LIFE OF GOBDER
1955. exposé !? ..,,. What can your friend Dizzy say of a
Zin, 61. in opposition to the Government, after having agreed not
merely to serve under Palmerston, bub to sit in the sa%¢
Cabinet with Gladstone and Sidney Herbert! And what
will our soft radicals say after the affectionate flirtation of
Lord Derby with their great champion of democracy all
over the world? Lord 1). seems to me to have played 9
clever game for the future, and is, I suppose, acting under
the inspiration of such men as Lord Lonsdale in casting
himself loose from all his old team and opening the doof
for fresh alliances. Lord Palmerston can’t of course last
many years, or perhaps months, and then the ‘great Corservative
party’ is the only one not used up. But what 1°
to become of Disraeli? He can’t be first whilst Gladston®
is either with him or against him, and he won’t play second
to anybody but Palmerston. Will it end in his going
ambassador to Paris? In the meantime he has to eat a good
deal of dirt.
“ As for the Government, unless they put on fresh masks
and dresses, we shall certainly think them the same gentle:
men who got us into a ‘foolish, just, and necessary war,
as Sidney Smith would call it, and then threw away the
finest army we ever had for want of staff and generals, AS
for the exchange of Panmure for Newcastle, we who have
been behind the scenes know that the public gain nothing
by that. Again and again I ask myself, in witnessing the
childish glee with which the press and public call for
Palmerston to serve them-—are we mot a used-up nation f
7 “Lord Derby was sent for to form a government, and immediately
sought the co-operation of Lord Palmerston, offering him the leadership
of the House of Commons, which Mr. Disraeli was willing to waive in hi#
favour. Offers were also made throngh him to Mr. Gladstone and Mr:
3idoey Herbert.” Ashley’s Life of Loxd Palmerston, ii. 304. “Derby,”
wrote Lord Palmerston to his brother, “felt conscious of the incapacity
of tue greater portion of his party, and their unfitness to govern the
gountry.
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