The Press. — London, England, 1856-08-02 00:00:00

726 that even the younger member for Lambeth—(a laugh)— will rise and say that, from his profound experience of the forms of the house, he can state that they are the real cause of this great catastrophe. Hon. gentlemen who have studied the forms of the house know very well that, from the year 1848 to the present time, there has been an habitual, but gradual and prudent, curtailment of those forms ; so much so, that those who have well considered the subject, and who know how much wisdom and expo. rienoe is embalmed in our forms, rather apprehend that there has been too great a diminution of these guards against precipitate legislation, than believe that we can facilitate the conduct of public business by the diminution of their number. Nor do I think there is any one who will for a moment pretend that protracted debates or long speeches have brought about this result, because since I have sat in Par• liatnent I never remember a session which has been more remarkable than has the past session for the absence of debates of great length, or in which gentlemen who are in the habit of addressing the house at the length to which they are entitled by their eloquence, their knowledge, and their standing and experience in this house, have trespassed so little upon the attention of Mr. Speaker. It is not the forms of the house, it is not the freedom and amplitude of discussion, then, which has occasioned this lamentable state of affairs. What is it? I will state what I believe to have been the cause, and I beg that the noble lord and his colleagues will not suppose that in stating it I mean to say anything in any way personal to themselves, but quite the reverse. I believe that this failure of legislation is mainly, if not entirely, to be attri buted to the fact that the noble lords and right hon. gentlemen who now form the Ministry cannot command a parliamentary majority. In the general conduct of affairs respect is paid to the gentlemen who occupy that position —a position which they obtained, in my opinion, with all honour, and in a manner which, so far as the noble lord (Lord Palmerston) is concerned, does the utmost credit to his spirit and promptitude. There is on the part of the house great willingness to discharge its functions of supply. Whatever money is wanted for the public service is cheer fully granted. If the noble lord, when at war, wants troops, they are given to him. If he is engaged in negotiations an I requires forbearance, it is yielded with equal readiness. Whether he prosecutes war or makes treaties, he can o ►unt upon the support of the house ; but, when you come to the other functions of a Minister in a legislative assembly, I say that the measures of Government, when prepared, are not intrusted to such a confiding majority as can only exist in this house when founded upon traditional connec tion or identity of principle. The noble lord and his col leagues, when they introduce measures, are never sure that those measures will succeed. There are two consequences of the most injurious character which result fron► that circumstance. It is a great evil that Ministers who think it necessary to legis late upon subjects of paramount importance should fail in their attempts at legislation ; but there is another evil inevitably consequent upon this to which I attribute much of the present disaster. The moment that a Government is habituated to defeat, the moment that its members find that the chances are that the measures which they propose will not succeed, that moment their measures cease to be prepared with that scrupulous exactitude, that fineness, that finish and maturity of preparation which characterise the measures of a Government which upon the introduction of a measure to Parliament feels all the responsibility of legislation. Thus it happens that it ends in the Ministry so circumstanced obtaining momentary popularity or making a transient reputation—if reputation you can call it—by dealing with a variety of subjects, so that the country may say, Here is a Government of men of busi ness ; see what they deal with ! These are the men that we wanted. They are going to construct a court of appeal. All the questions which three hundred years have not solved are about to receive their solution from these prac tical men. The law of divorce is to be reformed. The law of matrimony is to be improved. The law of partnership is to be adapted to an enlightened age and the wants of a great commercial community. All those great subjects to which I have adverted at the commencement of my obser vations, and with which the thought of the country has long been engaged, are at last to find a settlement and a solu tion from men of business, who, irrespective of party con sideration, are determined to show what can be done by those who are animated only by a desire to pass wise and satisfactory measures. When Parliament met, it was an nounced by a high—although anonymous—authority, that a new era had set in in the history of the English Parlia ment ; that struggles for power and place were to cease, and that we were to have a body of Ministers who were essen tially practical men—men of business who were to deal with the difficult questions which had baffled all preceding Ministries. We were told that " measures. not men," was to be, in future, the principle of our political life; and very shortly after that Iwe had an illustration of the new system in the introduction of the Partnership Bill of the right hon. gentleman. (A laugh.) But, s►r, in what does all this end ? After six months of idle phantoms and of empty visions it is no longer " measures, not men," but, unfortunately, men without measures. (Laughter.) If it be true—and I cannot believe that, when pondered over, there will be many who will doubt its truth—that this unfortunate state of affairs arises from the Govern• ment being unable to command a parliamentary majority, what is the remedy which is before us ? In the first place, I shall be met with an objection which is perhaps not much raised in this house, but which is heard in every part of the country, alike in the saloon and in the market place—" this is all the consequence of the Reform Bill." (Hear, hear.) One of my fnends near me says " Hear, hear," and that shows how popular and how plausible is this ides. Well, is the Reform Bill the cause of this state of affairs, because when there is a great difficulty, there are always many specious explanations afloat, and the question is, although specious, are they true? It is twenty. THE PRESS. four years since the Reform Bill came into operation, and certainly during fourteen years out of those twenty-four you have had the affairs of this country administered by Ministries of almost every shade of opinion, who have commanded large and compact majorities. Lord Grey, who represented the high Whigs, had not only a large and commanding majority, but a majority of which the only fault was that it was too large. Lord Melbourne, who re• presented what was called " Whig Radicalism," but which in more courteous parlance we will now call " Liberalism," Lord Melbourne for five years carried on the affairs of this country with a sufficient majority, even in a Parliament which had been called together by his rival. Certainly the sixth and seventh years of his administration were nGt distinguished by great strength, but that was attributable not so much to the want of a majority as to a circumstance which I am sure the friends of Lord Melbourne have now lived long enough to regret—that he clung to office beyond the time at which Parliament would tolerate it. When he left office Sir Robert Peel appealed to the country as a Tory and Conservative Minister. Was there then no com manding majority. There was a considerable and ample majority, which allowed Sir Robert Peel to carry on affairs ; and, therefore, it does not appear to me that there is any truth whatever in the popular statement that the Reform Bill is the root of all this evil. Hear, hear.) But then it may be said that this state of things is to be attributed to the fact that parties are broken up. It is a favourite topic to talk of the " dislocation " of parties. " Parties," they say, " no longer exist because there are no longer distinctive principles among public men." That also is a very current opinion ; but is it true ? (Hear, ;war.) Knr the interest of the country and for our own honour let us pause a moment to inquire whether it is true. Sir, I shall not venture to make any observations on hcn. gentlemen who are members of this house. It is my hap piness to think that I have personal frieues on both sides of the house, and the question is of too great importance to depend upon the opinions of individual members on either aide. But, if I look to the country, if I look to society in the genuine sense of the phrase, I mean to the society of all classes in this country, I do not find that parties are extinct. When I listen to men who have para mount influence with great masses of the community, I do not find in their conversation anything to lead me to the conclusion that distinctive parties have ceased. . . I find two great classes and bodies of opinion which I think I may fairly represent by epithets which, though not very happy nor very precise, have yet passed into popular acceptation—the epithets Conservative and Liberal. I hold that these are too classes of opinion which are perfectly distinct, and in most instances entirely opposed the one to the other. Let me, that I may the more clearly explain my meaning, briefly advert to some points in which I think that that distinction is particularly manifest. I wish to speak with perfect respect of both classes, for each is re presented in this country by numerous bodies of men. Each is supported by numbers, intelligence, property, and, in a word, by " respectability" in the true aad legitimate meaning of that phrase. But the dissimilarity of these opinions is very perceptible. For example, I hold that to be a conservative principle which regards the parliamentary settlement of 1830 as a satisfactory settlement. I hold that to be a conservative principle which, without any blind or bigoted adherence to the doctrine on all possible occasions, believes that tam pering with the suffrage is a great evil to the State. I Ironical cheers from the Ministerial benches.) I believe I am right in maintaining that that is a conservative prin ciple which holds that the due influence of property in the exercise of the suffrage is salutary and beneficial. (Ironical cheers from the same quarter.) I think it is a conservative principle which holds that in any representative scheme the influence of landed property ought to be sensibly felt. 1 hold that to be a conservative principle which would maintain inviolate the union between Church and State— ( a derisive cheer from Mr. Hadfiell)—and which would not only preserve but expand the ecclesiastical institutions of this country. I hold that to be a conservative principle which maintains that the establishment of the Church should be respected, and that the Church itself should not be the stipendiary of the civil power. I hold that to be a conservative principle which would maintain the Established Church in Ireland—(ironical cheers from the Ministerial benches)—believing that it is perfectly reconcileable with respect for the rights and privileges of all classes of her Majesty's subjects in that kingdom. I hold that to be a conservative principle which would cherish and protect all hereditary influences, because they are opposed to a crude centralisation, and because they are the source of a power at once beneficent and econo mical. I hold that to he a conservative principle which would respect venerable corporations—(laughter and iro nical cheers from the same quarters)—and uphold a free magistracy throughout the country. The ironical cheers of the hon. gentlemen opposite con vince me that I am right in this estimate, and that there is a body in this country which, though 1 had scarcely ex pected it, is even represented in this house, and which holds opinions exactly the reverse of those which I have stated. (" Hear, hear," from the Ministerial benches.) The cheers from the Ministerial benches show that there is in the country, and even in this house, a body who be lieve that the parliamentary settlement of 1830 ought not to be maintained, seeing that it arrests the progress of a cause in the advancement of which they feel an inte rest—a body who believe that what we regard as the whole some influence of property on the suffrage ought to be prevented—a body who, instead of cherishing and encou raging, would check and repress the natural influence of landed property on parliamentary representation. I have no fear of misrepresenting the opinions of hon. gentle• men opposite when I say that there are among them those who look with suspicion on the union between Church and State—who, if they bow to it, do so only because it is al ready established—who are not in favour of expanding, and. SATURDAY, scarcely in favour of maintaining our ecclesiastical jinni. tutions—who would be glad to see the Church the sti pendiary of the civil power—who are opposed to here ditary influence—who, instead of a free magistracy, would have a magistracy constructed upon principles which they regard as more precise and rational, but which in our op►nion are not so favorable to the preservation of public liberty in this country. (Hear, hear.) I do not fall out with hon. gentlemen for entertaining these opinions, but their assent to my exposition of them shows that I am right in the supposition that in this country there are two great parties, and that those parties have distinct principles. (Hear, hear.) And if I go to another great branch of public life—to subject which years ago did not attract much of the atten tion of Parliament, but which now absorbs it, tothe injury, as many believe, of those measures of internal improvt ment to which her Majesty made allusion in the Speech from the Throne—l mean the general question of foreign affairs, I find, if not in this house, at least throughout the country, opinions quite opposed to each other. (Hear, hear.) Nor is this an unimportant consideration, for, upon the prevalence of one or other of these classes of opinion the whole form and aspect of the history of this country may be said to depend. I have always thought with respect to foreign affairs that there were three great questions on which it became any man who aspired to be a statesman in England, as well as any parliamentary party which incurred the re sponsibility of supporting such a man, to have clear and precise ideas; and these three are,—the Russian empire, the Austrian empire, and our relations with the United States of America. There is, no doubt, a class of persons who have always looked with great jealousy on the existence and policy of the Russian empire, and when we went to war the object —the avowed object of that party—which they upheld with energy, eloquence, and earnestness, was the dismember ment of that empire. ( Hear, hear.) For my own part, I have ever been of opinion that the dismemberment of the Russian empire was not an object which any states man ought to propose to himself—that such dismember ment, even supposing it to be attainable, could not be attained otherwise than by one of those long wars which must fatally exhaust the energy and indelibly tarnish the character of this country, and that, even if such dismem berment did take place, we might find that the ultimate result would be to disarrange the balance of power in Europe in a manner prejudicial to our interests. On that question, however, there are manifestly two opinions, each supported by a powerful party. Take again the case of the Austrian empire. It is a conservative opinion to hold that the maintenance of the Austrian empire is necessary to the independence of Europe, and, if so, essential also to the civilisation, and even to the liberty of Europe. But surely there is a contrary opinion. ( Hear, hear.) Surely there is in this country a great party who hold that, through the dismemberment of the Austrian empire, very great political advantages might be obtained, not for this country only, but for the world and fur mankind. (Hear.) This leads us to a question which has recently engaged our attention—the condition of Italy. Just as the dismemberment of the Russian empire involves the ques tion of the restoration of Poland and Finland. so does the dismemberment of the Austrian empire include the inde pendence of Hungary and the emancipation of Italy. Ale we to be told that upon these subjects there is no distinct policy in the country? Do we not know that tomorrow we might be called upon in this house to give our votes on questions such as these, and that upon them depend the position and influence of the nation ? (Hear, hear.) I hold it to be a conservative opinion that, if we or any other power should forcibly interfere in the affairs of Italy with the view of changing the political settlement of that country, the result would be one of those protracted wars which would fatally exhaust this country, and which, even supposing it to be successful, would leave Italy, very possibly, not in the possession of Austria, but under the dominion of some other power as little national. Look next to your relations with the United States. What is your policy with respect to that country? Theis are those who view with the utmost jealousy. and regard in a litigious spirit the progress of the United States of America—who think that any advance in their power or any expansion of their territory is opposed to the commer cial interests, and perhaps, also, to the political influence of England. Sir, I run not of that opinion; I am of a contrary opinion. (" Hear, hear," from an hon. gentle man on the Ministerial side.) I don't mean to say that on the question of the United States there is a division of opinion equally well defined with that which prevails on other questions. I can therefore understand the cheer of the hon. member ; but he will hardly deny that there are distinctive principles held by two different parties on this important subject. While nothing can be more monstrous than attempts on the part of the people of the United States to attack the possessions of civilised powers— attempts, for example, to appropriate a Canada or a Cuba — while such violations of international law would, in the case of the United States, I do not doubt, bring the same retri bution and the genie punishment as would visit infrac tions of public law by any other country—yet I cannot forget that the United States, although independent, are still colonies, and still influenced by colonial tendencies. that, where they come in contact with large tracts of territory either wholly uninhabited or but sparsely occa . pied by an indolent and unintelligent race of men, it is ua., possible—and you find it impossible—to resist the expan sion of those States; and that, moreover, that expansion is not in any sense injurious to England, but contributes to her wealth—while (let me say this in a whisper, lest it should cross the Atlantic) it diminishes the poser of the United States. I am, therefore, apposed to the policy which looks upon the extension of that country, and the advance of those young communities, with an eye of jea• lousy and distrust,