of Lord Palmerston
on questions of foreign policy was, however, already so marked that Lord
Melbourne--now his brother-in-law, was reluctant to insist on
moderation. Lord John, however, stood firm, and the breaking up of the
Government seemed inevitable. During the crisis which followed, Lord
Palmerston, striking, as was his wont, from his own bat, rejected, under
circumstances which Mr. Walpole has explained in detail in his Life of
Lord John Russell, a proposal for a conference of the allied Powers.
Lord John had already entered his protest against any one member of the
Cabinet being allowed to conduct affairs as he pleased, without
consultation or control, and he now informed Lord Melbourne in a letter
dated November 1, 1840--which Mr. Walpole prints--that Palmerston's
reply to Austria compelled him to once more consider his position, as he
could not defend in the House of Commons measures which he thought
wrong. Lord Melbourne promptly recognised that Russell was the only
possible leader in the Commons, and he induced Lord Palmerston to admit
his mistake over the despatch to Metternich, and in this way the
misunderstanding was brought to an end. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the
war in the East turned against Ibrahim Pasha, and Palmerston's policy,
though not his manner of carrying it out, was justified.

[Sidenote: DIVIDED COUNSELS]

The closing years of the Melbourne Administration were marked not only
by divided counsels, but by actual blunders of policy, and in this
connection it is perhaps enough to cite the Opium war against China and
the foolhardy invasion of Afghanistan. At home the question of Free
Trade was coming rapidly to the front, and the Anti-corn Law League,
which was founded in Manchester in 1838, was already beginning to prove
itself a power in the land. As far back as 1826, Hume had taken up his
parable in Parliament against the Corn Laws as a blight on the trade of
the country; and two years after the Reform Bill was passed he had
returned to the attack, only to find, however, that the nation was still
wedded to Protection. Afterwards, year after year, Mr. Villiers drew
attention to the subject, and moved for an inquiry into the working of
the Corn Laws. He declared that the existing system was opposed by the
industry, the intelligence, and the commerce of the nation, and at
length, in a half-hearted fashion, the Government found itself
compelled, if it was to exist at all, to make some attempt