The Sun.
London, England, 1852-02-28 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT•

HOUSE OF LORDS, Feb. 27.
Lord REDESDALI: took his seat on the Woolsack, in
the absence of the Lord Chancellor, at Five o'clock.
On tho Treasury bench were Earl Derby, the Earls of
Malnaesbury, Eglinton, Salisbury, and Lansdale. The
Mirquis of Lansdowne, Earl Grey, Lord Minto, and
other members of the late Ministry were on the Opposi-
tion bench. The galleries of the Peeresses were crowded,
as were also the epee° allotted for Members of Parlia-
ment and strangers. At a few minutes past five,
MINISTERIAL E-XPLANATIONS.
The Earl of DERBY rose, and spoke to the follow-
ing effect:—My Lords, the place from which I have
now the honour to address your Lordships is at once
not only a justification for my rising upon this occasion,
but also imposes on me, as I conceive, the absolute duty
of endeavouring, as shortly and succinctly as I can, and
with as much frankness as is due to the audience which
I am addressing, and with no more reserve than is im-
posed upon me by the position which I hold, to state not
only the motives which have induced me to accept the
arduous task which I felt myself bound not to decline,
but also, as far as I can, to lay before your Lordships an
outline of the course which, having undertaken the re-
sponsibility of the Government, I feel it incumbent on
me to adopt. But before I proceed further I feel desi-
mai, indeed, I cannot deny myself the gratification—in
the presence of the Noble Marquis opposite (Lana-
downe)—of expressing to him that whicn from my ab-
sence from the [louse at the last meeting of your Lord-
ships I could not express, my grateful thanks for the
kind and friendly manner in which he alluded to my
present acceptance of office.—(Hcar, hear.) My Lords,
to any man accepting the high office which I have
now the honour to fill such terms of commendation can-
not fail to be welcome, from whatever quarter they
may come; but they are to me doubly gratifying, both
in my public and private capacity, as coming from one
to whom from my earliest boyhood I have been accus-
tomed to look up with hereditary respect and admira-
tion—from whom, as my advancing years rolled on,
those feelings were ripened into sincere personal respect
and friendship—and of whom I am happy to say that,
neither on his part nor on mine, have the circumstances
which separated our political connexion deadened or im-
paired in the slightest degree our private friendship.—
(Hoar, hear.) My Lords, I hope that this is only a
single example of many that might be cited to prove that,
amidst all the conflicts of parties in this free country,
men entertaining opinions tar more widely different than
those which have separated the Noble Marquis and my-
self may continue to entertain for one another feelings of
personal regard unembittered by the contentions of party,
and that, however different may be the views which a
sense of public duty may compel us to maintain, there
is nothing in this diversity of opinion which may dis-
sever the personal friendship of English gentlemen.—
(Cheers.) But I understand—and I hope that I may mis-
understand—that tho Noble Marquis intimated on the
last occasion of your meeting his intention of shortly
retiring from the active pursuits of political life, and
from those political duties which he has for so long a
time discharged with such signal ability and success.—
(Hear, hear.) If the difference of opinion between man
and man could diminish the feeling of personal friend-
ship for each other, it is absolutely impossible that such
can be the case between myself and the Noble Marquis
—of whom lam sure that I am only expressing the
feeling of every individual in the House when I say that
he has won the esteem and confidence, and I may almost
say the affection, of every one of your Lordships who
has witnessed the firm, and uncompromising, and dig-
nified, yet the perfectly friendly and courteous manner,
with which he has discharged for so long a period his
duties in this House; and it may be, if in truth ho in-
tends to retire from public life, an encouragement to
future statesmen that they should be able hereafter
to point to his' example, and show how, after a
period of nearly fifty years spent in the public ser-
vice, a statesman can retire with the friendship,
the warm and cordial friendship, of his political
associates, and with the sincere respect and esteem
of his political opponents, and with a character unblem-
ished by a single stain on his political virtue or private
honour.—(Hear, hear.) Having thus relieved my mind
of the debt of gratitude which .1 feel to be due to the
Noble Marquis, I now proceed to the far more arduous
portion of the task which is now imposed upon me. My
Lords, it is unnecessary for me to trouble your Lord-
ships with any speculations or statements of mine as to
the causes which may have led to the downfall of the late
Administration. Undoubtedly, my Lords, although there
was a general expectation that the resignation of her
Majesty's late Ministers was not far distant, I, for one,
so little expected that such an event would occur on a
Tate occasion, that, as most of your Lordships are per-
haps aware, I had at the time actually gone down into
the country for the purpose of spending three or four
days. I shall not attempt to speculate whether the par-
ticular vote to which the other House came on last Friday
night, or whether other subjects led Ministers to a deter-
mination to resign their offices. which was only con-
firmed by that vote. It was on Saturday that I received
the to me surprising intelligence of the result
of tho division in the House of Commons, and
of the consequent resignation of her Majesty's
Ministers; and it was on the evening of that day that
I had the honour of receiving her Majesty's commands
that I should wait on her at the Palace at half-past two
o'clock on the following day. I had then, my Lords, to
consider, not what course it was my interest, but what
course my public duty required me to pursue. I had
to weigh deliberately and candidly en the one side all
the overwhelming difficulties of the situation in which
I watt placed, all the awful responsibility of the task
which I felt I must be called upon to perform; and I had
to weigh on the other side, us it appeared to me, a still
more awful responsihility, if it could be imputed to ins
that irons personal feeling and an unwillingness to take
on myself either labour or responsibility I had left by
my act the Queen and the country in the present times
without an Administration, however unworthy it
might be. The Noble Lord will excuse me for say-
ing that I saw little prospect of any other Admi-
nistration being speedily formed--and, further, that I
saw little prospect of advantage from the resignation
of a Ministry to be speedily followed up by
a resumption of their former public duties. I felt, there-
fore, that however unequal I might myself be to the
task, and however great the difficulties which stood in
my way—difficulties arising from my own position, and
difficulties arising also from the position of those
who, agreeing with me in opinion, aro still unable
to command a majority in the other House of Parlia-
ment, still,—l say, great as those difficulties are, deli-
berately weighing and not overlooking any of them, I
felt it to be my first duty to my Sovereign and my
country to provide that at this time the country should
not be left without an Administration; and it was not,
my Lords, without a deep consciousness of the responsi-
bility which I was incurring, nor without a thorough
conviction of my own inability to perform adequately
the duties which I was about to undertake, that I at
once, and without hesitation, intimated to her Majesty,
on receiving her command to that effect, my
readiness to attempt the task of forming a
Government, By the concurrence of all those friends to
whom I felt it to be my duty to apply, I was able on the
following day to lay before her Majesty an outline of
the Administration, and in the course of the four days
since elapsed I have been able to submit and obtain the
approval of her Majesty to the list of those friends
whom I have selected to discharge the various sub-
ordinate deities of the Government. At the same
time, the Government being thus constituted, I feel it to
he necessary that I should state to you, my Lords,
frankly, freely, and without reserve, the course of policy
which I shall deem it my imperative duty to follow.
—(ilear, bear.) My Lords, with regard to the foreign
retations of this country, I am sure there is scarcely ,
one man amongst your Lordships, and few indeed in
the country, who does net earnestly desire to see main-
tained the blessings of universal Hear.) There
is not one of my Noble Frierlscaweh—(
o does not think
chat eat every effort on the part of the Government should
be made with the view to averting the
zueur remotest
my
humblechance
oisiajaa the desire of
of incurring the miseries opfrwesaerr.v—in,. •
) h
peace is not best
supported by displays of largo
military and naval opera-
tions, by the
assumption of an attitude of hostility, and
by the making offensive preparations; whilst,
on the
other hand, it receives no advanctahge from the adoption
of the Utopian theories in which some gentlemen in-
atlini;nco'unotrryt'f innotaotposition in
dulge of universal dissarmament, universal
disarmament, of placing
best_
powerful maintains dby
which it is incapable of defence.—([leer,
hear.) My
Lords, I believe that peace will be
observing to all fo)reign powers, whether
weak, a calm, temperate, deliberate, and conciliatory
course of conduct—(Hear, hear).. not in acts alone, but
in words and expressions also, by adhering with strict
fidelity to the letter of the obligations imposed on us by
treaties, and by respecting the independence of all na-
tions, whether great or small, as well as by admitting
their full right to regulate to their own will the internal
affairs of their own administration. My Lords,
lieve the constitution under which we have the happi
ness to live is, of all imaginable constitutions, the best
adapted to secure the greatest happiness of the greatest
number—(Hear, hear)—and I should be glad to see our
example diffusing itseif through other nations and coun-
tries. I hold, my Lords, that we have no right as a na-
tion to entertain particular prejudices ur particular sym-
pathies for this or that course of government which other
countries may thick fit to adopt, be those courses or
forms of government absolute despolim, limited mo-
narchy, or constitutional republic. Be it an absolute
Red Itepublic, that which is the choice of any nation as
regards its internal government—that, I say, is the
choice which a British statesman is bound to recognise.
—t Tear, hear.) My Lords, I concur entirely in the ob-
serrations which were made with great truth and dignity
a few days ago by the Noble Earl wilt) recently was
bead of the Fereign Department of the late Govern-
ment—namely, that in our conduct of affairs with fo-
reign nations tilt ro is more dignity, if any of the sub-
jects of these realms conceive themselves to be injured
by a foreign power, in acting with forbearance than
With violence. The dignified course in public as
in private life is, in case of necessity, to require
as well as to offer such reparation as in our con-
science we deem advisable. Such is my epi,:ion ni re-
gards our own fellow-countrymen. Oti the usher hand,
I am convinced that if we have reason to complain of
the course pursued towards us by a foreign country, the
best course to adopt is to state the ground of complaint
simply, frankly, temperately, and calmly, without in-
dulging in vituperative or intemperate language ; to
submit our cause to the honour and justice of the tri-
bunal to which we make our complaints, and to require
from that tribunal thanmeed of justice which
hear.) I
which we would
be prepared to bestow ourselves*--"(
Cannot but think, my Lords, ghat Acting steadily on