Volume III Part 16 (1/2)

February 14th, 1835 {p204}

[Page Head: OPENING OF THE SESSION]

There has been a wonderful lull for soh we are said to be, and I believe we in fact are, on the eve of a crisis of great importance, perfect tranquillity prevails universally (except, of course, in Ireland), and ns of apprehension The state of this country is a curious political paradox; however, speculation will soon be lost in certainty, so it is of no use thinking more of the matter The newspapers have been filled _usque ad nauseam_ with the debates about the Speakershi+p, and both parties are equally confident, but the bets are in favour of Sutton The argument on his side has been triued the best that they ht Tom Duncombe, who at first said he would vote for Sutton, and now votes the other way, puts it on the true ground, 'that it is a good factious vote' I have little doubt that Peel will come down in Parliament with a fair and reasonable case, but I have no hope that he will propose or agree to anything satisfactorily about the Irish Church; and if anything overturns his Government, it will be that unhappy question of appropriation Froe, who, I see they are resolved to stand like rocks in defending 'the Church,'

as they call it All this week and the last I have been at my office the whole day with our Judicial Committee, which works very well We have Shadwell, Parke, Bosanquet and Erskine continually; and Vaughan, Nicholl and Jenner occasionally Alava talked to ton, of whom he said everybody was afraid, even his nearest relations, and that he found hie pour lui'

February 15th, 1835 {p205}

Dined at Miss Berry's, and Lord John Russell came after; told me he had 320 people to vote with him on the Speakershi+p (of whom perhaps 20 will not co else, and what has been written on the subject in pah it is beco about it ion I went yesterday to see the two Houses of Parliament;[1] the old House of Lords (now House of Commons) is very spacious and convenient; but the present House of Lords is a wretched dog-hole The Lords will be very sulky in such a place, and in a great hurry to get back to their own House, or to have another

For the first tiallery in the House of Commons reserved for reporters, which is quite inconsistent with their standing orders, and the prohibition which still in for the debates It is a sort of public and avowed hoht of the people to know through the medium of the press all that passes within those walls

[1] [The old Houses of Parlia Mr Greville's absence from town in the autus used during the erection of the new Houses]

[Page Head: CHURCH REFORM]

[Page Head: FALSE POSITION OF SIR R PEEL]

Lord John said to , I told you I thought the House of Lords would throw out soe of Government, a dissolution; and then we should have a Parliaovern the country? You see we have reached that point' According to their several calculations, both the opposite parties continue to claim a majority, or rather on the Tory side an equality; and as these are made by men experienced in the coed and cos, having discovered that Abercroreat as _oiven a hint of what the principle is), have now found out that the English Church Reforitation is a very bad move on the part of the Government, as _the people_ do not care about Church Refor

This is, very possibly, in great ed and excited by the Radical leaders, will be sure to grow indifferent about such reforitiitiitate for those which may be more difficult or slow of accoht that he hears fro; but he thinks it will not touch the great livings, nor meddle with advowsons He concludes that at the same time the Dissenters will be relieved frouished, and the question of Dissenters' es settled This has been an enor to the pride, obstinacy, and avarice of the Church; they would not give up the fees they received from this source, and they were satisfied to celebrate these rites in church while the parties were froainst all and every part of it, often rievous abuses must be done aith; and deeply responsible are those who never would hear of their being done aith before These guilty parties are the clergy and the Tories, both of whom, now that it is alant pretensions, and to subainst which they have so bitterly inveighed, and so resolutely fought We are disgusted and shocked at reading Croly's account of the scandalous conduct of the Catholic clergy in Ireland, with regard to the emoluments they extort from their miserable flocks, and at the systes which they countenance and practise; but when the difference is considered between their spiritual condition and their y here appears just as revolting The Irish clergy are generally sprung from the lowest class, and have received a bad education at Maynooth; they depend for subsistence upon the voluntary liberality or devotion of their people, they have few motives or principles of restraint, and every incentive to follow the shaenerally respectably born, well educated, and amply endowed, and yet they are content to be the ministers of a scandalous system, which, if it were not a source of profit to themselves, they would not tolerate for an instant Instead of co the Dissenters to be married in church, if they had been really penetrated with any devotional feelings, or by any considerations of delicacy and charity, they would long ago have coed the Legislature with entreaties to relieve the Church from the scandal, and thee of inferiority and dependence forced upon the Dissenters, and a source of profit to themselves; and therefore they defended andthe Church; and when the Dissenters themselves pray to be relieved from the tax and the huot up that the Church is in danger When the Dissenters, having prayed in vain, grow louder and bolder in their deradually sink into a whine, which is at last silenced in suber; and then, when it no longer can be refused, it becorant the boon which justice and wisdo required So it is, and has been with all obstinate and senseless denials, followed by reluctant and tardy concessions--with Catholic emancipation, the Test and Corporation Acts, Parlia else; and thus, one of the great difficulties which beset Peel and his Government is, that they stand in an utterly false position As a statesreathave been carried in spite of hierto the opposition he was enabled, by his great talents and his influence, or rather the influence of the party which he led, to give to thosethe success of the measures theood that ht have been produced by ti forward as he says, 'to resist the pressure from without,' he finds himself compelled to yield to that pressure; for what, after all, is the language which he now holds, what are his addresses, his speeches, his promises, his Church Commission, but a surrender to the spirit and the principle of Reform, and to the deuished froreat interests on whose support he has depended, and whose wishes or prejudices he has consulted? For assuredly, neither the King, nor the Church, nor the aristocracy, seriously and sincerely desire these or any other reforree to theht; he has no other alternative Such is the force and power of public opinion, that no Govern and directing it, if he can convert it from a destructive into a conservative elereat service as will cancel all the fore upon a course which i principle of his political life, and in which neither friend nor foe can doubt that the conduct he adopts, however justifiable, necessary, indispensable, is compulsory and unpalatable A man who is called to the head of affairsto any i to the state in which he finds affairs, no matter how produced or by who to adopt a system reluctantly and under necessity, because somebody else by his incapacity or his misfortune has rendered it indispensable, and to do so after you yourself have brought about this state of things: and such is the false position of Peel with all his Tory associates This, however, is begging the question in dispute between the two great antagonistic parties Peel would say that the is have s would say that the resistance of the Tories to allmeasure of '31, and the excitement that was partly its cause and partly its consequence

February 17th, 1835 {p209}

Yesterday I read Burke's appeal fro coincidences with the present times

His definition of the people is somewhat tueneralities and abstruse doctrine; but it is a wonderful e and accuracy of insight into the nature of parties and the workings of political ambition which make him an authority for all times, and show him to be in the political what Shakespeare was in the s, however as objects of study theymen, would have no more power than a piece of musty parchment to arrest the tide of present violence, and superinduce reflection and calreater effect than the perusal of a discourse of Burke's Wisdom never operates directly on h secondary and by indirect means, but it cannot face the noise of actual contest, where passion and not reason is always uppermost nobody but Burke could have described so well the Dukes of Devonshi+re and Bedford of the present day, who appear to have lost their senses, and to be ready to peril all their great possessions to gratify the passions of the moment He says:--'But riches do not in all cases secure even an inert and passive resistance; there are always in that description men whose fortunes, when their minds are once vitiated by passion or evil principle, are by no ainst the public tranquillity

We see to what low and despicable passion of all kinds many men in that class are ready to sacrifice the patriht be perpetuated in their families with splendour, and with the faeneration Do we not see how lightly people treat their fortunes when they are under the passion of gaareat and rich as desperately and with as ame Passion blinds them to the consequences as far as they concern theard to others, they are no part of their consideration'

[Page Head: LORD PALMERSTON AS A MAN OF BUSINESS]

The other night I n Office to whom the very name of Palmerston is hateful, but I was surprised to hear thee both froive ample testimony to his abilities They said that he wrote admirably, and could express himself perfectly in French, very sufficiently in Italian, and understood Gerence and attention were unwearied--he read everything and wrote an in Ministers (who detest hireat fault is want of punctuality, and never caring for an engage for hours on his pleasure or caprice This testimony is beyond suspicion, and it is confirues; but it is certain that he cut a very poor figure in Parliament all the time he was in office before

At the Travellers' yesterday I fell in with Buloho is just come back from Berlin to resume his mission He told me that he was on such terms with Palmerston that it was impossible for hiiven up co with him except upon the most indispensable ave e of our Government at Berlin, where the Emperor of Russia happened to be at the time The Empress had come there on a visit to her father, and the Eal fidelity immaculate) had rushed from Moscoithout any notice to see her, and was still there when news of this great event arrived There is so very characteristic in the first i the secret wishes of the party and their ignorance and apparent incapacity of co the nature of our Constitution, and the liland The Emperor immediately conceived that the whole system of the late Government would be reversed at hoium, the Dutch dominion restored, and the Quadruple Alliance dissolved Buloho has been in England long enough to know better the real state of things, endeavoured to undeceive hireat difficulty; but when he proceeded to explain to him that the new Government would very likely not be able to keep their places, and that at any rate they would be compelled to conduct the Government upon the principle of Reform which the late Government had established, the Emperor could not by any means comprehend it, nor why or how there could be any difficulty in keeping their places if the King was resolved to support them, and had appointed them at his own pleasure It would seem as if they had never read the last two or three years of our history, or, having read it, as if the habits of unbounded power in which they are born, educated, and expect to die, had rendered their understandings utterly impervious to the apparent paradox of a crowned head destitute of power to choose his own Ministers The Duke of cu the same nonsense, and was full of the destruction of the Reform Bill; but Billy Holmes, hatever else hehiave ; it is instructive, because it shohich way the real wishes of the absolute sovereigns point, and hly probable that they look upon the present settlement of Europe as one only _ad interim_, and to be remodelled whenever an opportunity shall present itself They are satisfied at present with da out the waters of Liberalism, but they hope to drain the lands in which they are collected, and to place theer of an inundation The war of opinions is in fact declared; it uish, there may be truces, but there will be no peace in our tie Head: ELECTION OF SPEAKER ABERCROMBY]

The important day is arrived, and it dawns in sunshi+ne and south wind In a few hours the question of the Speakershi+p will be decided, and there will at least be the gain (wherever the lossrid of a subject which has become intolerably tiresome For the last three weeks every newspaper has been literally filled with the controversy, every club engaged in betting on the event; in every roo else It was the first enquiry of every man you met, 'Well, what do you hear to-day? they say Sutton in by 30' The next ) would say, 'It is safe; Abercromby will have 317 votes sure'--each party unboundedly confident, and both securing a retreat by declaring that defeat will not signify Half the Opposition think it a false move to try it, and the more sober of the Government are conscious that a defeat will be very injurious

We had a Council yesterday, and a levee more than usually brilliant; all the new Ministers and all the old, the whole Corps Diplomatique, with a host of others, ood-huraciously, and talked to theham alone was absent, and Lord Spencer, as hardly to be considered as one of the in this, because there were others who Rice, and Hobhouse

February 20th, 1835 {p213}

The great battle is over and the Government defeated, 316 to 306