Australian views of England/Letter 9
LETTER IX.
THE Great Exhibition is beginning to attract a world of strangers in London; the increase of life and bustle everywhere is very noticeable. Foreign faces and strange costumes meet you in every street and at every assembly; cabs are in general commotion; the inland railway lines converging on town are alive with excursionists; the express trains from the great seaports come twisting round the curves like enormous centipedes. The state of things is wonderfully chained from last month. For the last two or three weeks the daily number of visitors at the Exhibition has raided over 50,000, and very often 35,000 persons are present together. The Australian courts are attracting much notice, as they deserve to do; for the display of products from your remote part of the world is sufficiently imposing to arrest attention independently of all considerations of the youth of the colonies I am glad to say that New South Wales vindicates her position as the eldest of the Australian contributors by her well-arranged and beautifully varied collection of products.
The political world is in a state of dull perplexity, with little interest in any question among the masses of the people. In the House of Commons there has been some rather hot-tempered debating about the public expenditure, and the radical economists and the philosophical conservatives appear to be working to the same end without any basis of a common understanding. We find Mr. Bright cheering and the Morning Star praising the financial views of Mr. Disraeli and Sir Stafford Northcote. The 3rd of this month was fixed for a decisive attack on Lord Palmerston's Government, the state of the finances being selected for the battle-field. Mr. Stansfeld—a young member who made a position for himself during last session by one or two happy speeches—had a motion on the paper affirming the necessity for retrenchment. Upon this, amendments were proposed from all quarters—by Mr. Bernal Osborne, Lord Robert Montagu, Mr. Horsman, Mr, Walpole, and Lord Palmerston himself; the last being declared by the newspapers nothing less than a vote of confidence in the noble Viscount's own administration. The crisis was considered so imminent that Lord Derby summoned a meeting of his followers, which was numerously attended; and loud and feverish were the presageful utterances of the party journals, and great was the rush to Westminster Palace on the eventful night. But the everlasting Pam was equal to the occasion, and with the vigour of fourscore years spent in diplomacy he seized the bull by the horns at once, and nearly sent the breath out of poor Mr. Walpole's body with the first thrust of his redoubtable arm. The Walpole amendment had been adopted with "loud cheers" at the meeting of the Derbyites; and, without waiting for Mr, Stansfeld to make his motion, the astute old Premier started up and declared, to the amazement of everybody, that he accepted the Conservative move as a challenge of party strength; he was prepared for the issue, and he hinted intelligibly enough that he was prepared to refer it for final trial to the constituencies. The effect was a childish confusion and terror. Mr. Walpole wouldn't move at all. Mr. Disraeli castigated Mr. Walpole's want of pluck, and Sir W. Heathcote reproved Mr. Disraeli. Lord Palmerston, when he rose in the futile debate that followed, indulged in a characteristic sally of cruel jokes, declared that Mr. Stansfeld had made an excellent speech against his own motion, and assured the House that his Government had no notion of "swallowing the leek" which had been so kindly prepared for them. And then the House of Commons, which was going to put a check on the extravagant waste of the people's money, whatever might be the consequence, threw out Mr, Stansfeld's motion by 367 to 65, Mr, Disraeli's speech in this debate was a masterly charge of financial mismanagement against the Government, which fully sustained his great powers as a debater, and which has not yet been met How far the orator's advocacy of retrenchment has been stimulated by a desire of office is another matter, which people must decide for themselves.
One gets reconciled in a measure to the useless talk and little time-serving expedients of our Colonial Parliament, after viewing precisely the same kind of impulsiveness and inconsistency in the proceedings of the House of Commons. At least, we feel a sort of relief in finding that human littleness is not peculiar to Australian politicians.
Among other centres of attraction in London lately, the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science has been holding its annual meetings. The inaugural address was delivered on the evening of the 5th, in Exeter Hall, by Lord Brougham. One would have expected the announcement of that name to fill the hall to overflowing, but the spacious room was little more than half full on the occasion. I had never heard Lord Brougham speak, and was very anxious to listen to that voice of the force and vehemence of which I had read such glowing descriptions. Accordingly, I got to Exeter Hall full three-quarters of an hour before the time of meeting, and selected my own position in a line with the chair, and not more than five seats from the platform. It was considerably past the appointed time when the statesman-philosopher made his appearance amidst a burst of hearty and grateful cheers. He walked along the front of the platform with bowed head and tottering step, never raising his eyes, and he took his seat with evident difficulty. After some preliminaries he rose, slowly and with a painful effort, and commenced reading his address from manuscript His voice was so harsh and indistinct that I could not hear one word in three throughout the delivery, and the exertion necessary for this was so severely felt, that he was compelled to resume his seat before many leaves were turned over. In asking for this indulgence he spoke in what appeared to me a tone of mortified pride, and with a manner so confused that the meeting did not instantly comprehend his meaning. When the sad meaning flashed upon them, every person present seemed to join in a burst of assenting, sympathising cheers. But the illustrious Brougham is not the man of iron frame which his admirers have represented him to be, and which it would accord with our feeling of wonder at his prodigious labours in time past to believe him to be. A careful reading of the address he delivered on this occasion will, I fear, lead to the conclusion that his noble intellect is also giving way. Its style for the most part is coarse and declamatory, while nothing could be more inconsequential than some of its reasonings. The present personal appearance of Lord Brougham is just what it is represented to be in Mr. Mayall's full-length photograph. His white bushy hair looks a little thinner, and the crown of his head is quite bald, which, however, is not seen when he stands erect, A night or two after the Exeter Hall meeting I saw him at a discussion on international law, at Burlington House; he came to the door of the room assigned to this department of the Association, very few persons having arrived at the time; he looked in, then drew back and stood in the door-way; some one coming in mentioned that he was at the door, when Dr. Travers Twiss and M. Garnier Pages went out to him, and he came in and sat down. In the course of the evening M. Gamier Pages delivered an animated speech in favour of the reforms in international law which are now becoming popular; and this called up Lord Brougham to express his admiration of the "extraordinary eloquence" of the French orator, who, he reminded the meeting, was formerly "one of the seven kings of France." On this occasion he spoke with much energy, but it was only for two or three minutes. On the evening of the 7th the Association and its friends assembled at a grand soiree at the Palace of Westminster. Not only Westminster Hall, but St Stephen's Hall, the Prince's Chamber, the corridors and galleries connecting the Houses of Parliament, and the House of Commons itself, for the first time in English history, were thrown open to the public gathering. Between 3000 and 4000 persons assembled, and Lord Brougham kept his post with Lord Shaftesbury and others the whole evening to receive the immense throng. I saw him as late as eleven o'clock in conversation with the aged poet. Dean Milman, and notwithstanding the fatigues he had undergone, he looked much fresher than at Exeter Hall.
The Social Science meetings throughout the ensuing week, which were held principally In Guildhall, were well attended. Prison discipline and reformatory institutions were subjects which received much attention, and among the papers read were several by Sir Joshua Jebb and Sir Walter Crofton. Those ladies who have made themselves famous of late years by their labours to improve the condition of their own sex mustered in strong force, and papers were read from Miss Carpenter, Miss Faithful, Miss Bessie Parkes, Miss Rye, Miss Florence Hill, and others. Coöperative institutions were the subject of lengthy and earnest discussion, in which Lord Brougham, Mr. M. D, Hill, Professor Huber, and other eminent persons took part, all warmly in favour of the coöperators. The meetings were followed by a dinner at the Crystal Palace, and by excursions to the prisons at Chatham, and the well-known reformatory at Redhill.
For some weeks past the weather has been very unsettled. Snow has fallen this month in both Scotland and Wales. One or two days last week were as cold as some days in January.
London, June, 1862.