The Press. — London, England, 1858-03-20 00:00:00

270 member, " What are you going to do about the Jew Bill." I reply, what did your Government do ? You respect par liamentry majorities ; you were proud of the majority you had upon the measure to which I have always given a cordial support, but what was wanted from the late Govern ment was support in the House of Lords, where the diffi culty arose, and what did we find there? We found a member of the Government in that house always voting against the measure, which had been carried in this house by large majorities. ( Hear, hear.) Therefore, sir, this is not tlie only Cabinet in which differences of opinion exist, even upon the Jew Bill. ( Hear, hear.) Then, again, how did the hon. gentleman and his friends act upon the ballot question? We had a division upon that question last session, and I want to know how the late united Govern. meat—whose members all held the same views upon the same subjects, or who ought to have done so— how they voted upon a question so interesting to all sincere and earnest reformers ? T find that upon the 30th of last June the subject of the ballot came before this house, and a division took place. I find the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the President of the Board of Control, and other members of the Government voted in the majority against the ballot. But in the minority I find the names of a nobleman holding office in the House hold, of the Attorney• General, of the Vice-President of a Board, and the distinguished Secretary for the Admiralty (" Hear, hear," and a laugh) —that distinguished individual who is uow alarmed at the prospect of a Cabinet being in existence which is not of the same mind upon all questions that can possibly be brought under the consideration of Parliament. (Cheers.) Now, I think the course that was taken by my noble friend in another place was a much more judicious course than that which should have been pursued according to the views of the hon. gentleman—viz., that a Minister should state a formal programme of meas'tres which are never carried, and elaborately develop a policy which a deluded people afterwards finds to be barren of all results. I think it is much better when the general principles of a political connection are known that the Government should bring their plans before Parliament than that they should simply give the house a long cata logue of measures which are never to be passed and vague announcements of a policy to which no one can attach a practical or precise idea. ( Hear, hear.) We represent the Conservative party. We wish to support and maintain the institutions of the country, but we also wish to improve them. (Hear ) We believe that the best way to maintain the institutions of the country is to improve them when improvement is necessary, and therefore we can't permit the hon. gentleman to be such a monopolist of all plans for the amelioration of society as he and his friends on all occasions, in a manner so greedy and covetous, aspire to be considered. ( Hear, hear.) Sir, it is entirely in adherence to those views that we in. tend to introduce that India bill to which the hon. gentle man has referred with so much spirit. I deny that there is the slightest inconsistency on our part. ( Hear, hear.) On the contrary, at the right time I will be prepared to maintain that our course will be consistent with itself and satisfactory to the country. 1 never said, nor do I now say, that this course is taken in deference to the majority of this house. Majorities of this house are always to be respected, but not always to be obeyed with servility. When the bill of the noble lord was opposed, it was on the ground that i t the present state of India it was rnwise to weaken the i ifluence of the Government in that country while the revolt still raged; but what is the character of the influence of the East India Company after the vote of this house ? The Company by that vote has been placed in such a position that we believed it was our duty to deal with a question which having once been toueleil could no longer be tam. p red with. ( Hear, hear.) The measure which we have pre pared we will introduce before the Easter recess. ( Hear, hear.) I think the house will admit that as we have satis factorily settled the question which immediately called for our decission, and are prepared before Easter to bring in a bill to deal with the East India Company, we have not been idle, but have exerted ourselves to deserve the confi dence of our Sovereign, of the country, and of Parliament. ( Hear, hear.) The hon. gentleman has also adverted to a subject on which some years ago he used to be extremely happy when it was a fruitful theme; he has referred to Ireland, and asked what our policy will be. There was a time when the Irish question excited all the acerbity of political passions—when the Irish policy was sure to lead to inflammatory debates. No one was then more happy Cian the late Secretary of the Admiralty in so irritating questions of an irritable natnre to a climax, that we could p it but laugh, even in all the acerbity of party bitterness. It is long since the Irish question has been a source of dis turbance; but as the hon. gentleman has asked what is our Irish policy, I may say that our policy will be such as was pursued by Lord Eglintoun fiveyears ago. He again fills the same high office, he is animated by the same feelings, and will be guided by the same instructions. I hope he will attain the same result, and that Ireland, under his influence, will continue to be as good-tempered and as prosperous as she is at present. ( Hear.) The hon. gentleman has asked, What will you do about the Orange magistrates? yo u mean to make Orangemen magistrates? I am not en Orangeman, but circumstances over which we could have no control have led to the institution of Orange societies; they did not spring out of nothing—circumstances must have called for their formation ; we must deal with the establishment as we find it, and if the hon. gentleman wants me to pledge the Government to the declaration that, because a man is an Orangeman, he shall not be made a magistrate, I, for one, cannot assent to anything so essentially unconstitutional. ( Hear.) There ought to be no disqualifications for a magistrate except those which the laws of the United Kingdom proclaim and define. ( Hear, hear.) If an Orangeman ought not to be a magistrate the proper plan would be to bring in a bill to declare so, but nothing can be more unjust or unconstitutional than to make the qualification for an office of trust dependent on the caprice of a political officer, instead of the Fold- THE PRESS, MARcrt 20, 1858. sion of the law. (Hear, hear.) The hon. gentleman also asks what are our intentions with regard to the system of national education? We will maintain that system in violate. (Hear, hear.) But if we find that we can com bine with the maintenance of that system a principle of relief to the church schools which now receive no assist. ance, I think the question deserves the best consideration not merely of the Administration but of Parliament. ( Hear, hear.) All I say is that if we can find a means of adjusting the claims of all parties, we do not preclude our selves from introducing such a plan. ( Hear. hear.) The lion. gentleman then came to the climax of all political questions, that of parliamentary reform. He seems to be extremely alarmed at the opinions prevalent on these benches on the subject of parliamentary reform. It would seem that nobody may poach on that manor but the Liberal party. The hon. gentleman was profuse in those quotations for which he has always been remarkable, but unfortunately they were not relieved by that brilliancy which formerly enabled us to bear his endless quotations from Ha r vard. (Hear, hear.) He fixed on a passage from a speech of mine as his test : he states me to have declared that the bill of 1832 was a gross Whig job. [An lion. Member: "So it was."] An lion. gentleman be hind me says "So it was." (Loud laughter.) But I can assure him and the house that it is an error to suppose that I ever used such a phrase. I have always spoken with the respect due to a parliamentary statute of such importance, and one which had engaged so long the solicitude of the country. Ido say, and I have said before, in this house, and not merely on the hustings of Buckinghamshire, that excitement from the excitement, the unreasoning it, which prevailed at the time, facilities were given for perpetrating very gross jobs during the progress of the bill through Parliament, which had been fully availed of. I believe that is now the opinion of the country. I am sure it is not restricted to the Conservative benches, and I think that without exaggeration I may claim it as the decision of posterity. Mr. Disraeli then briefly traced the history of the Reform Bill of '32, till finality was deserted and innovations proposed by Lord J. Russell himself : From that moment we held ourselves free to consider on its merits any future plan which might be brought for ward to change the parliamentary constitution, and adopt those suggestions which in our minds would lead to the settlement most conducive to the public benefit. ( Hear, hear.) The noble lord the member for the City brought forward a new bill; when he introduced it be was not suc• cesaful, but the opposition did not come from the Conser vative party. When Lord Aberdeen became Prime Minister, and after him the noble lord the member for Tiverton, it was constantly stated that a Reform Bill was to be introduced. At length it was introduced to the House of Commons in a gracious speech from the Throne ; that was repeated again this year. It would be unfortunate indeed if the country should be led to believe that a quell. tiou of this vast importance could be used by statesmen for mere party purposes. If there is one thing more likely than another to poison the feelings of the public, and to alienate their best sentiments from the institutions of the country, it is a suspicion engendered in the public mind that schemes for reconstructing the institutions of the country are used by public men for party purposes. It is impossible that a question like parliamentary reform can be hung up and taken down to suit the convenience of a Ministry—that in Opposition it may be regarded as a thing to be branded in the face of the Government, and in place as a thing which may be allowed to rust in the scabbard. Well, sir, under these circumstances we feel it our duty to consider that question, and we shall consider it with the determination, the earnest determination, of endeavouring to make a settlement of it which will be satisfactory to the soberminded people of this country. (Ministerial cheers.) The hon. member for Dover asks me what are the prin• ciples upon which our Reform Bill is to be founded. I do not think I am bound to tell the hon. gentleman what are the principles of a bill which we do not propose to intro duce during the present session. (Hear, hear.) He asks, " What is your Reform Bill?" I will tell the hon. gentleman what our Reform Bill is not. It will not be a bill devised to prop up a political party, or to promote the interests of a particular class. ( Loud cheers.) It will be founded on principles of general justice, and I hope it will give universal satisfaction. ( Loud and general cheering.) " But," says the hon. gentleman, "what lanai. ness have you in that place? You and your colleagues are in a declared minority." Are we? That's the itiestion. (Cheers and laughter.) Ido not at all agree that we are not supported by the majority of this house ; I entirely repudiate the statement of the hon. member. (Cheers and laughter.) Where is the majority in this house? Has the noble lord the member for Tiverton the majority in this house ? If so, why is he sitting on that (the front Opposition) bench? (" Hear, hear," and cheers from the Ministerialists.) Has the noble lord the member for London the majority in this house? Why, it is only a fortnight ago since the noble lord the member for Tiverton beat him by a majority of 200. (Hear, hear.) Well, then, where is the majority in this house? Is it represented by the bon. member for Dover, by the hon. member for Cashel, or by the hon. member for Knaresborough ? They are the gentlemen who want to hear our policy. What is their policy ?—what is their programme? If they form a Government, will they have a majority? If they have not a majority, and if neither of the noble lords has a majority, why am Ito suppose that we are in a minority ? ( Hear, hear.) On the contrary, we shall carry on the affairs of this country with the utmost energy, and I hope with the utmost prudence ; we shall endeavour to do cur duty to our Sovereign, to Parliament, and to the country ; and so long as we are animated by that endeavour, until the fatal truth is proved by facts which I do not anticipate, I shall believe we possess the constitutional confidence of the House of Commons, (Loud and prolonged Ministerial cheers.) Mr. Honsm.tx entirely diapproved of the attack upon the Government by Mr. Osborne, which he thought more calculated to defeat the progress of public business than to bring about any other result. The present Government had not obtained office by any manoeuvre:— His opinion was, that if they could justly charge the prestnt Government with having obtained office by sr. a li ng into it by some indirect method, or with grasping at it by any factious movement—if they could attribute to them when in opposition a systematic course of unbecornire, conduct to gain that object—then those who now sat oar the Opposition side of the house would be justified in showing them no quaver; but he must say, dltfering front his hon. friend the member for Dover, that ever since the day the lute Government was formed, the opposition to it hal been conducted with a moderation and forberuance to which he remembered no parallel in all his parliamentary experience. During the whole time of the Crimean war, during the negotiations respecting the treaty and the sub. sequent dispute on the Principalities, and throughout the disturbances in India, there were many occasions on which the Opposition, if so minded, could have dealt towards the Government a good deal more than mere casual un• friendly criticism. He had a strong persuasion that if those on his side had then been occupying the Opposition benches, a very different course would have been pursued. Unless his memory deceived him, when they had the plea sure of occupying those benches before, they had more party divisions in three weeks than the gentlemen now in office had ventured on in three years. So far did they carry their forbearance to the late Government that they frequently paid its supporters the compliment of saying that they preferred their leader to their own. He remem• bered he was rather astonished to hear at an election in his county an hon. friend of his belonging to the opposite side state on the hustings that he was determined to give his support to the noble lord the member for Tiverton tie cause he believed him to be the best Tory in the house. As one of the majority by whose votes the late Go vernment had been displaced, by what his hon. friend had described as a discreditable manoeuvre, and accepting all the consequences of that vote, Mr. Horsman reasserted his opinion that the downfall of the late Government and the disorganisation of the party arose from that fatal and inveterate habit of the noble lord lately at the head of the Government of "always looking to the opposite benches for sym• pathy and support., and turning the cold shoulder to his friends"— Always more intent upon neutralising and conciliating his foes than on confirming his friends—relying too much upon his own adroitness and dexterity for that permanent strength which could only arise from solid fidelity to prin ciples—and, above all, imagining that the powerful, ear nest, and high-nettled majority which was so triumphantly given him last April had no other mission to fulfil than to support the personal position of the Minister instead of the principles of a party. This fatal confidence, carelessness, and false security had led to so fatal and rapid a change that, whereas in August last they bad left the house a united party, under the most powerful Minister that had been seen since the Reform Bill, they had reassembled in Feb ruary a disunited and disbanded party, under a Minister who they knew could not long remain in office:— When, therefore, his hon. friend asked the present Go vernment what their principles were, the right hon. gen tlemen opposite with perfect truth replied, " Tell us what were the principles which you as a Government maintained three weeks ago ?" Why, feat was a question which some of those who sat near him had asked themselves in vain. Was it the principle of parliamenpry reform? That was indefinitely postponed. Was it religious freedom? Upon that point the answer was most complete. The conduct of three members of the present Cabinet on this subject did them great honour, and that of the right hen. gentle man (Mr. Disraeli) in particular had been of a character which would make it impossible to speak of him other wise than with respect. But what was the position of the Liberal party on this question ? For the first time in the history of the Liberal party, to its disgrace and shame, that question of religious freedom upon which their most glo rious victories had been obtained was made an open ques tion in a Liberal Cabinet. That was done last year. This year the question had been abandoned by the Cabinet, and intrusted to more vigorous and liberal hands. On the question of church rates, again, what were their principles ? Every one had heard, either from his constituents or front hon. members who were present, that when a large and important deputation waited upon the late Premier upon the subject of church rates, they were stung with indigna tion because their reception had not been such as they had a right to expect. Was it, again, the principle of ad ministrative reform and the pure dispensation of patron age? How was that illustrated in what he could not other wise characterise than as the shabby nepotism which in the county of Kent and at Manchester filched from their legitimate claimants those professional appointments that, contrary to all precedent, had been misappropriated to the aristocratic connections of the Cabinet? Was it then, last of all, the maintenance of the independence and honour of the country? The vote which had displaced the noble lord had given the reply to this question. He thought it right to bring all these facts to the remembrance of the noble lord (Palmerston) In order that they might be well pondered over "before office." i be returned to (A laugh.) He heard it said that it was unwise to allow the present Government to remain undisturbed in office, because the Liberal party might otherwise fail to get them out until next