London, Tuesday, January 11, 1853 

‘We have now arrived at the commencement of the political millennium in which 
party spirit is to fly from the earth, and genius, experience, industry and patriotism 
are to be the sole qualifications for office. We have got a Ministry which seems to 
command the approval and support of men of every class of opinion. Its principles 
command universal assent and support.” 

Such are the words with which The Times, in their first 
excitement and enthusiasm, have ushered in the Aberdeen 
Administration.*, From their tenor one would imagine that 
England is henceforth to be blessed with the spectacle of a 
Ministry composed entirely of new, young, and _ promising 
characters, and the world will certainly be not a little puzzled when 
it shall have learned that the new era in the history of Great 
Britain is to be inaugurated by all but used-up decrepit 
octogenarians. Aberdeen, an octogenarian; Lansdowne, with a foot 
already in the grave; Palmerston, Russell, fast approaching a 
similar state; Graham, the bureaucrat, who served under almost 
every Administration since the close of the last century; other 
members of the Cabinet—twice dead of age and exhaustion and 
only resuscitated into an artificial existence; on the whole a half 
score of centenarians, such is the stock of which, by a simple sum 
of addition, the new millennium appears to have been made up by 
the writer in The Times. 

In this millennium then we are promised the total disappear- 
ance of party warfare, nay even of parties themselves. What is the 
meaning of The Times? Because certain portions of the Aristocracy 

have hitherto enjoyed the privilege of assuming the appearance of 
national or parliamentary parties, and have now come to the 
conclusion that the farce cannot be continued for the future, 
because, on the ground of that conviction and in virtue of the 
hard experiences lately undergone, these aristocratic coteries mean 
now to give up their little quibbles and to combine into one 
compact mass for the preservation of their common privileges—is 
the existence of all parties to cease from this hour? Or is not the 
very fact of such a “coalition” the most explicit indication that the 
time has arrived when the actually grown-up and yet partially 
unrepresented fundamental classes of modern society, the indus- 
trial bourgeoisie and the working class, are about to vindicate 
to themselves the position of the only political parties in the 
nation? 

The Tories, under the Administration of Lord Derby, have once 
for ever denegated their old Protectionist doctrine and professed 
themselves Free Traders. The Earl of Derby, on announcing the 
resignation of his Cabinet, said: 

“1, My Lords, remember, and probably your Lordships will remember, that the 
noble Earl (Aberdeen) has, upon more than one occasion, declared in this house 
that, the question of Free Trade excepted. he knew of none upon which there was 
any difference between himself and the present Government.”* 

Lord Aberdeen, in confirming this statement, goes still further 
in his remarks: “He was ready to unite with the noble Earl (Derby) 
in resisting the encroachments of Democracy, but he was at a loss 
to see where this Democracy existed.” On both sides it is granted 
that there is no longer any difference between Peelites and Tories. 
But this is not all. With regard to the foreign policy, the Earl of 
Aberdeen observes: 

“For thirty years, though there have been differences in execution, the principle of 
the foreign policy of the country has never varied.” 

Accordingly, the whole struggle between Aberdeen and Palmer- 
ston, from 1830 till 1850, when the former insisted on the alliance 
with the Northern Powers, and the latter on the ‘“entente 
cordiale” with France, when the one was against and the other for 
Louis Philippe, the one against and the other in favor of 

* Speech in the House of Lords on December 20, 1852, The Times, 
No. 21304, December 21, 1852.— Ed. 
December 28, 1852.— Ed. 

intervention;*” all their quarrels and disputes, even their late 

common indignation at Lord Malmesbury’s “disgraceful” conduct 
of the foreign affairs—all this is confessed to have been mere 
humbug. And yet, is there anything in the political relations of 
England that has undergone a more radical change than 
her foreign policy? Up to 1830—alliance with the Northern 
Powers; since 1830—union with France (quadruple alliance); *%° 
since 1848—complete isolation of England from the whole 
Continent. 

Lord Derby having first assured us that there exists no 
difference between Tories and Peelites, the Earl of Aberdeen 
further assures us that there is also no difference between Peelites 
and Whigs, Conservatives and Liberals. In his opinion: 

“The country is tired of distinctions without meaning, and which have no real 
effect on the conduct or principles of public men. No Government is possible except a 
Conservative Government, and it is equally true that none ts possible except a Liberal 

Government.” 
“These terms have no very definite meaning. The country is sick of these 

distinctions without meaning.” 

The three factions of the Aristocracy, Tories, Peelites and Whigs, 
consequently agree, that they possess no real marks of distinction. 
But there is sull another subject on which they agree. Disraeli had 
declared that it was his intention to carry out the principle of Free 
Trade. Lord Aberdeen says: 

“The great object of the Queen’s present ministers, and the great characteristic 
of their Government would be the maintenance and prudent extension of Free Trade. 
That was the mission with which thev were peculiarly entrusted.” 

In a word, the entire Aristocracy agree, that the Government has 
to be conducted for the benefit, and according to the interests of 
the middle-class, but they are determined that the bourgeoisie are 
not to be themselves the governors of this affair; and for this 
object all that the old Oligarchy possess of talent, influence and 
authority are combined, in a last effort, into one Administration, 
which has for its task [to keep] the bourgeoisie, as long as possible, 
from the direct enjoyment of governing the nation. The coalized 
Aristocracy of England intend, with regard to the bourgeoisie, 
to act on the same principle upon which Napoleon I professed 
to act in reference to the people: “ Tout pour le peuple, rien par le 

peuple.” * 

“There must, however,” as Ernest Jones observes in The People’s Paper, “be 
some disguise to the evident object of excluding the middle-class, and this, they 
(the Ministers) hope, is afforded by an admixture in subordinate and uninfluential 
places of aristocratic Liberals, like Sir William Molesworth, Bernal Osborne, &c. 
But let them not imagine that this dandified Mayfair liberalism will satisfy the 
stern men of the Manchester School. They mean business, and nothing less. They 
mean pounds, shillings, pence—place, office, and the gigantic revenues of the 
largest empire of the world, placed with all its resources subservient to the disposal 
of their one class-interest.” “ 

Indeed, a glance at The Daily News, The Advertiser, and more 
particularly The Manchester Times,” that direct organ of Mr. Bright, 
is sufficient to convince any one, that the men of the Manchester 
School, in provisionally promising their support to the Coalition 
Government, intend only to observe the same policy on which the 
Peelites and Whigs had acted in reference to the late Derby 
Cabinet; 7.e. to give ministers a fair trial. What the meaning of 
a “fair trial” may be, Mr. Disraeli has recently had occasion to 
learn. 

The defeat of the Tory Cabinet having been decided by the 
Irish Brigade,** the new Coalition Government, of course, 
considered it necessary to take steps for securing the Parliamen- 
tary support of that party. Mr. Sadleir, the broker of the brigade, 
was soon seduced by a Lordship of Treasury. Mr. Keogh had the 
offer of the Irish Solicitor-Generalship, while Mr. Monsell was made 
Clerk of Ordnance. 

“And by these three purchases,” says The Morning Herald, “the brigade is 
supposed to be gained.” 

However, there is ample reason for doubting the effectuality 
of these three purchases in securing the adhesion of the 
entire brigade, and in The Irish Freeman’s Journal we actually 
read: 

“This is the critical moment for Tenant Right and Religious Liberty. The 
success or failure of these questions depend not now on Ministers, but on the Irish 
members. Nineteen votes have overthrown the Derby Administration. Ten men, by 
walking from one side to the other, would have altered the event. In this state of 
parties the Irish members are omnipotent.” 

At the conclusion of my last letter I had stated it as my opinion, 
that there was no other alternative but that of a Tory Government 

“ Of December 18, 1852.— Ed. 

or a Parliamentary Reform.* It will interest your readers to 
become acquainted with Lord Aberdeen’s views on the same 
subject. He says: 

“The improvement of the condition of the people could not exclude (sic!) the 
amendment of the representative system; for unquestionably, the events of the last 
election had not been such as to render any man enamoured of it.” 

And at the elections consequent on their acceptance of office, 
Lord Aberdeen’s colleagues declared unanimously, that reforms in 
the representative system were called for; but in every instance 
they gave their audiences to understand, that such reforms must 
be ‘moderate or rational reforms, and made not rashly, but 
deliberately and with caution.’’ Consequently the more rotten the 
present representative system turns out and is acknowledged to be, 
the more desirable is it that it should be altered neither rashly nor 
radically. 

On the occasion of the late re-elections of Ministers there has 
been made a first trial of a new invention for public men to 
preserve their character under all circumstances, whether out or 
in. The invention consists in a hitherto unpracticed application of 
the “open question.” Osborne and Villiers had pledged themselves 
on former occasions upon the ballot. They now declare the ballot 
an open question. Molesworth had pledged himself to Colonial 
Reform—open question. Keogh, Sadleir, etc., were pledged on 
Tenant Right—open question. In a word, all the points which 
they had always treated as settled, in their quality of members, 
have become questionable to them as Ministers. 

In conclusion I have to mention another curiosity, resulting 
from the coalition of Peelites, Whigs, Radicals and Irishmen. Each 
of their respective notabilities has been turned out of that 
department for which alone they were supposed to possess some 
talent or qualification, and they have been appointed to places 
wondrously ill-suiting them. Palmerston, the renowned Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, is appointed to the Home Department, from 
which Russell has been removed, although grown old in that 
office, to take the direction of Foreign Affairs. Gladstone, the 
Escobar of Puseyiteism,””’ is nominated Chancellor of the Exche- 
quer. Molesworth, who possessed a certain reputation for his 
having copied or adopted Mr. Wakefield’s absurd colonization 
system, is appointed Commissioner of Public Works. Sir Charles 
Wood, who as a Minister of Finance, enjoyed the privilege = 
being upset either with a deficit or a surplus in the treasury, 1 

entrusted with the Presidentship of the Board of Control of 
Indian Affairs. Monsell, who hardly knows how to distinguish a rifle 
from a musket, is made Clerk of Ordnance. The only personage 
who has found his proper place, is Sir James Graham, the same 
who, in the capacity of First Lord of the Admiralty, has already on 
a former occasion, gained much credit for having first introduced 
the rotten worm into the British Navy. 

Written on January 11, 1853 Reproduced from the New-York 

Tribune, No. 3677, January 28, 1853;