The Press.
London, England, 1857-03-28 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 1857.

Lord PALMERSTON'S connection. Ts it for him
to talk of discordant elements who has no
other chance of retaining power than by play-
ing off parties against each other, deluding both
with expectations he has not the slightest in-
tention to fulfil ?

Lord PALMERSTON takes credit to himself for
accepting office, after he had been expelled
from power with his colleagues. It is true
that Lord DERBY had declined to form an
Administration when he thought that he
could not command that amount of Parlia-
mentary support which would insure a strong
Government. But no one knows better than
Lord PALMERSTON that Lord DERBY was pre-
pared to undertake the responsibility of power
if other combinations had failed. Lord DERBY
only wanted some kind of assurance that the
country might not be disturbed by another
change of Ministry at a time when it was ne-
cessary that the national energies should be
concentrated for the prosecution of the war.
Lord PALMERSTON embraced a risk from which
Lord DERBY shrank. Does that of itself give
him a title to gratitude ? Would not any
fellow picked up out of the streets have done
as much ? The lower you descend in the
social scale, the more plentiful are the aspi-
rants for office, however difficult or responsi-
ble it may be. There is nothing commenda-
ble in the selfish ambition which shinks from
no risk to compass its ends, and more parti-
cularly if the risk be not its own. Lord
PALMERSTON intrigued for the Premiership,
and, because he intrigued successfully, he
claims recognition as a patriot. Shrewd man
of the world as he is, does he suppose any one
can be deceived by this glaring hypocrisy?
He carried on the war with " energy and
" vigour." He omits to state that the first
act of his ministry was to negotiate for peace,
while the siege of Sehastapol was still in sus-
pense. In that negotiation, Lord JOHN was
his scapegoat. No ono was more ready than
the Premier to conceal all that passed at
Vienna. Mr. DISRAELI'S motion condemning
the " ambiguous language and uncertain con-
" duct" of the Ministry after the return of Lord
JOHN, disconcerted the schemes of the Cabinet
conspirators. No ono was more ready to
applaud the warlike harangues of the Noble
Lord the Member for London than the
Premier, though no one knew so well all that
had passed, and was passing. When the fraud
was discovered, Lord JOHN was the Jonas to
be thrown overboard, though every member
of the Cabinet was equally implicated
with himself in the deceit that had been
practised.
The Prime Minister claims credit for the
firmness of his Government in overcoming the
difficulties which arose out of the Treaty of
Paris. Not a word is said of the cause of those
difficulties. They originated, not as Lord
PALMERSTON endeavoured to show, through
the faithlessness of Russia, but through
the blunders of himself and Lord CLARENDON.
They neglected to stipulate for one great
object of the war, and then endeavoured to
cover their ladies by assuming the airs of a
bully. The difficulties were at last removed
by means which Lord PALMERSTON, with the
applause of his adherents, declared should
never have his consent—the assembly of a new
Conference ; and then all his roystering of " no
concession" settled down into a compromise,
which, if earlier adopted, would have saved
the nation some millions of war expenditure.
The occupation of the Black Sea by a British

STAMPED
UNSTAMPED..FIVEPENCE.

fleet after peace was concluded was but a feint
to cover a diplomatic blunder.
It is boasted that the Opposition founded
no successful attack upon the Neapolitan or
Persian papers. This exultation is a little pre-
mature, for Naples may yet prove a stumbling-
block in the Premier's way. The Opposition
felt that the Chinese question was quite
strong enough by itself. One glaring proof of
unfitness for the helm is as good as a hundred.
A t Canton we saw his policy in the fruit ; at
Naples only in the bud.
In that part of his address which relates
to the Canton proceedings, the falsehood is
bold and shameless. The paragraph is so
worded as to convey an impression that tbe
t` insolent barbarian "—which is his mode of
describing the Imperial High Commissioner—
had begun to poison and proscribe British
subjects before the outbreak of hostilities.
For this scandalous perversion of fact there
can be no excuse. Nothing whatever has
transpired to show that up to the commence-
ment of hostilities on our part, the Chinese
were not perfectly peaceable and friendly.
Because all the most eminent men in Par-
liament have condemned a precipitate and
cruel policy towards China, Lord PALMERSTON
has the front to speak of them as willing to
make the humiliation and degradation of their
country a stepping-stone to power. When
will Lord PALMERSTON learn that there can be
no humiliation in the exercise of all the higher
principles of our being—as justice, truth, and
humanity ? It is the opposite of these quali-
ties which really degrade a nation, and which
makes power not honoured but detested.
With all his official experience he has yet to
learn the catechism of British statesmanship.
His language is so opposed to all the rules of
English policy, so totally different from any
sentiments that have ever fallen from his pre-
decessors in the Premiership, that high-prin-
cipled men recoil from it with a shudder, and
feel that no terms can be too strong to express
their sense of its thorough barbat ity.
Is it to be supposed that Lord PALMERSTON
is the only man of his day who cares for the
honour ,of England, and that all her states-
men save he are in a conspiracy to lower her
fame ? Have all the eminent men who in
past times condemned his tortuous and tur-
bulent proceedings been in a league to depre-
ciate him? The Duke of WELLINGTON was
not likely to be backward in asserting th•
honour of his country ; yet in that great man's
whole career there is to be found no example
of that arrogance (perfectly savage in all that
relates to China) which the Noble Viscount
seems to think necessary as an evidence of
British spirit.
The caricature is too gross to last any
longer. He has played his last card in the
dissolution, and lost the trick. When beaten
he might have retired with some dignity. He
could not take a hint ; he desires some inti-
mation of a coarser kind. We are much
mistaken if the new Parliament will long wait
an occasion for administering it.

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