London, Tuesday, November 2, 1852 

We continue the deduction of political consequences which 
follow unavoidably in the wake of the present commercial and 
industrious prosperity. 

In the midst of this atmosphere of universal industrial activity, 
of accelerated commercial interchange, of political indifference, 
deprived of any pressure from without, parliamentary parties 
complete in perfect tranquillity the process of their own dissolu- 
tion. 

“The Peelites and the Russellites gravitate at this moment toward each other in 
the strongest manner. The Peelites, those indispensable ‘statesmen’, not being able 
to do anything by themselves, now want to be received into the kinship of the 
governing family. Only look how much their organ, The Morning Chronicle, praises 
the very indifferent speech of Lord John Russell, at Perth.” 

Thus speaks The Morning Herald, the semi-official organ of the 
Government. ; 

Quite the contrary, says The Guardian. Only listen to Mr. Henley, 
the President of the Board of Trade, speaking in the malt-house 
of Banbury to the circle of his farmer-friends: 

“This party,” declares Mr. Henley, “had principles of its own, and had stuck to 
them. Free Trade or Protection was an open question, and had only been made a 
party question by the late Sir Robert Peel.’’ He speaks respectfully of the Peelites: 
“There was now no substantial obstacle to the reunion of the great Conservative 
Party.” * 

No. 357, October 6, 1852.— Ed. 

That’s just it, exclaims The Guardian; sink Protection, and revive 
‘Conservatism. In other words, The Guardian supposes that the 
Peelites are ready—the Corn Laws left out of the question—to 
enter into a reactionary alliance with the Tories. And The Daily 
News reports as a fact, that a portion of Peelites has already passed 
into the Derbyite camp.* But a portion of the Whigs, too, is 
suspected of the same offense—and it would be nothing 
miraculous, considering that their aristocratic nucleus is formed by 
a clique of place-hunters. There is, for instance, Lord Dalhousie. 
My Lord was a Minister under Peel, in the liberal period of 
government. After the downfall of Peel, Russell offered him a seat 
in his new Cabinet. In common with the Duke of Newcastle, Lord 
St. Germans, and other members of the former Government, he 
supported in the Upper House the maneuvers of the Whigs, and 
was rewarded, on a vacancy, with the Governor-Generalship of 
India, that most splendid prize of all in the oligarchic lottery. He 
turned it to the greatest economical account. The Whigs boasted 
of the “unprecedented” sacrifice they had made in alienating so 
highly coveted an office from their own immediate connection. 
And now, at this present moment, the lure held out to Lord 
Dalhousie is the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports, a sinecure of 
thousands a year.**” Our man is said not to be overburdened with 
patrimonial wealth and to consider it his patriotic duty to secure 
the Cinque Ports against a surprise, even under a Derby Ministry. 

Similar bits of chronique scandaleuse, anecdotes of negotiations of 
this or that Whig as to the lowest price at which he is to make 
himself over to the Tories, are found by dozens in the Liberal 
weekly press. They prove the profound corruption of the Whig 
party; but their importance disappears before the schism between 
its two principal leaders, Russell and Palmerston. We had already 
known, some time ago, incidents connected with recent election 
contests in which the part taken by Lord Palmerston in support of 
the ministerial candidates seemed unaccountable, as the Liberal 
papers expressed themselves. Now, one fine morning, Palmer- 
ston’s own organ, The Morning Post, brings out a leader,’ referring 
to the rumors that Palmerston either was to enter the Cabinet as 
Secretary of State and leader of the Commons, or in case of a 
speedy dissolution of the Derby Ministry, to form a new cabinet 
with those fragments of it which might not have become quite 

> The Morning Post, October 7, 1852.—Ed. 

“impossible.” The Morning Post, finding upon the whole these 
rumors very attractive, declares that it does not speak in Lord 
Palmerston’s name, but in its own private name. But Palmerston, 
in despite of all the pressing and even importunate calls of the 
Whig and Liberal press, does not think it proper to refute the 
calumniating report. The Peelite Morning Chronicle mentions these 
rumors * in a tone which plainly shows that Gladstone & Co. would 
not feel any horror vacui” at the idea of similar amalgamations. The 
Daily News, a paper of the Manchester School, discovers this 
circumstance, and indignantly calls upon the traitors among Whigs 
and Peelites to join themselves openly to Derby.‘ Thus you see how 
every one of the Parliamentary coteries which have hitherto one after 
the other taken hold of the political helm, is distrusting all others and 
its own members, how they accuse each other of desertion, 
corruption, compromise and yet each and all admit, that, leaving the 
Corn Laws out of the question, there is nothing in the way of their 
joining the Derbyites but personal rancor and personal ambition. 
They occupy toward Derby about the same position as, before the 2d 
December last, the different fractions of the Party of Order toward 
Bonaparte. 

That the opposition is awaiting the coming Parliamentary 
campaign in a rather pusillanimous mood, is easily explained. 

Little John Russell recetved the freedom of the burgh of Perth 
in a little bag, and replied, after a giant dinner, in a little speech, 
the most important part of which was the following declaration: 

“We are bound in justice, as well as, I think, directed by policy, to wait until those 
measures are produced which are to give to the agricultural interest, to the colonial 
interest, to the shipping interest, all the compensation of which they have hitherto 
been unjustly deprived [laughter]—those admirable measures which are to put an 
end to a long contest.” 

The only daily paper of which Russell yet disposes, The Globe 
(evening paper), gives on the above the following commentary: 
“Any such opposition, as was urged against Sir R. Peel in 1835, 
would involve a certainty of failure,”” on account of the rivalries of 
the various Liberal leaders.“ Thus the experiment to upset the 
Derby Cabinet at the very outset of the session, by a compact vote 

“In its leading article of October 5, 1852.— Ed. 

No. 21231, September 27, 1852.— Ed. 
“ Quoted from the leading article in The Globe, September 28, 1852.— Ed. 

of the coalesced opposition, has been entirely abandoned, and 
Lord John Russell remains faithful to his part, being the first to 
sound the retreat. And as to the prospects of Parliamentary 
opposition at large, its chief, Mr. J. Hume, makes the following 
confession in his letter to The Hull Advertiser: 

“If my experience, as regards the Irish members hitherto in the House of 
Commons, is to be taken, the material is not likely to be of that substance to be 
moulded and kept in proper position, or under the influence of any leader. The 
Irish members are too extravagant, too ardent, too strongly imbued with Ireland’s 
wrongs and her sufferings. At present nothing, as far as I know, has been done 
toward a union of Liberals who may be doubtful of the acts of the Derby 
Administration; and when I look to the hollow professions of those who preceded 
Lord Derby (the Whigs), and on their throwing up the cards rather than play out 
the game for the popular cause, by calling on the Reformers to join them, I cannot 
have much confidence in anything they may do to promote the union of parties. 
Indeed, they must be left, I fear, to chew the cud, whilst the Derbyites are 
committing all kinds of misgovernment to forward their own cause, and to benefit 
their supporters; and it will only be after considerable time of such conduct that there 
can be any chance of a People’s party being formed.” * 

John Bright, the actual chief of the Manchester School, has 
indeed attempted, in his after-dinner speech to the manufacturers 
of Belfast, to make good by cajoleries to the Irish members the 
attacks of Joseph Hume,” but in all matters of Parliamentary 
discipline “Old Joe’s” opinion is an authority. 

Thus the Parliamentary opposition is completely despairing of 
itself. 

Nay, the old Parliamentary opposition has so far outlived itself 
that its Nestor, Hume, at the end of his long career now publicly 
declares that there is in the House of Commons no “People’s 
party.” Whatever was there called so, was a mere “rope of sand.” 

Thus, general dissolution, universal weakness and impotency in 
the camp of the Opposition. 

Written on October 16, 1852 Reproduced from the newspaper 
Tribune,. No. 3625, November 29, 1852 

Signed: Karl Marx