Part 16 (1/2)

Generation after generation have grown up in ignorance and misery, while those who lived upon the product of their labours have laughed and rioted through life as though they had not known that from them alone could light and civilization descend upon these poor wretches. I had often heard, as every one has, of the evils of absenteeism, but till I came and saw its effects I had no notion how great a crime it is.... They [the absentee landowners] thought only of themselves and their own enjoyments, they left their people to grow up and multiply like brute beasts, they stifled in them by their tyranny all hope and independence and desire of advancement, they made them cowards and liars, and have now left them to die off from the face of the earth. Neither can any one living at a distance have any notion of the utter absence of all public spirit among the upper cla.s.ses.... Legislation can do nothing when there is nothing for it to act upon. Parliament to Ireland is what a galvanic battery is to a dead body, and it is in vain to make laws when there is no machinery to work them. A people must be worked up to a certain point in their dispositions and understandings before they can be affected by highly civilized legislation.... It is only individual exertions, and the personal superintendence of wise and good men, that can ever drill the Irish people into a legislatable state.... One or two things, however, seem to me pretty certain--

1. That under proper management the Irish peasant can be made anything of.

2. That, generally speaking, the present cla.s.s of proprietors must and will be swept from off the surface of the earth.

3. That in the extreme West the surface is overcrowded, but not at all so a few miles inland.

4. That reclaiming waste lands and bogs at present is to throw money away.

I begin to fear I have written a strange rigmarole, but still I will send it, for though Irish matters cannot interest you as they do me, yet still a letter is always a pleasant thing to receive, even only that one may have the satisfaction of looking at the Queen's head and breaking the seal.

The next entry from Lady John's Diary is dated October 9, 1849.

After tea John told me that he had informed the Cabinet of his plan for the extension of the suffrage--to be proposed next session. All looked grave. Sir Charles Wood and Lord Lansdowne expressed some alarm.... To grant an increase of weight to the people of this country when revolutions are taking place on all sides, when a timid Ministry would rather seek to diminish that which they already have, is to show a n.o.ble trust in them, of which I believe they will n.o.bly prove themselves worthy.

Lord John's determination to carry through this measure himself, rather than to leave it in the hands of others, was afterwards the cause of the first defeat of the Whig Government.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

LONDON, _February_ 19, 1850

The weeks are galloping past so much faster even than usual that there is no keeping pace with them.

I neither read, write, teach, learn, nor do anything--unless indeed revising visiting books and writing invitations is to be called something. I want to be with my Mama, to be with my husband, to be with my children, to be with friends, and to be alone, all at the same time. I want to read everything, and to write to everybody, and to walk everywhere, in no time at all. And what is the result?

Why, that I lose the very _power_ not only of _doing_, but of _thinking_, to a degree that makes me seriously uneasy and unfits me to be a companion to anybody older or wiser than Wee-wee, or Baby, whose capacities exactly suit mine. All this sounds as if I led a life of bustle, which I do _not_--but it is _too full,_ and there is an end of it. I dare say it is mistaken vanity to suppose that if it was emptier I should do anything worthier of record in the political, literary, or educational line--and at all events it would be hard to find a happier or, I trust, more thankful heart than mine, my troubles being in fact the result of many blessings.

The next session opened with the Greek crisis, which Greville described as ”the worst sc.r.a.pe into which Palmerston has ever got himself and his colleagues. The disgust at it here is universal with those who think at all about foreign matters: it is past all doubt that it has produced the strongest feelings of indignation against this country all over Europe, and the Ministers themselves are conscious what a disgraceful figure they cut, and are ashamed of it.”

Palmerston had ordered the blockade of the Piraeus to extort compensation from the Greek Government on behalf of Mr. Finlay (afterwards the historian of Greece), whose land had been commandeered by the King of Greece for his garden, and on behalf of Don Pacifico, a Maltese Jew (and therefore a British subject), whose house had been wrecked by an Athenian mob. The Greek Government had been prepared to pay Compensation in both cases, but not the figure demanded, which turned out, indeed, on investigation, to be in gross excess of fair compensation. Palmerston's action nearly threw Europe into war; Russia protested, and France, who had offered to mediate, was aggravated by a diplomatic muddle to the verge of breaking off negotiations. A vote of censure was pa.s.sed by the Opposition in the House of Lords, which had the effect of making Lord John take up the cause of Palmerston in the Commons. The question was discussed in a famous four days' debate. ”It contained,” says Mr. Herbert Paul, ”the finest of all Lord Palmerston's speeches, the first great speech of Gladstone, the last speech of Sir Robert Peel, and the most elaborate of those forensic harangues, delivered successively at the Bar, in the Senate, and on the Bench, by the accomplished personage best known as Lord Chief Justice c.o.c.kburn.” Lord John, who was always good at a fighting speech, spoke also with great force. Mr. Roebuck's motion of confidence in the Ministry was carried, but this success was largely due to the fact that a coalition between the Peelites and the Protectionists seemed impossible. Had it not been carried the Whigs would have resigned, and neither of the other two parties feeling strong enough to succeed them, they did not oppose in force the motion of confidence.

The day after Peel made his speech he was thrown from his horse on Const.i.tution Hill, and on July 2nd he died.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

_June_ 20, 1850

... Day of great political excitement. After dinner I took John to the House and have utterly regretted since that I did not go up to hear him--for he made what I am quite sure you and Ralph will agree with me and all whom I have yet spoken to, was a most perfect answer; and I should have dearly liked to hear the volleys of cheering which he so well deserved. Now we shall either go out with honour or stay in with triumph--welcome either.

_Lord Charles Russell [35] to Lady John Russell_

_July_ 13, 1850

As you were not here to hear John move the monument [of Sir Robert Peel], I must tell you that he succeeded in the opinion of all.

Dizzy has just, in pa.s.sing my chair, said, ”Well, Lord John did that to perfection. My friends were nervous, I was not; it was a difficult subject, but one peculiarly fitted for Lord John. He did as I was sure he would, and pleased all those who sit about me.”

[35] Lord John's stepbrother.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _July_ 17, 1850