Page:Karl Marx - The Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston - ed. Eleanor Marx Aveling (1899).pdf/18

 12 oligarchy) agreed to pay for our freedom and independence."—(House of Commons, May 16, 1821.)

In his eyes, military despotism was not to be- apprehended except from the exertions of "those self-called, but misled reformers, who demand that sort of reform in the country, which, according to every first principle of government, must end, if it were acceded to, in a military despotism."—(House of Commons, June 14, 1820.)

While large standing armies were thus his panacea for maintaining the Constitution of the country, flogging was his panacea for maintaining the Constitution of the army. He defended flogging in the debates on the Mutiny Bill, on the 5th of March, 1824; he declared it to be "absolutely indispensable" on March 11, 1825; he recommended it again on March 10, 1828; he stood by it in the debates of April, 1833, and he has proved an amateur of flogging on every subsequent occasion.

There existed no abuse in the army he did not find plausible reasons for, if it happened to foster the interests of aristocratic parasites. Thus, for instance, in the debates on the Sale of Commissions.—(House of Commons, March 12, 1828.)

Lord Palmerston likes to parade his constant exertions for the establishment of religious liberty. Now, he voted against Lord John Russell's motion for the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. Why? Because he was "a warm and zealous friend to religious liberty," and could, therefore, not allow the dissenters to be relieved from "imaginary grievances, while real afflictions pressed upon the Catholics."—(House of Commons, February 26, 1828.)

In proof of his zeal for religious liberty, he informs us of his "regret to see the increasing numbers of the dissenters. It is my wish that the established church should be the predominant church in this country," and from pure love and zeal for religious liberty he wants "the established church to be fed at the expense of the misbelievers." His jocose lordship accuses the rich dissenters of satisfying the ecclesiastical wants of the poorer ones, while, "with the Church of England, it is the poor alone who feel the want