The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-12-20 00:00:00

THE RESIGNATION SCENE.

(Exclusively reported for the PRESS.)

LORD PALMERSTON (to Me Council) : I have now, my
dear lords and gentlemen, explained my chief reasons for
objecting to this Reform Bill. My objections, as you will
have noted, are those of principle, and may be summed
up in two words. Your bill was not wanted by the country,
which demanded that existing corruptions should be purged
away, not that its constituencies should be swamped by a
new-fangled desire for throwing political power into the
hands of a single interest, to the exclusion of those who
are above and beneath them. Therefore I can't assent to
the measure. To occupy you with objections to its details
is unnecessary, but I may be excused for saying that it is
about as bungling a piece of handiwork as was' ever put
together.

Lord JoicE RUSSELL : I deny that.
Lord PALMERSTON (milling) : I retract, and:, beg to
except your last Reform Bill.

LADSTONE : Levity is at all times objectionable,
and the subject is now too momentous to be enlivened by
a display of dialectic pyrotechnics. Lord Palmerston,
awakened, it is not for me to say by what agency, to a
sense of the advantages of Conservatism, opposes this
measure as too democratic.

Lord PALMERSTON : I oppose it mainly on the ground
that it is uncalled for and unnecessary, and legislation of
that class appears to me to be the worst form of political
quackery.
Sir C. WOOD: But you see, my dear Palmerston, this
is where the shoe pinches. Russell promised, don't you
see,---

Two or three voices (impatiently): Please, Wood, hold
your tongue.

Lord PALMERSTON : I do not know why Wood should
be silenced. He has hit the right nail on the head. You
were in a mess, and, in your eagerness to extricate your-
selves, Russell did promise to introduce, at an early period
of the session, an ample measure of reform. I admit all
that ; and, remembering that you were under great diffi-
culties when you made the pledge, I have, contrary to my
own feelings, endeavoured to render your measure as little
mischievous as I could. But certain individuals here
successfully opposed my view, and I cannot be party to
the derangement of our constitutional system in order to
redeem a pledge given simply to keep a Ministry in place.
Sir JAMES GRAHAM (mildly) : I never impute motives,
but I should like to know what advantage Palmerston
purposes to himself from embarrassing us.
LORD PALMERSTON (quietly) : Graham's way of
putting things is so truly charming and natural, that it
is impossible to quarrel with it. He has first a reputation
to lose, and then a reputation to gain ; and the sooner
both are done the better, as he is not precisely a boy.
Now, I have made a reputation which will quite answer
my purpose, and I can afford to serve the country accor-
ding to my own ideas of honour. I don't often talk to
you in this tone, but our dear Graham is a little urgent
for truth, so I give it to him.
Mr. GLADSTONE : Again we are diverging. I would
entreat Palmerston's attention to one or two considera-
tions. They are not so much connected with the measures
as with the position of Government. As regards the
former, I admit that other courses were open to us; and
my own Conservative antecedents are evidence that I
should not, without necessity, sanction such a measure as
that now proposed. But I see no option if the Coalition
Ministry is to stand. If we face Parliament with a feeble
measure, down we go. A tolerably good strong one is
our only chance. Do you see this, Palmerston ?
Lord PALMERSTON : Perfectly, my dear Gladstone.
Nobody can put things more clearly than yourself when
you choose. And supposing that the great end of all
things were the keeping the Coalition in place, and sup-
posing (slily) that, as certain friends of—somebody's—do
suppose, the end justifies the means, I should be prepared
to keep in office, by a bad measure, a Ministry which in-
tends to introduce others, and good ones.
Mr. GLADSTONE : I have convinced myself that such a
Ministry as ours is the only one which can benefit the
country. (Applause.) Yes, but I do not mean mere
selfishness and self-assertion. The principle of compro-
mise is the only principle compatible with the interests
of society.

Lord -ELLMERSTON : I believe nothing of the kind.
There are such things as right and wrong.
Sir C. WOOD : Certainly. There's a right lobby and a
wrong lobby, and that, I think, is about all a good sup-
porter of Government need remember.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL : The bill before us is by no
means what I desire.

Lord AI3ERDEEN (eagerly) : Nor I.
Duke of NEWCASTLE (quickly) : Nor I.
Duke of ARGYLL (snappishly) : Nor I ; nor could any
bill be, unless I prepared it.
Sir W. MOLESWORTH (smartly) : Nor I, for reasons
which I need not-

Sir J. Gs AM (kindly) : You need not. Now for
my part, I think the bill a most admirable bill, and I in-
tend to defend every line and letter in it, and contend for
its plenary inspiration.
LORD PRESIDENT (significantly) : We understand that.

Lord J. RUSSELL ; The -point f"was going to urge on
Palmerston is this have said—you all have said—that
none of us likes the bill as a whole. I consider it damaged
by every departure from my own bill of last year. But if
every one of us can waive his strong personal objections to
the measure, for the sake of a common object--
Lord PALMERSTON : Common and unclean ?

Lord J. RussELL : Not at all. I say that it argues
great self-sufficiency in Palmerston to stand out against
the sense of his colleagues. What I myself can do, and
Lord Aberdeen can do, and others can do, in order to retain
office, and serve the country, I think Lord Palmerston
might do.
Lord PALMERSTON : Lord Palmerston doesn't think so,
that's all; and happens to be able to afford to think for
himself. But I will offer no further obstacle—here—to
the introduction of this great measure, which is entitled, I
hope, " An Act for Amending the Position of the Present
Cabinet."

Lord J. RUSSELL : If you don't do it here, where can
you do it ?
Lord PALMERSTON : In my place in Parliament.
Lord J. RUSSELL : What ! as Home Secretary ?
Lord PAL3iERSTON : No ! as member for Tiverton.
Didn't you know I was a member of Parliament ?
Lord J. RUSSELL (terrified) : You never mean that
you will resign office ?
Lord PALMERSTON : I see no other course. I leave
you the means of preserving the Ministry, as Gladstone
says, and I also preserve my own convictions and con-
sistency.
Sir C. WOOD (piteously) : But, Palmerston, if you go
out, the country will say we are breaking up.
Lord PALMERSTON: My dear Wood, the country will
soon say that, whether I go out or not, I give you very
few months, and I am an old hand, and know the look
of the political weather, (To Lord Aberdeen) : Dirty
ahead, Captain !
Sir JAMES GRAHAM : And, believing the Cabinet in
danger, you resign, in order to escape the fall you con-
sider inevitable.

Lord PALMERSTON : " Think so, if so thou art re-
solved to think," but I don't imagine that is the line
which I have taught people in general to accuse me of
taking.
Lord ABERDEEN (uncomfortably): The country will
believe that you go out on the Eastern question.
Lord PALMERSTON : And I am afraid that, after the
way you have used your organ, the country will not be in
a hurry to believe their contradiction of the supposition.
But I beg that you will give the necessary instructions
that, for once, the truth shall be told. I go out on the
Reform Bill, and because some persons who term them-
selves my Conservative colleagues are too decided Demo-
crats, in the narrowest sense, for my own predilections;
and, my dear lords and gentlemen, you will do the same
thing—only a little later.
(Saws) Weepnot for me, my colleagues dear,

.
That I no longer meet you here;
The game is played, as you may see,—
So, wait awhile, and follow me."
(Exit jauntily.)
ALL : The ice is cracking !—what's to be done ? (In
consternation.)

ON SATURDAY EVENING, a fire broke out in the paper-
mills of Mr. Healing, on Twickenham Common, and con-
tinued to rage all night.
ME Cambridge Independent prints a circular, which
has been sent to the leading Dissenters, inviting them to
subscribe for a testimonial to Professor Maurice, whose
dismissal by the authorities of King's College has, excited
so much public notice.
SHERIDAN LITERARY SOCIETY.—From an advertise-
ment it will be seen that the annual soiree and ball in
connexion with this society will be he in the Royal
Assembly-rooms, Great George-street, on Friday, the 30th
instant. From the prestige acquired by the society, a
highly intellectual and gratifying party may be anticipated.
BELGIAN POLICY.—A diplomatist assures me that as
long as Louis Napoleon displays any wish to visit England,
some part of the family of the King of Belgium will re-
main there. "It appears to me that King Leopold is
playing a bold me," says my informant.— Vienna Cor-
respondence oft he Times.
A Boir GOLD-DIGGER.—A little ragged urchin, the
son of poor parents, suddenly disappeared from Greenock,
not long ago. He had got stowed away to sea ; and the
next thing his friends heard of him was that he was dig-
ging among the gullies of California. A few days ago his
mother was delighted at receiving a letter from him, en-
closing a draft for £2O.

AiiiiticA AND THE SULTAN.—A letter from Berlin
says :—" A piece of curious news is circulated here as
authentic, but the truth of which it is impossible to ascer-
tain at Berlin. Namik Pasha has not succeeded at Paris
in negotiating a loan. This was to be expected. But what
could not be foreseen is that the United States of America
have (so it is said) offered a very considerable sum to the
Porte, on the condition that some small island in the
Archipelago shall be ceded to them.
Hyn u o prroß Lc—The Frilrrg Gazette says :—A
woman of Bodjan has just been attacked with hydrophobia,
from having used a pocket-handerchief with which she had
a year back wiped away the foam from the mouth of a
child who had been bitten by a mad dog. The child died
in terrible convulsions, but the woman, not apprehending
any danger to herself, felt no alarm at that circumstance.
She was quite unexpectedly attacked in her turn a few
days back, and expired in great agony.
MARSHAL NEY.—Because the Bourbon Restoration
shot Marshal Ney, the Bonapartist Restoration erects a
statue to his memory. Few men have less deserved an
apotheosis ; for Ney, like most of Napoleon's lieutenants,
was a hero of the most vulgar type, not even faithful to
the master who drew him from obscurity and loaded him
with titles and honours. Nor would his memory be
popular in any army accustomed to couple inseparably the
notions of honour and duty. But it is a peculiarity of
Louis Napoleon, and characteristic of his pertinacious
temper, to cherish a sort of personal quarrel against a
generation who have been twenty years in their graves.
To be even with them, as far as he can, is an object of
his life. So the old Imperialist shot by Louis XVIII. rises
again in white marble, and his eulogium is pronounced by
a Minister-at-War, who passes for the least respectable
among the soldiers of fortune of his day.—Guardian.
CHARITY IN JUDGMENT.—It behoves: us always to
bear in mind that, while actions are always to be judged
by the immutable standard of right and wrong,the
judgments which we pass upon men must be qualified 1:)37
considerations of age, country, situation, and other acci-
dental circumstances; and it will then be found, that
.he
t
who is most charitable in his judgment is generally "
least unjust.—Southey.