VOLUME IX SLICE V "English History" (continued 9)

It was not only the completion of the Continental System, however, that made the year 1807 a fateful one for Great Britain. On the 7th of July the young emperor Alexander I. of Russia, fascinated by Napoleon’s genius and bribed Treaty of Tilsit. by the offer of a partition of the world, concluded the treaty of Tilsit, which not only brought Russia into the Continental System, but substituted for a coalition against France a formidable coalition against England. A scheme for wresting from the British the command of the sea was only defeated by Canning’s action in ordering the English fleet to capture the Danish navy, though Denmark was still nominally a friendly power (see Canning, George). Meanwhile, in order to complete the ring fence round Europe against British commerce, French Invasion of Spain and Portugal. Napoleon had ordered Junot to invade Portugal; Lisbon was occupied by the French, and the Portuguese royal family migrated to Brazil. In the following year Napoleon seized the royal family of Spain, and gave the crown, which Charles VI. resigned on behalf of himself and his heir, to his brother Joseph, king of Naples. The revolt of the Spanish people that followed was the first of the national uprisings against his rule by which Napoleon was destined to be overthrown. In England it was greeted with immense popular enthusiasm, and the government, without realizing the full import of the step it was taking, sent an expedition to the Peninsula. It disembarked, under the command Peninsular War. of Sir Arthur Wellesley, at Figueras on the 1st of August. It was the beginning of the Peninsular War, which was destined not to end until, in 1814, the British troops crossed the Pyrenees into France, while the Allies were pressing over the Rhine. The political and military events on the continent of Europe do not, however, belong strictly to English history, though they profoundly affected its development, and they are dealt with elsewhere (see Europe: History; Napoleon; Napoleonic Campaigns; Peninsular War; Waterloo Campaign).

The war, while it lasted, was of course the main preoccupation of British ministers and of the British people. It entailed enormous sacrifices, which led to corresponding discontents; and differences as to its conduct produced Walcheren expedition. Cabinet crisis. frequent friction within the government itself. A cabinet crisis was the result of the outcome of the unfortunate Walcheren expedition of 1809. It had been Castlereagh’s conception and, had it been as well executed as it was conceived, it might have dealt a fatal blow at Napoleon’s hopes of recovering his power at sea, by destroying his great naval establishments at Antwerp. It failed, and it became the subject of angry dispute between Canning and Castlereagh, a dispute embittered by personal rivalry and the friction due to the ill-defined relations of the foreign secretary to the secretary for war; the quarrel culminated in a duel, and in the resignation of both ministers (see Londonderry, 2nd Marquess of, and Canning, George). The duke of Portland resigned at the same time, and in the reconstruction of the ministry, under Perceval Perceval ministry. as premier, Lord Wellesley became foreign secretary, while Lord Liverpool, with Palmerston as his under-secretary, succeeded Castlereagh at the war office. The most conspicuous member of this government was Wellesley, whose main object in taking office was to second his brother’s efforts in the Peninsula. In this he was, however, only partially successful, owing to the incapacity of his colleagues to realize the unique importance of the operations in Spain. In November 1810 the old king’s mind gave way, and on the 11th of February 1811, an act of parliament bestowed the regency, under certain The regency. restrictions, upon the prince of Wales. The prince had been on intimate terms with the Whig leaders, and it was assumed that his accession to power would mean a change of government. He had, however, been offended by their attitude on the question of the restriction of his authority as regent, and he continued Perceval in office. A year later, the king’s insanity being proved incurable, the regency was definitively established (February 1812). Lord Wellesley took advantage of the reconstruction of the cabinet to resign a position in which he had not been given a free hand, and his post of foreign secretary was offered to Canning. Canning, however, refused to serve with Castlereagh as minister of war, and the latter received the foreign office, which he was to hold till his death in 1822. A month later, on the 11th of May, Perceval was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons, and Lord Liverpool became the head of a government that was to last till 1827.

The period covered by the Liverpool administration was a fateful one in the history of Europe. The year 1812 saw Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, and the disastrous retreat from Moscow. In the following year Wellington’s Liverpool ministry. victory at Vitoria signalled the ruin of the French cause in Spain; while Prussia threw off the yoke of France, and Austria, realizing after cautious delay her chance of retrieving the humiliations of 1809, joined the alliance, and in concert with Russia and the other German powers overthrew Napoleon at Leipzig. The invasion of France followed in 1814, the abdication of Napoleon, the restoration of the Bourbons and the assembling of the congress of Vienna. The following year saw the return of Napoleon from Elba, the close of the congress of Vienna, and the campaign that ended with the battle of Waterloo. The succeeding period, after so much storm and stress, might seem dull and unprofitable; but it witnessed the instructive experiment of the government of Europe by a concert of the great powers, and the first victory of the new principle of nationality in the insurrection of the Greeks. The share taken by Great Britain in all this, for which Castlereagh pre-eminently must take the praise or blame, is outlined in the article on the history Foreign policy of Castlereagh. of Europe (q.v.). Here it must suffice to point out how closely the development of foreign affairs was interwoven with that of home politics. The great war, so long as it lasted, was the supreme affair of moment; the supreme interest when it was over was to prevent its recurrence. For above all the world needed peace, in order to recover from the exhaustion of the revolutionary epoch; and this peace, bought at so great a cost, could be preserved only by the honest co-operation of Great Britain in the great international alliance based on “the treaties.” This explains Castlereagh’s policy at home and abroad. He was grossly attacked by the Opposition in parliament and by irresponsible critics, of the type of Byron, outside; historians, bred in the atmosphere of mid-Victorian Liberalism, have re-echoed the cry against him and the government of which he was the most distinguished member; but history has largely justified his attitude. He was no friend of arbitrary government; but he judged it better that “oppressed nationalities” and “persecuted Liberals” should suffer than that Europe should be again plunged into war. He was hated in his day as the arch-opponent of reform, yet the triumph of the reform movement would have been impossible but for the peace his policy secured.

To say this is not to say that the attitude of the Tory government towards the great issues of home politics was wholly, or even mainly, inspired by a far-sighted wisdom. It had departed widely from the Toryism of Pitt’s Character of the Tory party. younger years, which had sought to base itself on popular support, as opposed to the aristocratic exclusiveness of the Whigs. It conceived itself as the trustee of a system of government which, however theoretically imperfect, alone of the governments of Europe had survived the storms of the Revolution intact. To tamper with a constitution that had so proved its quality seemed not so much a sacrilege as a folly. The rigid conservatism that resulted from this attitude served, indeed, a useful purpose in giving weight to Castlereagh’s counsels in the European concert; for Metternich at least, wholly occupied with “propping up mouldering institutions,” could not have worked harmoniously with a minister suspected of an itch for reform. At home, however, it undoubtedly tended to provoke that very revolution which it was intended to prevent. This was due not so much to the notorious corruption of the representative system as to the fact that it represented social and economic conditions that were rapidly passing away.

Both Houses of Parliament were in the main assemblies of aristocrats and landowners; but agriculture was ceasing to be the characteristic industry of the country and the old semi-feudal relations of life were in process of Parliament and the industrial revolution. rapid dissolution. The invention of machinery and the concentration of the working population in manufacturing centres had all but destroyed the old village industries, and great populations were growing up outside the traditional restraints of the old system of class dependence. The distress inevitable in connexion with such an industrial revolution was increased by the immense burden of the war and by the high protective policy of the parliament, which restricted trade and deliberately increased the price of food in the interests of the agricultural classes. Between 1811 and 1814 bands of so-called “Luddites,” starving operatives out of work, scoured the country, smashing machinery—the immediate cause of their misfortunes—and committing every sort of outrage. The fault of the government lay, not in taking vigorous measures for the suppression of these disorders, but in remaining obstinately blind to the true causes that had produced them. Ministers saw in the Luddite organization only another conspiracy against the state; and, so far from seeking means for removing the grievances that underlay popular disaffection, the activity of parliament, inspired by the narrowest class interests, only tended to increase them. The price of food, already raised by the war, was still further increased by successive Corn Laws and Enclosure Acts. Corn Laws, and the artificial value thus given to arable land led to the passing of Enclosure Bills, under which the country people were deprived of their common rights with very inadequate compensation, and life in the village communities was made more and more difficult. In the circumstances it is not surprising that the spirit of unrest grew apace. In 1815 the passing of a new Corn Law, forbidding the importation of corn so long as the price for home-grown wheat was under 80s. the quarter, led to riots in London. An attack made on the prince regent at the opening of parliament on the 28th of January 1817 led to an inquiry, which revealed the existence of an elaborate organization for the overthrow of the existing order. The repressive measures Repressive legislation. of 1795 and 1799 were now revived and extended, and a bill suspending the Habeas Corpus Act for a year was passed through both Houses by a large majority. On the 27th of March Lord Sidmouth opened the government campaign against the press by issuing a circular to the lords-lieutenants, directing them to instruct the justices of the peace to issue warrants for the arrest of any person charged on oath with publishing blasphemous or seditious libels. The legality of this suggestion was more than doubtful, but it was none the less acted on, and a series of press prosecutions followed, some—as in the case of the bookseller William Hone—on grounds so trivial that juries refused to convict. William Cobbett, the most influential of the reform leaders, in order to avoid arbitrary imprisonment, “deprived of pen, ink and paper,” suspended the Political Register and sailed for America. A disturbance that was almost an armed insurrection, which broke out in Derbyshire in June of this year, seemed to justify the severity of the government; it was suppressed without great difficulty, and three of the ringleaders were executed.

It was, however, in 1819 that the conflict between the government and the new popular forces culminated. Distress was acute; and in the manufacturing towns mass meetings were held to discuss a remedy, which, under the guidance Agitation for reform. of political agitators, was discovered in universal suffrage and annual parliaments. The right to return members to parliament was claimed for all communities; and since this right was unconstitutionally withheld, unrepresented towns were invited to exercise it in anticipation of its formal concession. At Birmingham, accordingly, Sir Charles Wolseley was duly elected “legislatorial attorney and representative” of the town. Manchester followed suit; but the meeting arranged for the 9th of August was declared illegal by the magistrates, on the strength of a royal proclamation against seditious meetings issued on the 30th of July. Another meeting was accordingly summoned for the undoubtedly legal purpose of petitioning parliament in favour of reform. On the appointed day (August 16) thousands poured in from the surrounding districts. These men had been previously drilled, for the purpose, as their own leaders asserted, of enabling the vast assemblage to be conducted in an orderly manner; for the purpose, as the magistrates suspected, of preparing them for an armed insurrection. An attempt was made by a party of yeomanry The “Manchester Massacre.” to arrest a popular agitator, Henry Hunt; the angry mob surged round the horsemen, who found themselves powerless; the Riot Act was read, and the 15th Hussars charged the crowd with drawn swords. The meeting rapidly broke up, but not before six had been killed and many injured. The “Manchester Massacre” gave an immense impetus to the movement in favour of reform. The employment of soldiers to suppress liberty of speech stirred up the resentment of Englishmen as nothing else could have done, and this resentment was increased by the conviction that the government was engaged with the “Holy Alliance” in an unholy conspiracy against liberty everywhere. The true tendency of Castlereagh’s foreign policy was not understood, nor had he any of the popular arts which would have enabled Canning to carry public opinion with him in cases where a frank explanation was impossible. The Liberals could see no more than that he appeared to be committed to international engagements, the logical outcome of which might be—as an orator of the Opposition put it—that Cossacks would be encamped in Hyde Park for the purpose of overawing the House of Commons.

The dangerous agitation that gave expression to this state of feeling was met by the government in the session of November 1819 by the passing of the famous Six Acts. The first of these deprived the defendant of the right of traversing, The “Six Acts.” but directed that he should be brought to trial within a year; the second increased the penalties for seditious libel; the third imposed the newspaper stamp duty on all pamphlets and the like containing news; the fourth (Seditious Meetings Act) once more greatly curtailed the liberty of public meetings; the fifth forbade the training of persons in the use of arms; the sixth empowered magistrates to search for and seize arms.

The apparent necessity for the passing of these exceptional measures was increased by the imminent death of the old king, the tragic close of whose long reign had won for him a measure of popular sympathy which was wholly Accession of George IV. lacking in the case of the prince regent. On the 23rd of February 1820 George III. died, and the regent became king as George IV. This was the signal for an outburst of popular discontent with the existing order of a far more ominous character than any that had preceded it. The king was generally loathed, not so much for his vices—which would have been, in this case as in others, condoned in a more popular monarch—but for the notorious meanness and selfishness of his character. Of these qualities he took the occasion of his accession to make a fresh display. He had long been separated from his wife, Caroline of Brunswick; he now refused her the title of queen consort, forbade the mention of her name in the liturgy, and persuaded the government to promote an inquiry in parliament into her conduct, with a view to a divorce. Whatever grounds there may have been for this action, popular sympathy was wholly with Queen Caroline, who became the centre round which all the forces of discontent rallied. The failure of the Bill of Pains and Penalties against the queen, which was dropped after it had passed its third reading in the Lords by a majority of only seven, was greeted as a great popular triumph. The part played by the government in this unsavoury affair had discredited them even in the eyes of the classes whose fear of revolution had hitherto made them supporters of the established system; and the movement for reform received a new stimulus.

The Tory government itself realized the necessity for some concessions to the growing public sentiment. In 1821 a small advance was made. The reform bill (equal electoral districts) introduced by Lambton (afterwards Lord Beginnings of reform. Durham) was thrown out; but the corrupt borough of Grampound in Cornwall was disfranchised and the seats transferred to the county of York. Even more significant was the change in the cabinet, which was strengthened by the admission of some of the more conservative section of the Opposition, Lord Sidmouth retiring and Robert Peel becoming home secretary. A bill for the removal of Catholic disabilities, too, was carried in the Commons, though rejected in the Lords; and the appointment of Lord Wellesley, an advocate of the Catholic claims, to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland marked yet another stage in the settlement of a question which, more than anything else at that time, kept Ireland and Irishmen in a state of chronic discontent and agitation.

It is not without significance that this modification of the policy of the Tory government at home coincided with a modification of its relations with the European powers. The tendency of Metternich’s system had long been growing distasteful to Castlereagh, who had consistently protested against the attempt to constitute the Grand Alliance general police of Europe and had specially protested against the Carlsbad Decrees (q.v.). The first steps towards the inevitable breach with the reactionary powers had already been taken before Castlereagh’s tragic death on the eve of the congress of Verona brought George Canning into office as the executor of his policy. With George Canning. Canning, foe of the Revolution and all its works though he was, the old liberal Toryism of Pitt’s younger days seemed once more to emerge. It might have emerged in any case; but Canning, with his brilliant popular gifts and his frank appeal to popular support, gave it a revivifying stimulus which it would never have received from an aristocrat of the type of Castlereagh.

The new spirit was most conspicuous in foreign affairs; in the protest of Great Britain against the action of the continental powers at Verona (see Verona, Congress of), in the recognition of the South American republics, and Changed tendency of British policy. later in the sympathetic attitude of the government towards the insurrection in Greece. This policy had been foreshadowed in the instructions drawn up by Castlereagh for his own guidance at Verona; but Canning succeeded in giving it a popular and national colour and thus removing from the government all suspicion of sympathy with the reactionary spirit of the “Holy Alliance.” In home affairs, too, the government made tentative advances in a Liberal direction. In January 1823 Vansittart was succeeded as chancellor of the exchequer by Robinson (afterwards Lord Goderich), and Huskisson became president of the Board of Trade. The term of office of the latter was marked by the first tentative efforts to modify the high protective system by which British trade was hampered, especially by the Reciprocity of Duties Act (1823), a modification of the Navigation Acts, by which British and foreign shipping were placed on an equal footing, while the right to impose restrictive duties on ships of powers refusing to reciprocate was retained. In spite, however, of the improvement in trade that ultimately resulted from these measures, there was great depression; in 1825 there was a financial crisis that caused widespread ruin, and in 1826 the misery of the labouring poor led to renewed riots and machinery smashing. It became increasingly clear that a drastic alteration in the existing system was absolutely inevitable. As to this necessity, however, the ministry was in fact hopelessly divided. The government was one of compromise, in which even so burning a question as Catholic emancipation had been left open. Among its members were some—like the lord chancellor Eldon, the duke of Wellington, and the premier, Lord Liverpool, himself—whose Toryism was of the type crystallized under the influence of the Revolution, adamant against change. Such progressive measures as it had passed had been passed in the teeth of its own nominal supporters, even of its own members. In 1826 Lord Palmerston, himself a member of the government, wrote: “On the Catholic question, on the principles of commerce, on the corn laws, on the settlement of the currency, on the laws relating to trade in money, on colonial slavery, on the game laws...; on all these questions, and everything like them, the government will find support from the Whigs and resistance from their self-denominated friends.” It was, in fact, only the personal influence of Liverpool that held the ministry together, and when, on the 17th of February 1827, he was seized with an apoplectic fit, a crisis was inevitable.

The crisis, indeed, arose before the nominal expiration of the Liverpool administration. Two questions were, in the view of Canning and his supporters, of supreme importance—Catholic emancipation and the reform of the Corn Laws. Catholic Emancipation and Corn Laws. The first of these had assumed a new urgency since the formation in 1823 of the Catholic Association, which under the brilliant leadership of Daniel O’Connell established in Ireland a national organization that threatened the very basis of the government. In March 1826 Sir Francis Burdett had brought in a Catholic Relief Bill, which, passed in the Commons, was thrown out by the Lords. A year later Burdett’s motion that the affairs of Ireland required immediate attention, though supported by Canning, was rejected in the Commons. A bill modifying the Corn Laws, introduced by Canning and Huskisson, passed the House of Commons on the 12th of April 1827, but was rejected by the Lords.

Meanwhile (April 10) Canning had become prime minister, his appointment being followed by the resignation of all the most conspicuous members of the Liverpool administration: Canning ministry. Wellington, Eldon, Melville, Bathurst, Westmorland and Peel, the latter of whom resigned on account of his opposition to Catholic emancipation. The new government had perforce to rely on the Whigs, who took their seats on the government side of the House, Lord Lansdowne being included in the cabinet. Before this coalition could be completed, however, Canning died (August 8). The short-lived Goderich administration followed; and in January 1828 the king, Wellington ministry. weary of the effort to arrange a coalition, summoned the duke of Wellington to office as head of a purely Tory cabinet. Yet the logic of facts was too strong even for the stubborn spirit of the Iron Duke. In May 1828, on the initiative of Lord John Russell, the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed; in the same session a Corn Bill, differing but little from those that Wellington had hitherto opposed, was passed; and finally, after a strenuous agitation which culminated in the election of O’Connell for Clare, and in Catholic emancipation passed. Revolution of 1830. spite of the obstinate resistance of King George IV., the Catholic Emancipation Bill was passed (April 10, 1829) by a large majority. On the 26th of June 1830 the king died, exactly a month before the outbreak of the revolution in Paris that hurled Charles X. from the throne and led to the establishment of the Liberal Monarchy under Louis Philippe; a revolution that was to exert a strong influence on the movement for reform in England.

King William IV. ascended the throne at a critical moment in the history of the English constitution. Everywhere misery and discontent were apparent, manifesting themselves in riots against machinery, in rick-burning on a large William IV. scale, and in the formation of trades unions which tended to develop into organized armies of sedition. All the elements of violent revolution were present. Nor was there anything in the character of the new king greatly calculated to restore the damaged prestige of the crown; for, if he lacked the evil qualities that had caused George IV. to be loathed as well as despised, he lacked also the sense of personal dignity that had been the saving grace of George, while he shared the conservative and Protestant prejudices of his predecessors. Reform was now inevitable. The Wellington ministry, hated by the Liberals, denounced even by the Tories as traitorous for the few concessions made, resigned on the 16th of November; Whig ministry under Lord Grey. and the Whigs at last came into office under Lord Grey, the ministry also including a few of the more Liberal Tories. Lord Durham, perhaps the most influential leader of the reform movement, became privy seal, Althorp chancellor of the exchequer, Palmerston foreign secretary, Melbourne home secretary, Goderich colonial secretary. Lord John Russell, as paymaster-general, and Stanley (afterwards Lord Derby), as secretary for Ireland, held office outside the cabinet. With the actual House of Commons, however, the government was powerless to effect its purpose. Though it succeeded in carrying the second reading The great Reform Bill. of the Reform Bill (March 21, 1831), it was defeated in committee, and appealed to the country. The result was a great governmental majority, and the bill passed the Commons in September. Its rejection by the Lords on the 8th of October was the signal for dangerous rioting; and in spite of the opposition of the king, the bill was once more passed by the Commons (December 12). A violent agitation marked the recess. On the 14th of April 1832 the bill was read a second time in the Lords, but on the 7th of May was again rejected, whereupon the government resigned. The attempt of Wellington, at the king’s instance, to form a ministry failed; of all the Tory obstructionists he alone had the courage to face the popular rage. On the 15th Lord Grey was in office again; the demand was made for a sufficient creation of peers to swamp the House of Lords; the king, now thoroughly alarmed, used his influence to persuade the peers to yield, and on the 4th of June the great Reform Bill became law. Thus was England spared the crisis of a bloody revolution, and proof given to the world that her ancient constitution was sufficiently elastic to expand with the needs of the times.

The effect of the Reform Bill, which abolished fifty-six “rotten” boroughs, and by reducing the representation of others set free 143 seats, which were in part conferred on the new industrial centres, was to transfer a large share of political power from the landed aristocracy to the middle classes. Yet the opposition of the Tories had not been wholly inspired by the desire to maintain the political predominance of a class. Canning, who had the best reason for knowing, defended the unreformed system on the ground that its very anomalies opened a variety of paths by which talent could make its way into parliament, and thus produced an assembly far more widely representative than could be expected from a more uniform and logical system. This argument, which the effect of progressive extensions of the franchise on the intellectual level of parliament has certainly not tended to weaken, was however far outweighed—as Canning himself would have come to see—by the advantage of reconciling with the old constitution the new forces which were destined during the century to transform the social organization of the country. Nor, in spite of the drastic character of the Reform Bill, did it in effect constitute a revolution. The 143 seats set free were divided equally between the towns and the counties; and in the counties the landowning aristocracy was still supreme. In the towns the new £10 household franchise secured a democratic constituency; in the counties the inclusion of tenants at will (of £50 annual rent), as well as of copyholders and lease-holders, only tended to increase the influence of the landlords. There was as yet no secret ballot to set the voter free.

The result was apparent in the course of the next few years. The first reformed parliament, which met on the 29th of January 1833, consisted in the main of Whigs, with a sprinkling of Radicals and a compact body of Liberal Tories under Sir Robert Peel. Its great work was the act emancipating the slaves in the British colonies (August 30). Other burning questions were the condition of Ireland, the scandal of the established church there, the misery of the poor in England. In all these matters the House showed little enough of the revolutionary temper; so little, indeed, that in March Lord Durham resigned. To the Whig leaders the church was all but as sacrosanct as to the Tories, the very foundation of the constitution, not to be touched save at imminent risk to the state; the most they would adventure was to remedy a few of the more glaring abuses of an establishment imposed on an unwilling population. As for O’Connell’s agitation for the repeal of the Union, that met with but scant sympathy in parliament; on the 27th of May 1834 his repeal motion was rejected by a large majority.

In July the Grey ministry resigned, and on the 16th Lord Melbourne became prime minister. His short tenure of office is memorable for the passing of the bill for the reform of the Poor Law (August). The reckless system of Melbourne ministry. outdoor relief, which had pauperized whole neighbourhoods, was abolished, and the system of unions and workhouses established (see Poor Law). An attempt to divert some of the revenues of the Irish Church led in the autumn to serious differences of opinion in the cabinet; the king, as tenacious as his father of the exact obligations of his coronation oath, dismissed the ministry, and called the Tories to office under Sir Robert Peel and the duke of Wellington. Thus, within three years of the passing of the Reform Bill, the party which had most strenuously opposed it was again in office. Scarcely less striking testimony to the constitutional temper of the English was given by the new attitude of the party under the new conditions. In the “Tamworth The “Conservative” party. manifesto” of January 1835 Peel proclaimed the principles which were henceforth to guide the party, no longer Tory, but “Conservative.” The Reform Bill and its consequences were frankly accepted; further reforms were promised, especially in the matter of the municipal corporations and of the disabilities of the dissenters. The new parliament, however, which met on the 19th of February, was not favourable to the ministry, which fell on the 8th of April. Lord Melbourne once more came into office, and the Municipal Corporations Act of the 7th of September was the work of a Liberal government. This was the last measure of first-rate importance passed before the death of King William, which occurred on the 20th of June 1837.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance, not only for England but for the world at large, of the epoch which culminated in the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. All Europe, whether Liberal or reactionary, was watching the constitutional struggle with strained attention; the principles of monarchy and of constitutional liberty were alike at stake. To foreign observers it seemed impossible that the British monarchy could survive. Baron Brunnow, the Russian ambassador in London, sent home to the emperor Nicholas I. the most pessimistic reports. According to Brunnow, King William, by using his influence to secure the passage of the Reform Bill, had “cast his crown into the gutter”; the throne might endure for his lifetime, but the next heir was a young and inexperienced girl, and, even were the princess Victoria ever to mount the throne—which was unlikely—she would be speedily swept off it again by the rising tide of republicanism. The course of the next reign was destined speedily to convince even Nicholas I. of the baselessness of these fears, and to present to all Europe the exemplar of a progressive state, in which the principles of traditional authority and democratic liberty combined for the common good.

(W. A. P.)

XII. The Reign of Victoria (1837-1901)

The death of William IV., on the 20th of June 1837, placed on the throne of England a young princess, who was destined to reign for a longer period than any of her predecessors. The new queen, the only daughter of the Queen Victoria’s accession. duke of Kent, the fourth son of George III., had just attained her majority. Educated in comparative seclusion, her character and her person were unfamiliar to her future subjects, who were a little weary of the extravagances and eccentricities of her immediate predecessors. Her accession gave them a new interest in the house of Hanover. And their loyalty, which would in any case have been excited by the accession of a young and inexperienced girl to the throne of the greatest empire in the world, was stimulated by her conduct and appearance. She displayed from the first a dignity and good sense which won the affection of the multitude who merely saw her in public, and the confidence of the advisers who were admitted into her presence.

The ministry experienced immediate benefit from the change. The Whigs, who had governed England since 1830, under Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne, were suffering from the reaction which is the inevitable consequence of revolution. The country which, in half-a-dozen years, had seen a radical reform of parliament, a no less radical reform of municipal corporations, the abolition of slavery, and the reconstruction of the poor laws, was longing for a period of political repose. The alliance, or understanding, between the Whigs and the Irish was increasing the distrust of the English people in the ministry, and Lord Melbourne’s government, in the first half of 1837, seemed doomed to perish. The accession of the queen gave it a new lease of power. The election, indeed, which followed her accession did not materially alter the composition of the House of Commons. But the popularity of the queen was extended to her government. Taper’s suggestion in Coningsby that the Conservatives should go to the country with the cry, “Our young queen and our old institutions,” expressed, in an epigram, a prevalent idea. But the institution which derived most immediate benefit from the new sovereign was the old Whig ministry.

The difficulties of the ministry, nevertheless, were great. In the preceding years it had carried most of the reforms which were demanded in Great Britain; but it had failed to obtain the assent of the House of Lords to its Irish measures. Lord Melbourne’s difficulties. It had desired (1) to follow up the reform of English corporations by a corresponding reform of Irish municipalities; (2) to convert the tithes, payable to the Irish Church, into a rent charge, and to appropriate its surplus revenues to other purposes; (3) to deal with the chronic distress of the Irish people by extending to Ireland the principles of the English poor law. In the year which succeeded the accession of the queen it accomplished two of these objects. It passed an Irish poor law and a measure commuting tithes in Ireland into a rent charge. The first of these measures was carried in opposition to the views of the Irish, who thought that it imposed an intolerable burden on Irish property. The second was only carried on the government consenting to drop the appropriation clause, on which Lord Melbourne’s administration had virtually been founded.

It was not, however, in domestic politics alone that the ministry was hampered. In the months which immediately followed the queen’s accession news reached England of disturbances, or even insurrection in Canada. The rising was easily put down; but the condition of the colony was so grave that the ministry decided to suspend the constitution of lower Canada for three years, and to send out Lord Durham with almost dictatorial powers. Lord Durham’s conduct was, unfortunately, marked by indiscretions which led to his resignation; but before leaving the colony he drew up a report on its condition and on its future, which practically became a text-book for his successors, and has influenced the government of British colonies ever since. Nor was Canada the only great colony which was seething with discontent. In Jamaica the planters, who had sullenly accepted the abolition of slavery, were irritated by the passage of an act of parliament intended to remedy some grave abuses in the management of the prisons of the island. The colonial House of Assembly denounced this act as a violation of its rights, and determined to desist from its legislative functions. The governor dissolved the assembly, but the new house, elected in its place, reaffirmed the decision of its predecessor; and the British ministry, in face of the crisis, asked parliament in 1839 for authority to suspend the constitution of the island for five years. The bill introduced for this purpose placed the Whig ministry in a position of some embarrassment. The advocates of popular government, they were inviting parliament, for a second time, to suspend representative institutions in an important colony. Supported by only small and dwindling majorities, they saw that it was hopeless to carry the measure, and they decided on placing their resignations in the queen’s hands. The queen naturally sent for Sir Robert Peel, who undertook to form a government. In the course of the negotiations, however, he stated that it would be necessary to make certain changes in the household, which contained some great ladies closely connected The bed-chamber question. with the leaders of the Whig party. The queen shrank from separating herself from ladies who had surrounded her since she came to the throne, and Sir Robert thereupon declined the task of forming a ministry. Technically he was justified in adopting this course, but people generally felt that there was some hardship in compelling a young queen to separate herself from her companions and friends, and they consequently approved the decision of Lord Melbourne to support the queen in her refusal, and to resume office. The Whigs returned to place, but they could not be said to return to power. They did not even venture to renew the original Jamaica Bill. They substituted for it a modified proposal which they were unable to carry. They were obviously indebted for office to the favour of the queen, and not to the support of parliament.

Yet the session of 1839 was not without important results. After a long struggle, in which ministers narrowly escaped defeat in the Commons, and in the course of which they suffered severe rebuffs in the Lords, they succeeded Penny postage. in laying the foundation of the English system of national education. In the same session they were forced against their will to adopt a reform, which had been recommended by Rowland Hill, and to confer on the nation the benefit of a uniform penny postage. No member of the cabinet foresaw the consequences of this reform. The postmaster-general, Lord Lichfield, in opposing it, declared that, if the revenue of his office was to be maintained, the correspondence of the country, on which postage was paid, must be increased from 42,000,000 to 480,000,000 letters a year, and he contended that there were neither people to write, nor machinery to deal with, so prodigious a mass of letters. He would have been astonished to hear that, before the end of the century, his office had to deal with more than 3,000,000,000 postal packets a year, and that the net profit which it paid into the exchequer was to be more than double what it received in 1839.

In 1840 the ministry was not much more successful than it had proved in 1839. After years of conflict it succeeded indeed in placing on the statute book a measure dealing with Irish municipalities. But its success was purchased Fiscal policy. by concessions to the Lords, which deprived the measure of much of its original merit. The closing years of the Whig administration were largely occupied with the financial difficulties of the country. The first three years of the queen’s reign were memorable for a constantly deficient revenue. The deficit amounted to £1,400,000 in 1837, to £400,000 in 1838, and to £1,457,000 in 1839. Baring, the chancellor of the exchequer, endeavoured to terminate this deficiency by a general increase of taxation, but this device proved a disastrous failure. The deficit rose to £1,842,000 in 1840. It was obvious that the old expedient of increasing taxation had failed, and that some new method had to be substituted for it. This new method Baring tried to discover in altering the differential duties on timber and sugar, and substituting a fixed duty of 8s. per quarter for the sliding duties hitherto payable on wheat. By these alterations he expected to secure a large increase of revenue, and at the same time to maintain a sufficient degree of protection for colonial produce. The Conservatives, who believed in protection, at once attacked the proposed alteration of the sugar duties. They were reinforced by many Liberals, who cared very little for protection, but a great deal about the abolition of slavery, and consequently objected to reducing the duties on foreign or slave-grown sugar. This combination of interests proved too strong for Baring and his proposal was rejected. As ministers, however, did not resign on their defeat, Sir Robert Peel followed up his victory by moving a vote of want of confidence, and this motion was carried in an exceptionally full house by 312 votes to 311.

Before abandoning the struggle, the Whigs decided on appealing from the House of Commons to the country. The general election which ensued largely increased the strength of the Conservative party. On the meeting of the Sir R. Peel forms a ministry. new parliament in August 1841, votes of want of confidence in the government were proposed and carried in both houses; the Whigs were compelled to resign office, and the queen again charged Sir Robert Peel with the task of forming a government. If the queen had remained unmarried, it is possible that the friction which had arisen in 1839 might have recurred in 1841. In February 1840, however, Her Majesty had married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. She was, therefore, no longer dependent on the Whig ladies, to whose presence in her court she had attached so much importance in 1839. By the management of the prince—who later in the reign was known as the prince consort—the great ladies of the household voluntarily tendered their resignations; and every obstacle to the formation of the new government was in this way removed.

Thus the Whigs retired from the offices which, except for a brief interval in 1834-1835, they had held for eleven years. During the earlier years of their administration they had succeeded in carrying many memorable reforms: during the later years their weakness in the House of Commons had prevented their passing any considerable measures. But, if they had failed in this respect, Lord Melbourne had rendered conspicuous service to the queen. Enjoying her full confidence, consulted by her on every occasion, he had always used his influence for the public good; and perhaps those who look back now with so much satisfaction at the queen’s conduct during a reign of unexampled length, imperfectly appreciate the debt which in this respect is owed to her first prime minister. The closing years of the Whig government were marked by external complications. A controversy on the boundary of Canada and the United States was provoking increasing bitterness on both sides of the Atlantic. The intervention of Lord Palmerston in Syria, which resulted in a great military success at Acre, was embittering the relations between France and England, while the unfortunate expedition to Afghanistan, which the Whigs had approved, was already producing embarrassment, and was about to result in disaster. Serious, however, as were the complications which surrounded British policy in Europe, in the East, and in America, the country, in August 1841, paid more attention to what a great writer called the “condition of England” question. There had never been a period in British history when distress and crime had been so general. There had hardly ever been a period when food had been so dear, when wages had been so low, when poverty had been so widespread, and the condition of the lower orders so depraved and so hopeless, as in the early years of the queen’s reign. The condition of the people had prompted the formation of two great associations. The Chartists derived their name from the charter which set out their demands. The rejection of a monster petition which they presented to parliament in 1839 led to a formidable riot in Birmingham, and to a projected march from South Wales on London, in which twenty persons were shot dead at Newport. Another organization, in one sense even more formidable than the Chartist, was agitating at the same time for the repeal of the corn laws, and was known as the Anti-Corn Law League. It had already secured the services of two men, Cobden and Bright, who, one by clear reasoning, the other by fervid eloquence, were destined to make a profound impression on all classes of the people.

The new government had, therefore, to deal with a position of almost unexampled difficulty. The people were apparently sinking into deeper poverty and misery year after year. As an outward and visible sign of the inward distress, Budget reforms. the state was no longer able to pay its way. It was estimated that the deficit, which had amounted to £1,842,000 in 1840, would reach £2,334,000 in 1841. It is the signal merit of Sir Robert Peel that he terminated this era of private distress and public deficits. He accomplished this task partly by economical administration—for no minister ever valued economy more—and partly by a reform of the financial system, effected in three great budgets. In the budget of 1842 Sir Robert Peel terminated the deficit by reviving the income tax. The proceeds of the tax, which was fixed at 7d. in the £, and was granted in the first instance for three years, were more than sufficient to secure this object. Sir Robert used the surplus to reform the whole customs tariff. The duties on raw materials, he proposed, should never exceed 5%, the duties on partly manufactured articles 12%, and the duties on manufactured articles 20% of their value. At the same time he reduced the duties on stage coaches, on foreign and colonial coffee, on foreign and colonial timber, and repealed the export duties on British manufactures. The success of this budget in stimulating consumption and in promoting trade induced Sir Robert Peel to follow it up in 1845 with an even more remarkable proposal. Instead of allowing the income tax to expire, he induced parliament to continue it for a further period, and with the resources which were thus placed at his disposal he purged the tariff of various small duties which produced little revenue, and had been imposed for purposes of protection. He swept away all the duties on British exports; he repealed the duties on glass, on cotton wool, and still further reduced the duties on foreign and colonial sugar. This budget was a much greater step towards free trade than the budget of 1842. The chief object in his third budget in 1846—the reduction of the duty on corn to 1s. a quarter—was necessitated by causes which will be immediately referred to. But it will be convenient at once to refer to its other features. Sir Robert Peel told the house that, in his previous budgets, he had given the manufacturers of the country free access to the raw materials which they used. He was entitled in return to call upon them to relinquish the protection which they enjoyed. He decided, therefore, to reduce the protective duties on cotton, woollen, silk, metal and other goods, as well as on raw materials still liable to heavy taxation, such as timber and tallow. As the policy of 1842 and 1845 had proved unquestionably successful in stimulating trade, he proposed to extend it to agriculture. He reduced the duties on the raw materials which the farmers used, such as seed and maize, and in return he called on them to give up the duties on cattle and meat, to reduce largely the duties on butter, cheese and hops, and to diminish the duty on corn by gradual stages to 1s. a quarter. In making these changes Sir Robert Peel avowed that it was his object to make the country a cheap one to live in. There is no doubt that they were followed by a remarkable development of British trade. In the twenty-seven years from 1815 to 1842 the export trade of Great Britain diminished from £49,600,000 to £47,280,000; while in the twenty-seven years which succeeded 1842 it increased from £47,280,000 to nearly £190,000,000. These figures are a simple and enduring monument to the minister’s memory. It is fair to add that the whole increase was not due to free trade. It was partly attributable to the remarkable development of communications which marked this period.

Two other financial measures of great importance were accomplished in Sir Robert Peel’s ministry. In 1844 some £250,000,000 of the national debt still bore an interest of 3½%. The improvement in the credit of the country enabled the government to reduce the interest on the stock to 3¼% for the succeeding ten years, and to 3% afterwards. This conversion, which effected an immediate saving of £625,000, and an ultimate saving of £1,250,000 a year, was by far the most important measure which had hitherto been applied to the debt; and no operation on the same scale was attempted for more than forty years. In the same year the necessity of renewing the charter of the Bank of England afforded Sir Robert Peel an opportunity of reforming the currency. He separated the issue department from the banking department of the bank, and decided that in future it should only be at liberty to issue notes against (1) the debt of £14,000,000 due to it from the government, and (2) any bullion actually in its coffers. Few measures of the past century have been the subject of more controversy than this famous act, and at one time its repeated suspension in periods of financial crises seemed to suggest the necessity of its amendment. But opinion on the whole has vindicated its wisdom, and it has survived all the attacks which have been made upon it.

The administration of Sir Robert Peel is also remarkable for its Irish policy. The Irish, under O’Connell, had constantly supported the Whig ministry of Lord Melbourne. But their alliance, or understanding, with the Whigs Ireland. had not procured them all the results which they had expected from it. The two great Whig measures, dealing with the church and the municipalities, had only been passed after years of controversy, and in a shape which deprived them of many expected advantages. Hence arose a notion in Ireland that nothing was to be expected from a British parliament, and hence began a movement for the repeal of the union which had been accomplished in 1801. This agitation, which smouldered during the reign of the Whig ministry, was rapidly revived when Sir Robert Peel entered upon office. The Irish contributed large sums, which were known as repeal rent, to the cause, and they held monster meetings in various parts of Ireland to stimulate the demand for repeal. The ministry met this campaign by coercive legislation regulating the use of arms, by quartering large bodies of troops in Ireland, and by prohibiting a great meeting at Clontarf, the scene of Brian Boru’s victory, in the immediate neighbourhood of Dublin. They further decided in 1843 to place O’Connell and some of the leading agitators on their trial for conspiracy and sedition. O’Connell was tried before a jury chosen from a defective panel, was convicted on an indictment which contained many counts, and the court passed sentence without distinguishing between these counts. These irregularities induced the House of Lords to reverse the judgment, and its reversal did much to prevent mischief. O’Connell’s illness, which resulted in his death in 1847, tended also to establish peace. Sir Robert Peel wisely endeavoured to stifle agitation by making considerable concessions to Irish sentiment. He increased the grant which was made to the Roman Catholic College at Maynooth; he established three colleges in the north, south and west of Ireland for the undenominational education of the middle classes; he appointed a commission—the Devon commission, as it was called, from the name of the nobleman who presided over it—to investigate the conditions on which Irish land was held; and, after the report of the commission, he introduced, though he failed to carry, a measure for remedying some of the grievances of the Irish tenants. These wise concessions might possibly have had Free trade. some effect in pacifying Ireland, if, in the autumn of 1845, they had not been forgotten in the presence of a disaster which suddenly fell on that unhappy country. The potato, which was the sole food of at least half the people of an overcrowded island, failed, and a famine of unprecedented proportions was obviously imminent. Sir Robert Peel, whose original views on protection had been rapidly yielding to the arguments afforded by the success of his own budgets, concluded that it was impossible to provide for the necessities of Ireland without suspending the corn laws; and that, if they were once suspended, it would be equally impossible to restore them. He failed, however, to convince two prominent members of his cabinet—Lord Stanley and the duke of Buccleuch—that protection must be finally abandoned, and considering it hopeless to persevere with a disunited cabinet he resigned office. On Sir Robert’s resignation the queen sent for Lord John Russell, who had led the Liberal party in the House of Commons with conspicuous ability for more than ten years, and charged him with the task of forming a new ministry. Differences, which it proved impossible to remove, between two prominent Whigs—Lord Palmerston and Lord Grey—made the task impracticable, and after an interval Sir Robert Peel consented to resume power. Sir Robert Peel was probably aware that his fall had been only postponed. In the four years and a half during which his ministry had lasted he had done much to estrange his party. They said, with some truth, that, whether his measures were right or wrong, they were opposed to the principles which he had been placed in power to support. The general election of 1841 had been mainly fought on the rival policies of protection and free trade. The country had decided for protection, and Sir R. Peel had done more than all his predecessors to give it free trade. The Conservative party, moreover, was closely allied with the church, and Sir Robert had offended the church by giving an increased endowment to Maynooth, and by establishing undenominational colleges—“godless colleges” as they were called—in Ireland. The Conservatives were, therefore, sullenly discontented with the conduct of their leader. They were lashed into positive fury by the proposal which he was now making to abolish the corn laws. Lord George Bentinck, who, in his youth, had been private secretary to Canning, but who in his maturer years had devoted more time to the turf than to politics, placed himself at their head. He was assisted by a remarkable man—Benjamin Disraeli—who joined great abilities to great ambition, and who, embittered by Sir Robert Peel’s neglect to appoint him to office, had already displayed his animosity to the minister. The policy on which Sir Robert Peel resolved facilitated attack. For the minister thought it necessary, while providing against famine by repealing the corn laws, to ensure the preservation of order by a new coercion bill. The financial bill and the coercion bill were both pressed forward, and each gave opportunities for discussion and, what was then new in parliament, for obstruction. At last, on the very night on which the fiscal proposals of the ministers were accepted by the Lords, the coercion bill was defeated in the Commons by a combination of Whigs, radicals and protectionists; and Sir R. Peel, worn out with a protracted struggle, placed his resignation in the queen’s hands.

Thus fell the great minister, who perhaps had conferred more benefits on his country than any of his predecessors. The external policy of his ministry had been almost as remarkable as its domestic programme. When he Peel’s foreign policy. accepted office the country was on the eve of a great disaster in India; it was engaged in a serious dispute with the United States; and its relations with France were so strained that the two great countries of western Europe seemed unlikely to be able to settle their differences without war. In the earlier years of his administration the disaster in Afghanistan was repaired in a successful campaign; and Lord Ellenborough, who was sent over to replace Lord Auckland as governor-general, increased the dominion and responsibilities of the East India Company by the unscrupulous but brilliant policy which led to the conquest of Sind. The disputes with the United States were satisfactorily composed; and not only were the differences with France terminated, but a perfect understanding was formed between the two countries, under which Guizot, the prime minister of France, and Lord Aberdeen, the foreign minister of England, agreed to compromise all minor questions for the sake of securing the paramount object of peace. The good understanding was so complete that a disagreeable incident in the Sandwich Islands, in which the injudicious conduct of a French agent very nearly precipitated hostilities, was amicably settled; and the ministry had the satisfaction of knowing that, if their policy had produced prosperity at home, it had also maintained peace abroad.

On Sir R. Peel’s resignation the queen again sent for Lord John Russell. The difficulties which had prevented his forming a ministry in the previous year were satisfactorily arranged, and Lord Palmerston accepted the seals of the foreign office, while Lord Grey was sent to the colonial office. The history of the succeeding years was destined, however, to prove that Lord Grey had had solid reasons for objecting to Lord Palmerston’s return to his old post; for, whatever judgment may ultimately be formed on Lord Palmerston’s foreign policy, there can be little doubt that it did not tend to the maintenance of peace. The first occasion on which danger was threatened arose immediately after the installation of the new ministry on the The Spanish marriages. question of the Spanish marriages. The queen of Spain, Isabella, was a young girl still in her teens; the heir to the throne was her younger sister, the infanta Fernanda. Diplomacy had long been occupied with the marriages of these children; and Lord Aberdeen had virtually accepted the principle, which the French government had laid down, that a husband for the queen should be found among the descendants of Philip V., and that her sister’s marriage to the duc de Montpensier—a son of Louis Philippe—should not be celebrated till the queen was married and had issue. While agreeing to this compromise, Lord Aberdeen declared that he regarded the Spanish marriages as a Spanish, and not as a European question, and that, if it proved impossible to find a suitable consort for the queen among the descendants of Philip V., Spain must be free to choose a prince for her throne elsewhere. The available descendants of Philip V. were the two sons of Don Francis, the younger brother of Don Carlos, and of these the French government was in favour of the elder, while the British government preferred the younger brother. Lord Palmerston strongly objected to the prince whom the French government supported; and, almost immediately after acceding to office, he wrote a despatch in which he enumerated the various candidates for the queen of Spain’s hand, including Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a near relation of the prince consort, among the number. Louis Philippe regarded this despatch as a departure from the principle on which he had agreed with Lord Aberdeen, and at once hurried on the simultaneous marriages of the queen with the French candidate, and of her sister with the duc de Montpensier. His action broke up the entente cordiale which had been established between Guizot and Lord Aberdeen.

The second occasion on which Lord Palmerston’s vigorous diplomacy excited alarm arose out of the revolution which broke out almost universally in Europe in 1848. A rising in Hungary was suppressed by Austria with Russian assistance, and after its suppression many leading Hungarians took refuge in Turkish territory. Austria and Russia addressed demands to the Porte for their surrender. Lord Palmerston determined to support the Porte in its refusal to give up these exiles, and actually sent the British fleet to the Dardanelles with this object. His success raised the credit of Great Britain and his own reputation. The presence of the British fleet, however, at the Dardanelles suggested to him the possibility of settling another long-standing controversy. For years British subjects settled in Greece had raised complaints against the Greek government. In particular Don Pacifico. Don Pacifico, a Jew, but a native of Gibraltar, complained that, at a riot, in which his house had been attacked, he had lost jewels, furniture and papers which he alleged to be worth more than £30,000. As Lord Palmerston was unable by correspondence to induce the Greek government to settle claims of this character, he determined to enforce them; and by his orders a large number of Greek vessels were seized and detained by the British fleet. The French government tendered its good offices to compose the dispute, and an arrangement was actually arrived at between Lord Palmerston and the French minister in London. Unfortunately, before its terms reached Greece, the British minister at Athens had ordered the resumption of hostilities, and had compelled the Greek government to submit to more humiliating conditions. News of this settlement excited the strongest feelings both in Paris and London. In Paris, Prince Louis Napoleon, who had acceded to the presidency of the French republic, decided on recalling his representative from the British court. In London the Lords passed a vote of censure on Lord Palmerston’s proceedings; and the Commons only sustained the minister by adopting a resolution approving in general terms the principles on which the foreign policy of the country had been conducted.

In pursuing the vigorous policy which characterized his tenure of the foreign office, Lord Palmerston frequently omitted to consult his colleagues in the cabinet, the prime minister, or the queen. In the course of 1849 Her Palmerston dismissed. Majesty formally complained to Lord John Russell that important despatches were sent off without her knowledge; and an arrangement was made under which Lord Palmerston undertook to submit every despatch to the queen through the prime minister. In 1850, after the Don Pacifico debate, the queen repeated these commands in a much stronger memorandum. But Lord Palmerston, though all confidence between himself and the court was destroyed, continued in office. In the autumn of 1851 the queen was much annoyed at hearing that he had received a deputation at the foreign office, which had waited on him to express sympathy with the Hungarian refugees, and to denounce the conduct of “the despots and tyrants” of Russia and Austria, and that he had, in his reply, expressed his gratification at the demonstration. If the queen had had her way, Lord Palmerston would have been removed from the foreign office after this incident. A few days later the coup d’état in Paris led to another dispute. The cabinet decided to do nothing that could wear the appearance of interference in the internal affairs of France; but Lord Palmerston, in conversation with the French minister in London, took upon himself to approve the bold and decisive step taken by the president. The ministry naturally refused to tolerate this conduct, and Lord Palmerston was summarily removed from his office.

The removal of Lord Palmerston led almost directly to the fall of the Whig government. Before relating, however, the exact occurrences which produced its defeat, it is necessary to retrace our steps and describe the policy which it had pursued in internal matters during the six years in which it had been in power. Throughout that period the Irish famine had been its chief anxiety and difficulty. Sir Robert Peel had attempted to deal with it (1) by purchasing large quantities of Indian corn, which he had retailed at low prices in Ireland, and (2) by enabling the grand juries to employ the people on public works, which were to be paid out of moneys advanced by the state, one-half being ultimately repayable by the locality. These measures were not entirely successful. It was found, in practice, that the sale of Indian corn at low prices by the government checked the efforts Irish famine. of private individuals to supply food; and that the offer of comparatively easy work to the poor at the cost of the public, prevented their seeking harder private work either in Ireland or in Great Britain. The new government, with this experience before it, decided on trusting to private enterprise to supply the necessary food, and on throwing the whole cost of the works which the locality might undertake on local funds. If the famine had been less severe, this policy might possibly have succeeded. Universal want, however, paralysed every one. The people, destitute of other means of livelihood, crowded to the relief works. In the beginning of 1847 nearly 750,000 persons—or nearly one person out of every ten in Ireland—were so employed. With such vast multitudes to relieve, it proved impracticable to exact the labour which was required as a test of destitution. The roads, which it was decided to make, were blocked by the labourers employed upon them, and by the stones, which the labourers were supposed to crush for their repair. In the presence of this difficulty the government decided, early in 1847, gradually to discontinue the relief works, and to substitute for them relief committees charged with the task of feeding the people. At one time no less than 3,000,000 persons—more than one-third of the entire population of Ireland—were supported by these committees. At the same time it decided on adopting two measures of a more permanent character. The poor law of 1838 had made no provision for the relief of the poor outside the workhouse, and outdoor relief was sanctioned by an act of 1847. Irish landlords complained that their properties, ruined by the famine, and encumbered by the extravagances of their predecessors, could not bear the cost of this new poor law; and the ministry introduced and carried a measure enabling the embarrassed owners of life estates to sell their property and discharge their liabilities. It is the constant misfortune of Ireland that the measures intended for her relief aggravate her distress. The encumbered estates act, though it substituted a solvent for an insolvent proprietary, placed the Irish tenants at the mercy of landlords of whom they had no previous knowledge, who were frequently absentees, who bought the land as a matter of business, and who dealt with it on business principles by raising the rent. The new poor law, by throwing the maintenance of the poor on the soil, encouraged landlords to extricate themselves from their responsibilities by evicting their tenants. Evictions were made on a scale which elicited from Sir Robert Peel an expression of the deepest abhorrence. The unfortunate persons driven from their holdings and forced to seek a refuge in the towns, in England, or—when they could afford it—in the United States, carried with them everywhere the seeds of disease, the constant handmaid of famine.

Famine, mortality and emigration left their mark on Ireland. In four years, from 1845 to 1849, its population decreased from 8,295,000 to 7,256,000, or by more than a million persons; and the decline which took place at that time went on to the end of the century. The population of Ireland in 1901 had decreased to 4,457,000 souls. This fact is the more remarkable, because Ireland is almost the only portion of the British empire, or indeed of the civilized world, where such a circumstance has occurred. We must go to countries like the Asiatic provinces of Turkey, devastated by Ottoman rule, to find such a diminution in the numbers of the people as was seen in Ireland during the last half of the 19th century. It was probably inevitable that the distress of Ireland should have been followed by a renewal of Irish outrages. A terrible series of agrarian crimes was committed in the autumn of 1847; and the ministry felt compelled, Rebellion of 1848. in consequence, to strengthen its hands by a new measure of coercion, and by suspending the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. The latter measure at once brought to a crisis the so-called rebellion of 1848, for his share in which Smith O’Brien, an Irish member of parliament, was convicted of high treason. The government, however, did not venture to carry out the grim sentence which the law still applied to traitors, and introduced an act enabling it to commute the death penalty to transportation. The “insurrection” had from the first proved abortive. With Smith O’Brien’s transportation it practically terminated.

In the meanwhile the difficulties which the government was experiencing from the Irish famine had been aggravated by a grave commercial crisis in England. In the autumn of 1847 a series of failures in the great commercial centres created a panic in the city of London, which forced consols down to 78, and induced the government to take upon itself the responsibility of suspending the Bank Charter Act. That step, enabling the directors of the Bank of England to issue notes unsecured by bullion, had the effect of gradually restoring confidence. But a grave commercial crisis of this character is often attended with other than financial consequences. The stringency of the money market increases the distress of the industrial classes by diminishing the demand for work; and, when labour suffers, political agitation flourishes. Early in 1848, moreover, revolutions on the continent produced a natural craving for changes at home. Louis Philippe was driven out of Paris, the emperor of Austria was driven out of Vienna, the Austrian soldiery had to withdraw from Milan, and even in Berlin the crown had to make terms with the people. While thrones were falling or tottering in every country in Europe, it was inevitable that excitement and agitation should prevail in Great Britain. The Chartists, reviving the machinery which they had endeavoured to employ in 1839, decided on preparing a monster petition to parliament, which was to be escorted to Westminster by a monster procession. Their preparations excited general alarm, and on the invitation Chartism. of the government no less than 170,000 special constables were sworn in to protect life and property against a rabble. By the judicious arrangements, however, which were made by the duke of Wellington, the peace of the metropolis was secured. The Chartists were induced to abandon the procession which had caused so much alarm, and the monster petition was carried in a cab to the House of Commons. There it was mercilessly picked to pieces by a select committee. It was found that, instead of containing nearly 6,000,000 signatures, as its originators had boasted, less than 2,000,000 names were attached to it. Some of the names, moreover, were obviously fictitious, or even absurd. The exposure of these facts turned the whole thing into ridicule, and gave parliament an excuse for postponing measures of organic reform which might otherwise have been brought forward.

If the ministry thus abstained from pressing forward a large scheme of political reform, it succeeded in carrying two measures of the highest commercial and social importance. In 1849 it supplemented the free trade policy, which Navigation Acts. Sir Robert Peel had developed, by the repeal of the Navigation Acts. Briefly stated, these acts, which had been originated during the Protectorate of Cromwell, and continued after the Restoration, reserved the whole coasting trade of the country for British vessels and British seamen, and much of the foreign trade for British vessels, commanded and chiefly manned by British subjects. The acts, therefore, were in the strictest sense protective, but they were also designed to increase the strength of Great Britain at sea, by maintaining large numbers of British seamen. They had been defended by Adam Smith on the ground that defence was “of much more importance than opulence,” and by the same reasoning they had been described by John Stuart Mill as, “though economically disadvantageous, politically expedient.” The acts, however, threw a grave burden on British trade and British shipowners. Their provisions by restricting competition naturally tended to raise freights, and by restricting employment made it difficult for shipowners to man their vessels. Accordingly the government wisely determined on their repeal; and one of the last and greatest battles between Free Trade and Protection was fought over the question. The second reading of the government bill was carried in the House of Lords by a majority of only ten: it would not have been carried at all if the government had not secured a much larger number of proxies than their opponents could obtain.

If the repeal of the Navigation Acts constituted a measure of the highest commercial importance, the passage of the Ten Hours Bill in 1847 marked the first great advance in factory legislation. Something, indeed, had already Ten Hours Bill. been done to remedy the evils arising from the employment of women and very young children in factories and mines. In 1833 Lord Ashley, better known as Lord Shaftesbury, had carried the first important Factory Act. In 1842 he had succeeded, with the help of the striking report of a royal commission, in inducing parliament to prohibit the employment of women and of boys under ten years of age in mines. And in 1843 Sir James Graham, who was home secretary in Sir Robert Peel’s administration, had been compelled by the pressure of public opinion to introduce a measure providing for the education of children employed in factories, and for limiting the hours of work of children and young persons. The educational clauses of this bill were obviously framed in the interests of the Church of England, and raised a heated controversy which led to the abandonment of the measure; and in the following year Sir James Graham introduced a new bill dealing with the labour question alone. Briefly stated, his proposal was that no child under nine years of age should be employed in a factory, and that no young person under eighteen should be employed for more than twelve hours a day. This measure gave rise to the famous controversy on the ten hours clause, which commenced in 1844 and was protracted till 1847. Lord Ashley and the factory reformers contended, on the one hand, that ten hours were long enough for any person to work; their opponents maintained, on the contrary, that the adoption of the clause would injure the working-classes by lowering the rate of wages, and ruin the manufacturers by exposing them to foreign competition. In 1847 the reform was at last adopted. It is a remarkable fact that it was carried against the views of the leading statesmen on both sides of the House. It was the triumph of common sense over official arguments.

During the first four years of Lord John Russell’s government, his administration had never enjoyed any very large measure of popular support, but it had been partly sustained by the advocacy of Sir Robert Peel. The differences Death of Peel. which estranged Sir Robert from his old supporters were far greater than those which separated him from the Whigs, and the latter were therefore constantly able to rely on his assistance. In the summer of 1850, however, a lamentable accident—a fall from his horse—deprived the country of the services of its great statesman. His death naturally affected the position of parties. The small remnant of able men, indeed, who had been associated with him in his famous administration, still maintained an attitude of neutrality. But the bulk of the Conservative party rallied under the lead of Lord Stanley (afterwards Derby) in the House of Lords, and gradually submitted to, rather than accepted, the lead of Disraeli in the House of Commons.

In the autumn which succeeded Sir Robert Peel’s death, an event which had not been foreseen agitated the country and produced a crisis. During the years which had succeeded the Reform Bill a great religious movement Oxford movement. had influenced politics both in England and Scotland. In England, a body of eminent men at Oxford—of whom J.H., afterwards Cardinal, Newman was the chief, but who numbered among their leaders Hurrell Froude, the brother of the historian, and Keble, the author of the Christian Year—endeavoured to prove that the doctrines of the Church of England were identical with those of the primitive Catholic Church, and that every Catholic doctrine might be held by those who were within its pale. This view was explained in a remarkable series of tracts, which gave their authors the name of Tractarians. The most famous of these, and the last of the series, Tract XC., was published three years after the queen’s accession to the throne. In Scotland, the Presbyterian Church—mainly under the guidance of Dr Chalmers, one of the most eloquent preachers of the century—was simultaneously engaged in a contest with the state on the subject of ecclesiastical patronage. Both movements had this in common, that they indicated a revival of religious energy, and aimed at vindicating the authority of the church, and resisting the interference of the state in church matters. The Scottish movement led to the disruption of the Church of Scotland and the formation of the Free Church in 1843. The Tractarian movement was ultimately terminated by the secession of Newman and many of his associates from the Church of England, and their admission to the Church of Rome. These secessions raised a feeling of alarm throughout England. The people, thoroughly Protestant, were excited by the proofs—which they thought were afforded—that the real object of the Tractarians was to reconcile England with Rome; and practices which are now regarded as venial or even praiseworthy—such as the wearing of the surplice in the pulpit, and the institution of the weekly offertory—were denounced because they were instituted by the Tractarians, and were regarded as insidious devices to lead the country Romewards. The sympathies of the Whigs, and especially of the Whig prime minister, Lord John Russell, were with the people; and Lord John displayed his dislike to the Romanizing tendencies of the Tractarians by appointing Renn Dickson Hampden—whose views had been formally condemned by the Hebdomadal Board at Oxford—to the bishopric of Hereford. The High Church party endeavoured to oppose the appointment at every stage; but their attempts exposed them to a serious defeat. The courts held that, though the appointment of a bishop by the crown required confirmation in the archbishop’s court, the confirmation was a purely ministerial act which could not be refused. The effort which the High Church party had made to resist Dr Hampden’s appointment had thus resulted in showing conclusively that authority resided in the crown, and not in the archbishop. It so happened that about the same time this view was confirmed by another judicial decision. The lord chancellor presented the Rev. G.C. Gorham to a living in Devonshire; and Dr Phillpotts, the bishop of Exeter, declined to institute him, on the ground that he held heretical views on the subject of baptism. The court of arches upheld the bishop’s decision. The finding of the court, however, was reversed by the privy council, and its judgment dealt a new blow at the Tractarian party. For it again showed that authority—even in doctrine—resided in the crown and not in the church. Within a few months of this famous decision the pope—perhaps encouraged by the activity and despondency of the High Church party—issued a brief “for re-establishing and extending the Catholic faith in England,” and proceeded to divide England and Wales into twelve sees. One of them—Westminster—was made an archbishopric, and the new dignity was conferred on Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman, who was almost immediately afterwards created cardinal. The publication of this brief caused much excitement throughout the country, which was fanned by a letter from the prime minister to the bishop of Durham, condemning the brief as “insolent and insidious” and “inconsistent with the queen’s supremacy, with the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation.” Somewhat unnecessarily the prime minister went on to condemn the clergymen of the Church of England who had subscribed the Thirty-nine Articles, “who have been the most forward in leading their own flocks, step by step, to the very edge of the precipice.”

In accordance with the promise of Lord John Russell’s letter, the ministry, at the opening of the session of 1851, introduced a measure forbidding the assumption of territorial titles by the priests and bishops of the Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. Church, declaring all gifts made to them and all acts done by them under these titles null and void, and forfeiting to the crown all property bequeathed to them. The bill naturally encountered opposition from many Liberals, while it failed to excite any enthusiasm among Conservatives, who thought its remedies inadequate. In the middle of the debates upon it the government was defeated on another question—a proposal to reduce the county franchise—and, feeling that it could no longer rely on the support of the House of Commons, tendered its resignation. But Lord Stanley, whom the queen entrusted with the duty of forming a new administration, was compelled to decline the task, and Lord John resumed office. Mild as the original Ecclesiastical Titles Bill had been thought, the new edition of it, which was introduced after the restoration of the Whigs to power, was still milder. Though, after protracted debates, it at last became law, it satisfied nobody. Its provisions, as was soon found, could be easily evaded, and the bill, which had caused so much excitement, and had nearly precipitated the fall of a ministry, remained a dead letter. The government, in fact, was experiencing the truth that, if a defeated ministry may be occasionally restored to place, it cannot be restored to power. The dismissal of Lord Palmerston from the foreign office in 1851 further increased the embarrassments of the government. In February 1852 it was defeated on a proposal to revive the militia, and resigned.

The circumstances which directly led to the defeat of the Whigs were, in one sense, a consequence of the revolutionary wave which had swept over Europe in 1848. The fall of Louis Philippe in that year created a panic in French scare. Great Britain. Men thought that the unsettled state of France made war probable, and they were alarmed at the defenceless condition of England. Lord Palmerston, speaking in 1845, had declared that “steam had bridged the Channel”; and the duke of Wellington had addressed a letter to Sir John Burgoyne, in which he had demonstrated that the country was not in a position to resist an invading force. The panic was so great that the ministry felt it necessary to make exceptional provisions for allaying it. Lord John Russell decided on asking parliament to sanction increased armaments, and to raise the income tax to 1s. in the pound in order to pay for them. The occasion deserves to be recollected as one on which a prime minister, who was not also chancellor of the exchequer, has himself proposed the budget of the year. But it was still more memorable because the remedy which Lord John proposed at once destroyed the panic which had suggested it. A certain increase of the income tax to a shilling seemed a much more serious calamity than the uncertain prospect of a possible invasion. The estimates were recast, the budget was withdrawn, and the nation was content to dispense with any addition to its military and naval strength. Events in France, in the meanwhile, moved with railway speed. Louis Napoleon became president of the French Republic: in 1852 he became emperor of the French. The new emperor, indeed, took pains to reassure a troubled continent that “the empire was peace.” The people insisted on believing—and, as the event proved, rightly—that the empire was war. Notwithstanding the success of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was supposed to inaugurate a new reign of peace, the panic, which had been temporarily allayed in 1848, revived at the close of 1851, and the government endeavoured to allay it by reconstituting the militia. There were two possible expedients. An act of 1757 had placed under the direct authority of the crown a militia composed of men selected in each parish by ballot, liable to be called out for active service, and to be placed under military law. But the act had been supplemented by a series of statutes passed between 1808 and 1812, which had provided a local militia, raised, like the regular militia, by ballot, but, unlike the latter, only liable for service for the suppression of riots, or in the event of imminent invasion. Lord John Russell’s government, forced to do something by the state of public opinion, but anxious—from the experience of 1848—to make that something moderate, decided on reviving the local militia. Lord Palmerston at once suggested that the regular and not the local militia should be revived; and, in a small house of only 265 members, he succeeded in carrying a resolution to that effect. He had, in this way, what he called his “tit for tat” with Lord John; and the queen, accepting her minister’s resignation, sent for Lord Derby—for Lord Stanley had now succeeded to this title—and charged him with the task of forming a ministry.

The government which Lord Derby succeeded in forming was composed almost exclusively of the men who had rebelled against Sir Robert Peel in 1845. It was led in the House of Commons by the brilliant, but somewhat unscrupulous statesman Lord Derby. who had headed the revolt. With the exception of Lord Derby and one other man, its members had no experience of high office; and it had no chance of commanding a majority of the House of Commons in the existing parliament. It owed its position to the divisions of its opponents. Profiting by their experience, it succeeded in framing and passing a measure reconstituting the regular militia, which obtained general approval. It is perhaps worth observing that it maintained the machinery of a ballot, but reserved it only in case experience should prove that it was necessary. Voluntary enlistment under the new Militia Bill was to be the rule: compulsory service was only to be resorted to if voluntary enlistment should fail. This success, to a certain extent, strengthened the position of the new ministry. It was obvious, however, that its stability would ultimately be determined by its financial policy. Composed of the men who had resisted the free trade measures of the previous decade, its fate depended on its attitude towards free trade. In forming his administration Lord Derby had found it necessary to declare that, though he was still in favour of a tax on corn, he should take no steps in this direction till the country had received an opportunity of expressing its opinion. His leader in the House of Commons went much further, and declared that the time had gone by for reverting to protection. The view which Disraeli thus propounded in defiance of his previous opinions was confirmed by the electors on the dissolution of parliament. Though the new government obtained some increased strength from the result of the polls, the country, it was evident, had no intention of abandoning the policy of free trade, which by this time, it was clear, had conferred substantial benefits on all classes. When the new parliament met in the autumn of 1852, it was at once plain that the issue would be determined on the rival merits of the old and the new financial systems. Disraeli courted the decision by at once bringing forward the budget, which custom, and perhaps convenience, would have justified him in postponing till the following spring. His proposal—in which he avowedly threw over his friends on the ground that “he had greater subjects to consider than the triumph of obsolete opinions”—was, in effect, an attempt to conciliate his old supporters by a policy of doles, and to find the means for doing so by the increased taxation of the middle classes. He offered to relieve the shipping interest by transferring some of the cost of lighting the coasts to the Consolidated Fund; the West India interest by sanctioning the refining of sugar in bond; and the landed classes by reducing the malt tax by one-half, and by repealing the old war duty on hops. He suggested that the cost of these measures should be defrayed by extending the income tax to Ireland to industrial incomes of £100 and to permanent incomes of £50 a year, as well as by doubling the house tax, and extending it to all £10 householders. The weight, therefore, of these measures was either purposely or unintentionally thrown mainly on persons living in houses worth from £10 to £20 a year, or on persons in receipt of incomes from £50 to £150 a year. This defect in the budget was exposed in a great speech by Gladstone, which did much to ensure the defeat of the scheme and the fall of the ministry.

On the resignation of Lord Derby, the queen, anxious to terminate a period of weak governments, decided on endeavouring to combine in one cabinet the chiefs of the Whig party and the followers of Sir Robert Peel. With this Coalition, 1853. view she sent both for Lord Aberdeen, who had held the foreign office under Sir Robert, and for Lord Lansdowne, who was the Nestor of the Whigs; and with Lord Lansdowne’s concurrence charged Lord Aberdeen with the task of forming a government. In the new ministry Lord Aberdeen became first lord of the treasury, Gladstone chancellor of the exchequer, Lord John Russell foreign minister—though he was almost immediately replaced in the foreign office by Lord Clarendon, and himself assumed the presidency of the council. Lord Palmerston went to the home office. One other appointment must also be mentioned. The secretary of state for the colonies was also at that time secretary of state for war. No one in 1852, however, regarded that office as of material importance, and it was entrusted by Lord Aberdeen to an amiable and conscientious nobleman, the duke of Newcastle.

The first session of the Aberdeen administration will be chiefly recollected for the remarkable budget which Gladstone brought forward. It constituted a worthy supplement to the measures of 1842, 1845 and 1846. Gladstone Budget of 1853. swept away the duty on one great necessary of life—soap; he repealed the duties on 123 other articles; he reduced the duties on 133 others, among them that on tea; and he found means for paying for these reforms and for the gradual reduction and ultimate abolition of the income tax, which had become very unpopular, by (1) extending the tax to incomes of £100 a year; (2) an increase of the spirit duties; and (3) applying the death duties to real property, and to property passing by settlement. There can be little doubt that this great proposal was one of the most striking which had ever been brought forward in the House of Commons; there can also, unhappily, be no doubt that its promises and intentions were frustrated by events which proved too strong for its author. For Gladstone, in framing his budget, had contemplated a continuance of peace, and the country was, unhappily, already drifting into war.

For some years an obscure quarrel had been conducted at Constantinople about the custody of the holy places at Jerusalem. France, relying on a treaty concluded in the first half of the 18th century, claimed the guardianship of these The holy places. places for the Latin Church. But the rights which the Latin Church had thus obtained had practically fallen into disuse, while the Greek branch of the Christian Church had occupied and repaired the shrines which the Latins had neglected. In the years which preceded 1853, however, France had shown more activity in asserting her claims; and the new emperor of the French, anxious to conciliate the church which had supported his elevation to the throne, had a keen interest in upholding them. If, for reasons of policy, the emperor had grounds for his action, he had personal motives for thwarting the tsar of Russia; for the latter potentate had been foolish enough, in recognizing the second empire, to address its sovereign as “Mon Cher Ami,” instead of, in the customary language of sovereigns, as “Monsieur Mon Frère.” Thus, at the close of 1852, and in the beginning of 1853, Russia and France were both addressing opposite and irreconcilable demands to the Porte, and France was already talking of sending her fleet to the Dardanelles, while Russia was placing an army corps on active service and despatching Prince Menshikov on a special mission to Constantinople. So far the quarrel which had occurred at the Porte was obviously one in which Great Britain had no concern. The Aberdeen ministry, however, thought it desirable that it should be represented in the crisis by a strong man at Constantinople; and it selected Lord Stratford de Redcliffe for the post, which he had filled in former years with marked ability. Whatever merits Lord Stratford possessed—and he stands out in current diplomacy as the one strong man whom England had abroad—there was no doubt that he had this disqualification: the emperor Nicholas had refused some years before to receive him as ambassador at St Petersburg, and Lord Stratford had resented, and never forgiven, the discourtesy of this refusal. Lord Stratford soon discovered that Prince Menshikov was the bearer of larger demands, and that he was requiring the Porte to agree to a treaty acknowledging the right of Russia to protect the Greek Church throughout the Turkish dominions. By Lord Stratford’s advice the Porte—while making the requisite concession respecting the holy places—refused to grant the new demand; and Prince Menshikov thereupon withdrew from Constantinople.

The rejection of Prince Menshikov’s ultimatum was followed by momentous consequences. Russia—or rather her tsar—resolved on the occupation of the Danubian principalities; the British ministry—though the quarrel did not directly concern Great Britain—sent a fleet to the Dardanelles and placed it under Lord Stratford’s orders. Diplomacy, however, made a fresh attempt to terminate the dispute, and in July 1853 a note was agreed upon by the four neutral powers, France, Great Britain, Austria and Prussia, which it was decided to present to Constantinople and St Petersburg. This note, the adoption of which would have ensured peace, was accepted at St Petersburg; at Constantinople it was, unfortunately, rejected, mainly on Lord Stratford’s advice, and in opposition to his instructions from home. Instead, however, of insisting on the adoption of the note to which it had agreed, Lord Aberdeen’s ministry recommended the tsar to accept some amendments to it suggested by Lord Stratford, which it was disposed to regard as unimportant. It then discovered, however, that the tsar attached a meaning to the original note differing from that which it had itself applied to it, and in conjunction with France it thereupon ceased to recommend the Vienna note—as it was called—for acceptance. This decision separated the two western powers from Austria and Prussia, who were disposed to think that Russia had done all that could have been required of her in accepting the note which the four powers had agreed upon.