London, February 19. The coalition between Tories and Radicals, 
the first signs of which we reported in our last contribution,* is 
today being talked of as a fait accompli by the whole of the London 
daily press. The government Morning Chronicle observes on the 
subject: 

“Yet there never yet was a revolution which was not accelerated from pique, 
wounded vanity, misplaced ambition, or sheer folly, by its predestined and 
unconscious victims; and the motley combination of Derbyites and Liberals who 
have coalesced with Mr. Roebuck are treading in the very footsteps of those 
members of the Chamber of Deputies who, when getting up the Reform banquets 
of 1848, sought only to displace a Ministry, and ended by upsetting a throne.”? 

Roebuck, it asserts, is ready to play the part of a Robespierre or 
(a most remarkable or!) of a Ledru-Rollin. His intention is to form 
a “committee of public safety”. He had had no qualms about 
proposing the following names for the committee which he had 
requested: Roebuck, Drummond, Layard, Sir Joseph Paxton (who 
built the palace for the Great Exhibition *'), Lord Stanley (Derby’s 
son), Ellice, Whiteside, Disraeli, Butt, Lowe (a member of The 
Times’ secret council) and Miles. : 

“It is useless,” continues The Morning Chronicle, “to disguise that we are openly 

threatened with a revolutionary crusade against the aristocracy of this country. [...] 
The demagogues [...] are seeking the overthrow of Lord Palmerston’s Administra- 

tion, by skilfully playing off against it the associated, though not combined, forces 
of Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Roebuck. Democracy is seeking to bring about a revo- 
lution by methodically overthrowing one cabinet after another.” * 

Finally, a government paper threatens the dissolution of 
Parliament, [an] “appeal to the people”, as Bonaparte did a few 
months before the coup d’état. 

The Economist, whose publisher Wilson is Secretary of the 
Treasury, declares “a representative Constitution” to be incompat- 
ible with the conduct of war.” The former hat-maker Wilson 
therefore proposes that Members of Parliament who accept offices 
of state should be released from the obligation of re-election and 
cabinet ministers should ex officio be granted a seat and voice in 
the House of Commons. Thus the ministry is to become 
independent of electors and the House of Commons, but the 
House would become dependent on the ministry. With regard to 
this, The Daily News warns: 

“The people of England must be on their guard, and prepared to make a 
resolute stand in defence of their representative institutions. [...] An attempt is 
about to be made to render Government more independent of the House of 

Commons. [...] This [...] would bring the [...] Government into conflict with the House 
of Commons. The result would be a revolution. ’”* 

And in fact in Marylebone—considered to be one of the most 
radical districts of London—a meeting has been called for next 
Wednesday,‘ to pass resolutions on “the government’s attempt [...] to 
resist the parliamentary inquiry” .* 

Whilst The Morning Chronicle is thus prophesying revolution and 
The Daily News an attempt at counter-revolution, The Times also is 
making reference to the February Revolution, although with 
regard not to the reform-banquets but to Praslin’s murder. For a 
few days ago, in the Irish Court of Chancery, an inheritance case 
was brought in which the Marquis of Clanricarde—an English 
peer, ambassador at the court of St. Petersburg during Mel- 
bourne’s administration and Postmaster-General during Russell’s — 

. The Daily News, No. 2731, February 19, 1855.— Ed. 
February 21, 1855.— Ed. 
and published in The Times, No. 21982, February 20, 1855.— Ed. 

appeared as the principal actor in a truly Balzacian drama of 
murder, adultery, legacy hunting and fraud.” 

“In the gloomy autumn of 1847,” observes The Times, “when the mind of 
France was disturbed by the indefinable presage of approaching revolution [...] a 
great scandal in the very highest circles of Parisian life startled still further the 
already excited public and contributed most powerfully to accelerate the then 
impending catastrophe. Those who contemplate with attention the highly excited 
state of the public mind at this moment cannot contemplate without similar 
emotion the great scandal which has been disclosed to the public [...] in the Irish 
Court of Chancery.”* 

Crimes within the ranks of the ruling caste, revealed at the same 
time in their arrogant helplessness and impotence, the destruction 
of the flower of the British army, the dissolution of old parties, a 
House of Commons without a majority, ministerial coalitions based 
on outlived traditions, the expense of a European war coincident 
with the most fearful crisis in commerce and industry—here are 
symptoms enough of an imminent political and social upheaval in 
Great Britain. It is of particular significance that the wreck of 
political ilusions is taking place at the same time as the wreck of 
free-trade illusions. Just as the former ensured the government 
monopoly of the aristocracy, so the latter ensured the legislative 
monopoly of the bourgeoisie.