The Lords in the meantime have gone quietly into Committee, and the second reading passed off with tolerable harmony. Melbourne made a good speech, and produced a surplus, but which the Duke of Wellington will take very good care to reduce again to nil. This is very easily done on one side, and the contrary on the other; redistribution can accomplish either desideratum—surplus or no surplus. However, the Government seems to be in a pretty state between their moderate and their violent adherents, and though they may scramble through this session, and hustle Parliament to an end, it is difficult to see how they will ever pass the ordeal of another, for they can neither continue in their present course nor adopt any other with safety.
I met old Denison (the member for Surrey)—a strong supporter of the Government and an old Whig—coming from the meeting on Friday, and suggested to him what a scrape his friends were in. He owned that it was so, but said that parties were so balanced that Peel could not go on if he came in. I said Peel could not go on if the King turned out the Government as he had done before, or if Peel was instrumental in compelling them to resign; but that if they resigned of their own accord, and because they were themselves conscious that they could not go on, I thought Peel would be supported by a majority even of this House of Commons; for, after all, the country must have a Government, and if Peel took it because it was vacant, and nobody else could be found to occupy it, he could not be refused the trial, which he had in vain asked for before. He owned this was true, and such an admission from such a man was a great deal. The King is evidently waiting with the greatest impatience for the moment when his Ministers must resign. He complained bitterly of my brother-in-law’s[4] going abroad, and said it was a time when every Conservative ought to be at his post, which means that every opponent of his Ministers should strive with ceaseless zeal to drive them to the wall. He is a true king of the Tories, for his impatience fully equals theirs.
[4] [Lord Francis Egerton.]
August 7th, 1836
After the meeting at the Foreign Office there seems to have been an end of all notion of any compromise, or any giving way on the part of the Government about the clauses in the Tithe Bill, and Lord John Russell held very strong language. The debate presented nothing remarkable. Sheil came over from Ireland on purpose to speak, not being able to vote, as he had paired. Great exertions were made on both sides, and the Tories dragged up Sir Watkin Williams Wynn from Wales, very infirm; and had a blind man in the House, led about by Ross. The DISSENSION BETWEEN LORDS AND COMMONS. majority of twenty-nine ought to have been twenty-six, just the same as the last division. Sir Charles Cockerell (Whig) was shut out, whilst on the other side Lord Arthur Hill’s[5] vote was lost by his mother’s death, which made him a Peer, and the Lennoxes and Poyntz stayed away. The whole thing went off tamely enough; everybody in Parliament knew what was to happen, and out of doors people don’t care. While the revenue presents an excess of two millions, and everything flourishes, political excitement is impossible. The Lords continue to throw out Bills, and many complaints are made of their evident determination to reject as many of the Commons’ measures as they can. Some of them have been opposed, particularly the Stafford Disfranchisement Bill, by the Ministers themselves. The Lords, however, no doubt evince a very imprudent disposition to exercise their power of rejection without grave and sufficient cause, and needlessly to expose themselves to the charge of wanton and intemperate opposition to the measures of the Commons. It is the height of folly to make the line between the two Houses as broad as possible, and to publish to the world on every occasion that the one House is Whig and the other Tory; not but what (in the present rage for legislation, and the careless and hurried way in which measures are bustled through the House of Commons) the revision and watchful superintendence of the House of Lords are more than ever necessary.
[5] [Lord Arthur Hill became Baron Sandys on the death of his mother, the Marchioness of Downshire, who was Baroness Sandys in her own right.]
There was a report of General Evans’ death the other day, which was believed for some time, and long enough to show that there would have been a contest for Westminster if it had been true.
The accounts from Spain are deplorable, and it is curious enough that while Palmerston was proclaiming in the House of Commons his conviction of the ultimate success of the Christino cause he must have had letters from Villiers in his pocket telling him that it was almost hopeless. I saw one from him a few days ago, written in the greatest despondency. He said that he had been stopped on his road to St. Ildefonso by intelligence that the Carlists were approaching the place, and that the Queen had taken flight. He found all the relays of mules ready for her Majesty, and he returned to Madrid. It turned out to be a false alarm, and the Queen stayed where she was; but he said that he could only compare the progress of the Carlists to water spreading over table-land. It will be a severe blow to Palmerston if this cause is overthrown, though perhaps no fault of his policy. Had France acted fairly, the result of the Quadruple Alliance would have answered the expectation of its authors, but France, instead of co-operating according to the spirit of that treaty, has thrown every impediment in its way. It is surprising to hear how Palmerston is spoken of by those who know him well officially—the Granvilles, for example. Lady Granville, a woman expert in judging, thinks his capacity first-rate; that it approaches to greatness from his enlarged views, disdain of trivialities, resolution, decision, confidence, and above all his contempt of clamour and abuse. She told me that Madame de Flahault had a letter written by Talleyrand soon after his first arrival in England, in which he talked with great contempt of the Ministers generally, Lord Grey included, and said there was but one statesman among them, and that was Palmerston. His ordinary conversation exhibits no such superiority; but when he takes his pen in his hand his intellect seems to have full play, and probably when engaged exclusively in business.
August 13th, 1836
On Monday last I was riding early in the Park and met Lord Howick. We rode together for some time. He said that ‘he supposed they should be out after this session, and they ought to be out, as they could carry none of their measures, and the Lords rejected Bill after Bill sent up from the other House; that since the Tories chose to go on in this way, they must make the experiment and carry on the Government if they could, but they must look for every opposition from his friends and his party. It was quite impossible things could go on upon their present PARLIAMENT PROROGUED. footing; the country would not stand it, and the Lords must look to those changes which their own conduct rendered indispensable.’ I said to Howick that the appropriation clause made the great difficulty of the Whigs; that I believed they were, on the whole, a very Conservative Government, but why struggle for this absurdity, and why not bring forward a measure at once of real relief and pay the Catholic clergy? He said they could not do it; their own friends would not support them; that the Tories might have done it, but that the Whigs could not. ‘So,’ I replied, ‘both parties are in such a position that no Conservative measures can be carried but by the Whigs, and no Liberal ones but by the Tories.’