[17] Brougham had some reason to be angry. Lyndhurst did not reply to him on Wednesday, when he might have done so, pleading the fatigue of late hours and his own indisposition, and on Thursday he attacked him when he was absent; he therefore gave him good ground of complaint. Brougham’s insolence and violence have done great injury to the House of Lords by lowering the style and character of their debates and introducing coarseness and acrimony such as never were known there before. Hardly a night passes without some discreditable scene of squabbling and vituperation bandied between him and the High Tory Lords, one or other of them; their hatred of him and his scorn of them are everlastingly breaking out. He and Lyndhurst, though constantly pitted against each other, are great friends all the time, but with the others it is a rabid passion of hatred and contempt, mutually felt and continually expressed.
Last night the qualification clause was carried against Government by an equally large majority, or nearly so, and this time Government does not seem disposed to take it so patiently. It was well understood that a qualification would be imposed, and many of the supporters of the Bill said they did not object thereto, but they had no notion of such a qualification as Lyndhurst proposed and carried last night, and the Duke of Richmond (whom I met at Crockford’s) told me that it would be fatal to the Bill. He saw Lord John Russell after the division, who told him so, and that the Commons would never take the Bill with such an alteration as this. Richmond himself goes entirely with Government in this measure, and I was rather surprised to hear him say that ‘it had been urged that Lord Stanley was opposed to this part of the Bill, but that if this were so a man must judge for himself in so important a matter,’ which looks a little as if he meant to back out of the dilly, and I should not be very much surprised if he came into office again with these people, if they stay in. I asked him what in his opinion would happen, and he replied that he thought the House of Lords was nearly done for, that he expected the Commons would reject their amendments and pass some very strong resolutions; he should not be surprised if they refused to pass the Appropriation Bill. I said they would hardly do that, because it would be a measure against Government, and would compel these Ministers to resign. This he admitted, but he went on to say that he expected it would throw the House of Commons into a ferment, that they would adopt some violent course, and then there would be a ‘row royal.’ What astonishes me most in all this is that Lyndhurst, a man of great abilities, and certainly, if wishing for anything, wishing for the success of the party he belongs to, should urge these desperate courses. He it was who proposed the fatal postponement of Schedule A, which led to such utter ruin and confusion, and now it is he who manages this Bill, and who ventures to mutilate the Ministerial measure in such a manner as will in all probability bring down all the wrath of the Commons on him and his Conservative majority. I am not at all sure but that the Government is content to exhibit its paltry numbers in the House of Lords, in order that the world may see how essentially it is a Tory body, that it hardly fulfils the conditions of a great independent legislative assembly, but presents the appearance of a dominant party-faction which is too numerous to be affected by any constitutional process and too obstinate to be turned from its fixed purpose of opposing all the measures which have a tendency to diminish the influence of the Conservative party in the country. It is impossible to look at the disposition exhibited by this great majority and not admit that there is very small chance of its acting harmoniously with the present House of Commons, and that some change must take place in order to enable Government and legislation to go on at all. It is anything but clear that the nation desires the destruction of the House of Lords, nor is it clear that the nation cares for its preservation. It is, I think, exceedingly probable that a majority of those who return members to Parliament, and in whom collectively the supreme power really resides, though they might be content ENERGY OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS. to retain the House of Lords, if it could be made to act in harmony with, and therefore necessarily in subordination to, the House of Commons, would not hesitate for an instant to decree its downfall if it became clear that there was no other way of crushing the Tory faction which now rules triumphant in that House. At all events the Lords are playing a desperate game; if it succeeds, they who direct the energies of the party are great and wise men; but what if it fail? They seem to have no answer to this but that if they
Screw their courage to the sticking place,
It will not fail.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Resistance of the Lords — Duke of Richmond — Happiness — Struggle between Lords and Commons — Peel keeps aloof — Inconsistency of the Whigs on the Irish Church Bill — Violent Language in the Lords — Lord John Russell and Peel pass the Corporation Bill — Dissolution of the Tory Party foreseen — Meeting of Peers to consider the Amendments — King’s Speech in Council on the Militia — Lord Howick’s Bitterness against the Lords — Lord Lyndhurst’s Opinion of the Corporation Bill — The King’s Language on the Regency — Talleyrand’s View of the English Alliance — Comparison of Burke and Macintosh — The St. Leger — Visit of Princess Victoria to Burghley — O’Connell’s Progress through Scotland — Mackintosh’s Life.
August 19th, 1835
Yesterday the Lords finished the Committee on the Corporation Bill. Their last amendment (which I do not very well understand at present), by which certain aldermen elected for life are to be taken in the first instance from the present aldermen, has disgusted the authors of the Bill more than all the rest. In the morning I met Duncannon and Howick, both open-mouthed against the amendments, and this in particular, and declaring that though the others might have been stomached, this could not go down, as it was in direct opposition to the principle of the Bill. Howick talked of ‘the Lords being swept away like chaff’ and of ‘the serious times that were approaching.’ Duncannon said there would be a conference, and if the Lords insisted on these amendments the Bill would be lost. I asked if a compromise was not feasible, the Lords abandoning this and the Commons taking the other amendments, which he said would not be undesirable, but difficult to effect. The continual discussions about this Bill have made me perforce understand something of it towards the end of them. I am too ignorant of the details and of the tendency of the MUNICIPAL CORPORATION BILL. Bill to have an opinion of the comparative merits of its present and its original shape, but I am sure the Lords are bound in prudence not to mutilate it more than is absolutely necessary to make it a safe measure, and to have a good, and moreover a popular, case to go to the country with, if eventually such an appeal is to be made. On the other hand the House of Commons, powerful as it is, must not assert its power too peremptorily, and before the Ministers determine to resign, for the purpose of making their resignation instrumental to the consolidation of their power and the destruction of the House of Lords; they also must have a good case, and be able to show that the amendments made by the Lords are incompatible with the object proposed, that they were made in a factious spirit and for the express purpose of thwarting the principle contended for, and that their conduct in this matter forms part of a general system, which can only be counteracted by some fundamental change in the constitution of the Upper House itself. These are violent conclusions to come to, and when one reflects calmly upon the possible and probable consequences of a collision, and the manner in which the interests of the antagonistic parties collectively and individually are blended together, it is difficult to believe that both will not pause on the brink of the precipice and be influenced by a simultaneous desire to come to a decent and practicable compromise. This would probably be easy if both parties were actuated by a sincere desire to enact a law to reform corporations in the safest, best, and most satisfactory manner; but the reformation of the corporations is not the first object in the minds of either. One wants to save as much as possible of the Tory influence, which is menaced by the Bill, and the other wants to court the democratic spirit, which vivifies its party, and erect a new and auxiliary influence on the ruins of the ancient establishments. Any mere looker-on must perceive through all their wranglings that these are the arrière-pensées of the two antagonistic parties.
Brougham made a very clever speech (I am told) on Monday night, and the contest between him and Lyndhurst through the whole Committee has been remarkable for talent and for a striking display of the different qualities of the two men. The Duke of Richmond had a squabble with Lyndhurst last night, ‘impar congressus,’ and he has wriggled himself almost back among the Whigs; nothing but the appropriation clause in the Church Bill prevents his being First Lord of the Admiralty, and he may be considered as having dropped off the dilly with so many others. The Whigs are dying to have him back among them. I must confess I do not see why, but it is impossible to deny that he contrives to make himself desired by those with whom he has acted, and as they must know best what they are about and what he is capable of, it is reasonable to suppose that he has some talents or some qualities which are developed in the graver affairs of life, but which do not appear in its ordinary relations and habitudes. I thought what he said to me the other night looked like a severance of his Stanley connexion, and his strenuous support of this Bill and his pettish attacks upon Lyndhurst show that he at least is not likely to ally himself with the Conservatives.