That exposition, he said, had
now run the gauntlet of three Chancellors of the Exchequer and a Prime
Minister, and he thought they might take it for granted that no man in
the House could gainsay it. Turning to the threat of resignation made by
the Russell Cabinet, Lord George said, it was only consistent with the
independence of that House and the country, that when the Government
rejected a measure which the proposer of it believed to be for the good
of the country, the author of such a measure ought not to shrink from
any responsibility implied by the nature of his proposition; and when
those who held the reins of government declared that, in the event of
such a measure being carried, they must retire from responsible office,
then he did not hesitate to say, that he should be wanting in spirit and
independence, if he did not come forward and address the House in the
language which they had already heard from him, but nothing that fell
from him was conceived in a spirit of hostility to the minister of the
crown. He told the Government that if they did not like to carry out the
measure, they ought to do what Mr. Pitt did in 1793, appoint a
commission--an unpaid commission--to carry it out.
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