operatives, in a career of rapid prosperity, the profits of
1860 reaching in some instances from 30 to 40 per cent upon
the capital engaged; and with wages also at the highest point
which they had ever touched, came the news of the American
war, with the probable stoppage of 85 per cent of the raw
material of their manufacture. A few wise heads hung
despondently down, or shook with fear for the fate of 'the
freest nation under heaven,' but the great mass of traders
refused to credit a report which neither suited their opinions
nor their interests. ... There was a four months' supply held
on this side the water at Christmas (1860), and there had been
three months' imports at the usual rate since that time, and
there would be the usual twelve months' supply from other
sources; and by the time this was consumed, and the five
months' stock of goods held by merchants sold, all would be
right again. That this was the current opinion was proved by
the most delicate of all barometers, the scale of prices; for
during the greater part of the year 1861 the market was dull,
and prices scarcely moved upwards. But towards the end of the
year the aspect of affairs began to change. ... The Federals
had declared a blockade of the Southern ports, and, although
as yet it was pretty much a 'paper blockade,' yet the newly
established Confederate government was doing its best to
render it effective. They believed that cotton was king in
England, and that the old country could not do without it, and
would be forced, in order to secure its release, to side with
those who kept it prisoner. Mills began to run short time or
to close in the month of October, but no noise was made about
it; and the only evidence of anything unusual was at the
boards of guardians, where the applications had reached the
mid-winter height three months earlier than usual. The
poor-law guardians in the various unions were aware that the
increase was not of the usual character--it was too early for
out-door labourers to present themselves; still the difference
was not of serious amount, being only about 3,000 in the whole
twenty-eight unions. In November, 7,000 more presented
themselves, and in December the increase was again 7,000; so
that the recipients of relief were at this time 12,000 (or
about 25 per cent) more than in the January previous. And now
serious thoughts began to agitate many minds; cotton was very
largely held by speculators for a rise, the arrivals were
meagre in quantity, and the rates of insurance began to show
that, notwithstanding the large profits on imports, the
blockade was no longer on paper alone. January, 1862, added
16,000 more to the recipients of relief, who were now 70 per
cent above the usual number for the same period of the year.
But from the facts as afterwards revealed, the statistics of
boards of guardians were evidently no real measure of the
distress prevailing. ... The month of February usually lessens
the dependents on the poor-rates, for out-door labour begins
again as soon as the signs of spring appear; but in 1862 it
added nearly 9,000 to the already large number of extra cases,
the recipients being now 105 per cent above the average for the
same period of the year.
{967}
But this average gives no idea of the pressure in particular
localities. ... The cotton operatives were now, if left to
themselves, like a ship's crew upon short provisions, and
those very unequally distributed, and without chart or
compass, and no prospect of getting to land. In Ashton there
were 3,197; in Stockport, 8,588; and in Preston, 9,488 persons
absolutely foodless; and who nevertheless declined to go to
the guardians. To have forced the high-minded heads of these
families to hang about the work-house lobbies in company with
the idle, the improvident, the dirty, the diseased, and the
vicious, would have been to break their heaving hearts, and to
hurl them headlong into despair. Happily there is spirit
enough in this country to appreciate nobility, even when
dressed in fustian, and pride and sympathy enough to spare
even the poorest from unnecessary humiliation; and
organisations spring up for any important work so soon as the
necessity of the case becomes urgent in any locality.
Committees arose almost simultaneously in Ashton, Stockport,
and Preston; and in April, Blackburn followed in the train,
and the guardians and the relief committees of these several
places divided an extra 6,000 dependents between them. The
month of May, which usually reduces pauperism to almost its
lowest ebb, added 6,000 more to the recipients from the
guardians, and 5,000 to the dependents on the relief
committees, which were now six in number, Oldham and Prestwich
(a part of Manchester) being added to the list. ... The month
of June sent 6,000 more applicants to sue for bread to the
boards of guardians, and 5,000 additional to the six relief
committees; and these six committees had now as many
dependents as the whole of the boards of guardians in the
twenty-eight unions supported in ordinary years. ... In the
month of July, when all unemployed operatives would ordinarily
be lending a hand in the hay harvest, and picking up the means
of living whilst improving in health and enjoying the glories
of a summer in the country, the distress increased like a
flood, 13,000 additional applicants being forced to appeal for
poor-law relief; whilst 11,000 others were adopted by the
seven relief committees. ... In August the flood had become a
deluge, at which the stoutest heart might stand appalled. The
increased recipients of poor-law relief were in a single
month, 33,000, being nearly as many as the total number
chargeable in the same month of the previous year, whilst a
further addition of more than 34,000 became chargeable to the
relief committees. ... Most of the cotton on hand at this
period was of Indian growth, and needed alterations of
machinery to make it workable at all, and in good times an
employer might as well shut up his mill as try to get it spun
or manufactured. But oh! how glad would the tens of thousands
of unwilling idlers have been now, to have had a chance even
of working at Surats, although they knew that it required much
harder work for one-third less than normal wages. ... Another
month is past, and October has added to the number under the
guardians no less than 55,000, and to the charge of the relief
committees 39,000 more. ... And now dread winter approaches,
and the authorities have to deal not only with hundreds of
thousands who are compulsorily idle, and consequently
foodless, but who are wholly unprepared for the inclemencies
of the season; who have no means of procuring needful
clothing, nor even of making a show of cheerfulness upon the
hearth by means of the fire, which is almost as useful as
food. ... The total number of persons chargeable at the end of
November, 1862, was, under boards of guardians, 258,357, and on
relief committees, 200,084; total 458,441. ... There were not
wanting men who saw, or thought they saw, a short way out of
the difficulty, viz., by a recognition on the part of the
English government of the Southern confederacy in America. And
meetings were called in various places to memorialise the
government to this effect. Such meetings were always balanced
by counter meetings, at which it was shown that simple
recognition would be waste of words; that it would not bring
to our shores a single shipload of cotton, unless followed up
by an armed force to break the blockade, which course if
adopted would be war; war in favour of the slave confederacy
of the South, and against the free North and North-west,
whence comes a large proportion of our imported corn. In
addition to the folly of interfering in the affairs of a
nation 3,000 miles away, the cotton, if we succeeded in
getting it, would be stained with blood and cursed with the
support of slavery, and would also prevent our getting the
food which we needed from the North equally as much as the
cotton from the South. ... These meetings and counter meetings
perhaps helped to steady the action of the government
(notwithstanding the sympathy of some of its members towards
the South), to confirm them in the policy of the royal
proclamation, and to determine them to enforce the provisions
of the Foreign Enlistment Act against all offenders. ... The
maximum pressure upon the relief committees was reached early
in December, 1862, but, as the tide had turned before the end
of the month, the highest number chargeable at any one time is
nowhere shown. The highest number exhibited in the returns is
for the last week in the year 1862, viz.: 485,434 persons; but
in the previous weeks of the same month some thousands more
were relieved."
_J. Watts,
The Facts of the Cotton Famine,
chapters 8 and 12._
ALSO IN:
_R. A. Arnold,
History of the Cotton Famine._
_E. Waugh,
Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1862 (JULY).
The fitting out of the Confederate cruiser Alabama
at Liverpool.
See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1862-1864.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1865.
Governor Eyre and the Jamaica Insurrection.
See JAMAICA: A. D. 1865.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1865-1868.
Death of Palmerston.
Ministry of Lord John Russell.
Its unsatisfactory Reform Bill and its resignation.
Triumph of the Adullamites.
Third administration of Derby and Disraeli,
and its Reform Bills.
"On the death of Lord Palmerston [which occurred October 18,
1865], the premiership was intrusted for the second time to
Earl Russell, with Mr. Gladstone as leader in the House of
Commons. The queen opened her seventh parliament (February 6,
1866), in person, for the first time since the prince
consort's death. On March 12th Mr. Gladstone brought forward
his scheme of reform, proposing to extend the franchise in
counties and boroughs, but the opposition of the moderate
Liberals, and their joining the Conservatives, proved fatal to
the measure, and in consequence the ministry of Earl Russell
resigned.
{968}
The government had been personally weakened by the successive
deaths of Mr. Sidney Herbert, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, the
Duke of Newcastle, Earl of Elgin, and Lord Palmerston. The
queen sent for the Earl of Derby to form a Cabinet, who,
although the Conservative party was in the minority in the
House of Commons, accepted the responsibility of undertaking
the management of the government: he as Premier and First Lord
of the Treasury; Mr. Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer."
_A. H. McCalman,
Abridged History of England,
page 603._
"The measure, in fact, was too evidently a compromise. The
Russell and Gladstone section of the Cabinet wanted reform:
the remnants of Palmerston's followers still thought it
unnecessary. The result was this wretched, tinkering measure,
which satisfied nobody, and disappointed the expectation of
all earnest Reformers. ... The principal opposition came not
from the Conservatives, as might have been expected, but from
Mr. Horsman and Mr. Robert Lowe, both members of the Liberal
party, who from the very first declared they would have none
of it. ... Mr. Bright denounced them furiously as
'Adullamites'; all who were in distress, all who were
discontented, had gathered themselves together in the
political cave of Adullam for the attack on the Government.
But Mr. Lowe, all unabashed by denunciation or sarcasm,
carried the war straight into the enemy's camp in a swift
succession of speeches of extraordinary brilliance and power.
... The party of two, which in its origin reminded Mr. Bright
of 'the Scotch terrier which was so covered with hair that you
could not tell which was the head and which was the tail of
it,' was gradually reinforced by deserters from the ranks of
the Government until at last the Adullamites were strong
enough to turn the scale of a division. Then one wild night,
after a hot and furious debate, the combined armies of the
Adullamites and Conservatives carried triumphantly an
amendment brought forward by one of the Adullamite chiefs,
Lord Dunkellin, to the effect that a rating be substituted for
a rental qualification; and the Government was at an end. ...
The failure of the bill brought Lord Russell's official career
to its close. He formally handed over the leadership of the
party to Mr. Gladstone, and from this time took but little
part in politics. Lord Derby, his opponent, was soon to follow
his example, and then the long-standing duel between Gladstone
and Disraeli would be pushed up to the very front of the
parliamentary stage, right in the full glare of the
footlights. Meanwhile, however, Lord Derby had taken office
[July 9, 1866]. Disraeli and Gladstone were changing weapons
and crossing the stage. ... The exasperated Liberals, however,
were rousing a widespread agitation throughout the country in
favour of Reform: monster meetings were held in Hyde Park; the
Park railings were pulled down and trampled on by an excited
mob, and the police regulations proved as unable to bear the
unusual strain as police regulations usually do on such
occasions. The result was that Mr. Disraeli became convinced
that a Reform Bill of some kind or other was inevitable, and
Mr. Disraeli's opinion naturally carried the day. The
Government, however, did not go straight to the point at once.
They began by proposing a number of resolutions on the
subject, which were very soon laughed out of existence. Then
they brought a bill founded on them, which, however, was very
shortly afterwards withdrawn after a very discouraging
reception. Finally, the Ministry, lightened by the loss of
three of its members--the Earl of Carnarvon, Viscount
Cranborne, and General Peel--announced their intention of
bringing in a comprehensive measure. The measure in question
proposed household suffrage in the boroughs subject to the
payment of rates, and occupation franchise for the counties
subject to the same limitation, and a variety of fanciful
clauses, which would have admitted members of the liberal
professions, graduates of the universities, and a number of
other classes to the franchise. The most novel feature was a
clause which permitted a man to acquire two votes if he
possessed a double qualification by rating and by profession.
The great objection to the bill was that it excluded the
compound householder.' The compound householder is now as
extinct an animal as the potwalloper found in earlier
parliamentary strata, but he was the hero of the Reform
debates of 1867, and as such deserves more than a passing
reference. He was, in fact, an occupier of a small house who
did not pay his rates directly and in person, but paid them
through his landlord. Now the occupiers of these very small
houses were naturally by far the most numerous class of
occupiers in the boroughs, and the omission of them implied a
large exclusion from the franchise. The Liberal party,
therefore, rose in defence of the compound householder, and
the struggle became fierce and hot. It must be remembered,
however, that neither Mr. Gladstone nor Mr. Bright wished to
lower the franchise beyond a certain point, and a meeting was
held in consequence, in which it was agreed that the programme
brought forward in committee should begin by an alteration of
the rating laws, so that the compound householder above a
certain level should pay his own rates and be given a vote,
and that all occupiers below the level should be excluded from
the rates and the franchise alike. On what may be described
roughly as 'the great drawing-the-line question,' however, the
Liberal party once more split up. The advanced section were
determined that all occupiers should be admitted, and they
would have no 'drawing the line.' Some fifty or sixty of them
held a meeting in the tea-room of the House of Commons and
decided on this course of action: in consequence they acquired
the name of the 'Tea-Room Party.' The communication of their
views to Mr. Gladstone made him excessively indignant. He
denounced them in violent language, and his passion was
emulated by Mr. Bright. ... Mr. Gladstone had to give in, and
his surrender was followed by that of Mr. Disraeli. The
Tea-Room Party, in fact, were masters of the day, and were
able to bring sufficient pressure to bear on the Government to
induce them to admit the principle of household suffrage pure
and simple, and to abolish all distinctions of rating. ... Not
only was the household suffrage clause considerably extended,
the dual vote abolished, and most of the fancy franchises
swept away, but there were numerous additions which completely
altered the character of the bill, and transformed it from a
balanced attempt to enlarge the franchise without shifting the
balance of power to a sweeping measure of reform."
_B. C. Skottowe,
Short History of Parliament,
chapter 22._
{969}
The Reform Bill for England "was followed in 1868 by measures
for Scotland and Ireland. By these Acts the county franchise
in England was extended to all occupiers of lands or houses of
the yearly value of £12, and in Scotland to all £5 property
owners and £14 property occupiers; while that in Ireland was
not altered. The borough franchise in England and Scotland was
given to all ratepaying householders and to lodgers occupying
lodgings of the annual value of £10; and in Ireland to all
ratepaying £4 occupiers. Thus the House of Commons was made
nearly representative of all taxpaying commoners, except
agricultural labourers and women."
_D. W. Rannie,
Historical Outline of the English Constitution,
chapter 12, section 4._
ALSO IN:
_W. BAGEHOT,
Essays on Parliamentary Reform, 3._
_G. B. Smith,
Life of Gladstone,
chapters 17-18 (volume 2)._
_W. Robertson,
Life and Times of John Bright,
chapters 39-40._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1865-1869.
Discussion of the Alabama Claims of the United States.
The Johnson-Clarendon Treaty and its rejection.
See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1862-1869.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1867-1868.
Expedition to Abyssinia.
See ABYSSINIA: A. D. 1854-1889.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1868-1870.
Disestablishment of the Irish Church.
Retirement of the Derby-Disraeli Ministry.
Mr. Gladstone in power.
His Irish Land Bill.
"On March 16, 1868, a remarkable debate took place in the
House of Commons. It had for its subject the condition of
Ireland, and it was introduced by a series of resolutions
which Mr. John Francis Maguire, an Irish member, proposed. ...
It was on the fourth night of the debate that the importance
of the occasion became fully manifest. Then it was that Mr.
Gladstone spoke, and declared that in his opinion the time had
come when the Irish Church as a State institution must cease
to exist. Then every man in the House knew that the end was
near. Mr. Maguire withdrew his resolutions. The cause he had
to serve was now in the hands of one who, though not surely
more earnest for its success, had incomparably greater power
to serve it. There was probably not a single Englishman
capable of forming an opinion who did not know that from the
moment when Mr. Gladstone made his declaration, the fall of
the Irish State Church had become merely a question of time.
Men only waited to see how Mr. Gladstone would proceed to
procure its fall. Public expectation was not long kept in
suspense. A few days after the debate on Mr. Maguire's motion,
Mr. Gladstone gave notice of three resolutions on the subject
of the Irish State Church. The first declared that in the
opinion of the House of Commons it was necessary that the
Established Church of Ireland should cease to exist as an
Establishment, due regard being had to all personal interests
and to all individual rights of property. The second
resolution pronounced it expedient to prevent the creation of
new personal interests by the exercise of any public
patronage; and the third asked for an address to the Queen,
praying that Her Majesty would place at the disposal of
Parliament her interest in the temporalities of the Irish
Church. The object of these resolutions was simply to prepare
for the actual disestablishment of the Church, by providing
that no further appointments should be made, and that the
action of patronage should be stayed, until Parliament should
decide the fate of the whole institution. On March 30, 1868,
Mr. Gladstone proposed his resolutions. Not many persons could
have had much doubt as to the result of the debate. But if
there were any such, their doubts must have begun to vanish
when they read the notice of amendment to the resolutions
which was given by Lord Stanley. The amendment proclaimed even
more surely than the resolutions the impending fall of the Irish
Church. Lord Stanley must have been supposed to speak in the
name of the Government and the Conservative party; and his
amendment merely declared that the House, while admitting that
considerable modifications in the temporalities of the Church
in Ireland might appear to be expedient, was of opinion 'that
any proposition tending to the disestablishment or
disendowment of the Church ought to be reserved for the
decision of the new Parliament.' Lord Stanley's amendment
asked only for delay. ... The debate was one of great power
and interest. ... When the division was called there were 270
votes for the amendment, and 331 against it. The doom of the
Irish Church was pronounced by a majority of 61. An interval
was afforded for agitation on both sides. ... Mr. Gladstone's
first resolution came to a division about a month after the
defeat of Lord Stanley's amendment. It was carried by a
majority somewhat larger than that which had rejected the
amendment--330 votes were given for the resolution; 265
against it. The majority for the resolution was therefore 65.
Mr. Disraeli quietly observed that the Government must take
some decisive step in consequence of that vote; and a few days
afterwards it was announced that as soon as the necessary
business could be got through, Parliament would be dissolved
and an appeal made to the country. On the last day of July the
dissolution took place, and the elections came on in November.
Not for many years had there been so important a general
election. The keenest anxiety prevailed as to its results. The
new constituencies created by the Reform Bill were to give
their votes for the first time. The question at issue was not
merely the existence of the Irish State Church. It was a
general struggle of advanced Liberalism against Toryism. ...
The new Parliament was to all appearance less marked in its
Liberalism than that which had gone before it. But so far as
mere numbers went the Liberal party was much stronger than it
had been. In the new House of Commons it could count upon a
majority of about 120, whereas in the late Parliament it had
but 60. Mr. Gladstone it was clear would now have everything
in his own hands, and the country might look for a career of
energetic reform. ... Mr. Disraeli did not meet the new
Parliament as Prime Minister. He decided very properly that it
would be a mere waste of public time to wait for the formal
vote of the House of Commons, which would inevitably command
him to surrender. He at once resigned his office, and Mr.
Gladstone was immediately sent for by the Queen, and invited
to form an Administration. Mr. Gladstone, it would seem, was
only beginning his career. He was nearly sixty years of age,
but there were scarcely any evidences of advancing years to be
seen on his face. ... The Government he formed was one of
remarkable strength. ... Mr. Gladstone went to work at once
with his Irish policy.
{970}
On March 1, 1869, the Prime Minister introduced his measure
for the disestablishment and partial disendowment of the Irish
State Church. The proposals of the Government were, that the
Irish Church should almost at once cease to exist as a State
Establishment, and should pass into the condition of a free
Episcopal Church. As a matter of course the Irish bishops were
to lose their seats in the House of Lords. A synodal, or
governing body, was to be elected from the clergy and laity of
the Church and was to be recognised by the Government, and
duly incorporated. The union between the Churches of England
and Ireland was to be dissolved, and the Irish Ecclesiastical
Courts were to be abolished. There were various and
complicated arrangements for the protection of the life
interests of those already holding positions in the Irish
Church, and for the appropriation of the fund which would
return to the possession of the State when all these interests
had been fairly considered and dealt with. ... Many amendments
were introduced and discussed; and some of these led to a
controversy between the two Houses of Parliament; but the
controversy ended in compromise. On July 26, 1869, the measure
for the disestablishment of the Irish Church received the
royal assent. Lord Derby did not long survive the passing of
the measure which he had opposed with such fervour and so much
pathetic dignity. Be died before the Irish State Church had
ceased to live. ... When the Irish Church had been disposed
of, Mr. Gladstone at once directed his energies to the Irish
land system. ... In a speech delivered by him during his
electioneering campaign in Lancashire, he had declared that
the Irish upas-tree had three great branches: the State
Church, the Land Tenure System, and the System of Education,
and that he meant to hew them all down if he could. On
February 15, 1870, Mr. Gladstone introduced his Irish Land
Bill into the House of Commons. ... It recognised a certain
property or partnership of the tenant in the land which he
tilled. Mr. Gladstone took the Ulster tenant-right as he found
it, and made it a legal institution. In places where the
Ulster practice, or something analogous to it, did not exist,
he threw upon the landlord the burden of proof as regarded the
right of eviction. The tenant disturbed in the possession of
his land could claim compensation for improvements, and the
bill reversed the existing assumption of the law by presuming
all improvements to be the property of the tenant, and leaving
it to the landlord, if he could, to prove the contrary. The
bill established a special judiciary machinery for carrying
out its provisions. ... It put an end to the reign of the
landlord's absolute power; it reduced the landlord to the
level of every other proprietor, of every other man in the
country who had anything to sell or hire. ... The bill passed
without substantial alteration. On August 1, 1870, the bill
received the Royal assent. The second branch of the upas-tree
had been hewn down. ... Mr. Gladstone had dealt with Church
and land; he had yet to deal with university education. He had
gone with Irish ideas thus far."
_J. McCarthy,
Short History of Our Own Times,
chapter 23._
ALSO IN:
_W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 3, chapter 6._
_Annual Register, 1869,
part 1: English History,
chapters 2-3, and 1870, chapters 1-2._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1870.
The Education Bill.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES,
ENGLAND: A. D. 1699-1870.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1871.
Abolition of Army Purchase and University Religious Tests.
Defeat of the Ballot Bill.