A REMINISCENCE OF LORD PALMERSTON.

Otago Witness, Issue 2529, 3 September 1902, Page 65

A REMINISCENCE OF LORD PALMERSTON.

There was one great English statesman, pei haps the most successful of his time — Lord l'almerstoii — the most successful, at !e.t*t. so far as the letention of high official pow er is concerned — w ho owed the greater part of his succe-< to the inexhaustible fund of humour on which lie could draw with the happiest effect at half a moment's i.otice.

No one now behevt s that Palmerston w as a- great statesman in the highest sense of the word, th.it, h'u homo pnhcj- or his t«.ivign policy was inspired by the loftiest genius for the creation of enduring statesmanlike system". But for success in carrying triumphantly through msasures which li* de.-ired to advance, for obtaining a control over the majority in the House of Commons, and for keiping himseh and Ins p.utv fn office, he hid not an equal in the English public life of ou/ times.

Ati 1 have said, this great success had for iU main element his faculty of spontaneous humour. He could make even Disraeli, that ina-t2r of elaborate sarcasm, seem positively ridiculous now and then by a single l'Umorciiis .senter.ee. Lei me give one in"tance.out of many of which I had myself tlie good fort imc to be an observer. At on 2 time, not vsry long before Palir.er>U>n's death, there came a great crisis in foreign affairs, one of those wliich came ii;tt uncommonly in d?ys gone by, when England seemed to be diifting into another wat with Itii-s.-ia. Lord Paim-2rston was then at the head of tLe Government, and v as. lender in the HoiLsa of Commons.

Disraeli delivered a speech calling upon Palmerston to ex\)lu:i to the House the course of policy w Inch he intended to pursue, and Di-ji ic-h wound up \uth the deciaicttiou that at a moment of «-uch gravity he wiiiild ka\e to th» Government the responsibility of tlitir action, and would not onei any advice of his owii. When Lord I'dhiKiston lose to reply the whole House, ..lid e.-pvcially the Toty party, waited with ucep mteicst for what was to come. 'Ihe gener.il impression among the Tories was that "Dizzy" had given the Piime Mimstei a very h<nd nut to crack, and that l'almer>.ton was in a serious difficulty. lMmeretju b^gaa i:h reply with a look of portentous gvo-vity. which his. friends lightly assumed to be put ou for a purpose, i nd as a prelude to something comical.

Palmeiston observed that the right honourable gentlcmm who had just sat down L.id fraiikly declared that at a ciisis of such gravity he would offer no acvice of his own "Well. Mr Speaker," Palmerston v tut on to say. "that resolve on his part I^. truly patriotic* Th? effect of the«e jiords was instantanejus. Palmarston'b

seemingly innocent assumption that Disraeli felt sure that no advice of his could lead to anything but confusion, and therefore from patriotic motives refrained from _ imperilling the country by any vnggeslion . of his own, reduced the whole of Disraeli's pompous effort to utter .absurdity. The success of the joke" enabled Palmer-, ston, for the hour at least, to save the situation. The Hou.se "n general wa? ready to feel convinced "i.>it the Prime Minister must have no fear of any real conger when he could thus evade the attacL of an opponent which might otherwise hay« i-f-cr. formidable, and the ordinary business <^f the evening wont on as if nothing particuiar'had happened. — Justin M'Carthy, n the New York Journ il.