[Footnote 37: See _post_, 21st February, 1855, note 38.]
He answered: I believe Lord Palmerston made a mistake in not grappling with it from the first, and using all the power the Crown had entrusted to him, even ostentatiously, for the purpose. Now it might be most difficult--but it ought not to pass without a solemn protest on the part of the men who were not connected with the Government, and should not be supposed to have any other than the interests of the Country at heart. A Government was powerless in resisting such an encroachment of the House, where the whole Opposition, from personal motives, and the supporters of Government from fear of their constituents, were bent upon carrying it. Such a protest, however, might form a rallying-point upon which future resistance might be based, and the Country, now intoxicated by agitation, might come to its senses.
As to the strength of the Government, he believed it had very little at this moment in the House, and that such would be the case with any Government Lord Palmerston could form, he had foretold him, when Lord Derby had made him the offer to join an Administration of his forming. At this moment the secession of the Peelites would rather strengthen the Government than otherwise, as, from their connection with Lord Aberdeen, they had been decried in the Country with him, and the Whigs looked upon them with all the personal feelings of men deprived of their offices by them.
He agreed with me that in the present disruption of Parties, the difficulty of obtaining any strong Government consists, not in the paucity of men, but in the over-supply of Right Honourable gentlemen produced by the many attempts to form a Government on a more extended base. There were now at least three Ministers for each office, from which the two excluded were always cried up as superior to the one in power. He said this could not be amended until we got back to two Parties--each of them capable of presenting to the Queen an efficient Administration. Now the one Party did not support its Chief from personal rivalry--and the other, from the very feeling of its own incapacity, became reckless as to the course of its political actions.
He concluded by saying he felt it right to reserve his final determination till the last moment at which it would become necessary.