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Home Politics and Parties from the Reform Bill of 1832 to that of 1867 The Dictatorship of Lord Palmerston, 1855-1865, and the Reform Bill of 1867 |
The Dictatorship of Lord Palmerston, 1855-1865, and the Reform Bill of 1867For the next ten years (1855-1865) Lord Palmerston was the practical dictator of the country. On two occasions, however, he found himself in a minority. He was beaten, in 1857, in the House of Commons because he upheld a high-handed action of our agent in Hong-Kong. He thereupon dissolved Parliament and came back with a considerable majority. On the second occasion, a few months later, in 1858, he was held to have truckled to France. A man called Orsini had tried to murder Napoleon III, the ruler of that country. He had contrived his plot in London, and, in order to prevent the recurrence of such an affair and to soothe French susceptibilities, Palmerston brought in a Conspiracy to Murder Bill, making such a conspiracy a felony punishable by penal servitude for life. The opposition represented this bill as due to French dictation, and the bill was thrown out. Palmerston resigned. Lord Derby formed the second of his administrations, only to make way, after fifteen months of office, for the return of Palmerston in 1859.Apart from foreign affairs, of which Lord John Russell had control after 1859, there is little of importance to record during these ten years. Gladstone had developed into a Liberal, and in 1859 became the chancellor of the exchequer. He exhibited great financial skill and still greater powers of oratory in the budgets which he annually produced. After the Crimean War, in which France had been our ally, was over, Great Britain became very apprehensive of Napoleon Ill's ambitions, and the scare of an invasion from France led to the formation, in 1858, of the Volunteers, who fifty years later were merged in the Territorial Army. The Prince Consort died in 1861. Though never very popular in Great Britain, and though at times his influence over the queen, especially in foreign affairs, was somewhat resented and sometimes misunderstood, he had devoted his whole energies to his adopted country, and his death was a great loss. Moreover, the grief of the queen was inconsolable, and she lived in almost complete retirement for the next ten years. Lord Palmerston died, "full of years and honour", in 1865, when within two days of his eighty-first birthday. Few can have had a larger experience of political life than he had. He had been given a "rotten borough" to represent in 1807, on the quaint condition of its owner that "he should never set foot in the borough", and had remained a member of the House of Commons till his death nearly sixty years later. He had served under ten prime ministers. For nearly fifty years he had been a minister of the Crown, and for a greater portion of the time since 1830 he had been mainly responsible, either as foreign secretary or as prime minister, for the foreign policy of the country. Lord Palmerston has been described as a thorough English gentleman. He was a good-humoured and good-tempered man, bluff and hearty, loving a political fight, and yet a generous foe. He was an excellent landlord and a keen sportsman, who made of his exercise, as he said, “a religion” (Lord Palmerston riding on his old grey horse was one of the most familiar sights in London, and he thought nothing of riding in the rain to Harrow - his old school - and back when not far short of eighty years of age). Masterful in council, expert in administration, he possessed all those qualities of common sense, self-confidence, and courage which appealed to his country, and towards the end of his life his supremacy was hardly questioned, even by his political opponents. He has been described, with some truth, as a Conservative at home and a Revolutionist abroad. After 1832 he had little sympathy with further reform movements in Great Britain, and whilst he was in power no reforms were passed; but his sympathy with Liberal aspirations in countries which did not enjoy the same measure of self-government and liberty as Great Britain was sincere and outspoken. After Lord Palmerston's death the further reform of Parliament could no longer be delayed. The agitation in favour of reform became serious, and a gigantic procession organized by the reformers swept down the railings of Hyde Park when its members were not allowed to pass through the park gates. Lord John Russell, who succeeded Palmerston as prime minister, tried to pass a bill, but some of his own party - who were compared by Bright to the discontented refugees in the cave of Adullam, and hence came to be known as "the Adullamites" - attacked the bill so fiercely that Lord John Russell resigned. Lord Derby then formed the third and last of his administrations. The Conservative leaders, and in particular Disraeli, considered that a Reform Bill must be produced, though Lord Derby confessed it was a "leap in the dark". Consequently Disraeli, in 1867, piloted a new Reform Bill through the House of Commons, though he had, as he said, "to educate his own party" as he did so, and though he had to accept many amendments from the opposition leader, Gladstone. |
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