On the 18th of April a much more important subject was broached by Sir W. Molesworth, who moved a series of resolutions demanding that the Colonies should be made autonomous, and charged to provide for their own defence. Other motions of the same sort as this one sprang from the animus against the Colonial Office which then existed among all parties. As Mr. Urquhart said in debate, independent members were of opinion that, if the good sense of the country did not put down the Colonial Office, the Colonial Office would put down the Empire. The objection of the Government to Sir W. Molesworth’s proposal was the old one to all Colonial reforms—that it must lead to the abandonment of our Colonial Empire. The debate was adjourned, and was not resumed.
The chronic discontent of the Cape Colonists, smarting under Lord Grey’s abortive design to quarter convicts on them, led to some acrimonious discussions, which aggravated popular antipathy to the costly Caffre War which was raging. Lord John Russell, however, contrived to evade attacks by persuading the House of Commons to appoint a Select Committee to inquire into the relations of the Colony to the Caffre tribes.
The Radicals of the Manchester school had raised early in the Session an agitation against Sir James Brooke, popularly called Rajah Brooke, of Sarawak. Rajah Brooke had waged war on the Dyak tribes because they were aggressive pirates. The Manchester school denied that the Dyaks were pirates, and contended that Sir James Brooke simply levied war on the natives in order to seize their territory. Mr. Hume insisted on referring the matter to a Select Committee, but he was defeated by a large majority, and the result of the debate was to exonerate Sir James Brooke from the charges of brutality and barbarism that had been advanced against him.
The slave-hunting squadron in West Africa was another question as to which the Government were sadly harried. The cost of keeping up the squadron rendered it extremely unpopular, and Mr. Hume forced the Government, in Committee of Supply, to make a statement as to its work. According to Lord Palmerston, it was active, energetic, and successful in suppressing the infamous traffic in slaves, and the House of Commons thought that the results of the squadron’s operations were so valuable that England ought not to grudge the money spent upon it. On the other hand, the Party of Economy contended that the reduction in the slave trade was due, not to the English squadron, but to the new policy of Brazil, whose Government had begun to co-operate with ours in seizing slave-traders, destroying barracoons, and releasing slaves.
Foreign affairs but slightly interested Parliament in 1851. No doubt a great deal of excitement was produced by the two letters on the State prosecutions by the Neapolitan Government, which Mr. Gladstone addressed to Lord Aberdeen, and much indignation was expressed at the stupid tyranny of King “Bomba,” whose dungeons were full of political prisoners. The charges of cruelty and injustice caused Sir De Lacy Evans to question the Foreign Secretary on the subject in the House of Commons, and from Lord Palmerston’s reply it turned out that above 20,000 persons were then confined in Neapolitan prisons for political offences, most of whom had been deprived of liberty in flagrant violation of the existing laws of their country. Copies of Mr. Gladstone’s letter were sent by Lord Palmerston to every foreign Government, in the hope that a joint-remonstrance from the Powers might put an end to King Ferdinand’s outrages on civilisation.
Mr. Cobden renewed his annual motion for bringing about a general disarmament among the European nations; and undoubtedly his speech was received with much more sympathy than usual by the House of Commons and the country. It was the year of the International Exhibition, and all the world was talking of fraternity among the nations, and of their strife being limited, in the golden future, to peaceful contests in the fields of industry. “We are witnessing now,” said Mr. Cobden in a memorable passage of his speech, “what a few years ago no one could have predicted as possible. We see men meeting together from all countries in the world, more like the gatherings of nations in former times, when they came up for a great religious festival; we find men speaking different languages and bred in different habits associating in one common temple erected for their gratification and reception.” The Government, he held, might with everlasting honour to themselves seize the favourable hour for broaching a peace policy, and endeavour to win the assent of Europe to a project for universal disarmament. The idea then in men’s minds was that England should set the example by approaching France with a proposal, that each country should reduce its armaments to the footing on which they stood at the time of the Syrian dispute. Lord Palmerston approved generally of Mr. Cobden’s objects, and was willing to say that he would do everything in his power to bring about the friendliest relations with France. But he did not wish to be fettered beforehand with definite instructions to open up at once negotiations for mutual disarmament; and, professing himself satisfied with this expression of opinion, Mr. Cobden withdrew his motion.
The Jews in the Session of 1851 failed to remove the political disabilities under which members of their community lay.[35] They carried their point in the House of Commons. In the House of Lords, however, the Tories threw the Jewish Disabilities Relief Bill out by a vote of 144 to 108. A hot controversy arose over the attempt of Alderman Salomons, the newly-elected member for Greenwich, to take the Oath without repeating the words, “On the true faith of a Christian.” It ended in the Alderman being removed from his seat by the Serjeant-at-Arms, and in Lord John Russell carrying a motion denying Mr. Salomons’s right to sit whilst he was unsworn.
LORD CARLISLE.