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Leader (1850-1860), 12th May 1855, Edition 2 of 2, Page 16, "4&6

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      " The Stranger" In Parliament. [The Resp...

      arailj and Mr . Disraeli , on the other hand , is silent because , as negotiations are stall going on , and as Lord Derby is to come in whether there is peace or war , he would prefer to take the Government with all this difficulty at an end . Lord Ellenhorough ' s motion , on Monday next , does not deal at all , necessarily , with the policy of the war , or with the diplomacy : his question turns on the maladministration of tie war ; and the answer to him will come , not from ILord Clarendon , but from JLord Panmure ; and the puzzled Tory Peers—chiefly puzzled because they find Lord Derby , their only possible chief , thinking a good deal more of De Clare than of Downing-street—will have to decide whether or not they will carry a crisis motion upon evidence which has no relation to more important matters than the gossip of the Sebastopol Committee . Mr . Layard ' s of

      Victoria Bill being a measure that is exciting somethmg ^ ike civil wlr in the greatest of English colonies . Mr . Lowe was there , happily »^« " « T * ° ™ the Whigs , to expose them ? and he told the House what the bill was , and startled them , as England is since startled , in showing the monstrous blunder the new Colonial Secretary was about to accomplish . Lord John ' s vexed reply to the sudden explosion was painfully silly : he began to lecture Mr . Lowe as to the state of matters in the colony , and to put him right as to facts , —for , though Lord . John had been at Vienna so long , and Mr . Lowe is notoriously the Australian authority in Parliament , these Parliamentary nobles have a trick of assuming superior knowledge . Mr . G . Butt told Lord John the reply was no answer whatever , but it was too late to pursue the exposure : so Lord John got his bill in—and himself into a scrape , which will destroy his departmental reputation for this session , and supply new proof to our Colonial fellow-subjects of the exquisiteness of the system under which we are all governed , bir iu xrxij / ioit" * »

      and ingenidusly strong on . that side . Mr . Lowe ' s reply to it , less well spoken , was not less masterly for its resources of quick logic , its vigorous illustrations , and the perfect style . Mr . Gladstone defended his friend 'with what Mr . Cobden called splendid fallacies : refining upon Mr . Palmer ' s ingenuity , minutely searching out the weak places in Mr . Lowe ' s argument , threading in his own original views , and gratifying the House every now and then with some burst of mysticall y ecclesiastical eloquence ; on the whole , delivering in half an hour of rapid and vehement energy a speech that would have been more appropriate in the Jerusalem Chamber , but still such a speech as no other man in the country could contribute to such a controversy . Mr . Cobden did not sink below the high standard of the debate ; in simple , but still elegant and forcible language he demolished Mr . Gladstone in twenty minutes , and sat down amid great cheering—what he is not used to there . Saturday Morning . " A Stranger . "

      resolutions also are irrespective of the diplomacy the question : they , like Lord EUe nborough , assume that the diplomacy is a delusion , that the war must

      Cieorge urey s answer . -.. « , , ~ likewise exemplifies the notion these squires and lords have of Government , and the further noexplanation with which Lord Palmerston , having oir

      go on ; and tliese gentlemen would not tase me trouble to conde mn the past of the war if they did * ;„« ?! , «? thmr rt «* oln . mation would procure viA

      hobbled into the House , loiiowea up ueuigc Grey ' s negatives , that the papers had not been produced , because the polyglot clerk had taken to his insouciance wim ii

      . UvPb vUUWSIT v v * im » v 'w ** »» v»»—— some guarantee for better arrangements in the future . Lord Ellenborough wants to show what a prodigious War Minister he would make ; and as he is coming in . there is some public importance in his private

      bed suggests the insolent wu «; the Downing-street caste views the British efforts to get news of Great Britain . The Premier ' adroitness , not foreseeing that he was to be foiled , in attempting to affix Mr . Layard tne

      display . But what does Mr . Layard mean ? As a member of the Sebastopol Committee , he would have done better if he had suppressed his individuality until that committee had made a collective report : — by anticipating the committee and passing sentence , in advance , upon the military system , he reverts to the position he occupied two months ago , and thus , very innocently , confirms what he was told when he was asking for the committee—that the committee was of no use . This impatience of character produces a bad impression ; and the dispute he has had with Lord Palmerston appears to indicate that there is as much spite as principle in his public conduct . What does he gain by declining the day Lord Palmerston offered him ? He vexed Lord Palmerston , who wanted to get the double fuss of the two Houses over on Monday night ; and so far Mr . Layard raises " a laugh" at the baulked Premier . And you could see Mr . iLayard enjoyed that on Thursday : lie was as gleeful as a boy when he sat down , after bewildering the then sleepy Premier with his refusal to take the Monday . That is a small triumph , however : if his object is to damage Palmerston , he would have destroyed that Lord ' s prestige by showing Europe that Lords and Commons were talking no confidence on the very

      to a day , was matched oy possiuie cuuuiug « »¦" , he last night developed in creating an opportunity oi forestalling the Lords' debate next Monday by an explanation as to the changes determined on in the War-offices . But the cunning was too palpable . That unhappy Major Reed , so ostentatiously an unintellectual likeness to Mr . Bright , was too obviously got up , if not put up , to provoke the candour and lead to the explanations ; and Mr . Disraeli ' s sneer that Lord Palmerston had drawn up the Majors motion , and disguised his hand by the bad grammar , tickled the conscious House in a way to indicate that the hero of the Honourable Artillery Company was dreadfully found out . The conspiracy—and even Mr . Fitzstephen French was suspected because he abused Major Reed for an assumption of too leading a position—suggested a morale which displeased every one , Ministerialists included : and observing the fact that Lord Palmerston was very coldly listened to , while announcing his Administrative Reform , and that Mr . Disraeli was loudly hear-hear'd in pointing out that the reform did not go far enough , it is a safe assumption that the Palmerston Government , having been precipitated into making its bid for popularity , is all the worse for the effort . On the other hand , Mr . Disraeli spoke so keenly in his old style , of ruthless banter and malicious inuendo , that for the first time tliese two years one began again to believe in him as a Parliamentary personage . Parliament , meanwhile , drifts . On Opera nights it stays away ; on Tuesday making no House ; and on mi 3 « ... i n l : . M — n / limntn fwr \ r \& Ti *§* *> M * rt t / YIT /> f"rt Jl . VOlfl & tMAX \ J «¦ \~

      same night . Mr . Layard is the savant strayed into politics ; very ignorant and innocent yet ; and skittishly disinclined to be broken in : so that if the City men put him in the respectable gig they are substituting for the state coach , let them look out . It would not take much to break up these old Whigsj " they get more ludicrous every day ; they are only allowed to live because Lord Derby is looking after the Derby , and because the Administrative Beformers of tlie House of Commons are not eager to do Lord Derby ' s work for him . They merely get on , keeping their own hacks together , on sham rumours ; that their War Department organisation is the all possible ; that they were indignant with Drouyn de Lhuys ' s small terms . ; that there is a tremendous summer campaign in the Crimea all but ready ; that Palmereton is urging the Emperor to raise the cry of Poland ; that there is to be a good Reform Bill next session ; that the Foreign Legion is tobe brought about after all ; that Austria is being managed ; and soon . But , meanwhile , it is terrible in Parliament . Take Vernon Smith ' s statesmanship on Thursday night on Sir Erakine Perry ' s wise suggestions in respect to the Indian army : —people knew so well , so not wwui ugwuiug

      1 IlUrSUA ) ' LU .. lllg y O . M bagb JA . . -M . w w * w ** * v — — Young India , which was rampant on the motion of the shrewd and sagacious , but not very vigorous or very effective , Sir Erskine Perry : —Young India including some of the cleverest young men in the House , —Goderich , Danby Seymour , Otway , —but also some decided bores , such as the overwhelmingly eloquent J . Philliinore , and all of them with too great a tendency to set-orations and to quote Mr . Burke . But when the House must be in the House , having no other place to go to , it either cants or twaddles . Last week the cant was about Maynooth—sustained , slightly , in the explanations last night , as to the Pope ' s editorship of the Commission ' s report ; this week the Wednesday twaddle was on Deceased Wives' Sisters—on Back Parlour legislation . Talking in the centre of a city which contains fifty thousand " unfortunates , " honourable gentleman after honourable gentleman implored Parliament not to pass a measure which would make the homo of Mary Anne , the sister , uncomfortable to Jane , the wife ; and the purity of tho domestic life of tho country was enormously talked of , with considerable abuse of the Mormons , Mr . Heywood , who held the bill , being somewhat sneered at as leading us all to polygamy , to which Mr . Roundell Palmer , followed by Mr . Gladstone , objects with a fervour not complimentary to the box . As Mr . Cobden said of tho debate , bo crammed with casuistry , so theological , a . k 4 VwvVkl * -k m ! n . l />^ l S 4 > » .. * % * v » 5 »•» A nri liv . n r * f till * Tl t'fant I n / 14 4 \ Jl bMU

      instinctively , me man wua w , that not fifty members were present : and the fifty members found it a mistake to wait on that civ devant jeune hvmme while he was trying to show how well soiao mindless and routiney clerk had erammed him . But take , as a better instance of tho tone of this Government , Lord John on tho same night with thonow Victoria Constitution Bill . He was nudged up at midnight when his turn came to make his motion , and ho mode it with tho listlessness with which Brothcrton would carry a turnpike bill—this

      OU IGWAd'iJUAUUVU , Jib Jl ^ lllXllUUU X . AIJII *^ J **«*»» « ... * . « , who were rhetorically engaged while tho Turk was' mounting their walls ; and it was , indeed , melancholy to see Mr . Gladstone bo sinking tho statesman in reminiscences of that stylo of argument which he obtained when , in his youth , he was being educated for a bishopric . But though the House of Commons is wrong to trouble itself with these matters , or rather to give so much time to them , tho country has reason to bo proud of tho high intellectual powers developed in such debates by the House . Mr . Puhnor ' s speech was an essay delightful to listen to from that perfect speaker , and most elaborately

      "4&6

      " 4 & 6

      T : HE IEADEB . [ Saturday / -

      ≪$)Pn Council.

      < $ ) pn Council .

      Fllt Ttiis Department, As All Opinions, ...

      fllT TTIIS DEPARTMENT , AS ALL OPINIONS , HOWEVER EXTBKlli :, ARE ALLOWED AN EXPUKSSION . THE ED 1 IOE NECESSARILY HOL 1 > S Ulii-SEI . F RESPONSIBLE FOlt NOSE . ]

      There Is No Learned Man But Will Confess...

      There is no learned man but will confess he rath much profited by reading controversies , his sei . ses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it not , a ; least betoltraolefor his adversary to write . —Mi lion

      1 : Shot-Proof Floating Batteries. (7b T...

      1 : SHOT-PROOF FLOATING BATTERIES . ( 7 b the Editor of the Leader . ) ' ¦ gIBj I cannot longer resist what I conceive to have become an imperative duty , in requesting a place in your columns for some explanations in reference , if not in express reply , to the inquiry which has engaged the attention of the legislature , as to who is the designer of the new floating batteries . Lord Panmure was " unable to say who was the projector of them . " It was my destiny for some years , terminating ; in the month of May , 1828 , when the decease of the late Sir William Congreve took place , to fill the situation of his private secretary . Sir "William , under medical advice , had quitted England for the south of Trance in June , 1827 , his death occurring at Toulouse . During the interval , I was necessarily in correspondence with him from London , among other duties confided to me being the placing in the hands of the printer the matter for a new edition of Sir YV . Congreve ' s work on Naval Ordnance , the supplemental portion of which , transmitted to me froin France , comprised among the rest a new section ot the Treatise , with detailed explanations of a design for the construction of " shot-proof floating batteries , accompanied by the requisite drawings for the engraver . It will be evident that my explanations refer to , aa I believe , Sir W . Congreve ' s original . suggestion and matured plan for this description of floating battery , any close comparison of which with those now constructed I am unable to make . J well remember , however , that his idea was that the siues of hi * proposed floating batteries should be rendered indestructible by a covering of iron , the thickness o which he exactly calculated , and recommended should be in the form of / w « e & aiid stiles , to ensure , probably , the greatest resistance with the least weight . I am chiefly desirous in this letter to mention thut , being at the period in question in pursuance ot my dutiua , in occasional communication with the late Admiral Sir George Cockburn , a personal tnen 1 lot SirW . Congreve , he expressed a wish to sec to plans , which were accordingly transmitted to the Admiralty , but never were returned to my hands . Sir W . Congreve ' s decease speedily following , the enlarged and amended copy for the intendei new edition of tho work on naval ordnance pass ^ mt ° fhe handa of a near relation of the author , but whctliei it has been published or not I am not aware Having , by your kind permission , m Justice to the fame of the late Sir W . Congreve , made pi 1 lie the circumstance of my communication to the Adimraity of hia suggestion and designs for these b *" ™ 3-now more than twenty-five years Bince—I btfc to subscribe myaelf , Sir , your obliged and obedient servant , J KOUKHT Dl UKl . 6 , Htttcham-terrace , Old Kent-road , May 9 , *^__

      Cukmornic— The Coining Season Here »P1>^...

      Cukmornic— The coining season here » P 1 >^ " / " { to bring in its course abundance of tho nnnual festivities which tho proprietor of these gardens is now tho H « able to undertake on account of having obtained tho a tensive adjoining Ashburnhnm grounds . Amoiisui m most important engagements entered into may l «>¦ ' >< J " tioned tho South London FlorlcuHurnl Meetings , an 1 £ Licensed Victuallers' School Dinner -or ««>«'« important events , tho Minarets of tho 'leinplt » f J hornet , now near completion , will bo admirably ndnj ^ « , as their illuminations will bo scon for many in » J «!> - round .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 12, 1855, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_12051855/page/16/