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for expressing distrust , nevertheless act distrust—declare your trust , and yet keep your powder dry ? The comment on the whole debate raised by Mr . Disraeli was the next order of the day—a proposal , which no one dreamed of opposing , by increasing the Navy estimates by nearly half a million . In Downingctreet , excellent " relations" with the Tuileries—in the House of Commons , responsible abuse of the newspapers for being British ; but still , " activity" in the dock yards .
What Mr . Disraeli meant by his forcing on . the question about France is clear enough . As the colleague of the Lord Malmesbury who praised the Napolonian system , he had no right to abuse a Whig statesman for condemning that system—the one being just as great an interference as the other with the internal affairs of France . And Mr . Disraeli ' s anxiety about peace is the anxiety , as he says , of " Sidonia ' s" philosophy , of a man who by race and creed is without a
< country , and who looks on politics without prejudices , patriotic or otherwise . But as leader of Oppositionheading a party without a plan or a policy , he finds it necessary not to be silent , and seeing nothing objectionable in the measures , he must attack the men , of the Government—assaulting them in detail in consequence . -iThus his speech last night was a personal speech ; and all its hits told , because evidently he had nothing tangible to deal with but the follies and indiscretions of individual members of the Cabinet . He
made _ them look ridiculous ; a small step for an Opposition , but the only one they can take when , at the same time , they have nothing to oppose—and what is even more perplexing—nothing to propose . Mr . Disraeli , always an actor , acted well on this occasion , because he was what tenors term in great voicein high condition ; and he succeeded in his object , not merely in felling Sir Charles Wood , and flaying Sir James Graham ( for we may rely on it Sir James did speak the words Disraeli quoted ) , but in amusing the crowded and new House , which has found Parliament dull , and wanted enlivening .
In the excess of dignity assumed by Lord John , in reply—and it must have been galling to the indignant " leader , " that no sooner did he get on his legs than the crowd which had hung on Disraeli dispersed towards dinner—you can see how the playful references to the " great man" who was to be crushed by the Coalition Cabinet into a " smalL room" had hit the weak side of a man who is nervously afraid that people think he has " gone down , " in taking a subordinate place , after having enjoyed the first ; and in the bitter but bungling wit of the enraged Graham , who , in his fierceness , ventured on reviving the joke of the Wellington funeral oration , it was easy to detect the mortification which had been inflicted upon one who chiefly presents himself to the nation as the , par excellence , " discreet" statesman .
Then take the " portrait of Lord Aberdeen , as painted by Lord John Russell—and it is an easy calculation that Lord Aberdeen and Russell cannot be happy together for the next week . Take the sketch of Sir William Molesworth—tho Radical seized , taken to court , and converted into a Cabinet Minister—and you may estimate how far the apprehensions of the philosophical baronet tlmt ho is beginning to bo doubted will induce him to cause confusion among his colleagues .
All these jeers and sneers and sarcasms told all tho more from tho debonair airs Mr . Disraeli assumed of leadership of tho strongest party—of absolute superiority over tho men whom ho wns holding up to ridiculo . As defender of Louis Napoleon , who had not been ashamed to say he was a parvenu , Mr . Disraeli ventured on a humble bonst , that ho was a " gentleman of tho press "— " it is my only escutcheon" —and obviously the Cabinet which consisted of all the experiences and all tho discretions did not relish lampooning from a man who talked , not like a statesman , but like a lively novelist . Heavy , indeed—heavier for tho anger they could not conceal—were tho replies . The utmost that Lord John and Sir . lumen could nay wan , that Mr . Disraeli was not in carncHt about peace ( which
he had not pretended to be ) , and that he talked from his commonplace- book . Bettor do that , he might have retorted , than talk commonplaces . The Government came out of tho debate damaged by tho Wit—tho Wit wan successful , because he put tho Government in a passion . Whether Mr . Disraeli ' s tone , us leader of responsible opposition , in what it should 1 m ,, Js very questionable . He probably risks creating doubts of that nature on tho assurance that r « - HpoiiMihility is distant , inasmuch as the Coalition Government is too strong to wilier , in collective strength , by caricatures of its personalities ; and meanwhile the House cheers him and laugliH with him because fair play admits that tho men who turned him out are the proper victiuia of his vindictjvo jests . Too
far he does not go ; for his speech is after all carefully framed so as to please in that high quarter whence much of the war-gale blows ; for instance , what will Leopold say to the compliment , that he is the wisest and most accomplished Prince in Europe—though the phrase , in delicacy to Prince Albert , should have been wisest monarch ?—and in all the relentless sarcasm he poured on the Treasury benches , there was one man he spared : that Lord Palmerston who was turned out by Lord John for anticipating all the commendation which Lord John afterwards gave to Louis Napoleon . The replies of Lord John and Sir James Graham , Mr . Disraeli is indifferent to ; but he avoids rousing the only man whom he respects and fears . Mr . Cobden , in
both these particulars , was more clumsy . He sneered at Palmerston , and he taunted the Court—speaking of it as " that influence which we must not mention in this House . " The kind of advice which Lord John so circuitously recommended to the Tories—ran advice they will take on Thursday next on the Jew Bill , when Mr . Walpole leads the Christian resistance—to get rid of Mr . Disraeli—is quite applicable to the Peace Party . Mr- Cobden did rise last night without being kicked up by Mr . Bright ; but he could only recommend peace by making enemies on every side of him . Setting the country and the Queen by the ears is not exactly the most practical method of obtaining disarmaments by agreement . .
This talk about France , directly as provoked by Mr . Disraeli , indirectly as suggested by the Navy Estimates —always , and this year more thau ever , the statistical comment on our " good relations" with foreign powers —was preceded on Thursday by a confused and unsatisfactory discussion of Mr . Kinnaird ' s resolution asking her Majesty to protest with the Duke of Tuscany against the continued imprisonment of the Madiai : and it is curious to study the utterly different set of principles upon which these debates proceeded . In the French debate , every one of the speakers spoke upon the assumption that our press was in error to attack Louis Napoleon , on the ground that he was a potentate in possession , and that we , as a nation , had no right whatever to interfere with the internal affairs of
another nation . But in the Madiai debate , every one but Mr . Henry Drummond , whose trenchant common sense never misses the point , took as completely for granted that it was o ur business to be nationally " defensor fidei "—a Protestant Quixote . Observe the classes who were most active in aid of the ex-courier Francesco Madiai ( comparable , at least , to St . Paul , in respect of his antecedents ) , and you will find that they are exactly those classes who detect the ungentility of criticising Louis Napoleon . They will not , or do not choose to see , that if our press has no right to be propagandist of po litical liberalism in France , our
Exeter Hall is disentitled to be propagandist of religious liberalism in Tuscany , and that our Stafford House is precluded from propagating , —( what a good Spartan spouse ' s boast is that of Mrs . Tyler— " we" ( the women of America ) " double our population every ten years ! " )—ethnological enlightenment in the United States . This , however , is a blunder , which more than the classes Mr . Disraeli represented in his deprecations last night , may be said to represent . That haughty Times , which denounces the despotism of Louis Napoleon , is tho same arbitmtivo journal that condemns Mazzini and Kosrfuth for their attempts to get rid , in Austrian
territories , of precisely tho political system considered to bo so obnoxious in France ; and the haughty Times is apparently quite innocent of perception of this interesting incomidteney . Mr . Disraeli would be logical in advising amiability about Louis Napoleon , if he had not been the colleague of the Lord Malmesbury , who laid it down an a rule in his despatch to Mr . Scarlett , that the Protestant ministers of Protestant sovereigns are bound , in duty , to bo tho champions of Protestant * . So that Mr . Disraeli is as inconsistent us tho Times . And the Times , and Mr . Disraeli , and the class called British Htatesinen , generally , are all blundering in their various propagandas , in their assumptions that wo are in a position to touch the nations how to live ,- —liberally or religiously . JMr . Druinmond puts our incoinpctcncy
in one way—first , that propagandism in inexpedient , and , next , that it is silly unless we follow up protocols by war-stuauievH . Mrs . Tyler puts it another waythat our house in not in that order which entitles our philanthropy to £ ? gadding . Mr . Lucas defines " religious toleration" to bo the toleration of nil religious , mid suggests that wo have no business to wail over incarcerated ex-couriers , unless we are prepared to weep over ravished nmiu of Minsk . All these various views , with their contrasting illustrations , put before us , in the course of asingh'week events pointing theories cannot fail to teach us a useful lesson . Our position is that of the enlightened and enthusiastic philanthropist , not many years ago , who took tho chair at a meeting in the cause of * ' labour , " and Hufforod from his chivalrous
appearance in public , by being at last caught by the bailiff . Or , like that other , as notorious and as enlightened philanthropist , who crossed to America in order to vindicate the Nigger , because an ignorant law of debtor and creditor in England precluded him , for the time , from asserting r the liberties of the Briton . The British Parliament , as an institution , representing one million of voters ont of six millions of adult men , must discover that liberality and toleration should keep company with charity in domestic dulness ; and the British Times , as a propagandist , should hate the Russian and Austrian , as well as the French Emperor . As to that portion of the press in which this is written , its hands are clean , its principles are not geographical , and its notion of religious toleration is not Lord Malmesbury ' s or Exeter Hall ' s .
The debate , on Thursday , resultless in resolution , and leaving the Madiai where they were—the worse for Sir Henry Bulwer ' s immersion in the Rhone , —for if he is not in Florence to press remonstrance , who can succeed , not being backed by force ?—is not unimportant as having developed some individuality . In the first place , we may afford to admire the unequivocal success obtained by Mr . Lucas as a debater . That fact is the best possible tribute to the genuine , manly " toleration" of the House of Commons—the highest illustration of the thorough practical freedom distinguishing the public life of England . Cardinal Wiseman , getting
elected to the House of Commons , and attempting to secure a hearing , would have not a more difficult game to play than Mr . Lucas has had . Yet , against all the prejudices which met him on the part of the relig ious members for the violence of his advocacy of his creed , and on the part of the men of business for the political wrong-headedness of his general policyagainst a general belief on all sides that he was a fanatic and a fool , who would merely talk fanaticism and folly , and who must consequently be summarily
put down—as a Plumptre , and as a stupid Plumptrethis very Catholic , and more Irish than an Irish gentleman , gained on Thursday night a complete oratorical success , testified not merely by the hearty chuckling cheers of the delighted " Brigade" around him , but by the encouraging silence , the sign of close attention , of the House generally—a thin house certainly , but large enough to be representative of a general tone . In the success of Mr . Lucas , let the new M . IVs see that the House of Commons , as " A
Stranger" pointed out to them in these pages , never takes an out of door estimate of a man—always judges and decides for itself , according to its own peculiar way of judging ; and , whatever its prejudices against particular sets of exceptional opinions , will give fair play and high place to all men , just in reference to their capacity to gratify and instruct it , conditional on tho instruction being apropos and promotive of business . Mr . Lucas has spoken twice since his election ; once on Tenant-right ; and the second time , on Thursday , on this Madiai question ; and the result is , that he issafe of a hearinland of respectful treatment , —of a Housc-of-Commons
position , in fact , for the rest of his sitting life—if he continues the same clever , tactful man he at present proves himself to be . In tho first place , his success is attributable to his showing- the most complete mastery of subject : in the second place , to his dcicreiWiul demeanour , —( the Jfouso will have Ko-too , from new men ) , —to the courteous suppression of any o / Iensivo references to opposing persons or parties . lie endeavoured , while insisting on his argument , to please ; and in tho House , as in ordinary drawing-rooms , the evidence of an effort to please in itself is accepted as an accomplishment . So much comment is due to this
personal success ; it is a lesson to every man acting or meaning to act English history ; it is honourable to tho House of Commons . Hut there was a public utility beyond the manner , in what Mr . Lucas said . To defend tho conduct of the persecutors of the Madiai was not possible for him , except on ecclesiastical grounds , which tho House would have yelled down ; and tho utmost praise that can be accorded to the technical objection to the House of Commons constituting itself a court of appeal from tho Tuscan Court , which had sentenced the Madiai in conformity with Tuscan law , is , tliat Mr . Lucas was ingeniously uncaudid , which is
periphrasis for Jesuitical . Hut tho rest of his speech , m dealing with the general question raised , told admirably at tin ; time ; the more from the quiet but earnest voice and gentle manner —( quiet voices and gentle manners , in your big-headed , deep-chested men are irresistible in well-educated assemblies !) and answered tho speaker ' s purpose , in turning tho line of the debate , in taking oil " the onus of ollenee from Catholicity , and transferring it to I ' rotostunt shoulders ; in short , in arresting denunciation of Papal intolerance ! , pu / . y . ling all tho small bigots like Sir Itohcrt Inglis tho Lucas of thai nido —and forcing the two crack Cabinet Ministers , Lord John and Lord PulmorHton , to devote their Hpuoehes to
Untitled Article
February 19 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 175 -r- ¦ ' ¦¦_ .., ¦ ... ¦
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 19, 1853, page 175, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1974/page/7/
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