XII. POLITICS. A Disagreeable Subject Party-spirit Early Recollections, Politics and Port Wine - Protection and Free Trade - Charles Dickens on Patriotism-Lord Rosebery's Brighter HopesAnalogous Temptations Gladstone O'Connell Peel Daniel Webster - John Bright - Palmerston — D'Israeli. SPEAKING of drunkenness and of that polluted atmosphere which largely conduces to inebriety, and suggesting the interference of those who are chosen by the people to legislate for the commonweal, I seem to enter the portals of Politics, and I may be expected to say something about them. Very little, if you please, because I don't like them. They make people so very irritable. They interfere with digestion. They separate very friends. I have known two men, who were playmates at school, fellow-collegians, faithful associates for many years, cut each other in the street after an election, in which they took different sides. Again I recall those dinner-parties of sixty years ago, which we watched from an upper staircase, descending ever and anon, clad in robes of virgin white, but, I regret to say, with furtive intentions upon dishes passing to and fro; I remember the uproar of wrangling voices which followed the banquet, for, as at Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, the sound of revelry preceded the thunder of battle, and the disciples of Peel or of Cobden, Protection or Free Trade, commencing their second bottle of good old port, simultaneously denounced each other as traitors, lunatics, and rogues. Again, in boyhood how scared we were, when our elder mates threw open the window of our dormitory, and as the procession of "Blues" went by with torch and tar-barrel, shouted, "Red for ever,' and in a minute every pane was smashed, and we lay chattering with cold and consternation in our little beds. And ever since, though I have known many of our famous statesmen, not only in their public capacity but in their private life, and thoroughly believe in them as devoted patriots, yet how few they are in comparison with those who regard politics as a contest for the supremacy of their party, a battle between the ins and the outs. Charles Dickens was a reporter to one of our morning newspapers for three years and a half in the House of Commons, and he gives us his experience thus: "Night after night I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl, skewered through and through with office pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to know the worth of political life. I am quite an infidel about it, and shall never be converted." I do not know whether he would be less severe in his commentaries, were he to revisit the Reporters' Gallery, but he would certainly find a change in the menu, whatever he might think of the cooks. The latter are no longer absorbed in roasting and basting the British fowl, but they are engrossed in a preparation of Irish stew, which is at present too peppery for the English palate. There are many who claim to be patriots. even convicts have said, "True patriots we, for be it understood, We leave our country for our country's good." Sir Robert Walpole wrote, "It is easy to make a patriot. I have made many. You have only to refuse a man an unreasonable request, and he poses as a patriot." Our Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery, has spoken wise words concerning true statesmanship, and we may be quite sure that he will make every effort to test the principles of his conscience in their effect through legislation on the commonweal. "I believe," he has said, "that the people are now inclined to think that politics is not merely a game, in which the pawns are too often sacrificed to the knights and castles, but is a living and ennobling effort to carry into practical politics and into practical life the principles of a higher morality. I am certain that there is a party in this country, unnamed as yet, that is disconnected with any existing political organization, a party inclined to say, A plague on both your Houses, a plague on all your politics, a plague on all your parties, a plague on your unending discussions, which yield so little fruit. Have done with this unending talk, and come down and do something for the people.” Righteous words, bravely spoken, but as old as all truth, and as hard now as through all the ages to enforce and realize in action. Sacred aspirations, noble intentions, valiant endeavours, but sore let and hindered by the animosities of party, the jealousy of rivals, the selfishness of private interests, the ignorance and indifference of those who oppose themselves as to the welfare of their fellow-men. There is a sad foreboding in the Premier's words, that the party, which is to be independent of all other parties, and do something for the people on principles of a higher morality, is unnamed as yet. Will it ever be named, and in working order? or will those who desire to establish it be so thwarted and embarrassed by the unscrupulous resistance of their adversaries, so disgusted by the greed and so deceived by the exaggerations of those whom they most wish to serve, that they become disheartened almost to despair? Indeed, I have seen several instances, in which, if I may compare momentous with meaner occupations, the politician has closely resembled in his career the man who delights in breeding and racing horses. The one is devoted to his country, and desires to place it foremost among the nations of the world. The other adores his horses, and designs their victory over all other studs. This supremacy is to be achieved, in the one case by purity of motive, by the power of truth, by overcoming evil with good, and in the other by superior speed of the horse and the skill of his honest rider. All for a time goes well. Then, in the one case, there come concessions of principle to expediency, fears of offending supporters, and so losing votes and office. Those in high places are threatened and warned. There are deviations, accommodations, excuses. Scruples and protests are requested to. wait upon opportunity; the people must be educated, and private convictions must give place to the exigencies of party. And so there ensues not seldom a coaxing of the conscience, a tampering with justice, an inclination to do evil that good may come. "And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, The glow of political ardour begins to pale its ineffectual fire, the voice which was designed by its owner to bid "the Romans mark him, and write his speeches in their books," grows fainter, until it dies in the silent vote, and he, who meant to be, and might have been, a patriot, collapses into the mere partisan. So, descending from the Senate to the stable, he who aspires to be numbered among the heroes of the hippodrome, proposes to achieve distinction and accumulate riches upon the strictest principles of honour and fair play; but as time goes on he is harassed by a suspicion, which gradually becomes a conviction, that the best horse does not always win; that there are occasions on which the owner of the horse which |