It had passed no hostile
vote against any administration. It had been in existence but a very
short time. All these circumstances, they affirmed, made it reasonable
for the Houses to express to his Majesty their disapprobation of the
dissolution. Lord Morpeth argued, moreover, that the right of the House
of Commons to inquire into such an exercise of the royal prerogative was
proved by the example of Mr. Pitt, who, in 1784, had introduced into the
speech from the throne a paragraph inviting Parliament to approve of the
recent dissolution; and what Parliament could be asked to approve of, it
manifestly had an equal right to censure. But the most vehement of the
censures of the Opposition were directed against what Lord Morpeth
called "the most unseemly huddling of offices in the single person of
the Duke of Wellington; an unconstitutional concentration of
responsibility and power, at which there was hardly an old Whig of the
Rockingham school whose hair did not stand on end." He admitted that in
the present instance the arrangement had only been provisional and
temporary, and that "no harm had been done;" but, he asked, "what harm
might not have been done? If the country had been suddenly obliged to go
to war, who would have been responsible for the Foreign Department? If
an insurrection of the negroes had occurred, who was responsible for the
Colonial Office? If in Ireland any tithe dispute had arisen, who was
responsible as Home-secretary?" And Lord Melbourne, though a speaker
generally remarkable for moderation, on this subject went much farther;
and, after urging that, "if one person held the situation of First Lord
of the Treasury, and also that of Secretary of State for the Home
Department, it would not only place in his hands without any control the
appointment to every great office in the state, but a person so situated
would also have the pecuniary resources of the state at his disposal
without check or investigation," he proceeded to assert that "an
intention to exercise those offices would amount to a treasonable
misdemeanor.
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