LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S POLITICAL DEBTS. 10th March 1851. Sin — In your
notice of Lord John Russell in the Spectator of March I, you state that "Mr. Ward gave him the Appropriation-clause." This is not correct. I am aware that an editor is compelled to write eurrente calanio, and has no time for reference to Hansard, S:c. If you had, you would have found that Lord John advocated that step in 1824, many years before Mr. Ward was in Parliament. And if you had time for inquiry, the abandon- ment of that clause did him great honour. Public men must of coin-se submit to public criticism ; but your sense of fairness will concede that their actions should not be misrepresented. /J.
[We take our correspondent's reference to Hansard, &c. on trust. It cer- tainly was not present to our memory that Lord John had undertaken the Appropriation of Irish Church revenues in 1824; let him have the full value of the reminiscence now. But what became of the question in the interven- ing ten years ? Unquestionably it u-as Mr. Ward who produced the Appro- -priatien just at the nick of time to upset a Government, and to open a path which Lord John did not scruple to accept. Ile abandoned the clause when it was no longer useful to his party.—En.]
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