The Press. — London, England, 1857-03-21 00:00:00

offensive word), and that he earnestly desired her Majesty, for her own sake, to grant an amnesty to these gentlemen ; what would have been the answer ? The answer would unquestionably have been a much less civil one than that given by the King of Naples ; you would very shortly have requested that Minister to take back again the official document in which he had given this advice, as one not to be received or listened to; and probably the next request made by the Foreign Minister would have been that the representative of that Government should walk out of the house and not come into it again. (" Hear," and a laugh.) Now what did the King of Naples do ? He writes you a letter firmly declining to listen to your recommendations, at the same time intimating his sense of the feeling manifested towards him and his country, but declaring that the adoption of such recommendations was incompatible with his rights as an independent Sovereign. There is no answer to that in these papers; but about two months after wards the King appears to have been informed that the tont, of his letter was not sufficiently courteous, upon which he writes again, expressing his anxiety to continue on the best possible terms with England, to give every possible protection to British subjects, and his regret that a sense of what was due to his own independence and that of his country did not permit him to receive advice offered, no doubt in the most friendly spirit, by the Governments of England and France. What was the answer to that ? The only answer was, the recall of your Minister. I do not know, my lords, upon what pretext our Minister was withdrawn from Naples, or what had taken place to justify the suspension of diplomatic correspondence with a Sovereign who professed the most anxious desire to remain on friendly terms with England. What was the consequence ? It was this—that the retirement of your Minister was treated as a matter utterly unimportant ; in the face of all Europe the representative of her Majesty was allowed to leave Naples in contemptuous silence, and with an assurance on the part of the Neapolitan Government that there need not be the slightest apprehension for the safety of English and Fren ch subjects in their persons or property. ( Hear, hear.) I ask you, my lords, do you think that England stands in a dignified position ? (Hear, hear.) If the noble viscount had oome to the determination to enforce a certain scheme of policy upon Naples, I could understand the course he pursued; but to utter menaces—to tender advice under the threat of withdrawing your Minister—to speak of the presence of hostile fleets— to give encouragement to persons who might have been induced by your promises of assistance to rise in insurrection against their Sovereign, and who, in that event, would have been subjected to all the severities to which those who have taken part in a suppressed insurrection are liable—was a line of conduct altogether unworthy of England. (Choers.) If such an insurrection as I have supposed had taken place, who among your lordships can believe that the parties rising in that insurrection—prompted to it by the incitements of the British Government, and therefore exposed to the full displeasure of the Government of Naples—would have received from England either support, commiseration, or sympathy, or would not have been left to suffer the whole penalty attached to that crime into which they had been led by France and England ? (Hear, hear.) With respect, then, to the foreign policy of the noble ♦iscount, 1 cannot say that I entertain any feeling which would justify me in granting him my confi deuce. lam still more doubtful with regard to his do mestic policy; for, strange to say, notwithstanding the long period during which both the noble viscount and myself have been in public life, I am utterly at a loss to know upon all the leading questions of the day what is the policy of the noble viscount. (A laugh.) At all events, before he calls upon us for our support, let us ascertain the grounds upon which he demands our confidence. Shakespeare says that "one man in his time plays many parts ;" but the noble viscount is at the present moment playing half a dozen parts at the same time. (A laugh). THE PRESS. He is not content with being the Janus Biceps, he is a Janus Centiceps—a political chameleon which offers a different hue and colour to the spectator according to the side from which he gazes. (Cheers and laughter.) I defy any man, even the most ardent of his supporters, to say, when he professes confidence in the noble viscount, what, upon any great domestic question of the day, is the policy to which he pledges himself. Some cries have been raised within the last few days which I think must astonish the noble viscount when he reads them. Thus we hear, " Palmerston and Liberalism !" " Pal. merston and Protestantism !" " Palmerston and down with Maynooth !" "Palmerston, the only Christian Premier !" " Palmerston, the true Protes tant Minister !" and blasphemously, or at least irre verently, "Palmerston, the man of God !" The last cry appears in a clerical newspaper, where the noble viscount is announced as " the man of God." (A laugh.) Many of your lordships will recollect a caricature of 1832, in which the late King William IV. was represented as staring at an inscription in large letters on a wall, forming the title of the Reform Bill. The words put into the mouth of his Majesty were, "Can that mean me ?" Or your lord ships may, perhaps, remember a story of still older date, in which a little elderly lady, suddenly aroused from a long sleep, finds her dress somewhat strangely disordered, and " Sure," says the little woman, "this is none of I!" (A laugh.) 1 think the noble viscount, when he sees the various cries with which his name is connected, must doubt his own identity, and say with the old gentlewoman of the anecdote , "Sure, this is none of I!" (Cheers and laughter.) It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the number and variety of the war-cries which have been attached to the name of the noble viscount, there are three with which I have never heard him associated, and yet they are both important in themselves, and have been the watchwords in past times of a great Liberal party. I have never heard " Palmerston and Peace !" " Palmerston and Retrenchment !" " Palmerston and Reform !" (Cheers.) It is possible, even probable, that the noble viscount, having supported the Reform Bill of 18:12, may think that in the path of organic change and parliamentary reform we have gone far enough; but " pexce " and " retrenchment " are sub jects not of temporary but of general application, and I am afraid their absence from the Government pro gramme may be accounted for by the consideration that without peace we can have no " retrenchment " and that with Palmerston we can have no peace. (Hear, hear.) I saw the other day in a newspaper which warmly supports the noble viscount and asserts his claim to the confidence of the country a statement of the opinions to which every man professing to be a Liberal ought to adhere. "Yo man," to use the words of the newspaper in question, " deserving the name of Liberal, ought to wince while catechised upon each of those subjects :—the ballot, extension of the franchise, especially Locke King's motion ; the Batik monopoly, church rates, abolition of pur chase in the army, and promotion by merit ; a gra duated income tax." The writer of the article ob jects, he says, upon principle to exacting pledges from candidates upon the hustings ; but these are the A B C of Liberalism, and no man ought to hesitate for a single moment while being catechised upon them. I should like to see, for the amusement of the thing, the noble viscount, as the head of a Liberal Government, going through his catechism upon these points. (A laugh.) Take the ballot. There is not a man in England who has pronounced himself so strongly against the ballot as the noble viscount. I need say nothing about Mr. Locke King's motion, because of it we have had recent experience. The Government of the noble viscount have sent the subject of the Bank charter to a select committee, but with a very dis tinct intimation that the changes they contemplate, if any, are of the slightest and most trivial kind, certainly, not amounting to an interference with what is called the " Bank monopoly." The noble viscount has expressed himself quite as strongly with respect SATURDAY, to church rates. lam not sure that be has pledged his Government upon the system of purchase in the army, while I should certainly be surprised to hear it announced that a Go vernment measure will be proposed in the new Parliament to abolish that sys tem. It is certain that the noble viscount, as well as every important member of his Administration, has protested against the possibility of introducing anything like a differential—which I suppose is what is meant by a graduated—income tax. I will not say that the Government may not contemplate the introduction of measures upon some of these ques tions, but I am quite sure that in the sense in which they are regarded by the newspaper to which I have referred—as tests of Liberalism—one and all will meet with the determined opposition of the Govern ment so far as they act upon their own views and principles. (Hear, hear.) I may even venture to say that, should any one of these questions Ibe brought forward in the new Parliament by some more and ent Liberal then is to be found on the Treasury benches, the noble viscount, in order to defeat it, will no t hesitate to seek the assistance of that very Conservative party which be now accuses of entering into an "unprincipled combination" to upset his Government. (Hear, hear.) Here it may be said, " If that is your opinion, why do you withhold from Lord Palmerston as a Conser vative that support which, upon your own showing, he cannot receive from any consistent, well-judging Liberal?" M y answer is an easy one—because, in the first place, I do not know what the principles of the noble viscount at this present moment are ; be cause, in the next place, if they are such as I sup p ose them to be, then the noble viscount is in a false position at the head of a Government profess ing Liberalism, and a large number of whose sup porters are avowedly of extreme hadical opinions; a nd because, in the third and last place, I have not that confidence in the steadiness and firmness of the noble viscount which would induce me to believe that in a moment of difficulty and pressure he would stand up in vindication and support of his own principles, whatever they may happen to be. (Cheers.) I give him credit for many good qualities. Nobody can be insensible to the charms of his manner and conversation, and his perfect good humour, an d everyone must admit the great adroit ness with which he manages and steers his course in a popular assembly ; but if I am asked whether I have that confidence in the noble viscount which consists in the firm conviction that, under all circum stances, he will maintain and act upon certain fixed political principles—that from what be did yesterday one might foretel what he will do to-morrow--that he has those higher qualities which are essential to the character of a British Minister—l must reply in the negative. What has happened in the course of the present session? When :the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his financial statement we were told that it was absolutely necessary for the sake of revenue to raise the tea duty to ls. 7d. Opposition was threatened. Mr. Gladstone proposed that the duty should be fixed at Is. 3d., and Lord John Russell suggested Is. 4d. Well, my lords, in the face of their own declaration made shortly before, that Is. 7d. was absolutely necessary for revenue, the Govern ment reduced the duty to Is. sd. But there is yet a much stronger case in point. If there is any one thing upon which it is the bounden duty of the Prime Minister to preserve inviolate the prerogative of the Crown, it is that which concerns the advice that he shall give to her Majesty as to the distribution of honours, irrespective of parliamentary influence and parliamentary support. (Hear, hear.) I will not express any opinion on the merits of the particular case to which I am about to refer, but it is notorious to all men that, with the sanction of the noble viscount, the noble baron opposite addressed to Sir J. M'Neill and Colonel Tulloch a letter offer ing them pecuniary remuneration for their services, and indicating that as the amount and the form in which the Government thought their labours could most prorerly be requited. Well, the noble viscount