Since Parliament met, the foolish business of Sheil and Hill has been the sole topic of discussion, to the unspeakable disgust of every sensible person in and out of the House. All feel the embarrassment, the ridicule, the disgrace of such an occupation, and the members of Parliament are provoked that the affair was not strangled at the outset. The Speaker is now generally blamed for not having prevented Althorp from answering O’Connell’s question, which he ought to have done, at least ought to have warned the House of the consequences, when undoubtedly the matter would have been stifled. They say Althorp did what he had to do very well, like a gentleman and man of honour, and in excellent style and taste, though many think he need not have said so much. The committee began to sit yesterday; it was not a secret committee, but they agreed to request members not to come in; however, the tail would go in, and they found it would be a difficult matter to exclude them, for which reason, and because Sheil had no friend on the committee, they unanimously agreed that the House should be invited to add O’Connell to it, and after some difficulty raised by John Russell, this was consented to.
February 14th, 1834
Last night at Miss Berry’s met Mrs. Somerville, the great mathematician. I had been reading in the morning Sedgwick’s sermon on education, in which he talks of Whewell, Airy, and Mrs. Somerville, mentioning her as one of the great luminaries of the present day. The subject of astronomy is so sublime that one shrinks into a sense of nothingness in contemplating it, and can’t help regarding those who have mastered the mighty process and advanced the limits of the science as beings of another order. I could not then take my eyes off this woman, with a feeling of surprise and something like incredulity, all involuntary and very foolish; but to see a mincing, smirking person, fan in hand, gliding about the room, talking nothings and nonsense, and to know that La Place was her plaything and Newton her acquaintance, was too striking a contrast not to torment the brain. It was Newton’s mantle trimmed and flounced by Maradan.
February 17th, 1834
In the House of Commons the Sheil committee came to a sudden termination. It was a silly and discreditable business, and people were glad it ended. The course adopted was this: they took the ‘Examiner’ newspaper, containing the paragraph inculpatory of Sheil, and they called on Hill to prove his case. Hill called witnesses, one of whom, Macaulay, refused to speak. He said he would not repeat what had passed in private conversation. The committee approved, and Hill threw up his case, held out his hand ‘with strong emotion’ to Sheil, made ample apologies, and Sheil was acquitted. Then came the apologies in the House of Commons. Peel told me that he was convinced Sheil really had never said what was imputed to him; but that he said something tantamount, though very loosely, O’CONNELL’S ATTACK ON BARON SMITH. is probable, and the people who had told Althorp would not come forward to bear him out, so that he was forced to apologise too, but he did it very reluctantly. The Irishmen, however, had not done, and O’Dwyer (formerly a reporter) attacked Pease, asked for explanations, his card and address. Pease, who is a Quaker, said ‘he gave no explanations but on his legs in the House of Commons, had no card and no address.’
But there was a more serious matter than Sheil and Hill’s trash—O’Connell’s attack upon Baron Smith, the circumstances of which exemplify the way the House of Commons is managed under Althorp’s auspices, and the general mode of proceeding of the Government there. O’Connell gave notice of a motion for an address to the Crown to remove the Baron. Government resolved to oppose it. Littleton authorised Shaw to write to him and say so, and that he would say nothing in the debate offensive to him, though he could not but disapprove of his charge. Nobody thought of any support the motion would receive beyond that of the tail. The Ministers came down to the House in this mind. Stanley and Graham went away for some purpose or other, and when they came back they found that O’Connell had altered the terms of his motion, and that Althorp, Littleton, and the Solicitor-General had agreed to support it; in short, that O’Connell had laid a trap for them, and they had gone ding-dong into it. Stanley was very angry and much annoyed, but the thing being done he knocked under, and tried to bolster up the business. Graham would not, and in a maudlin, stupid sort of speech declared his opposition, which was honest enough. All this annoyed the Government very much, and now O’Connell is said to be quite satisfied with what he has done, and does not want to have a committee, but (having thrown a slur on the Judge by the vote of Parliament) to let the matter drop. Spring Rice also voted against the Government, and said that he had never known a worse case since he sat in Parliament, and that nothing could be more mischievous than the effect such a vote would produce in Ireland. Scarlett, Peel, and Spankie made very good speeches; Stanley, John Russell, and Campbell as bad.
The same night Althorp made his financial statement, exhibiting a surplus revenue and reduction of taxation, all very flourishing and promising; but in announcing his intended reduction of the House Tax, he said without any disguise that he did not think it an objectionable tax, but that he took it off on account of the clamour against it. Here are three exhibitions in one week, and this is the Minister of our finances and organ of Government in the House of Commons. No matter how he blunders in word or deed, he smiles in dogged good-humour at ridicule or abuse; his intentions are good, his mind is straightforward, and his conscious rectitude, his personal popularity, enable him to commit his blunders with impunity; but the authority of Government suffers in his hands; maxims get into vogue which are incompatible with good and strong government, and the effects of his weakness and facility may be felt long after the cessation of their immediate operation.
February 19th, 1834
Last night Whittle Harvey’s motion on the Pension List. He made admirable speeches; but had a majority of nine against him. This division is not a bad exemplification of the state of parties and of the House of Commons. Some of the Tories voted (in the majority of course), many others would not. I asked one of them (Henry Hope, a man of no consequence, certainly) if he was not going to vote. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I shall not vote, the Government must manage their own business as they can.’ He would not vote against a proposition he must regard with the greatest aversion, because he would thereby be supporting the Government and prefers the chance of giving a victory to the Radicals, establishing a dangerous principle, and doing a great injury to a host of individuals, the greater part of whom are of his own party or among his own friends, because he thinks that the result may be productive of some embarrassment to Ministers. This is one of the cases in which the conduct of Government has been such as their bitterest enemies must applaud, when they risk their popularity to support a very STATE OF THE TORY PARTY. unsightly list of pensions, not granted by themselves, or to their friends, from a sense of justice; and yet these high Tories will not support them even in fighting such a battle as this. On the other hand, the Government reject their support when they might avail themselves of it against the Radicals and ultra-Whigs, in such a case as that of Baron Smith the other night; and so ill blood is constantly increasing between them, while O’Connell and his tail and the Radical blackguards sit by and chuckle at the evils these mutual jealousies and antipathies produce. Richmond told me yesterday that Stanley was greatly annoyed at Baron Smith’s affair; but finding the mischief done, and feeling the embarrassment that would arise from his opposing Althorp, he threw himself into the breach; said he had advised him never to do so again. The conduct of Althorp, Littleton, and Campbell is inconceivable, unless it were to give a fresh triumph to O’Connell (he has just carried Dungarvan, Jacob v. Barron; ‘it is the voice of Jacob but the hand of Esau’), who has had his own way hitherto in this Parliament. In this business and in Sheil’s he has done just what he pleased, and made the Government appear in as pitiful a light as he could possibly desire. O’Dwyer told the Speaker that O’Connell had never expected or even wished that Ministers should give way to him to the extent they did.
Knatchbull has given notice of a motion to reverse the decision for a committee on the case of Baron Smith, and in conjunction with Peel. It must embarrass the Government, but it is not, I think, judicious, because it is not the same question, and affords them the opportunity of treating it on different grounds. In the division last night the three Lennox’s all voted with the minority, brothers of a Cabinet Minister, and all their sisters being on the Pension List. Molyneux was going out, and was forcibly retained by Stanley. It looks as if the whipping in was very unskilfully managed. Notwithstanding the present prosperity and tranquillity, it is impossible not to be disturbed at the mode in which business is conducted in the House of Commons, and at the state and animus of parties, and above all at Althorp being the leader there. His character is peculiarly fitted to do mischief in these times, and his virtues are unfortunate, for they serve to bolster him up, and to keep him where he is in spite of his blunders. His temper is so admirable, his personal popularity so great, that there is an impression that the House will be led by him more easily than by Stanley, who alone, of the present Government, could aspire to that post. Nobody imputes to Althorp a spark of ambition, and ample credit is given him for the most disinterested motives, and for making a great personal sacrifice in retaining his present situation. The consciousness of this makes him comparatively indifferent to victory or defeat, and careless of that nice management which formerly was indispensable in a leader. He seems totally blind to the consequences of his errors, and the advantage that is taken of them by those who not only meditate mischief to the Administration, but to the great interests they are bound to protect. Occurrences and circumstances that would have filled former leaders with vexation, and their followers with dismay, seem to pass over him without ruffling his serenity or alarming his mind. He acts as if in utter unconsciousness of a restless spirit of popular aggrandisement, as if the House of Commons was an innoxious and manageable machine, as if it was sufficient to mean well, and he lets matters take their chance, without any of that vigilant and systematic direction which, if guided by a nice discrimination, might regulate the movements and check the eccentricities of this vast and unruly body. Since the opening of this session, all that he has said and done has proved his utter unfitness for the place he occupies. First, his imprudent answers to O’Connell, and the turn he gave to that affair. Then, in bringing forward his financial statement, the naïveté with which he admitted that he had submitted to the clamour against the House Tax, and withdrawn it contrary to his own judgment; then the facility with which he gave in to O’Connell’s motion about the Irish Judge, and threw over his colleagues and his party without an apparent reason or motive. It produces a LORD ALTHORP’S DEFECTS AS LEADER. feeling allied to despair, all security is at an end, for that which would be produced by his good intentions is destroyed by reflecting on his miserable judgment; half republican in his principles, and incredulous of any danger to be apprehended from the continual increase of popular influences in the House of Commons, he does not perceive how much the authority of a leader is diminished in his hands, and how difficult it will be for any successor of his to gain that sort of ascendency which is indispensable for the effective conduct of public business, and the moral character of the Government. To effect this, besides great talents, great tact, discretion, sagacity, and temper will be required; more, I fear, than fall to the share of Stanley, who is better qualified to be a debater than a leader. Moderate men, who do not approve of this Government, but who do not desire to turn them out, if they would only act upon tolerably conservative principles, are thrown into despair by the behaviour of Althorp, and regard with consternation the inevitable increase of anarchy in the House of Commons, and consequent prevalence of Radical principles, from the sluggish, inert, vacillating, unforeseeing character he displays.[10]