the Ballot, be open questions if you please; let every institution in Church and State be open questions; but, at least, let your answer to me to-night prove that, among your open questions, you are not going to make an open question of the peace of Europe.

41

PROSECUTION OF WAR, May 24, 1855.

[In March 1855 Lord John Russell had gone out as Plenipotentiary to the Vienna Conference; and while there had offered to recommend to his colleagues terms of peace proposed by Austria, which on his return home, finding that they did not approve of them, he forbore to press, and did not divulge to Parliament. Soon after his return he delivered a most warlike speech. But Mr. Disraeli believed that on his first return from Vienna these proposals were more favourably received by the cabinet than the public had been led to believe, and that at one moment' a new coalition' was meditated, on the basis of them, which would have brought to the Government the support of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Milner Gibson and the Peace Party, without which it was liable to defeat at any moment. The Resolution therefore was intended to force the Government to declare itself. On a division being taken the motion was negatived by 319 votes to 219.]

MR.

R. DISRAELI rose, according to notice, to move the following resolution :

'That this House cannot adjourn for the recess without expressing its dissatisfaction with the ambiguous language and uncertain conduct of Her Majesty's Government in reference to the great question of peace or war; and that, under these circumstances, this House feels it a duty to declare that it will continue to give every support to Her Majesty in the prosecution of the war until Her Majesty shall, in conjunction with her allies, obtain for this country a safe and honourable peace.'

in

He said: In rising, Sir, to move the resolution which is now your hands I wish in the first place to explain to the House the reasons by which I am actuated in so doing, and the object which I have in view. Sir, I have watched for some time, as I suppose every member in this House has watched, with interest and with deep anxiety, the conduct of the Government with

respect to the great question of peace or war during the recent Conference at Vienna; and I have imbibed an opinion with respect to the intentions of the Government which has filled me with distrust. I thought that there was on their part language so ambiguous and conduct so uncertain that I was led to reflect what might be the consequences of circumstances which undoubtedly had filled the public mind of this country with great disquietude and great discontent, and which certainly demanded the attention and consideration of every man who felt that he had a responsible duty to perform in this House. It was impossible for me, entertaining that opinion, to ask that the sentiments of this House should be publicly declared on this subject so long as negotiations were going on. Everybody knows that the obvious and irresistible answer to me would have been, 'Her Majesty's servants are at this moment engaged in confidential communication with the representatives of foreign Powers, and it would be highly indecorous and might be injurious to the interests of Her Majesty's service if the criticisms of Parliament should interfere with the probable result of their labours.' Who can for a moment deny that such an objection would be entirely judicious and could not for a moment be resisted? At last, Sir, after some inquiry and after an unusual period of time, the protocols of the negotiations were laid on the table of this House, and I did anticipate that the minister, following the precedents which as I think ought to have regulated his conduct, would have taken the earliest opportunity of asking the opinion of Parliament upon the labours of the representative of his Government, and would have also taken the same opportunity of laying before the House of Commons-without of course committing himself to embarrassing details, but still frankly, precisely, and explicitly—what were the intentions of the Government with regard to the great question of peace or war.

Well, Sir, I more than once invited the First Minister to take that course, and I confess that even to the last I did believe that he would have reconsidered his first conclusion, and that he would have felt that he was doing his duty more satisfactorily to his sovereign, to Parliament, and to the country

if he had pursued the course which I had intimated. I did hope that the noble lord would have perceived that the public mind was in that state as certainly to render it necessary above all things that the minister should relieve and enlighten public opinion on subjects of such surpassing magnitude, and that he would therefore have been anxious to ask, in the constitutional and customary manner, the opinion of Parliament on the course and character of the negotiation which he had sanctioned, and the policy which he had intended to pursue.

Well, Sir, I was disappointed in that expectation, but I was not the only person who was disappointed; indeed, I think I may venture to say that the House and the country were equally disappointed; I think I may venture to say that it would have been satisfactory to the public in the present perplexed and somewhat sullen disposition of the nation, if, at the conclusion of negotiations which had been carried on upon our part with no usual pomp and ostentation, and which had therefore been looked to with proportionate interest-I think it would have been satisfactory to the people of England if the First Minister of the Crown had come forward when these negotiations had failed, and taken that opportunity of fairly expressing the views of his administration to Parliament, and have given, as I should have hoped, an expression of opinion which would have sustained and reanimated the spirit of the country. Nothing of this kind, however, occurred; and after some lapse of time I hesitated whether I should myself take the necessary step, and ultimately shrank from doing what I felt to be my duty, from what I admit may be a cowardly fear of those vulgar imputations which are often too influentialimputations that a man, when compelled in the exercise of his duty in this House to do that which may in some degree convey a censure of the Government, is actuated by the most unworthy motives. I declined, I am ashamed to say, and more than once declined, to take the course that, in the position which with the too great indulgence of my friends, I occupy, I felt was my duty.

However, a right honourable gentleman, a member for a great city, a member of the Privy Council of the Queen, thought

that this was an occasion which could not be allowed to pass unnoticed, and therefore he placed on the table of the House a motion for an Address to Her Majesty. The right honourable gentleman the member for Manchester (Mr. Gibson), instead of the First Minister of the Crown, proposed an Address to Her Majesty upon the grave question of peace or war. I hope, if the noble lord could have screwed up his courage to propose an Address to his Royal Mistress, that it would not have been conceived in the spirit of the motion of the right honourable member for Manchester; and the great object which I have in view to-night is, if I possibly can, to extract among other things from the Government a declaration to that effect.

But, Sir, the right honourable gentleman the member for Manchester, in giving his notice, acted in a perfectly Parliamentary manner, in a manner quite consistent with his own high character and eminent talents; and I heard of that notice with entire satisfaction, because I felt that the question would have been fairly brought before this House, that we should have had an opportunity of venturing at length into the discussion of topics which I am myself soon to treat upon-topics which I believe to be of the utmost importance to the honour and to the interests of this country. And, although I could not support that right honourable gentleman in this motion, I was grateful to him for affording to me and my friends the opportunity of expressing our views upon this subject, and for taking a course which would have elicited that expression of opinion which I believe now to be absolutely necessary for the country.

Sir, I never for a moment supposed that that discussion would not take place. Is there a gentleman on either side of the House who could for an instant have imagined that it could be suppressed? Not the slightest objection was made on the part of the Government when the right honourable gentleman's notice was given. True it is that the member for Manchester had not the power of commanding a day, in order to bring the question before the House; but then the unquestionable magnitude and gravity of the subject to be brought under consideration, the anxious feeling of the people of this country in regard