was with you; why then did you not depend upon it? That is the true way of carrying out principles. But now, when you have lost office, you come forward and take credit, forsooth, for courage and resolution which you might have shown, but which you did not show. Your not having made any sacrifice in vindicating the great principles you had (it should seem) adopted-does not this convict you of having been satisfied with being merely in office, and with having, while responsible for the exercise of power, preferred the retention of place to the defence of your professed principles? It was not only the being passive; you did all the evil you could possibly do by retaining place without taking any pains, or risking any sacrifice, to enlighten the public mind, or enforce principles you pretend to have believed interwoven with the prosperity of the country. You feared even to appeal to public opinion in behalf of principles you say you believed just,—and you make a defence now. I saw the Member for Stockport's countenance fall wofully when the noble Lord was occupied full a quarter of an hour in proving that the Corn-laws had nothing to do with preventing the progress of national prosperity. The noble Lord, in his enthusiastic defence of himself, attributed everything to the exclusive merits of his Administration, and referred every improvement in the social condition of the country, not so much even to general administration as, to his own labours at the Foreign-office. I will give the noble Lord all the credit of his Mocha coffee, and for thinking that the sending armies to ravage and waste a country is the best way of engendering a taste for the peace

ful intercourse of commercial relations. [Laughter.] But what did the noble Lord prove? That under the old system of the Cornlaws-such is the omnipotent effect of a really good Government in correcting the defects of legislation the noble Lord was enabled to augment our exports by millions.”

The House had now devoted some forty-eight nights to the consideration of the three great measures of the Session. They might try to depreciate those measures, or under-rate the difficulties of carrying them; but he should have liked to see them essay such an achievement. He did not see why he should not take credit for the contrast which his Government presented to theirs.

"When I was last in office, I was threatened with the defection of 150 of my supporters on the malt-tax. I said directly, This tax is necessary for the maintenance of public credit, and I must go down to propose it.' I risked my Government upon it, and what was the consequence? My friends were generous when they saw I was in earnest; difficulties vanished, and I carried the tax by a triumphant majority. I do not wish to deny it was with some support from Gentlemen opposite, but not enough to have secured success, had there been defection on the part of my own followers; and I made up my mind, with the full persuasion that I should fail. That is the course which a public man ought to adopt when he has satisfied himself as to the justice of any course-he should determine to abide by the issue. You may depend upon it that this is the only course by which a Government, convinced of the soundness of certain principles, can ever carry

them. Then, upon the importation of cattle, if I had been told by some 100 of my supporters that they must withdraw their support in the event of my pressing forward that measure, I might, following certain examples, have said, Here is a plausible proposition about taking duty by weight instead of per head, I can manage, perhaps, to make an escape by means of this;' or when Members from different parts of the country were prepared only for the admission of liberal principles in all other cases but their own, I might have yielded; but I should have compromised the principles for which I was contending. 1 adhered then to my propositions, and carried them, partly by the support of Gentlemen opposite, because they were aware I was acting honestly, and that while I was dealing with small interests, I equally grappled with the great. Now the noble Lord said, we had not proceeded with the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and the Registration Bills. We were prepared to proceed. There surely were no difficulties in our way, after having overcome the obstacles in the way of those great measures. But I was sure that after the labour of the Session the measures mentioned could not have secured proper attention. Was I not right in that expectation? Why, when the noble Lord has been passing his panegyrics on his late colleagues and himself, where are they? Where have they been for the last month? All the important business of the Session, after the three first great measures, has been carried on during that period. Perhaps we have made, indeed, too much hurry in our anxiety for securing practical improvements; VOL. LXXXIV.

but certainly there has been more of business during the last month; and where have been the Members of the late Cabinet? What a decisive refutation is their absence of all the assertions of the noble Lord! What a decisive mark of public confidence! Do you say that the absence of such men, during all the press and sweat of Parliamentary business, argues indifference as to their public duties? No. But it argues entire, unqualified confidence in the Government. They have left the noble Lord (as was once said of another Gentleman here)

The last rose of summer, all blooming

alone,

His lovely companions all wither'd and gone'

Left him to waste his sweetness on the desert air' [Laughter]

with the injunction to bottle up a great speech' [Renewed laughter] no matter how thin the House' [Laughter]-'let it explode at the end of the Session all of itself.' [Continued laughter.]

Yes,' said the noble Lord,' but am I to move a vote of want of confidence, or something expressive of distrust?' 'Oh no!' said his colleagues, follow the example of Colonel Sibthorp [Laughter], and move for returns which the most jealous and sensitive of Ministers could not find it in his heart to oppose, but, for Heaven's sake, don't risk a division! Speak about America and Affghanistan, and everything else, only avoid any motion which may issue in a division of three to one against us.' All this, however, does not diminish the force of the compliment which the noble Lord thus at the close of the Session pays us, and which I gratefully acknowledge, feeling, of course, [Q]

gratified that the Members of the Late Government should have had entire confidence in the existing Administration, with a conviction that they will not abuse the power intrusted to them. It is a kind acknowledgment on the part of the noble Lord, that they have successors who can repair their blunders, and to whom the honour and welfare of the kingdom may safely be committed."

measures.

He now came to the financial There was a deficiency of two millions and a half, an accumulated deficiency of ten millions, and three wars, in Syria, China, and Affghanistan. The Income-tax had been debated sixteen nights, during which Lord Palmerston had maintained an absolute silence; and now, on the very last day of the Session, he came down to the House to fire his small popgun. The Bankruptcy Bill had no doubt been deferred to a late period of the Session; but it had been carried; and the intermediate delay of it had been mainly in deference to the wishes of Lord Cottenham, who desired to take it in conjunction with the County Courts Bill.

Sir Robert Peel next adverted to the foreign policy referred to in Lord Palmerston's speech; a reply to a speech delivered three months before by Lord Stanley-who could hardly reciprocate Lord Palmer ston's compliment for his skill in "off-hand debate!"

"As regards the foreign policy of the noble Lord, no one can estimate more than I do the noble Lord's activity and attention. But when the noble Lord refers to the free treaty of Texas and his seven treaties about the slave-trade as the result of his activity, I am induced to ask if those are points to

which a Minister, taking a comprehensive view of the foreign policy of the country, can refer with pride and confidence as the result of several years of official labour? Look to the great countries of Europe with which it was your boast to be connected. For six years your constant boast in this House was, that you had been made the great confidant of Western Europe, not only in matters of material interest, but in political opinions, which were to operate as a check upon the march of despotic power. Night after night you spoke of the intimate relations of amity which existed between this country and France. You said that France would join you in rescuing the western Peninsula from the yoke of despotism,―that, aided by the co-operation, and backed by the authority of France, you would exhibit to admiring Europe the effect of your liberal policy, by the intimate union of her great western states; and yet, such was the importance you attached to the maintenance of that union, that, forgetting the doctrine of non-intervention, you sent armies to interfere in the civil war of the Peninsula, to re-establish liberal opinions in Portugal and Spain. How were you situated? And what has been the result? You had not to recover your relations from past hostilities. We had recognized the dynasty of Louis Philippe, when you succeeded to the Government, and a grateful feeling had been already evinced by the friends of that dynasty for our ready acquiescence in the rights of the people. For four or five years you boasted of your strengthened bonds of amity. I lent you all my influence, notwithstanding our political differences, in confirming

those relations. I did what I could to discourage the partisans of the former government in France. How have you left our relations with that country? You may talk of the non-signing and non-ratifying a treaty; but all these difficulties have arisen from the feeling which, whether by your fault or in spite of you, has been engendered amongst the French people. Is that true or not? I say that in 1836 and 1837 you found France disposed to relations of amity with this country. What has happened since to disturb those good inclinations? The world has been at peace; and the commercial intercourse of the intervening period ought to have reconnected these two great countries in the ties of international amity. I say this country has no feeling of hostility to France. [Loud cheers.] There was in this country an universal feeling of generous and natural grief when we heard of the lamentable death of the Duke of Orleans. We earnestly hope that the influence of sound sense, the influence of reason, and even the material influences, if we could get the means of establishing an enlarged commercial intercourse with France, will, at no distant period, lead to the abolition of those discreditable feelings of dissension between two great nations which ought no longer to subsist. I have said that we feel no hostility to France; on the other hand, we have no apprehensions [loud cheers]; we don't feel any fear of France; but never would that generous devotion of our feelings on the melancholy event to which I refer have been demonstrated, if the people of this country had been animated by feelings of hostility to France. [Loud cheers.]

I say more: we have no feeling of rivalry with France, except the generous rivalry of the race of civilization. I believe I speak the feelings of the people of this country when I say, that we view with pleasure we rejoice to see-the advance of civilization and improvement in that country, and we do it disinterestedly; or, if we entertain any selfish idea in the matter, it is because we know that the improvement of France will react on our own, and must have done so long ere now, if the slightest steps had been taken by the Government of the noble Lord to encourage and maintain relations of amity between the two countries. Sir, this is a most important consideration, and it ought to have confirmed the noble Lord in his endeavours, which he tells us he made, for the purpose of securing the preservation of peace. When the noble Lord came to the Foreign-office, the ancient feelings of hostility between the countries were gradually abating; that vulgar feeling of our superiority to the French was gradually giving way; more enlightened views were gaining ground. But what was the cause which is assigned as sufficing to alienate and disturb the spirit of amity which ought always to subsist between two countries, whose amity would give peace to the world? The Turkish empire! What! was that one of the facilities which you bequeathed to her Majesty's present advisers? You restored the Turkish empire, you say. You restored the appearance of empire, you left anarchy behind you."

He deprecated the spirit of Lord Palmerston's remarks respecting the question with the United States because they necessitated a disclo

sure of that which for the present was better kept secret.

"First, then, with respect to the United States. I am sorry that the noble Lord tried-I will not say that the attempt is likely to be successful-but tried to put in jeopardy the settlement of a question between that government and this, for the settlement of which attempts have been making for forty years. Yes; for forty years this question has been waiting for settlement. For the sake of the interests actually involved,for the sake of the possession of a swamp is it wise for a great statesman to say that we are bound to risk our amicable relations with that country? Why, such is the blindness of your hostility to Her Majesty's Government, that every word you have used is a two-edged sword which may be used against yourself. You came into the Government in 1831. Did you, when you so came into office, knowing nothing about the question, manfully confess your ignorance? No, you were ready to assent to the terms proposed? Is it not true that you were then ready to assent to a boundary which you now denounce as an unjust one? Why did you not answer in 1831, "I know nothing about the matter; I have had no time to consider it; I have sent out no commission to inquire; I know not which are the proper highlands mentioned in the treaty, I will take two years to inquire?" Is not that the answer that a wise man would have given? But you did the exact contrary. You were ready to accede to an unjust demand, according to your present doctrine-a demand which you now say, if acceded to, would be ruinous to this country. And then you talk of the necessity of

supporting the honour of the country. I hope I am prepared to go as far as any man to vindicate the honour of this country; but of the United States I say, as I say of France, that the differences between this country and each of those two countries ought, for the interests of humanity, to be settled with the least practicable loss of time. You may say there are difficult questions which subsist between us and those countries, and you may make them more difficult to settle by the groundless charges and the ungenerous imputations which you throw out against Her Majesty's Government. I know that we come into contact with the United States on another question, which it is also very necessary to settle without delay. But the question is, what is the best course to be adopted? Mr. Fox has observed, and I think justly, that no country ought to go to war for the maintenance of its interests, because it was almost certain that success would not pay for the expense of the war; but that he would go to war willingly for the maintenance of the honour of the country, because, paradoxical as it might seem, that was always advantageous in the end. But I do hope that these two great countries, speaking a common language, and having so many points of common interest, may adjust these differences, under the impression that every blow which each inflicts on the other it is inflicting at the same time on itself. I do hope that means may be found of establishing relations of amity consistently with measures of a perfectly conciliatory character, and consistently with the maintenance of national honour on the one side and on the other."