Karl Marx 
Political Parties and Prospects 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr.3625, 29. November 1852 

Political Parties and Prospects. 

Correspondence of The N.Y. Tribune. 

London, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 1852. 

We continue the deduction of political consequences which follow un- 
avoidably in the wake of the present commercial and industrious prosper- 
ity. 

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

"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 Govern- 
ment. 

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." 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 

Political Parties and Prospects 

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, con- 
sidering that their aristocratic nucleus is formed by aclique 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 New- 
castle, Lord St. Germans, and other members of the former Government, he 
supported in the Upper House the maneuvres of the Whigs, and was re- 
warded, 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 ex- 
pressed themselves. Now, one fine morning, Palmerston'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 
"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 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 in- 
dignantly calls upon the traitors among Whigs and Peelites to join themselves 

Karl Marx 

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 Law s out of the question, there is nothing in the way of their joining 5 

the Derbyites but personal rancour 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 received 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 thé colonial interest, to the shipping interest, all the compensation 
of which they have been hitherto unjustly deprived (laughter)—these ad- 
mirable 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 ex- 
periment to upset the Derby Cabinet at the very outset of the session, by 
a compact vote 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 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 muchconfidence in anything they may 
do to promote the union of parties. Indeed they must be left, I fear, to chew 
the cud while the Derbyites are committing all kinds of misgovernment to 
forward their own cause and to benefit their supporters; and it will only be 

Political Parties and Prospects 

after a 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 at- 
tempted, 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 au- 
thority. 

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. 
Karl Marx.