentiment about public questions in his mind, and when the conventions of society required something of that sort to be said, he said it with a schoolboy's vague general impres sions of the "sort of thing" that was wanted. But his humour was not bald, for it was a compound of perfect ease and presence of mind with real enjoyment of the give and take of society. A Prime Minister who, though not without aristocratic hauteur, could put off, or rather who never put on, the grandeur of State, who not only had no shade of the late Sir Robert Peel's middleclass pompousness, but felt all the lively personal situations in the House of Commons as if they were opportunities for goodhumoured enjoyment in his own private circle, could not but have a rare fascination of his own. No great Minister except himself would have thought of putting down a tiresome catechist like Mr. Darby Griffith when he inquired if a junior Lordship of the Treasury were really vacant, and if it was Her Majesty's intention to fill it up, by replying gravely that it was no doubt vacant, that it was certainly Her Majesty's intention to fill it up, and then in mimic telegraph suddenly offering to place it at his disposal if he could be bought at that price. No public man of equally hard grain had ever so much real vivacity.

He was stronger than the men who survive him. To him the world had been really a public school, and it had made him what he was by its discipline. Cooler and more sagacious than Lord Derby, far more solid and more sane than Mr. Disraeli, less petty and more generous than Lord Russell, sounder and keener than Mr. Gladstone, England will surely have occasion to regret his hardy mind and high spirit. A generation of more limited, more sensitive, and perhaps richer-minded statesmen will possibly succeed him, but a bolder historic figure will scarcely find its place among English statesmen of the second order, than that of the great Minister we have lost.

From the Spectator of 21 Oct. THE VACANT PREMIERSHIP. It will be weeks, it may be months, before the magnitude of the event of Wednesday is fully apprehended by the country. It is not simply Lord Palmerston who has died, but a Ministry which has expired, a cycle of political history which has come to a termination. Lord Palmerston represent

ed, indeed he by himself almost was the po- | prize at once. He has simply to say, as Sir litical interregnum, the period which divided Robert Peel once said, "I will not serve the active past from the yet more active again," and every Ministry which has not future. Whig by position and Tory by pre- him for its head, except Lord Derby's, must possessions, aristocrat in grain yet the fa- collapse, his coleagues must cheerfully or vourite of the middle class, distrustful of sullenly choose whether they will yield the popular sovereignty yet trusted by the body victory to their rival or their foes. Earl of the people, he was of all statesmen the Russell, Lord Granville, the Duke of Somone for an interregnum in ideas- the erset, Lord Clarendon, name whom you coachman who could best hold the reins will-and it is a melancholy sign that no in the middle of a "block" which demand- commoner save Mr. Gladstone is so much as ed careful driving, but no high speed of named his one essential condition will still progress. His function ends with the man be that Mr. Gladstone shall lead the Lower who performed it so well. Even before he House. The man whom every competitor died there were signs abroad that the pause says must be second may if he pleases be in affairs was drawing to a close, and now first, and not to please argues no small magthat he is gone there is no one who could namity. The leadership of the House of fill his special position, even if the nation Commons is often said to be equivalent to desired to see it filled. There is no one on the Premiership, but it is not. Lord Palwhom his mantle has descended, no one who merston himself declared that custom had can rule, and rule satisfactorily, without ap- created a constitutional distinction, which pealing to ideas, or exciting hopes, or mov- he defined before a Committee of the House ing forward, or moving backwards, or doing of Commons nearly in these words: -"If anything except meet skilfully the home or the Premier differs with his colleagues they foreign emergency of the hour, no one for resign, but he does not," and the office carwhom Tories will vote, yet whom Liberals ries with it even more than is involved in are unwilling to displace. The bond be- the exercise of this highest patronage. The tween parties was his life, with his life it Premier, unless utterly weak, gives the tone has fallen through; and once again the old to the Government, represents it abroad, is combatants, whose struggles have lasted at home credited if not with its separate centuries and their truces years, the advo- measures, at least with its general direction, cates of change and the admirers of the can always moderate the initiative he may past, descend ungloved into the arena. By be compelled to accept. When he is really a strange irony of circumstances peace ends strong as Lord Palmerston was strong, with the life of one who was a man of as Mr. Gladstone would be strong, he does war from his youth up, and as the figure of in fact do what he seems to do, and to rethe great advocate of peace becomes more sign the prospect of the one luxury of visible before the crowd, the struggle begins statesman-visible initiative power-reto recommence. The lull is over, and al- quires in a statesman conscious of strength no ready all men are arguing eagerly on the light self-control. We believe that it will be fitness of leaders for the coming campaign, displayed by Mr. Gladstone, and that for arguing all the more bitterly because there the interest alike of the country and the exists, to the rage of one side and the grati- Liberal party it is better it should be disfication of the other, one fixed datum. played. The want of the country is not Speculate as they may and combine as they only a strong and progressive Minister, but will, one unalterable fact remains patent to a strong and progressive Goverment, and a all politicians the key of the crisis is the Cabinet in which Mr. Gladstone's policy is position which Mr. Gladstone chooses to tempered by that of men sounder on foreign take or can be prevailed on to accept. The politics, on clerical questions, and possibly section of his party which decries him, the on the franchise, will possess a strength section which distrusts him, the section which his own Ministry would lack. It may which fears him, each while proposing its not be more moderate but it will seem more own combination admits angrily, or re- moderate to the country, and men are ruled lunctantly, or wearily, it may be, but still by their impressions at least as much as fully that without Mr. Gladstone a pro- by their experience. Even strong Liberals gressive Ministry cannot now be formed. feel that to see every Continental paper announcing that "the policy of abstention has triumphed in England," America suspicious of the man who declared her already dismembered, the High Church exulting in its prospects of patronage, and workmen

He ought therefore logically to be the head of the Government, which without him could have no existence, and were he a self-seeking statesman he might, in spite of all opposing circumstances, grasp the great

decease. They will be all the more able if Mr. Gladstone insists upon carrying into the Cabinet some strength besides his own, if the junction of Peelites and Whigs which gave us Lord Lord Palmerston's Government becomes a junction of Whigs with Mr. Gladstone's friends.

demanding household suffrage, as " prom- and would be able, to face the great defecised" by the First Minister, would be draw- tion certain to follow Lord Palmerston's backs to their pleasure at their leader's accession to power. They want his ideas to rule, and not his crotchets. As it is certain that no subordinate could temper the policy of Mr. Gladstone as Premier, he must have a chief, and there are, if we set aside vague speculations, but three probable namesEarl Russell, Lord Granville, and the Duke of Somerset, and of the three Earl Russell is foremost in the race. He has been Premier, he is the natural chief of the great Whig connection still so powerful in the House, he is trusted by sections of the Liberals who distrust Mr. Gladstone-for example, the Non-conformists - and he can, if any man can, temper the exercise of his great colleague's strength. Mr. Gladstone, moreover, may serve without discredit under a statesman who held high office before he himself had a beard, whose reputation is still high throughout Europe, and with whose ends at least, if not his means, he himself cordially agrees. The Duke of Somerset, though frequently named in political circles, would be a surprise to the public, and would require, to be thoroughly efficient, a leader of the Lower House less independent than Mr. Gladstone, while to Lord Granville, so often named, there may be one fatal objection. Self-abnegation has limits, and it is by no means certain that either Mr. Gladstone or Earl Russell could consent to serve under one who, however popular, has been distinguished rather as courtier than statesman, and who is younger than himself both in years and in office. There is an etiquette in official as in private life, which it is often painful to disregard, and the heaven-born general who gives way at once to seniority often frets under a supercession by favour, however purely nominal. Earl Russell would seem to be the inevitable Premier, and a Russell-Gladstone Cabinet, supported at once by the old Whigs, the "Liberals" properly so called, and the Radicals, ought to be able,

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The secret of power lies there now, as it lay in the time of Pitt, in a union between the Liberal aristocracy, or hereditary Whigs, and the representatives of the mass of the people. Their alliance, whenever it has occurred, has always proved irresistible, and the opportunity for such alliance is now at hand. It is suggested that the country will prefer a minimum of change, that in fact the Premiership alone needs to be filled; and this might be good policy, if the majority secured for Lord Palmerston could be relied on for his successor. It is, however, nearly certain that it cannot, and the new Premier will be wise to take the opportunity afforded by a great event to form a Ministry which shall be recognized by the country and by Europe as a strong one. There is a necessity for new blood, and the House of Commons, impatient of the preference shown to the Lords when the Premier sat on its benches, is not likely to endure the absence of the Ministers for War, Foreign Affairs, and the Navy, and of the Premier besides. Mr. Gladstone will require debating support in the Commons, support which in any serious emergency neither Sir George Grey nor Sir Charles Wood is competent to give. Some re-organization is inevitable, and we trust that in making it the new Premier will consider nothing except the right of the country to the ablest Government obtainable, and of the party to a complete representation. Past services demand consideration whenever it is clearly proved that they do not stand in the way of that first of national interests-a Government which can rely on the support of the House of Commons.

Rounding each year to its perfect close,
Adding new strength to her tiny frame.
Nameless graces and winning ways

What have they Came as the gift of their clear bright days.

What fair gifts to our little one? Never a trouble or care or thought,

But merry gladness from sun to sun; Leaving their bloom on her cheek so fair, And hiding their gold in her sunny hair.

Four keen winters have spread their snows
Over the earth since our darling came,

Guard our treasure, O Saviour dear!

"Changes and chances" this life shall bring; Yet wherever her path lie here,

Fold her safely beneath Thy wing:
Kept by thy guidance from cares and fears,
Lead her, Lord, through the coming year.

M. E. W.

From the Examiner, 14th October. THE CANADIAN CONFEDERATION.

the Confederation, nor the certainty of Canada's exerting itself to the utmost for WE were the first to doubt the expedi- the purpose of defence. We have promised, ency or possibility of the great Canadian ceded territory, and shown the Canadians Confederation. That project was, on its very clearly that we hold to them merely first announcement, so loudly welcomed for pride and honour's sake. They know by the press in general that we somewhat us, our intentions, our pusillanimity, our misdoubted our judgment in objecting to it. economy, and, at the same time, our desire But time has rolled on, and a large portion to retain the name of an empire, and our of the press, if not the majority, has come higgling to preserve even that at the least to feel and put forth the very scruples possible cost and risk. What is union, what which we at first ventured to pronounce. are sovereignty and allegiance worth, upon We said at the time that if the Con- such conditions? federation of British America was a military measure against the United States it was not calculated to be effectual. The Americans would have full choice of the point of attack, and the time of it, and could easily choose both in such a manner as to preclude the ocean provinces from furnishing any aid to the internal provinces, and vice versa. If there were doubts of our ability to defend the Canadians, or enable them to defend themselves, there could be none whatever of our ability to defend the capital, the mines, and the provinces of Nova Scotia. For these and more reasons than it is desirable to dwell upon, we questioned the policy of our favouring the idea of a Confederation.

That it would not make the entire group of colonies stronger against the only enemy which could assail them was apparent. But it was also apparent that the Confederation, if weak against the Americans, would be very strong against ourselves. Supposing the Confederation formed even in project, there was really nothing with regard to those great regions which we could prudently refuse. If the Confederation, even whilst yet in posse, demanded to be allowed to purchase the Hudson's Bay territory, how could it be refused? If they sought to stretch their jurisdiction all over the continent to the Pacific, including British Columbia, would it be wise to raise the question of our maintaining that territory independent? All these things have been asked, all these things have been yielded. And what have we got in exchange? Nothing; not

The Canadians are, however, anxious for the Confederation. It must be important for them to direct and become completely masters of the maritime States. These do not see the matter in the same light. What are our gains, they ask, by having our interests and counsels merged in those of Montreal or Ottawa? They are under the American thrall; New Brunswick is not. New Brunswick, with the greatest sacrifice, could not save the Canadians from whatever fate or sovereignty they might assign thereunto. But New Brunswick may wish to be mistress of its own fate, and not find itself thrown, as a waif or a make-weight, into a bargain or a surrender which would annihilate it. We are not surprised at the objections of the provinces, but more surprised that we should make so light of them.

What is the last news we hear from Upper Canada? It is that all the strong arms and sturdy fellows are hieing to the United States, attracted by the great want and high rewards offered to labour. The New Brunswickers do not participate in that dangerous temptation. But we would throw them into it by facilitating not only their political union, but their physical junction through communication with theinterior by an expensive and unremunerating railway. We have gone so far in the business that we cannot now turn upon the Canadians and say them nay; but it is really too weak of England to be meddling, and preaching, and paying for what is clearly no English advantage, but something, in all probability, quite the contrary.

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M. PARIS, of Paris, has made one more ef-ive to whist-players may be doubted; but they fort to supersede the ordinary playing cards are certainly an ornament to a drawing-room with a new set, having some artistic beauty and table, and we can imagine ladies and children some little sense. His pack is called an histor- liking them very much better than the convenical series, and the designs are certainly fanci- tional cards. ful and poetical. Whether they will be attract

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