Karl Marx 
Result of the Elections 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr.3558, 11.September 1852 

Result of the Elections. 

Correspondence of The N.Y. Tribune. 

London, Friday, Aug. 27, 1852. 

I propose now to consider the results of the late general election. 

If we resume Whigs, Free Traders and Peelites, under the generic name 
of the Opposition, thus in common oppose them to the Tories, we find the 
statistics of the new Parliament to express evidently the great antagonism 
alluded to in a preceding letter—the antagonism of city and country. 

There were elected in England, in the Boroughs 104 Ministerialists, 
215 Oppositionists; but in the Counties 109 Ministerialists, and only 32 Op- 
positionists. From the Counties, the strongholds of the Tories, must be 
deducted the richest and most influential ones: the West Riding of Yorkshire, 
South Lancashire, Middlesex, East Surrey and others, possessing a popula- 
tion of four millions, out of the ten millions who compose the population of 
the Counties, independent of the towns sending members to Parliament. 

In Wales, the results of the elections in town and country are exactly 
opposed to each other: the Boroughs here elected 10 Oppositionists and 
3 Ministerialists, the Counties 11 Ministerialists, and 3 Oppositionists. 

Scotland shows us the contrast in its clearest form. The Boroughs, to 
25 Oppositionists, elected not a single Ministerialist. The Counties sent 
14 Ministerialists and 13 Oppositionists. 

In Ireland the proportion is different from what it shows itself in Great 
Britain. In Ireland the national party is the strongest in the country where 
the population is more directly under the influence of the Catholic clergy, 
while in the towns of the North English and Protestant elements pre- 
dominate. Here, then, the proper seat of Opposition is the country, though 
with the present mode of election this cannot show itself so very strikingly. 

Karl Marx 

In Ireland the boroughs sent 14 Ministerial and 25 Opposition, the counties 
24 Ministerial and 35 Opposition. 

If you ask me now which party has conquered at the elections, the reply 
is, they have each and all defeated the Tories, for they evidently are in a 
minority, in spite of bribery, intimidation, and Government influence. The 
most correct statements give: Ministerial, 290; Liberals or collective Opposi- 
tion, 337; doubtful, 27. Now, even if you add these 27 doubtfuls to the 
Ministerial strength, there remains a majority of twenty for the Liberals. The 
Tories, however, had calculated upon a majority of 336 at least. But leaving 
out of the question this numerical minority, the Tories succumbed in the 
elective struggle, for their leading men were forced to deny their own protec- 
tionist principles. Of 290 Derbyites 20 pronounced against all and every sort 
of protection, and of the remainder many, even D'Israeli himself, against the 
Corn Laws. 

Lord Derby had assured in his parliamentary declarations that he would 
change the commercial policy of the country only if supported by a large 
majority—so little did he anticipate that he would find himself in a minority. 
Though, therefore, the result of the election is far from corresponding to the 
sanguine expectations of the Tories, itis yet far more favorable to them than 
the Opposition ever expected. 

No party has been defeated more severely than the Whigs—and in that very 
point where the inherent strength of this party lies: in its old ministers. The 
mass of the Whigs confounds itself on one hand with the Free Traders, on 
the other with the Peelites. The real vital principle of British Whiggery 
concentrates itself in its official head. The chief of the late Whig Ministry, 
Lord John Russell, has been reelected, it is true, by the City of London, but 
in the city election of 1847 Mr. Masterman (Tory) stood 415 votes below Lord 
J. Russell. In the election of 1852 he stood 819 votes above him, and headed 
the poll. Eleven members of the late Whig Government have been right down 
turned out of their Parliamentary seats, viz.: Sir W.G.Craig, Lord of the 
Treasury; R. M. Bellew, Lord of the Treasury; Sir D. Dundas, Judge-Advo- 
cate-General; St G. Grey, Home Secretary; J. Hatchell, Attorney-General 
for Ireland; G. Cornewall Lewis, Secretary to the Treasury; Lord C. E. Paget, 
Secretary to the Master-General of the Ordnances; J.Parker, Secretary to 
Admiralty; Sir W. Somerville, Secretary for Ireland; Admiral Stewart, Lord 
of the Admiralty; and to these you may add Mr. Bernal, the Chairman of 
Committees. In short, since the Reform bill, the Whigs have not experienced 
a similar rout. 

The Peelites, whose numbers were already feeble in the late Parliament, 
have shrunk to an even less considerable group, and many of their most 
important men have lost their seats, for instance Cardwell, Ewart, (both for 

BT 

Result of the Elections 

Liverpool); Greene, (Lancaster); Lord Mahon, (Hertford); Roundell Palmer, 
(Plymouth), etc. The greatest sensation was created by the defeat of Card- 
well, not only on account of the importance of the town represented by him, 
but also on account of his personal relations to the late Sir R.Peel. He is, 
with Lord Mahon, his literary executor. Cardwell was defeated because he 
supported the repeal of the Navigation Laws, and because he would not join 
the No Popery cry; and the Church and State party influenced the elections 
considerably in Liverpool. "That very busy and very money-making com- 
munity," observes an English Free Trade paper on this occasion, "has little 
time to cultivate religious feelings, it mustrely, therefore, on the priesthood, 
and become an instrument in their hands." Besides this, the electors of 
Liverpool are not, like those of Manchester, "men," but "gentlemen," and 
striving for the old orthodoxy faith is a main requisite of a gentleman. 

The Free Traders, lastly, have lost some of their best known names at the 

electoral contest; thus, at Bradford Colonel Thompson (alias Old Mother 
Goose) one of the oldest preachers and literary representatives of Free 
Trade; at Oldham, W.J. Fox, one of their most renowned agitators and most 
witty speakers; Bright and Gibson themselves beat at Manchester, the 
stronghold of the party, their Whig opponents by a comparatively weak 
majority only. It is, however, a matter of course that, under the existing 
electoral system, the Manchester School counts not, and cannot count, upon 
a Parliamentary majority. But it had, nevertheless, boasted for many years, 
that if only the Whigs were turned out and the Tories returned to office, it 
would excite a tremendous agitation and perform heroic deeds. And now, 
instead, we see it again, in the late electoral battle, modestly go hand in hand 
with the Whigs, and this alone is equal to a moral defeat. 

If thus none of the official parties has obtained a victory, if, on the con- 
trary, all of them have been beaten in their turn, the British nation retains 
the consolation that, though no party, yet a profession, is more imposingly 

represented in Parliament than ever—the profession of lawyers. The House 
of Commons will count above a hundred lawyers in its ranks, and this num- 
ber of jurisconsults is perhaps no favorable augury, neither for a party that 
it will gain its action before Parliament, nor for Parliament that it will carry 
a verdict with the nation. 

According to the numerical proportions stated, there is no doubt of it—the 
total opposition disposes of a negative majority against the Tories. By united 
operations, it can upset the Ministry in the very first days after the meeting 
of Parliament. It is, itself, incapable of forming a durable Administration 
from its own body. A fresh dissolution and a fresh General Election would 
be necessary; a fresh General Election, in its turn, would only necessitate 
a fresh dissolution. In order to break through this vicious circle, aParliamen- 

Karl Marx 

tary reform is needed. And antiquated parties and a new Parliament will even 
prefer Tory rule to such a heroic operation. 

The Tories, though in a minority compared to the combined opposition, 
are yet the strongest faction of Parliament, if every party is considered 
separately. They are, besides, entrenched in the strongholds of office, they 
have a well disciplined, compact, pretty homogenous army to back them, and 
they are, finally, certain that their game is played out for ever if they lose 
this time. Opposed to them is acoälition of four armies, each under a different 
chief, composed of badly amalgamated fractions, divided by interest, princi- 
ple, souvenirs and passions, mutinous against paramount parliamentary 
discipline, watching jealously their respective pretensions. 

The parliamentary proportions of the different Oppositionist sections, as 
a matter of course, in no ways correspond to their national proportions. Thus 
it is that the Whigs in Parliament still form the most numerous mass of the 
Opposition, the nucleus around which the other sections group themselves; 
and this is the more dangerous as this party, in its imagination always at the 
head of the administration, is far more eager to back out of the pretensions 
of its allies than to beat the common enemy. The Peelites, the second 
Oppositional section, counts 38 members, directed by Sir J. Graham, S. Her- 
bert and Gladstone; Sir J. Graham speculates upon an alliance with the men 
of the Manchester School. He aspires too much to the premiership, to feel 
any inclination of helping the Whigs to recover their old Government mono- 
poly. On the other hand, many of the Peelites share the conservative views 
of the Tories, and the Liberals can count upon their regular support in 
questions of commercial policy only. "In many other topics," says a liberal 
paper, "it will be easy for Ministers so to frame their measures as to secure 
a great majority of them." 

The Free Traders, par excellence, stronger than in the last Parliament, are 
said to number 113 members. The struggle with the Tories will force them 
more onwards than will be considered advisable by the cautious policy of 
the Whigs. 

The Irish Brigade, finally, about 63 strong, since the death of King Dan, 
not exactly smothered by laurels, but in a position to hold, numerically, the 
balance of power, shares nothing with the British Opposition party but the 
hatred against Derby. In the British Parliament it represents Ireland against 
England. For a somewhat lengthy campaign no Parliamentary party can with 
certainty count upon its support. 

If, in a few words, we resume the results of the preceding disquisition, viz. : 
that the Tories are opposed by a negative majority, but not by a party which 
in their stead could seize the helm of Government—that their downfall 
necessarily would bring on a Parliamentary reform—that their army is com- 

Result of the Elections 

pact, homogenous, disciplined and in possession of the Government 
fortresses—that the Opposition is a conglomerate of four different sections— 
that coälition-armies always fight badly and maneuver clumsily—that even 
the negative majority only amounts to 20 or 30 votes—that one-fourth of 
Parliament, 173 members, are new men, who will anxiously avoid anything 
that could endanger their dearly-bought seats—we come necessarily to the 
result that the Tories will possess the strength, not to vanquish, but to force 
on things to a crisis. And to this they appear resolved. The fear of such a 
crisis, which would revolutionize the whole of the official superficies of 
England, speaks through every organ of the London daily and weekly press. 
The Times, The Morning Chronicle, The Daily News, The Spectator, The 
Examiner--they all shout out, because they all of them have their fears. They 
would prefer reasoning the Tories out of office by hard words, and thus 
prevent the crisis. The collision will come over them in spite of all hard words 

and of all virtuous indignation. 
Karl Marx.