The Press. — London, England, 1855-02-10 00:00:00

office, as was best for the advantage of the Govern ment and the public. THE CRISIS. On Tuesday Mr. BENTINCK complained of the disastrous state of public affairs arising out of the actual delay in the formation of a Ministry. He recapitulated the various ,attempt► that had been made, and said that the difficulties arose from the determination on the part of certain public men to force a preponderance of their own party on the new Government. After adverting to the risks incurred by such a state of things, he trusted that an expres sion of opinion by the house would lead to the dis continuance of a delay so fatal in every respect. Sir C. Woon referred to the experience of the older members of the house to say if the course adopted by the hon. member was not irregular and unprece dented. It was not now the time to ask for expla nation. Mr. WHITESIDE hoped that the reasonable obser tions of the hon. member (Mr. Bentinck) might be taken as intended to accelerate a settlement which seemed never likely to be effected without the inter position of the house. Mr. F. SCOTT begged the house to express an opinion on the present crisis, observing, however, that the country had gone on just as well for the past week without a Government as it had for the last two years with one. He trusted some expression of opinion would be made on the conduct of those public men who were opposing their personal interest to the welfare of the country. Mr. LABOUCHERE, admitting that the time might arrive when it would be the duty of the house, by an address to the Crown, to endeavour to put an end to the present situation of affairs, deprecated desul tory conversations of this nature. If the house in terfered at all it should be regularly and with dig nity. The time, he believed, was not far off when they would receive the necessary explanation from a responsible Government. Mr. MUSTS said that the people were kept waiting while two or three aristocratic families were adjusting their diffiwences. The people are beginning to in quire whether there were not men good enough to govern the country as it had been governed for the last thirty years, without entering into the charmed circle of aristocratic relationship. -Mr. MALINS said that it was a most disastrous state of things that a body of men lit to govern them was not to be found. He demanded why Mr. Roe buck did not appoint his committee, and made some strictures on the conduct of the various members of the late Ministry. He complained that the great party by which he was surrounded had no voice in the Government, which was in the hands of a small section of thirty or forty persons, who stood between two great parties. Mr. J. WORTLEY appealed to the house to stop the discussion at a time when Lord Palmerston was, he fully believed, successful in forming a Government. Mr. ROEBUCK rose to explain that the reason why he delayed the formation of his committee was that he wished to obtain the services of the leading mem bers of the house, and if he named any of them he did not know but that they might be includet in the new Ministry. IllOn Thursday the crisis came to an end. Mr. HAYTEH moved for new writs for Lord Palmerston and Mr. Sidney Herbert, who had accepted new office under the Crown. THE EXPLANATIONS. On Thursday Earl GRAMME, in moving the ad journment of the house till Friday next, explained the position and intentions of the Ministry. After a short reference to the past negotiations, in which he said that the public men engaged in them showed great self-abnegation and public spirit, he declared that— As to the principles that should govern the internal affairs of the country, they were identical with those of the late Government, which he believed had met with the general approval of the nation. Whenever a reasonable opportunity occurred for improvement in internal affairs, most assuredly the Government would not neglect or disregard it. But they felt that the paramount object to which the wis dom of Parliament and the energy of the Government should be directed, was the vigorous and active prose cution of the great war in which the country was now engaged. He exhorted the country not to give way to feelings of despondency, in which the army itself did not share. Our resources were unlimited, and we had already achieved more than we had done in any war in an equal time. He had great hopes in our al • liance, and, profiting by the lessons of experience, the Government of Lord Palmerston would carry on the war to the day, and not a day later, when a just and honourable peace should have been obtained. The Earl of DERRY then rose and said that it was his duty to take advantage of the opportunity now offered him of the course which he had felt it his duty to pursue, and of the motives which had actuated him. He began by referring to the conduct of the great Conservative party towards the late Government, which, in the face of the great disasters THE PRESS. which had occurred, abstained from any motion which might imply censure upon them, or tend to increase the national calamities. It was not an easy part to act. If they brought forward a motion which might, by implication, be regarded as a censure on any matter connected with the Government, they would immediately be called upon to move a vote of want of confidence ' • if they concurred in a vote of censure moved by the party in opposition, it was said that they acted from party motives, and not for the benefit of the nation ; if they did neither, but re mained silent, they might be charged, with some justice, as being indifferent to the enforcement of public opinion, and being accessories after the fact to the conduct of the Government. Notwithstanding these difficulties, the Conservative party abstained from bringing forward any vote of censure. But immediately after the recess notice was given of a motion by a member of the Liberal party. He could not agree in a distinction which had been laid down by the late President of the Council, that it was to be considered, not only what the nature of the motion was, but from what quarter it came. If the conduct of the Government was defensible, whether the attack was by friend or foe, it was the duty of the Government to defend itself ; if indefensible, he could not con ceive how a motion could be resisted because it came from a particular quarter. From whatever quarter it came the result was unparalleled in the history of the country : Such was the extent to which the party habitually in opposition to the Government carried their resolution not unnecessarily to interfere with the Government, that he believed that even on that motion, if the division, instead of being postponed till Monday, had taken place on the Friday, little more than one half of the party would have been in their places to pass the vote of censure. But when a motion was brought forward, from whatever quarter, which implied a want of confidence in the Government, and which the Government themselves took care to ex plain was a vote in which the confidence or the absence of confidence of the House of Commons was to be tested, the circumstances were changed. It was impossible the limits of moderation and prudence could be carried to such an extent that, being invited by the Government to ex• press an opinion on the question of confidence or no con fidence, this party should not give expression to the views which they entertained. The result was, as he had said, without a parallel. Upon a question involving a censure, not on one or two individuals, but on an entire Government, that Government was able to muster no more than 148 out of 650 members of the House of Commons : Of the majority of 300 by which the motion was carried the great Conservative party, who have acted together for a considerable period with perfect and uninterrupted union, constituted something like 200. With regar to the different Liberal sections of the House of Commons they were pretty equally divided in this way-100 of these gentlemen voted on one side and 1(X) on the other, and another 100 altogether abstained from voting. Under such circumstances, continued the noble earl : I was not surprised, my lords, when, on the following evening, I received—though I acknowledge I did so with deep anxiety—her Majesty's gracious commands to wait upon her on the following morning, perfectly well knowing and understanding for what purpose I had received such a communication. ft became then my duty carefully to consider the position of the country. In ordinary circum stances I should at once have felt it my duty to accept the responsibility thrown upon me ; for, though the gentlemen who honoured me with their confidence were not those who had incurred the first responsibility by bringing forward the motion, yet, as it was mainly carried by their instrumen tality, I felt that it would have been my duty to accept the proposal; but, under existing circumstances, I felt that I was bound to consider carefully and deeply, without thinking of personal considerations, and without reference to party objects, what course it was for the in terests of the country that in such circumstances I should take. My lords, I can conceive no object ofhigher or nobler ambition, no object more worthy of anxiety by a true pa triot and lover of his country, than to stand in the high and honourable position of the Chief Minister of the Crown and leader of the councils of this great empire, assisted and supported by colleagues combined with him by mutual sentiments and mutual and personal respect, and with the knowledge that this and the other House of Parliament would give to such a Minister the assurance that, except on most extraordinary and unusual occasions, he would be enabled with life and energy to carry out his plans and to mature and accomplish his objects practically as well as nominally, and to control and govern the legis lation and internal economy of this great country. On the other hand, to hold that highly responsible situation dependent for support from day to day on precarious and uncertain majorities, compelled to cut down this measure, and to pare off that, and to consider with regard to each measure not what was for the real welfare of the country, but what would conciliate some half-dozen men here, or some half-dozen there, to regard as a great triumph of parliamentary skill and Ministerial strength to scramble through the session of Parliament, and to boast of having met with few and insignificant defeats—l say this is a state of things which cannot be satisfactory to any Minister, and which cannot be of advantage to the Crown, or to the people of this country. But to enter on the duties of office, not with a precarious majority, but with a sure minority of the other House of Parliamenz—to be aware that from day to day you were liable to defeats at any mo ment by the combination of parties, amounting to a sure majority, and only waiting for the moment when it would SATURDAY, be most convenient to introduce motions for the attain• ment of such an end; to be a Minister on sufference ; to hold such a position without any security for enforcing your own views ; with the fear of exposing your own friends and the country—your friends to perpetual morti fication, and the country to constant disappointment —to undertale the responsibilities and the duties of office in such a state of things would be such an intolerable and galling servitude as no man of honour or cha racter could expose himself to, and such as no man voluntarily would submit to, except from motives of the purest patriotism and from absolute necessity. I consi dered it then my duty deliberately to consider, before I as sumed the responsibility which 1 understood it to be the wish of her Majesty I should discharge, in what position I should be with regard to parliamentary support—how I should stand in this and the other House of Parliament, more especially in the other house. It is true, my lords. that I could have filled several of the offices of the Govern ment in a manner that would have commanded the appro bation and the support of all parties. I had reason to be assured that in one of the offices which, above all others, is at present the object of pre-eminent importance, and UM the proper settlement of which rests the greatest responsi• bility, I should have had the support of a noble friend of mine, not himself a military man, but possessed of a mind eminently military—a noble lord of vast experience, prac tically versed and conversant with the operations of war in distant countries upon a large scale, and who has provt d himself to be an able and successful Minister of War on an extended scale—a noble earl whose energy, whose ability, and whose eloquence, would have given ample assurance to the country of the efficiency of the manner in which he would have performed his duties, and who, if he has ens chsractezistic that is more universally recognised than another, it is that in him the country would have a guar antee that in no possible circumstances would they hear of jobbery or corruption. It is true that in the other thane of Parliament as well as in this house I might have had recourse to a class whom when excluded from office it is usual to characterise as a necessary infusion of new blood, but when in office are called an enlistment of raw recruits. And, when I speak of new blood, I am sure not one of my friends in this or the other house will deem it invidious in me to say that in office I should have received the support and assistance, the unrivalled eloquence and commanding talents, of Sir E. Itulwer Lytton. Lord Derby then said that he bad to look not merely to the capacity of those who might have un dertaken office, but to the vulgar consideration of the numerical strength of his supporters. He had been honoured by the confidence of the great Conservative party. Of these, he could reckon on the support of about 280 members of the other house. At the same time, his Government would have been exposed to the attacks of a combination of parties, such as had happened before, and might happen again. It was true that all parties, under present circumstances, were prepared to merge their differences in the due prosecution of the war, but he had great doubts that he would have found in the House of Commons that general acquiescence under the influence of which there would have been an abstinence from opposition He then referred to the general opinion respecting Lord Palmerston—his popularity—the authority of his former colleague, who bad sacrificed his own position to his opinion of Lord Palmerston's abilities —and, although it was not perhaps a parliamentary ground, the favour and influence he was supposed to possess in the councils of our noble ally. Under all these circumstances, he felt that he required some extraneous aid ; he could not feel any assurance of forming what was of vast importance at the present crisis—a strong Government. It was under these impressions that he obeyed her Majesty's summons. On that occasion I laid before her Majesty without reserve my views with regard to the state of parties. I did not conceal that there might be circumstances under which the House of Com mons would give to such a Government as I was enabled to form, even without extraneous aid, a generous assist ance ; but that there could be no prospect of the formation of a Government commanding a majority as long as there was a large party united in their opinions, some of whose members were excluded from that Government, who, if they were included in it, would bring the e ight of their counsel and assistance. I concluded with lie request that I might be enabled to communicate with Viscount Pal merston, for the purpose of obtaining his concurrence and assistance. I stated also that I could not expect to obtain that concurrence unless he were permitted to bring with him one or two of those with whom he had recently acted. I felt that the abilities of some of those gentlemen might have added materially to the power of debate in the House of Commons, and that their concurrence might be de: sirable, on account of their own individual merit. I state4s without such assistance I did not feel myself in a condi tion to promise to her Majesty that strong Government. which I thought at the present moment it was most de. sirable, if possible, that her Majesty should have. I there fore submitted to her Majesty my humble advice that, failing my endeavours to form a Government, ber Majesty should carefully consider whether it was possible to nom any other combination of public men. I concluded by assuring her Majesty, strongly as I felt the ditticulties of the position, if such a combination were found to be lms practicable, then, at all hazards, her Majesty should not be left without a Government; but I would answer for myself and for those noble lords and hon. gentlemen with whom I have the happiness of acting, that our humble ser . vices should be placed unreservedly at her Majesty's coin. .wand. I may take this opportunity of making astatement , in consequence of rumours which have gone forth, that her Majesty sought to fetter my discretion by some restriction. ~. .1