Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846
The financial plans of Sir Robert Peel have not yet been fully expounded. Over-caution has always been his characteristic and his misfortune. It is beyond dispute, that, in point of tact and business talent, he has no superior; but he either does not possess, or will not exhibit, that frankness which is necessary to make a leader not only respected but beloved; and hence it is that he has again alienated from himself the confidence of a large proportion of his followers. Enough, however, has transpired to convince us that his scheme is of a much more comprehensive nature than any which has been yet submitted. Various acts of his administration have shown a strong tendency towards free-trade. The establishment of the property and income tax, though apparently laid on to retrieve the country from the effects of Whig mismanagement, seemed to us at the time very ominous of a coming fiscal change. It organized a machinery by means of which direct taxation, however graduated, became the simplest method of raising the revenue; and the revision of the tariff was doubtless another step in the same direction.
If on these foundations it was intended to rear a perfect system of free-trade – by which we understand an abolition of all restrictions and protections, of all duties and customs on exports and on imports – and the substitution, for revenue purposes, of direct taxation, we think that the country may fairly complain of having been kept most lamentably in the dark. It is a great – nay, a gigantic plan – one which certainly would simplify or remove many of the intricacies of government, – it might possibly put an end, as is most desirable, to all clashing interests at home, and might open up abroad a new and greater field to the operations of British industry. All these are possible, nay, probable results – at the same time we are quite justified in saying, that if so wide and important a change was really contemplated, it was somewhat hazardous, and surely unprecedentedly bold, to keep it all the time concealed from public observation, and to give a different gloss and colour to the measures devised for its advancement. In reality, a more momentous question than this does not exist. The fortunes of every man in this country are more or less bound up with it, – it is one of the deepest import to our colonies, and calculated to affect the whole range of our commercial relations. We say further, that such a measure is not one which ought to be considered in detail – that is, brought about by the gradual abolition of different imposts without reference to the general end – but that, if entertained, it ought to be proclaimed at once, and carried into effect so soon as the nation has been enabled to pronounce an opinion upon it.
Our surmises are, of course, conjectural; for hitherto Sir Robert Peel has chosen to wear the mask of mystery, and has enunciated nothing clearly, beyond a single statement, to the effect that the late bills for the regulations of corn and the customs formed only a part of a larger measure. It is to this reserve that Sir Robert owes his defeat; and we cannot but deeply regret that he should have thought fit to persevere in it at so serious a cost as the dismemberment of his party. We have a strong and rooted objection to this kind of piecemeal legislation. It is, we think, foreign to the genius of this country, which requires the existence between the minister and his supporters of a certain degree of confidence and reciprocity which in this case has certainly not been accorded to the latter. The premier of Britain is not, and cannot be, independent of the people. It is their confidence and opinion which does practically make or mar him; and in the House of Commons, no measure whatever ought to be proposed by a minister without a full and candid admission of its real object, an exposition of its tendencies, and, at least, an honest opinion of its results.
There were, we think two courses open to Sir Robert Peel and his cabinet, either of which might have been adopted, after the issue of the Russell manifesto, with perfect consistency. The first of these, and the manlier one, was a steady adherence, during the existence of the present Parliament, to the established commercial regulations. They had already done quite enough to free them from any charge of bigotry – they had modified the corn-duties, with the consent even of the agricultural body, who were induced to yield to that change on the ground that thereby a permanent settlement of the question would be effected, and a baneful agitation discontinued. It is quite true that neither of these results followed. The settlement was not held to be permanent; and the agitation, as is always the case after partial concession, was rather increased than diminished. This, however, was a cogent reason why the ministry should not have proceeded further. Under their guidance, and at their persuasion, the agriculturists had already made a large concession, and that easiness of temper on their part ought not to have been seized on as a ground for further innovation. Within the walls of Parliament the Conservative party possessed a large majority; without, if we except the manifestations of the League, there was no popular cry whatever against the operation of the sliding-scale. Even with the prospect of a bad winter – an auxiliary circumstance not unlooked for by the Whigs – Lord John Russell and his colleagues would have had no chance whatever of unseating their political rivals, supported as these were by the votes of the country party. Had distress absolutely occurred, the means of remedying the more immediate pressure of the evil were in the hands of ministers, who, moreover, would have been cordially assisted by every one in any scheme calculated to ward away famine from the door of the industrious and the poor. In short, there was no political necessity for any such precipitate change.
Far better, therefore, would it have been for the late ministry had they remained uninfluenced by the interested conversion of the Whigs. By doing so they would have saved both character and consistency, without impairing in the least degree the strength of her Majesty's government – an excuse which the experience of a few mouths has shown to be utterly fallacious. How, indeed, could it be otherwise? Was it conceivable that a change of policy upon a point on which an immense majority of the supporters were distinctly pledged, could add to the permanent strength of the ministry? – was no allowance to be made for irritated feelings, for broken ties, for inevitable desertion on the part of those who believe themselves to be wantonly betrayed? The Duke of Wellington surrendered his own private opinion in order that her Majesty's government might be carried on! A sentiment which might have been applauded to the echo in ancient times but which, it must be confessed by all, is wholly inapplicable to the notions of the century in which we live. The result has proved it. Her Majesty's government was indeed able by joining with the Whig-Radical faction, or rather by adopting their game to carry the corn-bill by the most incongruous majority ever counted out in the lobby of St Stephens, but at their very next step the day of reckoning arrived. Indeed the presages of their coming fall was so apparent, that the Irish coercion bill – the measure which more than any other if we may believe the tissue of bloody and disgusting facts upon which its introduction was founded demanded attention and despatch – was put off from day to day, lest a hostile division upon it should oust the ministry before the corn-bill could be carried through the House of Lords and receive the royal assent. Had Sir Robert Peel and his supporters been wedded from their infancy upwards to free-trade opinions – had these been the golden dreams of their political life-principles which they had adhered to, and sworn by, through many a long year of adversity and opposition – they could not have manifested a more unseemly haste in seizing upon the favourable moment, and paralysing all the efforts of the agricultural party, at a time when their own official existence was fast drawing to its close. Public opinion, as we are now told from a very high source, ought always to guide a minister in the formation of his measures, irrespective of the considerations of party. The axiom is indeed a true one, but true only when followed out according to the letter of the constitution. Public opinion is to be gathered neither from the voice, however loudly expressed, of a clamant faction like the League – nor from the sentiments enunciated by a changeable press, which shifts oftener, according to the flow of its own proper interests, than the quicksands of the deceitful Solway – nor even from the votes of renegades, who promised one thing upon the hustings and promoted the reverse in Parliament – but from the sentiments of the electors of the country, from their votes and their understanding, which have not been appealed to since 1841, when deliberately and unmistakeably they pronounced in favour of protection.
This brings us to the alternative course, which, without any peril of honesty or of honour, was open to the late ministry. We mean, a clear and unreserved declaration of their future policy, and an appeal to the country for its support. If Sir Robert Peel was convinced in his own mind that the principles of protection which he had hitherto advocated were in themselves objectionable – that the time had arrived for a great experiment whereby the whole taxation of the realm should be remodelled, and the many smaller sources of revenue abolished, in order to make way for a broader and a simpler system – if, furthermore, he believed that the continuance even of such agitation as prevailed upon the subject of the corn-laws, was likely to become more serious and more hurtful to the general interest by the factious declaration of the Whigs – then, he had it in his power at once to test the opinion of the country, by offering to the crown the alternative of his resignation or a dissolution of Parliament; and upon obtaining the latter, to have put forth, in unambiguous language, a statement of the policy which he intended thereafter to pursue, so that the constituencies of the empire might fairly have chosen between adherence to the ancient, or adoption of the novel plan. We can admit of no excuse such as the stoppage of private business, or any other similar impediment. These are reasons which, if just, might apply to every dissolution of Parliament short of the statutory term; nor can they in the present instance be brought forward, since the late government were by their own confession seriously perplexed by the amount of railway and other bills which this session have been crowded before Parliament, and had sought, without discovering, some method which might check at an early stage the flood of untoward speculation. In such a crisis as this, private interests ought to have been as nothing in comparison with the public good. If the choice lay between free-trade in its widest sense, and protection, it was but common justice that the country should have had the opportunity of making its selection. In no other way can public opinion be gathered. At last general election the country declared for protection – ministers since then have manœuvred that protection away. We were told that certain compensations were to be given; but, alas! the ministry is no more, and compensation has perished with it. The old balance has been disturbed, and the task of adjusting a new one – if that indeed be contemplated – is now left to weak and incompetent hands.
Most heartily, therefore, do we regret that these great changes, which have free-trade for their ultimate object, were commenced in the present Parliament. Sir Robert Peel cannot but have foreseen – indeed he acknowledged it – that the corn-bill could not be carried without a complete disorganization of the Conservative party. In his eyes this may seem a small matter, but we view it very differently. It has shaken, and that to a great degree, the confidence which the people of the country were proud to place in the declarations and sincerity of the government. It has generated a belief, now very common, that the plain course of open and manly dealing has been abandoned for a system of finesse; and that for the last few months – it may be longer – the leaders of the two great political parties have been playing a match at chess, with less regard to the safety of the instruments they were using, than to the exhibition of their own adroitness. Perhaps no minister of this country ever owed more to party than Sir Robert Peel; and yet, without the excuse of strong necessity, he has not only abandoned that party, but placed it in a false position. The majority of the Conservatives were sent to Parliament under clear and distinct pledges, which honour forbade them to violate. This of the corn-laws was so far from being a discretionary question, that the continuance or discontinuance of agricultural protection was the great theme of the hustings at last general election, and their opinions upon that point became the touchstone on which the merits of the respective candidates were tried. It is worse than vain to talk of Parliamentary freedom, and the right of honourable members to act irrespective of the opinion of their constituents. They are neither more nor less than the embodied representatives of that opinion; and no man of uprightness or honour – we say it deliberately – ought to retain his seat in the House of Commons after the confidence of his supporters is withdrawn. It is neither fair nor honourable to taunt members with having been too free and liberal with their pledges before they knew the policy of their leaders. All men do not possess that happy ambiguity of phrase which can bear a double construction, and convey one meaning to the ear of the listener, whilst another served for the purposes of future explanation. It is not pleasant to believe that we are moving in an atmosphere of perpetual deceit. It is not wholesome to be forced to construe sentences against their obvious and open meaning, or to suspect every public speaker of wrapping up equivoques in his statement. At the last general election there was no misunderstanding. The Conservative candidates believed that their leaders were resolved to uphold protection; the people believed so likewise, and in consequence they gave them a majority. Situated as the protectionists were, they had no alternative but to act in accordance with their first professions, and to maintain their trust inviolate.
We have no pleasure in referring to that tedious and protracted debate. Yet this much we are bound to say, that the country party, under circumstances of unparalleled discouragement, abandoned, nay, opposed by their former chiefs, and deprived of the benefit which they undoubtedly would have received from the great talents and untiring energy of Lord Stanley – a champion too soon removed from the Lower House – did nevertheless acquit themselves manfully and well, and have earned the respect of all who, whatever may be their opinions, place a proper value upon consistency. It was perhaps inevitable that in such a contest there should have been a display of some asperity. We cannot blame those who, believing themselves to have been betrayed, gave vent to their indignation in language less measured than becomes the dignity of the British senate: nor, had these displays been confined to the single question then at issue, should we have alluded even remotely to the subject. But whilst our sympathies are decidedly with the vanquished party – whilst we deplore as strongly as they can the departure of the ministers from their earlier policy at such a time and in such a manner – we cannot join with the more violent of the protectionists in their virulent denunciations of Sir Robert Peel, and we demur as to the policy of their vote upon the Irish coercion bill, which vote was the immediate instrument of recalling the Whigs to power.
Sir Robert Peel has told us that he is contented to be judged by posterity. He is so far wise in his appeal. The opinions of contemporaries are comparatively worthless on a matter like this, and very few of us are really able to form an unprejudiced opinion. But, unless we are greatly mistaken, he does not contemplate the possibility of appearing before that tribunal in his present posture and condition. There is much yet to come upon which he must depend, not only for a posthumous verdict, but for that which we hope he may yet receive, an honourable acquittal from those who are at present alienated from his side. As the foe to agricultural protection, he can look but for sorry praise – as the financial reformer of the whole national system, he may, though at heavy risk, become a public benefactor. Every thing depends upon the future. He has chosen to play a very close and cautious game. His is a style of legislation not palatable to the nation; for he has taken upon himself too boldly the functions and responsibilities of a dictator – he has aspired to govern the freest country of the world without the aid of party – and he has demanded a larger and more implicit confidence, even whilst withholding explanation, than any minister has ever yet exacted from the representatives of the people. The risk, however, is his. But clearly, in our opinion, it was not the policy of the protectionists, after the corn-bill was carried and past control, to take a nominal revenge upon their former leader, and eject him from office by a vote inconsistent with their previous professions. By doing so, they have relieved him of the necessity which must soon have become imperative, of announcing the full nature of his scheme of financial reform; they have contributed to an interregnum, possibly of some endurance, from which we do not augur much advantage to the public welfare; and, finally, they have in some degree relinquished the credit and the strength of their position. From the moment the corn-bill was carried, they should have resolved themselves into a corps of observation. Their numbers were formidable enough to have controlled either party; and in all future measures, whenever explanation was required, they were in a condition to have enforced it.
The step, however, has been taken, and it is of course irremediable. All that remains for them and for us is to watch the progress of events during the remainder of the present Parliament – a period which, so far as we can judge from recent disclosures, is likely to pass over without any very marked attempts at innovation. The Whigs are at present too happy in the resumption of office, to be actually dangerous. They are, or they profess to be, in high good-humour. They have thrown aside for a time the besom of Radical reform, and are now extending in place of it the olive-branch of peace to each different section of their antagonists. We look, however, a little below the surface, and we think that we can discover two very cogent reasons for this state of singular placidity. In the first place, the Whigs are in a minority in the House of Commons. Their political walk cannot extend a yard beyond the limits of Sir Robert's sufferance; and as the boundary line, like the Oregon, has not been clearly laid down, they will be most cautious to avoid transgression. In the second place, they are, as is well known, most miserably divided in opinion among themselves. There is no kind of coherency in the councils of the present cabinet. They cannot approach any single great question without the imminent risk of internal discord; and it is only so long as they can remain quiescent that any show of cordiality can be maintained among them. Accordingly, when we look to Lord John Russell's manifestoes, we are quite delighted with their imbecility. As a matter of course, he has put forward, in the first rank of his declarations, the usual vague rhetoric about the social improvement of the people, which is to be effected by the same means which the Whigs have always used towards that desirable end – viz. by doing nothing. Then there is the subject of education, which we must own opens up a vast field for the exertions of government, if they will only seriously undertake it. This, however, cannot be done without the establishment of a new department in the state, which ought to have been created long ago – we mean a board, with a Minister of public instruction at its head; but we hardly expect that Lord John Russell will vigorously proceed to its formation. Then come what are called sanatory measures, by which we understand an improved system of sewerage, and a larger supply of water to the inhabitants of the towns. On this point, we understand, the whole of the cabinet are united, and we certainly rejoice to hear it. It is certainly the first time in our experience, that a ministry has founded its claims to public support on the ground of a promised superintendence of drains and water-carts. Upon this topic, one of the members for Edinburgh was extremely eloquent the other day upon the hustings. We hope sincerely that he is in earnest, and that, for the credit of Whig legislation, since we cannot obtain it from the municipality, our citizens may occasionally be indulged with the sight of a sprinkled street in summer, and that some means will be adopted for irrigating the closes, which at present do stand most sorely in need of the sanatory services of the scavenger. This point, then, of sewerage we freely concede to the Whigs. Let them grapple with it manfully, annihilate all the water-companies in the realm, and give us an unlimited supply of the pure fresh element without restriction or assessment. They cannot be employed more harmlessly – nay, more usefully, than in such a task. Let them also look to the points of adequate endowment for hospitals, and the institution of public baths and washing-houses, and for once in their lives they shall promote measures of real importance and benefit to the poor.
But, unfortunately, sewerage and its concomitants form but a small part of the considerations connected with the government of this country. A ministry may ask some popularity, but it can hardly found a claim for permanency on the fact of its attention to drains. In the first place, Lord John Russell and his colleagues have serious difficulties before them in the state of the public revenue. The late fiscal changes cannot but have the effect of causing a most serious defalcation, which must be immediately and summarily supplied. It will not do to attribute this defalcation to the acts of the late government, since the Whigs were not only the cordial supporters of these measures, but were ready to have taken the initiative. They are as much answerable as Sir Robert Peel, if, at the end of the present year, the accounts of Exchequer shall exhibit a large deficiency, which cannot, consistently with their own policy, be remedied by any new indirect taxation. The moment that free-trade is adopted as a broad principle, there can be no going back upon former steps. There is no resource left except a direct appeal to the purse, which may, indeed, be made by an additional income-tax, if the country are of a temper to submit to it. But we apprehend that a good deal of negotiation will be necessary before any such measure can be carried. The agriculturists are not in a mood to submit to any further burdens. The eyes of the productive classes are by this time a little opened to the effects of foreign importation, and their trade has been already much crippled by the influx of manufactured articles from abroad. Above all, a strong conviction is felt, both in England and in Scotland, of the gross injustice of the system which throws the whole burden of the direct taxation upon the inhabitants of these two countries, whilst Ireland is entirely free. It is a system which admits of no excuse, and which cannot continue long. The immunities which Ireland already enjoyed were any thing but reasons for exempting her from the operation of income-tax. It is not a question of relative poverty, for the scale is so adjusted that no man is taxed except according to his possession; and it does seem utterly inexplicable, and highly unjust to the Scotsman who pays his regular assessments, and a per centage besides upon his income of £150, that the Irishman, in similar circumstances, should be exempt from either charge. It was this feeling, we believe, more than any other, which rendered the increased grant to Maynooth college obnoxious to the greater part of the British nation; and which, setting aside all other considerations, would at once seal the fate of any ministry that might be rash enough to propose the endowment of the Romish clergy out of the consolidated fund. An increased direct taxation, therefore, would, under present circumstances, be a most dangerous experiment for the Whigs; and yet, if they do not attempt it, how are they to make good the almost certain deficiency of the revenue?
Probably that point may be postponed for future consideration. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, and the sugar-duties are more immediately pressing. Whether the West Indian proprietors are to receive the coup-de-grâce during the present year, or whether they are to be allowed a further respite, seems at the present a matter of absolute uncertainty. It is, however, merely a question of time. Free-trade cares not for the colonies; and, indeed, whilst the work of protective abolition is going on so rapidly both at home and abroad, no isolated interest has reason to expect that it will be exempted from the common rule. Ireland, it seems, is to have an extension of the franchise; and with respect to her social grievances, Lord John Russell is hopeful that his ministry will be enabled "to afford, not a complete and immediate remedy, but some remedy – some kind of improvement; so that some kind of hope may be entertained that, SOME TEN OR TWELVE YEARS HENCE, the country will, by the measures we undertake, be in a far better state with respect to the frightful destitution and misery which now prevail in that country." Here is a precious enunciation of principles and grammar! – A complete remedy for the Irish social grievances is avowedly out of the power of the most intrepid of Whig politicians – a confession of which we presume Mr O'Connell will not be slow to avail himself. But then he expects – or, to use his own phraseology thinks – "it is most likely to be in our power to afford" some remedy, some kind of improvement, the nature of which is still in embryo, but which shall be so matured that some kind of hope may be entertained, that in some ten or twelve years hence the country may be in a far better state with regard to the destitution which now prevails in the country! Was there ever, we ask, in the whole history of oracles, any thing more utterly devoid of meaning, more thoroughly and helplessly vague, than the above declaration? Why, the whole hopes of the noble scion of the house of Russell are filtered away to nothing before he has achieved the limits of his sentence. There are four or five different stages of trust through which we decline to follow him, being perfectly convinced that the hope of his being likely to introduce any such measure, is quite as improbable as the implied hope conveyed a little further on, to the effect that he and his party may be allowed to remain for some ten or twelve years in office, until these exceedingly musty ideas all have resolved themselves into a tangible form.
In the mean time it is some gratification to know that the Churches are to be spared for the present. Not that Lord John Russell has any abstract love for these institutions – for he has no objection to Romish endowment out of the funds of the Irish Protestant Church – but then he is quite aware that any such move on his part would lead to his instant and ignominious expulsion from power. Earl Grey is of a different opinion; but the construction of the present cabinet is such, that it admits of every possible diversity of opinion, and was, in fact, so planned by the new premier, that the lion and the lamb might lie down together, and Radical Ward be installed in peace by the side of Conservative Lord Lincoln and of Sidney Herbert, about a year ago the pride of the protectionists!
There is something painfully ludicrous in Lord John's exposition of the theories of cabinet construction. It was, as he experienced last winter, quite impossible to bring the chiefs of his party to any thing like a common understanding. The revelations of Mr Macaulay to his correspondent in Edinburgh, gave any thing but a flattering picture of the unity which then pervaded the councils of Chesham Place. It is gratifying to know, that individuals who at that time expressed so exalted an opinion of the intellects and temper of each other, should have met and consented to act together in a spirit of mutual forgiveness. And we are now asked to receive from the lips of Lord John this profound political axiom, that it is not at all necessary that members of the same cabinet should agree in their individual opinions. We have all heard of cabinets breaking up through their own internal dissensions. Such a disruption, in the eyes of Lord John, was an act of egregious folly. What was to have prevented each man from voting according to his own opinions? On urgent questions, he admits, they should maintain some show of unanimity; but, with all respect for such an authority, we think he is unnecessarily scrupulous. Why quarrel or dissolve upon any single point? Let every man vote according to his own mind – let every question be considered an open one – and we shall answer for the stability of the ministry. In fact, Lord John Russell has at last discovered the political elixir vitæ. No disunion can break up his administration, because disunion is the very principle upon which it has been formed. He has sought support from all classes of men. He is so far from disapproving of Conservative doctrines, that he absolutely has solicited three members of the late government to hold office under him. He asks no recantation of their former opinions, and binds them down to no pledges for the future. Their associates, it is true, are to be men of liberal opinions, some of them verging upon Chartism, and others avowed ecclesiastical destructionists; but that need not deter them from accepting and retaining office. We once knew a worthy Highland chief – a more hospitable being never breathed – who towards the conclusion of his third bottle, invariably lapsed into an affectionate polemical mood, and with tears in his eyes used to put this question to his friends – "Why can't a man be a Christian and a good fellow at the same time?" This is just the theory of Lord John Russell. He can see no objection to diversity of opinions, so long as the whole body of the cabinet are agreed upon one essential point – that of holding fast by office; and surrendering it upon no account whatever.