LORD PALMERSTON

(HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, VISCOUNT PALMERSTON)

(1784-1865)

ENRY JOHN TEmple, Viscount Palmerston, whose name is connected with some of the most important events in modern English politics, was born near Romsey, in Hants, England, October 20th, 1784. At the age of eighteen the death of his father made him Viscount Palmerston and opened to him the official career for which he was fitted by his versatility and his talents. He entered Parliament as a representative of a pocket borough, and was at once made one of the junior lords of the admiralty. When only twentyfive years of age his admirers offered to make him Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he declined the place on the ground that he knew nothing of finance. From 1809 to 1828 he served as Secretary of War, and it is said that he was "entirely devoted to the Tory party of that day." Later, he became eminent as a Whig, though it is said he never really changed his opinion, being as always a "statesman of the old English aristocratic type, liberal in his sentiments, favorable to the cause of justice and the march of progress, but entirely opposed to the claims of democratic government.” He was twice Prime Minister of England, and he is remarkable for such apparent inconsistencies as that between his sympathy for the Revolutionists of 1848, especially for the Italian Revolutionists, and his approval of Louis Napoleon's coup d'état in 1851. He died October 18th, 1865.

ON THE DEATH OF COBDEN

(Delivered in the House of Commons on April 3d, 1868, the Day Succeeding that of Cobden's Death)

Mr. Speaker:

Is impossible for this House to have that order put without calling to its mind the great loss which this House and the country have sustained by the event which took place yesterday morning. Sir, Mr. Cobden, whose loss we deplore, occupied a prominent position both as a member of this House and

as a member of the British nation. I do not mean, in the few words I have to say, to disguise or to avoid stating that there were many matters upon which a great number of people differed from Mr. Cobden, and I among the rest; but those who differed from him the most never could doubt the honesty of his purpose or the sincerity of his convictions. They felt that his object was the good of his country, however they might differ on particular questions from him as to the means by which that end was to be accomplished. But we all agree in burying in oblivion every point of difference, and think only of the great and important services he rendered to our common country. Sir, it is many years ago since Adam Smith elaborately and conclusively, as far as argument could go, advocated as the fundamental principles of the wealth of nations freedom of industry and unrestricted exchange of the objects and results of industry. These doctrines were inculcated by learned men, by Dugald Stewart and others, and were also taken up in process of time by leading statesmen, such as Mr. Huskisson and those who agreed with him; but the barriers which long-established prejudice, honest and conscientious prejudice, had raised against the practical application of those doctrines for a long series of years prevented their coming into use as instruments of progress in the country. To Mr. Cobden it was reserved, by his untiring industry, his indefatigable personal activity, the indomitable energy of his mind, and I will say that forcible and Demosthenic eloquence with which he treated all the subjects which he took in hand-it was reserved to Mr. Cobden, aided, no doubt, by a great phalanx of worthy associates, by my right honorable friend, the president of the Poor Law Board, and by Sir R. Peel, whose memory will ever be associated with the principles Mr. Cobden so ably advocated—it was reserved, I say, to Mr. Cobden, by exertions which never were surpassed, to carry into practical application those abstract principles with the truth of which he was so deeply impressed, and which at last gained the acceptance of all reasonable men in the country. He rendered an inestimable and enduring benefit to our country by the result of those exertions. But great as were Mr. Cobden's talents, great as was his industry, and eminent as was his success, the disinterestedness of his mind more than equaled all these. He was a man of great ambition, but his ambition was to be useful to his country; and that ambition was amply gratified. When the present Government was formed, I was

authorized graciously by her Majesty to offer to Mr. Cobden a seat in the Cabinet. Mr. Cobden declined, and frankly told me that he thought he and I differed a good deal upon many important principles of political action, and therefore he could not comfortably, either for me or for himself, join the administration of which I was the head. I think he was wrong; but this I will say of Mr. Cobden, that no man, however strongly he may have differed from him upon general political principles, or the application of those principles, could come into contact with him without carrying away the strongest personal esteem and regard for the man with whom he had the misfortune not entirely to agree. Well, sir, the two great achievements of Mr. Cobden were, in the first place, the abrogation of those laws which regulated the importation of corn and the great development which that gave to the industry of the country, and the commercial arrangements which he negotiated with France, which paved the way and tended greatly to extend the intercourse between the two countries. When that achievement was accomplished, it was my lot to offer to Mr. Cobden, not office, for that I knew he would not take, but to offer him those honors which the Crown can bestow- -a baronetcy and the rank of a privy councilor, honorable distinctions which it would have gratified the Crown to bestow for important services rendered to the country, and which I think it would not have been at all derogatory for him to accept. But the same disinterested spirit which actuated all his conduct, whether in private or in public, led him to decline even the acknowledgments which would properly have been made for the services he had rendered. Well, sir, I can only say that we have sustained a loss which every man in the country will feel. We have lost a man who may be said to have been peculiarly emblematical of the Constitution under which we have the happiness to live, because he rose to great eminence in this House, and acquired an ascendency in the public mind, not by virtue of any family connections, but solely and entirely by means of the power and vigor of his mind, that power and vigor being applied to purposes eminently advantageous to the country. Sir, Mr. Cobden's name will be forever engraved on the most interesting pages of the history of this country; and I am sure there is not one in this House who does not feel the deepest regret that we have lost one of its proudest ornaments, and that the country has been deprived of one of her most useful servants.

THE

AGAINST WAR ON IRELAND

(From a Speech Delivered in the House of Commons in 1829)

HEN come we to the last remedy,-civil war. Some gentlemen say that, sooner or later, we must fight for it, and the sword must decide. They tell us that, if blood were but shed in Ireland, Catholic emancipation might be avoided. Sir, when honorable members shall be a little deeper read in the history of Ireland, they will find that in Ireland blood has been shed, that in Ireland leaders have been seized, trials have been had, and punishments have been inflicted. They will find, indeed, almost every page of the history of Ireland darkened by bloodshed, by seizures, by trials, and by punishments. But what has been the effect of these measures? They have, indeed, been successful in quelling the disturbances of the moment; but they never have gone to their cause, and have only fixed deeper the poisoned barb that rankles in the heart of Ireland. Can one believe one's ears when one hears respectable men talk so lightly -nay, almost so wishfully-of civil war? Do they reflect what a countless multitude of ills those three short syllables contain? It is well, indeed, for the gentlemen of England, who live secure under the protecting shadow of the law, whose slumbers have never been broken by the clashing of angry swords, whose harvests have never been trodden down by the conflict of hostile feet,-it is well for them to talk of civil war, as if it were some holiday pastime, or some sport of children:

"They jest at scars who never felt a wound.»

But, that gentlemen from unfortunate and ill-starred Ireland, who have seen with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, the miseries which civil war produces,-who have known, by their own experience, the barbarism, aye, the barbarity, which it engenders, that such persons should look upon civil war as anything short of the last and greatest of national calamities,—is to me a matter of the deepest and most unmixed astonishment. I will grant, if you will, that the success of such a war with Ireland would be as signal and complete as would be its injustice; I will grant, if you will, that resistance would soon be extinguished with the lives of those who resisted; I will grant, if you

will, that the crimsoned banner of England would soon wave in undisputed supremacy over the smoking ashes of their towns and the blood-stained solitude of their fields. But I tell you that England herself never would permit the achievement of such a conquest; England would reject with disgust laurels that were dyed in fraternal blood; England would recoil with loathing and abhorrence from the bare contemplation of so devilish a triumph!