April 8th.—To The Grove on Thursday afternoon, and returned yesterday. On Good Friday morning George Lewis and I were left alone, when we talked over the questions of the day, and he quite amazed me by the way in which he spoke of his principal colleagues. I asked him if John Russell was not exceedingly mortified at the ill-success of his Reform Bill and its reception in the House of Commons and in the country. George Lewis said he did not think he felt this, that at present his mind was entirely occupied with foreign politics, and he was rejoicing in the idea of having been largely instrumental to the liberation of Italy; and as to Reform, that he was satisfied with having redeemed the pledge he gave to Bright to propose a 6l. franchise, and having done this he did not care about the result, as he had never pledged himself to carry it. The most strange thing to me is, that George Lewis seemed not to be alive to the culpable levity of such conduct, or to the censure to which his own conduct is obnoxious in consenting to act with such a man, and to be a party to such a measure.
With regard to Palmerston, he said that Palmerston thought of nothing but his pro-Sardinian and anti-Austrian schemes, and he was gratified by seeing everything in that quarter turning out according to his wishes, that in the Cabinet he took very little part and rarely spoke. Gladstone George Lewis evidently distrusts, and his financial schemes and arrangements are as distasteful to him as possible. He is provoked at Gladstone's being able to bear down all opposition, and carry all before him by the force of his eloquence and power of words, and what I have said of his conduct in supporting John Russell is still more applicable to it in reference to Gladstone and his measures, which he thinks more dangerous by far than he does Lord John's Reform Bill and 6l. clause. I asked him what was to be the end of this Bill, and he said he did not expect it to pass, that probably the debates on it would be so spun out and so many delays interposed that either it would fail in the House of Commons itself, or even if it passed, the House of Lords would say it came up too late for them to examine and consider it, and it would be thrown out there. I gathered in the course of conversation that Palmerston (whose whole antecedents and recorded opinions forbid the idea of his approving such a measure) would be glad to see the franchise raised, and that 8l. and 15l. would in his view improve the Bill.
MACHINATIONS OF NAPOLEON.
May 6th.—Since I wrote the above, nearly a month ago, I have been out of the way of hearing anything on public affairs, till a day or two ago when I called on Clarendon, when he told me some things not without interest, partly about domestic and partly about foreign affairs. The latter of course related to the inexhaustible subject of the Emperor Napoleon's projects and machinations. His Majesty, it seems, has recently had a conversation with M. de Moustier, French Minister at Vienna, in the course of which he told him that it was an absolute necessity to France to carry her frontier to the Rhine. About the same time Cavour had signified (I forget whether it was to the same de Moustier or to some other person) that Sardinia must obtain possession of Venetia. These necessities, it can hardly be doubted, are expressed and resolved upon by a common accord. Austria has been already completely crippled by the late war; if threatened in Italy she will employ all her resources in defence of her Italian territory, and she will be quite unable, even if she were willing, to join in any measures of resistance to the attempts of France upon Germany. Prussia has had the egregious folly to renew her feud with Denmark upon the affair of Schleswig-Holstein, and is about to provoke a fresh war on that question. Denmark thus threatened appeals to France for aid, which France is too happy to afford, as she will thereby in all probability find a good pretext for interference, and for the furtherance of all her designs. There seems no doubt that a Treaty of some sort has been concluded between France and Denmark. In this difficult and menacing posture of affairs, England will sooner or later have to play a part of some sort, and it is disquieting enough to reflect upon our diplomacy being under the charge of John Russell and of Palmerston.
After lingering on for several weeks with unprecedented tardiness and delay, and a languid uninteresting discussion—debate it cannot be called—the second reading of the Reform Bill has at last passed without opposition. The last nights have been remarkable for the speeches hostile to the Bill of several Liberal members, and the increasing proofs of its prodigious unpopularity. Everybody is sick of the subject, and those who desire that some modified and amended measure may pass, only do so because they have a horror of seeing another Bill brought in next year, and they hope that they may now purge this Bill of its worst and most dangerous defects, and close the subject for several years to come. Some think that it is impossible to devise any means by which this Bill can be made anything like safe and expedient, and would therefore prefer to throw it out and run all chances for the future. At least one half of the Government, with Palmerston himself at the head of the dissentients, regard this Bill with alarm and aversion, and now that the difficulty, if not impossibility, of passing it is obvious, they are prepared to make every sort of sacrifice, even of its most vital provisions. Palmerston told George Lewis so, and that John Russell himself would submit to an alteration of the franchise to the amount of 15l. for the counties and 8l. for the towns. They know that no question of resignation is involved in this discussion, and that whatever may be the fate of their Bill, they will still keep their places, which no concession will endanger, and accordingly they are ready to agree to any compromise which will secure the Bill's passing through Parliament in any shape or way; but notwithstanding this pliant disposition, it is very doubtful whether the Bill can pass. It will not commence its career in Committee till the first week in June, and it is hardly possible it can reach the House of Lords before the middle or end of July, and the Lords may very well decline to enter on its consideration at that late period.
CONFUSION OF PARTIES.
May 9th.—A correspondence appears in the newspapers between Lord Grey and John Russell, couched in terms of no small bitterness. Such a correspondence between men of such eminence and of the same political colour shows up to the world the insincerity with which, for political motives at the time urgent, they have spoken in their places in Parliament. It is no new thing that members of the same Cabinet should often differ, and that vehemently on particular questions, and yet when these questions come under Parliamentary discussion, that they should exhibit to the world the semblance of an agreement and concurrence which is remote from the truth. But though this is well understood to be of not unfrequent occurrence, and sooner or later the details of the truth often leak out, it is much to be regretted that men should exhibit themselves and each other in the way which this correspondence does, for such exhibitions cannot fail to excite suspicions of the sincerity, conscientiousness, and truth of public men. When Governments are entirely of one party colour, either wholly Whig or wholly Tory, and when they are presided over by some man of supereminent authority, such differences and consequent difficulties are not likely to happen often; but as of late years parties have been broken up, and composite Governments have been formed, combining men of the most opposite original principles, and imbued with very different and incompatible opinions on various subjects, it must be continually happening that candid discussions and disputes in the Cabinet should be followed by insincere and untruthful declarations and argumentations in public. The understood practice from time immemorial has been, that a dissentient from the general opinion of his colleagues upon any important question must either consent to merge his own opinion in theirs, or retire from office; and then the conduct of the dissentient was regulated by his view of the importance of the matter at issue. Of course if a man were to break off from his colleagues upon every matter of difference, however small, no Government could possibly go on for many months or perhaps weeks, but it is impossible in these days not to be struck with the fact that so many men are indisposed to consider anything of sufficient importance to resign their offices rather than sacrifice their enlightened consciences and mature judgements.
May 12th.—Not more than three months ago Gladstone was triumphant and jubilant; he had taken the House of Commons and the country captive by his eloquence, and nothing was heard everywhere but songs of praise and admiration at his marvellous success and prodigious genius. There never was a greater reaction in a shorter time. Everybody's voice is now against him, and his famous Treaty and his Budget are pronounced enormous and dangerous blunders. Those who were most captivated now seem to be most vexed and ashamed of their former fascination. They are provoked with themselves for having been so duped, and a feeling of resentment and bitterness against him has become widely diffused in and out of the House of Commons, on his own side as well as on the other. It was the operation of this feeling which caused the narrow majority on the Paper Duties the other night, when it seems as if a little more management and activity might have put him in a minority, and it is the same thing which is now encouraging the House of Lords, urged on by Derby, to throw out the Resolution when it comes before them. Derby has announced that he shall exert himself to the utmost to procure the rejection of the Bill in the House of Lords, and if he perseveres he will probably obtain a very unwise and perilous success, which he will before long have to regret.
REPEAL OF THE PAPER DUTIES.
May 17th.—Clarendon dined with Derby about a week ago, when Derby explained to him all his reasons for persisting in his opposition to the Paper Duties Bill. Clarendon said he did not talk rashly and in Rupert vein, but gave a well-considered and well-argued statement of the grounds on which he purposed to proceed. Clarendon evidently sympathised with him, but not without much apprehension and doubt as to the expediency of his course. Derby appears to have taken and to be taking prodigious pains with his case, and he said that his object was to have a great financial debate in the Lords on the Treaty and the Budget. Granville tells me they shall be beaten by a large majority, and he owns that the debate will be almost all one way. There is nothing on the Treasury Bench or behind it able to grapple with Derby, Monteagle, Overstone, and Grey on such a question, though Granville expects Argyll to get up the question and to speak well on it, and he expects something from Newcastle and Ripon, but Clarendon told me (which of course he had from Lewis) the curious fact that Palmerston himself views with pleasure the prospect of the rejection of the Bill. A queer state of things indeed when the Prime Minister himself secretly desires to see the defeat of a measure so precious to his own Chancellor of the Exchequer.