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

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.