Lord John Russell by Stuart J. Reid (books that read to you .txt) 📕
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So great was the rush for place that Lord Derby with a smile informed the Queen that, as so many former Ministers expected a seat, he thought that less than thirty-two could hardly be the number of the new Cabinet. Tories of the old school looked on with amazement, and Radicals of the new with suspicion. All things seemed possible in the excitement of parties. ‘Tom Baring said to me last night,’ Greville remarks, ‘“Can’t you make room for Disraeli in this Coalition Government?” I said: “Why, will you give him to us?” “Oh yes,” he said, “you shall have him with pleasure.”’ Great expectations were, however, ruthlessly nipped in the bud, and the Cabinet, instead of being unwieldy, was uncommonly small, for it consisted only of thirteen members—an unlucky start, if old wives’ fables are to be believed. Five of Sir Robert Peel’s colleagues—the Premier, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir James Graham, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and Mr. Gladstone—represented the moderately progressive views of their old leader. Russell and Palmerston represented the Whigs, but, thanks to one of life’s little ironies, the statesman who passed the Reform Bill was installed for the moment at the Foreign Office, and the Minister who was a Liberal abroad and a Conservative at home was intrusted with the internal affairs of the nation. The truth was, Lord Palmerston was impossible at the Foreign Office if Lord Aberdeen was at the Treasury, for the two men were diametrically opposed in regard to the policy which England ought to adopt in her relations with Europe in general, and Russia in particular. In fact, if Lord John Russell was for the moment out of the reckoning as Premier, Lord Palmerston ought unquestionably to have had the reversion of power. Unfortunately, though growingly popular in the country, he had rendered himself unwelcome at Court, where Lord Aberdeen, on the contrary, had long been a trusted adviser.
Even if it be granted that neither Russell nor Palmerston was admissible as leader, it was a palpable blunder to exclude from Cabinet rank men of clean-cut convictions like Cobden and Bright. They had a large following in the country, and had won their spurs in the Anti-Corn-Law struggle. They represented the aspirations of the most active section of the Liberal Party, and they also possessed the spell which eloquence and sincerity never fail to throw over the imagination of the people. They were not judged worthy, however, and Milner Gibson, in spite of his services as a member of the Russell Cabinet, was also debarred from office; whilst Mr. Charles Villiers, whose social claims could not be entirely overlooked, found his not inconsiderable services to the people rewarded by subordinate rank. The view which was taken at Court of the Aberdeen Ministry is recorded in the ‘Life of the Prince Consort.’ The Queen regarded the Cabinet as ‘the realisation of the country’s and our own most ardent wishes;’[29] and in her Majesty’s view the words ‘brilliant’ and ‘strong’ described the new Government. Brilliant it might be, but strong it assuredly was not, for it was pervaded by the spirit of mutual distrust, and circumstances conspired to accentuate the wide divergence of opinion which lurked beneath the surface harmony. However such a union of warring forces might be agreeable to the Queen, the belief that it realised the ‘most ardent wishes’ of the nation was not widely held outside the Court, for ‘England,’ to borrow Disraeli’s familiar but significant phrase, ‘does not love Coalitions.’ In the Aberdeen Cabinet, party interests were banded together in office; but the vivifying influences of unity of conviction and common sentiment were absent from its deliberations. After all, as Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton drily remarked when the inevitable crisis arose, there is ‘one indisputable element of a Coalition Government, and that is that its members should coalesce.’ As a matter of fact, they not only drifted into war but drifted apart. ‘It is a powerful team and will require good driving,’ was the comment of a shrewd political observer. ‘There are some odd tempers and queer ways among them.’
Lord Aberdeen had many virtues, but he was not a good driver, and when the horses grew restive and kicked over the traces, he lacked nerve, hesitated, and was lost. Trained for political life at the side of Pitt,[30] after a distinguished career in diplomacy, which made him known in all the Courts of Europe, he entered the Cabinet of the Duke of Wellington in 1828, and afterwards held the post of Secretary for the Colonies in the first Peel Administration of 1834, and that of Secretary for Foreign Affairs during Sir Robert’s final spell of power in the years 1841-46. He never sat in the House of Commons, but, though a Tory peer, he voted for Catholic Emancipation. He swiftly fell into line, however, with his party, and recorded his vote against the Reform Bill. He never, perhaps, quite understood the temper of a popular assembly, for he was a shy, reserved man, sparing in speech and punctilious in manner. Close association with Wellington and Peel had, of course, done much to shape his outlook on affairs, and much acquaintance with the etiquette of foreign Courts had insensibly led him to cultivate the habit of formal reserve. Born in the same year as Palmerston, the Premier possessed neither the openness to new ideas nor the vivacity of his masterful colleague; in fact, Lord Aberdeen at sixty-eight, unlike Lord Palmerston, was an old man in temperament, as well as conservative, in the sense of one not given to change. Yet, it is only fair to add that, if Aberdeen’s views of foreign policy were of a somewhat stereotyped kind, he was, at all events at this period in their careers, more progressive on home policy than Palmerston, who was too much inclined not to move for the social welfare of the people before he was compelled.
The new Ministry ran well until it was hindered by complications in the East. In the middle of February, a few days after the meeting of Parliament, Lord John retired from the Foreign Office, and led the House through the session with great ability, but without taking office. It is important to remember that he had only accepted the Foreign Office under strong pressure, and as a temporary expedient. It was, however, understood that he was at liberty at any moment to relinquish the Foreign Office in favour of Lord Clarendon, if he found the duties too onerous to discharge in conjunction with the task of leadership in the Commons. The session of 1853 was rendered memorable by the display of Mr. Gladstone’s skill in finance; and the first Budget of the new Chancellor of the Exchequer was in every sense in splendid contrast with the miserable fiasco of the previous year, when Mr. Disraeli was responsible for proposals which, as Sir George Cornewall Lewis said, were of a kind that flesh and blood could not stand. The trade of the country had revived, and, with tranquility, some degree of prosperity had returned, even to Ireland. Lord John Russell, true to his policy of religious equality, brought forward the Jewish Disabilities Bill, but the House of Lords, with equal consistency, threw out the measure. The Law of Transportation was altered, and a new India Bill was passed, which threw open the Civil Service to competition. Many financial reforms were introduced, a new proposal was made for a wider extent of elementary education, and much legislative activity in a variety of directions was displayed.
Lord Aberdeen had taken office under pressure and from a sense of duty. It had few attractions for him, and he looked forward with quiet satisfaction to release from its cares. Lord Stanmore’s authority can be cited for the statement that in the summer of 1853 his father deemed that the time had come when he might retire in Lord John Russell’s favour, in accordance with an arrangement which had been made in general terms when the Cabinet was formed. There were members of the Coalition Government who were opposed to this step; but Lord Aberdeen anticipated no serious difficulty in carrying out the proposal. Suddenly the aspect of affairs grew not merely critical but menacing, and the Prime Minister found himself confronted by complications abroad, from which he felt it would be despicable to retreat by the easy method of personal resignation. There is not the slightest occasion, nor, indeed, is this the place, to recount the vicissitudes of the Aberdeen Administration in its baffled struggles against the alternative of war. The achievements of the Coalition Government, no less than its failures, with much of its secret history, have already been told with praiseworthy candour and intimate knowledge by Lord Stanmore, who as a young man acted as private secretary to his father, Lord Aberdeen, through the stress and storm of those fateful years. It is therefore only necessary in these pages to state the broad outlines of the story, and to indicate Lord John Russell’s position in the least popular Cabinet of the Queen’s reign.
Lord Shaftesbury jotted down in his journal, when the new Ministry came into office, these words, and they sum up pretty accurately the situation, and the common verdict upon it: ‘Aberdeen Prime Minister, Lord John Russell Minister for Foreign Affairs. Is it possible that this arrangement should prosper? Can the Liberal policy of Lord John square with the restrictive policy of Lord Aberdeen? I wish them joy and a safe deliverance.’
[26] Sir William Gregory, K.C.M.G.: an Autobiography, edited by Lady Gregory, pp. 92, 93.
[27] Mr. Gladstone’s comment on this statement is that it is interesting as coming from an acute contemporary observer. At the same time it expresses an opinion and presents no facts. Mr. Gladstone adds that he is not aware that the question of re-union with the Conservative party was ever presented to him in such a way as to embrace the relations to Mr. Disraeli.
[28] Life and
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