FOREIGN POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT.—OUTRAGE ON MR. MATHER AT FLORENCE.
The impatience of the house for a dissolution did not prevent it from discussing the foreign policy of the government. It was considered that Lord Malmesbury had shown a sympathy for despotic states, and had by his diplomacy played into-the hands of Austria, and the petty tyrannical Italian governments. Lord John Russell brought his lordship’s conduct, as well as the policy of the government, before the house on the 14th of June.
In the last chapter, our readers were informed that a young English gentleman of moral excellence and high culture, the son of a patriotic and influential gentleman of the county of Durham, named Mather, was wantonly cut down in the streets of Florence by an Austrian officer. Lord John Bussell exposed the conduct of Lord Malmesbury in this affair, and was ably supported by Lord Palmerston. The government suffered much in reputation, both in the house and throughout the country, from this debate. Their defence was extremely feeble, while the attacks of the opposition glowed with indignant eloquence. Probably at no period of party strife did the two great parties in the house appear more strongly contrasted than during that debate. Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston spoke with exceeding force, and uttered sentiments worthy of British patriotism and British statesmanship. Mr. Disraeli, on the other hand, spoke with an apathy, where insults to England and to a defenceless Englishman were concerned, which was discreditable to a statesman of any free country, or indeed to any speaker that had a sympathy with manhood and national dignity. In the elections which ensued, the tone adopted on that occasion by the chancellor of the exchequer, and the conduct of Lord Malmesbury, told effectively against the government in various constituencies in the north of England. A feeling was created that the rights of Englishmen in foreign countries were neglected by their own government, and that so far as English ambassadors and ministers were concerned, Englishmen abroad were at the merey of any foreign tyrant who thought proper to wrong them. This feeling had extended for some years upon the continent, and the debate in the commons promoted by Lords John Russell and Palmerston, brought out such glaring criminality on the part of the English foreign office in connection with Mr. Mather, that the sentiment became strengthened on the continent that unless an English traveller had powerful connections in his own country, he might be made the object of foreign outrage with impunity. Mr. Bernai Osborne only expressed the truth in the strong language with which he concluded his speech, “Lord Malmesbury had trifled with the honour of the country, and disgraced it in the eyes of the whole continent of Europe.” In the House of Lords, warm debates arose upon the same question, in which Lord Malmesbury made a defence still more disingenuous and unpatriotic than it was feeble.