nfidently rely on the protection of England in all emergencies.

Mr. Gladstone has in recent years done justice to the remarkable
prescience, and scarcely less remarkable administrative skill, which
Lord John brought to bear at a critical juncture in the conduct of the
Colonial policy of the Melbourne Government. He lays stress on the
'unfaltering courage' which Russell displayed in meeting, as far as was
then possible, the legitimate demand for responsible self-government. It
is not, therefore, surprising that, to borrow Mr. Gladstone's words,
'Lord John Russell substituted harmony for antagonism in the daily
conduct of affairs for those Colonies, each of which, in an infancy of
irrepressible vigour, was bursting its swaddling clothes. Is it
inexcusable to say that by this decision, which was far ahead of the
current opinion of the day, he saved the Empire, possibly from
disruption, certainly from much embarrassment and much discredit.'[11]
Lord John was a man of vision. He saw, beyond most of his
contemporaries, the coming magnitude of the Empire, and he did his best
to shape on broad lines and to far-reaching issues the policy of England
towards her children beyond the seas. Lord John recognised in no
churlish or half-hearted spirit the claims of the Colonies, nor did he
stand dismayed by the vision of Empire. 'There was a time when we might
have stood alone,' are his words. 'That time has passed. We conquered
and peopled Canada, we took possession of the whole of Australia, Van
Dieman's Land, and New Zealand. We have annexed India to the Crown.
There is no going back. For my part, I delight in observing the
imitation of our free institutions, and even our habits and manners, in
colonies at a distance from the Palace of Westminster.' He trusted the
Colonies, and refused to believe that all the wisdom which was
profitable to direct their affairs was centred in Downing Street. His
attitude was sympathetic and generous, and at the same time it was
candid and firm.

Lord Stanmore's recollections of his father's colleague go back to this
period, and will be read with interest: 'As a boy of ten or twelve I
often saw Lord John. His half-sister, Lady Louisa Russell, was the wife
of my half-brother, Lord Abercorn, and Lord John was a frequent guest at
Lord Abercorn's villa at Stanmore, where my father habitually passed his
Saturdays and Sundays during the session, and where I almost wholly
lived. My first conscious remembran