If the Government should be beaten on the pending question, they will dissolve, at least if the state of their financial affairs will allow them; but at all events they will not resign without an appeal to the country, and this appeal they will make not on this or that question, but on the great one of all, whether the country desires that Palmerston should continue to be its minister, and on this it is impossible to doubt what will be the reply. His popularity is a fact beyond all doubt or cavil, and it is the more decisive, because not only is there no rival popularity, but every one of the other public men who have been, are, or might be his rivals are absolutely unpopular. Nobody cares any longer for John Russell; everybody detests Gladstone; Disraeli has no influence in the country, and a very doubtful position with his own party. He and Derby have made up their minds to coalesce with Gladstone on the first good opportunity, but it seems not unlikely that they will make such a split among their own followers by so doing as to lose more than they will gain by the junction. Palmerston's popularity does not extend to his colleagues, for not one of whom does anybody care a straw. It is purely personal, and I do not think he would strengthen himself by any other alliance he could form. This fact of his popularity just at the end of his strange and chequered career is most remarkable and not a little unaccountable; but innumerable circumstances prove this to be the undoubted truth, and that it is manifested more decidedly out of the House than in it, for in the House of Commons it does not amount to a certainty of his having always a majority. It is curious that a session which not long ago looked like being a very quiet one, in which there would be ample leisure for consideration of legal and other practical reforms, should in the first weeks be a scene of tremendous conflict, in which the very existence of the Government is trembling in the balance.
March 2nd.—Derby has announced to his assembled party that he is ready to join with Gladstone, though he has not done so yet, and that as they are a minority in the House of Commons, they ought to form any junction that would make them strong enough to oust the present Government and form a Conservative one. He finds it, however, a difficult matter to reconcile them all to any alliance with the detested Gladstone. Great exertions have been made to secure a majority to the Government, and John Russell's friends (the Duke of Bedford especially) are bestirring themselves to take away some of the odium that attaches to Lord John by securing his two or three followers for the division.
March 3rd.—Nothing can equal the excitement and curiosity here about the division. All sorts of efforts have been made all ways to influence votes. George Byng and others who meant to vote with John Russell have been obliged to promise to vote with the Government. Palmerston has had a meeting and harangued them cheerily, but in spite of everything Hayter does not think he will have a majority, but everybody expects it to be so near that there are as many opinions as men. Much is expected to depend on Palmerston's speech, and unluckily for him he is ill with both gout and cold. If they are beaten they will dissolve as speedily as possible.
DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT.
March 4th.—A majority of 16 against Government, more than any of them expected. A magnificent speech of Gladstone; Palmerston's speech is said to have been very dull in the first part, and very bow-wow in the second; not very judicious, on the whole bad, and it certainly failed to decide any doubtful votes in his favour. I rejoice that the House of Commons has condemned this iniquitous case for the honour of the country. I do not believe it will make any difference as to the Government. When Palmerston appeals to the country it will not be on the merits of the Canton case, but on his own political existence, whether they will have him for minister or no. It is not, however, yet by any means clear what the real opinion of the country is upon the question itself, and whether they will be for the right or for the expedient, or that which the Government thinks to be the expedient.
DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT.
Hatchford, March 10th.—The intention of Government to dissolve Parliament was announced on Friday last, and as far as one can judge at present, Palmerston seems likely to have it all his own way. The press generally espouses his cause, and the 'Times' particularly takes up the cudgels for him vehemently, and cries out 'Coalition,' and abuses the majority and all who voted in it. At present, public opinion seems to be running in his favour, and there is every appearance of his having a triumphant election. But the cry of 'coalition and faction' is perfectly absurd, and nothing more than the mere jargon which all parties employ as their battle cry. There has been no coalition whatever, and that those who clamour against it very well know. The only coalition of which there has been any question has been one between Gladstone (with or without the other Peelites) and Disraeli and Derby, but that has hitherto been in posse rather than in esse, and it would have been much more plausible to raise the cry on the Budget than on the Canton question. Nobody can read the list of the division without seeing that the majority comprised the names of people who have never dreamt of any coalition with anybody, and who voted entirely with reference to the merits of the particular case, and though some (including Disraeli and Gladstone) wished to damage the Government, many others were either friendly to them generally, or at least neutral. To say that the majority was made up of a factious coalition of men who sought to turn the Government out and to take their places, is a wilful and deliberate lie, but it suits the Government to raise the cry, and they find plenty of people to re-echo and to believe it. As to the question itself, I am sure that some of the Cabinet, and probably more than I know of, were in their hearts and consciences as much against the question as any of their opponents. Palmerston's popularity, and the manner in which, he is encouraged and supported by the country, and the sympathy he finds are really most extraordinary. It provokes me, because I think his great success unmerited, but I have no wish to see him defeated at the election, because I see no prospect of any better Government being formed. The pretension of the Government and of their noisy supporters to find fault with the House of Commons for expressing its independent opinion upon the conduct of the officials in China is most preposterous and arrogant. Everybody admits that the Government was not morally responsible for what was done, but because they chose, without any necessity, to approve those acts and to accept the political responsibility of them, it is pretended that the House of Commons ought not to have taken the liberty to express any adverse opinion on the matter, and that it was factious to do so. The scrape, if it was one, the Government got themselves into by their precipitate approval of Bowring, and there was nothing in the resolution and the vote which ought to have been considered as implying any general want of confidence on the part of the House of Commons, more particularly when the Government had just before carried their Budget by large majorities, and had not met with any difficulty or rebuff on any point. If, indeed, matters are come to such a pass, and such divinity hedges in the Palmerston Government that the House of Commons is to be precluded from censuring any transaction, wherever and by whomsoever done, which the Government thinks fit to sanction and approve of, and if the fact of many men of very different opinions and opposite parties concurring in such a vote is to expose the majority by which the vote is carried to a charge of faction, coalition, and all sorts of base motives, then indeed, instead of asking the Duke of Wellington's celebrated question, 'How is the King's Government to be carried on?' it will be time to ask whether the Queen's Government is to be considered despotic and infallible, and the functions of the House of Commons reduced to the very humble ones of registering their acts and re-echoing their approbation.
It seems to be entirely forgotten that in times when the Royal and ministerial authority were much stronger than they are supposed to be now, and before the Reform Bill had effected a sort of revolution in favour of the democratic principle, all governments, however powerful or popular, sustained occasional defeats and were obliged to submit to them, it being of course perfectly understood that defeats which conveyed want of confidence and the withdrawal of the general support of the House of Commons were to be deemed fatal and conclusive. Every case of this kind must be determined according to the especial circumstances of it, but it is a mere pretence to treat the Canton question as one of this description, and the truth is that it is a dodge on their part, and a pretext for going to the country and obtaining a majority, as they think they have an opportunity of doing, on false pretences and by means of a vast deal of humbug. The worst is, that after the immediate purpose has been answered, there is certain to be some dangerous reaction, and as the cry of 'Palmerston' will be the only one got up for the occasion, and everybody will be acceptable who will declare for him, whatever crotchets or cries he may join to his partisanship, we shall probably have a House of Commons full of all sorts of mischievous people stirring every variety of mischievous question.
March 14th.—I returned yesterday from Hatchford and find the current still running strong, but some think a reaction in favour of John Russell has already begun. He stands for the City and is in very good spirits, though his chances of success do not look bright; but he is a gallant little fellow, likes to face danger, and comes out well in times of difficulty.