ends represent it--not
an absolute but a conditional pledge to retire--Lord Aberdeen was surely
bound to ascertain at the outset whether the condition was one that
could possibly be fulfilled. If the objection of his colleagues to
retain office under Lord John as Prime Minister was insurmountable, then
the qualified engagement to retire--if the Government would not be
broken up by the process--was worthless, and Lord John was being drawn
into the Cabinet by assurances given by the Prime Minister alone, but
which he was powerless to fulfil without the co-operation of his
colleagues. Lord Aberdeen was therefore determined to remain at his
post, because Lord John was unpopular with the Cabinet, and Palmerston
with the Court, and because he knew that the accession to power of
either of them would mean the adoption of a spirited foreign policy.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] _Letters of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bart._, edited by his
brother, Canon Frankland Lewis, p. 270.

[32] Sir Theodore Martin's _Life of the Prince Consort_, ii. 530, 531.

[33] Lord Stanmore's _Earl of Aberdeen_, p. 234.

[34] Sir Theodore Martin's _Life of the Prince Consort_, ii. 534.

[35] _Life of Lord Palmerston_, by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, ii. 282.

CHAPTER XI

WAR HINDERS REFORM

1854-1855

A Scheme of Reform--Palmerston's attitude--Lord John sore let and
hindered--Lord Stratford's diplomatic triumph--The Duke of
Newcastle and the War Office--The dash for
Sebastopol--Procrastination and its deadly work--The
Alma--Inkerman--The Duke's blunder--Famine and frost in the
trenches.

ALL through the autumn of 1854 Lord John Russell was busy with a scheme
of Parliamentary reform. The Government stood pledged to bring forward
the measure, though a section of the Cabinet, and, notably Lord
Palmerston, were opposed to such a course. As leader of the House, Lord
John had announced that the question would be introduced to Parliament
in the spring, and the Cabinet, therefore, took the subject into
consideration when it resumed its meetings in November. A special
committee was appointed, and Lord John placed his proposals before it.
Every borough with less than three hundred electors was to be
disfranchised, and towns with less than five hundred electors were to
lose one of their representatives. Seventy seats, he argued, would be
gained by this plan, and he suggested that they should be divided
between the largest coun