LORD PALMERSTON.

Auckland Examiner, Volume 1, Issue 1, 11 December 1856, Page 3

LORD PALMERSTON.

At break up of the “ dear Aberdeen” government, all eyes turned towards Palmerston. Even enemies felt that he was inevitable Believers in David Urquhartmen who said, —“ Palmerston is the paid slave of Foreign States, and Judas Iscariot of Foreign Politics,” —were obliged to confess that he alone could piece up a cabinet, therefore than his no other administration was possible. Expectation stood on tiptoe and an overwhelming majority of British politicians imagined that the rather long “ coming man” was come at last. Never had there been known a nearer approach to perfect unanimity. For once all parties agreed. Opposition silenced if not satisfied the one avowed, unmistakably expressed opinion was- — Palmerston must be chief minister.

That Her Majesty detested Palmerston everybody knew—the fact, belonging to a class called patent: everybody knew besides that in England “ the Queen reigns but does nut govern that her personal distastes however strong, or however strongly sympathized with by her illustrious consort and a court coterie more alive to German than British interests, weighed against national principles would be as a leather in the scale ; and that a mere show of resistance would be infinitely worse than no resistance at all. So Palmerston became chief minister. With characteristic activity he set himself to the Herculean work of forming an Administration. What chivalrous Derby failed

to do, and bold little Lord John failed to attempt, he accomplished. But success ruined him. Political vic-, tory was swallowed up in political death)

—or worse, political disgrace. His vaulting ambition “ o’erleaped itself, and fell o’ the other side.” No minister ever displayed more alacrity in sinking. It-can-not be said that he went up like a rocket, but assuredly he came down like its stick. For this- catastrophe we were prepared. It seemed to us matter of course, for in our eyes “jaunty” Lord Palmerston was rather the successful Charlatan than the great statesman. . knew his antecedents et voila tout. His metamorphoses beat Ovid’s hollow. No statesman more plastic in temper or more flexible in ethics. ( Yet we rank not ourselves with those who think him sold to Foreign States and a finished political Judas. For ought known to the contrary, his motives, may be pure as motives usually are. For ■ought known to the contrary he may all along have believed it expedient to good men that the state should be safe. •—Omnibus bonus expedit saham esse rempublicam,—and that his own transformations, if not essential, at least contributed, to its safety. Able he unquestionably is. To deny him great merit would be absurd. In 1851, when his Foreign policy was impugned by Peel and many leading members, as well of the Whig as the Conservative party, he addressed the house} ‘ ‘ from the dusk of one day till the dawn of another.” His speech upon that memorable occasion was telling, clever, eloquent, and unanswered. It “ stung his foes to wrath which grew from fear,” and may be cited as masterpiece of Parliamentary special pleading. Than Palmerston, indeed, no statesman more competent to dress up a case, or “ make the worse appear the better reason.” By dint of bonhommie, audacity, and dash, he works wonders, fooling credulity to the top of its bent. Until regularly “called in” and duly appointed State .Doctor, he had been lucky if not wise, a popular minister if not an honest man.

Some politiciansLwvork right against the popular grain. Palmerston never did, probably never will. He makes sport of such people, considers them crotchetty, and little less unreasonable than the Fairy tale Enchantress who makes the union of of her daughter with a doting youth, whom “ love hath turned the wrong side outward,” conditional on his devouring three hundred oxen at a meal, and drinking as many hogsheads of wine, j ust to w ash the oxen down. To be continued.