The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-30 00:00:00

country and saved the Government. (Hear, hear.) I fear
now that it may be too late, and among his greatest dan-
gers will be the armed neutrality of his unsuccessful advo-
cate and noble friend. (Laughter.) That noble lord, the
member for London, on Friday last attempted, not trium-
phantly, to vindicate the Whigs from the charge of being
'.n exclusive party that required all power for itself—
(" Hear, hear," from Lord J, Russell)--and he found a
solitary instance for the refutation of that charge in the
magnanimity with which the Whigs had consented to that
division of power which his desertion now recant: and
condemns. But in plain words his vindication only
amounts to this, that where the Whigs could not get all
the power they reluctantly consented to accept half.
( &Inch laughter.) Now, gentlemen opposite will, perhaps,
pardon me if I say, that I think the secret of Whig exclu-
siveness and 'W big ascendancy has been mainly this—you,
the large body of independent liberal politicians, the ad-
vocates for progress, have supposed, from the memory of
former contests now ended, that, while England is advanc-
ing, a large section of your countrymen, with no viiible
interest in existing abuses, is standing still ; and thus you
have given, not to yourselves, not to the creed and leader
of the vast popular party, but to a small hereditary. com-
bination of great families—(" Hear," from Mr. Bright)—a
fictitious monopoly of liberal policy—a genuine monopoly
of lethargic Government. It is my firm belief that any Ad-
ministration, formed from either side of this house, should
we be so unfortunate as to losethe present,would be as fully
alive to the necessity of popular measures, of steady pro-
gress—(hear, hear, from Lord J. Russell)—of sympathy
with the free and enlightened people they might aspire to
govern, as any of those great men who are democrats in
opposition and oligarchs in office. (Loud cheers.) But to
uee individually and to the public it is a matter of compa-
rative indifference from what section of men a Govern-
ment at this moment shall be formed, so lone as it man-
fully represents the great cause to which the' and
safety of England are committed, and carries into practi-
cal'execution the spirit that animates the humblest trades-
man, the poorest artisan who has sent his scanty earning
to the relief of our suffering army. (Cheers.) It has boon
said, as the crowning excuse for the Government, that all
our preceding wars have began with blunders. Were this
an arena for historical disquisition I should deny that
fact ; but grant it for the sake of argument. How were
those blunders repaired and converted into triumphs ? I
know a case in point. Once in the last century there was
a Duke of Newcastle, who presided over the conduct of a
war, and was supported by a powerful league of aristocra-
tic combinations. That war was, indeed, a series of blun-
ders and disasters. In vain attempts were made to patch
up that luckless Ministry—in vain some drops of health-
ful blood were infused into its feeble and decrepid consti-
tution—(a laugh)—the people at last became aroused, in-
dignant, irresistible. They applied one remedy ; that
remedy is now before ourselves. They dismissed their
Government and saved their army. (The hon. baronet re-
sumed his seat amid loud and prblonged cheering.)
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.—Sir, I do
not know that I can recollect an occasion on which there
has been before the House—l will not say so great a ques-
tion, but so remarkable a combination of questions, each
of which is great. In this country even the dismissal of
the Government is enough to constitute a great party con-
flict, and to attract much public interest, but the fate of
the Government, though it be an element in this discus-
sion, is the measliest among the elements that it involves—
(cheers)—because, Sir, along with the fate of the Govern-
ment is involved the far exceeding question of the condi-
tion of your army, and along with the condition of the
army is involved that which, if at the present moment it
be regarded with less lively interest, is always of the
deepest interest to the people of England—namely, the
function of the House of Commons to consider and apply a
remedy to great national evils. (Hear, hear.) With re-
spect to the Government, what they have a right to ask is
that their position should be perfectly clear and perfectly
defined in the face of this house. Sir, the hon. gentleman
who last sat down says that the present Government was
formed upon a union of interests, but 'not of opinions.
(Opposition cheers.) Sir, the judgment of the present
Government belongs to a higher tribunal—(laughter
and cheers)—l speak it with no disrespect—than any
individual member of Parliament or any Parliament that
now exists, because this is a question in which personal
feelings and prejudice* are so much involved that it is
viewed by us with heated eyes. But there is a tribunal
that will deal with this question with even-handed justice
—I mean the enlightened opinion of the country. (Hear,
hear.) After what has happened during the last few
weeks, and what we have heard during the last three days
from my noble friend, the member for the city of London,
I beg to enter my respectful protest against the declaratien
of the hon. gentleman (Sir E. L. Bulwer), that the com-
bination out of which the present Government proceeded
was a community of interests and not of feelings and
opinions. (Hear, hear.) I beg to render this testimony,
as far as I am concerned, in the face of the world, to my
noble friend (Lord J. Russell), that in all the measures in
which I have been concerned with him, whether in their
preparation for this house, or whether in their conduct
through this house, I have received from him great cor-
diality and harmony of support, and he, I trust, has received
from me a correlative amount of support. (Hear, hear.)
The history of the Government will remain in its acts,
and by its acts let it be judged. (Cheers.) 'With reference
to the present position of the Government, I must recur to
the explanation of my noble friend, for the purpose of ac-,
knowledging the tribute, so far beyond my merits, which my
noble friend was pleased to pay to a portion of my political
conduct. He is in a position in this house in which it is
his rare privilege that by the eulogies he confers he can con-
fer distinction, but that he cannot receive it in return.
(Cheers.) I will therefore content myself with owning his
kindness in that and many other matters, and in expressing
the hope that it may be never effaced from my recollection.
Bitt with regard to the position of the Government with
reference to my noble friend, it is not to be wondered at if
persons viewing the facts from different points of view do
not see them in the same light, I hope I may not be thought
,to controvert anything stated by my noble friend, if I re-
spectfully state to the house that, at the time he announced
the resignation of the office he lately hold, his colleagues
were entirely unaware, so far as I am acquainted, of any
difference of opinion between him and themselves. (Laugh-
ter and cheers.) My noble friend did nut make any con-
trary statement; but at the same time I think that those
who listened to the statement of my noble friend, and had
no other acquaintance with the facts, might justly suppose
that he, having made a proposal at a given time for a.
change of office in the Government, though he had been
dissuaded from pressing it at a particular time, had con-
tinued to keep that proposal alive, and that only at the
last, when he had lost all hope of its acceptance, had pro-
ceeded to place his resignation in the hands of my noble
friend the First Lord of the Treasury. (Hear, hear.) Sir,
I venture to state, no far as my knowledge goes, that if
such were the impression recently conveyed to the house,
that impression was totally unwarranted by the facts.
(Cheers.) At the time of the resignation of my noble friend
we were not conscious of even the slightest difference of
opinion between him and ourselves with reference to the
conduct of the war. My noble friend had called attention
to a correspondence between himself and the Earl of Aber-
deen, in which he urged that the present Minister of War
should give place to my noble friend the member for Tiver-
ton, and in which Lord Aberdeen declined to accede to
that proposal, acting in concert with his colleagues. It has
been stated that Lord Aberdeen was not justified in declin-
ing that proposal on grounds of private and personal regard,
when that change was beneficial to the country. Why,
certainly not, sir; he would not have been justified in
such a case. But it was not on grounds of private and
personal regard that my noble friend lord Aberdeen de-
clined to accede to that proposal. It was on the 17th of
November that the proposal was made, and those who wish
to appreciate the circumstances should go back to that pe-
riod. Sentiments of discontent among the public with
reference to the conduct of the Minister of War were not
rife in the country at that period. (Cries of Oh, oh !) I
will venture to say more (because if I stop here it may
seem to impiy that opinions out of doors ought to settle
this question)—that the great exertions made by my noble
friend the Minister of War, in conjunction with the Com-
mander of the Forces and the other military departments,
in order to send out the army to the East, were exertions
that deserved and had won the approbation of the country.
(Hear, hear.) Such was the opinion, I believe, of the
country, and such was the opinion of my noble friend the
member for the city of London, for it may be in his recol-
lection, that in the early part of November he addressed
a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, in which he stated to
the duke, with a handsome appreciation of his conduct,
that he had done in office everything that it was
possible to do. (Loud cheers.) On the 3d of December
the correspondence with the Earl of Aberdeen was
brought to a close, my noble friend adhering to his
opinion, and the Earl of Aberdeen declining to act on that
opinion. But from the close of that correspondence till
the time of the meeting of Parliament en Tuesday last
there is a vacuum that requires to be filled up. I may be
wrong—l cannot tell what passed in the mind of my noble
friend—but I venture to say that, with regard to my know-
ledge and in the view of his colleagues, his proposal was
not in existence during that period. (Hear.) On the 3d
of December, as I have said, my noble friend adhered to
his opinion that the office of Secretary at War ought to be
abolished, and that of Secretary for War held by the Se-
cretary of State for the Home Department. Bit shortly
after that Parliament met—on the 12th of December—and
a debate took place on the Address which may be in the
recollection of the members of this house. On the 16th
of December a Cabinet was held, and discussions were
entered into with respect 'to the proceedings of the Go-
vernment and the measures of the coming session. The
impression made, I think, on the colleagues of the noble
lord by the conversations at that Council was, that it
was impossible ho could retain his intention of propos-
ing a change in the War Department; but it was
not left to impressions, for on that day, as I am au-
thorised by the First Lord of the Treasury to state,
Lord Aberdeen, being in some doubt as to the meaning of
the President of the Council, did himself take an opportu-
nity of ascertaining what his opinions were, and asked him
whether he adhered to his proposal with reference to a
change in the War Department. I was not present at the
conversation. I speak only of what Lord Aberdeen in-
formed me, and weal I believe at the time he communi-
cated to such member of the Cabinet as happened to refer
to him. He stated to me that when he asked the noble
lord whether he adhered to his plan, my noble friend dis-
tinctly announced to him that he had changed his inten-
tions. (Hear, hear.) He attributed that change to a con-
versation which he had had with a distinguished person, a
friend of his I need not name—not a member of the present
Cabinet, but versed in the affairs of military administra-
tion, and very friendly to the reform of • the military de-
partment. (Hear.) The noble lord on the 16th of Deeem-
bar stated that he had changed his intentions, chiefly in
consequence of a conversation with his friend, who, though
a great military reformer, had convinced my noble friend
that the present was not a fitting time for the proposed
changes. (Hear.) Well, sir, that being the case, it is
obvious that all his colleagues who took the pains to in-
form themselves on the subject regarded that proposal
of my noble friend, not as a proposal that was awake and
alive, or one that was to be pressed upon them, but as a
proposal which he had given np and definitively aban •
Boned. (Cheers.) Nor was there anything that oc-
curred in the following month that induced the Govern-
ment to think otherwise, because from time to time, as
Cabinet Councils met, measures were discussed ; and
on Saturday week my noble friend himself called the at-
tention of the Government to the subject of the formation
of a War Board, and asked what had been done with re-
gard to developing the views of the Government as to the
war, and at that very Council a plan was agreed upon for
giving form to measures which had for some time been
practically in operation for combining the heads of the va-
rious War Departments with a view to the practical trans-
action of the business of the war. My noble friend was a
concurring and consenting party in that conversation, and
he subsequently went to Lord Aberdeen before the meet-
ing of Parliament and stated that he intended to propose
amendments to that plan, with the terms of which he was
not altogether satisfied. (Hear.) These amendments we
never had the opportunity of considering. My noble friend
said the other night he had no reason 'to suppose they
would be adopted by the Cabinet. I venture. however, to
say that he had no reason to suppose they would not have
been adopted by the Cabinet. (Hear.) lam unaware, and
my right horn friend the Scorotary at 'War, who jaite seen