Fotheringham John Knight
The Political History of England – Vol XI
Had some theorists of a later generation witnessed the social order then prevailing in country districts, they would have found several of their favourite objects practically attained. There was no competition between the working people; old and young, skilled and unskilled hands, the industrious and the idle, were held worthy of equal reward, the actual allowance to each being measured by his need and not by the value of his work; while the parochial authorities, figuring as an earthly providence, exercised a benevolent superintendence over the welfare and liberty of every day-labourer in the village community. The fruits of that superintendence were the decline of a race of freemen into a race of slaves, unconscious of their slavery, and the gradual ruin of the landlords and farmers upon whom the maintenance of these slaves depended.118
NEW POOR LAW.
The evidence laid before the commissioners not only showed how intolerable the evil had become in many counties, but also how purely artificial it was. While the aggregate amount of the poor rate had risen to more than eight millions and a half, while some parishes were going out of cultivation and in others the rates exceeded the rental, there were certain oases in the desert of agricultural distress where comparative prosperity still reigned. These were villages in which an enlightened squire or parson had set himself to strike at the root of pauperism, and to initiate local reforms in the poor-law system. It was clearly found that, where out-door relief was abolished or rigorously limited, where no allowances were made in aid of wages, and where a manly self-reliance was encouraged instead of a servile mendicity, wages rose, honest industry revived, and the whole character of the village population was improved. Fortified by these successful experiments, the commissioners took a firm stand on the vital distinction, previously ignored, between poverty and pauperism. They did not shrink from recommending that, after a certain date, "the workhouse test" should be enforced against all able-bodied applicants for relief, except in the form of medical attendance, and even that women should be compelled to support their illegitimate children. They also advised a liberal change in the complicated and oppressive system of "parish settlement," whereby the free circulation of labour was constricted. They further proposed a very large reform in the administrative machinery of the poor laws, by the formation of parishes into unions, the concentration of workhouses, the separation of the sexes in workhouses, and, above all, the creation of a central poor-law board, to consist of three commissioners, and to control the whole system about to be transformed.
A bill framed upon these lines, and remedying some minor abuses, was introduced by Althorp on April 17, having been foreshadowed in the speech from the throne, and carefully matured by the cabinet. So wide and deep was the conviction of the necessity for some radical treatment of an intolerable evil that party spirit was quelled for a while, and the bill met with a very favourable reception, especially as its operation was limited to five years. It passed the second reading by a majority of 299 to 20 on May 9, notwithstanding a violent protest from De Lacy Evans, an ultra-radical, who had displaced Hobhouse at Westminster. The keynote of the radical agitation which followed was given by his declaration that "the cessation of out-door relief would lead to a revolution in the country," and by Cobbett's denunciation of the "poor man robbery bill". The Times newspaper, already a great political force, took up the same cry, and had not Peel, with admirable public spirit, thrown his weight into the scale of sound economy, a formidable coalition between extremists on both sides might have been organised. He stood firm, however; radicals like Grote declined to barter principle for popularity, and the bill emerged almost unscathed from committee in the house of commons. It passed its third reading on July 2 by a majority of 157 to 50. Peel's example was followed by Wellington in the house of lords, and Brougham delivered one of his most powerful speeches in support of the measure. With some modification of the bastardy clauses and other slighter amendments it was carried by a large majority, and received the royal assent on August 4.
No other piece of legislation, except the repeal of the corn laws, has done so much to rescue the working classes of Great Britain from the misery entailed by twenty years of war. Its effect in reducing the rates was immediate; its effect in raising the character of the agricultural poor was not very long deferred. Happily for them, though not for the farmers, bread was cheap for two years after it came into force. Still, the sudden cessation of doles and pensions in aid of wages could not but work great hardship to individuals in thousands of rural parishes, and there was perhaps too little disposition on the part of the commissioners to allow any temporary relaxation of the system. The rigorous enforcement of the workhouse test, and the harsh management of workhouses, continued for years to shock the charitable sensibilities of the public, and actually produced some local riots. When the price of bread rose the clamour naturally increased, and petitions multiplied until a committee was appointed in 1837 to review the operation of the act. In the end the committee found, as might have been expected, that, however painful the state of transition, the change had permanently improved the condition of the poor in England.
QUESTION OF APPROPRIATION.
While the bill was still in the house of commons the ministry which framed it was torn by dissensions; before it came on for its second reading in the lords Grey had ceased to be premier. The disruption of his government had been foreseen for months, but it was directly caused by hopeless discord on Irish policy. Anglesey had been forced by ill-health to resign the vice-royalty, and the Marquis Wellesley, who succeeded him, was more acceptable to Irish nationalists. But the king's speech at the opening of the session contained a stern condemnation of the repeal movement. O'Connell at once declared war, and the angry feelings of his followers were inflamed by a personal and public quarrel between Althorp and Sheil. Another incident, in itself trivial, disclosed the discord prevailing in the cabinet on Irish affairs, and, though O'Connell was defeated on a motion against the union by a crushing majority of 523 to 38, the disturbed state of Ireland continued to distract the ministerial councils. The ingenious devices of Stanley and Littleton for solving the insoluble Irish tithe question had proved almost abortive; the government officials employed to collect tithe were almost as powerless to do so as the old tithe-proctors, and a new proposal to convert tithe into a land tax was naturally ridiculed by O'Connell as delusive. He made a speech so conciliatory in its tone as to startle the house, but no words, however smooth, could now conjure away the irreconcilable difference of purpose between those who regarded Church property as sacred and those who regarded it not only as at the disposal of the state, but as hitherto unjustly monopolised by a single religious communion. It was reserved for Lord John Russell to "upset the coach" by openly declaring his adhesion to "appropriation," in the sense of diverting to other objects, secular or otherwise, such revenues of the established Church as were not strictly required for the benefit of its own members. After this act of mutiny against the collective authority of the cabinet Grey's ministry was doomed.
Its ruin was consummated by a motion of Henry Ward, member for St. Albans, which expressly affirmed the right of the state to regulate the distribution of Church property and the expediency of reducing the Irish establishment. This motion was supposed to have been instigated by Durham, who had never been loyal to his colleagues. The government was notoriously divided upon it; Brougham suggested a commission of inquiry, by way of compromise; other ministerialists were in favour of meeting the difficulty by moving the previous question. Peel was prepared to support the conservative section of the government, and deprecated in strong terms "all manœuvring, all coquetting with radicals" in order to snatch a temporary party triumph.119
Ward's resolution was introduced on May 27, 1834, and seconded by Grote, but Althorp, instead of replying, announced the receipt of sudden news so important that he induced the house to adjourn the debate. This news was the resignation of Stanley, Graham, Richmond, and Ripon, whose views on appropriation, as afterwards appeared, were shared by Lansdowne and Spring Rice. The ministry was reconstructed by the accession of Lord Conyngham as postmaster-general, without a seat in the cabinet, and of Lord Auckland, son of Sidmouth's colleague, as first lord of the admiralty, by the appointment of Carlisle (already in the cabinet) to be lord privy seal, and the substitution of Spring Rice for Stanley at the colonial office. Edward Ellice, the secretary at war, was included in the cabinet, and James Abercromby, afterwards Lord Dunfermline, a son of the famous general, Sir Ralph Abercromby, became master of the mint with a seat in the cabinet. Poulett Thomson became president of the board of trade, and minor offices were assigned to Francis Baring, and other whig recruits. Grey himself, sick of nominal power, was dissuaded with difficulty from retiring; Althorp, conscious of failing authority, was retained in his post only by a high sense of duty. Unfortunately, he was very soon entangled by his colleague Littleton in something like an intrigue with O'Connell, which precipitated the final resignation of Grey together with his own temporary secession.
The details of this affair may be passed over in a few words. What is clear is that Brougham and Littleton, without the knowledge of Grey, had persuaded Lord Wellesley, as viceroy of Ireland, not to insist on a renewal of the coercion act in its full severity, and especially to sanction an abandonment of clauses suppressing public meetings. Having obtained Wellesley's consent behind the backs of Grey and the rest of the cabinet, Littleton with the cognisance of Althorp, proceeded to bargain with O'Connell for an abatement, at least, of his opposition to all coercion. The cabinet as a body declined to ratify any such agreement, O'Connell denounced Littleton as having played a trick upon him, and Althorp, disdaining to advocate provisions which he was almost pledged in honour to drop, resigned his office and the leadership of the commons. Grey, who could not have remained in office without the support of Althorp's great popularity in the commons, at once resolved to follow his example, and on July 9 took leave of political life in a dignified and pathetic speech. As for Ward's motion, the original cause of Grey's desertion by Stanley and his subsequent fall, it had been rejected by an enormous majority in favour of "the previous question" before Althorp's disappearance from his old position. Meanwhile Stanley availed himself of his liberty to make one of his most dashing but least prudent speeches, and permanently compromised his reputation for statesmanship.120
MELBOURNE PRIME MINISTER.
No other whig possessed the prestige derived by Grey from nearly fifty years of consistent public service. Althorp commanded an extraordinary degree of confidence in the house of commons and the country, but his intellectual capacity was not of the highest order, and many expected that Peel might receive a summons from the king, whose sympathy with the whigs, never very deep, had given place to mistrust. His choice, however, fell upon Melbourne, whom he desired, if possible, to form a coalition with Peel, Wellington, and Stanley against the radicals. But neither Melbourne nor Peel would accept such a coalition, and they both showed their wisdom in declining it. The king then empowered Melbourne to patch up the whig ministry. In deference to a requisition signed by liberals of all sections, Althorp was induced to withdraw his resignation, and resumed his leadership in the commons with no apparent diminution of popularity. Duncannon, who was created a peer, succeeded Melbourne at the home office; Lord Mulgrave, son of the first earl, became lord privy seal in place of Carlisle; and Hobhouse entered the cabinet as first commissioner of woods and forests. The rest of the session was mainly spent in discussing the budget and the two Irish questions which for so many years were the curse of English politics. A surplus of two millions enabled Althorp to propitiate an importunate class of taxpayers by repealing the house tax.
It would have been more statesmanlike to repeal the window tax or reduce indirect taxation, but relief was given, as usual, to those who raised the loudest clamour, and the vindication of sound finance was reserved for a conservative administration. A second and milder Irish coercion bill was carried by a large majority, with the fatal proviso, which has marred the effect of so many later measures, that it should continue in operation for a year only. A far more serious conflict arose on the new Irish tithe bill. A complicated plan had been proposed whereby four-fifths of the tithe would have been ostensibly secured to the church by conversion into a rent-charge, the remaining fifth being sacrificed for the sake of peace and security. O'Connell succeeded in inducing the house of commons to adopt a counter-plan, of a very sweeping nature, whereby two-fifths of the existing tithe would have been abandoned, and the tithe owner partly compensated out of the revenues of suppressed bishoprics, aided by a state grant. The bill thus amended was rejected by a majority of 189 to 122 in the house of lords. Peel still cherished the idea of settling the question by a system of voluntary commutation, but, after the peremptory action of the lords, no compromise was likely to be acceptable, and there is some ground for the opinion that in that division the Irish Church establishment received its death-blow.
On August 15 parliament was prorogued, and the belief of Peel in the stability of the government may be inferred from the fact that he left England for Italy on October 14. During the vacation, however, two incidents occurred, trivial in themselves, but pregnant with important consequences. One of these was Brougham's triumphant progress through Scotland, where he was enthusiastically received as the saviour of his country, and assumed the air of one who not only kept the king's conscience but controlled the royal will. The story of this famous tour exhibits alike the greatness of his powers and the littleness of his character.121 The homage paid to him was not undeserved, for he was assuredly the foremost gladiator of the whig party, and had given proofs of more varied ability than any living politician or lawyer. But the dignified eloquence of which he was capable on rare occasions was here submerged in a flood of egotistical rhetoric, which carried him away so far that he assumed a political independence which his colleagues deeply resented, and even spoke of the king in a tone of patronage. Having lowered himself in public opinion by these speeches, especially at Inverness and Aberdeen, he attended a banquet in honour of Grey at Edinburgh, where he provoked a passage at arms with Durham. The press, and especially the Times newspaper, which had formerly loaded him with extravagant praises, now turned against him, and ridiculed him as a political mountebank. But his worst enemy was the king. William IV.'s ill-concealed impatience of whig dictation had at last been quickened into disgust by this and other sources of irritation, when the sudden death of Althorp's father, Earl Spencer, on November 10, gave him an opportunity which he eagerly seized.
DESTRUCTION OF HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
By a strange fatality, this event almost coincided with the destruction by fire of the houses of parliament on October 16. This calamity was the result of a carelessness, which it is easy to condemn after the event on the part of some subordinate officials and the workmen employed by them. Down to 1826, accounts had been kept at the exchequer by means of wooden tallies, which were stored in what was called the tally-room of the exchequer. This room was required in order to provide temporary accommodation for the court of bankruptcy, and an order was given to destroy the tallies. The officials charged with the task decided to burn them in the stoves of the house of lords, and the work of burning began at half-past six in the morning of October 16. The work, hazardous in any case, was conducted by the workmen with a rapidity that their orders did not justify; the flues used for warming the house were overheated, and though the burning of the tallies was completed between four and five, the woodwork near the flues must have smouldered till it burst into flame about half-past six in the evening. In less than half an hour the house of lords was a mass of fire. About eight a change in the wind threw the flames upon the house of commons. That house was almost completely destroyed. The walls of the house of lords and of the painted chamber remained standing, while the house of lords library, the parliament offices, and Westminster Hall escaped. The king offered the parliament the use of Buckingham Palace, but it was found possible to fit up the house of lords for the commons and the painted chamber for the lords. When the legislature reassembled on February 9, 1835, a conservative ministry was in office, though not, indeed, in power.
It is difficult for a later age to understand why the accession of Althorp to a peerage should have afforded even a plausible reason for a change of ministry. The position which Althorp held in the house of commons is puzzling to a later generation.122 It is well known that Gladstone recorded the very highest estimate of his public services. Yet he was not only no orator but scarcely in the second order of speakers, he made no pretence of far-sighted statesmanship, he was not a successful financier, and he made several blunders which must have damaged the authority of any other man. The influence which he obtained in leading the unreformed as well as the reformed house of commons was entirely due to his character for straightforward honesty, perhaps enhanced by his social rank, and his reputation for possessing all the virtues of a country gentleman. The national preference for amateurs over professionals in politics, no less than in other fields of energy, found an admirable representative in him, and he was all the more popular as a political leader because it was believed that he had no desire to be a political leader at all. At all events, he inspired confidence in all, and it was no mere whim of the king which treated his removal from the commons to the lords as an irreparable loss to Melbourne's administration.
MELBOURNE'S RESIGNATION.
It is often stated that "without a word of preparation" the king got rid of his whig ministers on November 14, 1834, and it must be admitted that he afterwards took credit to himself for their dismissal as his own personal act. But this view is not altogether borne out by contemporary evidence. A published letter, of the 12th, from Melbourne to the king shows that, as premier, he took the initiative in representing that, whereas "the government in its present form was mainly founded upon the personal weight and influence possessed by Earl Spencer in the house of commons," it was for the king to consider whether, as "that foundation is now withdrawn," a change of ministry was expedient.123 It also appears from a letter placed by the king in Melbourne's hands that a "very confidential conversation" took place between them at Brighton, in consequence of which the king resolved to send for Wellington.124 In the course of this conversation Melbourne informed the king that, in the opinion of the cabinet, Lord John Russell should be selected for the leadership of the house of commons. The king, incensed by Lord John's action on the Irish Church question, would not hear of this arrangement, especially as he thought Lord John "otherwise unequal to the task," and disparaged the claims of other possible candidates.125 He also strongly resented the recent conduct of Brougham. In the end, he parted kindly and courteously from Melbourne, who actually undertook to convey the king's summons to Wellington. Another memorandum by the king, of the same date, proves that a fear of further encroachments on the church was really uppermost in his mind, and that he anticipated, not without reason, "a schism in the cabinet" on this very subject.126
Wellington acted with his customary promptitude, and with his customary obedience to what he regarded as a call of public duty. A certain degree of mistrust had existed between him and Peel, arising, in part, out of circumstances preceding the duke's election to the chancellorship of Oxford University. This suspension of cordiality had now passed away, and Wellington strongly urged the king to entrust Peel, then at Rome, with the formation of a new government. Hudson, afterwards known as Sir James Hudson, delivered the despatch recalling him on the night of the 25th. Peel started from Rome on the 26th and, travelling with a speed then considered marvellous, reached Dover within twelve days on the night of December 8. He was in London on the 9th, and, without consulting any one else, immediately placed his services at the king's disposal. In the meantime, Wellington had stepped into the gap, and actually held all the secretaryships of state in his own hands, pending the arrival of Peel.
The king had been encouraged to hustle his ministers unceremoniously out of office by a paragraph which appeared in the Times of November 15. On the previous evening Brougham had been informed by Melbourne in confidence that the king had accepted his suggestion of resignation, and he carried the news to the Times, which, without giving Brougham's name, published his message in his own words. It stated that the king had turned out the ministry, and ended with the words: "The queen has done it all". After this the king was determined to be done with his ministers as quickly as possible. It is certain that neither Wellington nor Peel wished to be thought responsible for their dismissal, the propriety of which they both secretly doubted. The king, however, had acted within his strict rights, and the outgoing ministers, as a whole, were not ill pleased to be relieved from the burdens of office.
Peel, though by no means hopeful of ultimate success, endeavoured to construct a cabinet on a comprehensive basis. He first obtained the king's "ready assent" to his inviting the co-operation of Stanley, who had succeeded to the courtesy title of Lord Stanley, and Sir James Graham. These overtures were declined in friendly terms, and both promised independent support. But Stanley explicitly declared that, in his judgment, "the sudden conversion of long political opposition into the most intimate alliance would shock public opinion, would be ruinous to his own character," and would rather injure than strengthen the new government.127 After this failure, Peel felt his task well-nigh hopeless, and though he spared no effort to procure an infusion of fresh blood, he complained that after all "it would be only the duke's old cabinet".128 There was, in fact, no man of known ability in it, except himself, the Duke of Wellington (as secretary for foreign affairs), and Lyndhurst, the chancellor; for the capacity of Aberdeen, who had been foreign secretary under Wellington, and who now became secretary for war and the colonies, and Ellenborough, who returned to the board of control, had not yet been generally recognised. Peel himself became first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer; Goulburn was home secretary, Rosslyn lord president, and Wharncliffe lord privy seal. Earl de Grey, elder brother of the Earl of Ripon, was made first lord of the admiralty, Murray became master-general of the ordnance, Alexander Baring president of the board of trade and master of the mint, Herries secretary at war, and Sir Edward Knatchbull paymaster of the forces. It was fully understood that a conservative government, even purged of ultra-tory elements, could not face the first reformed house of commons, and the dissolution which took place at the end of the year had been regarded by all as inevitable.
THE TAMWORTH MANIFESTO.
In anticipation of this event, Peel issued an address to his constituents which became celebrated as the "Tamworth manifesto". It is somewhat cumbrous in style, but it embodies with sufficient clearness the new conservative policy of which Peel was the real author and henceforth the leading exponent. It opens with an appeal to his own previous conduct in parliament, as showing that, while he was no apostate from old constitutional principles, neither was he "a defender of abuses," nor the enemy of "judicious reforms". In proof of this, he cites his action in regard to the currency and various amendments of the law; to which he might have added his adoption of catholic emancipation. He then declares, absolutely and without reserve, that he accepts the reform act as "a final and irrevocable settlement of a great constitutional question," which no friend to peace and the welfare of the country would seek, either directly or indirectly, to disturb. He approves of making "a careful review of institutions, civil and ecclesiastical, undertaken in a friendly temper," with a view to "the correction of proved abuses, and the redress of real grievances," and that "without mere superstitious reverence for ancient usages". He lays stress on his recorded assent to the principle of corporation reform, the substitution of a treasury grant for Church rates, the relief of dissenters from various civil disabilities (but not from university tests), the restriction of pensions (saving vested interests), the redistribution of Church revenues and the commutation of tithes, but so that no ecclesiastical property be diverted to secular uses. After these specific pledges, the Tamworth manifesto concludes with more general professions of a progressive conservatism equally removed from what are now called "advanced radicalism" and "tory democracy".129 It was, of course, too liberal for the followers of Eldon, and was ridiculed as colourless by extreme reformers, but its effect on the country was great, and it did much to win popular confidence for the new ministry. If such a policy must be called opportunism, it was opportunism in its best form; and opportunism in its best form, under the conditions of party government, is not far removed from political wisdom.