The Life and Times of Queen Victoria; vol. 3 of 4Wilson, Robert
History
The Life and Times of Queen Victoria; vol. 3 of 4
Wilson, Robert
Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901; Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, 1819-1901
which Disraeli makes to-day in the Commons is to be moved on Friday in
the Lords. I went yesterday to Disraeli to settle about this, he merely
pointing to a chair. I did not sit down, but gave him the message Lord
Derby had sent, and went away.[207] After the meeting at Lord
Salisbury’s I went to Lord Derby’s to report what had occurred. He was
pleased to hear that the motion was not given up, but he was in such
dreadful pain that I did not stay.”[208] The vote of censure in the
House of Lords was rejected by a majority of 9, and little attention was
paid to the struggle there. But all eyes turned to the arena of strife
in the House of Commons, where the issue was doubtful, and where on the
4th of July Mr. Disraeli moved a Resolution “to express to her Majesty
our great regret that, while the course pursued by her Majesty’s
Government has failed to maintain their avowed policy of upholding the
independence and integrity of Denmark, it has lowered the just influence
of this country in the councils of Europe, and thereby diminished the
securities for peace.” His indictment of Palmerston’s Foreign Policy was
unanswerable. In alliance with France and Russia, England might have
controlled the Danish Question. But Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell,
after annoying Russia because she persecuted Poland, provoked France by
refusing to join her in protecting the Poles from persecution. When the
English Government discovered that France was immovably neutral on the
Danish Question, they should either have declared frankly that they
would, if need be, defend Denmark by force, or, like France, they should
have abstained from either menacing the German Powers, or holding out to
Denmark delusive hopes of succour. The latter, said Mr. Disraeli, would
have been his policy; on the other hand, the British Ministers wavered
between peace and war--indulging in unaccomplished threats and
unfulfilled promises. The undignified part that Lords Palmerston and
Russell made England play at the Conference--which, as Mr. Disraeli
observed, “lasted about as long as a Carnival and, like a Carnival, was
an affair of masks and mystifications,”--laid them open to a disastrous
attack. Palmerston’s first aim was to maintain the integrity of Denmark.
In the Conference the English plenipotentiary was the first to accept
and even suggest her dismemberment. His second aim was professedly to
maintain the independence of Denmark and lessen the risk of a great war
in Europe. In the Conference the English representative, however,
proposed to put Denmark under the joint guarantee of the Great Powers.
“They would,” as Mr. Disraeli pointed out, “have created another Turkey
in Europe, in the same geographical situation, the scene of the same
rival intrigues, and the same fertile source of constant misconceptions
and wars.” Mr. Gladstone virtually acknowledged the diplomatic defeat of
the Government. They had tried, he said in effect, to induce France and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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