THE POLITICIAN.

A

THE SPEAKER.

THE "Chronicle" has lately (by the subtle reasoning and the original views which have established that able journal as so high an authority among all educated men) raised what hitherto had been considered a mere question of form, into one of absolute principle. Our cotemporary. has honoured the proposed re-appointment of Mr. Manners Sutton with a series of leading articles, no less grave and searching, than it has put forth upon the Ballot itself. And in fact there assuredly is something grating to the popular feeling to see the reforming ministers conspire to appoint to the high station of President over the first Reformed Parliament, a man, who-had the question rested upon his casting vote-would notoriously have prevented such a Parliament from ever assembling. Something too of a bungling and halting policy seems at a superficial glance to have been adopted in the whole affair. The Speaker solemnly retires-his resignation is solemnly accepted-thanks are awarded to himspeculation turns upon his successor a peerage is refused he comes again into Parliament-and the Minister writes him a letter, begging him very respectfully to resume his former situation. "We could not make you," implies the Minister, "the last Peer, but we can make you the first Commoner. You were too formidable to be admitted into the House of Lords, and so we will give you the very first place in the House of Commons." Mr. Manners Sutton condescends to accept the offer, and once more the Olympus of the Commons receives its Ægiochus.* All the ostensible arguments that have

*This article was written before Mr. Hume's motion, and the installation of the Ex-Speaker. What we subsequently say of Mr. VOL. II.-24

been alleged by the Whigs in favour of this restoration (save only that of economy) are so unfortunate as to tell against their own power and dignity as a body. "Where so fit a man?" say they. "Where one of the rank, experience, and station sufficient to be a worthy rival to Mr. Manners Sutton? What! in this proud and aristocratic party, now in its most palmy state-the party of the Russells, the Howards, and the Cavendishes, no fit man to propose as a Whig Speaker of the House of Commons, in opposition to the choice of a faction nearly extinct? Can they say that no man of station and popularity amongst them has studied sufficiently the forms and regulations of the Legislative Assembly to be able to become its President? For we must not suppose that this study would require any very great assiduity, or any very inordinate experience-Few, if any, of these regulations rest upon mere traditionary custom. Certain and not numerous volumes contain an explanation of all the forms, orders, and ceremonies of the House, and a man of ordinary application would learn them all in a month. What a confession then of the proverbial Whig indolence, to say, that, among the distinguished Whigs who have sat in Parliament for the last twenty years, no one-even when excited by the ultimate ambition of becoming the first Commoner of Great Britain,-has acquired a competent knowledge of these ceremonial details! Or what a stigma upon Whig respectability, if those who have acquired, with great pains, this superficial knowledge, have not the station or distinction to aspire worthily to the honour of displaying it! The question resolves itself into a dilemma-either among the Whigs there is some man fit to be Speaker, or there is not: if there be not, it speaks a grievous want of respectability in the party-if there be, their bringing forward a Tory evinces no less grievous a want of gratitude to their partizans!

Littleton is not falsified by the event. If the Ministers, instead of Mr. Hume, had brought forward Mr. Littleton, his election would have been certain. Mr. Hume's motion was ill-timed and injudicious; -but how any man returned to Parliament, because of his attachment to the principles of Reform, could yet give his vote to a man notorious for his opposition to Reform would be indeed a marvel-did we not know that Party Inconsistency is accustomed to swallow camels!

Yet, when we come to direct our conjecture towards the secret history of the transaction, we suspect that the Ministers have not acted without a certain policy and discretion. When the Speaker resigned in the last Parliament it was, we believe, the ministerial intention to bring forward Sir Thomas Denman as his successora gentleman who, from his high character and universal popularity, would have obtained the chair with as much ease as he would have filled it with honour. A vacancy in his own profession occurs, and, instead of being made Speaker, the Attorney-General is made Chief Justice. Who should succeed Sir Thomas Denman as candidate for the vacant chair?-Mr. Littleton was, undeniably, the most eligible man; and his claims were of that nature that the Ministry could scarcely pass them over by a preference to any other individual. But Mr. Littletonwith a thousand admirable qualities-is not popular among many of the Members of the House of Commons; -the same qualities that make a man esteemed often prevent his being liked by the vulgar, and Parliament hath its vulgar, as emphatically as the mob itself. Supposing Mr. Manners Sutton to be brought forward by the Tories in opposition to Mr. Littleton, there seemed perhaps, to the Ministry, a great probability that the general popularity of the former, with all the prestige and superstition that attached to the notion of his long experience, would give him a majority of suffrages even among the Whigs themselves. They were unwilling to incur the smallest chance of this defeat; which, indeed, as the first measure of the Reformed Parliament, would be no ordinary one; and finding that Mr. Manners Sutton, debarred from his peerage, and once more in Parliament, would assuredly be proposed for the chair, it possibly seemed the most politic course to affect generosity—to renounce the assumption of party superiority upon mere ceremonial matter and that they might not seem to yield to their opponents, but to precede and forestall their policy-to be the first to offer to Mr. Sutton the situation of which it might be difficult to deprive him.

We do not presume in these remarks to affect any certainty of their truth, they are merely made in the

spirit of conjecture; but we do strongly opine that they are not very far from displaying the whole history of a transaction which has excited so much discussion.

But though the Minister did not-if these observations be true-act without a deliberate and considered policy in proposing the re-election of Mr. Manners Sutton, we think that the policy was mistaken. We believe that if, for instance, Mr. Littleton and Mr. Manners Sutton had been both proposed for the chair, any capricious prejudice against the eminent claims of the former would have been merged at once in strong party feeling. The Press would have fomented that feeling-Members would have felt that their constituents would regard their decision as something more than a ceremony;-it would have been an election between a Reformer and an Anti-reformer, and men just returned from a triumph resulting from a similar contest, could neither honourably nor decorously vote diametrically opposite to the principle upon which they themselves had been elected Mr. Littleton would have been chosen by an immense majority; and this would have been the case with any reforming member of character and long standing in the House, even supposing that Mr. Littleton himself had declined the contest, and supposing that his successor advanced in all but opinions, claims evidently inferior to the ex-speaker. The same reasons that throughout the constituencies of England brought in Reformers but of moderate pretensions in rank or talent in opposition to the most distinguished Tories, must surely have operated also in any election in the House of Commons itself;-nor without good reason,→ for what pretensions of talent, rank, popularity of manner, can equal in public offices the simple pretension of opinions which the majority consider advantageous to the State? It is in vain for Ministers to say, "This is but a mere ceremony,"-the People may reply, as the Spanish Nobles did to their King" What are you yourselves but a ceremony? Besides this-it shows impolicy on a point on which the Whigs have been so often assailed, that they ought to be especially guarded not to deserve the reproach, viz.-the Stuart-like weakness of serving enemies and neglecting friends. The Chair of the House

of Commons is to say the least of it-an office of great honour and emolument: shorn as the Ministers are of patronage, they have not too many such places to throw away upon enemies. It would have been a high reward to several who have stood the brunt, and fought the battle, for years; and if they (no common nobleness even among Whigs, whose only fault, according to the "Edinburgh Review," is contempt of office!) are generous enough to prefer fighting the battle to reaping the honours of victory, the People-eagle-eyed in these matters-never love the semblance of ingratitude among rulers. Nor is it wise to show to the main adherents of a party, that the readiest way to purchase the favour of Ministers is to abuse their measures.

Of Mr. Manners Sutton himself all must speak with respect. The urbanity and dignity of his manners, his conciliation and temper, we readily allow; but these are surely no very rare qualities in a high-bred gentleman, presiding over a deliberative assembly. Of his impartiality, truth obliges us to say one word. We have noted instances in which it seemed to us more than doubtful. The leaders of a party cannot be so much aware of this error in a Speaker as the ordinary herd of Members,— the former are sure to be fairly balanced against each other, and to catch the Speaker's eye when it seems to them the fitting opportunity to rise; but among Members in general it is otherwise. We have often and often, after an effective speech by some of the lesser of the Tory luminaries, when some six or seven of the Reformers, of equal or less calibre, sprung up to reply, observed the Speaker carefully give the preference to the one least able to do it with correspondent efficiency. To the abler of the young Tory Members he was invariably indulgent; to those of the Liberals pertinaciously blind. This was especially remarkable among those who belonged not to one of the great dominant parties, and who were therefore not so loudly called for by the House, but that they might be condemned with impunity to silence. But this partiality was still more evident in the case of Hunt, whom, ás a constant thorn in the side of the poor Reform Bill, the Speaker invariably managed to see the instant