Beacon Lights of History, Volume 10: European Leaders

After the passage of the Reform Bill, the first thing of importance to which the reform Parliament turned its attention was the condition of Ireland. The crimes committed in that unfortunate country called loudly for coercive measures on the part of the government. The murders, the incendiary fires, the burglaries and felonious assaults, were unprecedented in number and atrocity. The laws which had been passed for the protection of life and property had become a dead letter in some of the most populous districts. Jurors were afraid to attend the assizes, and the nearest relatives of the victims dared not institute proceedings; even magistrates were deterred from doing their duty. In fact, crime went unpunished, and the country was rapidly sinking into semi-barbarism. In the single year of 1832 there were two hundred and forty-two homicides, eleven hundred and seventy-nine robberies, four hundred and one burglaries, five hundred and sixty-eight house-burnings, one hundred and sixty-one serious assaults, two hundred and three riots, besides other crimes,–altogether to the number of over nine thousand. A bill was accordingly brought into the Upper House by Lord Grey to give to the lord-lieutenant power to substitute courts-martial for the ordinary courts of justice, to enter houses for the purpose of searching for arms, and to suspend the act of habeas corpus in certain districts. The bill passed the Lords without difficulty, but encountered severe opposition in the House of Commons from the radical members and from O'Connell and his followers. Nevertheless it passed, with some alterations, and was at once put in force in the county of Kilkenny, with satisfactory results. The diminution of crime was most marked; and as the excuse for disturbances arose chiefly from the compulsory tithes which the Catholic population were obliged to pay in support of the Protestant Church, the ministry wisely attempted to alleviate the grievance. It was doubtless a great injustice for Catholics to be compelled to support the Established Church of England; but the ministry were not prepared to go to the length which the radicals and the Irish members demanded,–the complete suppression of the tithe system; in other words, "the disestablishment of the Irish Church." They were willing to sacrifice a portion of the tithes, to reduce the number of bishops, and to apply some of the ecclesiastical property to secular purposes. But even this concession called out a fierce outcry from the conservatives, in and out of Parliament. A most formidable opposition came from the House of Lords, headed by Lord Eldon; but the ministers were at last permitted to carry out their measure.

Nothing satisfactory, however, was accomplished in reference to the collection of tithes, in spite of the concession of the ministers. The old difficulty remained. Tithes could not be collected except at the point of the bayonet, which of course was followed by crimes and disturbances that government could not prevent. In 1833 the arrears of tithes amounted to over a million of pounds, and the Protestant clergy were seriously distressed. The cost of collecting tithes was enormous, from the large coercive force which the government was obliged to maintain. When the pay of soldiers and policemen is considered, it took £25,000 to collect £12,000. The collection of tithes became an impossibility without a war of extermination. Every expedient failed. Even the cabinet was divided on all the schemes proposed; for every member of it was determined to uphold the Established Church, in some form or other.

At last Mr. Ward, member for St. Albans, in 1834 brought forward in the Commons a measure which had both reason and justice to commend it. After showing that the collection of tithes was the real cause of Irish discontents, that only a fourteenth of the population of Ireland were in communion with the English Church, that nearly half of the clergy were non-residents, and that there was a glaring inequality in the salaries of clergymen,–so that some rectors received from £500 to £1,000 in parishes where there were only ten or twelve Protestants, while some of the resident clergy did duty for less than £20 per annum,–he moved the following: "Resolved, that as the Protestant Episcopal Establishment of Ireland exceeds the spiritual wants of the Protestant population, it is the opinion of the House that the temporal possessions of the Church of Ireland ought to be reduced." The motion was seconded by Mr. Grote, the celebrated historian; but Lord Althorp rose and requested the House to adjourn, in consequence of circumstances he was not prepared to mention. All understood that there was trouble in the cabinet itself; and when the House reassembled, it was found that the Duke of Richmond, Earl Ripon, Lord Stanley (colonial secretary), and Sir James Graham, being opposed to the appropriation of the funds of the Irish Church to other than ecclesiastical purposes, had resigned. The king himself was strongly opposed to the motion, to say nothing of the peers; and the conservative part of the nation, from the long-inherited jealousy of the Catholic Church, stood upon the same ground.

While ministers were tinkering on the affairs of Ireland, without lofty purpose or sense of justice or enlightened reason even, the gigantic figure of O'Connell appeared in striking contrast with the statesmen who opposed him and tried in vain to intimidate him. The great agitator had made his power felt long before the stormy debates in favor of reform took place, which called out the energies of Brougham,–the only man in England to be compared with O'Connell in genius, in eloquence, in intellect, and in wrath, but inferior to him in the power of moving the passions of an audience, yet again vastly superior to him in learning. While Brougham was thundering in the senate in behalf of reform,–the most influential and the most feared of all its members, without whose aid nothing could be done,–O'Connell was haranguing the whole Catholic population of Ireland in favor of a repeal of the Union, looking upon the evils which ground down his countrymen as beyond a remedy under the English government. He also made his voice ring with startling vehemence in the English Parliament, as soon as the Catholic Emancipation bill enabled him to enter it as the member from Clare, always advocating justice and humanity, whatever the subject under consideration might be. So long as O'Connell was "king of Ireland," as William IV declared him to be, nothing could be done by English ministers on Irish matters. His agitations were tremendous, and yet he kept within the laws. His mission was to point out evils rather than to remove them. No man living was capable of pointing out the remedy. On all Irish questions the wisdom and experience of English statesmen were in vain. Yet amid the storms which beat over the unhappy island, the voice of the great pilot was louder than the tempests, which he seems to control as if by magic. Mr. Gladstone, in one of his later contributions to literature, has done justice to the motives and the genius of a man whom he regards as the greatest that Ireland has ever produced, if Burke may be excepted, yet a man whom he bitterly opposed in his parliamentary career. Faithful alike to the interests of his church and his country, O'Connell will ever be ranked among the most imposing names of history, although he failed in the cause to which he consecrated his talents, his fortune, his energies, and his fame. Long and illustrious is the list of reformers who have been unsuccessful; and Mr. O'Connell must be classed with these. Yet was he one who did not live in vain.

Incapable of effectively dealing with the problem, the government temporized and resolved to stave off the difficulty. A commission was appointed to visit every parish in Ireland and report the state of affairs to Parliament, when everybody already knew what this state was,–one of glaring inequality and injustice, exceedingly galling to the Catholic population. Nor was this the only Irish Church question that endangered the stability of the ministry. Tithe bill after tithe bill had been passed, and all alike had failed. Mr. Ward had argued for the entire abolition of the tithe system, from the expense and difficulty of collecting tithes, leaving the clergy to be supported by the crown. A new tithe bill was, however, introduced, by which the clergy should accept something short of what they were entitled to by law. Not only was the tithing system an apparently inextricable tangle, but there was trouble about the renewal of the Coercion Act. Lord Grey, wearied with political life, resigned the premiership, and Lord Melbourne succeeded him,–a statesman who cared next to nothing for reform; not an incapable man, but lazy, genial, and easy, whose watchword was, "Can't you let it alone?" But he did not long retain office, the king being dissatisfied with his ministers; and Sir Robert Peel, being then at Rome, was sent for to head the new administration in July, 1834. It may be here remarked that Mr. Gladstone first took office under this government. Parliament, of course, was dissolved, and a new election took place. The Whigs lost thereby much of their power, but still were a majority in the House, and the new Tory government found that the Irish difficulties were a very hard nut to crack.

The new Parliament met Feb. 15, 1835; and as the new government came into power by defeating the Whigs on the subject of the Irish Church, it was bound to offer some remedy for the trouble which existed. Accordingly, Lord Morpeth, the eldest son of the Earl of Carlisle, and closely allied with the Duke of Sutherland and other great families,–agreeable, kindly, and winning in his manners, and of very respectable abilities,–on June 26 introduced his Tithe Bill, by which he proposed to convert the tithe itself into a rent-charge, reducing it to a lower amount than the late Whig government had done. His bill, however, came to nothing, since any appropriation clearly dealing with surplus revenues failed to satisfy the Lords.

Before anything could be done with Ireland, the Peel ministry was dissolved, and the Whigs returned to power, April 18, 1835, with Lord Melbourne again as prime minister. But the Irish difficulties remained the same, the conservatives refusing to agree to any bill which dealt with any part of the revenues of the State church; and the question was not finally settled for Ireland till after it was settled in England.

Thus the reformed Parliament failed in its attempt to remove the difficulties which attended Irish legislation. It failed from the obstinacy of the conservatives, among Whigs as well as Tories, to render justice in the matter of rates and tithes,–the great cause of Irish discontent and violence at that time. It will be seen that new complications arose with every successive Parliament from that time to this, landlords finding it as difficult to collect their rents as the clergy did their tithes. And these difficulties appear to be as great to-day as they were fifty years ago. It still remains to be seen how Ireland can be satisfactorily governed by any English ministry likely to be formed. On that rock government after government, both liberal and conservative, has been wrecked, and probably will continue to be wrecked long after the present generation has passed away, until the English nation itself learns to take a larger view, and seeks justice rather than the conservation of vested interests.

But if the reformed Parliament failed to restore order in Ireland, and to render that justice which should have followed the liberal principles it invoked, yet in matters strictly English great progress was made in the removal of crying evils.

Among these was the abolition of slavery in the British West India Islands, which as early as 1833 occupied the attention of the House, even before the discussion on Irish affairs. The slave-trade had been suppressed long before this, through the untiring labors and zeal of Wilberforce, Zachary Macaulay (father of the historian), and other philanthropists. But the evils of slavery still existed,–cruelty and oppression on the part of slave-owners, and hardships and suffering on the part of slaves. Half-caste women were bought and sold, and flogged and branded. As early as 1823 Fowell Buxton, then in Parliament, furnished with facts by Zachary Macaulay, who had been manager of a West India estate, brought in a motion for the abolition of slavery. Canning was then the leading member of the House of Commons; although he did not go so far as Buxton, still he did something to remedy the evils of the system, and was supported by Brougham, Mackintosh, and Lushington,–so that the flogging of women was abolished, and married slaves were not separated from their children. In 1830, Henry Brougham introduced a motion for the total abolition of slavery in the British colonies, and thrilled the House by his eloquence and passion; but his motion was defeated. When the new reform Parliament met in 1831, more pressing questions occupied its attention; but at length, in 1833, Buxton made a forcible appeal to ministers to sweep away the greatest scandal of the age. He was supported by Lord Stanley, then colonial secretary, who eloquently defended the cause of liberty and humanity; and he moved that effectual measures be at once taken to abolish slavery altogether, with some modifications. Thomas Babington Macaulay, who had entered Parliament in 1830, also brought all his eloquence to bear in behalf of the cause; and the upshot of the discussion was that Parliament set free the slaves, and their masters received twenty millions of pounds as a compensation. Thus the long agitation of fifty years pertaining to negro emancipation in the British dominions was closed forever. The heart of England was profoundly moved by this act of blended justice, humanity, and generosity, which has been quoted with pride by every Englishman from that time to this. Possibly a similar national assumption of the vast expense of recompensing English owners of Irish lands may at some time relieve Ireland of alien landlordism and England of her greatest reproach.

The condition of Hindostan next received the attention of Parliament; and on the renewal of the charter of the East India Company, in 1833, its commercial monopoly was abolished, and trade with the East was thrown open to the merchants of all the world. The political jurisdiction of the Company was, however, retained.

The new Parliament then turned its attention to a reduction of taxes. The duty on tiles was repealed; also the two-shilling stamp duty on advertisements, together with the vexatious duty on soap. Dramatic copyrights also received protection, and an improvement in the judicial administration was effected. Sinecure offices were abolished in the Court of Chancery, and the laws of dower and inheritance were amended.

The members most active in these reforms were Lord Althorp, Daniel O'Connell, Joseph Hume, and William Cobbett. Lord Althorp, afterward Earl Spencer, made not less than one thousand speeches, and O'Connell six hundred, in support of these reforms,–all tending to a decrease in taxation, made feasible by the great increase of wealth and the abolition of useless offices.

The Trade Unions (a combination of operatives to secure improvement in their condition) marked the year 1834, besides legislative enactments to reduce taxation. Before 1824 it was illegal for workmen to combine, even in the most peaceable manner, for the purpose of obtaining an increase of wages. This injustice was removed the following year, and strikes became numerous among the different working-classes, but were generally easily suppressed by the capitalists, who were becoming a great power with the return to national prosperity. For fifty years the vexed social problem of "strikes" has been discussed, but is not yet solved, giving intense solicitude to capitalists and corporations, and equal hope to operatives. The year 1834, then, showed the commencement of the great war between capital and labor which is so damaging to all business operations, and the ultimate issue of which cannot be predicted with certainty,–but which will probably lead to a great amelioration of the condition of the working-classes and the curtailment of the incomes of rich men, especially those engaged in trade and manufactures. There will always be, without doubt, disproportionate fortunes, and capitalists can combine as well as laborers; but if the strikes which are multiplying year by year in all the countries of Europe and the United States should end in a great increase of wages, so as to make workmen comfortable (for they will never be contented), the movement will prove beneficent. Already far more has been accomplished for the relief of the poor by a combination of laborers against hard-hearted employers than by any legislative enactments; but when will the contest between capital and labor cease? Is it pessimism to say that it is likely to become more and more desperate?

The "Poor Law Amendment" was passed July, 1834, during the administration of Lord Melbourne,–Lord Grey having resigned, from the infirmities of age and the difficulties of carrying on the government. He had held office nearly four years, which exceeded the term of his predecessor the Duke of Wellington; and only four premiers have held office for a longer period since 1754. The Poor Law Amendment, supported by all political parties, was passed in view of the burdensome amount of poor rates and the superior condition of the pauper to that of many an independent laborer.

The ill management of the beer-houses led to another act in 1834, requiring a license to sell beer, which was granted only to persons who could produce a certificate of good character from six respectable inhabitants of a parish.

The session of Parliament in 1834 was further marked by a repeal of the house tax, by grants for building schoolhouses, by the abolition of sinecure offices in the House of Commons, and by giving new facilities for the circulation of foreign newspapers through the mails. There was little or no opposition to reforms which did not interfere with landed interests and the affairs of Ireland. Even Sir Robert Peel, in his short administration, was not unfriendly to extending privileges to Dissenters, nor to judicial, municipal, and economical reform generally.

The most important of the measures brought forward by Whig ministers under Lord Melbourne was the reform of municipal corporations. For two hundred years the abuses connected with these corporations had been subjects of complaint, but could not easily be remedied, in consequence of the perversion of municipal institutions to political ends. The venal boroughs, which both Whig and Tory magnates controlled, were the chief seats of abuses and scandals. When these boroughs were disfranchised by the Reform Bill, a way was opened for the local government of a town by its permanent residents, instead of the appointment of magistrates by a board which perpetuated itself, and which was controlled by the owners of boroughs in the interests of the aristocracy. In consequence of the passing of the municipal reform act, through the powerful advocacy of Lord John Russell, the government of the town passed to its own citizens, and became more or less democratic, not materially differing from the government of cities in the United States. Under able popular leaders, the towns not only became a new political power in Parliament, but enjoyed the privilege of electing their own magistrates and regulating their domestic affairs,–such as the police, schools, the lighting of streets, and public improvements generally.

Besides this important act, some other salutary measures for the general good were carried by parliamentary leaders,–such as enlarging the copyrights of authors, lecturers, and dramatists; abolishing imprisonment for debt for small sums; amending the highway and the marriage laws; enforcing uniformity in weights and measures, regulating prison discipline, and commuting death punishment for many crimes. These reforms, having but little reference to partisan politics, received the approbation of both Whigs and Tories. Most of the important bills which passed the Parliament from the accession of William IV., however, were directly or indirectly the result of the Reform Bill of 1832, which had enlarged the representation of the people.

William IV. died in January, 1837, after a short but prosperous reign of seven years, much lamented by the nation. He was a frank, patriotic, and unconventional king, who accepted the reforms which made his reign an epoch. At his death there were more distinguished men in all departments of politics, literature, science, and art in Great Britain than at any previous period, and the condition of the people was more ameliorated than had been known since the Reformation. A great series of reforms had been peaceably effected without revolution; the kingdom was unusually prosperous; so that Queen Victoria, William's niece, the daughter of his brother the Duke of Kent (whose previous death had made Victoria heir-apparent to the throne), entered upon her illustrious reign under hopeful auspices, June 21, 1837. The reform spirit had passed through no reactions, and all measures which were beneficent in their tendency were favorably considered.

In 1837 Mr. Rowland Hill proposed the startling suggestion that all existing rates of postage should be abolished, and the penny postage substituted for all parts of the kingdom, irrespective of distance. This was not at first accepted by the government or post-office officials; but its desirableness was so apparent that Parliament yielded to the popular voice and it became a law, with increased gain ultimately to the national finances, to say nothing of its immense influence in increasing knowledge. The old postage law had proved oppressive to all classes except members of Parliament, who had the franking privilege, which the new law abolished. Under the old system, the average of letters mailed was annually only four to each person. In 1875 it was thirty-three, and the net revenue to the nation was nearly two million pounds sterling.

Another great reform was effected in the early part of the reign of Victoria,–that of the criminal code, effected chiefly through the persevering eloquence of Sir James Mackintosh; although Sir Samuel Romilly, an eminent and benevolent barrister, as early as 1808, had labored for the same end. But thirty years had made a great change of opinion in reference to the punishment of crime, which was cruelly severe. Capital offences numbered at the beginning of the century nearly two hundred and fifty, some of which were almost venial; but in 1837 only seven crimes were punishable with death, and the accused were allowed benefit of counsel. Before this, the culprit could be condemned without a hearing,–a gross violation of justice, which did not exist even under the imperial despotism of the Caesars.

Such were the most important measures passed by the reformed Parliament during the ten years' administration of the Whigs, most of which were the logical results of the Reform Bill of 1832, which made the reign of William IV. the most memorable in the domestic history of England since the great Revolution which hurled the Stuarts from their throne. But the country was not satisfied with these beneficent reforms. A great agitation had already begun, under the leadership of Cobden and Bright, for a repeal of the Corn Laws. The half measures of the Liberal government displeased all parties, and the annual deficit had made it unpopular. After vainly struggling against the tide of discontent, the Melbourne ministry was compelled to resign, and in 1841 began the second ministry of Sir Robert Peel, which gave power to the Tories for five or six years. Lord Lyndhurst returned to his seat on the woolsack, Mr. Goulburn was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, Sir James Graham became home secretary, Lord Aberdeen took the foreign department, and Lord Stanley the colonial office. Into this cabinet Mr. Gladstone entered as president of the board of trade, on the retirement of Earl Ripon.

The Duke of Wellington also had a seat in the cabinet, but held no office, his age and infirmities preventing him from active duties. He was "the grand old man" of his generation, and had received unparalleled honors, chiefly for his military services,–the greatest general whom England has produced, if we except Marlborough. Although his fame rests on his victories in a great national crisis, he was also an able statesman,–sensible, practical, patriotic; a man of prejudices, yet not without tact; of inflexible will, yet yielding to overpowering necessities, and accepting political defeat as he did the loss of a battle, gracefully and magnanimously. If he had not, however, been a popular idol for his military exploits, he would have been detested by the people; for no one in England was more aristocratic in his sympathies than he, no one was fonder of honors and fashionable distinctions, no one had a more genuine contempt for whatever was plebeian and democratic.