I have long considered the breaking up of the Tory party as a grand desideratum, and though I earnestly desire to see a powerful Conservative party in the country and in Parliament, it must be one reconstructed out of materials more various and more Liberal than that which now calls itself Conservative, but which in its heart clings to the narrow notions and loves the exclusive system of bygone days. The dissolution of the Tory party in the House of Lords, by a division of them into a high and a low section, would in itself be a reform of that House, and it is to such a dissolution and fresh modification of parties that we must look for a reform, which without any violent change will redress the balance and enable the machine of government to move without obstruction. I sat next to Senior in the House of Lords, and he was talking of the necessity of a reform of the House of Peers, and he said, ‘I can see the steps of it very plainly.’ ‘What, by making Peers for life, as you suggest in your pamphlet?’ ‘No, it is too late for that now, but by the election of representatives. When Scotland was united she sent representative Peers elected from the body; Ireland the same. Now fifty years of Tory rule have given such a preponderance to the Tory interest in the House of Lords, that the balance cannot be redressed but by a creation which would make the House of Peers too numerous for a legislative assembly. I would therefore begin by creating, in order to equalise the strength of the opposite parties, and then the Peers should elect representatives.’ I said, ‘All this will be unnecessary, for the Tory party will be broken up, and without a change so startling and extensive the balance will be quietly redressed, and in the natural order of things.’ The Duc de Nemours was under the gallery in the House of Commons, but he soon went away, and in the middle of Peel’s speech.

September 3rd, 1835

Nothing could be better than the temper and disposition of the House on Tuesday night, as well as on Monday, nothing more flattering to Peel. John Russell said ‘he was anxious that the clause (I forget which) should RECONCILIATION. go forth with the sanction of the right honourable baronet’s approbation.’ Peel said he spoke only for himself; Lord John said that made no difference, indicating in fact that his opinion was worth more than those of all his followers put together. The Lords in the meantime are tremendously sulky, and though it is impossible to believe they will have the frantic folly to refuse the accommodation that by God’s mercy is offered to them, it is not quite safe, and they are now in grand conclave at Apsley House to determine upon their course. Lord Lansdowne told me at Court yesterday that the day before he went up to Lyndhurst in the House of Lords, to speak to him about some Bill, when Lyndhurst said, ‘I was in hopes you were coming to speak to me about the amendments.’ ‘No; it will be time enough to talk about them when they are again before the House.’ ‘Well, and what do they say now?’ ‘They say that the lives of your aldermen are not at a premium.’ ‘Do they? But they will rise in the market to-morrow, I can tell you.’ What satisfies me most in all this is the conduct of the Government, and even that of many of the Radicals—of Hume, for instance—and the general temper and disposition evinced by the House, symptomatic of a more healthy feeling than I ever expected to see displayed. In the division the Radical numbers were contemptible, showing that the Conservative interest, if not broken up by party divisions, and if ever it was roused and connected by the acknowledgment of a common danger, would crush the Radical force in an instant. These are valuable manifestations, and worth a hundred clauses in the Corporation Bill; for what matters it whether aldermen and town clerks are perpetuated or suppressed? and it really is grotesque to fight for these puerilities as if it was a contest pro aris et focis, and to hesitate one instant whether a collision should be provoked between the two Houses of Parliament, and the advantages both direct and collateral flowing from Peel’s mediation be thrown away, for the sake of maintaining these secondary and questionable objects.

September 6th, 1835

On Thursday there was a great meeting at Apsley House; eighty Peers present, and four hours’ deliberation. They kept their resolutions a profound secret, but as I knew what they were on Friday morning, I went to Melbourne and told him, in order that the Government might be prepared, and turn over in their minds how matters might be accommodated. The Tories adhered to the justices and wards, and abandoned the rest. I found Melbourne and Lord John together; the latter said there would be no difficulty about the justices, but the amendment about the wards was impossible.

The debate at night was carried on with extraordinary temper and calmness; Brougham complimented Lyndhurst in very glowing terms. The matter now stands over till Monday, when the Commons must determine whether to accept the Bill with these alterations or reject it on account of them. There is great division of opinion as to the result, but I cannot bring myself to believe that they will let the Bill drop for such trifles. I asked Wharncliffe last night to explain to me in what manner these things would operate politically, and he owned that he thought their political importance was greatly overrated, but that the division proposed by Government gave greater influence to numbers, while that substituted by the Peers gave more to property, and that the constitution of the town councils, whether they were more or less Radical or Conservative, would have a political effect in this way; that in every borough little democracies would be established, which would be continually exercising a democratic influence and extending democratic principles, and that the greater the infusion of Conservative interest you could make in these new bodies the more that tendency would be counteracted. In my opinion a fallacy lurks under this argument; they assume the certain democratic, even revolutionary, character of the new town councils without any sufficient reason, but if this be so, and if they are correct in their anticipations, I doubt whether the guards and drawbacks with which they are endeavouring to counteract the pernicious influence they dread will be found efficacious. I do not despair of the EFFECTS OF MUNICIPAL REFORM. prevalence of sound Conservative principles upon a Liberal basis, and it appears to me that the Peers have committed a great blunder in expressing such violent suspicion and distrust of the new corporations; that nothing is so likely to make them Radical as to insist that they must and will be so, or to render them inimical to the aristocracy and to aristocratic institutions as to exhibit a violent hostility on the part of the aristocracy towards them. I apply this observation generally to their way of dealing with the question rather than to the particular words of the disputed clause, which is probably on the whole fairer and better as the Peers amended it than as the Commons framed it, so much so that I do not understand the tenacity with which the Government cling to it. One thing is very clear, that neither for this nor for the justices clause is it worth while (to either party) that the prevailing harmony should be broken and the Bill be lost. If both parties were sincerely desirous of an accommodation, and there was any common interest, any common ground on which they could meet, there would be no difficulty in an adjustment; but this is not the case. Not only are the interests and wishes of the two parties at variance, but the desires of the moderate and the violent in each party are so too. The moderate in both probably do wish for an accommodation. The Bill is the Bill of the Whigs, and with all the amendments it does in point of fact accomplish their object, though not, as Lyndhurst said, so completely as without them. They wish the Bill to pass, therefore, but the Tories detest the Bill even as it is, and it is no concern of theirs quoad Bill that it should pass; on the contrary, they would rejoice at its failure, but its failure would place the two Houses in a state of collision, and though each party would throw the blame on the other (on very plausible grounds either way), it is more the interest of the Lords than of the Commons to avert this, because the danger of collision attaches exclusively to the Lords. The violent of the Commons would rather like it; the violent of the Lords would doggedly encounter it. There are many who desire that the dispute should not be settled, in order to push matters to extremities and involve the Houses in a contest, in order to extirpate the House of Lords. What renders it more desirable on account of the Lords that the Bill should not be lost, and a cry got up against them, is the circumstance of their having thrown out so many other Bills, and some on very unjustifiable grounds—the Dublin Police Bill, for example. Not a word was said against its merits; on the contrary, it was not denied that the case was urgent, and it was only thrown out because the Lord Mayor and Corporation of Dublin had not been consulted. Now it might have been very proper to consult these functionaries; it may even be a culpable omission to have neglected them; but this is not a time, nor is the House of Lords in circumstances, to be so fastidious and to stickle for such formalities. Their character with the nation is at stake, and it is of far greater consequence that they should do nothing calculated to throw suspicion on their motives, or odium on their proceedings, than to provide for a punctilious observance of respect and deference to the Dublin Corporation. They seem to me to have made a great mistake in throwing out this Bill, and I am much deceived if they do not hear more of it hereafter.

September 8th, 1835

Lord John called another meeting at the Foreign Office yesterday morning, when he proposed, and they agreed to take the Lords’ amendments and finish the business; so this famous Corporation Bill has got through at last. O’Connell and Warburton concurred in accepting it. The only man who violently opposed its being accepted was Tom Duncombe, who made a furious harangue, and boldly asserted that he knew to a positive certainty that if the Commons would hold out the Peers would abandon the justices and wards, and he offered privately to give John Russell a list of Peers sufficient to carry this, and who, he would answer for it, were ready to make the concession. Lord John, however, was too wise to listen to such impudent nonsense, and, though very reluctantly, it was settled that the Commons should give way. Both parties probably overrate the value of the disputed clauses, and it is to be regretted that the two Houses will not part amicably. Government THE KING’S HARANGUE ON THE MILITIA. takes the Bill under a sort of engagement to consider it as an instalment, and that they shall try and get the difference next year. This is mere humbug, and a poor sop thrown to the Radicals, but as it answers the immediate purpose it is very well.

September 9th, 1835

To-day at Court, when his Majesty made one of his most extraordinary harangues, and much more lengthy than usual. It was evidently got up with great care and previous determination. The last article on the Council list was one for the reduction of the militia, and it was upon this that he descanted with great vehemence. He gave a historical account of the militia from the year 1756, when he said it was increased against the inclination of George II., who was not so well acquainted with the country as his successors have been, ‘when there was a Whig Administration, as there is now.’ He declared his conviction that the safety of the country demanded a numerous and effective militia, that nothing should have induced him to consent to the present reduction but the necessity of making some changes which had become indispensable owing to the culpable conduct of colonels of the militia who had neglected their duty, but whose names he would not expose; that agitators in Ireland and political economists here wished to reduce this force, in order, under the pretext of economy, to leave the country defenceless; but he never would consent to this, and only agreed to the present measure upon a clear understanding that early in the next session the matter was to be brought forward in Parliament with a view to render the militia more efficient; that nothing but the militia justified the smallness of our military establishments as compared with those of other nations; and he finished by saying that the state of our relations with Russia made the maintenance of this force of paramount importance, as it was impossible to say what dangers we might not be menaced with from that quarter, or how soon we might be called upon to face them, and that the advisers of the Crown would incur a deep responsibility if any mischief arose from the undue reduction of this force. He ended a very long speech (of which I can only put down an outline) with this strange denunciation against Russia, and then said, ‘One word more. I have spoken thus in the presence of many Lords who are connected with the militia, either immediately or through their friends, because I wish that my sentiments should be thoroughly and extensively promulgated.’ This is a very brief outline of his oration, which was delivered with great energy.