Historical Characters

Lord John Russell had not then the talents for debate which he subsequently displayed. Lord Palmerston had only made one or two great speeches. Sir James Graham was chiefly remarkable for a weighty statement. Mr. Charles Grant had lost his once great oratorical powers. Mr. Macaulay was only beginning to deliver his marvellous orations. O’Connell, mighty to a mob, was not in his place when addressing a refined and supercilious audience. Mr. Stanley, the late Lord Derby, surpassed Sir R. Peel and every one else in vivacity, wit, lucidity, and energy. But he struck you more as a first-rate cavalry officer than as a commander-in-chief. Sir Robert, cool and self-collected, gave you, on the contrary, the idea of a great, prudent, wary leader who was fighting after a plan, and keeping his eye during the whole of the battle directed to the result. You felt, at least I felt, that without being superior to many of his competitors as a man, he was far superior to all as a Member of Parliament; and his ascendancy was the more visible as the whole strength of his party was in him.

He profited, no doubt, by the fact that the Whigs had been (with the exception of a short interval) out of office for nearly half a century, and showed at every step the self-sufficiency of men of talent, and the incapacity of men without experience. Every one felt, indeed, that in the ordinary course of things their official career would be short, and none were more convinced of this than their leaders. They acted accordingly. Under any circumstances they were pledged to bring forward a Reform Bill; but under actual circumstances their policy was to bring forward a Reform Bill that would render it almost impossible for their probable successors to deal with that question. Such a Bill they introduced, destroying at one swoop sixty small boroughs, and taking one member from forty-seven more.

Mr. John Smith, an ardent Reformer, said that the Government measure went so far beyond his expectations, that it took away his breath. I myself happened to meet Mr. Hunt, the famous Radical of those days, in the tea-room of the House of Commons, just before Lord John Russell rose. We had some conversation on the project about to be proposed, no one out of a small circle having any conception as to what it would be. Mr. Hunt said, if it gave members to a few of the great towns, and disfranchised with compensation a few close boroughs, the public would rest contented for the moment with this concession. In fact, the Government plan was received with profound astonishment. Lord John continued his explanations of it amidst cheers and laughter. It almost appeared a joke; and had Sir Robert Peel risen when Lord John sat down, and said that “he had been prepared to consider any reasonable or practical plan, but that the plan of the Government was a mockery repugnant to the good sense of the House, and that he could not therefore allow the time of Parliament to be lost by discussing it; moving at the same time the order of the day, and pledging himself to bring the question in a practical form under the attention of the House of Commons at an early opportunity,” he would have had a majority of at least a hundred in his favour.

It was a great occasion for a less prudent man. But Sir Robert Peel was not an improvisatore in action, though he was in words. He required time to prepare a decision. He was moreover fettered by his relations with the late premier. Could he reject at once a project of Reform, however absurd, without taking up the question of Reform? Could he pledge his party to take up that question without being certain of his party’s pretty general acquiescence?

He persuaded himself, not unnaturally, that the Government measure had no chance of success; that nothing would be lost by an appearance of moderation, and that time would thus be gained for the Opposition to combine its plans.

Nine men out of ten would have judged the matter as he did, and been wrong as he was. But the magnitude of the Whig measure, which appeared at the moment its weakness, was in reality its strength. It roused the whole country.

Much, also, in a crisis like the one through which the country had now to pass, depends on the action of individuals whose names are not always found in history. There happened, at the moment of which I am speaking, to be a man connected with the Whig Government who, by his frank, good-natured manner, his knowledge of human nature, his habits of business, his general acquaintance with all classes of persons, and his untiring activity, gave an intensity and a direction to the general sentiment which it would not otherwise have attained.

I allude to Mr. Edward Ellice, Secretary of the Treasury. He was emphatically a man of the world, having lived with all classes of it. His intellect was clear, and adapted to business; and he liked that sort of business which brought him into contact with men. Naturally kind-hearted and good-natured, with frank and easy manners, he entered into other people’s plans and feelings, and left every one with the conviction that he had been speaking to a friend who at the proper time would do him a service. He took upon himself the management of the Press, and was entrusted shortly afterwards (when Lord Grey, finding his ministry in a minority in the House of Commons, obtained the King’s permission to dissolve Parliament) with the management of the elections. He knew that the great danger to a Reform party is almost always division, and bound the Reform party on that occasion together by the cry of “The bill! the whole bill, and nothing but the bill!”

All argument, all discussion, all objection, were absorbed by this overwhelming cry, which, repeated from one end of the country to another, drowned the voice of criticism, and obliged every one to take his place either as an advocate of the Government measure, or an opponent of the popular will.

The general feeling, when, after the elections in 1831, the shattered forces of the Tory party gathered in scanty array around their distinguished leader, was that that party was no more, or at least had perished, as far as the possession of political power was concerned, for the next twenty years. People did not sufficiently recognize the changeful vibration of opinion; neither did they take sufficiently into account the fact that there will always, in a state like ours, be a set of men who wish to make the institutions more democratic, and a set of men who do not wish this; though at different epochs the battle for or against democracy will be fought on different grounds. The Reform Bill now proposed having been once agreed to, it was certain that there would again be persons for further changes, and persons against them. Sir Robert’s great care, therefore, when our old institutions sunk, was not to cling to them so fast as to sink with them. He defended, then, the opinions he had heretofore asserted, but he defended them rather as things that had been good, and were gone by, than as things that were good and which could be maintained. The Tories in the House of Lords were in a more difficult position than the Tories in the House of Commons. They were called upon to express their opinions, and to do so conscientiously. They were in a majority in the upper assembly, as the Whigs were in a majority in the lower one. According to the theory of the Constitution the vote of one branch of the Legislature was as valid as that of the other. Were they to desert their duties, and declare they were incompetent to discharge them? They considered they were not. They, therefore, threw out the Government bill when it was brought before them for decision, and thus it had again to be introduced into the House of Commons. Again it arrived at the House of Lords, which displayed a disposition to reject it once more.

Lord Grey, in this condition of things, asked the King for the power of making peers, or for the permission to retire from his Majesty’s service. His resignation was accepted, and the Duke of Wellington was charged with forming a new Government, which was to propose a new Reform Bill. He applied to Sir Robert Peel for assistance, but Sir Robert saw that the moment for him to deal with the question of Reform was passed, and declined to give that assistance, saying that he was not the proper person to represent a compromise. That any Reform Bill that would now satisfy the momentary excitement must comprehend changes that he believed would be permanently injurious. He felt, indeed, that it would be better to let the reformers carry their own bill than to bring forward another bill which could not greatly differ from the one which the House of Commons had already sanctioned, and which, nevertheless, would not satisfy, because it would be considered the bill of the House of Lords. The Duke of Wellington consequently was obliged to retire, the Lords to give way. Lord Grey’s Reform Bill was carried, and Sir Robert Peel took his seat in a new Parliament formed by his opponents, who thought they had secured thereby the permanence of their own power.

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.