Last night the Evangelical and Sabbatarian interest had a great victory in the House of Commons, routing those who endeavoured to effect the opening of the National Gallery and British Museum on Sunday. The only man of importance who sustained this unequal and imprudent contest was Lord Stanley. At this moment cant and Puritanism are in the ascendant, and so far from effecting any anti-sabbatarian reform, it will be very well if we escape some of the more stringent measures against Sunday occupations and amusements with which Exeter Hall and the prevailing spirit threaten us.
LORD CLARENDON IN PARIS.
February 24th.—A letter from Lady Clarendon, who says 'the report about things going ill is false, and as yet things have hardly begun. The Emperor in feelings and opinions is everything that Clarendon could desire.' Madame de Lieven received Clarendon � bras ouverts, but said very little to him. This morning I called on George Lewis, and had a long talk about the prospects of peace. He said Palmerston, according to his ancient custom, was doing all he could to extort as much as possible from Russia, writing to Clarendon in this strain constantly and urging him to insist on more and more concessions; but Lewis thinks notwithstanding this that Palmerston has quite made up his mind for peace, and that he makes demands very often with the expectation of being refused, and the intention of not insisting on them if he finds a very determined resistance. One point of difference is Kars; the Russians not unfairly wish to have some equivalent for surrendering it, and Palmerston insists that they are not entitled to any. In the preliminaries it was settled that we were to restore all our conquests, and they were in return to give up part of Bessarabia. At that time Kars was not taken, and now they say the relative positions of the parties are altered, and 'if we are to restore Kars, that ought to be set against the restoration of Kinburn, the part of the Crimea you occupy, &c., and having got an equivalent in Kars, you ought to relax your demand for Bessarabia.' To this Palmerston replies that the Russians are to guarantee the integrity of the Turkish dominions, of which Kars is a part, and therefore their restoration of it is a matter of course for which no equivalent is necessary. This argument is not logical, and no arbitrator would admit it. It is a good point to wrangle upon, and if the Russians knock under it will be because they are resolved to submit to any terms rather than not have peace.
It is much the same thing about Nicolaieff, as to which the Emperor appears at present disposed to back us up. Lewis disapproves of our exigeances and Palmerston's tone. He thinks on both points the Russians have good cases, and that Palmerston and Clarendon are only fighting for them in order to have a more plausible and showy peace to set before the country. He says we never thought of demanding the destruction of the docks of Nicolaieff at first, and that our demanding it now is a mere afterthought, and in pursuance of the plan of starting as many demands as we can to take the chance of what we can get. Lewis disapproves of this course, and urged me to encourage Clarendon not to lend himself to exigencies unjust in themselves, but to do what he really thinks right and necessary without fear of the consequences.
DEBATE ON LIFE PEERAGES.
When we had done talking of this matter he said he wanted to speak to me about the Peerage question, which had assumed a shape which he thought menaced great embarrassment, if not danger. The Government, he said, would not give way, and he was himself opposed to their doing so; but what was to be done? I said I did not see what the Government could do, nor why they should not give way when they had resolved to fight and had been fairly beaten; but he thought they should stultify themselves by acknowledging they had been wrong, and that such a course would oblige the Chancellor to resign. I controverted these propositions and said they would stultify themselves much more, if from motives of vanity and pride they chose to let the House of Lords remain without that assistance to obtain which was the pretext for Parke's creation. On the whole, Lewis seemed to think the least objectionable course would be to pass a bill enabling the Crown to make a certain number of Life Peers, but he overlooked the fact that this would be as much a confession of error, and an acknowledgement that the Queen had no such prerogative, as to make Lord Wensleydale an hereditary Peer. My advice was to make him an hereditary Viscount. I was obliged to go away and had not time to talk it out. In the afternoon, I spoke to Campbell and Lyndhurst about it, and asked what they proposed, and how the difficulty was to be got over. They naturally want the Government to knock under and give up the hereditary peerage; they both scouted the idea of Parke coming down to the House of Lords and insisting on being admitted and making a scene. Lyndhurst to-night is to give notice of motion for a Committee to consider the Appellate Jurisdiction.
February 27th.—The debate in the Lords on Monday night affords a prospect of an amicable termination of the Peerage case, but the Government still have a lingering hope that by some management and contrivance they may avoid the necessity of submitting to their defeat and acting accordingly. There is to be a Committee on the Appellate Jurisdiction, and they think they may obtain some report which may enable them to get out of their scrape, but the only way I can make out by which they think of doing this is to lay the foundation of a bill to enable the Crown to make a limited number of Life Peers. This would, however, be a more formal acknowledgement of error, and that the Queen does not possess the prerogative, than any other course. I expect they will at last be driven to adopt the course I recommended, that of making Parke a Viscount, hereditary of course.
Last night, Disraeli made a bitter attack on the Government, to which Labouchere replied with a spirit for which nobody gave him credit. The Opposition displayed great warmth, and a disposition to show serious fight on any occasion they could find. Certainly the Government cuts a very poor figure, and it is difficult not to think that as soon as the all absorbing question of peace or war is decided, they will be much put to it to defend themselves, unless they conduct affairs much better for the future than they have done up to the present time. Hitherto they have presented a series of blunders, failures, and exposures. First of all the Peerage question; then, much worse, in the House of Commons, Lowe's Bill on Shipping Dues, which Palmerston was obliged to withdraw last night, not at all creditably, and the failure of which was in a great measure attributable to Lowe's very injudicious speech, which, as he is the organ of the Board of Trade in the House of Commons, was in itself a great evil and misfortune. George Grey's Bill on County Police meets with such opposition that though it is a very good measure he will probably not be able to carry it. But still worse than these are the case of the Crimean Report with all its incidents, one blunder after another, and the wretched exhibition of Monsell in moving the Ordnance Estimates, amounting to a complete break-down. All these things, one after another, place the Government in a very weak and contemptible position, and show that in spite of Palmerston's having recovered a good deal of his personal popularity in the House of Commons, his Government has no strength, and his being able to go on at all is only owing to the peculiar circumstances in which the country is placed, and the extreme difficulty of any other Government being formed which would be palateable to the country, more efficient, and therefore stronger and more durable than the present.
To-morrow I purpose going to Paris to see and hear what is going on at this interesting moment.