Punch (72.1877)

254

[June 9, 1877.

PUNCH'S ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

ebe we are again!—with
the merry month of
June,—M.P.'s.at West-
minster, the seat of
Her Majesty's Govern-
ment, and W. E. G.
at Birmingham, the
head-quarters, for the
moment, of Her Ma-
jesty's Opposition.

From the elected to the electors is an appeal known to the Constitution
—though the regular way of making it is hy the head of the Govern-
ment, and not the head of the Opposition, " going to the countrv."

Those who don't like this sort of appeal call it " stumping." "'The
P all-Mall goes further, and calls it " stumping down" to the folly
and froth of the masses; the Daily News and Punch call it
" stumping up " from interest to principle, from the lower terrors
of the Upper Tens to the loftier convictions of the Lower Millions.

All depends on the point of view. If, as the D.'T. and the
P. 31. keep on asserting with as much iteration as if they felt the
need of reassuring themselves, as well as their readers, the
majority of the nation is with Lords Beaconseield and Derby, and
against W. E. G. and the Duke of Argyll on this question, why
don't they send the higgest of their hig wigs on the stump too, and
try to raise London or Edinburgh, Glasgow or Liverpool, Man-
chester or Leeds, Bradford or Birmingham, to a declaration in
favour of the Russophobe and Turcophil view of the matter, as
enthusiastic, whole-hearted, and unequivocal, as this of Birming-
ham and the Local Liberal Associations represented in Bingley

Hall, in favour of the view taken by Gladstone and those who
think as he does—that the Government have come hopelessly
and helplessly to grief between the two stools of intervention and
non-intervention; that they have gone just far enough in inter-
meddling to estop them from using their sole plea of the inde-
pendence of the Turk; that by their paltry, petty, peddling policy
of words without weight, remonstrances without earnestness,_ and
representations with no determined purpose behind the varnished
mask of their diplomacy, they have encouraged the Turk in his obsti-
nacy, roused and justified the distrust, and incurred the contempt
of Austria and Germany, Italy and France, thrown the game into
the hands of Russia, and after forcing her into a war which a bolder
and a braver policy would have rendered unnecessary, put her in
the best position for dictating the terms of peace when that war
shall come to an end—given her the credit of having done, dared,
and sacrificed all that has been done, dared, and sacrificed, in
the cause of the misgoverned Christian subjects of the Turk ; that,
in a word, they have done everything they ought not to have done,
and left undone all that they ought to have done : while so far
from Russia showing as yet any disposition to attack or interfere
with British interests, she has shown the most cautious determination
to respect them in the widest construction of which the words are
capable. .

That is about the sum and substance of the Gladstonian indict-
ment, and on that W. E. G. has arraigned the Government, in St.
Stephen's first, and at Bingley Hall afterwards. The case has been
heard, tant lien que mal, at Westminster, and has ended in a verdict
for the Government. But there is an appeal from the Lower Court
of Westminster to a Higher Court of Appeal—that of Public Opinion,