[21] Cobden described it as ‘a Guy Fawkes outcry,’ and predicted the fall of the Ministry.
[22] See Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, by Edwin Hodder, pp. 429-435.
[23] Lord Beaconsfield’s Correspondence with his Sister (1832-1852), p. 249. London: John Murray.
[24] History of Our Own Times, by Justin McCarthy, M.P. vol. ii. pp. 85, 86.
[25] Life of Lord John Russell, by Spencer Walpole, vol. ii p. 143.
CHAPTER IX
COALITION BUT NOT UNION
1852-1853
The Aberdeen Ministry—Warring elements—Mr. Gladstone’s position—Lord John at the Foreign Office and Leader of the House—Lady Russell’s criticism of Lord Macaulay’s statement—A small cloud in the East—Lord Shaftesbury has his doubts
There is no need to linger over the history of the next few months, for in a political sense they were barren and unfruitful. The first Derby Administration possessed no elements of strength, and quickly proved a mere stop-gap Cabinet. Its tenure of power was not only brief but inglorious. The new Ministers took office in February, and they left it in December. Lord Palmerston may be said to have given them their chance, and Mr. Gladstone gave them their coup de grâce. The Derby Administration was summoned into existence because Lord Palmerston carried his amendment on the Militia Bill, and it refused to lag superfluous on the stage after the crushing defeat which followed Mr. Gladstone’s brilliant attack on the Budget of Mr. Disraeli. The chief legislative achievement of this short-lived Government was an extension of the Bribery Act, which Lord John Russell had introduced in 1841. A measure was now passed providing for a searching investigation of corrupt practices by commissioners appointed by the Crown. The affairs of New Zealand were also placed on a sound political basis. A General Election occurred in the summer, but before the new Parliament met in the autumn the nation was called to mourn the death of the Duke of Wellington. The old soldier had won the crowning victory of Waterloo four years before the Queen’s birth, and yet he survived long enough to grace with his presence the opening ceremony of the Great Exhibition—that magnificent triumph of the arts of peace which was held in London in the summer of 1851. The remarkable personal ascendency which the Duke of Wellington achieved because of his splendid record as a soldier, though backed by high personal character, was not thrown on the side of either liberty or progress when the hero transferred his services from the camp to the cabinet. As a soldier, Wellington shone without a rival, but as a statesman he was an obstinate reactionary. Perhaps his solitary claim to political regard is that he, more than any other man, wrung from the weak hands of George IV. a reluctant consent to Catholic Emancipation—a concession which could no longer be refused with safety, and one which had been delayed for the lifetime of a generation through rigid adherence in high places to antiquated prejudices and unreasoning alarm.