with the
magnitude of the issues at stake, he helped Lord Derby to pass the new
India Bill, which handed the government of that country over to the
Crown. He held that the question was too great to be made a battle-field
of party, but thorough-paced adherents of Lord Palmerston did not
conceal their indignation at such independent action. Lord John believed
at the moment that it was right for him to throw his influence into the
scale, and therefore he was indifferent to the passing clamour. The
subsequent history of the English in India has amply justified the
patriotic step which he took in scorn of party consequences. The Jewish
Relief Act became law in 1858, and Lord John at length witnessed the
triumph of a cause which he had brought again and again before
Parliament since the General Election of 1847, when Baron Rothschild was
returned as his colleague in the representation of the City. Scarcely
any class of the community showed themselves more constantly mindful of
his services on their behalf than the Jews. When one of them took an
opportunity of thanking him for helping to free a once oppressed race
from legal disabilities, Lord John replied: 'The object of my life has
been not to benefit a race alone, but all nationalities that suffered
under civil and religious disabilities.' He used to relate with evident
appreciation the reply which Lord Lyndhurst once gave to a timid
statesman who feared a possible Hebrew invasion of the woolsack. The man
who was appointed four times to that exalted seat retorted: 'Well, I see
no harm in that; Daniel would have made a good Lord Chancellor.'

Everyone recognised that the Derby Administration was a mere stop-gap,
and, as months passed on, its struggle for existence became somewhat
ludicrous. They felt themselves to be a Ministry on sufferance, and,
according to the gossip of the hour, their watchword was 'Anything for a
quiet life.' There were rocks ahead, and at the beginning of the session
of 1859 they stood revealed in Mr. Disraeli's extraordinary proposals
for Reform, and in the war-cloud which was gathering rapidly over Europe
in consequence of the quarrel between France and Austria about the
affairs of Italy. Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill taxed the allegiance of his
party to the breaking point, and when its provisions were disclosed two
of his colleagues resigned--Mr. Spencer Walpole the Home Office, and Mr.
Henley the Board of Trade, rather than have part or lot in such a