THE FOREIGN SECRETARY.
NEVER was designation more accurately descriptive than that of " Foreign Secretary " as applied to Lord PALMERSTON. When the stability of the present Spanish Government was threatened by Don CARLOS, Lord PALMERSTON'S support was prompt and effica- cious. His zeal for maintaining the "integrity and independence" of the Ottoman empire may be read in the increased Estimates of the present year. But when the American Government applied for an explanation of the seizure of the Caroline, Lord Paeraza- STON had no leisure to return an answer. And the annual exaction cf tribute to the amount of 80,0001. or 100,0001. from British merchants by the King of Denmark, was in his estimation a triflin annoyance, the investigation of which might be postponed until the affairs of the Sultan were arranged.* Lord PALMERSTON seems to manage the business of this country in imitation of certain meddling individuals in private life, who are so busy attending to the affairs of their neighbours that they allow their own to go to wreck and ruin from neglect. He is, in short, what his popular title suggests—not a British Minister, but merely a Foreign Secre- tary. It seems questionable, however, whether the public money spent by and upon this wielder of the destinies of other nations— this modern WARWICK the King-maker—might not be more profit- ably applied to support a Minister with an establishment for ma- naging the business of Great Britain.
* Lord Eameasros is aided by a congenial spirit at Constantinople. All parties concur in pointing to Lord PONSOSBY as the source of the inveteracy of the Divan against MEREMET ALI : but when the oldest resident among the British merchants at Constantinople was asked some time ago what kind of a Minister Lord PONSOMBY was, he replied, " I don't know—I once saw his back."
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