Читать книгу: «Historical Characters», страница 36

Part V

Effects of Reform. – Changes produced by reform. – Daniel O’Connell. – Lord Melbourne. – Choice of Speaker. – The Irish Tithe Bill. – Measures of Lord Melbourne. – The Irish question. – The Queen’s household. – The Corn Law League. – Whig measures.

I

The great measure just passed into law was not calculated to justify the fears of immediate and violent consequences; but was certain to produce gradual and important changes.

The new constitution breathed, in fact, a perfectly different spirit from the old one. The vitality of our former government was drawn from the higher classes and the lower ones. An election for Westminster was not merely the return of two members to Parliament: it was a manifestation of the feeling prevalent amongst the masses throughout England; and the feeling amongst the masses had a great influence in moments of excitement, and in all matters touching the national dignity and honour. On the other hand, it was by the combinations of powerful families that a majority was formed in Parliament, which, in ordinary times, and when no great question was at issue, ruled the country.

The populace, by its passions – the aristocracy, by its pride – gave energy to the will, and elevation to the character of the nation, disposing it to enterprise and to action. The government we had recently created was, on the contrary, filled with the soul of the middle classes, which is not cast in an heroic mould. Its objects are material, its interests are involved in the accidents of the moment. What may happen in five years to a man in trade, is of comparatively small consequence. What may happen immediately, makes or mars his fortunes. Moreover, the persons likely to replace the young men, distinguished for their general abilities and general instruction, who had formerly represented the smaller boroughs, were now for the most part elderly men with a local reputation, habits already acquired, and without the knowledge, the energy, or the wish to commence a new career as politicians.

A writer on Representative Government has said, that the two important elements to represent are intellect and numbers, because they are the two great elements of force. The new Reform Bill did not affect especially to represent either. But it represented peace, manufactures, expediency, practical acquaintance with particular branches of trade. It established a greater reality. A member of Parliament was more likely to represent a real thing concerning the public than a mere idea concerning it. The details of daily business were more certain to be attended to, useless wars to be put on one side.

On the other hand, that high spirit which insensibly sustains a powerful nation, that devotion to the permanent interests of the country, which leads to temporary sacrifices for its character and prestige, that extensive and comprehensive knowledge of national interests, which forms statesmen, and is the peculiar attribute of an enlightened and patriotic aristocracy, that generous sympathy with what is right, and detestation for what is wrong, which exists nowhere with such intensity as in the working classes, who are swayed more by sentiment, and less by calculation, than any other class – all those qualities, in short, which make one state, without our being able exactly to say why, dominate morally and physically over other states, were somewhat too feebly implanted in our new institutions; and these institutions generated a set of politicians who, with a very limited range of view, denied the existence of principles that were beyond the scope of their observation.

There were also other considerations, probably overlooked by those who imagined they were building up a permanent system by the bill of 1832. The middle class, which is perhaps the most important one for a government to conciliate, is not a class that can itself govern. Its temporary rule nearly always leads to a democracy or to a despotism; it must, therefore, be considered as a mere step, upwards or downwards, in a new order of things. Besides, if you destroy traditional respect, and that kind of instinct of obedience which is created by the habit of obeying spontaneously to-morrow, what you obeyed without inquiry yesterday – if you begin by condemning everything in a constitution which reason does not approve, you must arrive at a constitution which reason will sanction. You cannot destroy anomalies and preserve anomalies. The tide of innovation which you have directed towards the one anomaly as absurd, will, ere long, sweep away, as equally ridiculous, another anomaly. There is no solid resting-place between custom and argument. What is no longer defended by the one, must be made defensible by the other.

It is only by degrees, however, that the full extent of a great change develop es itself; for the peculiarities of a new constitution are always modified when that new constitution is carried out by men who have grown up under the preceding one; and in the meantime the vessel of the State, struggling between old habits and new ideas, must be exposed to the action of changeful and contrary winds.

Thus, the Reform party, temporarily united during the recent combat, split into several sections at its termination.

First, Lord Durham quitted the administration, because he thought it too cautious; secondly, Mr. Stanley and Sir James Graham quitted it, because they each thought it too fast; finally, Lord Grey himself quitted it, because he deemed that his authority was diminishing, as his generation was dying away, and younger men absorbing old influences. In the meantime Mr. O’Connell continued to be a great embarrassment. He represented the majority of the Irish people, who contended for a supremacy over the minority, a contest in which it was natural for the Catholics to engage after they had been declared as good citizens as the Protestants; but in which it was impossible for the British Government to concur, so long as there was a feud between the Protestant and the Catholic, and that the Protestant majority in England were disposed to sustain the Protestant minority in Ireland.

Hence, the reformed Parliament had met amidst cries for the repeal of the Union, and those savage violations of social order which, in the sister kingdom, are the usual attendants on political agitation.

The Ministry first tried coercion, but its effects could only be temporary, and they alienated a portion of its supporters. It then tried conciliation. But it was found impossible to conciliate the Irish Catholics without conciliating their leader. That leader was not irreconcilable, for he was vain: and vain men may always be managed by managing their vanity; but to gratify the vanity of a man who was always defying the power of England, was to mortify the pride of the English people.

Lord Melbourne had succeeded Lord Grey. He united various accomplishments with a manly understanding and a character inclined to moderation. There could not have been selected a statesman better qualified to preside over a Cabinet containing conflicting opinions and antagonistic ambitions. But no body of men, acting together under a system of compromises, can act with vigour or maintain authority. All these circumstances gave an air of feebleness and inferiority to an administration which contained, nevertheless, many men of superior ability. But that, perhaps, which tended most to discredit the ministry, was the credit which Sir Robert Peel was daily gaining as its opponent.

Carefully separating himself from the extreme opinions to be found in his own party, condemning merely the extreme opinions on the opposite one; professing the views and holding the language of a mediator between opinions that found no longer an echo in the public mind, and opinions that had not yet been ripened by public approbation; contrasting by his clear and uniform line of conduct with the apparent variations and vacillations of a Cabinet that was alternately swayed by diverging tendencies; professing no desire for power, he created by degrees a growing opinion that he was the statesman who ought to possess it: and thus, when the Reform Ministry had to add to its former losses that of Lord Althorpe, who by the death of Lord Spencer was withdrawn from the House of Commons, which he had long led with a singular deficiency in the powers of debate, but with the shrewdness and courtesy of a man of the world, the King thought himself justified in removing a Cabinet which he considered deficient in dignity, spirit, and consideration.

The Duke of Wellington, to whom he offered the post of Premier, declined it, and recommended Sir Robert Peel. Sir Robert had not expected, nor perhaps wished for, so sudden a summons. He was, in fact, at Rome when he was offered, for the first time, the highest place in the Cabinet. Returning to England instantly, he accepted the offer. His object now was to organize a new Conservative party on a new basis, and to come forward himself as a new man in a new state of affairs, neither lingering over ancient pledges nor fettered by previous declarations. As the first necessity for a new system, he sought new men, and wishing to obliterate the prejudice against himself as an anti-Reformer by a union with those who had been Reformers, hastened to invite Sir James Graham and Lord Stanley to join him. This invitation being declined, he had to fall back on his former associates; but being unable to change the furniture of the old Conservative Cabinet, he repainted and regilded it. In a letter to the electors of Tamworth, which engrafted many Liberal promises on Conservative principles, he went as far towards gaining new proselytes as was compatible with retaining old adherents. This letter was a preparation for the great struggle on the hustings which was now about to take place. Parliament had been dissolved, and the appeal made to the country was answered by the addition of one hundred members to the new Conservative party. Such an addition was sufficient to justify King William’s belief that a considerable change had taken place in public opinion, but was not sufficient to give a majority in the House of Commons to the ministry he had chosen. It was beaten by ten votes on the choice of a Speaker, Mr. Abercrombie having that majority over Mr. Manners Sutton.

But if Sir Robert Peel had not a sufficient majority to insure his maintenance in office, the Whigs were not so sure of a majority as to risk a direct attempt to turn him out, unless on some specific case which called for a vote to sanction a specific opinion. Sir Robert’s policy was to avoid a case of this kind, knowing that, if he could once by his tact, prudence, and ability, increase his numbers and establish a tendency in his favour, the fluctuating and uncertain would soon join his standard. This policy was contained in the speech with which he opened the campaign:

“With such prospects I feel it to be my duty – my first and paramount duty – to maintain the post which has been confided to me, and to stand by the trust which I did not seek, but which I could not decline. I call upon you not to condemn before you have heard – to receive at least the measures I shall propose – to amend them if they are defective – to extend them if they fall short of your expectations; but at least to give me the opportunity of presenting them, that you yourselves may consider and dispose of them. I make great offers, which should not be lightly rejected! I offer you the prospect of continued peace – the restored confidence of powerful states, that are willing to seize the opportunity of reducing great armies, and thus diminishing the chances of hostile collision. I offer you reduced estimates, improvements in civil jurisprudence, reform of ecclesiastical law, the settlement of the tithe question in Ireland, the commutation of the tithe in England, the removal of any real abuse in the Church, the redress of those grievances of which the Dissenters have any just grounds to complain. I offer you those specific measures, and I offer also to advance, soberly and cautiously, it is true, in the path of progressive improvement. I offer also the best chance that these things can be effected in willing concert with the other authorities of the State; thus restoring harmony, ensuring the maintenance, but not excluding the Reform (where Reform is really requisite) of ancient institutions.”

It was difficult to use more seducing language, but the Opposition would not be seduced. From the 24th of February till the beginning of April, Sir Robert struggled against its unsparing attacks. It was not easy, however, to catch him exposed on any practical question; at last, however, he had to deal with one – he had promised to settle the tithe question in Ireland. How was he to do so? He thought to balk his assailants by bringing forward a measure this year very similar to one which they themselves had brought forward the year before. But once on Irish ground, he was pretty sure of being beaten. The difference between Lord John Russell and Mr. Stanley, which had led to the secession of the latter, was a difference of principle as to the nature of Church property: the former contending that if the revenue possessed by the Protestant Church in Ireland was larger than necessary for the decent maintenance of the Protestant clergy, the State might dispose of it as it thought proper; the latter asserting that the State could not employ it for any purposes that were not ecclesiastical.

This was a great question; it was brought to an issue in a very small manner. Lord John Russell proposed as a resolution that no Irish tithe bill would be satisfactory which did not contain a clause devoting any surplus over and above the requirements of the Church establishment to the purposes of secular education. A committee was then sitting to determine whether there was any such surplus as that alluded to or not, and it would have been, doubtless, more regular first to have got the surplus and then to have determined about its use. Besides, if we were to deal with so great a principle as the alienation of the property of the Protestant Church, it would surely have been worth while to do so for some great practical advantage. The majority, nevertheless, voted for Lord John Russell’s proposition, partly because it established a public right, partly because it answered a party purpose. Thus Parliament decided against the inviolability of Church property – a decision certain to affect the future; which did affect the present; and Sir Robert Peel was forced to resign the seals of the Treasury.

But let us be just. Never did a statesman enter office more triumphantly than Sir Robert Peel left it. His self-confidence, his tact, his general knowledge, his temper, filled even his opponents with admiration!

It was impossible not to acknowledge to oneself that there was a man who seemed shaped expressly for being first minister of England. But, on the other hand, a sense of justice compelled one to consider that Lord Melbourne had done nothing to justify the manner in which he had been dismissed; that the party he represented had but two years since achieved a popular triumph which rendered the reign of William IV. almost as memorable in our annals as that of William III. – that it had added to this triumph in the name of Liberty, a triumph quite as great in the cause of Humanity; and that it would have inflicted a stigma of fickleness on our national character to pass by with indifference and neglect the author of the Reform Bill and the Negro Emancipation Bill – condemning a party still possessed of a majority in the most important branch of the Legislature, on the ground that the late Earl of Spencer was no more, and that it was necessary to replace Lord Althorpe – an honest man of respectable talents – by Lord John Russell – an honest man of very eminent talents.

Sir Robert’s attempt, in fact, though made bravely and sustained with consummate ability, was premature; made a few years later, – when the Stanley party had joined and were conformed with the Peel party, and made in consequence of some parliamentary measure, not as the consequence, which it then appeared to be, of Royal patronage and favour, – the result would have been different.

At the same time, it made an immense change in the condition of the Tory party. That party, after this attempt, was no longer a shattered band of impossible politicians, placed by public opinion without the pale of political power.

It became a compact, numerous, and hopeful party, considered by the country as prudent and practical, and having at its head the man most looked up to in that House of Parliament, which he declared publicly he would never quit.

For four years after this struggle Sir Robert Peel remained at the head of the powerful opposition he had gradually collected around him; the Whig Government having in the meantime to perform the very difficult and ungrateful task of carrying out changes which it deemed necessary, against Conservatives, and opposing innovations which it deemed dangerous, against Reformers. The friends of Liberal institutions and of religious toleration, and even of administrative improvement, owe it a debt of gratitude which they have never fully paid. The introduction of popular suffrage into the system of municipal government; the removal of various grievances that still existed and were mortifying and harassing to the Dissenters; the reduction of newspaper stamps; the commutation of tithes, are the footprints which Lord Melbourne’s administration left on those times. On the other hand, Lord John Russell resisted in its name vote by ballot (a question of which both its advocates and opponents exaggerated the importance); any further extension of the suffrage, and also the re-establishment of triennial Parliaments. His great antagonist aided him in respect to all measures which the public, irrespective of parties, were prepared to adopt, and supported him against all demands which the more democratic portion of his adherents put forward, but depreciated his general authority by showing that, though invested with the functions of Government, he and his colleagues had not the power of governing.

The great battle-field, however, between Whig and Tory, or as the latter now called themselves “Conservatives,” was, as it had long been and seems always destined to be, – Ireland; for there was still to settle that Irish Tithes Bill, into which the Whigs had insisted for some time on inserting the principle of appropriation; and there was also another question at stake, more pressing and more practical, – that of the Irish corporations.

The Whigs were for applying to the municipalities in Ireland the same principles of popular election which had been applied to municipalities in England and Scotland. The Conservatives contended that Irish society was not constituted like English and Scotch society, and would not admit of the same institutions. They urged that the old municipalities had been constituted on the basis most proper to keep up an exclusive Protestant ascendancy; they contended that the new municipalities, according to the Government plan, seemed likely to create an exclusive ascendancy for the Catholics; and they asserted that under such circumstances it would be wise and just to establish an order of things that would preserve some balance between the two great divisions of the Irish community. They entered, in fact, upon that difficult ground, a ground made difficult when the Irish Catholic was placed on an equality with the Irish Protestant, and commenced the transfer of power from a long predominant minority to an ambitious and irritated majority. But it was after carefully weighing immediate peril against contingent difficulties, that Sir Robert Peel had already taken his choice; and he ought now to have accepted its consequences. The worst way of arguing for a legislative union between two countries is surely to question that they will admit of the same laws. The best way of removing religious passions from political affairs, is to forget in political questions religious distinctions.

By not acting on these convictions, he re-opened the sore which he had made such sacrifices to heal, but this error, which was certain to bear its punishment in regard to Ireland at a later season, did not affect his immediate position in the rest of the Empire.

II

We have said that anything like an alliance with a man who assumed an attitude of defiance towards English power would arouse the instincts of English pride. Besides, nothing at all times injures and lowers a government more than the appearance of being counselled by a private individual who is not publicly responsible for his advice. The mere fact that the Whig policy was more congenial to Mr. O’Connell’s views than the Tory one, would have naturally created a sort of link between this singular man and the Whig Government. To keep his followers together, he wanted the influence of patronage; to obtain the aid of his followers, the Government did not show itself unwilling to bestow patronage upon him. In the meantime the independence of his attitude and language – an independence which the peculiarity of his position obliged him somewhat ostentatiously to display – apparently justified the accusation that the Premier was his protégé, and not he the protégé of the Premier. Hence, though the House of Commons still maintained by a small majority the Whig policy in Ireland, there was a growing coolness amongst the English at large towards Irish grievances, and a disposition to accuse Lord Melbourne of a mean desire to retain place, when in reality he was undergoing many personal mortifications from public motives.

The Conservatives in Parliament had, moreover, increased, and were become impatient. A difference between the Colonial Office and the Jamaica Legislature offered the opportunity of adding some votes to that number. A battle was fought, and the ministry only gained a majority of five. Being oppressed by a long catalogue of questions which it had undertaken to settle, and had not the power to deal with, the Ministry not unwillingly resigned; and, by the Duke of Wellington’s advice, Sir Robert Peel had the same commission confided to him by Queen Victoria which he had received previously from William IV.

A difficulty, however, here intervened with respect to certain leaders in the highest position at Court, whom the Premier desired to remove, and from whom the Queen would not consent to part. The question ought not to have arisen, but once having done so, concession could not be made with becoming dignity, either by the sovereign or by the statesman, who had acted too much as a man of business, and too little as a man of the world.

III

Lord Melbourne resumed for a time the position he had abandoned, but, by doing so, he rather weakened than strengthened his party, and gave his opponents the advantage of maturing their strength by a prolonged contest against a ministry which had confessed its incapacity to master the difficulties which beset it.

These difficulties were not a little increased by combinations which betokened an insurrectionary disposition amongst the working classes, who, in some cases, proceeded to riot, and set forth their general plans and devices on the project of a constitution called “the people’s charter,” a project which was generally considered as subversive of credit, property, and order.

The Conservatives attributed these doctrines, however denounced by the Whigs, as deducible from Whig tendencies, and profited by the mistrust which a weak government and an agitated commonalty naturally suggested. One hostile motion succeeded another, each manifesting an increasing decline in the strength of the Whigs, and an increasing confidence on the part of their opponents, until a new opportunity arose for bringing together the same parties that had, by their union, brought about Lord Melbourne’s previous resignation.

The doctrines of Free Trade had of late made rapid progress; they were principally directed by the Corn Law League, recently established, towards a free trade in corn, and against a free trade in this commodity Sir Robert Peel had emphatically declared himself; but they were also applicable to all articles of commerce, and to the general principles of Free Trade in dealing with the greater number of these articles the Conservative leader gave his assent. As, however, he made an exception with respect to corn, so he made an exception as to sugar; his argument being, that the state of our West Indian colonies merited our special consideration, for we had deprived them of slave labour, and thereby placed them in an unequal condition as to their products with countries which employed slave labour.

For this inequality, he said, it is fair that you should compensate by imposing a heavier duty on sugar produced by slave labour than on the sugar cultivated by free labour. The Government, on the other hand, not daring as yet to declare decidedly in favour of a Free Trade in corn, was disposed to lower and fix the duty, which was then variable, and to abolish the differential duties on timber and sugar. In this state of things, Lord Sandon gave the following notice: – “That, considering the efforts and sacrifices which Parliament and the country have made for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery, with the earnest hope that their exertions and example might lead to a mitigation and final extinction of those evils in other countries, this House is not prepared (especially with the present prospect of the supply of sugar from the British possessions) to adopt the measure proposed by her Majesty’s Government, for the reduction of the duty on foreign sugar.”

After a long debate, the opposition had a majority of thirty-six. The ministers did not resign, meaning to dissolve, but intending first to renovate their claims to public sympathy by an exposition of Free Trade policy, which, though it might not go so far as Mr. Cobden and his friends might desire, would still go far enough to place them at the head of the movement which they foresaw would soon agitate the country.

Sir Robert, however, little disposed after his recent victory to afford a respite to his adversaries, declaring that he did not think it for the advantage of the monarchy that the servants of the Crown should be retained, when unable to carry those measures which they felt it their duty to advise, moved, on the 27th of May, a vote of want of confidence, and obtained a majority of one. A dissolution followed, in which the party which still held office was more unsuccessful than could have been expected, and, at the opening of Parliament, ministers were in a minority of ninety-one. This closed their existence, but it might be recorded on their grave that they had finally given Ireland elective municipalities, and conferred on the three kingdoms the benefit of a penny postage.