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

LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

On Monday the late President of the Council
replied to the statement of the Duke of Newcastle
made last week in the Upper House. He com-
menced by remarking that the question had been
made a personal one between himself and the noble
duke, instead of being discussed upon the broad basis
en which he intended place it. He considered
that nothing but the vital importance of the war
justified the late Ministry in retaining their places after
the checks they received at the close of last session.
The house, however, continued to give them its coati-
deuce on the war; and he had stated at the time that as
long as the Ministry conducted the war with efficiency
they would be authorised to remain at their posts.
It was of the utmost importance to the issue of a
war that it should be placed in the right hands. Un-
der Lord North we should not have conquered
Canada; under Lord Chatham we should not have
had t ) deplore Saratoga and Yorktown, and to be-
hold the fleet of an enemy riding triumphant in the
Channel. Under such circumstances, it was natural
that he, being the principal member of the Govern-
ment to answer in the house for the conduct of the
war, should watch with the utmost care its prosecu-
tion. He then came to the particular statement of
the Duke of Newcastle. The duke had stated, iu
reply to the allegation of the "strong will" on his
part to continue Secretary of State for the War
Department, that he offered, on the division of the
offices of War and the Colonies, to take " either or
neither." That was certainly true ; yet the wish of
the duke to retain the War Secretaryship was
affirmed to him by various members of the Cabinet;
and he considered it natural that after having fitted
out an expedition with great despatch he should de-
sire to retain the control of that department during
its operations. He read an extract from a letter of
Lord Aberdeen, in which it was said that "when the
Colonial-office was divided no objection was made to
the choice of the War Department by the Duke of
Newcastle." It was not said that "no objection was
made to the choice of the Duke of Newcastle for the
War Department," but " the choice by the Duke of
Newcastle ;" and the words were, it appeared to him,
exceedingly clear and definite. The noble duke had
stated that he (Lord John Russell) had expressed a
wish to hold the seals of the War Department Un-
doubtedly, had the Premier asked him to accept the
office, he should have felt it his duty to accept it;
but, so far from wishing it, it was one totally alien to
his habits, and he should have accepted it with
great reluctance. He then detailed his views as to
the actual position of the Ministers in reference to
this subject:—
My opinion was—and I stated it to another colleague at
the time—that when the Minister of War found any want
of power he should have applied immediately to the Prime
Minister, and that the detect should have been instantly
supplied. In short, my clear impression was, not that the
l)uke of Newcastle was until for the department that he
had assumed, but, as I have stated, either that the Prune
Minister should be constantly exerting himself to hurry on
and hasten the preparations, or else that the War Minister
should be a person endowed with extraordinary authority,
power, and energy. I will state now tha: if the Prime
Minister had been a man whose pursuits and disposition
would lead him with eagerness to hasten preparations and
dispositions of war, the Duke of Newcastle would have
been found perfectly competent for the department that he
held; and I believe also that if Lord Aberdeen had had as
War Minister a person of extraordinary energy and autho•
rity from the ottices which he had before held, the noble
earl would have been a Prime Minister fit to conduct our
affairs during this war. But I did not think from what
happened that the combination of the two insured the
efficiency of the public service.

He explained that the expression in his letter to the
Duke of Newcastle, "that he had done all he
could," meant that he had been overruled by other
departments, and that it did not depend on him to
do more. He then came to a more important ques•
Lion—namely, his alleged withdrawal of his proposi-
•tion on December 16. There were two questions in
his letter to Lord Aberdeen of unequal importance,
one as to the constitution of the department,
whether the Secretaries for War and at War should
'be united, or a board appointed ; the other the
personal question, as to the hands to whom the
department should be intrusted. On the first of
these he had consulted Lord Panmure, and the
opinion of that nobleman was against the union of
the two offices. But with respect to the personal
question, it was his impression, and that impression
had been confirmed by his noble friend, that he had
never touched on that subject; in fact, he considered
that while on the first he might ask the opinion of a
person out of the Cabinet, the second was not a
question proper for external discussion. What he
stated on the 18th of December, then, had reference
solely to the consolidation of the two offices. He
then thus explained his conduct on the more per-
sonal matter

THE PRESS.

I ■nay have stated at that time to Lord Aberdeen that,
after he had said that he could not honestly recommend to
the Queen that the °Mee of Secretary of State for the War
Department should be taken out of the hands of the Duke
of Newcastle and placed in those of my noble friend the
Secretary of State for the Home Department, it was not
my intention to bring before the Cabinet that question,
because, if that question was decided adversely to the
Earl of Aberdeen; that would be equivalent to driving hint
out of the Cabinet over which he presided ; and, therefore,
in deference to him I left that question entirely iu the
background, not changing my own opinion upon it, but, at
the same time, declining the responsibility or incurring
the risk of breaking up the Government upon that sub-
ject. Now, lam ready to admit that it is ♦e likely I
was in error in that &termination ; it is very likely that,
having formed the opinion which I had done, that it was
for the welfare of the country that a change should take
place, I ought to have pushed that question to a decision
is the Cabinet, and that, if my colleagues had decided
contrary to my opinion, t ought then and there to have
resigned. I admit that it may be so. I own I was very
averse to bringing the question to such a decision, and that
I waited as long as possible, particularly with reference to
the relations that I held towards Lord Aberdeen, and
having told him that T would accept office under him, and
wished to maintain his Administration to avoid the neces-
sity of going to that extent.

He then proceeded to narrate his feelings at the
time on the conduct of the war :

I endeavoured to give my best assistance to Lord Aber-
deen, to the Duke of Newcastle, and to the Cabinet, with
the view of improving the situation of our army, and pro-
viding for future success. I must say, at the same time,
that with respect to some of those questions—with respect,
for instance, to the question which was raised in this house
by my honourable friend the member for Aylesbury dnring
the short sitting in December, namely, the necessity for
some provision, some consultation, for the next campaign-
-1 was not satisfied. My hon. friend the member for Ayles-
bury pointed out the damage that would be incurred if the
Russian army was reinforced on the aide of Asia, and he
spoke of the necessity of providing some force to meet any
invasion of the Russians on that side. That was a most

important subject. It occupied my mind very much ; but
I could not say that I received from Lout Aberdeen that
support which I had hoped on bringing this question nnder
the consideration of the Cabinet. However, 1 still con-
tinued a member of the Cabinet. My noble friend the
Secretary of State Fur the Home Department said the
other evening, in answer to the statement which I had
made, that I had lilt taken the right time or the right
mode, and that I ought to have brought before the Cabinet,
before Parliament met, the question of how the evils were
to be encountered, and to have stated the difficulties which
I still thought existed with respect to our military arrange-
ments. I think my noble friend was entirely in the
right. I admit that I perceive an error which 1 have com-
mitted. I have no hesitation in saying that it was an
error on my part not to have fully considered the position
in which I should hare been if the motion for inquiry
should be made after the opinion I expressed and the
dissatisfaction I had certified. But be that as it may,
having committed that error, 1 felt 1 should he guilty of a
still greater error—that i should he guilty of an error in
morality (and there can be no sound politics without sound
morality )—if I stood up in this house and opposed inquiry,
telling this house to be perfectly satisfied with the arrange-
ments then going on, while, at the same time, in my own
mind 1 was not satisfied, and did not feel that I was likely
soon to be. It has been said that the Government might
have been defeated, that I might have stood by my col-
leagues, and that on the defeat of the Government I should
have resigned office. I cannot say that that proposal is
satisfactory to my mind, for it supposes I was to take the
course which in conscience I could not take. But there
is also the other alternative to consider. The event might
have been different—a majority might have declared itself
in favour of the Government, partly in consequence of my
assurance, dissatisfied as I was with the conduct of the
war, and having upon my mind the weight of having in-
duced the House of Commons to support the Government.
Well, after all the obloquy which has been cast upon me I
am very glad I did not incur that guilt.
He then referred to the statement of the Duke of
Newcastle, that he had resolved to resign his office
if the Government escaped, and had even placed his
resignation in the hands of Lord Aberdeen. He
thought that such resignation should in fairness
have been communicated to him, and that if his own
resignation was hasty, Lord Aberdeen's advice to the
Queen to accept it, without further communicating
with him, was, under the circumstances, equally so.
He I had been made the object of much obloquy,
but he believed that his past life would relieve
him from the charge of selfishness and treachery.
It had been reported that the noble duke had said
to the Premier, on the occasion of his first letter,
"Do not give Lord John Russell an excuse for
quitting the Ministry." Now, considering that after
having been Prime Minister for five years, he had
for two consented to serve in a subordinate office
under Lord Aberdeen, he thought that such a sneer
was somewhat misplaced. It did not seem to have
occurred to the noble duke that it was possible there
might have been some deficiencies in his manage-
ment of these mighty affairs, or that he (Lord John
Russell) could have had any other than an indirect
motive for desiring a change in the War Depart-
ment. Lord John then referred to the precedent of
Lord Ripon, who, under Lord Grey's Government,
though reluctantly, yet at once exchanged his post
of Colonial Minister for the Privy Seal, to make

120

room for Lord Derby, believing the accession of that
nobleman to be of advantage to the public service.
Had Lord Aberdeen adopted his suggestion, and
paced Lord Palmerston at the head of the War
Department, the Ministers would have met the
house with a much fairer chance of obtaining its
confidence. Lord John Russell then stated that he
had been
.sent for by her Majesty to endeavour to
form a Ministry, that he had so endeavoured, and
that, as he had expected, he bad failed. He trusted
that whoever was more sueceseful than himself would
receive the support of the house in the present
critical time. He then referred to the complaint of
Sir De Lacy Evans that lee had omitted all mention
of the second division in his Ministerial statement of
the successes of the army. Full justice had been
done to those noble men in the despatches of Lord
Raglan. He was sorry he had omitted the name of
the gallant general himself. He concluded by ex-
pressing a wish that, whoever might be Minister of
the Crown, he might be able to propose a vote of
thanks which would express the sympathy of the
house with the distresses, constancy, and sufferings
of our noble army.
Mr. GLADSTONE remarked that, as a civilian,the
noble lord did not pretend to the completeness of a
military historian, and certainly could not be charged
with indifference. With regard to the other matters
to which he had alluded, he could not wonder that
his noble friend had thought it right to bring the
facts connected with his resignation fully before the
public, even though he had introduced a partial dis-
cussion with respect to the late Government and its
members, into which it would be impossible now
fully to enter. lie alluded to the subject with a
consciousness of the inconvenience of (16,eussions of
this kind, continued from period to period, between
persons of great eminence, who must reply to each
other without the advantages which personal en-
counter undoubtedly confers. With regard to the
appointment of the Duke of Newcastle, be would
may say that it was made with the fall and unquali-
fied assent of his colleagues, and the whole Cabinet
was equally responsible for it. He had just heard
from his noble friend that if the appointment of War
Minister had been offered to him, he should have
felt it his duty to have accepted it. Such an appoint-
ment would, no doubt, have been satisfactory to the
country, but it was only fair to the Duke of New-
castle to say that be had no means of knowing that
such a willingness existed. The noble lord bad
said that he did not think the combination of Lord
Aberdeen as first Minister of the Crown with the
Duke of Newcastle as Secretary for War, was a com-
bination adequate to the emergency. No doubt that
is the opinion which his noble friend had made
known on a former occasion to the house ; but, at
the same time, it is to be remembered that the ques
tion is material at what (late that opinion was made
known. He did not think his noble friend intended
it to be understood that he had made known that
opinion to the First Lord of the Treasury or to the
Secretary for War, or to the Cabinet at large, until
the middle of the month of November [Lord Jobs
Russell was understood to intimate assent]. If that
is so, the matter stands quite clear. The purport of
the let%er in which the noble lord stated to the Duke
of Newcastle that "he had done all he could,"
seemed further explained by the concluding sen-
tence, " and lam sanguine of success." Mr. Glad.
stone then came to the noble lord's change of
opinion on the 16th of December. He admitted the
distinction between the different parts of the original
proposition of the noble lord, but said that he could
not tell what was passing in his mind, and that hi•
colleagues had no means of ascertaining that such a
distinction existed. There was
.an intimate connec-
tion between the two parts of the subject ; it was not
an abstract question. The change of departments
could not be kept separate from the change of men.
He could state from the highest authority, that of
Lord Aberdeen himself, that the distinction, as it
existed in the noble lord's mind, was utterly unknown
to the head of the Government. Matters of all de-
scriptions—military, civil, legislative, parliamentary—
had been discussed in the Cabinet, and on none of
them did the noble lord intimate hie intention of
making any proposal, or that he desired any change
in the persons intrusted with the War Department.
Mr. Gladstone then defended Lord Aberdeen from
the charge of having withheld all intimation of the
intention of the Duke of Newcastle to resign his
office. That resignation had not, as had been stated,
been placed in the hands of the Prime Minister.
The noble duke had merely stated his opinion confi-
dentially, and he thought his judgment was sound.
To have made it more widely known would have
placed both the duke and the Government in
false position. Mr. Gladstone concluded by arguing
that the conduct of the Duke of Newcastle was yet
more honourable than that of Lord Ripon, which had
been brought forward fora somewhat invidions cem-
prea:idsoinnes. s
toLorerdsigßniphonis
hoiffidce,simallptllyougerunwresri his
unwillingly
when requested to do so; but the noble duke, nit.
requested, bad offered to give up, or to take any

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