1860.] LORD PALMERSTON'S RESOLUTIONS.

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were presented, praying the house to maintain its right of dealing exclusively with all measures of taxation. The chamber in which the Commons sit was crowded, for it was felt that the question was one the gravity of which it was impossible to exaggerate. Mr. Collier had given notice of a strongly-worded motion on the privilege question, and Mr. T. Duncombe had given notice of a resolution even more strongly worded; but both made way for Lord Palmerston who moved the three following resolutions:

1. That the right of granting aids and supplies to the crown is in the Commons alone, as an essential part of their constitution; and the limitation of all such grants, as to matter, manner, measure, and time, is only in them.

2. That although the Lords have exercised the power of rejecting bills of several descriptions relating to taxation by negativing the whole, yet the exercise of that power by them has not been frequent, and is justly regarded by this House with peculiar jealousy, as affecting the rights of the Commons to grant the supplies.

3. That to guard for the future against any undue exercise of that power by the Lords, and to secure to the Commons their rightful control over taxation and supply, this House has in its own hands the power so to impose and remit taxes, and to frame bills of supply, that the right of the Commons as to the matter, manner, measure and time may be maintained inviolate.'

These resolutions were received with some disappointment. They touched the question at issue between the two Houses very lightly, and even acknowledged the constitutional right of the peers to do as they had done; and they pronounced a very mild and feeble censure on the use which on this occasion the peers had made of their power. But if the resolutions were moderate, the speech in which Lord Palmerston introduced them was still more so. He admitted the importance of maintaining the privileges of the House, and declared that any attempt at aggression on them by the peers would be most dangerous, and ought to be strenuously resisted. He defended the conduct of the Lords in rejecting the paper-duties bill on the ground of the smallness of the majorities by which the second and third readings had been carried in the House of Commons;

and spoke of that bill in almost disparaging terms. He was therefore of opinion that nothing had occurred to cause a collision between the two Houses, and he adjured honourable members not to adopt any course which would bring them into conflict with the House of Lords. This speech was delivered with more energy and passion than he usually displayed, and was received with significant silence by the ministerialists, but with loud cheers by the Conservatives, who invariably showed themselves the zealous supporters of the other House. Mr. Collier, Mr. Conyngham, Mr. V. Scully, Mr. Leatham, Mr. B. Osborne, and Mr. James, all members of the liberal party, protested more or less strongly against the course that was being adopted by the government, which seemed to them ill-calculated to maintain the dignity and honour of the House of Commons.

Then Mr. Gladstone rose. His opinion was naturally looked for with anxiety and curiosity, because the bill that had been thrown out was one to which he attached considerable importance. He justified the resolutions proposed by the government, which he described as doing all that language could do to defend the honour of that House; but he added, that he was prepared to go farther, and to reserve to himself the right of acting. Referring to the precedents that had been so much insisted on, he denied emphatically that they had in the slightest degree touched the question under consideration, for there was not one of them that could properly be called a precedent. There was, he said, a great difference between the House of Lords advising the alteration of a money-bill and rejecting the repeal of a tax. The House of Commons had declared that they could spare from the revenue of the country 1,125,0007. of taxation, and that having an option between the tea and the paper duties as to which they should remit, they chose that which they believed would prove more beneficial to the country, though perhaps not the most popular. The result had been, that the House of Lords had assumed to themselves a power of dictating to the House of Commons, and saying that the country could not spare such a remission of taxation. He admitted that it would be very acceptable to have that money placed at their disposal; but he considered that the duty of the government to the country rendered it imperative upon

1860.]

INVASION PANIC.

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them to carry out the promise which they had made. With this speech the interest of the debate ended; it was, indeed, continued and adjourned, but all that was to be said on the subject had been spoken, and the final decision of the question was left to a future occasion. An attempt made by Lord Fermoy to push the matter farther was defeated by a majority of thirty-nine.

For some time past the invasion panic had been gaining strength, and was fomented by a man who of all others ought to have known better. Lord Palmerston, who had embroiled himself with Lord John Russell by his excessive eagerness to recognise the empire without waiting for the concurrence of his colleagues; Lord Palmerston, who had all along been the emperor's man in England; Lord Palmerston, who had done so much to cement that alliance with France, which had enabled us to prosecute the Crimean war to what he regarded as a satisfactory termination; Lord Palmerston, who had in this very session concluded a commercial treaty with France; this very Lord Palmerston was the man to come forward to propose a vote of two millions, as a first instalment of a much larger sum to be expended in fortifying our dockyards, and providing against the contingency of a sudden and treacherous attack from that government of which he had all along been the patron and the zealous advocate. It was in vain that that the emperor, in a letter addressed to Lord Cowley, and full of good sense and right feeling towards this country, endeavoured to allay the alarm that had been so industriously excited, and to show by statements of facts which might easily be tested how utterly groundless these fears were; Lord Palmerston brought forward his resolution in favour of this wasteful and wanton expenditure. In vain did Mr. Bright and a few other members protest against this reckless and ridiculous prodigality. Lord Palmerston urged forward his project; the appeal to the Gallophobian instincts of the country and of the House of Commons was responded to as it had been responded to on so many previous occasions, and after various amendments had been considered and rejected, Lord Palmerston's resolutions were carried by a majority of two hundred and twenty-nine by the same House of Commons which had set aside the reform bill in the manner we have described.

At the same time reviews of the newly-formed volunteer regiments were held in all parts of the country. Twentyone thousand men were mustered in Hyde Park, and eleven thousand at Knowsley, the seat of the Earl of Derby: prizes for successful rifle-shooting were proposed and awarded, and a defensive stir was made which seemed to indicate that some great peril was impending over the country.

Nothing could more clearly show the hollowness and unreality of the prevalent invasion panic than the treatment of a motion made by Sir De Lacy Evans for the fortification of Woolwich. He had just commenced his speech, and was enforcing in very earnest tones the danger in which the country was placed in case of an invasion, by the unprotected state of this great naval arsenal, when a member moved that the house should be counted. The requisite forty were not present, and so Woolwich had to be left exposed for at least another year to all the dangers against which Sir De Lacy Evans was endeavouring to warn the nation; and certainly while the money which the gallant General was anxious to spend was saved, the country suffered none of the injuries against which he implored it to provide.

The question of the paper duties was submitted to the House of Commons in another shape on Monday the 6th of August. Mr. Gladstone moved a resolution for removing so much of the customs duty on paper as exceeded the excise duty at home. Notwithstanding the late period of the session at which it was brought forward, the benches on both sides of the House were well filled, and there were all the usual symptoms of a strong party contest, in which the opposition hoped to be able to inflict a defeat on the government which would be followed by the withdrawal of Mr. Gladstone. Great exertions were made by both parties to muster their respective adherents. One member was brought back from Switzerland, another from Beyrout; but the ministers triumphed in a House of 449 by a majority of thirty-three; and the satisfaction of the liberal party, and their appreciation of the value of Mr. Gladstone's services, were shown by the loud cheers that greeted this victory, which were prolonged for more than five minutes when he rose to propose his second resolution.

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PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT.

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The law reforms of the government shared for the most. part the fate of their parliamentary reform. Like it, they fell through rather on account of the time required for the consideration of questions of finance than on any other ground, except perhaps the fact that the Lower House contained upwards of one hundred and fifty gentlemen of the long robe, the interests of many of whom were no doubt affected by the proposed changes, and all of whom would probably have something to say respecting them.

A strong agitation was raised by the Dissenters against a provision contained in the census act of this year, which ordered that the religious denomination of every adult through the country should be obtained. The motive of this opposition was the belief entertained by those who raised it that numbers of persons who attended no place of worship, and really belonged to no religious denomination, would, if asked the question, profess to be members of the Established Church, and that in this way the number of Churchmen, and the proportion they bore to the Dissenters, would be made to appear greater than it really was. Numerous petitions were sent up both in favour of and in opposition to the proposed religious census, and the project was abandoned.

Parliament sat from the 12th of January till the 12th of August, on which day it was prorogued by commission.

During the whole of the autumn of this year the negotiations for settling the manifold and intricate details of the tariff, established in accordance with the terms of the commercial treaty negotiated with France in the commencement of 1860, were ably and diligently carried out by Mr. Cobden with the French government at Paris. Great and not altogether unsuccessful efforts had been made on both sides of the Channel to excite a prejudice against the treaty; but the groundlessness of the objections made against it were best shown by the fact that while in England it was loudly proclaimed that our government had been duped by the astuter diplomacy of France, it was still more loudly complained in France that the interests of that country had been sacrificed to those of England. Both allegations were baseless. Each country was greatly benefited by the

removal of restrictions which had shackled the free movements of commercial enterprise, and kept it down to less