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LIFE OF OOBDEXN. Kod

1848. “I do not think a minister is justified in advising 5%
Ar +g, lution under such circumstances as the present, nnless he
has a strong conviction that he will have s majority based
not on temporary personal sympathies, not on concurrend®
of sentiment on one branch of policy, however jmportas?
that may be, but on general approval of his whole policy
“1 should not think rayself entitled to exercise this gest
prerogative, for the sole or the main purpose of deciding ®
personal question between myself and inflamed Protec”
bionists—namely, whether I had recently given good advi®
and honest advice to the Crown. The verdict of 8°
country might be in my favour on that issue; but I might
fail in obtaining a majority which should enable me afte’
the first excitement had passed away, to carry on the
government, that is fo do what I think conducive to the
public welfare. I do not consider the evasion of difficulties
and the postponement of troublesome questions, the carry”
ing on of a government.
“I could perhaps have parried even your power, and
carried on the government in one sense for three or fouf
years longer, if I could have consented to halloo on #
majority in both houses to defend the (not yet defunct)
Corn Law of 1842, ‘in all its integrity.’
“If you say that I individually at this moment embody
or personify an idea, be it so. Then I must be very careful
that, being the organ and representative of a prevailing and
magnificent conception of the public mind, I do not sully
that which I represent by warranting the suspicion eve™
that I am using the power it confers for any persons!
object.
“You have said little, and I have said nothing, about
Ireland. But if I am defeated on the Irish Bill, will it be po#”
sible to divest dissolution (following soon after that defest)
of the character of an appeal to. Great Britain againsh