CABINET SECRETS.
Amongst the characteristics of the present Government that make them in Ministries a thing apart is the almost total absence of the air of mystery that, through the ages, has enveloped Cabinets and their consultations. Never in times ancient or modern was there on the eve of a new Session so little mystery about the intentions of the Government. There was still practised by the morning newspapers the dear old farce of purporting to forecast the unknown. On the morning that opens the new Session there appears in all well-conducted morning papers an article delivered in the style of the Priestess Pythia in the temple at Delphi. Nothing is positively assumed, but the public are told that when the Queen's Speech is disclosed "it will probably contain promise of legislation" on such a head, whilst it will "doubtless be found that Her Majesty's Ministers have not been unmindful of" such another question.
This fashion was invented generations ago, either by the Times or the Morning Chronicle. The editor, having access to those gilded saloons to which Lord Palmerston once made historic reference, or profiting by personal acquaintance with a Minister, obtained more or less full knowledge of what the Queen's Speech would contain. But he was bound in honour to preserve his informant from possibly inconvenient consequences of his garrulity, and so the oracular style was adopted. When other papers, put on the track, obtained information in the same way they adopted the same quaint practice, till now it has become deeply ingrained in journalism. To-day, whilst there is no secret of the sources of information very properly conveyed to the Press on the eve of the Session, this same style of dealing with it, in which Mr. Wemmick would have revelled, is sedulously observed.
At the beginning of this Session other than newspaper editors had been made aware of the general legislative intentions of the Government. Ministers speaking at various public meetings had openly announced that their several departments were at the time engaged upon the preparation of particular Bills, the main directions of which were plainly indicated. It is true that details of the Home Rule Bill were lacking, though two or three weeks in advance of its presentation one journal, the Speaker, gave an exceedingly close summary of its clauses. But that a Home Rule Bill was to be introduced, that it would take precedence of all other measures, and that it would be thorough enough to satisfy the Irish members, were commonplaces of information long before the Speech was read in the House of Lords. It used to be different. Within the range of recent memory, the publication of the Queen's Speech, or at least a forecast in the morning papers, was the first authoritative indication of the drift of legislation in the new Session.
LORD PALMERSTON.
Talking of this new departure with one of the oldest members of the House, he tells me a delightful story, which I have never found recalled in print, and it is too good to be buried in the pages of Hansard. At one time, in the run of the Parliament of 1859-65, Lord Palmerston being Premier, a rumour shook the political world, affirming the resignation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone. The newspapers were neither so alert nor so well informed in those days, and the rumour drifted about, neither confirmed nor contradicted. At length, Mr. Horsman could stand the uncertainty no longer, and from his place in the House of Commons he asked Lord Palmerston whether there was any truth in the report.
The Premier approached the table in his gravest manner, and the crowded House was hushed in silence for the anticipated disclosure. He had, he said, just come from a meeting of the Cabinet Council, and could not pretend to be uninformed on the matter of the question submitted to him. The House, however, knew how stringent was the oath of a Privy Councillor, and how impossible it was for one in ordinary circumstances either to affirm or deny a report current as to what had taken place within its doors. Lord Palmerston was evidently struggling between a desire to tell something and disinclination to tamper with his oath. As his manner grew more embarrassed, the interest of the House was quickened. All heads, including that of Mr. Horsman, were craned forward as he went on to observe that, perhaps, in the peculiar circumstances of the case, he would be justified in saying that, at the Council just held, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been present and had displayed no sign of intended resignation.
"In fact," said Lord Palmerston, turning round to face Mr. Horsman, seated at the corner bench below the Gangway, "my right hon. friend has had his ear at the keyhole of the wrong door."