The Political History of England – Vol XI

The cabinet itself was divided on the subject, and despaired of saving the bill in the house of lords, without sacrificing the disputed clause. On June 21, therefore, Stanley announced in the house of commons that the appropriation clause would be withdrawn, and that any profits arising out of financial reforms within the Church would be allowed to fall into the hands of the ecclesiastical commissioners. The fury of O'Connell was unbounded, and not so devoid of excuse as many of his passionate outbreaks. He treated the Church bill as the stipulated price to be paid for the coercion bill, and the appropriation clause as the only part of it, except relief from vestry cess, which could possess the smallest value for Irish Roman catholics. There was no valid answer to his argument, except that another collision with the house of lords must be avoided at any tolerable cost, for, as Russell bluntly said, "the country could not stand a revolution once a year". Thus lightened, and slightly modified in the interest of Irish incumbents, the bill passed through committee and was read a third time by very large majorities, the minority being mainly composed of its old radical partisans. Peel's letters show how anxious he was to "make the reform bill work," by protecting the government against this extreme faction,115 and the parliamentary reports show how much he did to frustrate the attempt to intimidate the lords by a resolution of the commons.

The debate in the upper house lasted three nights in July, but is almost devoid of permanent interest. The appropriation question being dropped, there was little to discuss except the historical origin of Irish dioceses, the precedents for their consolidation, and the economical details of the scheme for equalising, in some degree, the incomes of Irish clergymen. Two or three peers, headed by the Duke of Cumberland, took their stand once more on the coronation oath, and Bishop Phillpotts of Exeter availed himself of this objection in one of the most powerful speeches delivered against the bill. On the other hand, Bishop Blomfield of London, and the Duke of Wellington, now acting in concert with Peel, gave it a grudging support, as the less of two evils. After passing the second reading by a majority of 157 to 98, it was subjected to minute criticism in committee, and one amendment was carried against the government, but Grey wisely declined to relinquish it except on some vital issue. The majority on the third reading was 135 to 81, and on August 2 the commons agreed to the lords' amendments, O'Connell remarking that, after all, the peers had not made the bill much worse than they found it. More than a generation was to elapse before this "act to alter and amend the laws relating to the temporalities of the Church in Ireland" was completed by an act severing that Church from the state. But the ulterior aims of those who first challenged the sanctity of Church endowments were not concealed, and the more than Erastian tendency of the liberal movement was henceforth clearly perceived by high Churchmen. We know, on the authority of Dr. Newman, that he and his early associates regarded the Anglican revival of which they were the pioneers as essentially a reaction against liberalism, and liberalism as the most formidable enemy of sacerdotal power.

STANLEY COLONIAL SECRETARY.

Long before the Irish church bill had passed the house of commons Stanley exchanged the chief secretaryship of Ireland for the higher office of colonial secretary, to which he was gazetted on March 28. His uncompromising advocacy of the coercion bill, and his known hostility to direct spoliation of the Church, alike provoked the hatred of Irish Roman catholics, and Brougham had already advised his retirement from Ireland. His promotion was facilitated by the resignation of Durham, nominally on grounds of health, but also because he was in constant antagonism to his own father-in-law, Grey, and his moderate colleagues in the cabinet. He received an earldom, and was succeeded as lord privy seal by Goderich, who became Earl of Ripon. This opened the colonial office to Stanley, who instantly found himself face to face with a question almost as intractable as the pacification of Ireland. Sir John Hobhouse became chief secretary for Ireland, but without a seat in the cabinet. He resigned in May, and was succeeded by Edward John Littleton, who was married to a natural daughter of the Marquis Wellesley.

Among the statutes passed in 1833, there are several, besides those relating to Ireland, of sufficient importance to confer distinction upon any parliamentary session. One of these is entitled "an act for the better administration of justice in His Majesty's privy council"; a second, "an act for the abolition of slavery throughout the British colonies, for promoting the industry of the manumitted slaves, and for compensating the persons hitherto entitled to the services of such slaves"; a third, "an act for the abolition of fines and recoveries, and for the substitution of more simple methods of assurance"; a fourth, "an act to regulate the trade to China and India"; a fifth, "an act for giving to the corporation of the governor and company of the Bank of England certain privileges, for a limited period, under certain conditions"; a sixth, "an act to regulate the labour of children and young persons in the mills and factories of the United Kingdom". Not one of these salutary measures was forced upon the legislature by popular clamour, every one of them represents a sincere zeal for what has been ridiculed as "world-bettering," and the parliament that passed them must have been thoroughly imbued with the spirit of reform.

Foremost of these measures, as a monument of philanthropic legislation, will ever stand the act for the abolition of colonial slavery. No class in the country was concerned in its promotion; the powerful interests of the planters were arrayed against it; and humanity, operating through public opinion, was the only motive which could induce a government to espouse the anti-slavery cause. Stanley had not occupied his new office many weeks when on May 14 it became his lot to explain the ministerial scheme in the house of commons. Its essence consisted in the immediate extinction of absolute property in slaves, but with somewhat complicated provisions for an intermediate state of apprenticeship, to last twelve years. During this period negroes were to be maintained by their former masters, under an obligation to serve without wages for three-fourths of their working hours, and were to earn wages during the remaining fourth. All children under six years of age were to become free at once, and all born after the passing of the act were to be free at birth. The proprietors were to receive compensation by way of loan, to the extent of £15,000,000, and additional grants were promised for the institution of a stipendiary magistracy and a system of education.

Several resolutions embodying the scheme were carried, with little opposition, though some abolitionists, headed by Mr. Fowell Buxton, a wealthy brewer and eminent philanthropist, who sat for Weymouth, took strong exception to compulsory apprenticeship, as perpetuating the principle of slavery, however mitigated by the recognition of personal liberty and the suppression of corporal punishment. It was found expedient, however, in deference to a very strong remonstrance from West Indian proprietors, to convert the proposed loan of £15,000,000 into an absolute payment of £20,000,000, and this noble donation, for conscience' sake, was actually ratified by parliament and the country. The bill founded on the resolutions met with no serious opposition, but an amendment by Buxton for adopting free labour at once was lost by so narrow a majority that Stanley consented to reduce the period of apprenticeship to an average of six years. In this instance the lords followed the guidance of the commons, and a measure of almost quixotic liberalism was endorsed by them without hesitation. It must be confessed that experience has not verified the confident prediction that free labour would prove more profitable than slave labour, but Great Britain has never repented of the abolition act, and its example was followed, thirty years later, by the United States.

FACTORY ACTS.

The first of the general factory acts was marked by the same philanthropic character, but here the manufacturing capitalists, introduced by the reform act, were induced by self-interest to oppose it. Ever since the beginning of the century the sufferings and degradation of children in factories had occasionally engaged the attention of parliament, but the full enormity of the factory system was known to few except those who profited by it. It seems incredible, but it was shown afterwards by irresistible evidence, that children of seven years old and upwards were often compelled to work twelve or fourteen hours a day, with two short intervals for meals, in a most unwholesome atmosphere, exposed not only to ill-treatment but to every form of moral corruption. A very partial remedy was applied by a law passed in 1802 which restricted the hours of labour to twelve for mills in which apprentices were employed. The same limit of hours was extended to cotton mills generally in 1816, and, but for the resistance of the house of lords, it would have been reduced to ten, as a select committee had recommended on the initiative of the first Sir Robert Peel. A few years later the question was revived by Sir John Hobhouse, but left unsettled. In 1831 Sadler introduced a ten hours bill for children, and obtained a select committee, before which disclosures were made well calculated to shock the country. At the general election of 1832, Sadler was defeated by Macaulay for the new borough of Leeds, but his mantle fell on Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the noblest philanthropists of modern times.

Early in the session of 1833 Ashley introduced a ten hours bill, applicable, like that of Sadler, to all young persons under eighteen years of age working in factories. It also prohibited the employment of children under nine, and provided for the appointment of inspectors. It was strongly opposed by the Lancashire members as interfering with freedom of labour even for adults, since mills could not be kept running without the labour of boys under eighteen. They also objected to the evidence already reported as one-sided, and succeeded in procuring the appointment of a royal commission. This commission prosecuted its inquiries with unusual despatch, but its report was not in the hands of members on July 5, when the bill came on for its second reading. Though Althorp, unwilling to offend the manufacturing interest, pleaded for deliberation and urged that a select committee should frame the regulations to be adopted, the majority of the house was impatient of delay, and he encountered a defeat. The question now resolved itself into a choice between a greater or less limitation of hours. On this question, a compromise proposed by Althorp prevailed, and Ashley resigned the conduct of the bill into his hands. It was further modified in committee, but ultimately became law in a form which secured the main objects of its promoters. No child under nine years of age could be employed at all in a factory, after two years none under thirteen could be worked more than eight hours, and no young person under eighteen could be required to work more than sixty-nine hours a week, while the provisions for inspection were retained along with others which contained the germ of education on the half-time system.

THE EAST INDIA COMPANY.

The trading monopoly of the East India Company, though confined to China by the act of 1813, had been regarded ever since with great jealousy by the mercantile community. As the revised charter was now on the point of expiring, it was for the government to frame terms of renewal which might satisfy the growing demand for free trade. Their scheme, which few were competent to criticise, met with general approval, and the only determined opposition to it was offered in the house of lords by Ellenborough, who lived to come into sharp collision with the court of directors as governor-general. It was embodied in three simple resolutions, the first of which recommended the legislature to open the China trade without reserve, the second provided for the assumption by the crown of all the company's assets and liabilities but with the obligation of paying the company a fixed subsidy, while the last affirmed the expediency of entrusting the company with the political government of India. Grant, who moved these resolutions, as president of the board of control, had no occasion to defend the policy of setting free the China trade which no one disputed; but he undertook to show that it had declined in the hands of the company, and that private competition had already crept in on a large scale. He also dwelt on the advantage of bringing the political relations arising out of commercial intercourse more directly under the control of the government. His reasoning was sound, and the China trade rapidly developed, nor could he be expected to foresee the course of events whereby the government afterwards became embroiled with the Chinese empire, on the importation of opium, and other economical questions. As compensation for the loss of its exclusive privileges, the company was to receive an annuity of £630,000, charged on the territorial revenues of India.

The policy of continuing the company's rule in India for twenty years longer would have excited more earnest discussion in a session less crowded with legislative projects. The way had been paved for the concession of complete free trade in the eastern seas by the reports of select committees and parliamentary debates under former governments. The consumers of tea, numbered by millions, promised themselves a better quality at a lower price, and a keen spirit of enterprise was kindled by the idea of breaking into the unknown resources of China. But public interest in the administration of India was languid. It might well have appeared that a board sitting in Leadenhall Street was fitter to conduct shipping and mercantile operations than to govern an imperial dependency like British India. But the contrary alternative was almost tacitly accepted. The directors were "to remain princes, but no longer merchant princes," and Ellenborough complained that whereas "hitherto the court had appeared in India as beneficent conquerors, henceforth they would be mortgagees in possession". Perhaps the ministry shrunk from provoking the storm of obloquy which must have resulted from placing the vast patronage of the company in the hands of the crown. At all events, it was agreed, with little dissent, that under the new charter the company should nominally retain the reins of power, checked, however, by Pitt's "board of control," the president of which, in reality, shared a despotic authority with the governor-general of Bengal, who was hereafter to be in name what he had long been in fact, governor-general of India. The bill strengthened his council, and enabled him to legislate for all India.

At the same time Europeans were permitted to settle and hold land in India without the necessity of applying for a licence. Lastly, the principle was laid down, pregnant with future consequences, that all persons in India, without distinction of race or creed, should be subject to the same law and eligible for all offices under the government. Such was the last charter of the great company. It is interesting to observe that Grant, in admitting that the government of India under its sway had not been prone "to make any great or rapid strides in improvement," paid a just tribute to its eminently pacific character. "It excited vigilance," he said, "against any encroachment of violence or rapacity; it ensured to the people that which they most required – repose, security, and tranquillity." The immense annexations of territory and far-reaching reforms which have created the British India of the twentieth century were either most reluctantly sanctioned by the court of directors or have been carried out since its dominion was transferred to the crown. Irrevocable as they are, and beneficent as they may be on the whole, they have certainly imposed difficulties of portentous magnitude upon the rulers of India, nor would it be surprising if some native survivors of the olden days in far-off recesses of the country should remember with sad regret the paternal, though unprogressive, despotism of the sovereign company.

THE BANK CHARTER ACT.

The bank charter act of 1833, having been superseded by that of 1844, fills a less important place than it otherwise would in the history of legislation on currency. The bill was founded, however, on the report of a secret committee which embraced Peel as well as Althorp and several other members of high financial repute or great experience in the city. Since the subject of it was familiar to a large section of members engaged in business, and touched the pockets of bankers all over the country, it was discussed in the house of commons far more earnestly than the bill renewing the charter of the East India Company. In the end two provisions were dropped, which directly encouraged the increase of joint stock banks. The rest were passed, and contained important modifications of the banking system as it then existed. The main privileges of the Bank of England were continued, in spite of a strong opposition and of protests against the one-sided inquiry said to have been conducted by the secret committee. These privileges embraced the exclusive possession of the government balances, the monopoly of limited liability, then refused to other banks, and the right, shared by no other joint stock bank, of issuing its own notes. Though private London banks might have legally exercised this power they did not actually do so, and nearly all of them deposited their reserves with the Bank of England.

Another part of the scheme, which even Peel condemned, was thus briefly stated in a preliminary resolution: "That, provided the Bank of England continued liable, as at present, to defray in the current coin of the realm all its existing engagements, it was expedient that its promissory notes should be constituted a legal tender for sums of £5 and upwards". In other words, country bankers would no longer be compelled to cash their own notes, or pay off their deposits in gold, but might use Bank of England notes instead, above the value of £5. The Bank of England, however, and all its branches, remained liable to cash payments, as before, so that, as Baring argued, only one intermediate stage was interposed between the presentation of a country note and the exchange of it for specie. Peel's objection, which did not prevail, chiefly rested on the danger of the Bank of England closing its branches in its own interests, in order to check the demand for cash. Though his fears were not literally realised, experience disclosed the danger of country banks multiplying unduly, and, by their over-issue of notes, causing a severe drain upon the Bank of England for gold. For the present, however, the critics of the measure were less concerned in forecasting such remote consequences than in protesting against the charge to be made by the bank for managing the public debt. This charge was, in fact, to be reduced by £120,000 a year, but one-fourth part of the advances made by the bank to the public (or £3,671,700) was to be paid off, and the proposed remuneration was denounced as exorbitant. Althorp hardly denied that it was a good bargain for the bank, though he persuaded the house of commons to endorse the arrangement, rather than incur the dislocation of national finance and commercial business certain to ensue if the bank should withdraw from its connexion with the government and use its vast influence for its own interest alone.

LEGAL REFORMS.

Two great law reforms close the series of important remedial measures passed in the first session of the reformed parliament – a session, be it remembered, which embraced all the furious and protracted debates on the Irish coercion act and the Irish Church temporalities act. The first of these was Brougham's valuable bill constituting a permanent "judicial committee of the privy council," and transferring to it the judicial functions theoretically belonging to "the king in council," but practically exercised by committees selected ad hoc on each occasion. Charles Greville, to whose memoirs all historians of this period are greatly indebted, and who in 1833 was clerk of the council, was inclined to disparage the proposed change as one of Brougham's fanciful projects, designed to gratify his own self-importance.116 Even Greville, however, saw reason to modify his view, and the new court has ever since commanded general respect, except from those high Churchmen who resented its assumption of the appellate jurisdiction in ecclesiastical causes, formerly vested, along with a similar jurisdiction in admiralty causes, in the king in chancery, and exercised by a "court of delegates," usually consisting of three common law judges and three or four civilians selected ad hoc.

The essential defects of such a court were fully stated in the report of a very strong commission, including six bishops, appointed in 1830. Probably the expediency of reforming the jurisdiction of the privy council for the purpose of hearing these ecclesiastical appeals may have suggested to Brougham the idea of constructing a standing appellate tribunal within the privy council, for the purpose of hearing all appeals that might come before that body. Accordingly, after carrying a bill in 1832 whereby the privy council, as such, took over the powers of the "court of delegates," he introduced the general bill whereby the judicial committee was created, and under which it still acts. It was to consist of the lord chancellor, with the present and past holders of certain high judicial offices, and two privy councillors to be appointed by the sovereign; to whom prelates, being privy councillors, were to be added for ecclesiastical appeals. The system thus founded, and since developed, is capable of indefinite expansion, in case still closer relations should be established between Great Britain and the colonies.

The act for the abolition of fines and recoveries, though scarcely intelligible except to lawyers, was a masterpiece not only of draughtsmanship, but of honest law amendment. It swept away grotesque and antiquated forms of conveyance, which had lost their meaning for centuries, and which nothing but professional self-interest kept alive. Had it been followed up by legislation in a like spirit on other departments of law, the profits of lawyers and the needless expenses of clients might have been reduced to an extent of which the unlearned public has no conception. As it was, it simplified the process of selling land in a remarkable degree, though it left untouched the complications of title and transfer affecting real property, which no lord chancellor since Brougham has been courageous enough to attack in earnest, and which remain the distinctive reproach of English law. It is not without shame that we read in the king's prorogation speech, delivered on August 29, 1833, the assurance that he will heartily co-operate with parliament in making justice easily accessible to all his subjects. He adds that, with this view, a commission has been issued "for digesting into one body the enactments of the criminal law, and for inquiring how far, and by what means, a similar process may be extended to the other branches of jurisprudence". Seventy years have since elapsed, yet this royal promise of codification is not even in course of fulfilment. On the other hand, Brougham's scheme for establishing local courts in certain parts of the kingdom was destined to bear ample fruit in the next reign. It was described by Eldon as "a most abominable bill," and, being generally opposed by the law lords, was rejected by a small majority, but it was the germ of the county courts, which have since done so much to bring justice within the reach and the means of poor suitors.

Notwithstanding its legislative exploits, the whig government was declining in popularity at the end of 1833, and was beginning to discover how vain it is to rely on political gratitude. Other reforming governments have since undergone the same bitter experience, the causes of which are by no means obscure. No reform can be effected without "harassing interests," and the sense of resentment in the sections of the community thus harassed is far stronger and more efficacious than any appreciation of the benefits reaped by the general public at home, or by mankind at large. Again, the expectations excited by the agitation of such a question as parliamentary reform are far beyond the power of any legislature to satisfy. Grey and his colleagues were too well aware of this, and Stanley, for one, manfully championed the government measures on their own merits, disdaining to flatter the radicals, but his discretion was not equal to his valour, and every debate brought into stronger relief the more statesmanlike capacity and moderation of Peel. There was no tory reaction, but a growing distrust of heroic remedies for national disorders, and a growing faith in the possible development of a liberal policy in a conservative spirit. Even the Duke of Wellington found himself restored insensibly to popular favour, and was again received in the streets with marks of public respect.