VIEW IN WINDSOR CASTLE: THE INNER CLOISTERS, LOOKING WEST.
temper of the English people was such as to render it impossible, after what had been said on both sides, to proceed with Lord Palmerston’s Bill. Moreover, Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone had put themselves at the head of 140 Members pledged to use all the forms of the House of Commons for the purpose of obstructing any measure of the sort, and the case was one where obstruction by keeping open a sore between two nations would soon render it an unhealable wound.[19] As for Walewski’s despatch, Mr. Milner Gibson’s motion had censured Lord Palmerston’s Government for not answering it, so Lord Palmerston’s successors, who had supported that motion, were bound to reply to it. Their difficulties were complicated by the foolish behaviour of De Persigny, the French Ambassador. He was a strong partisan of Palmerston’s, and he went about London drawing-rooms denouncing the Tory Government in the most violent terms. Nay, he made a practice of communicating to Lord Palmerston everything which passed between himself and Lord Malmesbury in their official conversations, and Lord Palmerston did not scruple to use information obtained by this dishonourable violation of diplomatic rules; nor did he shrink from making himself De Persigny’s accomplice in these questionable transactions. Lord Malmesbury felt himself so completely embarrassed by such proceedings that he caused Lord Cowley to privately inform the French Emperor that he must in future decline to transact business through De Persigny. Lord Malmesbury said plainly, that he must communicate directly through Lord Cowley or Count Walewski in Paris, for De Persigny at this time not only carried his confidential conversation to Palmerston, but Palmerston actually instructed him how to embarrass the English Government in attempting to resist dictatorial pressure from France. Lord Malmesbury’s spirited protest was well-timed and highly effective.[20] Acting through Lord Cowley, Lord Malmesbury arranged with Count Walewski a form of reply to the despatch which would adequately meet the demands of the English people, and yet give the French Government an opportunity of honourably repudiating any intention of wounding British susceptibilities. On hearing of this, Persigny, who had pledged himself to restore Palmerston to power by forcing the Tory Government to pass the Conspiracy Bill in a week, resigned. To his surprise and disgust his resignation was accepted, and Marshal Pélissier, Duke of Malakoff, was sent to England in his place. This was another triumph for the Tory Ministry, because Palmerston had reckoned on Walewski appointing Moustier, French Ambassador at Berlin, to the Court of St. James’s when Persigny resigned, and as Moustier was, like Walewski, virtually a Russian agent, fresh troubles would soon have been manufactured for Lord Malmesbury. Napoleon III., however, insisted on sending a personal representative, who from his Crimean services would not be unacceptable to the Queen and the English people. He, therefore, selected Pélissier,[21] who, though ignorant of diplomacy, was not likely to fall into Persigny’s indiscretions, and whose appointment was received by the Queen as a token of renewed goodwill on the part of France. This attempt of Palmerston’s to drive a Ministry from office by getting a Foreign Government to menace it with hostility,[22] having ended in ignominious defeat, he and his party soon showed how bitterly they resented the failure of their conspiracy with the French Emperor and his Ambassador against English liberty. When Mr. Disraeli announced the settlement of the quarrel with France in the House of Commons, on the 13th of March, the Opposition received it sullenly, and immediately raised a bitter attack on Lord Malmesbury for not procuring the release of the English engineers who were imprisoned in the Cagliari.[23] Their arrest was illegal, and Lord Malmesbury, as soon as he obtained the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, not only procured their release, but liberal compensation for the annoyance to which they had been put.
Where the Government broke down was in attempting to deal with the future administration of India; and it is a fact that had they but listened to the Queen’s advice, who strongly opposed their policy, they would have avoided a defeat which served to convince the people that the evil reputation of the Derby-Disraeli group for legislative incapacity was only too well founded. The Tories had opposed Palmerston’s India Bill, transferring the government of India to the Crown, so they were forced to bring in one of their own. Palmerston’s Indian Council consisted of nominated officials of high rank and ripe experience. The Tory Bill, which was devised by Lord Ellenborough, introduced into the Council a fantastic elective element. Four out of the Council of eighteen were to be chosen by holders of Indian Stock, and by Indian military and civil servants of ten years’ standing, and five were to be elected by the commercial constituencies of London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and Belfast. The Queen warned the Cabinet that these provisions were fatal to their Bill. The selection of the constituencies was arbitrary, and other cities would in time agitate for representation on the Council. The turmoil of democratic elections was not likely to influence for good Imperial policy in a country about which the electors could at best know little. But the Cabinet held that the electoral clauses would secure the Radical support necessary to carry the Bill, and the Queen, reluctant to bring about another Ministerial crisis, left the matter in the hands of her Ministers. But when Mr. Disraeli, on the 26th of March, introduced the Bill, to his surprise, the Radicals objected as strongly as the Queen to the electoral clauses. Mr. Roebuck complained that they gave a sham colour of democracy to what was really a despotic Government. Mr. Bright said they “savoured of what was generally called claptrap.” Anxious, however, to keep the Tories in power, lest Lord Palmerston and his followers might return to office, the Radicals refused to embarrass Mr. Disraeli[24] on this point, and urged the Government to reconsider it during the Easter recess. Most assiduously did Lady Palmerston endeavour to induce Lord John Russell to coalesce with Lord Palmerston during the recess for the purpose of defeating the Ministry on the India Bill; but her intrigues were in vain. On the contrary, Lord John determined to bring in a series of Resolutions on which the Ministry might base a Bill, and when Parliament re-assembled on the 12th of April he confidentially communicated them through Mr. Edward Horsman to Mr. Disraeli, who had himself resolved to adopt the same course. Mr. Disraeli was only too willing to be thus extricated from a difficulty by one of the leaders of the Opposition. But the House of Commons considered that as the India Bill was now removed from the arena of party strife, it would be wisest to let the Government prepare the Resolutions. This was done, and the debate on them began on the 30th of April, and went on favourably.
The Budget, though it showed a deficit of £4,000,000, which was met by a tax on bankers’ cheques, and by equalising the Irish spirit duty, gave the Ministry no trouble. The acquittal of Dr. Bernard in April, who had been arrested by Lord Palmerston’s Government on a charge of conspiring with Orsini to murder the French Emperor, embarrassed Lord Malmesbury, for the jury who tried Bernard refused to convict in the teeth of clear evidence of guilt. But Napoleon III., recognising that the action of the jury was simply the “retort courteous” to Walewski’s maladroit demand that an English Government should alter English laws at the bidding of a foreign autocrat, wisely ignored the incident, and accepted Pélissier’s view of it, which was that “one must be callous to this sort of thing, and let the water run under the bridge.”[25] Then the tide of Ministerial success suddenly turned, and the Cabinet was nearly wrecked by the indiscretion of its most brilliant but erratic member, Lord Ellenborough, who had succeeded Mr. Vernon Smith at the Indian Board of Control.
In 1857 Lord Canning had incurred the odium of panic-stricken Englishmen at Calcutta, because in his repressive measures he mingled justice with severity. In June, 1857, when he gagged the Native press, he gagged the English press as well. In August, when disarming Calcutta, he compelled
THE QUEEN’S VISIT TO BIRMINGHAM: THE PROCESSION PASSING ALONG NEW STREET.
Europeans, as well as Natives, to take out licences to carry arms, and in July he issued orders to stop the indiscriminate slaughter of mutineers, distinguishing between the cases of those whose guilt was of varying degrees of intensity. A storm of abuse accordingly broke over his head, and the English in Calcutta petitioned for the recall of “Clemency Canning.” The British army in India, with its reinforcements, was but a handful of men among millions. Indiscriminate proscription of the Natives, such as was clamoured for, would have driven the whole of India into mutiny; in other words, it would have cost England her Indian Empire. The Queen and the Cabinet, however, supported Canning, and matters went well with him for a time. But in the spring of 1858, when Lucknow fell, another attack was made on him from a different point of view. He had drawn up a proclamation confiscating the lands of all landowners in Oudh save those who had been loyal to England, and those who would immediately return to their allegiance, and help to put down the rebellion. Lord Ellenborough, ignoring the saving clauses in the proclamation, sent Canning a “Secret Despatch,” bitterly condemning the apostle of “clemency” as a heartless tyrant, and even casting doubts upon the title by which Oudh was held by England. He permitted the Secret Despatch to be made public; and, what was still worse, Mr. Disraeli, with singular lack of patriotism, proclaimed in the House of Commons that the Government disapproved of Canning’s policy. Such a declaration, made at such a moment, was almost as mischievous as if the Government had telegraphed out to India, that they desired the Natives to organise another revolt.
The Queen’s indignation at the conduct of both Ministers was not diminished by the fact that neither of them had waited to receive Canning’s despatch, explaining at length the reasons for his policy. Notices of resolution, censuring the Ministry, were given in both Houses, and one member of the Cabinet (Lord Malmesbury) wrote personally to Lord Canning, begging him, on behalf of his colleagues, not to quit his post. The defeat of the Government, in fact, was only averted by the sacrifice of Ellenborough, who, to “save his colleagues, volunteered to play the part of Jonah.”[26] Mr. Gladstone was offered his place by Lord Derby, but on his refusing to join the Government, Lord Stanley became Ellenborough’s successor, Sir E. B. Lytton going to the Colonial Office. Yet in view of Mr. Disraeli’s denunciation of Canning’s policy, even Ellenborough’s resignation would not have saved the Ministry, had it not been that the Radicals and Peelites, along with Lord John Russell, refused to carry the matter farther, because, as they frankly said, they did not desire to let Palmerston and his faction return to power.[27]