nt exceeding that which has been sanctioned by
Parliament."]

[Pageheader: THE QUESTION OF NEUTRALITY]

[Pageheader: THE NAVY]

[Pageheading: LORD DERBY'S CRITICISMS]

_The Earl of Derby to Queen Victoria._

DOWNING STREET, _2nd June 1859_.

Lord Derby, with his humble duty, submits to your Majesty that he has
most anxiously, and with every desire to meet your Majesty's wishes,
reflected upon the effect of the alterations suggested by your
Majesty in the proposed Speech from the Throne. He has considered
the consequences involved so serious that he has thought it right
to confer upon the subject with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as
Leader of the House of Commons; and it is a duty which he owes to your
Majesty not to withhold the expression of their clear and unhesitating
conviction. Lord Derby trusts that your Majesty will forgive the
frankness with which, in the accompanying observations, he feels it
necessary to submit to your Majesty the grounds for the view which
they are compelled to take.

The first paragraph to which your Majesty takes exception is that
which intimates your Majesty's "intention" to maintain a strict and
impartial neutrality, and "hope" to be enabled to preserve peace. Your
Majesty apprehends that this may be interpreted into a determination
to preserve neutrality _a tout prix_; but Lord Derby would venture to
observe that such an inference is negatived by the subsequent words,
which only imply a "hope" of preserving peace. With the cessation
of that hope, neutrality would necessarily terminate. But as matters
stand at present, Lord Derby is warranted in assuring your Majesty
that if there is one subject on which more than another the mind of
the country is unanimous, it is that of an entire abstinence from
participation in the struggle now going on in Italy. He collects this
from the language of politicians of almost every class, from all the
public papers, from Addresses and Memorials which he receives every
day--some urging, and some congratulating him upon the adoption of a
perfectly neutral policy. The sympathies of the country are neither
with France nor with Austria, but were it not for the intervention of
France, they would be general in favour of Italy. The charge now
made against your Majesty's servants, by the opposition Press, as the
_Morning Post_ and _Daily News_, is that their neutrality covers
such wishes and designs in favour of Austria; and any word in yo