him was really fomented by the agents of the despotic Powers, whose policy he had persistently opposed, won strong support from the Radicals. The Whigs felt that as the Foreign Policy of the Government as a whole was

attacked, they were bound to defend the Ministry, quite irrespective of Palmerston's possibly objectionable method of carrying out that policy. Moreover, it was undoubtedly a weak point in the tactics of the Opposition, that they did not venture to submit in the House of Commons, the motion of censure which they had carried in the House of Lords. But though Lord Palmerston's triumph was complete, the Queen continued to be dissatisfied

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COURT INTRIGUE AGAINST PALMERSTON.

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with his reckless manner of managing the Foreign Office. Pressure was put on him by the concurrence of Lord John Russell, the Duke of Bedford, Lord Lansdowne, and Lord Clarendon to take another department, which, however, he refused to do. For the time-confident in his popularity-he was able to

hold his position, but ere a year had elapsed her Majesty's warnings were fulfilled, and Lord John was simply compelled to force him to retire.* It must be here told how this whole controversy ended. Before the debate closed, it was announced that we had accepted, with some trifling modifications

The details of this intrigue, it is understood, were recorded by Mr. Greville, but the publication of them was withheld by the editor of his "Journal," for reasons which may easily be guessed. The whole story will probably not be told during the lifetime of the Queen.

in detail, the French proposals made on behalf of Greece. The demands of the claimants in support of whom we had been brought to the brink of war with France, were finally assessed at £10,000-about one-thirtieth part of the sum they originally asked!

No other question of Foreign Policy agitated the House of Commons in 1850, save Mr. Hutt's proposal to withdraw the British war-ships engaged in suppressing the West African slave trade. The cost of the squadron had made its maintenance unpopular even with Liberals, and when Lord John Russell threatened to stake the existence of his Ministry on it, the Queen was distressed to learn that there was every prospect of his being defeated, at a time when a change of Government would have produced the utmost confusion. A meeting of the Liberal Party was convened by the Prime Minister at Downing Street, and pressure, which they hardly dared to resist, induced the malcontents to support the Government. Mr. Hutt's motion was lost, many Ministerialists, however, complaining bitterly that the Prime Minister had concussed them into voting against their convictions.

CHAPTER XXIV.

SOME EPOCH-MARKING LEGISLATION.

The Colonies and Party Government--The Movement for Autonomy-Lord John Russell's Colonial Bill-Tory Opposition to Colonial Federation-Mr. Adderley's Plan--Mr. Gladstone's Scheme for Colonial Church Courts-The Colonial Bills Mangled in the House of Lords--More English Doles for Ireland-An Irish Reform Bill-Lord John Russell Proposes to Abolish the Lord Lieutenancy--The Queen's Irish Policy— Her offer to Establish a Royal Residence in Ireland-The Bungled Budget--The Demand for Retrenchment-The Tories Insist on a Reduction of Official Salaries--Lord John Russell's Commission on Establishments The Queen and the Church-The Ecclesiastical Appeals Bill The "Gorham Case"-Death of Peel-The Queen's Sorrow-A Nation in Mourning-Peel's Character and Career-The Queen's Alarm about Prince Albert's Health The Queen at Work-The Queen's Reading-Lamp.

FAR more interesting, however, was the Colonial legislation of the Government in 1850, which indeed might be termed epoch-marking. The Queen had at the opening of the Session indicated in her Speech from the Throne that a measure extending Constitutional government to the Colonies would be introduced. It was known that she was personally of opinion that the Colonies were giving promise of a growth so rapid, that it would be impossible for any length of time to hold them in the leading-strings of the Colonial Office. The incessant attacks which had been made on Lord Grey in Parliament and in the Press merely served to confirm the Queen in this opinion. It was, therefore, with great satisfaction that she discovered that men of light and leading on both sides of the House of Commons were so far agreed on the subject, that it was deemed practicable by Lord John Russell to minimise the friction. between the Colonies and the Colonial Office, by conceding to the Colonists

1850.]

COLONIAL AUTONOMY.

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large powers of representative self-government. Lord John Russell explained the scheme which embodied these ideas on the 8th of February. To the Cape Colony he granted two Chambers. The first was representative, and elected under a property qualification. The second, or Legislative Council, was to be elected by persons with a higher property qualification, who had been named by the Crown or municipal bodies for magisterial and municipal offices as individuals of weight and influence. For Australia he proposed a system under which there should be only one Legislative Council, two-thirds elected by the people, and one-third named by the Governor, on the pattern of the system adopted by New South Wales, but with power to the Colonists to change to the bi-cameral or two-Chamber system if they preferred it. Provision was made for constituting, on petition of any two Colonies, a Federal Assembly representing all the Colonial Legislatures, to frame a common tariff, or initiate a common policy for dealing with waste lands. It was in introducing this great scheme that Lord John Russell said that, whilst reserving questions of military defence, the central idea of his Colonial policy was this: political freedom can be best promoted in the Colonies by acting on the general rule, that while the Imperial Government must be their representative in all foreign relations, it will interfere in their domestic affairs no further than may be manifestly necessary to prevent a conflict in the State itself.

By finally and formally establishing this principle, the Government of the Queen did all that was humanly possible to repair the wrong done to England and the English people by her grandfather, George III., who flung away, not a crown, as did James II., but a virgin continent, to gratify an absolutist prejudice.

The Bill passed the House of Commons, though the scheme was open to objection. Had it not been open to objection, it would have been a perfect Bill, "that faultless monster," to adapt Pope's line, "which the world ne'er saw." On the whole, however, it was wonderfully well received. Its opponents objected mainly to the adoption of the uni-cameral instead of the bi-cameral system, namely, that of governing by one instead of by two Legislative Assemblies. Why, it was asked, should Australia be limited to one Legislative Assembly when the Cape was permitted to have two? Another objection was to the introduction of a Federative Assembly, which was opposed bitterly as a novelty even by Tory politicians like Mr. Disraeli, who in after-years strongly advocated Imperial Federation. Another more valid objection urged by Radicals like Sir W. Molesworth, was that the scheme gave the Colonial Office too much power. There was good sense in his contention, supported by Tories like Mr Adderley (afterwards Lord Norton), that the Colonial Parliament should not only be vested with all legislative powers which were not Imperial, but that this should be done by mentioning the powers that were Imperial, and leaving everything not mentioned in that category, to be considered as Colonial. This point gave rise to an able and thoughtful debate on the report of the Bill after it emerged from

Committee, in which it may be interesting to state that Mr. Gladstone delivered a speech in support of the Tory-Radical opposition, which may be said to contain the germs of the principle on which his Irish Home Rule Bill of 1886 was based. On the other hand, to Mr. Gladstone must be credited the oddest and most ridiculous of all the amendments to the measure. His ecclesiasticism induced him to propose that in every Colony the Church of England be authorised to form

a synod independent of the Imperial or Colonial Government, and empowered to make laws binding on Anglican Colonists. The idea of empowering the Anglican Church courts in our free Colonies to make regulations, quite independently of the Crown or the Colony, which were to be not only binding in foro conscientiæ, but were also to have the force of law, in Royal and Colonial courts, was not only medieval, but monstrous. Yet it was only rejected by 187 to 182. Perhaps this accounted for what was by far the most trenchant speech made in opposition to the Bill, that of the Bishop of Oxford in the House of Lords, though even he did not venture to reject the measure, his proposal being merely to refer