which will embarrass her finances most seriously, and will consequently lead to fresh oppression and fresh disorganization, and hasten that moment when she must fall to pieces, and of necessity become a prey to her powerful neighbour. We could not, conse

quently, have more successfully played into the hands of Russia.

By this treaty we virtually guarantee the independence of Herat, and consequently enter into engagements of the most embarrassing and objectionable nature with the States of Central Asia. How are we to maintain the independence of a small weak State, surrounded by powerful, semi-barbarous nations, each coveting the prize? Are we again to involve ourselves in the quarrels of the princes of Afghanistan, and to take part in their intricate and disreputable intrigues? We confess that we are utterly at a loss to understand what has lately been our policy in that country, and what objects we have had in view in subsidizing our old enemy Dost Mohammed Khan. Is he hereafter to be our representative at, and to maintain the police of, Herat? If so what becomes of the engagements we have entered into at Paris?

Let us always bear in mind that the surest way of giving Herat to Russia is by making an enemy of Persia. M. Ferrier has shown us how easily it is approached. We know from equally good sources that a Russian army, if Persia were favourable to her designs, landed on the southern shores of the Caspian, could march without difficulty on that city, and could secure wellprotected depôts on its whole line of advance. In case of such an attempt, would the independent chief of Herat, our protégé, be able to resist? Our true policy was to strengthen Persia, and to make it her interest to oppose such an advance. It is to be feared that we have by this unjust and impolitic war rendered this policy impracticable.

It is not probable that our position at Teheran will be much improved. We are forcing the Persian Government to receive again as our representative a man who has humiliated the Sovereign and has brought misfortune upon his kingdom. Can it be expected that our relations will be, we will not say cordial, but even friendly? We shall be very much surprised if many months elapse before we shall again hear of slights and insults, and interruptions of relations, unless, indeed, Lord Palmerston in this case, as in the China question, condemns the war and that which led to it by superseding his agent.

Such, then, is the history of the Persian war, and such, we believe, will be its results. Like the war with China it is a war to which we are confident the country will not look back with any feelings of satisfaction. There is, after all, too deep a sense

of justice and fair play in the people of England to admit of their being long deluded by false pretences and audacious assertions. The facts regarding both wars are not yet before them. When they have been thoroughly understood, we shall be greatly mistaken if the people do not resist the imposition which has been practised upon them, and visit with just retribution those who have connected the honored name of England with acts of injustice and wrong.

ART. VIII.-Papers relating to the Proceedings of Her Majesty's Naval Forces at Canton. Presented by Command. 1857.

MR.

R. BURKE has told us, in language to which his genius has given the currency of a proverb, that even in his time the age of chivalry was gone, and the age of sophisters, economists, and calculators had succeeded. Since the day of that extraordinary person, two generations of men have bitten the dust; and already it seems as if we had made another step in the downward series. The age, if not of sophisters, yet at least of economists and calculators, is gone, for no such persons can find acceptance, or even obtain hearing; and an age of charlatanism, of time-serving, and of something very nearly resembling imposture, appears to have taken or to be about taking its place. The ancient, homely, and sterling qualities of Englishmen are in no request; but gasconade is abroad under the name of vigour, and the tendency, so hard to check in human nature, towards offering insult, is fed and fostered under the pretext of preparation to resent it.

The Elections which have just concluded are in many respects both the most remarkable and the most difficult to comprehend and to analyse of our time. Their general result is, for the time at least, to increase uncertainty; to make that darker, which was dark enough before.' In some quarters they are too exclusively regarded in their bearings upon the destinies of the existing administration. But they have other and wider aspects, at which also we shall glance.

One of these aspects it is which goes far we fear to justify the lugubrious exordium of these remarks. They have been characterized by a great and general insincerity. On particular questions there may have been about the usual amount of extorted pledges and evasive professions; but the relations of candidates to political party and to the Ministry have been commonly not unfolded, but enveloped in a mysterious jargon, which it passes the wit of ordinary men to fathom. The name of Lord Palmerston Vol. 101.-No. 202.

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has been found a convenient watchword, and has been largely taken in vain. A cloak of uniform pattern, adapted to the prevailing sentiment of the constituencies, covers beneath it every diversity of garb in which the taste of the owners finds reserved but secure indulgence. From the addresses put forth by candidates, it would almost appear as though there were but one partyleader in the country, and as though that one had four-fifths of the embryo House of Commons for his followers, the various sections of this comprehensive company only differing in the freedom, the warmth, and the breadth of their allegiance.

It is true, indeed, that that changefulness and caprice of the constituencies, which appear to have prevailed in more than common measure on this occasion, have by no means spared the members of the Administration. The elections of the Cabinet Ministers in general have not tended to show they have any sensible share in the popularity of their chief; and we do not remember ever to have seen, after a Dissolution, so many household uniforms pitiably stretched upon the ground. There we find Mr. Frederick Peel, who has not been defended by his father's name; but he serves under a leader who is in all points his father's opposite. Besides being, however, the hero of the best caricature Punch ever produced, he is also the organ of the War Department, and probably the only member of the Government able to work the military estimates through the House under the smart fire which may possibly be in reserve for them. There lies Admiral Berkeley, for many years the naval representative of the Board of Admiralty; there the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Mr. Ball; and last, but not least, there may be seen Lord Monck, who, as one of the most honourable corps of whippers-in, has executed, and we believe executed with great ability, an office more important under the Government of Lord Palmerston than most of the places in the Cabinet.

But, though it might be difficult to find a parallel to this occasion in the number of instances which it has thus supplied of individual discomfitures, it would be still more difficult to find even an approximation to it in the character of the general issue which it presented to the country, and in the nature of the answer given to the question which was practically tendered by the Dissolution. When, after the famous majority at the close of the China debate, the House of Commons met to learn the intentions of the Crown and the Minister, the announcement made by Lord Palmerston was of a nature to create great surprise. Nothing was said upon the high considerations of policy and principle which the crisis had involved. Even the information that a high functionary was to be sent to the spot, was only

dragged

dragged forth by hostile criticisms, and at the end of a sharp debate. The sole topic of thought which had presented itself to the ministerial mind was the question, whether the Ministry should continue or resign. The vote, which had turned on the terrible slaughter in the Canton River, on the perplexed and embroiled relations with a great empire, on the suspension of trade, on the so-called insult to the British flag, on the duty of supporting and the danger of disowning our representatives at the other extremity of the diameter of the globe, was simply viewed as a stroke aimed at the Minister, as if it was even absurd to suppose that any topic connected with the merits of a case so insignificant could have had real weight in the decision. The country was therefore to decide at the Dissolution, not upon the merits of Sir John Bowring's conduct, not upon the policy of the war (this was indeed in the main disposed of, for the time at least, by the mission of Lord Elgin), nor upon any other measure, or assemblage of measures, or course of policy whatever; but simply whether it would or would not have Lord Palmerston for Prime Minister. Not measures, but men, said Mr. Canning at Liverpool. Not measures, but a man, said Lord Palmerston to the country. Strange enough it may be, that the English nation should condescend to permit such an issue to be presented to it; but it was permitted,―nay, it was even welcomed. The issue was accepted precisely in the shape that the First Minister had thought fit to give it. It was not as in 1785, when Mr. Pitt asked the country whether or not it would permit the Crown to be enslaved by a combination no less acknowledged than it was factious; nor as in 1831, when Lord Grey sought its judgment on the Reform Bill; nor as in 1852, when Lord Derby formally and finally referred to the constituencies the expiring controversy of Protection. There was no form of answer permitted, except a simple Aye or No to the inquiry whether we would have Lord Palmerston for minister or not; and every one who presumed to raise any other subject was sedulously denounced by the whole ministerial pack, as either evil-minded or at best inopportune. Lord John Russell had held high language in the House of Commons, and had sparkled in his Address; yet he did not, as a candidate for the City, presume to question that obligation to support the man now his rival and once his victim, which may at present, we presume, be termed without much exaggeration the third great commandment. The utmost he could venture was, slily to reserve a right to pass judgment on the measures of the Administration. But in general any attempt to discuss either the foreign escapades of Lord Palmerston, or his domestic no-policy, or his extravagant expenditure and strange

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strange finance, were treated as either simply irrelevant or absolutely factious. We know of one, and only one, case in recent history that is really analogous. It was when, after the famous 2nd of December and the coup-d'état, of which Lord Palmerston was the earliest and most fervent admirer, the French nation was required to vote whether it would have Louis Napoleon for emperor or not. The answer was given in the affirmative; but it was given under compulsion. The free people of England have consented that a like question should be put to them, and have given it a like reply. As we had once a Barebones Parliament, so we are now to have a Palmerston Parliament. This is the sufficiently clear and audible response of the country to the call which has been made upon it.

We are constrained to acknowledge, that in its first and most obvious aspect this result of the elections affords the most extraordinary instance upon record of homage to the popularity of an individual Minister. Though in our nostrils the incense may be anything rather than fragrant, truth forbids us to deny that it rises from the censer in a cloud more dense and ample than has for generations ascended in honour at least of any British idol. It is indeed true, on the other hand, that there have been cases where marked personal eminence and great and hardy courage have carried candidates the most resolutely opposed to Lord Palmerston through the storm of this election in perfect safety, and even with marked éclat. Bearded by Lord John Russell in London with a fluctuating hardihood, he was denounced by Sir James Graham at Carlisle with a fearless and outspoken freedom which we think challenges the admiration of all lovers of boldness or fair play, even among those who may not recognise the party colours which were hoisted by the old colleague of Sir Robert Peel and of Lord Derby. Enough has passed to show that the fancy or frenzy, whichever it may be, that rules in favour of the Minister, is not wholly impervious to the weapons of reason when they are driven home by a stalwart hand, like that of the veteran Borderer. But, on the other hand, it is plain that this single name was of itself an element of strength in the elections far beyond what has been usual-of strength enough to overpower a weak man on the one side, or to make his political capital on the other. Few, relatively to the mass of the party, were the Liberals who ventured to whisper their discontent with a Minister more illiberal though not more anti-Liberal than Lord Derby, or to hint that some characters of some kind or other ought to be inscribed on that blank tablet which is set up as the ministerial programme; and not few were the numbers of

the

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