|Death of Lord Palmerston.|
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, BRISBANE.
BRISBANE.
The population of Brisbane increased between 1881 and 1891 from 31,000 to 93,000. Queensland, of which it is the capital, was separated from New South Wales and constituted a self-governing Colony in 1859. It had in 1895 a population of 460,550. Imports (1895), £5,349,007. Exports, £8,982,600.
But the strong link which for so long had bound the present to the past, and acted as a check on precipitate legislation, snapped at last. Palmerston died on October 18, 1865, aged eighty-one years, less two days, having sat in the House of Commons for fifty-eight years, which, as Mr. Cardwell observed, was just one-tenth of its whole existence. The feeling in the country was more profound than any which had been manifested since the death of Wellington. In the course of these pages no attempt has been made to palliate or conceal some of the errors of judgment, the faults of statesmanship, even the occasional want of sincerity to Parliament and the public which formed blemishes in his career, especially in the earlier part of the Queen’s reign. In spite of these blots—and some of them were far from venial—he had lived to secure the confidence of his Sovereign and the affection of her people. A great deal of this was owing to his personal character and manner and his kindly humour. It is no slight upon Scotsmen or Irishmen to say that the chief secret of his universal popularity was that he was such a thorough Englishman. Some of his sayings had a much deeper meaning than their tone of levity implied. Two of them will bear repetition here, seeing how accurately the lapse of years has fulfilled the prediction contained in them. Palmerston was known to be opposed to any further extension of the franchise. Somebody once observed to him that it really would not make much difference, for the same class of member would be returned as before. “Yes,” replied Palmerston, “the same men will get in as before, but they will play to the shilling gallery instead of to the boxes.” The late Earl of Shaftesbury put on record one of Palmerston’s latest sayings. Palmerston always distrusted Mr. Gladstone as a politician, and made no secret of it. But he always was extremely anxious for Mr. Gladstone’s return for Oxford University. “He is a dangerous man,” he said to Lord Shaftesbury: “keep him in Oxford, and he is partially muzzled, but send him elsewhere, and he will run wild.” This came to Mr. Gladstone’s ears, so, after his defeat at Oxford in 1865, he opened his campaign in South Lancashire by saying to the electors assembled in the Free Trade Hall of Manchester: “At last, my friends, I have come amongst you.... I am come among you unmuzzled.”
