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

NEW PEER

Lord BROUGHTON (late Sir J. C. Hobhouse) took the
oaths and his t..-at.
COUN MC COURTS EXTENSION BILL

Lord BROUGLlAMpresohtecr s iv
favour of this Bill.
NEW VICE CHANCELLOR'S BILL.

On the motion of Lord LANGDALE this Bill was
read a third time and passed.
THE MINISTERIAL CRISIS.

The Marquis of LANSDOWNE then rose amid unbroken
silence. He said, —My Lords, when on Monday last it was
my duty to address a few words to your Lordships I certainly
did so in the confident expectation, and I may be permitted
to add, so far as I am personally concerned, in the sincere
hope that it was the last occasion upon which I should be
required to address you on behalf of those with whom I
have been recently connected. Circumstances, however,
compel me, from respect to your Lordships, again to address
you with regard to matters that have occurred since that
time, when I merely stated a fact which it was important
fcr your Lordships to be acquainted with, viz., that at that
time Lord J. Russell, my Noble Friend recently at the head
of the Treasury, was, by command of her Majesty, engaged
in an attempt to reconstruct the Administration of which he
had been the head. My Lords, when I made that statement
to the House Lord J. Russell was engaged in that duty, and
was in communication with a Noble Earl—a highly respected
and distinguished Member of this House—and with a Right
Hon. Baronet—also a most dis inguished Member of the other
House of Parliament—for the purpose of endeavouring to
effect that reconstruction upon a larger basis than before.
But I have now to state to your Lordships that before that
night had closed this attempt of Lord J. Russell bad failed.
I will leave it to others to state the grounds upon which that
failure took place ; I am anxious only to lay before your
Lordships the facts in the order in which they occurred, and
t , state to you what is the present position of affairs. After
the failure that evening of the attempt made by my Noble
Friend Lord John Russell to reconstruct the Cabinet, a com-
munication was made to the Noble Earl (the Earl of Aber-
deen) to whom I have already alluded, for the purpose of as-
certaining whether he and his Right Hon. Friend (Sir James
Graham) were in a condition to undertake the formation of
a Government. That application having failed, and see-
ing that the Noble Lord opposite (Lord Stanley) had in
the conference with which lie had been honoured by her
Majesty only informed her Majesty that he was not then,
as I stated to your Lordships, prepared to undertake the
construction of a Cabinet, her Majesty resolved upon again
inviting the Noble Lord to construct an Administra-
tion, and the Noble Lord did not hesitate in those cir-
cumstances to make the attempt. Two days passed before
the Noble Lord communicated to her Majesty his inability
to succeed in that attempt That cornmungation needs.)
not have been made perhaps till this very morning, from the
circumstance of the adjournment of the House to this day.
However, the Noble Lord naturally lost no time in commu-
nicating the fact to her Majesty as soon as be was enabled to
do so, and this took place at a late hour yesterday afternoon.
I myself this morning, by her Majesty's command, waited
upon her Majesty, and I found that it was her natural de-
sire, in a state of things most novel and almost unprece-
dented in the annals of this country— after making every
effort it was in her power to employ for the construction of a
Government composed of those persons best qualified from
their position to undertake such a task, and having failed in
those efforts—that it was her desire to pause before she took
further steps, and to obtain the advice and the opinion in this
unforeseen contingency of a Noble and Illustrious Duke, one
of the greatest ornaments of this House, one to whom on
other occasions her Majesty has referred in moments of
difficulty.—(Hear, hear.) That illustrious Duke is not
at present in the House. He has been summoned to
attend her Majesty, and in these circumstances
I can only state my belief that this House will acquiese in
the propriety of her Majesty's csnduct in proceeding fully to
inform herself before she takes further steps in this impor-
tant and delicate state of matters.—(Cheers.) I will leave
it to others to add what they have a full right to do, and
what the public may expect, —a full development f the
views and motives by which they have been actuated, but I
cannot sit down without expressing this, at least, that how-
ever much I may lament, as I do most sincerely lament, the
result of these negotiations, there is at least one consolatory
circumstance to me that has attended that result,—it is. that
throughout all the differences, throughout all the difficul-
ties that have presented themselves in these negotiations,
those difficulties and differences have in no one respect what •
ever turned upon any personal considerations—l Hear, hear. )
—that it was the natural result of honest differences of
opinion, connected with important principles, that created a
bar in the way of those arrangements, but not a bar that
could in the least diminish the personal respect and regard
which the parties have hitherto entertained fur each other.
—(Hear, hear.) From my own knowledge. in reference to
that part of the transactions in which I had the honour to
take a part, I may be permitted to say thus much as to the
manner in which the negotiations throughout were carried on
by the Noble Lord opposite, and by the other noble and emi-
nent persona to whom I have referred.—(Hear, hear.) I
will only, before I sit down, endeavour to impress upon your
Lordships,—not speaking upon my own behalf only, or in
behalf of those bodies with whom I have been connected, but
in behalf of all public men, of whom, unquestionably, great
sacrifices of private ease and comfort may at particular times
be justly required,—that there is one sacrifice they can never
be called upon to make, because it is not only a sacrifice of
themselves, but a sacrifice of the honour and dignity of the
Crown—l mean that of a prolonged attempt, under any cir-
cumstances, to carry on the public business of this country
without the promise of that amount of support which is in-
dispensable to all Governments for the purpose of enabling
them to maintain the honour of the Crown, and to maintain
and promote the efficient carrying on of the public service.
Such a state of things, in my Opinion, if prolonged, can
never fail to be detrimental to the honour of the Crown, in-
jurious to the best interests of the country, and profitable
only to those—not the most respectable class of politicians
who, in such circumstances, find a consequence which does
not naturally belong to them, and which they would not
otherwise possess.—(Hear.) I feel strongly that if public
men undertake to perform public duties, they ought to do so
with the full prospect of discharging those duties with effect.
—(Hear, hear.) I have now endeavoured to put your Lord-
ships in possession of the facts so far as known to myself. If
I have omitted anything, there are parties in this House who
will be able to supply the defect; in the meantime I have
nothing further to communicate beyond the short statemen`
which I have now had the honour to lay before your Lord
ships.—(Hear.)

The Earl of ABERDEEN—My Lords, the Noble Mar.
quis having stated the circumstances under which the fail.
_ _

Life of the negotiations entered into by Lord John Russell
for the reconstruction of the Government have failed, it now
is incumbent on me to explain to the House the
motives for my conduct and the circumstances which
led to the decision I thought it my duty to take. On Satur-
day morning, when the resignation of the Noble Lord and
his colleagues took place, I had the honour of being com-
manded by her Majesty to attend at the Palace. I did so on
the evening of Saturday, and had the honour of an audience
of her Majesty, at which I humbly expressed my readiness
to co-operate in the reconstruction of a Government upon
any conditions which should appear to be consistent with my
own convictions and which afforded the prospect of getting
public support. I subsequently, in her Majesty's presence,
met Lord John Russell and my friend Sir James Graham,
and after mutual explanations on the subject, similar to those
which I have now stated, we met Lord John Russell on the
following day. The Noble Lord communicated to us the basis
of agreement on which the Government was to be constructed,
and the principal measures he proposed to introduce. I think
we received this communication from Lord John Russell be-
tween four and five o'clock on Saturday, and we should have
proceeded at once to consider those propositions, but, having
been detained late at the Palace that night, we reserved
them for examination till the following day. On Monday,
having made the necessary examination, we communicated
to Lord John Russell our opinions on the subject. I need
not enter into the various measures which were proposed
for our adoption. Probably mutual explanations might have
led ultimately to an agreement, as our differences were con-
fined exclusively to a single measure. I felt undoubtedly an
invincible repugnance to adopt the measure of penal legisla-
tion towards the Roman Catholic subjects of this country,
by the prohibition of the assumption of ecclesiastical titles,
and indeed I objected to any legislation of this kind upon
the subject.— (Hear, hear.) lam quite aware that this is
not the proper occasion to enter into any full discussion of this
subject. I hope that at no distant time we may have an op-
portunity of considering this question when it comes before
us in a regular manner. I shall then be ready to express
more folly the views and opinions which I entertain ; but I
must, at the present moment, state to the House the deep
convictions and feelings which induced me to come to such a
decision as I have stated, and which led to a result so im-_

portant to the great interests of the country as the failure of
the attempt with which the Noble Lord was charged. I
felt, then, that this kind of legislation was very ineffective. It
is difficult enough, at all times, by force of law to give a
criminal character to acts in themselves indifferent, so as to
secure the willing obedience of mankind; but when such
acts are performed from a sense of duty and religious obliga-
tion your laws become dead,— conscience and opinion are be-
yond the sphere of your legislation.— (Hear, hear.) No
doubt you may persecute, but we have had fatal ex-
perience of the effects of such a course. NVe have
for two hundred years tormented, successfully and effectually
tormented, the goman Catholics, but nevertheless we have
found that instead of reducing we have only increased the
number of our victims.—( Hear, hear.) I thought I saw in
this measure a retrograde step towards a system of law which
I had hoped was for ever and utterly abolished. I believed
that in the late proceedings which had taken place no law
had been violated, unless it may have been—and that is
doubtful—some one of those barbarous laws the text of which
still continues to disgrace the statute-book, but which had
long been obsolete, and which very recently had been stig-
matized by the Legislature itself.—(Hear.) But, though I
felt persuaded that no violation of law had taken place, I
was not the less sensitive to the arrogant tone assumed by
the Roman Pontiff and his Cardinal, in the brief of the one
and the pastoral letter of the other; and I felt that this
might very properly have engaged the notice of her Ma-
jesty's Government, and even of Parliament. I saw, how-
ever, no sufficient ground for legislative interference with the
view of abridging the religious liberty of our Roman
Catholic fellow-subjects, and of impeding the lawful and
regular development and recognition of their Episcopal