THE PROPOSED CENSURE ON THE DERBY GOVERNMENT.

Colonist, Issue 88, 24 August 1858, Page 4

THE PROPOSED CENSURE ON THE DERBY GOVERNMENT.

(From the Morning Advertiser, May 15.) Last night was one of the most exciting nights in. both branches of the Legislature which has been witnessed for some years. And it so happened—a not usual circumstance—that the subject of debate was the same in either House.

Lord Shaftesbury introduced the question in the Upper House. In a calm, lucid, statesmanlike speech, the noble earl placed before their Lordships the real merits of the important subject which he invited them to discuss, and on which he called for their deliberate, enlightened, and unbiassed judgment. No one who listened to the noble Lord could hesitate to admit, however much some people's wishes may have run in a contrary direction, that he made out a conclusive case against the Derby Government. Nothing was wanting in the way of further evidence, to prove that Lord Derby, the head of the Cabinet, and the Cabinet as a body, were both morally and constitutionally responsible for the treasonable despatch which Lord Ellenborough sent out to India in reply to Lord Canning's Proclamation. The speeches of the Government Peers were certainly but indifferent specimens of argumentative powers on the part of those who made them. They one and all harped on the same string—the fact of Lord Ellenborough having, when announcing his resignation of office, taken upon himself the sole responsibility of the writing and publication of the insurrectionary despatch. There is something so transparent in the absurdity of this argument, if argument it can be called, which makes one marvel that it should ever have been resorted to by men holding the position of Ministers of the Crown. We have shown its absurdity again and again, until we have become tired of ■" slaying the slain." And yet it may be necessary to advert to it once more, when we come to speak of the debate in the

Commons.

The debate in the Lords closed this morning as we prepared our readers to expect. .On a division Government had the poor majority of nine. We had prepared the public to expect a small majority against the Government, and but for the fact of Lord Ellenborough's resignation there can be no doubt that the event would have shown we were right. As it is, when the question was a vote of no confidence in the Government, a majority of only nine, in a House consisting of 325 members, is tantamount to a decided moral defeat.

In the Commons, Mr. Cardwell also brought forward his motion, which goes still further than that of Lord Shaftesbury. It is more directly and decidedly condemnatory both in its spirit and terms. We are glad that it is, because it is so emphatically a vote of censure, that it would be unconstitutional for any Government to remain an hour in office after its being passed, even were it only to be carried by a majority of one. Mr. Cardwell fully redeemed the pledge which we gave a few days since when we assured the public that Lord Derby was not only fully cognizant of, but a consenting party to, the writing and despatching of the incendiary reply of Lord Ellenborough to Lord Canning's Proclamation. How, under these circumstances, Lord Derby could, as an honorable man, deny all knowledge of the Ellenborough despatch, it is not for us to say. Mr. Cardwell brought forward Lord Ellenborough to give evidence against the Premier.. The ex-President of the Board of Control was called into the witness-box by the member for Oxford, to prove that he had read to Lord Derby the draft of the letter which he sent to Lord Canning in reply to his Proclamation, and that the chief of the conservative cabinet concurred in, or, to use Lord Ellenborough's expression, " adopted " his sentiments, ' No less conclusive were the proofs which Mr. Cardwell furnished to the House that the despatch to India of the Sepoy document, penned by the then Sepoy President of the Council, was with the knowledge of Lord Derby.

We have not space to-day, owing to the length to which our reports extend, to advert in detail to the leading speeches made in the Commons. To these we shall have an opportunity of recurring on Monday. But no one can read these speeches, as no one could have heard them delivered, without coming to the conclusion, that the argument was all on one side. Indeed, the Tory Government and their friends manifestly laboured under the paralysing consciousness that they not only would

be vanquished on a division, but that they had no case. On the old Westminster Hall adage, therefore, of " No case; abu^e the plaintiff's attorney," they assailed and abused all who were supposed either to have had any hand in getting up the movement, or who had that evening given their support to it. Such members were charged with being the impersonation of all that was factious and ungenerous. They were, of course, acting from the worst of motives, —just as, if you take their own word for it, they themselves were solely influenced l^y the loftiest and purest considerations. But an ungrateful public unhappily either cannot or will not appreciate their patriotism. They get no credit for the self sacrifices to which they submit in the plenitude of their anxiety to promote the best interests of their country. They are not, of course, ignorant of the fact, that the Liberals, who are hungering and thirsting to take their places, represent them as not altogether disinterested in the services they render to their country ; but they can afford to laugh to scorn all such malevolent calumnies, and they bravely do laugh them to scorn, in so far as concerns their retention of their places until the latest possible moment. Of all the defenders of the Government, the Solicitor-General took certainty the boldest ground. He not only defended the Ellenborongh despatch as a whole, but he exultingly quoted Vattel and other authorities to show that it was not only consonant with the law of nations, but was in strict accordance with the dictates of humanity. Well; it is something, now-a-days, to see a speaker go Out of the beaten track, and do a little in the original, or racy line. Dictates of humanit}', indeed ! No doubt it is humanity, on the same principle as Irish reciprocity is—which means that the reciprocity is all on one side—the Irish side, of course. In like manner, the Ellenborough despatch is all on the side of Sepoy humanity. It is an indirect appeal to the rebels of Oude never to rest until they have exterminated all the British— men, women, and children. That is the sort of humanity with the dictates of which the despatch of. Lord Ellenborough is in such edifying accordance.