Chapter 89
August 6th, 1835 {p.284}
Yesterday to Brighton, to see my horse Dacre run for the Brighton stake, which he won, and back at night. The day before I met the Vice-Chancellor[15] at Charing Cross, going down, to the House of Lords. 'Well,' said he, shrugging his shoulders, 'here I am going to the House of Lords, after hearing evidence all the morning, to hear it again for the rest of the evening.' 'What is to happen?'
I asked him. 'O Lord, it is the greatest bore; they have heard Coventry and Oxford; they got something of a case out of the first, but the other was beyond anything tiresome; they are sick to death of it, and Brougham and Lyndhurst have agreed that _it is all d.a.m.ned nonsense_, and they will hear nothing more after Sat.u.r.day next.' So this is the end of all this hubbub, and here are these two great comedians thundering against each other in the House of Lords overnight with all imaginable vehemence and solemnity, only to meet together the next morning and agree that _it is all d.a.m.ned nonsense_. There is something very melancholy and very ludicrous in all this, and though that great bull calf the public does not care about such things, and is content to roar when he is bid, there are those on the alert who will turn such trilling and folly to account, and convert what is half ridiculous into something all serious. Winchelsea and Newcastle after all did not vote the other night; they said they wanted no evidence, that they would have no such Bill, and would not meddle with the discussion at all except to oppose it point-blank. Fools as they are, their folly is more tolerable and probably less mischievous than the folly of the wise ones.
[15] The Great Seal being in Commission, the Vice-Chancellor of England (Sir Lancelot Shadwell) sat as one of the Commissioners on the Woolsack.
August 9th, 1835
[Page Head: THE KING AND LORD TORRINGTON.]
On Wednesday last at the levee the King made a scene with Lord Torrington, one of his Lords of the Bedchamber, and a very disgraceful scene. A card was put into Torrington's hands of somebody who was presented, which he read, 'So and so, _Deputy-Governor_.'
'Deputy-Governor?' said the King, 'Deputy-Governor of what? I cannot tell your Majesty,' replied Torrington, 'as it is not upon the card.' 'Hold your tongue, sir,' said the King; 'you had better go home and learn to read;' and shortly after, when some bishop presented an address against (I believe) the Irish t.i.the Bill, and the King was going as usual to hand over the papers to the Lord in waiting, he stopped and said to Lord Torrington, who advanced to take them, 'No, Lord Torrington; these are not fit doc.u.ments to be entrusted to your keeping.' His habitual state of excitement will probably bring on sooner or later the malady of his family.
Torrington is a young man in a difficult position, or he ought to have resigned instantly and as publicly as the insult was offered.
The King cannot bridle his temper, and lets slip no opportunity of showing his dislike, impotent as it is, of the people who surround him. He admits none but Tories into his private society, wherever he goes Tories accompany him; at Windsor Tories only are his guests. This provokes his Ministers, but it necessarily makes them more indifferent to the cultivation of his favour, and accustoms them to consider themselves as the Ministers of the House of Commons and not of the Crown.
My brother writes me from Paris very interesting details of the funeral of the victims of the a.s.sa.s.sination plot,[16] which was an imposing and magnificent ceremony, admirably arranged, and as it has produced a burst of enthusiasm for the King, and has brought round the clergy to him, it will serve to strengthen his throne. His undaunted courage ingratiates him with the French.
[16] [The victims of the Fieschi conspiracy.]
August 15th, 1835
[Page Head: DEBATE ON THE CORPORATION BILL.]
On Wednesday the Lords commenced proceedings on the Corporation Bill. The Ministers were aware that they meant to throw it out, for Lord John Russell and Lord Lansdowne both told me at the levee that they had heard such was the intention of the Tories.
However, they never had such a design, and the second reading pa.s.sed without a division; on Thursday they went into Committee, and the freeman's clause was carried against Government by a majority of 93--130 to 37--the debate being distinguished by divers sallies of intemperance from Brougham, who thundered, and menaced, and gesticulated in his finest style. When somebody cried, 'Question,' he burst out, 'Do you think to put me down? I have stood against 300 of the House of Commons, and do you think I will give way to _you_?' This was uttered with all imaginable rage and scorn.[17] This amendment was always antic.i.p.ated, and though the Government object to it, Lord Lansdowne told me that as the rate-paying clause had pa.s.sed without opposition, he did not care for the other alterations, but the minority appeared to everybody bordering upon the ridiculous; a Minister who could only muster thirty-seven present, and who was in a minority of three to one, presented a novel spectacle. n.o.body could account for the carelessness of their muster, for many Peers were absent who might easily have been there, and several who belong to Government by office or connexion. It did not, however, occur to anybody that they would feel themselves compelled to resign upon it, except perhaps to a few Tories, who hinted their notion that Melbourne could not go on with such a majority against him, which, however true it may be in the long run, signifies nothing as to any immediate change.
[17] Brougham had some reason to be angry. Lyndhurst did not reply to him on Wednesday, when he might have done so, pleading the fatigue of late hours and his own indisposition, and on Thursday he attacked him when he was absent; he therefore gave him good ground of complaint. Brougham's insolence and violence have done great injury to the House of Lords by lowering the style and character of their debates and introducing coa.r.s.eness and acrimony such as never were known there before. Hardly a night pa.s.ses without some discreditable scene of squabbling and vituperation bandied between him and the High Tory Lords, one or other of them; their hatred of him and his scorn of them are everlastingly breaking out. He and Lyndhurst, though constantly pitted against each other, are great friends all the time, but with the others it is a rabid pa.s.sion of hatred and contempt, mutually felt and continually expressed.
[Page Head: ENERGY OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS.]
Last night the qualification clause was carried against Government by an equally large majority, or nearly so, and this time Government does not seem disposed to take it so patiently. It was well understood that a qualification would be imposed, and many of the supporters of the Bill said they did not object thereto, but they had no notion of such a qualification as Lyndhurst proposed and carried last night, and the Duke of Richmond (whom I met at Crockford's) told me that it would be fatal to the Bill. He saw Lord John Russell after the division, who told him so, and that the Commons would never take the Bill with such an alteration as this. Richmond himself goes entirely with Government in this measure, and I was rather surprised to hear him say that 'it had been urged that Lord Stanley was opposed to this part of the Bill, but that if this were so a man must judge for himself in so important a matter,' which looks a little as if he meant to back out of the dilly, and I should not be very much surprised if he came into office again with these people, if they stay in. I asked him what in his opinion would happen, and he replied that he thought the House of Lords was nearly done for, that he expected the Commons would reject their amendments and pa.s.s some very strong resolutions; he should not be surprised if they refused to pa.s.s the Appropriation Bill. I said they would hardly do that, because it would be a measure against Government, and would compel these Ministers to resign. This he admitted, but he went on to say that he expected it would throw the House of Commons into a ferment, that they would adopt some violent course, and then there would be a 'row royal.' What astonishes me most in all this is that Lyndhurst, a man of great abilities, and certainly, if wis.h.i.+ng for anything, wis.h.i.+ng for the success of the party he belongs to, should urge these desperate courses. He it was who proposed the fatal postponement of Schedule A, which led to such utter ruin and confusion, and now it is he who manages this Bill, and who ventures to mutilate the Ministerial measure in such a manner as will in all probability bring down all the wrath of the Commons on him and his Conservative majority. I am not at all sure but that the Government is content to exhibit its paltry numbers in the House of Lords, in order that the world may see how essentially it is a Tory body, that it hardly fulfils the conditions of a great independent legislative a.s.sembly, but presents the appearance of a dominant party-faction which is too numerous to be affected by any const.i.tutional process and too obstinate to be turned from its fixed purpose of opposing all the measures which have a tendency to diminish the influence of the Conservative party in the country. It is impossible to look at the disposition exhibited by this great majority and not admit that there is very small chance of its acting harmoniously with the present House of Commons, and that some change must take place in order to enable Government and legislation to go on at all. It is anything but clear that the nation desires the destruction of the House of Lords, nor is it clear that the nation cares for its preservation. It is, I think, exceedingly probable that a majority of those who return members to Parliament, and in whom collectively the supreme power really resides, though they might be content to retain the House of Lords, if it could be made to act in harmony with, and therefore necessarily in subordination to, the House of Commons, would not hesitate for an instant to decree its downfall if it became clear that there was no other way of crus.h.i.+ng the Tory faction which now rules triumphant in that House. At all events the Lords are playing a desperate game; if it succeeds, they who direct the energies of the party are great and wise men; but what if it fail? They seem to have no answer to this but that if they
Screw their courage to the sticking place, It will _not_ fail.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Resistance of the Lords--Duke of Richmond--Happiness--Struggle between Lords and Commons--Peel keeps aloof--Inconsistency of the Whigs on the Irish Church Bill--Violent Language in the Lords--Lord John Russell and Peel pa.s.s the Corporation Bill-- Dissolution of the Tory Party foreseen--Meeting of Peers to consider the Amendments--King's Speech in Council on the Militia--Lord Howick's Bitterness against the Lords--Lord Lyndhurst's Opinion of the Corporation Bill--The King's Language on the Regency--Talleyrand's View of the English Alliance--Comparison of Burke and Macintosh--The St. Leger-- Visit of Princess Victoria to Burghley--O'Connell's Progress through Scotland--Mackintosh's Life.
August 19th, 1835 {p.290}
[Page Head: MUNIc.i.p.aL CORPORATION BILL.]
Yesterday the Lords finished the Committee on the Corporation Bill. Their last amendment (which I do not very well understand at present), by which certain aldermen elected for life are to be taken in the first instance from the present aldermen, has disgusted the authors of the Bill more than all the rest. In the morning I met Duncannon and Howick, both open-mouthed against the amendments, and this in particular, and declaring that though the others might have been stomached, this could not go down, as it was in direct opposition to the principle of the Bill. Howick talked of 'the Lords being swept away like chaff' and of 'the serious times that were approaching.' Duncannon said there would be a conference, and if the Lords insisted on these amendments the Bill would be lost. I asked if a compromise was not feasible, the Lords abandoning this and the Commons taking the other amendments, which he said would not be undesirable, but difficult to effect. The continual discussions about this Bill have made me perforce understand something of it towards the end of them. I am too ignorant of the details and of the tendency of the Bill to have an opinion of the comparative merits of its present and its original shape, but I am sure the Lords are bound in prudence not to mutilate it more than is absolutely necessary to make it a safe measure, and to have a good, and moreover a popular, case to go to the country with, if eventually such an appeal is to be made. On the other hand the House of Commons, powerful as it is, must not a.s.sert its power too peremptorily, and before the Ministers determine to resign, for the purpose of making their resignation instrumental to the consolidation of their power and the destruction of the House of Lords; they also must have a good case, and be able to show that the amendments made by the Lords are incompatible with the object proposed, that they were made in a factious spirit and for the express purpose of thwarting the principle contended for, and that their conduct in this matter forms part of a general system, which can only be counteracted by some fundamental change in the const.i.tution of the Upper House
Brougham made a very clever speech (I am told) on Monday night, and the contest between him and Lyndhurst through the whole Committee has been remarkable for talent and for a striking display of the different qualities of the two men. The Duke of Richmond had a squabble with Lyndhurst last night, 'impar congressus,' and he has wriggled himself almost back among the Whigs; nothing but the appropriation clause in the Church Bill prevents his being First Lord of the Admiralty, and he may be considered as having dropped off the dilly with so many others.
The Whigs are dying to have him back among them. I must confess I do not see why, but it is impossible to deny that he contrives to make himself desired by those with whom he has acted, and as they must know best what they are about and what he is capable of, it is reasonable to suppose that he has some talents or some qualities which are developed in the graver affairs of life, but which do not appear in its ordinary relations and habitudes. I thought what he said to me the other night looked like a severance of his Stanley connexion, and his strenuous support of this Bill and his pettish attacks upon Lyndhurst show that he at least is not likely to ally himself with the Conservatives.
August 21st, 1835 {p.292}
Yesterday I fell in with Lyndhurst, just getting out of his carriage at his door in George Street. He asked me to come in and look at his house, which I did. I asked him what would happen about the Bill. He said, 'Oh, they will take it. What can they do? If they choose to throw it out, let them do so, I don't care whether they do or not. But they will take it, because they know it does their business, though not so completely as they desire.'
He said he would alter the qualification, though he did not think it objectionable. I told him I hoped there might be some compromise, and that he and his friends would give way on some of their amendments, and that the Commons would take the rest. Even the 'Times,' which _goes the whole hog_ with the Opposition, won't swallow this (the aldermen), and suggests that it should be withdrawn. Nothing ever was like the outrageous indecency of the attacks upon the House of Lords in the Ministerial papers, and it is not clear that they won't overdo the thing; this kind of fury generally defeats its own object.
August 25th, 1835
[Page Head: WHAT IS HAPPINESS?]
At Hillingdon from Sat.u.r.day till Monday last; began the Life of Mackintosh, and was delighted with Sydney Smith's letter which is prefixed to it; read and walked all day on Sunday--the two things I do least, viz. exercise my mind and body; therefore both grow gross and heavy. Shakespeare says fat paunches make lean pates, but this is taken from a Greek proverb. I admire this family of c.o.x's at Hillingdon, and after casting my eyes in every direction, and thinking much and often of the theory of happiness, I am convinced that it is princ.i.p.ally to be found in contented mediocrity, accompanied with an equable temperament and warm though not excitable feelings. When I read such books as Mackintosh's Life, and see what other men have done, how they have read and thought, a sort of despair comes over me, a deep and bitter sensation of regret 'for time misspent and talents misapplied,' not the less bitter from being coupled with a hopelessness of remedial industry and of doing better things. Nor do I know that such men as these were happy; that they possessed sources of enjoyment inaccessible to less gifted minds is not to be doubted, but whether knowledge and conscious ability and superiority generally bring with them content of mind and the suns.h.i.+ne of self-satisfaction to the possessors is anything but certain. I wonder the inductive process has not been more systematically applied to the solution of this great philosophical problem, _what is happiness_, and _in what it consists_, for the practical purpose of directing the human mind into the right road for reaching this goal of all human wishes. Why are not innumerable instances collected, examined, a.n.a.lysed, and the results expanded, explained, and reasoned upon for the benefit and instruction of mankind? Who can tell but what these results may lead at last to some simple conclusions such as it requires no vast range of intellect to discover, no subtle philosophy to teach--conclusions mortifying to the pride and vanity of man, but calculated to mitigate the evils of life by softening mutual asperities, and by the establishment of the doctrine of _humility_, from which all charity, forbearance, toleration, and benevolence must flow as from their source? These simple conclusions may amount to no more than a simple maxim that happiness is to be found 'in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue.'
Semita certe Tranquillae per virtutem patet unica vitae.
The end of the tenth Satire of Juvenal (which is one of the finest sermons that ever was composed, and worth all the homilies of all the Fathers of the Church) teaches us what to pray for--
Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.
Healthy body, healthy appet.i.te, healthy feelings, though accompanied by mediocrity of talent, unadorned with wit and imagination, and unpolished by learning and science, will outstrip in the race for happiness the splendid irregularities of genius and the most dazzling successes of ambition. At the same time this general view of the probabilities of happiness must be qualified by the admission that mere vegetation scarcely deserves the name of happiness, and that the highest enjoyment which humanity is capable of may be said to consist in the pleasures of reason and imagination--of a mind expatiating among the wonders of nature, and ranging through all the 'changes of many-coloured life,' without being shaken from its equilibrium by the disturbing causes of jealousy, envy, and the evil pa.s.sions of our nature. The most galling of all conditions is that of him whose conscience and consciousness whisper to him perpetual reproaches, who reflects on what he might have been and who feels and sees what he is. When such a man as Macintosh, fraught with all learning, whose mind, if not kindled into a steady blaze, is perpetually throwing out sparks and coruscations of exceeding brightness, is stung with these self-upbraidings, what must be the reflections of those, the utmost reach of whose industry is far below the value of _his_ most self-accused idleness, who have no self-consolation, are plunged in entire darkness, and have not only to lament the years of omission, but those of commission, not only the opportunities neglected, but the positive mischief done by the debas.e.m.e.nt of the faculties, the deterioration of the understanding, the impairing of the power of exertion consequent upon a long devotion to low, despicable, unprofitable habits and pursuits?
August 27th, 1835 {p.295}
[Page Head: STATE OF PARTIES.]
Melbourne has thrown up the t.i.the Bill in the Lords, because the Opposition expunged the appropriation clauses. In the Corporation Bill Lyndhurst made still further alterations, such as the Commons will not take (the town clerks and the exclusion of Dissenters from the disposal of ecclesiastical patronage), and as it is the general opinion that they will make no compromise and surrender none of their amendments, that Bill will probably be lost too.
What then? asks everybody, and n.o.body can tell what then, but there is a sort of vague apprehension that _something_ must come of it, and that this collision (for collision it is) between the Lords and the Commons will not be terminated without some violent measures or important changes; if such do take place, they will have been most wantonly and wickedly brought about, but it is a lamentable thing to see the two great parties in the country, equally possessed of wealth and influence, and having the same interest in general tranquillity, tearing each other to pieces while the Radicals stand laughing and chuckling by, only waiting for the proper moment to avail themselves of these senseless divisions. There is something inconceivable, a sort of political absurdity, in the notion of a country like this being on the eve of a convulsion, when it is tranquil, prosperous, and without any grievance; universal liberty prevails, every man's property and person are safe, the laws are well administered and duly obeyed; so far from there being any unredressed grievances, the imagination of man cannot devise the fiction or semblance of a grievance without there being a rush to correct it. The only real evil is that the rage for correction is too violent, and sweeps all before it. What is it, then, which menaces the existence of the const.i.tution we live under? It is the fury of parties, it is the broad line of separation which the Reform Bill has drawn, the antagonist positions into which the two Houses of Parliament have been thrown, and the Whigs having identified themselves with the democratic principle in one House, in order to preserve their places, and the Conservative principle having taken refuge in the other House, where it is really endangered by the obstinate and frantic violence of its supporters. What was the loud and eternal cry of the Lords, and of all the Conservatives, when the Reform Bill was in agitation? That it was a revolution, that it would place all political power in the hands of the people, that it would establish an irresistible democratic force; and the great body of them justified their refusal to go into Committee on the ground that the Bill was so vicious in principle, so irremediably mischievous, that no alterations could diminish its evil tendency.
It is now as clear as daylight that if they had gone into Committee and amended the Bill, they might have obviated all or nearly all the evils they apprehended, for even after the pa.s.sing of the 'whole Bill,' with all its clauses perfect and untouched, parties are so nearly balanced that the smallest difference would turn the scale the other way. They would, however, listen to nothing, and now they feel the consequences of their _ruat coelum_ policy; but what I complain of is, that after the verification of their predictions, and the realisation of their fears, in the establishment of a democratic power of formidable strength, they do not act consistently with their own declared opinions; for if it be true, as they a.s.sert, that their legitimate authority and influence have been transferred to other hands, and that the just equilibrium of the Const.i.tution has been shaken, it is mad and preposterous in them to act just as if no such disturbing causes had occurred, as if they were still in the plenitude of their const.i.tutional power, and to provoke a collision which, if their own a.s.sertions be true, they are no longer in a condition to sustain. The answer to such arguments as this invariably is, Are the Lords, then, to be content to yield everything, and must they pa.s.s every Bill which the House of Commons thinks fit to send to them purely and simply? Certainly they are not; no such thing is expected of them by any man or any set of men, but common prudence and a sense of their own condition and their own relative strength under the new dispensation demand that they should exercise their undoubted rights with circ.u.mspection and calmness, desisting from all opposition for opposition's sake, standing out firmly on questions involving great and important principles, and yielding with a good grace, without ill-humour, and without subserviency on minor points. They ought, for example, to have followed in the footsteps of Peel in this Irish Corporation Bill, and to have satisfied themselves with making those amendments which he strove for without success in the House of Commons, and no more. As it is, he wholly disapproves of the course they have taken, and so I believe did the Duke of Wellington in the beginning of the discussions, but Lyndhurst took the lead with the violent party, overruled the Duke, neglected Peel, and dealt with the Bill in the slas.h.i.+ng manner we have seen.
[Page Head: SECLUSION OF SIR R. PEEL.]
I was talking to Lord John Russell yesterday at Court on this subject, and he said that he had no doubt Peel highly disapproved of their proceedings, and that it was evident he did not pretend to guide them; for one day in the House of Commons he went over to Peel, and said that he meant to recommit (or some such thing, no matter what the particular course was) the Bill that night, and he supposed he would not object. Peel said, 'Oh, no, I don't object,'
and as he was going away Peel called him back and said, 'Remember I speak only for myself; I can answer for no other individual in the House.' He went out of town about a fortnight ago, has never returned, and will not; his own friends think he ought, but it is evident that he prefers to wash his hands of the matter. He knows well enough that the Conservatives hate him in their hearts; besides having never cordially forgiven him for his conduct on the Catholic question, they are indignant at his Liberal views and opinions, and when they adopted him as their leader it was in the fond hope that he would restore the good old days of Tory Government, than which nothing could be farther from his thoughts.
John Russell said of him yesterday 'that he was, in fact, a great lover of changes and innovations;' and so he is. It often occurs to me that he would not care very much if the House of Lords did go to the wall, and that though he is the acknowledged head of the Conservative party, he doesn't in his heart care much for Conservative principles. He may possibly calculate that no change can take place in this country by which property will be menaced; that personally he is safe, and politically his vast superiority in all the requisites for public life must, under all possible circ.u.mstances, make him the most eminent performer on the great stage. I do not know that he has any such thoughts as these, but it appears to me far from improbable, and the more so from his keeping aloof at this moment and abstaining (as far as we know) from any attempt to restrain the indiscretion and impetuosity of his party.
[Page Head: THE WHIGS' t.i.tHE BILL.]
But if on the one hand the conduct of the Tories with respect to the Corporation Bill has been violent and rash, that of the Government with respect to the t.i.the Bill has been unspeakably wicked. I cannot recollect an instance of so complete a sacrifice of the interests of others, of their own principles, and of national tranquillity to mere party objects, and the more I reflect upon the course they have taken the more profligate and disgraceful it appears. These Ministers have recorded their opinion that the question of appropriation ought not to be mixed up with that of commutation; that they are essentially distinct, and ought to remain so. At the beginning of this session the united Whigs and Radicals considered only one thing--how to drive Peel out, and though they had a choice of means to accomplish this end, the famous resolution about appropriation was the one which they finally selected for the purpose. In so doing they were altogether regardless of future consequences,[1] and never stopped to calculate what would be the effect of saddling the measure of relief (in which all parties concurred) with this impossible condition. Now how stands the case? They declare that Ireland (as all the world knows) is a scene of disorder and bloodshed, of which the t.i.the system is the princ.i.p.al cause, and that the t.i.the Bill will afford an effectual remedy to the evil. It is therefore their imperative and paramount duty, as it ought to be their earnest and engrossing desire, to secure the application of their remedy, and, whether in office or out of office (with the expectation and intention of coming in), to take care that nothing should be mixed up with it by which it can be endangered, and that it should be proposed merely for what it is, and not made subservient to any object but that for which it has been professedly framed. Having committed the first error of employing this resolution to drive out the Government, they then considered themselves obliged to adopt it as an integral part of the Bill, and accordingly they did so, with a full knowledge that by so doing they should ensure the rejection of the Bill itself and that Ireland would continue in the same state of anarchy and confusion, only aggravated by the furious contests of parties here and by the failure of all schemes of remedial legislation. Nothing can be more certain than this, that if the state of Ireland had been taken into consideration with the simple, straightforward view of tranquillising the country, and that no party object had been mixed up with it, the framers of the t.i.the Bill would sedulously have avoided introducing the appropriation clause; but during the great battle with Peel the establishment of this principle (not only the principle of _appropriation_, but that _no relief_ should be afforded without its recognition) was made the condition of Radical support and the bond of Radical connection, and having as the result of this compact pledged the House of Commons to the principle, they refuse to retrace their steps, and offer the House of Lords the alternative of its recognition (knowing that they cannot in sincerity, honour, or conscience recognise it) or that of an irreparable injury to the Irish Church, which it is the grand object of the Lords to uphold. But the question must not be considered as one merely affecting the interests of the clergy of Ireland. If that were all, there might be no such great harm in these proceedings. Entertaining very strong (and as I think very sound) opinions with respect to the expediency of dealing with its revenues, and for purposes ultimately to be effected which they cannot yet venture to avow, they might be justified, or think themselves justified, in coping with the difficulties which embarra.s.s this question in the best mode that is open to them, and deem it better that the Irish clergy should suffer the temporary privations they undergo than that the final settlement of the ecclesiastical question should be indefinitely postponed. But they do not pretend to be actuated by any such considerations; their declared object is to restore peace to Ireland, to terminate the t.i.the quarrel, to raise the Protestant clergy from their fallen state, and to a.s.sert the authority of the law by taking away the inducements which now exist for setting the law at defiance. Those who undertake to govern the country are above all things bound to see that the laws are obeyed, and they do not deserve the name of a Government if they submit to, much less if they connive at, a permanent state of anarchy in any part of the country. They know that the law in Ireland is a dead letter, that neither to statute nor common law do the lower orders of Irish Catholics (the bulk of the nation) pay the slightest obedience, and that they are countenanced and urged on in their disobedience by those agitators with whom the Government act in political fellows.h.i.+p, and in deference to whom their measures have been shaped. Granting that after the adoption of the resolution by the House of Commons they were bound to insert it in their Bill, what justification is there for their refusal to receive the Bill back from the Lords with no other alteration than the omission of the appropriation clause? In so refusing they destroy their own measure; they publish to the world that it is the principle of appropriation, and not the t.i.the composition, that they really care for; and in thus strangling their own Bill, because they cannot tack that principle on to it, they make themselves accomplices of the outrages and violence which are perpetrated in the t.i.the warfare, and abettors of the regular and systematic violation of the law. The King's Government exhibits itself in a conspiracy with Catholic agitators and Protestant republicans against the clergy of the Established Church and against the laws of the land. If they are sincere in their own statements and declarations they must of necessity deem no object commensurate with this in point of urgency and importance; and what is the object to which this is postponed?
That of maintaining their own consistency; because they turned the late Government out on this question they must now adhere to it with desperate tenacity; their interests as a party demand that they should; O'Connell and the Radicals will not forgive them if they give it up. They might if they would declare their unchanged opinion in favour of the principle of appropriation, and their determination to press the adoption of it at all times and by all means, and never to desist till they had accomplished its recognition, but at the same time announce that the perilous state of Ireland--the magnitude of the evil resulting from the t.i.the system--would not allow them to reject the t.i.the Bill though denuded of the appropriation clauses, as all the rest of its provisions (all those by which the t.i.the system was to be determined) had been pa.s.sed by the Lords. I cannot conceive how a conscientious Minister can take upon himself the responsibility of quas.h.i.+ng this measure, and contentedly look forward to the probability--almost certainty--of a fresh course of outrage and disorder, and a new catalogue of miseries and privations, which he all the time believes it is in his power to avert. But these Ministers think that they could not avert these evils (by accepting the Bill) without giving umbrage to their task-masters and allies, and they do not scruple to sacrifice the mighty interests at stake in Ireland to the paltry and ephemeral interests of their party--interests which cannot outlive the present hour and party, which the slightest change in the political atmosphere may sweep away in an instant. There is also another reason by which they are determined; they cannot face the accusation of inconsistency--the question that would be put, Why did you turn out Peel's Government? You turned him out on this very principle which you are now ready to abandon. There is no doubt that this question would be put with a very triumphant air by their opponents, but they might easily answer it, without admitting in so many words--what everybody well knows without any admission--that the resolution was brought forward for the express purpose of turning Peel out. They might say that they moved that resolution because it is a principle that they wished to establish, and that they still think ought to be established; that Peel's resignation on that particular question was of his own choice, and that if they are not irrevocably bound by the resolution itself, they are not the more bound by that circ.u.mstance; that they sent the Bill to the House of Lords in what they consider the best form, but that after the Lords had agreed to the whole measure, with the exception of the appropriation clauses, it was their duty to take the matter again into their serious consideration, and to determine whether it was on the whole more advantageous to Ireland and to the Empire that the Bill should be rejected (with all the consequences of its rejection apparent) or that it should be pa.s.sed without these clauses. There was no necessity for their abandonment of any opinion or principle, nor any obstacle to the appropriation clauses being brought forward again and again in a substantive independent shape. Besides this, it is not pretended that these clauses were to produce any immediate perhaps not even any remote, effect, and they not only acknowledge that the state of Ireland calls for an immediate remedy, but they a.s.sert that unless the remedy is applied without loss of time it will come too late; that the t.i.the Bill, which this year would accomplish its object, will in all probability next year be wholly inoperative. To my mind this reasoning is so conclusive that I can come to no other than the harsh judgment which I have pa.s.sed upon their conduct, and I think I have made good my charges against both Whigs and Tories.
[1] The Whigs were not, probably, the Radicals. O'Connell, without doubt, had very good reasons for pinning the Government to this, and foresaw all the consequences of the compact by which he bound them.