ADDRESS IN ANSWER TO HER MAJESTY'S SPEECH.

HC Deb 05 February 1861 vol 161 cc44-110

SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKE

(who wore the uniform of a Deputy Lieutenant) said:—Sir, I rise to move an humble Address to Her Majesty in answer to the gracious Speech we have just heard. Although, Sir, I cannot claim the indulgence of the House on the ground of want of experience in addressing it, yet, on the present occasion, from the nature of the task I have undertaken—although I have accepted the office readily, as a compliment to the important interests J have the honour to represent, and feel the privilege of being the first to address the House after the reading of Her Majesty's most gracious Speech—yet, at the same time, I experience the difficulty which must always attach to those who stand between the House and those Members of it to whom the House is accustomed to look with expectation for advice and information in the present important juncture of affairs.

Now, Sir, I believe I shall best consult the feelings and anticipate the wishes of the House if, instead of taking up the subjects in the order in which they were presented to us in the Speech, I were first to advert to that question which will naturally rise most prominently to the minds of all, since it has reference to the personal feelings of Her Majesty—I allude, of course, to that portion of the Speech in which Her Majesty expresses Her appreciation of the cordial manner in which the Prince of Wales has been received on his visit to the British American Colonies and by the people of the United States. I cannot but congratulate Her Majesty and the House on the success of that visit, and on the loyal and personal feelings of attachment which were manifested towards the Prince by a most important British province, which was formerly torn by rebellion, and in the administration of which so many difficulties exist, occasioned by the difference of the races which inhabit it. But the House will agree with me that a still deeper interest attaches to the visit which the Prince paid to the United States, and in regarding it as a most important historical event. We are all familiar with instances, both in ancient and modern history, in which dynasties having been overthrown or expelled, it has been found impossible that the members of those dynasties could return to the dominions where they once ruled except as conquerors; and so strong has this feeling been, that we know that in many countries laws have been passed forbidding the members of a Royal family from ever returning to a country whence their ancestors had been exiled. But here we have a Prince, the heir to the British Throne—the descendant of one to whom historians have attributed the severance of those dependencies from the mother-country—who has made a peaceful progress through a republican population, and who was received by them with a feeling of respect, and even of enthusiasm, without any compromise of the principle of their own republican institututions. Perhaps the most remarkable incident of that visit was the meeting between the heir to the British Throne and the sole survivor of the first conflict between the colonists and the mother country. We have thus seen that, in a period which is short in the history of a nation, and which, indeed, is comprehended within the period of one individual life, and has since been embittered by another war—all feelings of bitterness completely laid aside, and the old feelings of brotherhood which should bind two kindred nations revived. This result is to be attributed, of course, in a great degree, to the influence of commercial intercourse, and in no small degree to those ties of a common kindred, and a common literature. But they are also to be attributed in no small degree to the frankness of the policy we have invariably pursued when dealing with that country, and to the cordial desire we have shown in the midst of many difficulties and dangers to maintain a cordial alliance with that country. But the cordiality of the Prince's reception is not to be attributed wholly to political considerations. This reception has a more important significance, and a peculiar interest. We are told—and no doubt it is the fact—that it was intended as a personal tribute of respect to the son of our Sovereign—a testimony of respect for the manner in which the Sovereign has borne herself in all the relations of life ever since her accession to the throne. I think we may address Her Majesty with peculiar satisfaction on this point, when we recognise in our kindred on the other side of the Atlantic the same feeling of respect for the personal character of the Sovereign and of regard for her family which is so familiar and so widely diffused at home. Sir, I cannot pass from this topic without asking the House to join with me in the expression of the regret which we feel, in common with Her Majesty, that circumstances should have arisen to threaten the continuance of the union of these provinces. In their political career this country has a deep interest, being so closely allied with them in race and kindred; and I am sure, therefore, that the House will join with Her Majesty in the expression of a fervent hope that those dangers which beset the Union may be dispelled.

Passing now from this subject, and coming to the questions which are of more immediate interest to us, I will ask the House—and I anticipate that this part of my task will be an easy one—to join in congratulating Her Majesty on the success of our arms in China. I hope I shall be able to do so without reviving those differences of opinion to which Chinese questions seem destined to give rise. I confess that there are many circumstances in the past history of our connection with that Empire which I view with regret; and I must say I do not share in the sanguine opinion entertained by some, who anticipate that we shall find a solution of all our difficulties in a closer relation with the Court of Pekin. But I believe it was the general feeling of the House and of the country that the evasive policy of the Celestial Empire had left us no alternative but to prosecute the war with vigour, and that the best policy and economy would be found in carrying it on in a way that would afford a prospect of an early termination, and nothing can more strongly demonstrate the advantages of such a policy than the complete success of the expedition. I have no doubt that the House will express its admiration of the way in which the expedition has been handled. I, as a civilian, may be excused for speaking on military matters; but I know that great doubts were entertained amongst military authorities as to the possibility of successfully conducting operations against Pekin. I say, therefore, that to have conveyed a great expedition, fully equipped, and in the highest state of efficiency, to the gates of Pekin, with the sea, which was the base of their operations, open only for a part of the year to the naval forces, is a great triumph, and that gratification is to be found, not only in the brilliant operations of the different services, but also in the cordial co-operation that subsisted throughout between us and our Allies. I think we may now congratulate ourselves on the prospect now held out to us that the barrier which has so long kept out our commerce has been broken; but the amount of political and commercial advantage which will be derived from these successful operations will depend in no small degree upon the manner in which we use our victory. Our agents have not only difficulties to encounter in relations with a semi-barbarous Government, but there are difficulties also connected with the regulation of our intercourse with the various ports and with the different races that resort to them. But we have had experience of the same kind of difficulties in a similar government nearer home—I allude to the Government of the Sultan—and as by temper, and discretion, and moderation we are able to maintain friendly relations and to carry on trade there, I do not see why we should not be able to do the same with the Government of China.

I come next to questions in which the House feels a more direct and vital interest. All are looking with anxiety to the state of affairs in Europe, and therefore it is with no small satisfaction that we hear Her Majesty announce that She is on satisfactory and friendly relations with all foreign Powers. When we speak of foreign Powers our first thoughts naturally turn towards France, and I suppose that few of us are perfectly satisfied at having for our next neighbour a Sovereign who has the uncontrolled command of the resources of a country the power of which has so often preponderated in Europe, and who employs no small portion of those resources in raising his navy to an equality with, if not a superiority to, that of this country. These, and many other thoughts rise in the mind when we think of France, and the important part she has lately taken in the affairs of Europe. A deep feeling of anxiety has been aroused in this country, which has manifested itself not merely in the great Volunteer force which has sprung up, but in the large expenditure on fortifications, and the increased activity in our dockyards. But, on the other hand, the ruler of France, whose policy has in a great measure produced this feeling of anxiety, has not only declared his desire to enter on a new era of peace, but has evinced his anxiety to do so by the manner in which he has concluded the Commercial Treaty, which removed so many of the restrictions formerly existing on the commerce of that country. The treaty, indeed, though not yet in full force, may he regarded as an accomplished fact, and affording real evidence of the desire for peace which that remarkable man declared in the course of last year to be the policy which he desired for his empire. It is almost inconceivable that a Sovereign should embark on such a course, knowing as he must do the impossibility of carrying it out except with the aid of peace—that he should confront the jealousies of his own subjects, and at the same time be eager for war. I have been thus particular in referring to France from these different points of view, because I believe that the inconsistencies of its great ruler in some manner explain our own policy. There are persons in this country—and they have representatives in this House—who believe that our policy towards France ought to be one either of suspicion or of blind confidence. I do not believe that either of these attitudes would correctly represent the opinions of the people of England. Her Majesty's Government, when they saw a disposition on the part of the French Emperor to engage in friendly commercial relations with us, did most right in encouraging him in his design by meeting him half-way. It has been said that the opinion of the advantages of the treaty were a passing intoxication. I believe that it is a growing and strengthening feeling. I have taken particular pains to ascertain the feeling of my constituents, especially in the important commercial emporium of Glasgow, and I find there is a strong and growing belief on their part of the good faith with which the treaty had been entered into and carried out on the part of the French Emperor, and that the result of the treaty will be a beneficial and increasing commercial intercourse with France. These sentiments are not confined to persons engaged in a single branch of trade, and they are all agreed that the terms obtained are more favourable than they had expected, and that the benefits will result, not to one single branch of industry, but to many. If there is one branch that may be said to be not so directly benefited as the others, it is that in which my own constituents are more immediately interested—the mining interest; and, indeed, they entertain the feeling that the tariff was not so advantageous to them as it should have been. In many branches of iron manufacture the tariff is so high as to be an actual bar to trade. There is, of course, a general feeling in the country that the benefits which are anticipated from the Commercial Treaty will not be realised unless there is more stability in continental affairs. But, at the same time, the impartial and sober view which the country takes of the treaty with France in no way interferes with the attitude of watchfulness which is imposed on us by the state of the Continent, and which it is our duty to take wholly irrespective of the conduct or disposition of the head of the French Government. Perhaps there is nothing which creates greater anxiety in this country than the result of the exciting events which were now taking place in Italy, to which attention has been specially directed in Her Majesty's Speech. It is not, I think, the desire of the people of this country that our policy towards Italy, or towards the Continent generally, should be one altogether of indifference, or that, as is desired by some, we should isolate ourselves from the great events which are agitating the world. Any State adopting such a line of action would not merely fail to maintain its own security, but would probably lose its allies, and find its position untenable from weakness. The people of this country, on the contrary, desire that their Government should have its due weight in the councils of Europe, and should be able to offer advice with regard to the great questions of the day without compromising the general principle of nonintervention, or without risking the freedom of the different States on which their progress must ultimately depend. It is because I believe that the course pursued by Her Majesty's Government has tended to increase the influence of this country, and to aid in the maintenance of peace on the Continent, that I am disposed to view with confidence their conduct of foreign affairs. The deep interest taken in the events in Italy by the people of this country proceeded not merely from sympathy with the exciting struggle for freedom, but from the feeling that the strength which united Italy would possess must be of the highest importance to the balance of power in Europe; and I cordially trust that the issue of the struggle may be that the different provinces will merge into one common kingdom.

I have been induced to refer thus prominently to foreign affairs on account of their important hearing on the financial position of this country. It is probable that one of the first questions which will engage the attention of the House will be the state of the national finances. I know the strong feeling which many entertain as to the danger of a high scale of expenditure, and I entertain a hope that the Estimates to be laid before the House would show that they had been prepared by Her Majesty's Government with a due regard to economy. But, at the same time, I cannot fully agree with the san- guine opinions entertained as to reduction by some hon. Members. In the present aspect of foreign affairs the country will expect the House to scrutinize closely the items of expenditure, but it will never desire that economy should be carried so far as to weaken the efficiency of our establishments, or to abate from the attitude of watchfulness which the general condition of foreign affairs has imposed upon us.

With regard to our home policy, I think it a subject of especial gratification that some hope at last is offered of efficient steps being taken to promote law reform, to which subject our attention has been so pointedly directed in the Speech from the Throne.

And here I might have brought my remarks to a close, if it were not that censure may be passed on the Government by some for what they probably consider an important omission in the Speech from the Throne—I refer to the subject of Parliamentary reform. I should not, of course, have taken the prominent part I am filling on this occasion if I had thought that omission subject to censure. I know it will be viewed with regret by many who think that the time has arrived when they ought to be admitted to the privilege of exercising their votes at Parliamentary elections; but I do not think there is any disposition on the part of the country generally to blame the Government in respect of this matter, because there never was a time at which the country was more fully aware of the difficulties in the way of passing a comprehensive measure of reform. The experience of the last Session has strengthened this conviction. It may be said that those difficulties could easily be overcome if the Government showed itself resolved to act with determination, and to appeal to the country by a dissolution. But that implies enthusiasm on the part of the people out of doors; and it is useless to disguise the fact that at present such enthusiasm does not exist. There are many causes which contribute to this state of things; two, especially, which are only of a temporary nature:—First, the alienation between the middle and working classes which the late strikes have created. The other, and more paramount cause, is the absorbing interest of foreign affairs. It may, however, be deserving the consideration of hon. Members whether, if they cannot embark all their energies in one comprehensive measure, they may not apply themselves to the passing of partial measures that would confer immediate and practical advantages on the country. I shall not say more on this point, because I hope that on this occasion there will he no disturbance of that unanimity with which I expect to see the Address adopted; and I, therefore, trust that the House will defer to a future time the consideration of details on which there may be a difference of opinion. In conclusion, I am sure the House will concur in the prayer at the close of Her Majesty's gracious Speech. Her Majesty says:— I confidently commit the great interests of my Empire to your wisdom and care; and I fervently pray that the blessing of the Almighty may attend your councils, and may guide your deliberations to the attainment of the object of my constant solicitude—the welfare and happiness of my people. The hon. Baronet concluded by moving— That an humble Address he presented to Her Majesty, to convey the Thanks of this House for Her Majesty's Gracious Speech from the Throne: To express to Her Majesty the gratification with which we learn that Her Majesty's relations with Foreign Powers continue to be friendly and satisfactory; and humbly to assure Her Majesty that we trust with Her that the moderation of the Powers of Europe will prevent any interruption of the general Peace. Humbly to thank Her Majesty for informing us that, believing that the Italians ought to be left to settle their own affairs, Her Majesty has not thought it right to exercise any active interference in these matters. To thank Her Majesty for directing Papers on this subject to be laid before us. Humbly to thank Her Majesty for informing us that temporary assistance has been afforded to the Sultan for the purpose of establishing order in Syria by the body of French troops who have been sent there to represent the Allied Powers; and to assure Her Majesty that we share in the hope that tranquillity will soon be re-established in that province, and the objects of the Convention fully attained. Humbly to thank Her Majesty for informing us that the operations of Her Majesty's Forces in China, in conjunction with those of the Emperor of the French, have been attended with complete success, and that, after the capture of the Forts at the Mouth of the Peiho, and several engagements with the Chinese army, the Allied Forces became masters of the Imperial City of Pckin; to assure Her Majesty that we learn with satisfaction that the Earl of Elgin, and Baron Gros, the Ambassador of the Emperor of the French, were enabled to obtain an honourable and satisfactory settlement of all the matters in dispute, and that throughout these operations, and the negotiations which followed them, the Commanders and Ambassadors of the Allied Powers acted with the most friendly concert. To thank Her Majesty for commanding that Papers on this subject should be laid before us. To express to Her Majesty our gratification at hearing that the state of Her Majesty's Indian Territories is progressively improving, and humbly to join in Her Majesty's hope that the financial condition of India will gradually partake of the general amendment. Humbly to assure Her Majesty that we fully concur in the hope which Her Majesty has expressed, that the measures which have been taken will speedily suppress the disturbances which have interrupted the peace of a part of New Zealand, and enable Her Majesty's Government to concert such arrangements as may prevent their recurrence. To express our full participation in the concern with which Her Majesty looks upon the serious differences which have arisen among the States of the North American Union as affecting the happiness and welfare of a people nearly allied to Her Subjects by descent, and closely connected with them by the most intimate and friendly relations; and our hearty concurrence in Her Majesty's wish that these differences may be susceptible of a satisfactory adjustment, and in the sentiment which Her Majesty expresses that the interest which Her Majesty takes in the well-being of the people of the United States, cannot but be increased by the kind and cordial reception given by them to the Prince of Wales during his recent visit to the Continent of America. Humbly to assure Her Majesty that we learn with deep gratification Her Majesty's warm appreciation of the loyalty and attachment to Her Majesty's Person and Throne manifested by Her Canadian and North American Subjects on the occasion of the residence of the Prince of Wales among them. To thank Her Majesty for informing us of the Conventions, supplementary to the Treaty of Commerce of the 23d day of January, 1860, which Her Majesty has concluded with the Emperor of the French, and of the Convention concluded with the King of Sardinia for the reciprocal protection of Copyright. To thank Her Majesty for having directed the Estimates for the ensuing year to be laid before us, and for having caused them to be framed with a due regard to economy and to the efficiency of the several Branches of the Public Service. Humbly to thank Her Majesty for informing us that measures will be laid before us for the consolidation of important parts of the Criminal Law; for the improvement of the Law of Bankruptcy and Insolvency; for rendering more easy the Transfer of Land: and for establishing a uniform system of Rating in England and Wales. Humbly to assure Her Majesty that, in common with Her Majesty, we fervently pray that the blessing of the Almighty may attend our councils and guide our deliberations to the attainment of the welfare and happiness of Her People.

MR. PAGET

said, that in rising to second the Motion that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty in answer to Her gracious Speech, he felt that he should best consult the convenience of the House and his own wishes, if he did not dwell on those subjects which had been so ably discussed by his hon. Friend who had proposed the Address. There was, however, one subject which, from the interest his constituents took in their brethren across the Atlantic—an interest founded both on commercial and social relations—he should make an exception; for he should not be doing justice to his own feelings, or those of his constituents, if he did not take that opportunity of expressing his hearty concurrence in the hope expressed by Her Majesty that the differences of the people of the United States might be settled amicably. The Treaty with France also was one of great importance to the commercial community, and one in which the country generally was concerned. During the last Session that treaty was treated with coldness, and sometimes with derision. It was represented that unworthy concessions—concessions that were against the interests of this country—had been made in order to obtain it from the French Government. He believed that the principles upon which the treaty had been negotiated and framed were perfectly sound, that not a single concession had been made on our part that was not of advantage to England, and that there was not a step which had been made towards free trade by France that would not equally tend to the advantage of the French people. That the Emperor of the French intended that the treaty should be the foundation of cordial commercial relations he believed from the spirit in which the details of the tariff had been negotiated. Notwithstanding the greatest efforts of the protectionist manufacturers of France, the Council to whom the adjustment of the tariff had been entrusted, had given to the details laid before them a fair and candid consideration, and the result had been such as to satisfy every Chamber of Commerce in England. It was a matter of great satisfaction to see the votes of thanks that had been presented from the representatives of the commercial communities to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Cobden), and the other gentlemen who had negotiated the treaty for the ability with which they had represented the interests of England. He thought there was good ground for supposing that the treaty would be attended by satisfactory results. No doubt, the actual effect of the treaty would not be early appreciable. As a first effect the cheaper manufactures of France had been brought into competition with our own, and so far, that had been an injury to our manufacturers without counterbalancing advantages; but so satisfied were they that the treaty would lead to a considerable intercommunication, and ultimately tend to their own prosperity, that they were quite content with the progress that had been made; and it might be expected that, in the course of a few years, the treaty would be the means of more intimately uniting not only the Governments, but the people of the two countries. The present was a time of great trial to the people of the United Kingdom. After the coldest and wettest year on record, there was a harvest such as was natural^' the result of such a season as had preceded it. However, it was consoling that that harvest had not been followed by the distress which had followed similar harvests in former years—by pestilence and famine; and he thought they might in a great measure attribute their escape from those calamities to the abandonment of the Protectionist system; but it was impossible, when the produce of the country was by many millions sterling less than usual, that the effect should not be manifested in a bad home trade and in the diminished resources of agriculturists. There could be no doubt, either, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer must feel its effect on the public income, and would have to tell them so in the statement he would Lave to make, The deficiency of the harvest, and the stagnation of trade which had taken place in consequence, made the constituencies exceedingly anxious on the score of economy. The House had been assured in the Speech from the Throne that the Estimates had been framed with a due regard to economy, and he trusted it might be so, because he believed it was by the heads of departments that economy could be fully carried out, and not by anything that could be done in that House when the Estimates had once been framed. Those who had been accustomed to discuss those Estimates must feel how empirical were all their present attempts to deal with them. It was quite impossible that the Members of that House could have the information that was necessary to enable them to amend the Estimates with efficiency when they had been once introduced, and, therefore, the only sure mode of effecting economy was to support those men in office who would be economical in their expenditure. But when he spoke of economy, he believed he only expressed the sentiments of the people of England when he required that the efficiency of the public services should not be diminished. He believed that to reduce our military and naval armaments below the point which was necessary for the safety and honour of the country would be a measure as unpopular as impolitic. He founded this opinion on the success of the Volunteer Rifle movement. The young men of this country had turned out during the past inclement season, and gone through cold, and wet, and darkness to their nightly drill till they had attained an efficiency which is the pride of England and the astonishment of Europe: and had done so not from any trivial love of dress or the gorgeous appointments of war, but from a strong determination that to no individual will or sufferance hut to their own right hands they would owe their lives, and liberties, and their sacred hearths. This Rifle Corps movement was an emanation from the people, and he was convinced the same spirit would ever actuate the people, who would never deny the money that was necessary to maintain the independence and the position of the country. But in return for the sacrifices they made, the people demanded that the money so hardly earned and intrusted to the hands of the Government should not be profusely wasted. Let them ask themselves, however, what chance the House of Commons gave their officials for carrying out economical views. What was the life of a leading officer of state in this country? He rose in the morning after having been up late at night in that House, waiting, perhaps, for some Bill with which he was charged. He had to attend important Committees, he had to receive deputations, and had to prepare replies to the questions that were to be put to him in the House, and had to come down at five o'clock to answer those questions, and then had to sit out their almost interminable debates. What strength and vigour could be left to him after this for attending to the business of his department? Abuses thus sprang up, but it could not he expected that a remedy for those abuses would proceed from those who had long lived in the midst of them. It was with the reform of departments as it was with sanitary reform. They were told that to detect the corruption whence fever sprang they must come from a pure atmosphere, and he believed that those who had long lived among the abuses of departments would never originate a reform of those abuses. He would refer to the case of one who was not now among them, but who had held a conspicuous place in that House, and who by his courtesy, ability, and high principles had raised the tone of their debates. As Secretary for War, Mr. Sidney Herbert had signalized himself by great zeal for the public service, but from the operation of our public system his health was not sufficient for the duties he had to discharge in his office, and at the same time to fulfil the duties of a Member of the House of Commons; therefore he was obliged to resign the one that he might devote himself to the other. He admitted that it was necessary they should have in that House the power of asking questions of the Government, and bringing forward Motions on Supply, but still he thought they ought to feel the responsibility they incurred in so doing, and not take up unnecessarily the attention of the Government and the House. There were a few other subjects to which he wished to allude. The Speech from the Throne held out the prospect of reforms in the Bankruptcy laws, and for these the public mind was quite ripe. These were reforms for which the commercial community were exceedingly anxious. The existing state of the law upon that subject was au opprobrium to our statute-book, and he rejoiced that the acute mind of the Attorney General had been directed to a consideration of that question. The hon. and learned Gentleman had been in communication with the mercantile bodies throughout the country, and he trusted there would soon be laid before them such a Bill as would give satisfaction to the House and the country. Another Bill had been promised, which appeared to him to be an important preliminary to any future Reform Bill—he meant the Bill for uniform rating. All who heard the debates of last Session on the Reform Bill would agree that the greater portion of those debates turned upon the question what would be the effect of a £6 franchise? Now, if we had a uniformity of rating, discussions of that kind could not arise, for sufficient statistical information would be obtained to enable any Government to construct a measure which the House could intelligently discuss. He, therefore, thought that it had been wisely resolved by the Government not to introduce a Reform Bill this year which would result only in a repetition of the labour of last Session; but that they had agreed to bring in a measure which would, he thought, lay the foundation for a future Reform Bill by securing for them and the country authentic information on the subject. He begged to second the Motion for the Address.

Motion made and Question proposed,—That, &c. [See Page 52.]

MR. WHITE

said, he could sincerely say that he was very reluctant to disturb the unanimity which appeared to prevail on both sides of the House. There were, however, some portions of, and some omissions from, the Royal Speech upon which he felt himself compelled to trouble the House with a few remarks, and with an Amendment, for he considered that he should ill-interpret the sentiments of his constituents if he were to remain wholly silent. He trusted he should be excused if he took exception, in the first place, to the omission from the Royal Speech of all reference to the great controversy which so many held to be still pending, as to the respective and distinctive functions of the two Houses of the Legislature. It was not, he could assure them, a pleasant position to be compelled to give utterance to opinions which might be distasteful to the majority of that House; hut when it was remembered that they had been told—as they were told last Session by Her Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer—that there had been perpetrated "An innovation the most gigantic and the most dangerous that has been attempted in our time"—and when, too, the noble Lord (the Member for the City of London) also declared "that for 200 years there is no instance of the House of Lords having exer- cised such a power as that which it exerted on a recent occasion," he (Mr. White), armed with such deservedly great authorities, must be forgiven if he said that he disdained to ask pardon from that House for not consenting to leave this great question in a state of dastardly abeyance. He trusted, therefore, that the House would acquit him of a restless, reckless pertinacity of purpose for presuming to declare, as he now did, that this was the fitting time to re-open, if it was not the fittest time to reargue, the great constitutional question which had been slurred over, but not settled, during the last Session. On the very last day of the last Session he had protested against the ignominious abandonment by that House of one of the most, if not the most precious privilege of the Commons; and he now seized the very earliest opportunity of renewing his protest against their quietly assenting to that "gigantic innovation" on one of the, till then, indefeasible, constitutional rights of that House—rights which we held in trust, as he thought for the good of the people. He need not, he was sure, now affirm that they who felt so strongly on this question had not the slightest desire to attempt to eliminate one of the Estates of the realm—neither did they wish to provoke a collision with the other House of Parliament. But still they could not, and, with all respect, they would not, rest contented when the immemorial, vital privileges of that House were over-ridden and trampled down by the irresponsible branch of the Legislature. Hence he would respectfully inquire of the noble Lord at the head of the Government whether he was now prepared to heal the wound which he last Session permitted to be inflicted on the Constitution? It was quite unnecessary for him to indicate, because the noble Lord well knew, how alone this great question could be satisfactorily settled, and right glad should he be to see the present painful antagonism of the two Houses effectually extinguished, and extinguished, too, through the happy instrumentality of the noble Lord himself. He, therefore, would beg to inquire of the noble Lord whether he was prepared to heal the wound that he had permitted to be inflicted on the Constitution? Should, however, the noble Lord, or his Government, evince no disposition to fill up this breach in the Constitution, then it was due to the noble Lord that he should now inform him that he must be prepared for this great question continuously springing up in sea- son and out of season, until it was finally and irrevocably settled. He (Mr. White) would glance at that portion of the Royal Speech which referred to their relations with a neighbouring State, and here he was compelled to express his sincere regret at the absence of even the ordinary niggardly perfunctory praise which Ministers might have caused Her most gracious Majesty to accord to Her Majesty's personal friend as he thought; but certainly Her Majesty's faithful Ally—the Emperor of the French. That he might not be misunderstood, he would ask the House, had he ever been an adulator of the Emperor of the French? He bad bewailed the coup d'etat. He did his best to defeat that un-English measure, the Conspiracy Bill; and he had, in his place, before avowed the loathing he felt at the fulsome praise which it was the fashion only two or three short years ago to lavish upon the Emperor of the French, by the party leaders on both sides of that House. The very distrust which so many of them formerly felt as to the intentions of Her Majesty's Imperial Ally, ought now to dispose them to be the more ready to acknowledge the unequivocal evidence the Emperor had since afforded of his sincere desire to cultivate the most friendly relations with this country. He felt bound, therefore, to mark his sense of the omission of this subject from the Queen's Speech. The incontestible advantages which must accrue to their country from the late Commercial Treaty, and the subsequent conventions with France, the abandonment of the French passport system as affected their countrymen, were great patent facts, which demanded, as he thought, a more generous acknowledgment and reciprocation than was to be found in the Royal Speech; for who could over-estimate the mighty, material, and social results which must spring from the intimate alliance of the two great neighbouring nations, which confessedly stand in the van of civilisation and progress. He wished it could have been announced that Her Majesty's advisers had endeavoured to come to some arrangement with the Government of Her Majesty's Imperial Ally, with the view to make an end, if possible, of the present deplorable rivalry in armaments which inflicted upon an already overtaxed people all the burdens of a war expenditure during a time of peace. He felt also constrained to refer to another paragraph of the Royal Speech, which told them that the Estimates would as usual be framed with a "careful attention to economy, and with a due regard to the efficiency of the several branches of the public service." Year after year they had this stereotyped, threadbare phrase, or its equivalent, repeated until the constituencies were heartily sick of this annual iteration. Moreover they called upon them (their representatives) to most strongly urge on Her Majesty's Ministers the imperative necessity of now making this periodical declaration—a truth. How many successive Sessions had they been told the same, same thing, and yet it had come to this—that each recurring year brought with it an augmentation of the public burdens, the aggregate weight of which had now become intolerable to a too patient and long-suffering people. Owing to the lavish disposition of that House, it was no exaggeration to say the world had never witnessed a Government so extravagant as the present; and they had even reached this point—that economy had not merely ceased to be practised, but had become despised—while those Members of the House of Commons who dared to stand up and plead for economy in the State expenditure were almost pointed at as entertaining a sordid, if not a vile appreciation of the true glory, honour, and greatness of their country. In the interest of the great national party to which he had the honour to belong, it was a positive kindness that he should now inform the noble Lord at the head of the Government that the people were beginning to find out that no Conservative Government would have ventured to bring in such Estimates as were voted last Session by that House. Or, if they had dared to bring in such enormous Estimates, would they not have encountered the opposition of the noble Lord and his thick-and-thin supporters, and would they not have been driven from office amidst the execrations of an indignant people? The right hon. Gentleman who now so worthily filled the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer—an office which, for the good of the people, he fervently prayed he might long occupy—that great Minister of State last Session, as the House would recollect, had honestly denounced their existing administrative system. They would remember it was Her Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer who then told them that "vacillation, uncertainty, costliness, extravagance, meanness, and all the conflicting vices that could be enumerated are united in our present system." Nor was this all, for the right hon. Gentleman continued, with a force of truth and eloquence for which he was unrivalled, to expose the ruinous expensiveness and the almost incredible absurdity of the present system, concluding with these remarkable and never to be forgotten words—"I believe," said the right hon. Gentleman, "such are the evils of the system that nothing short of revolutionary reform will ever be sufficient to rectify it." These words coming from such a high quarter had sunk deep, very deep, into the mind of the nation, and after such a candid and indignant utterance by Her Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer would not the people be justly disappointed at the omission of all reference to administrative reform in Her Majesty's most gracious Speech? He had never been behind the official scenes, and cared not to inquire how Royal Speeches were concocted, but he could imagine it might be after the approved fashion of the Witches in "Macbeth," when they compounded their "gruel thick and slab." And if so, he could in his mind's eye see the noble Lord the Member for the City of London putting in as his contribution to the Cabinet cauldron—in memoriam of his last year's Reform Bill— Finger of birth-strangled babe. But no, the noble Lord would not give even a "finger of birth-strangled babe" on the present occasion. Pursuing the same simile, having made their "charm firm and good" he could picture the noble Viscount at the head of the Government joyously accosting his colleagues— Oh! well done! I commend your pains; And every one shall share i' the gains. Now seriously by "every one," he would fain recognise as included that great industrial class now groaning under the weight of their present heavy imposts, and who had so long been deprived of the franchise which was their due. Despite the many sinister reports which had of late been in circulation, he quite counted on having to say he was glad to learn that Her Majesty's Ministers did intend to bring in this Session a Bill for Parliamentary Reform, and he had hoped that the measure would be found well calculated to meet the just expectations of the people—that whilst it would correct the acknowledged defects which exist in our present system of representation, it would also extend the franchise to those deserving classes which the noble Viscount at the head of the Government, in the year 1857, most truly told them "were unmeritedly," he repeated the words, "were unmeritedly" excluded from that privilege. But he regretted to say that he was grievously disappointed, and hence the Amendment with which he should conclude. Yet, after so recent, so emphatic and authoritative a condemnation by Her Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer of their present system of administration, had not the people just grounds for looking forward to the announcement in the present Royal Speech of some comprehensive measure for administrative as well as for Parliamentary Reform? With regard to that part of the Royal Speech which referred to China, he could say much, having passed many years of his life in that country, but he was too sensible of the kindness of the House to trespass further on its attention than by now saying that any peace—not purchased by national humiliation—would always be gratifying to him. At the same time, he must add that any knowledge of the Chinese people—or, rather, any knowledge of human nature—forbids the expectation that the ratification of the Treaty of Tien-tsin, and the subsequent Convention of Pekin, could be regarded otherwise than as a truce, for it would be a gross delusion to believe that conditions and stipulations so extorted would be faithfully carried out when the military pressure which obtained them had been removed. The perversity, or rather the ignorance of their diplomatists on this, as on the preceding occasion, had sown the seeds of future China wars, unless future Home Governments, unlike, but wiser than their predecessors, sternly forbade the renewal of such costly, and, apart from the admirable conduct of the naval and military forces, such nationally disgraceful contests. He would now beg to thank the House for its attention, and, as an independent supporter of the Government of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton—and as one who would regard the return of a Derby Administration at this juncture as a national calamity, he would, in conclusion, warn the noble Lord that the day would be a fatal one to the cohesion of the great Liberal party on which the people discovered that an Administration professedly Liberal persistently ignored and treated as obsolete the cardinal vital principles of the true Liberal faith—principles which successive Liberal statesmen had taught the people to believe and cherish; principles which were summarised by the late Lord Grey in his ever memorable, but now disregarded words—Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform. In conclusion, the hon. Gentleman moved as an Amendment, to add at the end of the last paragraph of the Address, these words— Humbly to represent to Her Majesty that Her Majesty's Government should, on an early day, introduce a measure for the extension of the Parliamentary Franchise in the Boroughs and Counties of the United Kingdom, in fulfilment of the express pledges given by Her Majesty's Government when they came into Office, and thus adopt a course calculated to increase the loyal devotion of Her Majesty's Subjects to Her Majesty's Throne and Person, and also satisfy the long-deferred but just expectations of the Country.

MR. DIGBY SEYMOUR

said, he rose with great pleasure to second the Amendment of his hon. Friend. He fully agreed with his hon. Friend as to the necessity of applying steady economy to the finances of the country, for, according to the calculations of the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, they might look forward to an expenditure for the year of £76,400,000; and when they considered that of that sum so large a proportion as £61,000,000 must go in time of peace for the burdens of wars, or to pay the interest on loans contracted for previous military armaments, then it became important that the attention of Government should be drawn to the matter, and that some stop should be put at least in the beginning of this Session to this extravagant and wasteful expenditure. If they considered that these £61,000,000 exceeded by £5,000,000 the united exports of woollens, cottons and linens from this country for the year 1859—that they were more than double the amount of the gross rental of all the railways of the United Kingdom, that they exceeded the amount of the rental of all its landed property, including tithes, and also the rental of all the factories and houses used for trade or private dwellings throughout the breadth of the land—then some idea might be formed of the enormous expenditure thrown away in interest on the cost of former armaments, and in meeting burdens of former wars. When they considered that the expenditure last year exceeded the income by no less than £10,300,000, he thought there was sufficient to vindicate his hon. Friend in the observations which he had made on the desirability of increased economy in the national expenditure. As to Reform he entirely agreed with his hon. Friend that they would not be true to the principles upon which they were returned to that House if they remained silent and indifferent to the absence of all allusion to it in the gracious Speech from the Throne. He had himself personally particular reasons for complaining of the course which had been taken by Her Majesty's Government. When returned for the important borough which he had the honour to represent, he assured his constituents that he should not be carried away by faction, and that in Parliament he should look more to measures than to men. The first question upon which he was called upon to vote was whether he would concur in a Motion expressing want of confidence in Lord Derby's Administration, which was based upon the assumption that they could not obtain so unequivocal an extension of the franchise from the Ministers then in office as from a Liberal Cabinet. After hearing the pledge of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, he voted for the Motion, and helped the present Ministers to office. Now in what position was he placed at the present moment? How had the noble Lord at the head of the Government and his colleagues fulfilled their promises, and how had they satisfied him and others, who gave them a generous support? How could they (the Liberal party) come to any other conclusion than, to use a vulgar expression, that they had been "sold" by Her Majesty's Government? Unless Her Majesty was to be made the vehicle of uttering general common-places, unless Her most gracious lips were to be made the means of conveying expressions which had no meaning, the extraordinary omission of all allusion to Reform could not fail to strike their attention. In 1852, in 1854, in 1856, in 1859, and in 1860, during the Administrations of the noble Lord, the Member for the City of London, of Lord Aberdeen, of Lord Derby, and of the noble Lord, the present Prime Minister, Her gracious Majesty had informed them that the time had arrived when their attention ought to be directed to the amendment of the representation of the people, and yet, with all the pledges which had been made, no excuse was offered now for this marked and extraordinary omission. The only thing which resembled an excuse was an allusion by the hon. Gentleman who seconded the Address to a proposed Bill for equalizing rating in the country. They did not know the principles upon which that Bill was based, and they did not know what the change in the mode of rating would cost. But if the Government were really in earnest it would not be necessary to refer to an intended measure which might never pass as a reason for postponing indefinitely the subject of Reform. They must all recollect with what apparent sincerity the noble Lord the Member for the City of London expressed himself in introducing the Reform Bill of last Session. He admired the eloquent speech of the veteran Reformer whose name bad been so long connected with the cause, and who had so long been one of the responsible advisers of the Crown. Although by some the measure was thought too simple in its framework, and by others too restricted in its objects, he felt confident at the time that the noble Lord would persist manfully in the determination to make concessions to the just demands of the country. Neither, he was certain, could they forget the evident emotion under which the noble Lord laboured when he withdrew the Bill. If the noble Lord was full of sanguine zeal and earnest hope when he introduced it, he seemed sinking under a burden imposed by others when he withdrew it. Not only was the Bill withdrawn,—but there was no pledge or assurance that it would be introduced again, and Reform now reminded him of the mirage in the desert, which deluded the parched traveller with the belief that in the distance he would find healthful and refreshing waters. So the pure waters of Reform were held up to the people, but withheld from their lips. This was a state of things against which the House ought to protest. He did not second the Amendment in a spirit of hostility to the Government. He regarded the foreign policy of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London with admiring wonder and hearty respect. He thought that with the difficult position of affairs in China and Italy the Foreign Department could not have been filled by a more able, fit, or honest Minister. He rejoiced at the victory which had crowned the united arms of France and England in China, and at the success which had been achieved by an army of patriots in oppressed Italy. But if Italy had won increased liberty, that was no reason why increased liberty should be denied to England. Whenever there had been complications in public affairs the unenfranchised people of England had shown no desire to take advantage of those difficulties, and to exact unreasonable terms from Her Majesty's Ministers. Instead, therefore, of turning their eyes to the possibility of European complications or financial difficulties or commercial distress, the Government would have done well to choose the present time to admit large masses of the community to the benefits of the Constitution. In the words of the Amendment, by so doing they would have best consulted the safety of the Throne and the security of those institutions which they all loved and admired. In that spirit, and without wishing to show hostility to Her Majesty's Government, yet anxious to obtain from some member of it satisfactory reasons which would enable him to feel that he had not done wrong in assisting them to office, he cordially seconded the Amendment which had been proposed by the hon. Gentleman.

Amendment proposed, at the end of the last paragraph, to add the words,— Humbly to represent to Her Majesty that Her Majesty's Government should at an early day introduce a measure for the extension of the Parliamentary Franchise in the Boroughs and Counties of the United Kingdom, in fulfilment of the express pledges given by Her Majesty's Government when they came into Office, and thus adopt a course calculated to increase the loyal devotion of Her Majesty's Subjects to Her Majesty's Throne and Person, and also satisfy the long deferred but just expectations of the Country.

MR. DISRAELI

Sir, we reassemble under grave circumstances, and I should wish that Foreign Powers should understand that, at a crisis like the present the Sovereign of these islands is supported by a devoted people and an united Parliament. I will not, therefore, criticise the Amendment which has been offered to the Address. I would, however, say in vindication of Her Majesty's Government, although it is certainly not my office to defend them, that the reception which was given to the comprehensive measure which they introduced last Session by a great many of their own supporters, was not of a character calculated to cause them to hold it a matter of duty on their part again to come forward and solicit the opinions of the House on the subject of Parliamentary Reform. To the second reading of that measure those who sat on this side of the House offered no opposition; and, therefore, secured for it every opportunity which could be afforded of improving, altering, and amending it. Yet, notwithstanding the forbearance and moderation of the Opposition, the great majority of the speakers on the benches opposite to us, including many hon. Gentlemen representing capital cities and considerable communities, expressed decided hostility to that measure of the Government. I think, therefore, that those who now find fault with the Government for their reluctance in again bringing forward a measure of Reform should reflect what were the chief elements of the opposition to the former measure. I do not think it open to hon. Gentlemen opposite to accuse the Government of having betrayed the interests intrusted to them. A measure for the reconstruction of this House should not be introduced at a time when there is no probability of its being accepted, and a Minister would incur a great responsibility who again introduced such a subject from a mistaken sense of honour to a party which was anything but unanimous in supporting his original proposal. As far as those matters are concerned, to which the hon. Mover and Seconder of the Amendment have referred, I am perfectly content to give a general support to the Address. I should not have troubled the House with any observations to-night, had it not appeared to me that since we last met several subjects have arisen on which great perplexity exists in the public mind, and on which we should hardly be doing our duty to the country if on this occasion we did not make some inquiry of the Government.

The mind of the country is extremely bewildered as to the general state of Foreign Affairs, and the policy and the course which has been pursued by the Government. I know it may be said that, as the Government have in the Speech from the Throne very properly undertaken to produce the papers on the subjects I refer to, and that however eager we may be to obtain more satisfactory information on these topics, the regular course would be to wait till those documents have been laid before us; but the peculiar circumstance of the present state of affairs is, that the perplexity in the public mind concerning our foreign relations, and the policy of the Government in regard to them, does not arise from want of information. It is rather in consequence of the information we possess that the public mind is so bewildered. Therefore, on account of the general mystification which prevails, I think this is the constitutional occasion which should be taken for addressing some inquiries to the Government on the matter. Sir, I remember some two or three years ago that there was a strong feeling in the country against what was called secret diplomacy. To secret diplomacy was attributed many, if not all, of those evils to which States are subject—unnecessary and expensive wars, costly establishments, the burden of excessive taxes, often the dishonour and sometimes the humiliation of nations. The cry was that if the Minister would only take the public and Parliament into his confidence, allow them to know how things were going on, and what really were the points at issue between us and Foreign Powers, he would then be so guided by the judgment, and so encouraged by the support of Parliament and the country, that he would be preserved from falling into those errors, or committing those mistakes, to which he would otherwise be generally liable. It was satisfactorily shown, that the proper way to win the game was to show our cards. Such were the maxims of what may be called the school of candour. It is greatly to the credit of the Government that, since their accession to office, they have acted with great frankness to the House of Commons upon the subject of our foreign relations. I give them entire credit for a candour which has been often excessive, and sometimes even unnecessary. There was no project which had failed, no scheme in which they had been disappointed, no occasion on which they had been deceived, that they did not in the most ingenuous manner reveal to the House, and make them partakers of their grief, mortification, and chagrin. Indeed, it may be said that during the last year the House of Commons were really admitted to the brooding meditations of statesmen. The noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs came down to the House one evening, and with an appearance of much alarm, which he successfully imparted to the House, declared that the time had come when it was necessary to look out for new allies for Her Majesty. What in old times—in the days of secret diplomacy—would have been a soliloquy in Downing Street became a speech in the House of Commons. That, Sir, was the manner in which our foreign relations were conducted by the noble Lord during the whole of last Session; and certainly it was highly complimentary to the House of Commous. There were not wanting, however, some ignorant cavillers and malignant spirits who attributed the candour of the noble Lord to the very worst motives, such as are always imputed, and nearly always falsely, to public men. It was said that in the nice balance of parties it was the aim of the noble Secretary to conciliate, perhaps to cajole, the House of Commons. The House of Commons was easily cajoled, for nothing is more flattering than to be admitted into the secrets of State. But subsequent events have vindicated the character and conduct of the noble Lord, and proved he was not influenced in the open course he followed by any of the improper motives imputed to him. Because, when the Session was over, and during that interval in which Ministers, and especially the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, are supposed to have the privilege of acting with the least possible sense of control, the same candour was exhibited by the noble Lord. We were told at the end of August—a most unusual period of the year for disclosing a political secret—the policy then pursued by the Crown. Not satisfied with that, at the end of October we had further revelations on the same subject. Hence it is not true that it was merely during the Session, from an improper desire unduly to influence the House of Commons, but from a pure love of candid behaviour on the part of the noble Lord, that the old habits of secret diplomacy were exploded, and the public admitted to the confidence of the Government. It is extraordinary, however, that, notwithstanding all the candour of the Government—notwithstanding all these confidences respecting almost every phase of their policy—the public are more perplexed, more bewildered as to the real state of our foreign relations, and the real character of the policy which the Government have pursued, than they ever could have been under the old system of secret diplomacy. At the present moment there is no one who really knows what is the policy of the Government with respect to our foreign relations—the subject which now entirely engrosses the public mind—or what are the prospects of the country with regard to any of those great questions which arise out of them. I would, therefore, ask from the noble Lord answers to a few natural inquiries. I should like, for example, to learn from the Government what is the real state of our relations with France. I should like to know whether we are still conducting our external affairs generally by an alliance with France, or, what is equivalent to an alliance, by that cordial and confidential understanding of which we have heard so much. Are we doing that, or have we found new allies? Or are we attempting to find new allies? And if we have found new allies, or if we are trying to find new allies, I should like to know what is the principle upon which the new alliance is to be formed. Is it to be a disturbing or a tranquillizing principle? Is it to be a revolutionary or a Conservative principle? Is it, or is it not, a fact that the King of Sardinia, as we were told at the end of August, entered into a public engagement with our own Sovereign not to attack the dominions of the King of the Two Sicilies? Is it, or is it not, a fact that the King of Sardinia, as we learnt at the end of October, having attacked the dominions of the King of the Two Sicilies, received the meed of approbation from Her Majesty's Government? Was there a public engagement between the King of Sardinia and Her Majesty, as the Secretary of State assured us at the end of August, not to do an act which only two months afterwards that King of Sardinia did, and received from Her Majesty's Government their thanks and congratulations? Have we now or have we not interests in the Adriatic which it becomes us vigilantly to guard and watch? Or, on the other hand, are our interests in the Adriatic, like the law of nations, at the bottom of the Bay of Naples? Is the policy of England, as we were informed at the end of August, to maintain the power and the dominion of Austria in Venetia? or is the policy of England, as we learnt at the end of October, to preach the principle of insurrection and promulgate a theory of rebellion? These are subjects upon which the people of this country naturally require information, and, without giving an opinion one way or other as to these contrary policies, still it is extremely desirable that we should at least be informed by the Government which policy it is that they are pursuing, because, in consequence of the frank and candid manner in which Her Majesty's Government have conducted their affairs, and the elaborate methods which they have adopted to prevent secrecy as to their intentions and as to their schemes, the public mind is so mystified and bewildered that I am not surprised that there are many who almost regret that the old system of secret diplomacy should have been superseded. Under that system, although Parliament did not become acquainted with the conduct of a Minister until the events of which he had the control were completed, vet then that conduct, even though some might think it erroneous, was at least consistent. There was, then, at least some sense of decorum and some sentiment of dignity in the management of public affairs; some regard for the interests and feelings of our Allies, and some respect for the law of nations. I just now ventured to ask the noble Lord, as the organ of the Government, what were the nature of our relations with France. It appears to me that there is no subject upon which a clearer conception ought to prevail in Parliament than as to our relations with a Power so considerable as France—relations of which we hear so much, and which can exercise so considerable an influence upon our own interests and policy and upon the affairs of the world in general. Why, Sir, there is no man in this House who has a clear perception what are our relations with the French Government. If we were to be guided by the authentic publications that have appeared in the shape of despatches—if we were to be influenced by the speeches and communications which have been made by the Secretary of State and by the First Minister in this House, one might be tempted to believe that our relations with France were not, as they are described in the gracious Speech from the Throne, friendly and satisfactory, but very unfriendly and highly unsatisfactory. Now, if there be still a cordial and confidential understanding between the two countries, the noble Lord or some member of the Government will be able to inform us what policy this country is pursuing with respect to these important affairs of Italy; nay, more, he will also be able to tell us what is the policy which the French Government is pursuing with respect to them. Sir, I have on more than one occasion upheld in this House what is called the French alliance, and I see no reason whatever to regret the principles which I have endeavoured to impress upon the House with reference to that subject. The most eminent statesmen have been of opinion that a cordial and confidential understanding between the Governments of France and England was a combination most conducive to the peace of the world, and, therefore, to the progress of civilization. They have believed that such a combination was not only politic, but that it was also practicable. I will not go back to remote or to comparatively distant times. I will not remind the House that that was the policy which was favoured alike by Bolingbroke and Walpole, or, at a more distant period, by sued great Sovereigns as Queen Elizabeth and Cromwell. I will confine myself to modern times, and I say that ever since the Treaty of Vienna all statesmen who have at all influenced the Government of either of the two countries, all statesmen of eminence, have believed in the policy of such a combination, and also in its practicability; that that has been the great object and, generally speaking, the successful object of modern politics with respect to the foreign relations of those countries. But it was quite clear that so far as France was concerned that cordial and confidential understanding depended upon two assumptions. It depended, first, upon the assumption that France, profiting by experience, was convinced that by the development of her unrivalled resources, and by the multiplication of her highly gifted population, her power would be more securely increased than by any forcible accession of territory; and, secondly, upon the other assumption, that that noble weakness of the French people, that "last infirmity of noble minds," the love of glory, might be fairly satisfied by feeling that whenever there was any international difficulty, their opinion would be solicited, and would greatly and in the main be decisive. But Sir, it was perfectly obvious to both French and English statesmen, that even if these assumptions were well founded, that alliance could not subsist without the exercise on both sides of great forbearance, and occasionally the making of great sacrifices. For example, England was not a country that sought any increase of territory. During the revolutionary war she had obtained all those outworks which were necessary for her maritime and colonial empire. France, on the contrary, had lost a considerable colonial empire, and was slowly constructing another. France had also for a time, though but for a brief space, been in possession of great additions to her original territory, and had lost by arms what by arms she had obtained. It was clear, therefore, that there would be occasions when in the course of international embarrassments and difficulties that might arise France would be called upon to sacrifice the hope of any increase of territory. What was the commensurate sacrifice that England would be called upon to make? England would be called upon to make the concession that she would at least not promote a policy which rightly or wrongly France believed to be adverse to her best interest. Now, Sir, the noble Lord assumed the office of Secretary of State, as I believe, an avowed and ardent supporter of a cordial understanding with France. I understood the noble Lord, when seeking to excuse conduct which might have been considered somewhat precipitate, to state at the time he acceded to office that he believed by so doing he had prevented a war between England and France. Her Majesty's late Government are still profoundly unaware of the circumstances to which he referred, and labour under the impression that the relations between England and France were cordial when they quitted office. But I mention that to show the tone and temper with which the noble Lord entered on the duties of his position. Taking office, however, as the warm supporter of this cordial and confidential understanding with France, the noble Lord—whose sense of duty I do not question—immediately felt himself called on to pursue on Foreign Affairs a policy exactly contrary to that which France was favouring, and one which, rightly or wrongly, France believed to be hostile to her best interests. What has been the result? The noble Lord avowed himself an advocate of the unity of Italy. France declared that she was entirely opposed to the unity of Italy. The policy of France and the policy of the noble Lord were contrary and contradictory. The noble Lord may, perhaps, say that he preferred the policy which he pursued—that he valued the unity of Italy more than intimate relations with the French Government. This is not the occasion, nor is it my desire, to enter into any argument on that point. It was perfectly open to the noble Lord to follow the policy which he preferred. But has the noble Lord obtained the unity of Italy? He may be in that situation with the French Government that he is obliged to look out for new allies. But having forfeited—if he has forfeited—that cordial understanding with them and that opportunity of pursuing the same policy, has the noble Lord succeeded in the policy which he preferred? Have his efforts effected the unity of Italy? We know that a powerful French army is powerfully intrenched in the centre of Italy. We know that the contemplated capital of Italy is not in possession of the Italians. In this age of jubilant nationality Rome is still garrisoned by the Gauls. We know that Venetia is bristling with Austrian artillery and swarming with German and Sclavonian legions. We know that even the King of the Two Sicilies, deprived of his crown by universal and unanimous suffrage, unfortunately followed by frequent insurrections, and martial law, is even at this moment in possession of the two prime strongholds of his kingdom. We know that in the south of Italy they have combined the horrors of revolution with the shame of conquest. These are not the characteristics of a united Italy. But the noble Lord may say, perhaps, "All this is undeniably true, the unity of Italy is not effected, but great results like these are not accomplished with the rapidity you seem to expect; you must wait, we are only in the beginning of the operations; much has been done, and the rest will be accomplished." The noble Lord may say that the elections to the Italian Parliament indicate a most hopeful temper on the part of the people as to the means by which union may be ultimately effected. Sir, I will not depreciate the possible advantages which may accrue from these public elections. Unfortunately, history shows us that new political institutions have very little power in times as critical as these. Old institutions that have existed for centuries, possessing an authority which has been gradually conceded to them as public necessity rendered it advisable—institutions which have aggregated round them the power of prescription, more important than armies or police, may control and even create events in an age of revolution; but we have, unfortunately, no instance, so far as history can guide us, of new political institutions exercising this influence in an age and in a country where revolution prevails. But I do not want to argue on these points. In order to obtain as accurate a view of our situation as we can, after the bewildering communications that have been made to us, I am ready to offer every concession, as far as argument goes, to the noble Lord and to Her Majesty's Government. I will grant that the union of Italy, if not already accomplished, may in time be effected. But how is this result to be attained? I will admit that, manipulating what is called the spirit of the age, with all the adroitness of English diplomacy, you may produce such a state of affairs that the Emperor of the French, whatever may have been his original, or may be, present policy, may say—" On the whole, this unity of Italy seems to be a result that is practicable, and I will consent to it." But on what terms will the Emperor of the French, or any one who represents French policy, consent to such a result? It will not be the moral influence of England that under these circumstances will have accomplished the unity of Italy—it will be the will and the sword of France. It is the will of France that can alone restore Rome to the Italians; it is the sword of France—if any sword can do it—that alone can free Venetia from the Austrians. If the unity of Italy is to be effected by such influences and by such means, are we to suppose that a Sovereign who is described as profound and crafty, and a people whom we know to be ambitious and quick-witted, will be prepared to make such an effort, and to endure such a sacrifice—such a surpassing sacrifice and such an enormous effort, without obtaining some result? Why, Sir, it would belie every principal of human nature. We cannot impute it to such a Sovereign, and to such a people as the French, that they would not after such exertions expect to obtain some great political and public advantage. And it is obvious what that result would be. Those who, under the circumstances I have stated, will free the nation will make their terms, and will be justified in making their terms. They will have an alliance offensive and defensive with Italy, and the Emperor of the French will then appear in the character which he has himself shadowed out, for which he has prepared the world; which the policy he has hitherto pursued with regard to Italy has shown that he has not too anxiously sought to fulfil, foreseeing its difficulties as well as its glory. The Emperor of the French will then come forward as the natural head of the Latin race. He will find himself the emancipator of Italy at the bead of a million of bayonets. A million of disciplined and even distinguished soldiers will be at his command; and then it will be in his power—you having forced him to a policy in Italy which, at first, he was unwilling to pursue—to make those greater changes and to aim at those greater results which I will only intimate, and will not attempt to describe. In offering these considerations to the House, I am merely trying to place the state of affairs in its real light, after all the bewilderment which the public mind has undergone from the speeches and from the despatches of Her Majesty's Ministers. I do not want in any way to underrate the object which Her Majesty's Ministers pro- pose to themselves in effecting the unity of Italy; I am perfectly willing to admit that if the unity of Italy be practicable it would add greatly to the strength and splendour of Europe But, Sir, if a British Minister did conceive such a consolidation of territory to be of paramount importance, if he believed it to be a policy of that sovereign character why, then, I think he ought to have attempted his object by other means than those which are called moral influence. If we had really interfered in Italy with a material agency, if we had ourselves assisted the Italians in achieving their freedom, their independence, and their unity, we should then have had claims on their gratitude. We should then have been in a position to look on them as our natural and our grateful Allies. But we have not taken that course; we have had before us a large but misty object, we have expended upon it a puerile and declamatory diplomacy, which we have elevated with the barren title of "moral influence." I am not counselling the House to go to war to free Italy, nor have I ever counselled the House to such an object. I think, as a general rule, we should leave countries to make out their own freedom; but, when the freedom of a particular country is made the great political object on which the rival claims and the rival systems of great empires are concentrated, I say it is of importance the House should understand that the country whose sword and will free the enslaved land is the country which, obtains its future support, and commands its future resources. Such is the position in which it appears to me we are placed by the policy of Her Majesty's Government. I shall wait with patient curiosity, for the papers which they have promised on Italy; but when I recollect the speeches which the Members of Her Majesty's Government have made in this House, when I recollect the despatches distributed throughout Europe on this question of Italian independence, and when I see what the state of affairs is, I do not feel so much the want of information, as the want of an explanation of our present position. I fear it will be found to be one of great danger, per haps, of great disappointment; but whatever the result may be, I am clearly of opinion that the case is one that demands the gravest attention of Parliament. By the conduct of the Government we are placed in this dilemma—and it is a serious one—either we must he content to fall back on an arrangement similar in principle to that of Villafranca, that settlement against which, for the last twelve months, Her Majesty's Government have been agitating in every Court in Europe; or we must he prepared to meet that far more dangerous situation which is open to us when Italy is united—united by the sword and will of France—and has necessarily placed at the disposal of France all its resources. As to the first case, I think it would be disgraceful to this Government; but the second is much more dangerous—more dangerous, indeed, than one would at this moment attempt to describe. The settlement suggested by the preliminaries of Villafranca was not one that would have realized the youthful dream of a poetical statesman. That, I admit; hut it secured many interests which this country has always considered most important and regarded with care. No doubt, it substituted French for Austrian influence in Italy. Who denies that? That was a natural consequence of a war between France and Austria, in which France had been signally victorious. We did not interfere in the war, and we had no right to question the arrangement, so far as it substituted French for Austrian influence in Italy, however much we might deplore it. The preliminaries of Villafranca, however, secured a great southern barrier to Germany, and that I believe is an object which no English statesman should despise. If it did not secure, it did not destroy the independence of the Pope, a consideration which the most eminent English statesmen of all parties have always held to he important. The preliminaries of Villafranca did not violate, endanger, or destroy the independence of Switzerland; Savoy and Nice remained still an appanage of the King of Sardinia. There is a great responsibility on the Ministry, who, by efforts, active efforts, influential efforts, I believe none will deny, mainly defeated the accomplishment of that settlement. Now, I say, we are in this position—either we must fall hack on a settlement similar to that of Villafranca, or we must encounter a state of affairs so dangerous that before its difficulties are solved every throne in Europe may be shaken, and which appears to me to be inevitably and logically brought about by the policy which Her Majesty's Government have steadfastly, but, as I think, most injudiciously pursued. And, Sir, how do we know that it is in the power of the English and French Governments, if they come to an understanding, to fall back on Villafranca arrangement? Great influences have been at work during the last year—influences more powerful than French Emperors and British Ministers. They had been slumbering in chaos; but you called forth those anarchic elements, one of which alone may be sufficient, as it has done before, to produce a European war. What are those questions which are now agitating Europe? They are the questions which we had hoped would never again trouble the peace of Europe, from the agitation of which men shrank, shuddering, because they felt that, unless they were controlled, they must lead to the horrors of universal war? You have the rival claims of priests and kings, you have the rights of races and the boundaries of empires—questions, one of which alone caused a war of thirty years. All these questions have now been called forth while Her Majesty's Government have been pursuing the phantom of a united Italy. You have produced all those elements of anarchy, and he is a bold man who would say that it is in the power of Cabinets any longer to control them. Such is the grave position of affairs in which we stand. It is one on which we have a right to expect from Her Majesty's Government some information. They have been treated by this House on the subject of their foreign policy with, I will say—speaking for both sides, and claiming no party merit—generosity. The House has believed that the Government, on their part, have treated it with candour. I will not deny it; but I say that that candour has in its effects been unfortunate, because it has been of a bewildering nature. The more the Government told us the less we knew. What was one day explained to us as the policy of Her Majesty's Government was followed the next day by an exactly opposite one, and with contradictory speeches and conflicting despatches. I am using no exaggerated language when I say that the public mind of this country is utterly uninformed as to the precise nature of our foreign relations. I cannot find in the Speech from the Throne anything which gives us that information which I think we have a right to expect. On the question of our relations with France it will be satisfactory to us to have some clear announcement from the Government. Are we pursuing with regard to Italy the same policy as is being adopted by that Power? And if we are not, what, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, must be the natural result? Is there rivalry with regard to Italy, or is there harmony? These are questions to which the House has a right to invite the attention of the Government. I think it idle to say that we ought to wait for the papers before we do so. When we read those papers we shall be able to form a judgment on the conduct in detail of Ministers with regard to particular transactions; but their policy has been described by themselves, and it demands explanation. We have their despatches, and we have Vattel, "that eminent jurist." That quotation from Vattel is the basis of the policy of the Government; and as it is only four lines I shall read it to the House. In October the noble Lord informed us that,— That eminent jurist, Vattel, when discussing the lawfulness of the assistance given by the United Provinces to the Prince of Orange when he invaded England and overturned the throne of James II., says:—The authority of the Prince of Orange had doubtless an influence on the deliberations of the States General; but it did not lead them to the commission of an act of injustice; for when a people from good reasons take up arms against an oppressor it is but an act of justice and generosity to assist brave men in the defence of their liberties.' Now, Vattel was a Dutchman, which the noble Lord is not, and, therefore, he had a right to quote William III. I do not depreciate Vattel's authority. I think that on a diplomatic instrument, or a diplomatic procedure, or on some principle of the law of nations, he is an authority and a correct and lucid writer; but when it comes to a question of the political conduct of men, I think that the noble Lord is as good an authority as Vattel, or better, and that there are men in this House who may use their judgment on such a subject with confidence, though they do not agree with Vattel. However, what I object to in this celebrated quotation is, that it is not complete. This opinion of Vattel is followed immediately afterwards by a qualifying statement, which I shall read to the House. He says, But we ought not to abuse this maxim, and make a handle of it to authorise odious machinations against the internal tranquillity of States. It is a violation of the law of nations to invite those subjects to revolt who actually pay obedience to their Sovereign, though they complain of his Government. Why, that is the conduct of Sardinia sketched by one not influenced by the passions of the hour, as he has long passed away. That is exactly what has been done by the King of Sardinia. A necessity of State may, in the opinion of the King of Sardinia, and in the opinion of the noble Lord, justify the conduct he has pursued —I will not enter into any arguments on that point at this moment,—but certainly it was a most unhappy and maladroit quotation from Vattel which the noble Lord selected for his despatch of October 27. I have placed before the House, without attempting to argue on the practicability of a united Italy, and without attempting to argue upon the propriety or impropriety of the conduct of the King of Sardinia, my views upon this subject, and, looking at all the questions in controversy, I have endeavoured to bring those views to a single object.— If the unity of Italy is to be effected, it can be effected only by a power which occupies Italy in great force, not by a Power which has no force there whatever. That unity cannot be effected under such auspices without results dangerous, in my opinion, to the repose of Europe. That unity can only be effected in such circumstances by placing the Emperor of the French at the head of a million of of armed men, and making him master of all the resources of Italy. I want to know whether, with the probability of such a result as that, with such dangers as these impending over Europe, and more than Europe, inquiries and explanations have passed between the Governments of England and France as to the intentions and policy of the French Emperor. I want to know whether the Government can inform the House what is the exact state of affairs in that respect, what are the true relations of France with Italy, and what are the prospects on this all important question which Her Majesty's Government can hold out to the people of England.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL

Though the right hon. Gentleman has a perfect right on this first night of the Session to ask for an explanation of the views of the Government with regard to its foreign policy, and to express his own opinion as to what that policy ought to be, yet he is hardly justified in complaining of want of information, when we have laid papers on the table of the House which to-morrow morning would enable him to settle all those doubts and obscurities of which he complains. The right hon. Gentleman, however, having stated his views of the foreign policy of the Government, I have no objection to state in general terms what is the course which we have pursued, the opinions we have expressed, and the principles on which we have acted, with reference to the Italian question. With regard to this mystery, of which it is curious enough the right hon. Gentleman should complain, the policy of the Government was proclaimed about a year and a half ago by my right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Home Department at the Lord Mayor's feast, and everybody knows that what is told to the Lord Mayor is proverbially told to the whole world. My right hon. Friend on that occasion said it was the policy of Her Majesty's Government not to attempt to impose any form of government on Italy, but to allow the Italians to settle their internal affairs in the way they thought best. That principle has been declared over and over again. It was declared in Her Majesty's Speech at the end of the last Session. It has been declared at the beginning of this Session, and it has pervaded all the despatches and documents that have been laid on the table of the House. Now I want to know whether the right hon. Gentleman considers that a right principle or a wrong one. The right hon. Gentleman has gone into this subject at length, nut he has not given an opinion or uttered a word as to whether he thinks it right or wrong that the people of Italy should be left to manage their own internal affairs. The right hon. Gentleman must have known, and known perfectly well, that that was the principle on which Her Majesty's Government has all along acted, and that the doubts and obscurities which he has conjured up have no existence in fact. When, some years ago, my noble Friend and myself were in opposition, we declared ourselves in favour of Italian freedom and independence. But the right hon. Gentleman was always the leader of those who derided such notions as visionary, who contended that the best government for Italy was that of Austria. If at any time an eulogium ever fell from his eloquent lips in favour of any King, it was in favour of the late King of Naples and his system of government. Such was the view which the right hon. Gentleman took of Italian affairs before the present complications arose. Two years and a half ago the right hon. Gentleman was in office. It was then said openly by the Italians—I remember being told of it by some Italian friends—that they had no hope of obtaining any assistance from England, but that they did look for assistance from France for the liberation of Italy, and that they believed they would obtain it. At that time the Government of the day did not expect war, but as soon as they gained information which led them to expect that war was impending, they used their utmost efforts to prevent it. They were not successful. I never blamed them for their want of success. I never said their conduct was tardy or unskilful, but I always regarded their conduct as prompted by the best intentions and by a due regard to the policy which this country ought to pursue. But their efforts were not successful, and the war took place. Information at length reached them that it was the intention of the French Emperor to liberate Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, and that Savoy and Nice were to be transferred to France. Earl Cowley was instructed by the Earl of Malmesbury to inquire of the French Government if that intelligence was true, but he obtained no answer from the French Government. Soon after the French army was increased, and entered Italy, and those events took place which are familiar to the House. We were told at various times that if Sardinia were greatly increased, the French nation expected that Savoy and Nice should be transferred to the French Government. But we were also told that no such agreement had been made. After this came the Treaty of Zurich. That treaty stipulated one thing, while the French Emperor declared another thing, which, though not totally inconsistent with the treaty, was practically adverse to it. The Treaty of Zurich said that the Duchies of Tuscany and Modena should be restored to their former rulers. The French Emperor, however, also said no troops — Austrian or French—should be allowed to effect that restoration, and in consequence of that declaration, the article in the Treaty of Zurich was not fulfilled. Her Majesty's present Government then declared, not that the unity of Italy was their object—I shall show presently that from time to time that was not our object—but that we only wished the Italians to be free to choose their own rulers; that if the Grand Duke of Tuscany or the Duke of Modena were received with the consent of the people, our Government would see their restoration with pleasure, but that they could not approve and would protest against any attempt to impose on the Italians any government by force. Was that principle right or wrong? I ask the right hon. Gentleman who is so eager for an explanation, whether he approves or disapproves that policy? Does he maintain that it would be right to force upon Italy a govern- ment not approved by the people? The right hon. Gentleman knows that Austria, seeing that the French Government had declared against the use of force, and that England had also entered her protest against it, declared in the most authoritative manner that she will not go beyond her own frontier to interfere in Italian affairs—that she will be satisfied with the territories left to her by the Treaty of Zurich, and that she was willing to abandon her ancient policy of interference in Italy, which, under a desire to serve the interests of law and order in Italy, she had undertaken, but which, so far as Austria was concerned, had been exceedingly detrimental to her. This has been the policy which Her Majesty's Government has endeavoured to act upon; and, so far as it has been in accordance with the policy of the Government of France, it has been successful.

But now as to the unity of Italy. We have declared from the first, that we have no wish that the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena should not return to their dominions. Again, I have stated with regard to Naples, both in this House and in my communications with the Government of the Emperor of the French, that in our opinion the happiness of Italy would be better secured by the establishment of two kingdoms of Italy than one, and that if the King of Naples would have granted a constitution, and obtained the confidence of his subjects, we should have been glad to see two constitutional kingdoms in Italy. But still that was a question for the Italians themselves. It was for them to consider whether the Prince having hereditary right on his side was a Prince whom they could trust with perfect confidence to maintain their liberties, and they had the perfect right to regulate their internal affairs in such a manner as to secure their own happiness. Was that a wrong principle? We may have been wrong in our opinion that it would be better there should be two kingdoms in Italy, but we said that the Italians only ought to be the judges on that point. Well, Sir, other events occurred, and the right hon. Gentleman speaks of two despatches of mine which have obtained some notoriety. With regard to the first, it was published without my knowledge. I saw it translated into the Cologne Gazette. It was communicated by me to the Government of Sardinia, and I do not know to this day by what means it became public. But with respect to its contents, I may say there have been three objects which Her Majesty's Government have kept steadily in view throughout these negotiations. One was that Italy should be left free to settle her own concerns. Whether she succeeded in obtaining two constitutional monarchies, or became one united Italy under one constitutional monarchy, we declared that it would be satisfactory to us to obtain either of those results, and that in our opinion in either case additional security would be given to the other States of Europe. Another object we had in view was that the peace of Villafranca, with the conditions of which we had nothing to do, should be maintained as a security for the peace of Europe. I confess I am utterly unable to express to this House the importance I attach to the maintenance of the peace of Europe. No one can say how far a war once begun for the acquisition of Venetia, or for some other and perhaps minor object, may extend, what changes of Governments may not be produced, what alterations in the position of various Powers may not be caused, and how difficult it may not be for any country in Europe, and particularly this country, which we are bound to cherish more than any other, to keep itself disengaged from such a war. Not only, therefore, from a general hatred to war and unnecessary bloodshed, but for reasons connected with the dreadful aspect of such a war, we have been most anxious that the peace of Europe should not be disturbed. On the 31st August, therefore, I wrote in strong terms—some may think too strong, although I think what I wrote was calculated to do good at the Sardinian Court—recommending that, for the benefit of Italy herself, Sardinia should not rush rashly and madly to war, thereby bringing on herself great evil, and the risk of final subjugation to one power or another. The result might be much the same as that described by Cicero as the termination of the civil war in Rome—"Si victus eris proscribere, si viceris tamen servias." The triumph of the Sardinians if gained by foreign interference would have been perhaps a triumph for the Italian arms, but not for Italian independence. It was therefore in the interest of the Sardinians, I urged, that the obligations of good faith bound them to keep the treaty of peace that they had concluded so lately—a treaty into which they had entered with their eyes open and under which they had given up Venetia while they had obtained Lom-bardy. Every consideration of regard to their own interest prevented them from leading their newly-formed and not numerous legions against the tried armies of Austria. In the same despatch I said Her Majesty's Government trusted that the King of Sardinia would not make war on Naples. But other events happened without, as I believe, the knowledge of the Sardinian Government, but with the strong impulse of the people. An expedition went out from Genoa to Sicily. Sicily was conquered. The people declared in favour of Garibaldi. He bad only some 1,800 men to lead against 20,000 or 25,000 soldiers of the Neapolitan army; yet he marched from one success to another. Garibaldi then landed in the kingdom of Naples. He went to Naples in a railway carriage, with ten or twelve of his companions. He entered the town with those ten or twelve companions, although there were 3,000 or 4,000 troops of the King of Naples in the city. He was welcomed with general applause, and proclaimed himself Dictator. Now, if I look at a statistical account of the kingdom of Naples, I find that the King had 100,000 soldiers belonging to the regular army, and a reserve of between 40,000 and 50,000 men; that he had two sail of the line of 90 and 80 guns, and a great number of other ships, making in all, 40 men of war. Here was, then, a Sovereign who, one might have thought, would have laughed to scorn the attempt of a chief, who has been talked of in this House with much undeserved contempt, who, with nothing but his own valour and patriotism to counsel him, went with 1,800 men to assail so strong a kingdom. It might have been thought that it was madness to make such an attempt— that the ships, frigates, and corvettes of the King of Naples would enable him utterly to destroy such a force. Yet we all know the result. Well, the inference to which I came, and that every man made for himself, was that the King of Naples was not very strong in the affections of his subjects. I venture to suppose, not that 100,000 men were not able to defeat 2,000, but that they had no heart for the enterprise; that the accounts of my right lion. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and others of the dungeons of the King of Naples, and the descriptions given by our Consuls, were true; and that the cap of silence and the other tortures imposed on them had disgusted the subjects of the King of Naples, and had led them to welcome as a deliverer any man who came, with however small a force, to free them from that rule. I do not mean to defend the whole of the conduct of the King of Sardinia, but it was a question for him and his Ministry to consider what they should do. The right hon. Gentleman thinks little of that potentate. I will, however, mention an opinion to which the right hon. Gentleman may attach more importance, It was given by a Minister of this country at a critical period and seems to me to contain sound doctrines. In 1821 the position of affairs in Italy afforded a great contrast to its present state. The Sovereigns of Europe met au Verona. They laid down certain principles, from which no nation was allowed to depart. Those principles were that Sovereigns might introduce improvements into their own dominions, and that if it pleased them to improve their laws they were at liberty to do so; but that if it did not occur to any Sovereign that arbitrary imprisonment, that caps of silence, and dungeons where prisoners might be confined without trial for several years, were objectionable, he need not introduce any improvement in those matters. It was, however, laid down that any improvement introduced by the people was an offence against the divinity that hedges a King, and was not to be permitted. Lord Castlereagh, on the part of England, did not think it necessary to declare on this account an armed resistance on the part of this country, and I think he acted wisely. This country had carried on a very long war, and the efforts she had made had been very costly. We had retained at a great sacrifice the ancient limits of Europe. The sovereigns who met on that occasion were chiefly sovereigns in alliance with Great Britain. They were sovereigns for whom and with whom we had encountered these perils and incurred these costs. But while Lord Castlereagh did not advise his country to go to war, he protested against the principle of this general supervision, and he said what, if the House will permit me, I am about to read. His words appear to me to be so sound that they are worth the attention of the House, although the extract is not a short one:— After having removed the misconception to which the passage of the circular in question, if passed over in silence, might give countenance, and having stated in general terms, without however entering into the argument, the dissent of His Majesty's Government from the general principle upon which the circular in question is found- ed, it should be clearly understood that no Government can be more prepared than the British Government is to uphold the right of any State or States to interfere, where their own immediate security or essential interests are seriously endangered by the internal transactions of another State. But, as they regard the assumption of such right as only to be justified by the strongest necessity and to be limited and regulated thereby, they cannot admit that this right can receive a general and indiscriminate application to all revolutionary movements, without reference to their immediate bearing union some particular State or States, or be made prospectively the basis of an alliance. They regard its exercise as an exception to general principles, of the greatest value and importance, and as one that only properly grows out of the circumstances of the special case; but they, at the same time, consider that exceptions of this description never can, without the utmost danger, be so far reduced to rule as to be incorporated into the ordinary diplomacy of States or into the institutes of the law of nations. Now, according to this opinion, in which I entirely concur, the question for the King of Sardinia and his Ministers was whether the essential interests of Sardinia and of that part of Italy over which he was then the ruler were so endangered by what had taken place in Naples that he could not remain a tranquil spectator of those events. What was that situation? Garibaldi, as I have said, had made himself master of Naples and the greater part of the country. But he had not been able—even if he had the talents for government, which he does not appear to possess—to found a solid Government in Naples. Everything was falling into anarchy. What would have been the consequences of that state of things? Not that that anarchy would have continued, but that other Powers would then have said, "We are willing to allow Italy to arrange her own affairs, but see what a condition of anarchy exists in Naples. A king unable to maintain his authority, a military chief master of the State, everything in confusion. Now is the time, certainly, for Europe to interfere to establish the Pope in his dominions, to place Austrian garrisons in several of her provinces, and to show for ever that that dream of Italian independence has been a mere illusion which can never again be revived." Well, in that position I really think the King of Sardinia could do no other than declare himself at once to be so deeply interested in what had happened, as well for himself and his States as for Italy, whose champion he avowed himself to be, that he would inarch with an army into Naples and establish that unity of Italy which had long been the wish of so many of the people in all parts of that country. But, Sir, this act of his did not pass unnoticed. The right hon. Gentleman says that on the 27th of October I wrote a despatch justifying that proceeding. But that was not the first thing that had taken place. The Powers of Europe very frequently when it suits them adopt that practice which the right hon. Gentleman says was so new in this instance—namely, although their affairs are generally conducted with the utmost secrecy, they put forth declarations of principles signed by their Minister of Foreign Affairs, and which are intended to have an influence on the events of Europe. In this case Russia and Prussia had both thought it necessary to administer lectures to the King of Sardinia—to point out to him that he had departed from the law of nations, and that such an outrage had never been known in the history of Europe. Well, these proceedings were calculated to have a great effect. The Emperor of the French at the same time had withdrawn his Minister from Turin. Well, I certainly felt myself, and I found that Her Majesty's Government were also of opinion, that the King of Sardinia was defending a just cause when he had so taken up arms; and it was impossible, I think, with any regard to the dignity of England, that we should maintain entire silence while Russia, Prussia, Austria, and France were doing all in their power, as far as their moral influence would extend, to extinguish the freedom and independence of the new Italian State. That, therefore, was my reason for not only writing the despatch to our Minister at the Court of Turin, but, as the Russian paper had been published, for allowing the despatch, I had written to be published likewise. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Italians owe us no gratitude, but I believe their own feeling is very different. I believe their feeling is that the moral influence of England in their favour, while they had the moral influence of almost every other Power in Europe against them, was of great weight and importance. Sir, I have already said that we never put forward the principle of the unity of Italy; but if this unity, if one constitutional monarchy is the form of government which the Italians think best fitted to secure their independence, we should be the last persons to say we would interfere to prevent them from accomplishing their wishes. The right hon. Gentleman tells us we are now between two dangers; that those dangers are either that the Treaty of Zurich should be carried into effect, or that, on the other hand, the sword of France will decide in favour of the unity of Italy, and thereby great results will follow—results so great that he does not venture to specify what they may be. But he is now talking, not of the actual state of things, not of anything that is apparent on the face of Europe, but he is borrowing from his imagination schemes and designs which he thinks will be carried into effect. Now, I disagree with him on that subject. The danger against which we wish to provide is the breaking out of war in Europe. We may succeed in this. If we are fortunate enough to succeed, we shall be most happy. We may fail; and then I only hope we may be treated by the right hon. Gentleman with the same candour with which we treated him and his colleagues when they failed in maintaining the peace of Europe in 1859.

But now, as to those two alternative contingencies of which he speaks, one is, that a confederation should be formed in Italy; that the King of the Two Sicilies should be restored; that the Pope should get back all his dominions except, I believe, Ro-magna; and that an Austrian Archduke should reign in Tuscany and Modena. Well, if there be any truth in what we hear, this would be very inconsistent with Italian feeling. It is not likely that this could be done except by force of arms, and against doing it by force of arms the Emperor of the French, as well as ourselves, is most deeply pledged. He has renewed that pledge no longer ago than yesterday. He has said, what is perfectly true, that acting on the principle of non-intervention may not exactly give rise to, but may allow of excesses which those who confine themselves to looking on may deeply deplore; but that, notwithstanding these excesses, notwithstanding the responsibility which may be thrown on other Powers, he means to keep steadfast to that policy. Well, then, on this high point Great Britain is entirely agreed with the Emperor of the French. The right hon. Gentleman questions us as to our policy. I will say at once, in one word, that we are not now divided upon any great question, such as the war of 1793. or the war of 1804. On a main principle of policy, then, we are entirely agreed with the Emperor of the French. We are at the same time in close alliance and intimacy with the other great Powers of Europe, and if there were any other question on which it should appear to us that France was in the wrong, or was acting in that spirit of encroachment which has sometimes actuated a great military nation, then we should appeal to that alliance to combat her designs. And so, I believe, that the second alternative which the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned is not likely to come to pass. The Emperor of the French has declared his strong disapproval of any attempt on the part of Sardinia to break the Treaty of Zurich and attack Venetia. I believe the French people will entirely support him in that declaration. I believe he has no intention of marching an army into Italy with a view of aiding the Italians in that attempt. But, if a war were made, it is impossible to say at this moment what part France might take as new events arose. But let me state, in regard to this same question, that while I wrote that despatch of the 31st of August which the right hon. Gentleman saw in the Cologne Gazette, I wrote about the same time a despatch to our Minister at Vienna to say that we should entirely disapprove an attack by Sardinia on the Austrians in Venetia. We should entirely disapprove any aid given by France to such an attack; we should take care to have our opinion known at Turin and at Paris; we trusted our influence should have its due effect, combined with other considerations which must be in the minds of the Sovereigns of those countries; but, mind this, I added, we can go no further; it is not our intention to take part in such a war if it should arise; we confine ourselves to what we have stated. Now, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman has asked me what are our relations with France. Sir, I agree with my lion. Friend who seconded the Address with so much good sense and so much practical sagacity. The hon. Gentleman said that the Commercial Treaty would have this effect— that it would make an alliance not only between the Governments of France and England, but between the people of France and England. I believe that will be the case, and I render due homage to an hon. Friend not now in the House,—I mean Mr. Cobden, who has devoted so much labour, and, I am sorry to say, so much of his valuable health, in order to complete that work, and to unite these two nations in commercial relations which may tend to future peace and future alliance, and which I trust may be an enduring memorial to future generations. Such, then, are our general relations with France. But I stated in this House we did not mean to keep apart from other Powers, and that declaration, I remember well, was received with great favour on the other side. We have acted on that declaration. We have always communicated confidentially with Austria, Prussia, and Russia, with regard to any affairs of Europe that arose. We have communicated our opinions to them; they have communicated theirs to us. On some questions we were in entire accordance; on others we had various opinions. But there is nothing in our relations with any of these Powers that should make any of them entertain any feeling of estrangement, far less of hostility, towards this country. Sir, I can only end this part of the subject by saying that my hope and my belief is that, notwithstanding the dangers that menace us—and affairs wore a far more dark aspect some time ago—notwithstanding these dangers, the peace of Europe may at this time be preserved. It will be for Austria to settle her affairs with Hungary, as it is for other Powers to settle their own internal affairs; it will be for Prussia and for Russia to settle the difficult internal questions which are now occupying their attention, but I do trust that none of the dangers which menace us may lead to actual conflict in arms. For, although some are sanguine enough to believe there might be a great war in Europe, in which we could take no part, yet I have the melancholy conviction that although that war might be begun without us—although we might declare we had no concern in it—yet, in the course of that war events might take place which would so seriously menace the independence of nations in which we take the deepest interest that we should hardly be able to be free from its complications and dangers. For this reason, therefore, I pray most earnestly that peace maybe preserved; and, whatever the right hon. Gentleman may think of the inutility or utility of my exertions, I can only say, such as they are, they shall be devoted to that purpose—the almost sacred purpose in my eyes — the maintenance of peace.

Sir, I will now say a few words as to the Amendment. With regard to the question of Reform, I will state at once that I think it is perfectly clear no measure could have been brought forward with a chance of its being carried, except a measure of a very trifling character; and I believe, for my own part, that it is altogether better for the Government to leave that question entirely untouched than to bring forward a measure which would create great disap- pointment among its supporters, many taunts on the part of its opponents, and which, whether carried or not, would occupy a great deal of valuable time without any valuable result. There is another consideration, which is, that on this question of Reform I have always had considerable dread of what persons might be induced to do by way of compromise. We had franchises by the Reform Act which are secured to us so long as that Reform Act is not touched; but if, by way of getting certain provisions, you give up certain other provisions, your loss is certain, while it is not so certain you would gain anything like an equivalent to it on the other side. Therefore, Sir, I come to the opinion — we have had eight years now to arrive at that judgment—that in order to carry a Reform Bill that shall be actually of use to the country—and I should call no Reform Bill of use that did not admit great numbers of the working classes—in order to carry such a Reform Bill there must be a great and favourable breeze of public opinion that will enable us to carry it in this House, and with a swelling tide over the bar of the House of Lords. Now I come to consider what has been the state of opinion during the last year. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) has said truly that a great part of the opposition against the Bill we brought forward last year was not on the ground that it did not go far enough, but on the ground that it was too extensive, and that it came from Gentlemen who sat on this side of the House, and who represented great bodies of constituents. There was one hon. Gentleman, a friend of mine, the Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Massey), who, addressing his constituents at Salford, said he was in favour of a £5 franchise. I thought if I produced a £6 franchise there was one Gentleman in the House of Commons who would not think I had gone too far; but my hon. Friend made a speech entirely against it. Then, more extraordinary still, there was the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Black)—he made a speech almost against the extension of the franchise. There was clearly an indisposition of Members of the House of Commons on this subject. If these speeches had been made in 1831 by hon. Members representing great bodies of constituents, there would have been what the Americans call "indignation meetings" among their constituents protesting that they had been misrepresented. But not a bit of it; the country was quite dead on the subject. My hon. friend the Member for Edinburgh had to undergo some severe schooling from his constituents, but scarcely anything was said about the Reform Bill, their attention being almost entirely confined to the Annuity Tax Repeal Bill. Well, then, I say if such is the state of public opinion—if the Governments of the Earl of Aberdeen, the Earl of Derby, and my noble Friend, have brought forward different plans of Reform, and they have failed, from the general dislike that seems to affect them, I must come to the conclusion that at the present time—and I speak only for the present time—there is no such disposition in favour of the further amendment of the representation as ought to induce the Government—I might say to justify the Government, in proposing a measure for the reform of the representation. However, the country has the matter in its own hands. It is not too late for indignation meetings. If nothing will satisfy the country but a Reform Bill which, to use the language of the hon. Gentleman, shall satisfy the just expectations of the people demanding it. they have only to insist that the hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment shall take the place of my noble Friend, and he, no doubt, will carry the Reform Bill to their entire satisfaction. That would show completely the state of the case; and till that is done I shall believe we are in the right, and justly judge the disposition of the people. Well, Sir, with regard to my personal part in these Motions I may be allowed to say one word. With respect to Reform Bills, I have had enough of them to induce me not to be very eager in introducing another Bill. I began with a Motion on this subject in 1819, I am sorry to say 41 years ago. I had an examination in this House with regard to the corruption at Grampound. Everybody agreed the case was proved. It was proposed to give the two members to Leeds, with a £10 suffrage. That was met with universal horror. "What" it was said, "only think of giving the representation to a new place, that is revolution! that is democracy!" Well, Sir, I was; glad to find that opinion became more favourable to Reform, and that Mr. Canning, although he opposed me in an eloquent and brillant speech in 1822, yet at the end of that speech gave me great hopes and encouragement that if I went on I should succeed in my endeavours. Accordingly, in the course of time, Earl Grey was placed at the head of the Government, and having from the beginning of his Parliamentary life been a consistent Reformer, he desired those who were associated with him to frame a Bill, which should be introduced into Parliament. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle, Lord Durham, Lord Bessborough, and myself were named for that purpose. We prepared a Bill, and after a great struggle we were enabled to carry it in 1832. Am I, then, to be told that it is any mortification to me to find at the end of 30 years that the country is so well satisfied with the Bill of 1832 that it does not ask for anything else? Surely it can be no great humiliation to me that the amendment which I then introduced into the. Constitution has been so successful, has produced Such contentment, has given so much fairer a representation to the great seats of industry, that at the present moment the people think of other objects—of foreign politics, of commercial treaties, of church-rates, of various questions of detail — rather than lend their support to any plan of organic change. All I can say, therefore, is that when any further amendment is proposed I hope it will go, as all the Bills I have had the honour to introduce have gone, upon the principle of making a supplement to the Bill of 1832 rather than of attempting to disturb the foundations of an arrangement which was then established with the almost universal assent of the people. At all events, for this year I certainly believe our best course will be to give our attention to those various amendments which Her Majesty has referred to in her Speech. They will occupy most usefully the time of this House; and if the right hon. Gentleman opposite, after having read the papers upon Foreign Affairs, wishes further explanations from me I shall be always ready to give them, feeling as I do that it is a great security for the people of this country that the Government should be their organ in foreign politics, and that it is a great security for the Government to know that they have the support of the people in the sentiments which they express and the principles which they uphold.

MR. BRIGHT

Sir, I have to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton (Mr. White) for the course he has taken in bringing the question of Reform, to which the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) has so recently alluded, before the House. I think my hon. Friend did it in a speech which was full of matter, and which has very favourably impressed the House. I am glad, too, that his speech has brought from the noble Lord a true expression. I take it, being the last, it must be accepted as the true expression of his sentiments upon this great question. At the same time, I would have given a great deal rather than to have heard that speech from the noble Lord, and I feel a grief which I cannot well express, in being compelled to understand that the noble Lord means precisely what he has said. He reminds me of cases which are often exhibited in the commercial world, where men for many years submit to pecuniary obligations and burdens which they are unable to satisfy, and at last call their creditors together, acknowledge a state of bankruptcy, and feel perfect happiness in having got rid in some way of the obligations that they have contracted. Now, that seems to me precisely the tone in which the noble Lord has addressed the House to-night. I would have admitted some force in what he might have said as to the difficulty of his position, as to the difficulty of handling this question, or of carrying it to a successful issue. Why, I have seen him shed tears on that very spot, when he was withdrawing a Reform Bill, where to-night he has done it with a jocularity that was absolutely contemptuous to those who placed him on that very seat that he might advocate that very measure. Now, Sir, I shall not, because I think it utterly beneath the feeling which I have with regard to this question, to expose the errors of the noble Lord and show him where I consider he has failed with regard to this question in a hostile and unfriendly spirit, because, notwithstanding what he has said to-night, it is just possible that the noble Lord may again find this question of use to his political objects. But, Sir, I will turn rather to the House, and ask the House what is its position with regard to this question?— for that matter is infinitely more to England and the people of England than the consistency of conduct of any particular Member of this House, however old in its service and however eminent he may be. The noble Lord has led us back to the year 1819. Well, I will not ask the House to go back so far. Surely the time of the Reform Bill was far enough. But I will ask you to go hack only to 1851, just ten years ago. That was the period when the noble Lord, the Foreign Secretary, first announced to this House his departure from the principle which it was supposed he had avowed, but which I believe he did afterwards repudiate— namely, that the Reform Bill of 1832 was a final measure in reference to the representation of the people. In 1851 the noble Lord stated one day, in answer to Mr. Hume, then an honoured Member of this House, that he was prepared to consider the question with a view of introducing some Bill to extend the principle of the Reform Act. Well, in 1852, the noble Lord did introduce such a Bill. But there happened what happens continually. There was a quarrel, an estrangement at least, between himself and the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston), who was First Minister, and the result of that difference was that the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) retired from office. Immediately afterwards there came in that wonderful exhibition which struck the country with surprise;—the first Government of Lord Derby, in which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) held office as Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. They did not commit themselves on the question of Reform at all. Lord Derby said — I speak from memory — it was a part of his great duty "to stem the tide of democracy." Whether they stemmed it or not time will show. That Government which undertook the fearful obligation of stemming the tide of democracy was overthrown, because the House disagreed with the not very successful Budget of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. When that Government fell, there came in the Government which was called a "Coalition Government," over which a man of singular moderation, of singular love of justice, and of singular liberality—the late Earl of Aberdeen—presided. That Government contained the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, and in accordance, I presume, with some of his colleagues—for it does not appear that all of them agreed with him—he brought in a Bill to extend the right of suffrage, and to amend the laws relating to the representation of the people. That Bill was not withdrawn, because the expression of opinion was against it either as to principle or detail; but it was withdrawn because the two noble Lords who now sit together on that bench unhappily succeeded with their colleagues in involving the country in war with Russia, and it was owing to the excitement on that subject that it was thought better not to proceed with the Bill, and it was withdrawn. But by-and-bye the Government of the Earl of Aberdeen was overthrown. I need not allude to the circumstances which attended that overthrow further than to say that it was followed by the Government of the noble Viscount who is now at the head of the Administration; and not long after the termination of the war, the noble Lord the Member for the City of London admitted, in answer to a question from the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. T. Duncombe) that the time was come to improve the state of the franchise, and he promised that in the succeeding Session the Government would he prepared to introduce a Reform Bill. In the succeeding Session some-thing happened which was not expected in the preceding Session, which I find to be nearly always the case. In the Session of 1858, almost immediately after the House met, the noble Viscount made a stumble in some matter connected with the French Government, and on a Motion brought in by the hon. Member for Ash-ton-under-Lyne (Mr. M. Gibson), the noble Viscount was ejected from office. Well, he had not brought in the Bill; in fact, he had not time in that Session. But, when my hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury asked him whether the Bill had been considered, or whether a Bill had been prepared, it came out at last—I will not say that it had not been considered —but that there was no Bill ready to be laid on the table of the House. Well, the noble Viscount had not quite kept the promise which he made to the House, but he might plead that circumstances had been rather against him, and that politically he had been cut short rather unexpectedly. Then came the second apparition of the Derby Government, and the right hon. Gentleman opposite was again leader of this House and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Well, so convinced were Lord Derby, the right hon. Gentleman, their colleagues, and the party whom they represent, of the necessity of something being done in the matter of Reform, that they promised in the ensuing Session to bring in a Bill to amend the representation of the people. Assuming that altering is amending they kept their promise, and brought in a Bill. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli), speaking of the Bill the noble Lord the Member for the City of London brought in last Session, said that all the Members on this side were not in favour of it. Well, with regard to the Bill which the right hon. Gentleman himself brought in, nobody on his side of the House was in favour of it. They certainly voted for the second reading, but it was notorious that if it had depended for passing upon their votes, the right hon. Gentleman would have gone into the lobby accompanied only by his official supporters. I am not finding fault with Lord Derby or his party for the character of that Bill. It was a Bill which altered the franchise and conferred some fresh qualifications. But it would not have amended the representation of the people. The right hon. Gentleman told us that the Bill would add 500,000 to the borough voters. Now, the right hon. Gentleman did not understand what he was saying. No doubt there was a monstrous exaggeration. I should think the number he 'mentioned would be seven or eight fold what would have been added. But seeing that the first Government of Lord Derby was established to stem the tide of democracy, and that the second Government brought in a Bill which the right hon. Gentleman declared added considerably more votes than the Bill which the noble Lord the Member for the City of London brought in, then, I think, the Gentlemen opposite will come to the conclusion that the second Government of Lord Derby was worse than the first. Well, they proposed that Bill, and the House of Commons rejected it, on the special invitation of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London. The Government of Lord Derby, then, did one of two things which are imperative on the Governments of this country, according to constitutional practice. They did not resign. They were not bound to do so. But they advised the Queen to dissolve Parliament, and the Queen took that advice, and Parliament was dissolved. They appealed to the 1,000,000 of electors of the United Kingdom—the 1,000,000 of electors whose position is cooked and manipulated in so many curious and antique fashions that you do not even get the opinion of that 1,000,000 electors that you appeal to. I am told that the great united Italy of which the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) has spoken so enthusiastically tonight—that that united Italy got rid of its rulers, and chose Victor Emmanuel King of Sardinia as its governor, for the main object that it should have a Parliament in which Italy should be freely and fairly represented. And I understand that it is represented in this manner,—that every 50,000 inhabitants of the kingdom are represented by one Member in Parliament. They will have nothing like a great West Riding, or Lancashire, or this mighty Metropolis, or Liverpool, or Manchester, or Glasgow, or Birmingham all neutralized by representatives from handfuls of people, a score of whose whole constituencies would not make a single ward in some of these towns. But, as I said, the right, hon. Gentleman opposite, his colleagues, and their chief, Lord Derby, did what to my mind was honourable. They dissolved Parliament to see if the country would support their Bill. The country did not support it. A Motion was brought forward when Parliament met, which had the effect of overthrowing the Government of Lord Derby. And then the noble Lord the Member for the City of London again came into the Cabinet of which the noble Viscount the Member for Tiverton is the chief. Well, the proposition of a Reform Bill by that Government was considered certain. There were public and private pledges of the most explicit character given. The Government were not coiled upon that Session to introduce a Bill, but the noble Lord the Member for the City had very fairly described what would be the character of the measure which he would propose. He described it, I believe, on the very night when the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) announced the dissolution of Parliament; so that the electoral body fully understood what they were to vote about, and what the noble Lord intended to do if he came into office. Well, we went to the election; the return was made; and the result was to place the right hon. Gentleman on that side, and the noble Lord and his colleagues on this. We did not urge them to go on with the Bill immediately they came into office. The Session went over, and last year a Bill was introduced. Now the noble Lord the Member for the City knows, at least, that I am not one of those who treated him with indifference in reference to that measure. I have never, in public or in private, endeavoured to depreciate it; and this, I think, every Member of the House who heard me speak upon the subject will admit. I did regret that more had not been done in reference to the distribution of seats. I said that it merely touched the fringe of that question. But the public mind regarded as more important the question of the suffrage; and, as far as the feeling of the great body of the people at this time goes, I believe that to be the most important matter. I do not say important as referring to the ultimate condition of the representation, but important as representing the feeling of the people. I said it was a measure which was a considerable advance for all Reformers who wished for an amendment of the law of representation, and that it would give great satisfaction to the country—that it would operate advantageously on the sentiments and feelings of the great body of the unrepresented population of this country. I thought that with the great improvement which, if the noble Lord's anticipations as to peace are fulfilled—if the fruits of the industry of the country are not wasted on war as they are too much wasted on armaments— will take place, the best portion of the working men might raise themselves up to that line which the noble Lord laid down when he took a £6 rental as the basis of his franchise. And I said further that I looked forward to the day when we ourselves, when we became older, or those who came after us, might find ourselves in a position to bring down the line fixed by the noble Lord's Bill to a still lower level. Well, the noble Lord brought in the Bill, and I am not going to blame him for what he did. I know you cannot get twenty waggons at once through Temple Bar; and I know that you cannot get such measures as the great beneficent Budget of the right hon. Gentleman who sits on the Treasury Benches and the Reform Bill—both measures distasteful to a considerable party in this House—I know you cannot get both through in one Session. But the noble Lord failed to pass his measure, and he specified two hon. Members—one the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Massey), and another the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Black), as having contributed to that result. Now, of the former I will say nothing, except that I believe he was generally supposed in the borough which he represents to be enthusiastically in favour of the very Bill against which the noble Lord says he made one of the ablest speeches that was delivered last Session. As to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, I can only say that at his election he made a distinct statement, to the effect that although he entertained some doubts as to the expediency of making any very large extension of the franchise, yet that, if the question of a £6 rental were raised, he should, with respect to it, not take a course opposed to that which might be adopted by the party with which he acted. I therefore leave the hon. Gentleman to satisfy his own conscience upon this point; but this I may be allowed to observe, that we learn from the public papers that when the hon. Gentleman presented himself the other day to address a meeting of his constituents, which was supposed to have been made safe by his friends, he was subjected to one of those unpleasant examinations and cross-fires which, when I consider his high character, the long time he has resided in Edinburgh, and the great respect in which for so many reasons he is held by his fellow-citizens, I can scarcely account for upon any other ground but his conduct with respect to this question of Parliamentary Reform. Now, there is one very unfortunate circumstance connected with the Bill of the noble Lord to which I did not refer last Session, and to which I should not allude now but for the speech which we have to-night heard from him. The noble Lord at the head of the Government addressed the House on the second reading of the measure in what I regarded as a frank and statesmanlike spirit for the purpose he had in view — namely, to induce the House to assent to the second reading, and I certainly do not seek to accuse him of any want of fairness or honour in the matter. Unfortunately, however, the belief prevailed throughout the House that the noble Lord, though he supported the Bill, was not in favour of Parliamentary Reform; that the measure was introduced by the noble Lord the Member for London as a pet project of his own, and that some of his colleagues would not regard with any feeling of regret or pain any cruelty which the House might inflict upon it. I do not charge this on the noble Lord as true, but such was the idea which unhappily floated through the minds of many hon. Members, and the consequence was, I cannot help thinking, an opposition to the measure more persistent than that which it would have otherwise experienced. But what was the fate which awaited the Bill after all? Nobody made a Motion in direct opposition to it. The hon. Member for Berwick (Captain Gordon) indeed, gave notice of his intention to do so, but he was so worried on the subject by the right hon. Gentleman opposite and the members of his party that he shrunk from the task. They, of course, desired to see the Bill strangled, but they deemed it much more politic to leave the accomplishment of that object to the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Mackinnon) than to commit it to the hands of a Gentleman on their own side of the House. [An Hon. MEMBER on the Opposition side of the House: The hon. Member for Sal-ford (Mr. Massey) gave notice of a Motion against the Bill.] Yes, but he also ran away from it as your man did. And now let me say a few words to you. You know that our system of representation is imperfect, and that in many districts it is a mere sham. You know that 6,000,000 of men as intelligent as yourselves in all the common affairs of life are excluded from the exercise of the franchise. I, for one, undertake to say that I could find you 500 men from among that number who when brought into this House could debate this question of reform with as much solid information, as sound logic, as much courtesy, and as great general ability as we now discuss it. Such are the men you exclude from the exercise of political rights. The noble Lord the Member for London wrote despatches to the King of Naples, advising him to do certain things, which he did not, and he is now suffering the consequences of his non-compliance, and instead of being in Naples with a loyal people around him, he is shut up in one of his own fortresses. It does not of course follow that the same state of things which has taken place in Naples will be brought about in England; but depend upon it the same principles are at work in the minds of the people of all nations, and do not think that great questions are to be disposed of by ejecting one set of men from office and putting others in their stead. After such a speech as we have heard from the noble Lord to-night, after ten years of trifling with this question of Reform, I can well imagine some peace-loving Sovereign abroad asking his Minister to write a letter of advice to him on this subject, advising him of the consequences of his actions. Now I appeal to the House this evening—I appeal to the knowledge and the conscience of the House —is it right that the representation should be amended some time, or is it not? If it be right some time, is not it better even for your—what shall I call it—your timid and Conservative policy—that it should be done gradually now, than that it should be done as it was in 1832, and as it will be done again if you persist in the course that you are now taking? Surely, when one reads or remembers what is recorded of Lord John Russell, the leader of the Government at one time; of Lord Aberdeen, the leader of the Government at another time; of Lord Derby, the chief of another Government; and of Lord Palmerston, the latest in the service of the country—that they have all declared that the representation of the country is so far imperfect that it is desirable it should be amended, I ask the House with confidence whether it is desirable that small questions, such as that of Savoy and Nice, and questions, if possible, even smaller than this, but to which we have been treated at such length tonight, are of as vast and permanent importance to this country as this great question, "What does the House of Commons, as now constituted, think of the people of England, and what are the people of England likely to think of the House of Commons?" Now, the House itself recollects that it passed a Resolution in favour of the working classes being enfranchised. The noble Lord's Bill did not propose to enfranchise, I undertake to say, more probably than from 100,000 to 120,000 of that class. I have stated at a public meeting that I lately attended in the town of Leeds, that there are commercial undertakings in the town in which Hive—a small town comparatively, of less than 40,000 inhabitants —to the amount of more than £400,000 a year, which are managed entirely by three committees of working men, composed of thirty-two individuals. There are eleven on each committee, but one person is on two committees. Of these thirty-two men—and I know many of them and their worth — of these thirty-two men, under your present system, which you now refuse to alter, there are but two that voted for my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale, or voted for his predecessor, or that can vote at all in that borough or that county. One of these men is in the employ of the firm in which I am a partner. He has the care of a large steam-engine, and is a man of great labour, of considerable intelligence, of great economy, and as respectable a man as I see before me or around me. Well, that man has succeeded in obtaining a vote. He is in this position —he has not a large family. I believe he has but one child, which makes a great difference to a man who lives on 30s. a week. He has, therefore, secured by his resolution and industry a county vote; and another member of these committees has obtained a borough vote. Now you think that I—no I doubt whether you do think it—but some of those who pretend to speak in your name, and some of the less judicious of your own body sometimes speak as if you did think—that I am advocating changes (such as that which the noble Lord proposed as moderate) which would revolutionize and be likely to bring harm to the country. These 6,000,000 of men will not always be content to be excluded from any influence in the affairs of this House. I should despise my countrymen as much as I might despise the most selfish people that breathe on the face of the earth, if I could think that the course which you think is the safe course is one that can be permanently maintained. The noble Lord has gone back to 1830, and he says that you thought — some of you—at that day that the £10 pounder was a revolutionist. Well, it is proved that he is not. But is there any doubt of this, that in the last thirty years —thirty years nearly of peace, and one-half of that time—fifteen years—of free trade—is there anybody can doubt for a moment that the class of persons the noble Lord proposed last year to admit to the suffrage are not equal, at least, to the £10 pounders whom the noble Lord admitted in 1832? The last thirty years have seen an age of improvement in the condition, the character, and the intelligence of the people of England. I speak not, of course, of those with whom hon. Gentlemen must he better acquainted than I am—their agricultural labourers—but I speak of the artisan —the man whose industry is the foundation of all that greatness which comes to this Country from the wonderful manufactures of the counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire. It is for these men that I speak: — but not more for them than for you; for if it be good for them that they should be represented here, depend upon it is not good for you that they should be permanently excluded from the franchise. The noble Lord has told us to-night, and with a jocular air, as if he really enjoyed it, that England appears not to care about this question. Now, from that I will give the noble Lord a warning—no, I do not need to give it to the noble Lord, for I am not sure that he has not on one or two occasions given it to the House himself—but I believe, if you turn back to the records of the years between 1819 and 1831, you will find that for the last six of those years there was not one solitary petition presented to the House of Commons in favour of Parliamentary Reform. The noble Lord brought it on in 1819, and I think after that; but for several years previous to 1831 so little was said about it that not a single petition ap- peared on that table in its behalf. What did your predecessors say with regard to that?—for the majority who are here now were not here then—why, that if an angel had come down from Heaven he could not have framed a better Constitution, or one more admirably suited to the people, and that the country was contented with it. That was the sort of delight which I am sorry the noble Lord exhibited to-night, when he said, "Have I not reason to be proud that my handiwork of 1830 is so prized in 1860 that nobody wishes to alter it? But that time of tranquillity passed away, and in 1831 you were running for your lives. Consider the danger you ran. You were within twenty-four hours of a revolution; there would have been a good many things besides that if that had happened. You were in a state of terror. You—the Tories—could not travel through the country. You went to a general election —you were swept away—and the other House which I am charged with wishing to humiliate—the other House kissed the very dust before the people whom for years before they had been speaking of with the utmost contempt. And when the Monarch found it necessary to threaten at last the exercise of a power which, though constitutional, I should be very sorry to see exercised, your party in that House abased itself altogether, and you see now—what? Why the painter has given the whole story in that engraving which hangs in thousands of houses in this country, where the Royal consent is given to a great Bill denominated the Charter of the Liberties of the People of England, and on one side the House is filled with Peers belonging to a certain party, and the benches of the other side are altogether vacant, as if they that occupied them had vanished into space. Will you learn nothing from this? Will the noble Lord learn nothing? I believe that the consciousness that there is in the heart of the House of Commons that this question cannot remain where it is, and must before long be settled, would have enabled the noble Lord at the head of the Government and his colleagues to have passed — I will not say a wholly — but to some extent a satisfactory and useful measure, if they had taken the course which was taken by Lord Derby's Government. If, as I suppose, we shall not this year have an extensive Budget, such as we had last year, though I can express a hope to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it will be a worthy successor of it—if we are not to have this great Budget—if we are to have nothing but the Attorney General's Bankruptcy Bill, and one or two other measures which are mentioned—if we really are not going to interfere with the Italian strife—and the noble Lord says we are not—well, then, this Session was, of nil Sessions, that in which a moderate, a short, but a useful measure might have been presented to the House. And, if the noble Lord the Prime Minister had stated that the Government considered that Bill to be the cardinal measure of the Session—by which the House would have understood one of three things—either that it would pass, or there would be a change of Government, or there would be a dissolution of Parliament, in pursuance of the honourable course taken by Lord Derby's Government—I will undertake to say there is not a shadow of a doubt that that Bill would have passed the House. But the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) says it wants a great tide to carry it over the bar of the House of Lords. Well, doubtless it does. But still there are men in the House of Lords not wholly oblivious to the past, and not wholly wanting in foresight as to the future. The Government of the noble Lord the Prime Minister, last Session, of course, made a submission to the House of Lords, which may have made them less reasonable upon this question than they otherwise would have been. Whether or not that is the case, still I do not think a measure of this kind would have been treated with contempt and ignominy in the other House, and there was good reason to believe that last Session, if that Bill had passed this House, the House of Lords would not have refused also to pass it. The speech of the noble Lord has placed this question, of course, in a very different position. So far, at least, as those Members of this House who were instrumental in placing the noble Lord in the office he now holds are concerned, they at least, as far as that question goes, are absolved from any supposed obligation to consider themselves supporters of the Government of the noble Lord. Well, I grieve very much at this, because I was most anxious that at least we need not have a change of Government and a dissolution of Parliament every two years, but a Government which the majority of the House might have enabled to pass that one measure for which it was particularly returned to power; and that on this side of that House, where so many schisms have esiated—schisms as bad as those which exist on the other side. I was in hopes these schisms might have been healed, and that we might have gone on more comfortably together, with advantage to the real interests of the country. But now the noble Lord repudiates all this—and not with sorrow, but with satisfaction. He got a resolution of Parliament, and he got a majority of the Members of the House in favour of the proposition which he made. He brought it before the House; he has never stood a single division upon it, the principle of the Bill having passed by a unanimous vote of the House, and it was withdrawn, on the ground that last Session there was so much to be done that that could not be done. He comes now in the opening of the Session, in which almost nothing is to be done, and refuses to attempt to do that for which alone, for which, I venture to say, he was seated on the Ministerial Bench. Well, now, I shall only say this further. I am, with the noble Lord, quite content to wait for the time when this measure shall receive what I call a more honest, and more statesmanlike attention from this House. I believe that the time is not distant when the country will insist that something is done with regard to it. The working classes are not like Members of this House, and some million people in the country who have a little time to spare morning and evening, and a good many who have time during the day. They work from six o'clock in the morning until six o'clock, and sometimes later, in the evening—they have not the time-—except when they are out of work, and when they are in great distress—they have not the time to make great political demonstrations. The million to whom you have given the franchise declare in favour of the extension of the franchise; do you mean to say that the majority which they exhibit are not a fair representation of the enormous majority which would be exhibited if you could poll six-sevenths of the people to whom you refuse the franchise? And yet what does the noble Lord want, and what do you want? You want these six millions of the people to make a demonstration which you put it out of their power to make in any peaceable fashion. You won't poll the nation; you won't refer the question to the people of the country and let them decide it; you confine the franchise to the million, whom you hocus focus until their votes are of no value even to themselves, and then say, "Why don't these six millions show they want it?" How are they to show it, except by great meetings? and, for the most part, in a state of political excitement they must go into tumultuous meetings. And if you should have those tumultuous meetings— if my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow should come here and say, "Mr. Speaker, I left Glasgow, and there were 100,000 people assembled, and this resolution was passed;" and if my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds and his colleague, could come up here and tell the same story, what would you do? Your difficulties would vanish. You would play the part you played thirty years ago. Your Ministers who are now so calm, and now so Conservative (especially if they were on that side of the House) would take the popular side; the other House would become as obsequious as it was in 1832, and a Bill would pass, perhaps more extensive than many of us would wish to see passed, and changes would take place which you dread. Now, I speak this to the House from an honest conviction. I am giving the House wise counsel, and I am warning them of dangers, which even though they be in some degree distant, as they may be —for I forget not the gift of prophesy as to time—are dangers which are ahead. They have overtaken the statesmen of every one of those countries who have disregarded these warnings, and overwhelmed not a few of them; and I say that after the course which the House of Commons has pursued on this occasion, which Ministers on both sides of the House have pursued, and after the statements you have made, you run the risk of losing, first, your own self-respect; and, secondly, the self-respect of the country, and when that once has happened in this kingdom, rely upon it that a more unpleasant and a more unhappy time will have come than can possibly come as the result of such a judicious and moderate measure as Government might this Session have proposed, if they were courageous in their duty, and such as the House of Commons, with great satisfaction, in my opinion, might have passed.

Question put, "That those words be there added."

The House divided:—Ayes 46; Noes 129: Majority 83.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Committee appointed—

To draw up an Address to be presented to Her Majesty upon the said Resolution:—SIR EDWARD

COLEBROOKE, Mr. PAGET, Viscount PALMBRSTON Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Sir GEORGE LEWIS, Sir CHARLES WOOD, Sir GEORGE GREY, Mr. MILNER GIBSON, Mr. CARDWELL, Mr. VILLIERS, Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL, Mr. PEEL, and Mr. MASSEY, or any Five of them. —To withdraw immediately.

Queen's Speech referred.

House adjourned at ten minutes to Ten o'clock.