x] ISSUZE OF THE DEBATH, 539

0 slow rather than oo quick is recognizing even such 1850.
Occasions as arise of themselves? Whether interference Zr. #4
should be frequent, peremptory, and at any cost, or should
on the contrary be “rere, deliberate, decisive in character,
ud effectual for its end 17" ‘Whether England should
Wake light of the restraints of the law of nations, pushing
the claim of the Civis Romanus with a high and unflinching
hand, or should on the contrary by her strictness of care
“0d scruple fortify and enlarge that domain which justice
Bd peace have already acquired for themselves among the
brotherhoood of nations? Such were the topics and the
8Sues of the controversy. The victory was to the old idols
of the tribe and the market-place. The foreign policy of
Lord Palmerston was approved, and its author encouraged,
by a majority of six and forty.
i The effect of this remarkable debate was very great. It
8 true that it was not wholly a debate on the merits. Under
government by parties, a debate wholly on the merits is very
common. The question nominally at issue was mixed up
With suspicion of a French diplomatic conspiracy, and belief
im a Protectionist intrigue. The publ.¢ was indignant that
& domestic faction should lend itself for purposes of its own
to a cabal of foreigners against a Minister who had been too
clever for them. It is true, also, that when we talk of the
Public during these years, the phrase does not designate the
Ration at large, even in the limited sense in which it does this
Now, In every epoch the political public really means the
People who have votes, and at that time the people who had
Votes were an extremely small fraction of the nation at large.
When that is said, however, there is very little doubt that
the language which Lord Palmerston used on this occasion
Was the language which the majority of Englishmen were
Rot gorry to hear, and would uot be likely to repudiate when
7 My. MNadstone’s desorintion.