Victoria R.
Memorandum by the Prince Albert.
MR GLADSTONE
Buckingham Palace, 21st February 1855.
I have just seen Mr Gladstone, who received my box so late that I did not wish to detain him more than a few minutes, as the Cabinet was waiting for him. I told him, however, the substance of Lord Palmerston's letter, and of the Queen's answer, the wisdom of which, he said, nobody could doubt for a moment, and added that the choice lying only between many evils, I hoped he and his friends would not strive to obtain an absolute good, and thereby lose the Queen the services of an efficient Government. He begged that I should rest assured that the first and primary consideration which would guide their determination would be the position of the Crown in these critical circumstances. He had had no opportunity of consulting these last days either Mr S. Herbert or Sir James Graham. But for himself he felt the greatest difficulty in letting the House of Commons succeed in what he must consider a most unconstitutional, most presumptuous, and most dangerous course, after which it would be impossible for the Executive ever to oppose again the most absurd and preposterous demands for enquiry.37
Footnote 37: See post, [p. 109], note 38.
I asked, "But can you stop it?"
He answered: I believe Lord Palmerston made a mistake in not grappling with it from the first, and using all the power the Crown had entrusted to him, even ostentatiously, for the purpose. Now it might be most difficult—but it ought not to pass without a solemn protest on the part of the men who were not connected with the Government, and should not be supposed to have any other than the interests of the Country at heart. A Government was powerless in resisting such an encroachment of the House, where the whole Opposition, from personal motives, and the supporters of Government from fear of their constituents, were bent upon carrying it. Such a protest, however, might form a rallying-point upon which future resistance might be based, and the Country, now intoxicated by agitation, might come to its senses.
As to the strength of the Government, he believed it had very little at this moment in the House, and that such would be the case with any Government Lord Palmerston could form, he had foretold him, when Lord Derby had made him the offer to join an Administration of his forming. At this moment the secession of the Peelites would rather strengthen the Government than otherwise, as, from their connection with Lord Aberdeen, they had been decried in the Country with him, and the Whigs looked upon them with all the personal feelings of men deprived of their offices by them.
He agreed with me that in the present disruption of Parties, the difficulty of obtaining any strong Government consists, not in the paucity of men, but in the over-supply of Right Honourable gentlemen produced by the many attempts to form a Government on a more extended base. There were now at least three Ministers for each office, from which the two excluded were always cried up as superior to the one in power. He said this could not be amended until we got back to two Parties—each of them capable of presenting to the Queen an efficient Administration. Now the one Party did not support its Chief from personal rivalry—and the other, from the very feeling of its own incapacity, became reckless as to the course of its political actions.