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Leader (1850-1860), 24th December 1853, Edition 2 of 2, Page 14

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      The Governing- Classes. No. Xv. Lord Joh...

      Grown . During the last two or three years , Lord John has perhaps hardly heen equal to his position ; and evidences of his failing strength and confidence are too clear . But , in forming an opinion of him , we must remember the Lord John of 1830 as well as the Lord John of the Durham Letter , the Militia Bill , and the Villiers'motion . When he was writing to Mr . Attwood , of Birmingham , approving of the intention of that gentleman , and other members of the Union , not to pay taxes till the Reform Bill was passed , and suggesting that the

      " whisper of a faction " ( viz ., a large majority of the House of Lords , the Crown , and the Church ) could not prevail against the " voice of a nation " ( which abolished old Sarum and left Stamford ) , he must have been a magnificent young fellow , quite prepared for being Mirabeau , if there was to be a revolution . He was still a splendid and vigorous party leader when he backed out of the appropriation clause , and when he made the sudden discovery , one recess , that the Corn Laws were a cheat upon the people . We

      cannot forget these things . Sculptors and painters , in arranging to hand down heroes to posterity on canvas or in marble , do not depict the decaying hero—grey hairs and the palsy , but take the countenance and the costume of lusty manhood . When we think of Napoleon , we think of the man of Marengo , not of the man of St . Helena ; and we must remember , in considering Lord John Russell , the hero of the Reform Bill—not the martyr of the Durham Letter . We have also to bear in mind that there is to be another Reform Bill , and that the

      heroic may then re-appear . As a statesman , Lord John Russell is to be regarded under two aspects ; and we have to inquire , first , what has he done for his country ? and next , what has he done for his party ? The answer is that he has passed his life in leading his country into quandaries ; and that he has finally landed his party in a cul-de'sac—a coalition . Tested , in the first place , by what he has done on reform , this is so far only apparent that his work of ' 32 has to be done over again in ' 54 , not because of

      the multiplication of population , redistribution of property , or increase of intelligence , but because the Bill of ' 32 failed in all that it pretended to dobeing a sham in Schedule A , and a still greater sham in Schedule B , while the aggregate representation of the nation remains as completely delusive as in the days of Walpole . That Lord John has to reproduce himself in 1854 is discreditable ; but what is most discreditable , is that the necessity of the reproduction having been seen in the general election which brought Sir Robert Peel into the

      Premiership , Lord John has so long delayed an inevitable work , more particularly as the delay destroyed the Whig party . For his mismanagement of Reform he has no excuses . He studied the question , to the exclusion of nearly every other question , from 1821 to 1831 , having-over and over again , in the interval , proposed various " cobbles , " as Cobbett called them ; and when he was selected by Lord Grey ' s Cabinet , of which he was not a member , to arrange and propose the great Bill , he , whatever the ignorant errors of the Parliament and the people , could not but

      have been thoroughly aware of the exact nature of what ho was doing . For party purposes ho hoaxed a great nation , confidingly worshiping its possible Astyanax ; and though party purposes—if he could only have perceived them before it was too late—¦ have since perpetually provoked a new hoax , and though , from irresolution and feebleness , he has never seized the opportunity , yet ia ho not to be forgiven . It has been more than a crime in him to distrust England—it has been a . stupidity . Something near universal suffrage could have been safely conceded in 1832 . The people worshipped the

      King and adored the Whig Peers , to the detriment of democrats like Orator Hunt ; and all that Lord John Russell did was to answer a demand | br a revolution by creating , about half a million additional votes , 250 , 000 of which wore certainly left as votes at tlio disposal of great lords and landowners . Again , whoa Queen Victoria ascended the throne , the nation was fully entitled to a new charter , and , in passive loyalty and humble lovo of lords , was quite worthy of confidence ; and still Lord John Kussell left the people unrepresented , —and so cleverly played the game of the Tories . At this

      moment the state of the representation of Great Britain is a mighty scandal in Europe ; and still Lord John will adhere to a petty " cobble , "—acquiescently creating sufficient capital for the Peelite Tories , but creating none at all for himself and his party . And all this maladroitness is the result either of gross ignorance of the character of the English people , or of criminal intention to continue the reign of a stupid ' oligarchy and a rotten system ; and , in either case , Lord John Russell is deserving of contempt , — as a simpleton , or as a conspirator . It is unjust ,

      however , to judge him for one lache ; and if we examme his career continuously , we shall find reason to suspect that he is not grandly criminal enough ever to have had a plan . Inheriting " Whig principles , " he has talked them eternally , and they have sounded very well ; and no doubt he has carried them out : but the only uniform result they appear to produce is confusion . Since the Reform Bill there hare been three difficulties for the English Government—Finance , the Colonies , Foreign Policy ; and , in each direction , Lord John , with the aid of his friends , has

      admirably broken down . In Finance , Lord Melbourne ' s Government jucceeded so far , that it left power in IS 41 , ten years after a Whig Reform Bill , because it was yearly adding a deficit of a million . Whig principles , which were , in finance , founded on Adam Smith ' s , should have suggested a repeal of the Corn Laws . But the Whigs were Protectionists up to 1846 , then became Free-traders merely because a party manoeuvre ( which failed ) required it , and to this day shake their heads , and say , " Pity the Tories wouldn't take our 8 s . fixed duty in ' 46 . " And their

      Chancellor of the Exchequer , who succeeded Baring , was more disastrous even than Baring ; though yearly , consequent upon the arrangements established by Sir Robert Peel , he had a surplus , and not a deficit , to deal with . Sir Charles Wood had no system , and none of his budgets grew out of the preceding ones ; and if there are sound principles of finance now fixed in the public mind and in the public accounts , we are indebted to Sir Robert Peel and his Conservative pupil , Mr . Gladstone . And for

      the failures of Whig Finance , Lord John is accountable ; or , if his friends maintain he was above finance , then , manifestly , he was below his office . For the Colonial system of the Whigs , he is fully as responsible as Lord Grey , and clearly , in the colonies , Whig principles led to general insurrection—in Canada , at the Cape , in the Australias , in the Ionian Isles . In India the Whigs never succeeded ; and during all their rule they never sent a first-rate man or a first-rate measure there , the Bill of last session

      winch Whigs drew up being in the old Wing waya complicated , temporary cobble . Then , in Foreign Policy , Whig principles have led to the Russianising of Europe . One or two other questions have presented themselves during Whig rule for adjustment , and have been dismally dealt with . For instance , the question of Religion and the question of Education . Whig principles , which could permit the encampment of an Alien Church in Ireland , and the maintenance of church-rates leviable on Dissenters in England , have led to an Ecclesiastical Titles Bill ,

      a dead letter as a statute , but a living insult as a protest ; and the solitary justification of which , as urged by Lord John Russell , was , that it was a measure rendered necessary by a continental conspiracy against England ; this conspiracy being , of course , the consequence of Whig foreign policy . Whig principles have served but slightly to promote the cause of education . A revenuo of a million and a half has been obtained by the taxation of the press—an odd feature in a Whig civil and religious system—and not one-half that revenue has been proffered by the Whigs in aid of

      national education . Shortcomings , such as these , arc attributable to the deficient character of tho leader and chief of the party—to his want of grasp and to lack of courage . Weakness , contagious ia a party , was to bo seen always ia Whig manipulation of departments . They never did anything well—they never did anything thoroughly . Tho most striking illustration of thoir stylo of business was thoir mismanagement of tho navy—of tho defences . It took the Duke of Wellington ten years to talk them into a militia which , in the end , was so ludicrous an abortion , that they had to go out on it ; and there can bo very little

      doubt that if a general war , as was a probability had broken out in 1847-1850 , the English navy would have been beaten by the French navy . Lord [ John's crime to his party is identical with his crime to the country ; for , as he governed badly , feebly ; and foolishly , he destroyed the reputation of the Whigs , and sank them in their competition with the Tories . The Whigs have disappeared in the coalition ; but they entered the coalition simply , because they could not stand alone . To maintain an appearance of equality with the Tories

      in the Cabinet * the two leading Whigs , Lord Lansdowne and Lord John Russell , occupy seats without holding offices ; and Lord John is supposed to sustain his position by not taking a subordinate post under Lord Aberdeen ; and , in pursuance of this petty policy , Lord John has now refused to resign his-nominal rank , taking the Home-office , which Lord Aberdeen astutely offered him . But the country does not . comprehend these refinem ents , and does not forget recent Whig history . The confusion of party politics compelled by Sir Robert Peel ' s Free-trade conversion , forced an endurance of the Whig Ministry of 1846-1850 ; but it was ,

      undoubtedly , one of the most unpopular Ministries which ever held power in England . England , in that time , was governed riot merely by an oligarchy , but by one family—the clan of Russells , Elliotts , and Greys ; and as this offensive nepotism was not redeemed by any display of intellect or energy , either in general policy , or in particular departments , the national loathing was indulged without disguise . Without national support , without a policy of any sort , and pressed in the House by Mr . Disraeli , who , in four years organised an Opposition more formidable than that organised by Sir Robert Peel between 1832 and 1841 , this Whig

      " family party" could not stand—and fell , out of utter rottenness , impotence , and idiotcy , amid the rejoicings of the country , which even preferred Lord Derby , and amid the contempt of mankind . In the extremity of his bewilderment and despair , Lord John Russell , in a party perplexity , has attempted to play over again the game of 1832 ; and , with a Reform Bill , now seeks to revivify a dying faction . But there are two obstacles in his path likely to defeat his scheme * . There are two classes who have found out the trick—the country and the Tories . If the country be again induced to

      believe that an oligarchy can be desirous of enfranchising a people , the country will deserve an eternity of Russells and Greys . If the Tories be induced to believe that there is danger to property or religion , by abolishing the Stamfords and making boroughs of the Burnleys and Birkenheads , the Tories will deserve the degradation which they endured from 1820 to 1840—unpopularity . But there is , now , as little chance of the one being deluded as of the other being misled ; and we Bee , accordingly , that tho people are suspiciously apathetic , and that the Tories are suspiciously liberal .

      In mid career , about to open up a new chapter in our history , Lord John Russell cannot yet challenge a definitive verdict upon his ch aracter or las sorvices . And " if—Whiggism being for the future impossible—he should / bo enabled , freo / a " party , to be simply an Englishman , and to ocyu himeelf exclusively to his country , the historian may , after all , have to count him among the gr . eatc ^ British worthies . Vast , even yet , are his opp tunities ; and great will be tho Bin if tncy » misused . ______— — -==

      1238 The Leader [Saturday,

      1238 THE LEADER [ Saturday ,

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      Lord Palmerston. Kemp Town, !><*• 2^' (7...

      LORD PALMERSTON . Kemp town , !><*• 2 ^' ( 7 ' o the Editor of the Lc < tder- ~) Srn , _ It has been assorted that tlio real ™ " ™ J Lord Palmerston ' s sudden dismissal ^ ^ ,,, i Russell in December , 1851 , was tho Ituuaa

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 24, 1853, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24121853/page/14/