The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-01 00:00:00

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185

Church.—(Hear.) I found that my Right Honourable
Friend (Site J. Graham) entirely coincided Kith me in this
view; and I may mention to the House that this agree-
ment was arrived at without the least concert or communi-
cation with each other. Since we parted towards the close
of the last session of Parliament I have had no communica-
tion whatever upon any subject with my Right Hon. Friend.
Though living in a distant part of the country, 1 witnessed
the excitement which prevailed throughout England on this
subject. I thought, however, that the alarm and indigna-
tion which prevailed so generally were unfounded and irra-
tional. I certainly felt no alarm myself. I had no inclina-
tion towards feelings of indignation, but rather towards con-
tempt.—( Hear, hear.) But when I saw at public meetings
persons attending whom I could not have expected to find
there, and sentiments expressed which gave me equal sur-
prise, I became more curious to know what was the opinion
of my Right Hon. Friend, and of others with whom I had
been in the habit of acting, and for whose opinions I felt great
respect. However, it appeared to me that this was not a
subject upon which I could with propriety venture to ques-
tion my Right Hon Friend, and in point of fact, until the
day before the meeting of Parliament, I had not the most dis-
tant conception of what his opinion was, 1 then found him,
to my great satisfacti3n, in all points coinceding with mein the
view I entertained. This, I may say, was the case with all
those persons with whom I had formerly been connected in
official life, and whose opinions I consider entitled to the
greatest respect. Until the day before yesterday I was en-
tirely ignorant of the opinions, with one exception, of my
former colleagues, and at this moment I am entirely igno-
rant of the opinions of some of them on this subject. I wish
to state this to show, that whatever that opinion may be,
it is not the result of any concert or communication with
each other, and that it has been arrived at in a perfectly
independent manner.—(Hear, hear ) It is true that the
Noble Lord to whom was entrusted the formation of an Ad
ministration did propose to us material alterations and modi-
fications of the Bill to which I am now alluding, and to which
we so decidedly objected. No doubt those alterations might
have removed some of our objections to the provisions of the
measure itself, but it is obvious that such alterations must
have excited great disapprobation and disappointment among
all those who represented the popular feeling upon this sub-
ject, and who were so much excited in hostility to the pro-
ceedings of the Court of Rome, while at the same
time the very remnant of the Bill would have been equally
regarded as penal, unjust, and offensive by the great body of
her Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. We therefore felt
that it was impossible for us to make ourselves parties to a
measure from which we could not anticipate any good, and
from which we thought we had reason to apprehend very
many and serious evils.—(Hear, hear.) On the failure of the
attempt of the Noble Lord to form an Administration, her
Majesty was pleased to send for me, and to request me to
undertake that task. My Lords, lam fully aware of my
own deficiencies, and however unable I should be at any
time, and especially at such a difficult moment as the pre-
sent, to conduct the affairs of this great empire in such a
manner as her Majesty's subjects have a right to expect,
nevertheless there were circumstances in the actual condition
' of the country which might possibly have led me tc make
the attempt. But, with the knowledge I possessed that a
measure of penal legislation had been introduced into the
House of Commons, with the consent of a great majority of
the Members of that House, and believing, as [ had reason to
believe, that a majority as large of your Lordships in this
House entertained the same views upon thesubject,your Lord-
ships will not be surprised to learn that I humbly entreated her
Majesty to permit me to decline the task which her gracious
favour would have imposed upon me. I felt that, in the pre-
sent state of matters, it would have been perfectly hopeless
in me to attempt to enforce those views which I entertained
and from which I was determined not to recede, because I
felt that I could be no party to any cause which I believed
would tend to kindle the flame of religious discord through-
out the country, and increase the religious animosities and
bitterness that unfortunately already prevailed. I entertain
a confident opinion that a great change will, at no distant
period, take place in the public sentiment—(Hear, hear)—
and whether it shall be so or not, I trust your Lordships
will give me credit for the sincere convictions—( Hear, hear)
—and fur the deep sense of duty under which I acted. I
trust your Lordships will believe that nothing would have in-
duced me to follow the course I adopted had I not been con-
vinced that I acted according to the dictates of the soundest
principles of wisdom and of justice.— (Hear, hear.)
Lord STANLEY—It now becomes my duty to avail my-
self of this the earliest opportunity with which I have been
favoured of explaining to your Lordships the transactions in
which I have been engaged, and on which I was precluded
from making a statement when I addressed your Lordships
on Monday last, from want of the permission of her Majesty.
I must commence the statement I am now permitted to
make at a period antecedent, thcfligh not much, to that to
which my Noble Friend beside me referred. A great portion
of her Majesty's late advisers having come to the determina-
tion to resign their office in the course of Friday last, the
Cabinet anticipated the concurrence of those members of the
Administration who were absent, and, the assent of the
Noble Marquis opposite, who was not then in town, having
been received, on Saturday morning a formal announceme' t
was made to her Majesty that the whole of her advisers had
tendered their resignations; and her Majesty did me the
honour of staring to me that, from the position in which I
was placed, possessing the confidence of a large portion of
those who took part in the proceedi' gs of this and the
other House of Parliament, she bad called on me to tender
my advice with respect to. the course most desirable to be
pursued under the circumstances. I took the liberty of re-
questing to be informed upon what grounds her late advisers
had resigned, and I learned from her Majesty that the
grounds stated to her for that resignation were the same, in
substance, as those which I believe were stated by Lord J.
Russell in the other House of Parliament, and by the Noble
Marquis opposite in your Lordships' House, that at no very
distant period a motion brought forward by Mr. Disraeli
with respect to the distress of the agricultural classes was
negatived by so small a majority as to lead the Government
to the conclusion that they did not possess that continued
confidence of the House of Commons which was requisite
to the administration of public affairs, when, on the even-
ing previous to the day on which the intention was formed
of resigning, the Government was left in a minority on the
motion of Mr. Locke King, the majority of votes against them
being those of their own ordinary supporters, a great portion of
the Protectionist party being absent on that occasion. I must
stop to express some doubt, a doubt which is not inconsistent
with entire respect for the Noble Marquis opposite, and
the most entire conviction that the two circumstances re-
ferred to led ultimately and finally to the up-break and
termination of the late Government. 1 must express my
opinion, however, that they were not the only grounds,
and I may be permitted to express the doubt whether they
were the principal cause of the resignation.—( Hear, hear.)
I cannot but think that the all-important question
adverted to by my Noble Friend. the Noble Earl ( the
Earl of Aberdeen), in a manner and tone which did the
utmost honour to his frankness in the sincere expression
of his opinion—( Hear, hear)—l mean that mode of dealing
with that utmost difficult question which is commonly
known under the name of " the Papal Aggression "—had
much to do with the resignation of her e.ajesty's late Go-
vernment. lam not in the secrets of that Cabinet. lam
bound to assume that the Cabinet bad agreed to the
measure to be proposed, and that the measure brought for-
ward was that which they intended to support. But I be-
lieve they saw before them, arising from that question, great
difficulties on the one side and on the other—the state
of Protestant feeling, on the one hand, which had been
kindled by the letter of the Prime Minister, and which
tended to drive matters to extremes, and on the other hand
the feeling excited in the minds of a large portion of their
own supporters, including even some immediate adherents
of the Government—a feeling very much in accordance
with the views of the Noble Earl (the Earl of Aberdeen)—
to the effect that the question was one on which no legis-
lation was desirable, or ought to be sanctioned. I cannot
divest my mind of the strong conviction that that question,
and the difficulties which attended it, were in a great
degree the cause why the late Cabinet came to the conclu-
sion that they were not able to carry on the government
of the country. That feeling, I think, upon their part must
(as we understood the Nohle Lord, who was occasionally in-
audible) have beenincreased by the financial crotchets of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer—(Hear, hear)—although
undoubtedly the course which the late Government had
taken was not such as to induce me to think that
in ordinary circumstances so small a majority as
14 on a motion could be held by them a sufficient reason for
resigning.—(Hear,. hear.) %Vial those two serious difficultiesstaring them in the face - difficulties putting them in a posi-
tion in which they must forego their own convictions or
forfeit the support of their ordinary adherents, and arising
from the universal dissatisfaction produced by the Budget of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, -I was not surprised that
the occasion should be welcomed for resigning which was
presented when they were left in a minority, the majority
consisting of persons of their own opinions. I took the
liberty of doubting whether that defeat, with the small ma-
jority on Mr. Disraeli's motion, were the sole cause for the
resignation of the late Cabinet. I ventured to state one or
two facts to her Majesty in confirmation of that view. I
hold in my:hand a copy of a portion of a letter which, by her
Majesty's express command, after the interview with which
I was honoured, I wrote to her Majesty for the purpose of
placing on record the advice it was. my humble duty to
tender; and, with her Majesty's permission, I will read from
that letter so much of the passages in it as shall tend to ex-
plain the force of the statement I make to your Lordships:—
" He adverted to the two occasions specified by your Ma-
jesty as the grounds of the resignation of your Majesty's
servants, and observed with reference to the motion of Mr.
Disraeli, that it had been negatived, and, although by a small
majority, the minority were reinforced by a number of votes
hostile to the Government on other grounds, and on whose
general support Lord Stanley and his friends could not
reckon; and with reference to the majority on Mr. Locke
King's motion, he observed"—
And when it was stated that the Government had been de-
feated in consequence of the absence of opponents who, had
they been present, would have voted against the measure as
a dangerous and mischievous one, and on wbose support the
Government rested, it is right your Lordships and the coun-
try should know the fact. Mr. Locke King's motion for an
extension of the Parliamentary franchise was carried by 100
to 54. The extract proceeds to say—
.. That of the minority of 54, 27 held office, only 10 un-
official supporters voted with the Government, and no less
than 17 of the Protectionist party; who would have been
more numerous but for
an impression which undoubtedly
.
prevaped that
your Majesty's Ministers were not honestly
exercising their influence to defeat the motion."
I believe that; my friends in the House of Commons believe
it ; and if they had found a disposition on the part of the
Government to act otherwise they would have given it
their generous and disinterested support. After adverting
to the peculiar circumstances attending the dissolution of
the late Ministry, my first statement to her Majesty was
that, after the part I had taken in public, after the opinions
I had expressed—after the expressions I bad used—after
the sanction I had given, and which, had I been a member
of the other
House, it certainly would have been impossible
for me not to have given- to that motion of Mr. Disraeli,
respecting e distres amon the ariultral clases,
to which the attentions of Parliament had beeun called in
the Speech from the Throne, it was impossible for me, even
had my convictions been less strong than they were, as
an honest man, to take office without a full determination
to deal with that distress, and endeavour as a Minister to
afford effective measures of relief.—(Hear, hear, hear.) I
stated, that if I could so far forget me self as to sacrifice my
own honest convictions, the loss of honour that would be
involved in such a course would make my services worse
than useless.—(Hear, hear.) I said 1 had entertained, and
did entertain, the opinion that it was the duty of the Go-
vernment, if it were impossible to do full justice, at all events
to take steps towards mitigating the injustice under which
the proprietors and occupiers of land were suffering.—( Hear,
hear.) I did not. bind myself to any specific measures,
though, at the proper time I should not have shrunk from
stating the specific measure I should have recommended;
but I did state that I should not take office on any condi-
tion except that of giving effect to my own conviction of
the necessity Of legislating for the relief of that class.--
(Hear, hear.) I then proceeded to notice the condition of
parties in the House
•f Commons;
and in the present pos-
ture of public affairs itis not unnecessary that your Lord-
ships and the country should fully know the position and
relations of these parties. First, there is the party of
her Majesty's Government and their adherents, with va-