—THE SO-CALLED WAR OF ANNIHILATION 

London, May 26. Further details have become known regarding 
the Comité du Salut Ministériel* called by Lord Palmerston the day 
before yesterday before the opening of the House of Commons, 
characteristic of the parliamentary mechanism and the position of 
the various factions which have provided the Ministry with a 
majority of 100 votes. Right at the outset Palmerston threatened 
resignation if Disraeli’s motion were carried. He threatened the 
prospect of a Tory Ministry.” The so-called radical parliamen- 
tarians, poor fellows,‘ have enjoyed the privilege of having this 
great and ultimate threat suspended over them since 1830, 
whenever they break out in mutiny. It never fails to recall them to 
a sense of discipline. And why? Because they fear the mass 
movement that is inevitable under a Tory Ministry. How hterally 
correct this view is may be gathered from the confession of a 
radical who is himself a minister at the moment, if only Minister 
responsible for the Crown Forests, Sir William Molesworth. This 
job is well suited for a man who has all along possessed the talent 
of not being able to see the wood for the trees. M.P. for South- 
wark, a part of London, he received an invitation from his con- 
stituents to attend a public meeting for Southwark held last Wed- 
nesday.* (N.B. At this meeting, as at the majority of those hitherto 
held in the provinces, a resolution was passed that administrative 

In his speech in the House of Commons on May 25, 1855, a report on which 
was published in The Times, No. 22064, May 26, 1855.— Ed. 

4 May 23, 1855.— Ed. 

reform without prior parliamentary reform is sham and humbug. 
Molesworth did not appear but sent a letter and in this letter the 
radical and Cabinet minister declared: “If Mr. Disraeli’s motion is 
carried the need for administrative reform will become more 
evident.” Which “evidently” means: If the Tories take over the 
government the reform movement will become serious. The threat 
of resignation, though, was not the biggest gun that Palmerston 
fired off. He alluded to the dissolution of Parliament and to the fate 
of the many unfortunates who scarcely three years ago had bought 
their way into the “honourable House” at tremendous sacrifice. 
This argument was irresistible. It was no longer just a question of 
his resignation. It was a question of their resignation. 

Although Palmerston thus secured a majority of 100 votes 
against Disraeli’s motion, by threatening some with his resignation, 
and others with their ejection from the House of Commons, 
presenting some with the prospect of peace and others with the 
prospect of war—the newly founded coalition immediately col- 
lapsed again, this happening during the public performance of the 
agreed farce. The statements which the ministers were induced to 
make during the debate neutralised the statements they had made 
en petit comité” The mortar which loosely held together the 
reluctant groupings crumbled away, not in a hurricane but in the 
parliamentary wind. For in yesterday’s sitting Roebuck put a 
question to the Prime Minister about the rumoured re-opening of 
the Vienna Conferences. He demanded to know whether the 
British ambassador in Vienna‘ was instructed to take part in these 
conferences. Ever since the return of Russell, that hapless 
diplomat, from Vienna, Palmerston, as is common knowledge, had 
rejected all debates on war or diplomacy on the pretext of not 
jeopardising the “admittedly interrupted but by no means 
concluded Vienna Conferences”. Milner Gibson had withdrawn or 
postponed his motion' last Monday“ because according to a 
statement by the noble Lord “the conferences were still pending”. 
On that occasion Palmerston had expressly emphasised that the 
British government was leaving it to Austria, “our ally within 
certain limits”, to devise new starting-points for peace negotia- 
tions. The continued existence of the Vienna Conference was, he 
said, beyond all doubt. Though Russell had left Vienna, West- 
morland was continuing to reside in Vienna, where, moreover, 

(May 21, 1855.— Ed. 

the plenipotentiaries of all the great powers were engaged in 
consultations; in other words, all the elements of a permanent 
conference were present.’ 

Since Monday, the day Palmerston favoured Parliament with 
these revelations, a major change had occurred in the situation. 
Disraeli’s motion and a day spent debating it” separated the 
Palmerston of Monday from the Palmerston of Friday, and 
Disraeli had motivated his motion with the misgiving that the 
government might “drift into a shameful peace” during the 
recess, just as it had “drifted” into a shameful war under 
Aberdeen’s auspices. Thus the outcome of the vote hung on 
Palmerston’s answer to Roebuck’s question. This time he could not 
call up the ghost of the Vienna Conference and inform the House 
that in Vienna they were deciding, while in the Halls of St. 
Stephen’s‘ they were debating: that here they were proposing but 
there they were disposing. This was all the more impossible as 
only the previous evening Russell had disowned Austria and the 
peace projects and the Vienna Conference. Accordingly he replied 
to Roebuck: the Vienna Conference had not been resumed, and 
the British envoy had no permission to attend a new conference 
without special instructions from Downing Street. Then Milner 
Gibson got up in a state of moral indignation. A few days ago, he 
said, the noble Lord had declared that the Conference was merely 
suspended, and that Westmorland possessed absolute authority to 
negotiate at it. Had he been deprived of this authority, if so, 
when?r— Authority! replied Palmerston, his authority is as com- 
plete as ever, but he has not the power to use it. To possess 
authority and to be permitted to use it are two different things. 
This answer to Roebuck’s question broke the ties between the 
Ministry .and the peace-at-any-price party augmented by the 
Peelites. But this was neither the only nor the most important 
“misunderstanding”. The day before yesterday Russell was 
stretched on the rack by Disraeli and tortured and pricked with 
red-hot pins for hours. With one hand Disraeli displayed the 
rhetorical honskin in which the Whig Aztec likes to parade; with 
the other, the diminutive gutta-percha manikin hiding beneath the 

* Palmerston’s speech in the House of Commons on May 21, 1855. The Times, 
No, 22060, May 22, 1855.— Ed. 

May 24, 1855. Below Marx quotes a passage from Disraeli’s speech and 
No. 22063, May 25, 1855.— Ed. 

skin. Although Russell is armed against harsh words by his long 
parliamentary experience and adventures like the invulnerable 
Siegfried against wounds, he was unable to remain composed in 
the face of this ruthless, naked exposure of his true self. He 
pulled faces while Disraeli spoke. He twisted and turned in his seat 
uneasily and incessantly while Gladstone followed with his sermon. 
When Gladstone made a rhetorical pause Russell got up and was 
only reminded by the laughter of the House that his turn had not 
yet come. At last Gladstone fell silent for good. At last Russell 
could unburden his oppressed heart. He now told the House 
everything that he had wisely concealed from Prince Gorchakov 
and Herr von Titov. Russia, whose “honour and dignity” he 
supported at the Vienna Conference, now seemed to him to be a 
power unscrupulously striving for mastery of the world, making 
treaties as pretexts for wars of conquest, making wars so as to 
spread poison with treaties. Not only England but all Europe 
seemed to him to be threatened, nothing short of a war of 
annihilation would do. He alluded to Poland too. In short, the 
Vienna diplomat was suddenly transformed into a “street de- 
magogue” (one of his favourite expressions). In a cunningly 
calculating way Disraeli had launched him into this odic style. 

But immediately after the division Sir James Graham, the Peelite, 
rose to speak.*? Was he to believe his ears? Russell had declared a 
“new war” on Russia, a crusade, a war to the death, a war of the 
nationalities. The matter was too serious for the debate to be 
concluded now. The House was even more in the dark about the 
intentions of the ministers than before. Russell thought that after 
the vote he could cast off the lionskin in his usual way. He 
therefore did not beat about the bush. Graham had “misunder- 
stood” him. He only sought “security for Turkey”. There you are! 
cried Disraeli, you who have acquitted the Ministry of the charge 
of “ambiguous language” by rejecting my motion, you now hear 
how honest he is! This Russell retracts after the vote the whole of 
the speech that he made before the vote! I congratulate you on 
your voting! 

The House could not resist this demonstratio ad oculos?: the 
debate was adjourned until after the Whitsun recess; the victory 
won by the Ministry had been lost again in a moment. The 
comedy was only supposed to consist of two acts, and to end with 
the division. Now it has had an epilogue added to it that threatens 

, Graham’s speech in the House of Commons on May 25, 1855.— Ed. 

to be more serious than the grand historical drama. In the 
meanwhile the parliamentary recess will enable us to analyse the 
first two acts more closely. It remains unprecedented in the annals 
of Parliament that the debate should only start in earnest after the 
vote. Hitherto, parliamentary battles have usually ended with the 
vote just as romantic novels end with the wedding.