xv) INTERVIEW WITH LORD PALMERSTON. 695

dwelling particularly on the fact that as questions of foreign
Policy were now uppermost, and as those questions were in
the bands of the Executive, it was only by joining the
Sovernment that I could influence them. ‘You and your
friends complain,” he said, of a secret diplomacy, and that
iia are entered into without consulting the people. Now
1 is in the Cabinet alone that questions of foreign policy are
Settled. We never consult Parliament till after they are
settled, If, therefore, you wish to have a voice in those
questions, you can only do so in the Cabinet.’ This was the
argument I found it most difficult to answer, and therefore
Be pressed it most strongly.
“But finding me still firm in my objections, he observed
laughingly, ¢ Why are you in the House of Commons?’ I
8uswered also with a laugh, ¢ Upon my word I hardly know.
‘But why did you enter public life?” said he. ‘I hardly
know,’ was my answer ; ‘it was by mere accident, and for a
Special purpose, and probably it would have been better for
We and my family if I had kept my private station.” Upon
which he threw out both his hands, and, with a laugh louder
than before, he exclaimed, ‘Well, but being in it, why
ot go on?’ He added, ‘Recollect I don’t offer you the
Seat from any desire of my own to change my colleagues.
I loft to me, I would of course rather have gone on &s before
With my old friends. I offer you the seat because you have
& right to it.”
“In answer to my remark that perhaps others might be
found quite as much entitled as myself to represent the
advanced Liberals in his Government, he replied quickly,
“Will yon be good enough to mention the name of any one
®xcepting Bright, Gibson, and yourself, that I could bring
into the Cabinet as the representative of the Radicals?’ I
urged that Bright had been unfairly judged, and thab his
Spesches at Birmingham, &c., were not of a kind to exclude

1859.
Ap. BB.