The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-07 00:00:00

mediately those terms were not agreed to. Upon eithe
of those grounds I am liable to be cast, and I have no
reason to complain of the censure. All I can say is, I
have made a fair statement to the house of my conduct
and my motives, and I leave the house to pass judgment
upon them.

Mr. COBDEN said, I have heard many speeches in this
house, but never yet heard one that struck me with so
much astonishment and grief as that which has just been
delivered by the noble lord. My right hon. friend has
called upon the noble lord to explain the inconsistency
between his conduct at Vienna and in this house. My
right hon. friend pointed out that it has come to his know-
ledge, by the publication of official documents, that the
wible lord whea at Vienna did confidently promise the
Austrian Minister that, when he returned to England, he
would do his best to induce the Government to assent to

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the propositions for the establishment of peace which had
emanated from the Austrian Government, and that the
noble lord had also previously informed Count Buol that

he approved of those terms. The noble lord does not deny
that statement. But why was not the noble lord the first
to come and inform the house that the terms submitted by
the Austrian Government had his approval, and that he
still approved them ? and why did he not make such a
statement from those benches from which he had descend-
ed previous to going to Vienna? (Hear, hear.) Whb.t is
the reason why the noble lord has surrendered hia judg-
ment, and so completely abnegated his own opinions to his
colleagues in the Cabinet The noble lord assigns as a
reason that there have been so many changes in the Govern.
ment—that he had so lately abandoned his seat in a Cabinet
to return again—and that there had been other secessions,
and that there was a great tendency on the part of the
public to call in question the character of all public men,
and that he did not think he was justified in maintaining
his own opinion upon this gravest of all questions, at the
risk of another change in the Cabinet. Bat does not the

noble lord see that the reasons why the public have lost
faith in public men is just because public men have been
suspected of doing that which the noble lord has himself
avowed that he has done. Why should the house or the peo-
ple have any faith in public men, except it be because they
believe that they have certain opinions, and are swayed by
certain principles, and are accustomed to act up to their
convictions ? The noble lord, by the conduct which he has
pursued, has taken the very course which strikes at the
very foundation of all confidence in public men, and to
render it impossible that the representative system can
be carried on with success. (Hear, hear, hear.) The
noble lord has also struck at the confidence of the
public in public men by the mode in which these facts have
transpired. The noble lord comes home from Vienna, and
instead of telling us frankly what his own opinions were in
reference to this question, he made a speech denouncing
Russia, appealing to all the old clap-traps as to the en-
croachments and despotism of Russia, while all the time he
knew well that he came back from Vienna bringing pro-
posals of peace, which he told Count Buol he considered to
be practicable and fair, and which he promised to advocate
in the Government of his colleagues. Having done all this,
the noble lord complains that the great want of the day is
confidence in public men. (Hear, and laughter.) With re-
spect to the want of confidence to which the noble lord re-
fers as existing in the country with reference to the noble
lord at the head of the Government, there is no man in the
country who has done more to create doubt in that noble
lord than the noble lord the member for the City of Lon-
don has done. (Laughter.) Did the noble lord honestly and
in good faith promise to Count Buol that he would come
back to London and advocate those views, and if so, has he
not forfeited his high position as a public man by not
having resigned his position in the Cabinet when he found
he could not carry his views? The noble lord was bound
toido that which M. Drouyn de Lhuys did when he re-
signed his proud position before all Europe, when he found
that he could not induce his Sovereign to agree to the
views which he had pledged himself to at Vienna. (Hear.)
If the noble lord had resigned his office, and the country
had seen but one more instance of a man who was capable
for the sake of earnest conviction to abandon the honour
and emoluments of office, far more good would have been
done than by the noble lord continuing to remain in office.
(Hoar.) I consider that the noble lord has touched upon
a point of great danger, and that is the way in which the
public men have forfeited their title to the confidence of the
people of this country. I have frequently looked before me
into the future, and contemplated several possible contin-
gencies which might happen in the autumn, and dangers to
which we might be exposed, and have thought of the great
danger which existed from having no one man in
the country around whom the people could rally in such a
case of great social difficulty and danger. We have brought
ourselves to a position similar to that which was arrived
• at in France after successive changes, and after having
"used up" every leading political character in the land. I
look upon the conduct of the noble lord, dangerous as I
think it is to himself as a public man, with far more re-
gret for the very great danger which I think his conduct
brings upon the representative Government and the in-
terests of this country. (Hear.) I think, too, that the
continuance of this war upon the system upon ich it is
now being carried on, bodes great difficulty and danger to
the country. It is not merely. that the present Govern-
ment has plunged the country into a renewed war, but they
appear to me to be utterly incompetent to understand the
extent of the difficulty and danger into which they have
plunged the country. (Hear.) Now that they have re-
newed the war, have they taken the necessary steps to
bring the war to a conclusion ? What is the object for
which the war is to be renewed ? It was not now to pre-
vent Russia from taking Silistria, or from holding posses-
sion of the Principalities. Russia had retired from the one
and withdrawn from the other as soon as she found that
Austria, Prussia, and Germany were determined to make it
a casus belli if she advanced upon Constantinople. Every-
thing which had yet been done by Russia bad been done
either from fear of, or by a desire to conciliate Austria,
and Germany. The Government of this country had now
renewed the war, and what were they going to do ? I
know it has been said you are going to humble Russia,
but to do this how are you going to carry on the war ?
You are about to humble Russia with its sixty millions
of subjects-its large agricultural population—and its im-
mense supply of raw material for troops, by invading her
trrritory with thirty thousand men ! He knew that there
was scarcely any limit to the power of England and France
when these countries put forth all their strength, but
how were they going to accomplish the object which
they professed to have in view—that of the bumbling
of Russia? I know it may bo said that you rely
upon the French Government. But is there not danger by
even going into alliance in operations upon land with a
nation that has sent throe or four times as many troops as
we have sent out? But is France in a position to humble
Russia ? Let us tell the whole truth with respect toFrance.
There is no doubt that this war with Russia is not popu-
lar in France, it never has been, and it is now odious; and
if I wanted a proof of it I could find in the address which
the Emperor of the French lately made to his Chamber.
There was in that address one• ominous paragraph. He
says, "My Government will propose to you to vote the
annual recruitment bill. There will be no extraordinary
levy, and the bill will take the usual course necessary for
. .

th;iegulation of the administration of the recruitment
bill." Why was the Emperor of the French so careful to

tell the people that he was not going to make an " extra-
ordinary. levy ?" Because he know that the only part of
France where his main strength lay, among the peasantry
of the provinces, if he attempted an extraordinary levy, he
would depopularise himself with the people, among
whom he relied for his troops. Did Napoleon I. say he
wanted no extraordinary levies, when he went to invade
Russia with 500,000 men, and a reserve of 300,000 more ?
If you are to invade Russia, and fight her on her own soil,
depend upon it you must have " extraordinary levies "
both in France and in England. I contend that the coun-
try hag not been fairly dealt with in this respect. How
were they, too, dealing with those brave men whom they
sent to wage war against the Russians ? They were shed-
ding their best blood in attempts which every military au-
thority was telling you was certainly hopeless. The Go-
vernment were constantly told that, until they could in-
vest and surround Sebastopol, and besiege it according to
the ordinary and invariable rules of war, they would never
have the least chance of taking it. The Government
knew all this, and yet they allowed the war to go on, and
this, too, under the pretence that they were fighting the
battle of the liberties of Europe.- As an advocate of peace
he thought the war might have been avoided ; but he shared
with the rest of theta in the ridicule which will be cast upon
this country if we go on with this braggadocia without
properly supporting it with adequate forces. We are
like the Chinese in this matter; we show shields with
tigers' heads upon them—we keep sounding " gongs," and
we think all the world will ba frightened at the noise we
make. (A. laugh.) The question was, whether we were
really to leave the country in the hands of Ministers who
were letting the country drift into a war without anybody
knowing what were its real objects. (Hear.) For my part,
I would infinitely rather see a Government from the other
side of the- house brought to this side, than continue in this
course with the present Government; it would at least give
us an opportunity of re-constituting an honest party in this
house. He warned the house against being frightened by
the threat of change of Ministers; anything was better
than this constantly lowering of the country in the eyes of
the world, and allowing it to drift on into a war of which no
one knew the objects or probable duration. (Hear.) Does
the
war? one profess to solve the mystery as to the object of
.a
war? Is it to take Sebastopol? Then you must invest
Is the army to winter in the Crimea? That I hear is
now spoken of in the camp. You have had an opportunity.
of making peace. You allowed the Government to reject
rest
tto fs
Europe,ucceed 9
the terms. and are now separated from the
you propose convictions
confidence_ in public
with no ally but France. How do
I entreat the house to speak out its hoite
see the danger before us of the loss oaf
men, and I speak my own conviction when
look upou the noble lord's conduct as striking the heaviest
blow that has ever been aimed at that
ahatsc.onfidence. If Iwish
well to our representative system,
in 1 do, must exhort
every hon. member in this house,hie public eonduct,
Isedulously to avoid such a_ line ofconduct as the noble lord
the member for the city ofLondon has pursued. (Hear.)
Lord PALMERSTON—I can very well understand that
the hon. member for the,West Bddid
g having views of his
own, and
wishing to form a party that shall place itself in
a position
to administer the affairs of the country—l do
there is no reproach in what I say—l can
not blame him,
quite understand that those who have such views should
do all that they possibly eau to realise the assertion—the
truth of which I utterly deny—that other public men in
this country have lost the confidence of the nation. It is
very natural for the hon, member to say that there are no
men in this country to whom the nation would look up,
and round whom it would rally on such occasions as should
require the reposing of great confidence in its leaders; but
I deny that such is really the case. Setting aside all party
feeling, I say that on both sides of this house there are
men in whom the country would feel confidence, and round
whom it would rally in moments such as those which the
hon. member has described. (Cheers.) In one respect at
least, however, I think his statement is true. Without
any disrespect to him or to those among whom he sits, I
believe that they are the last men in whom the country
would be disposed, under any circumstance, to place confi-
dence. (Cheers.) But, sir, I think that the pursuit of the
plan of endeavouring to decry every man in a public situa-
tion, of the system of representing every man in pub.
lie life as animated by feelings and opinions that
are not honourable to himself and are inconsistent
with his duty, is rendering a bad service to the
country. I think it does no honour to those by whom it
" is pursued, and I have the confidence in the good sense of
the people of this country that I am firmly persuaded that
these political arts, instead of those who practice them,
recoil upon the heads of those who use them, and instead
of damaging those against whom they are used, lower in
the public opinion the character of those who resort to
such unworthy means of furthering their political pur-
poses. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Cobden) has lavished a
great deal of this depreciation upon my noble friend (Lord
John Russell)—most unworthily and most undeservedly.
My noble friend has pursued a course which I think was
eminently wrong in a person placed in the position which