Death of William IV., and Accession of Queen Victoria.--Rise of the
Chartists.--Resignation of Lord Melbourne in 1839, and his Resumption of
Office.--Marriage of the Queen, and Consequent Arrangements.--The
Precedence of the Prince, etc.--Post-office Reform.--War in
Afghanistan.--Discontent in Jamaica.--Insurrection in Canada.--New
Constitution for Canada and other Colonies.--Case of Stockdale and
Hansard.
The reforms mentioned in the preceding chapter were the last measures of
the reign of William IV. In the summer of the next year, 1837, he died,
and was succeeded in his British, though not in his Hanoverian,
dominions by our present gracious sovereign, who had only just arrived
at the age which entitled her to exercise the full authority of the
crown. The change was calculated to strengthen the crown, by enlisting
the chivalrous feelings of all that was best in the nation in the
support of a youthful Queen, and in a lesser degree it for a time
strengthened the ministry also; but, with respect to the latter, the
feeling did not last long. For the next three years the summers were
very unfavorable to the farmer; the harvests were bad; the inevitable
accompaniment of a rise in prices had caused severe and general
distress, and distress had produced clamorous discontent, and in some
districts formidable riots. It had been greatly aggravated in the
manufacturing counties by the operations of the trades-unions, which had
gradually put forth pretensions to regulate the wages and other
conditions of work, and had enforced them with such tyrannical violence,
not flinching from the foulest crimes, that in many instances they had
driven the masters to close their factories rather than submit to their
mandates; and in others had compelled the workmen themselves to
discontinue their labors, thus spreading destitution among thousands
whose earnings, if they had been allowed to consult their own wishes,
would have been amply sufficient for the support of their families;[245]
and the evil had grown to such a height, that in 1838 a committee was
appointed by the House of Commons to investigate the whole subject of
trade combinations. But the turbulent spirit excited by this distress
did not now confine itself to single outbreaks of violence, but, under
the guidance of some demagogues of a more methodical turn of mind than
usual, developed itself in a systematic organization having for its
object what they called "the people's charter," which aimed at a total
revolution of the existing parliamentary system, with the avowed design
that, when adopted, it should eventually lead to an entire
reconstruction of the government. The Chartists, as they called
themselves, had advocates even in Parliament, who presented their
petitions to the House of Commons, and tried, though unsuccessfully, to
give them importance by the appointment of a committee to investigate
the character of the reforms which they demanded. They were not,
however, contented with peaceful modes of pressing their demands, but,
in the course of the summer of 1839, broke out in formidable riots in
different parts of the country. At Birmingham they set fire to different
parts of the town, carrying on their work of pillage and destruction to
such a pitch that the Duke of Wellington compared the condition of the
town to one taken by storm in regular warfare; and at Newport, in
Monmouthshire, they even planned and carried out an attack on the troops
quartered in the district. But this violence led for a time to the
suppression of the movement, the leaders in the Newport riots being
convicted of high-treason; and, though the government forbore to put the
extreme severities of the law in force against them, those who remained
unconvicted had been taught by their example the danger which they
incurred by such proceedings; and some years elapsed before a series of
revolutionary troubles on the Continent again gave a momentary
encouragement to those in this country who sympathized with the
revolutionists, and prompted them to another attempt to force their
views upon the government and the people.
It had nearly, however, been another ministry on whom the task of
quelling these riots had fallen. Though, as has been already said, Lord
Melbourne's cabinet derived a momentary strength from the accession of a
young Queen, the support it thus acquired did not last; and in May,
1839, having been defeated on a measure of colonial policy, which will
be mentioned hereafter, the cabinet resigned. The Queen intrusted the
task of forming a new administration to Sir Robert Peel, who undertook
it with a reasonable confidence that he should be able to hold his
ground better than formerly, now that the retirement of his predecessors
was their own act, and admitted by them to have been caused by a
consciousness of the divisions among their supporters and their own
consequent weakness. He had the greater reason for such confidence,
since two of the colleagues of Lord Grey who had refused his offers in
1834, Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, were now willing to unite with
him; and he had almost completed his arrangements, when he was stopped
by an unexpected, though not altogether unprecedented, impediment. It
will be recollected that, in 1812, some of the arrangements for the
formation of a new administration on the death of Mr. Perceval were
impeded by a doubt which was felt in some quarters whether the new
ministers would be allowed to remove one or two officers of the
household, to whom the Regent was generally understood to be greatly
attached, but who were hostile to the party which hoped to come into
power, though it was afterward known that these officers had felt
themselves bound to retire as soon as the arrangements in contemplation
should be completed.[246] Sir Robert Peel was now met by a difficulty of
the same kind, but one which the retiring ministers had the address to
convert into a real obstacle. The Queen, who had warm affections, but
who could not possibly have yet acquired any great knowledge of
business, had become attached to the ladies whom Lord Melbourne had
appointed to the chief places in her household. It had never occurred to
her to regard their offices in a political light; and, consequently,
when she found that Sir Robert considered it indispensable that some
changes should be made in those appointments, she at once refused her
consent, terming his proposal one "contrary to usage and repugnant to
her feelings." Sir Robert, however, felt bound to adhere to his request
for the removal of some of the ladies in question; for, in fact, they
were the wives and sisters of his predecessors, and a continuance of
their daily intercourse with the Queen might reasonably be expected to
have some influence over her Majesty's judgment of the measures which he
might feel it his duty to propose. Such a difficulty could not have
arisen under a male sovereign; but Lord Melbourne himself had departed
from the ordinary practice when he surrounded his royal mistress with
ladies so closely identified with his cabinet. It is very possible that
he had originally made the appointments without any such design, from
the careless indifference which was his most marked characteristic; but
he cannot be so easily acquitted when, in reply to the Queen's
application to him for advice on the subject, he, being joined in his
assertion by Lord John Russell, assured her that Sir Robert Peel's
demand was unjustifiable and unprecedented. Supported by the positive
dictum of the ministers on whose judgment she had hitherto been bound to
rely, the Queen naturally adhered to her decision of refusing to permit
the removal of the ladies in question, and the result was that Sir
Robert Peel declined to take office under circumstances of difficulty
beyond those to which every new minister must of necessity be exposed,
and Lord Melbourne and his colleagues resumed their posts. The
transaction was, of course, canvassed in both Houses of Parliament. Sir
Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington, who was the spokesman of the
party in the House of Lords, defended their refusal to undertake the
government on any other condition than that for which they had
stipulated, on the ground that the authority to make such changes in the
household as they had proposed was indispensable, as a proof of their
possession of her Majesty's confidence; while Lord Melbourne, with a
strange exaggeration, defended the advice which he had given her Majesty
by the assertion that to have complied with Sir Robert Peel's proposal
would have been "inconsistent with her personal honor." Other arguments
on the same side were based on the alleged cruelty of separating her
Majesty "from the society of her earliest friends, her old and constant
companions;" an argument which was disposed of by Lord Brougham's
remark, that till she had become Queen (not yet two years before) she
had had no acquaintance with them whatever.[247]
But it is needless to dwell at any length on the case, in which all
subsequent historians and political critics, however generally
prepossessed in favor of the Liberal ministers, have given up their
position as untenable. Her Majesty herself kept strictly on the path of
the constitution in guiding herself by the counsels of those who, till
their successors were appointed, were still her responsible advisers.
But the course which they recommended was absolutely irreconcilable with
one fundamental principle of the constitution--the universal
responsibility of the ministers. In denying the right of the incoming
ministers to remodel the household (or any other body of offices) in
whatever degree they might consider requisite, they were clearly
limiting the ministerial authority. To limit the ministerial authority
is to limit the ministerial responsibility; to limit the ministerial
responsibility is to impose some portion of responsibility (that portion
from which it relieves the minister) on the sovereign himself, a
dangerous consequence from which the constitution most carefully
protects him. In fact, that the advice Lord Melbourne gave was
indefensible was tacitly confessed by himself, when, on the recurrence
of the same emergency two years later, he was compelled to recommend a
different course;[248] and the ladies whom Sir Robert had considered it
necessary to remove anticipated their dismissal by voluntary
resignation. It may be added that, at the close of this same year, Lord
Melbourne himself insisted on nominating the private secretary to the
Prince whom the Queen was about to marry, though no one could pretend
that offices in his household were as important as those in that of the
sovereign; and though, if there was any post in which the Prince might
have been supposed to have a right to an unfettered choice, that might
have been supposed to have been the office of his private
secretary.[249]
Her Majesty's marriage with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, her first
cousin--one tending as greatly to the happiness of herself and the
advantage of the nation as any royal marriage recorded in history--took
place in the beginning of 1840; and in the preparatory arrangements--
matters of far greater consequence to the Queen's feelings than any
appointments in the household--the ministry, by singular mismanagement,
contrived to force the consideration of other constitutional questions
on Parliament in such a way that the conclusions which were adopted,
however inevitable, could hardly fail to be mortifying and vexatious to
her Majesty, in whose cup of happiness at such a moment special care
ought rather to have been taken to prevent the admixture of any such
alloy. In the matter of the annuity to be settled on the young Prince,
the Opposition must, indeed, share the blame with the minister. If it
was unpardonable carelessness in the latter to omit the usual practice
of previously consulting the leaders of the Opposition on the amount of
the grant to be proposed, it was not the less impolitic and unworthy of
such men as the Duke and Sir Robert Peel to show their disapproval of
the inattention by a curtailment of the grant. The sum proposed, £50,000
a year, was fairly justified by the fact of its being the same which
twenty-four years before had been settled on the Prince's uncle,
Leopold, on his marriage with the Princess Charlotte. Indeed, if there
were to be any difference, the circumstances might have been regarded as
warranting an increase rather than a diminution of it. Money was
certainly more plentiful in 1840 than in 1816, and the husband of an
actual Queen occupied, beyond all question, a higher position than the
husband of the heiress-presumptive, who might never become Queen, and
who, in fact, never did. We cannot think, therefore, that the reduction
of £20,000, which Sir Robert Peel proposed and carried, was reasonable
or becoming, but regard it as neither called for by the circumstances of
the kingdom, nor as befitting its liberality, nor as in harmony with its
practice.
But on the two other questions--one immediately affecting the
constitution, and the other not absolutely unconnected with it--no
defence of the minister seems available. At the opening of Parliament in
1840, her Majesty commenced her speech by the announcement of her
intended marriage, describing the bridegroom simply as "the Prince of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha," the same expression which she had used in
addressing the Privy Council a few weeks before. That description of him
had at once struck her uncle, Leopold--who, since the death of his
English wife, the Princess Charlotte, had become King of Belgium--as so
imperfect and insufficient, that, on reading her address to the Privy
Council, he at once wrote to her to point out that it would have been
desirable to mention the fact of the Prince being a Protestant,[250] and
that the omission would inevitably cause discontent. But, in spite of
this warning, Lord Melbourne refused to advise the Queen to insert a
statement of the Prince's religion in her speech, though it was by no
means superfluous on such an occasion, since, if he were a Roman
Catholic, a marriage with him would have incurred a forfeiture of the
crown. The Duke of Wellington, on the other hand, regarded it as a
positive duty to require that the fact of the Prince being a Protestant
should be mentioned, so as to show the care of Parliament to prevent any
constitutional precautions from being overlooked, such statement having,
indeed, been usually made on similar occasions. When he, therefore,
moved an amendment to insert the word "Protestant" in the description of
the Prince, Lord Melbourne did not venture to divide the House against
it; but still his management gave an ungracious appearance to the
transaction, as if there had been in any quarter an unwillingness to
recognize the fact of the Prince's Protestantism till the recognition
was forced on the government by the action of the Parliament.
The third question, as affecting the relative ranks and positions of the
different members of the royal family, cannot be said to have been
wholly unconnected with the provisions of the constitution; and the
mismanagement of the minister was, perhaps, even more sure to attract
notice in this case than in the other, since to introduce into a bill a
clause which had no connection whatever with its title had something of
the appearance of a deliberate slight to the two Houses. A bill to
naturalize the Prince was, of course, indispensable. But into it the
ministers, without any notice, had introduced a clause enabling him
"during his life to take precedence in rank after her Majesty in
Parliament and elsewhere as her Majesty might think fit and proper, any
law, statute, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding." It was
admitted that no such precedence had been given to Prince George of
Denmark, nor to Prince Leopold. And there were obvious difficulties in
the way of conferring such a life-long precedence, because, as Lord
Brougham had pointed out, it was possible that the Queen might die
without issue, in which case the King of Hanover would become King of
England also, and his son the Prince of Wales; and it would have been an
inconceivable anomaly that a foreign naturalized prince should take
precedence of the Prince of Wales, whose special rank and importance was
recognized in many acts of Parliament. This objection was so clearly
insuperable, that Lord Melbourne consented to alter the clause so as to
give the Prince precedence only "after the heir-apparent." But even this
concession failed to satisfy the objectors, the King of Hanover, among
others, positively refusing to waive his precedence over any foreign
prince. And eventually the minister withdrew the clause altogether, and
the bill, as it was passed, was confined to the naturalization of the
Prince. Lord Melbourne had thus contrived to make the Queen and Prince
appear as if they were desirous to induce the two Houses by a sort of
trick to confer on the Prince a precedence and dignity to which he was
not entitled, and to render the refusal of Parliament to be so cajoled a
fresh cause of mortification to the royal pair. The course that was
eventually adopted is understood to have been suggested by the Duke of
Wellington--to withdraw the affair altogether from the cognizance of
Parliament, and to leave it to the Queen to confer on the Prince
whatever precedence she might choose, as it was certainly within her
right to do. And so, a few days after the bill had passed, she did by
letters-patent give him precedence next to herself "on all occasions and
in all meetings, except when otherwise provided by act of Parliament,"
as, seventeen years later, she, in the same way, with the cordial
approval of the whole nation, conferred on him the title of Prince
Consort. And apart from its convenience, as avoiding all unseemly
discussions, this would seem to have been the most natural and proper
mode of settling such a matter. The Queen is the fountain of honor in
this kingdom, and at her own court she can certainly confer on any of
her own subjects whatever precedence she may think fit, while it may be
doubted whether any act of a British Parliament could give precedence at
a foreign court. It was, probably, not in his character of Duke of
Cumberland, but as an independent sovereign, that the King of Hanover
maintained his claim to superior precedence; and it was plain that the
most illustrious subject could not possibly at any court be allowed to
rank above a king. With reference to its possible effect on the
subsequent relations of Peel and his followers with the court, it was,
perhaps, well that a few months later they had the opportunity of
proving that no personal objection to the Prince himself had influenced
their course in these transactions, by giving a cordial assent to the
ministerial proposal of conferring the Regency on him in the event of
the Queen giving an heir to the throne, and dying while he was still a
minor. The principle was the same as that which had guided the
arrangements for a Regency ten years before; but it was not
inconceivable that Parliament might have hesitated to intrust so large
an authority to so very young a man, and him a comparative stranger,
such as the Prince still was, had the leaders of the Opposition given
the slightest countenance to such an objection.
Lord Melbourne's ministry was hardly strengthened by the circumstances
under which it resumed office. Yet the close of the same year witnessed
a reform of which it is hardly too much to say that no single measure of
this century has contributed more to the comfort of the whole mass of
the people, with which it has also combined solid commercial benefits.
Hitherto the Post-office had been managed in a singular manner, and the
profit derived from it had been treated as something distinct from the
ordinary revenue of the kingdom. In the reign of Charles II. it had been
given to the Duke of York, and the grant was regarded as conferring on
him such extensive rights, that when, some years afterward, an
enterprising citizen set up a penny post for the delivery of letters in
the City and its precincts, the Duke complained of the scheme as an
infraction of his monopoly, and the courts of law decided in his favor.
That grant ceased, as a matter of course, on the Duke's accession to the
throne; and in the reign of Queen Anne a portion of the Post-office
proceeds was appropriated, with the general consent of a grateful
country, to reward the great achievements of the Duke of Malborough, a
perpetual charge on it of £5000 a year being annexed to the dukedom. In
those days the postage of a letter was twopence for short distances, and
threepence for any distance beyond eighty miles.[251] But those charges
had been gradually increased; about the middle of the century the lowest
charge was fixed at fourpence, rising in proportion to the distance,
till the conveyance of a single letter from one extremity of the kingdom
to the other cost eighteen-pence. Such a rate could not fail to be very
profitable; and by the beginning of the present reign the yearly profit
exceeded a million and a half of money. The heaviness of the charge,
however, had latterly attracted attention, and had been the cause of
many complaints, as being a great discouragement, and, in the case of
the poorer classes, a complete obstacle to communication. However,
neither the ministers nor the Parliament had succeeded in devising any
remedy, since a system affording so large a return was not a thing
lightly to tamper with, when those who complained suddenly found a
practical leader in Mr. Rowland Hill, who published a pamphlet on the
subject, in which he affirmed the cost of the conveyance of each letter
even for such a distance as from London to Edinburgh to be infinitely
less than a farthing; and that, consequently, all the rest of the
postage was a tax for the purposes of revenue. When this fact was once
established, it needed no argument to prove that to increase the tax
paid by each recipient of a letter in proportion to the distance at
which he lived from the writer was an indefensible unfairness; and,
after much investigation and discussion, Mr. Hill succeeded in
converting the ministers to his view. Accordingly, the Budget for 1839,
introduced by Mr. Spring Rice, then Chancellor of the Exchequer,
contained a clause which reduced the postage for every letter weighing
less than an ounce to a uniform charge of a penny, to be prepaid by
means of a stamp to be affixed to each letter by the sender. It was not
without plainly-expressed reluctance that the scheme was consented to by
the Opposition; nor can their hesitation be considered as unreasonable,
in the very unsatisfactory condition of the finances of the kingdom at
the time. The balance-sheet of the preceding year showed a considerable
deficiency. There was a large unfunded debt; and even Mr. Hill's most
sanguine calculations admitted a probable loss to the Post-office of
£1,200,000 for the first year or two; though he expressed his confidence
that eventually the correspondence of the kingdom would be found to
increase so largely as to make up for the greater part, if not the
whole, of the deficiency. His anticipations were far outran by the
reality.
In 1839 the Postmaster-general estimated the number of letters sent
yearly by the post at less than twenty-five millions. They are now
upward of a thousand millions, a number the conveyance of which (with
the addition of newspapers, whose circulation had also been greatly
augmented by a recent reduction of the tax to a penny) would have
severely taxed the whole carrying power of the kingdom before the
introduction of railroads. Nor have the benefits of the new system been
confined to ourselves. Foreign nations have followed our example, though
not quite in the same degree, till an international postage is at length
established throughout the whole of the civilized world. And it has not
been only the happiness of private individuals that has been augmented
by this facility of communication. In its gradual development it has
largely promoted the extension of trade of every kind, and, by
facilitating a commercial intercourse between nations, it cannot but
contribute to the maintenance of friendship and peace.
The full advantages of this reform could not be seen at first; but, even
had it been appreciated as fully as we appreciate it now, no approval of
it could have counterbalanced the general dissatisfaction with which the
ministry was regarded. At home the finances were falling into great
disorder, the expenditure of the year greatly exceeding the income;
while the feeling that their Irish policy was dictated by a wish to
purchase at any price the support of O'Connell, was still more injurious
to them, for he was already beginning to renew agitation in Ireland,
inaugurating a new association, which, though its purposes were faintly
veiled for a time under the title of the Precursor Association, was
understood to point at a repeal of the Union; while the ministers,
though they denounced such a measure as ruinous to every part of the
kingdom, seemed willing to give it practical encouragement by a bill
which they introduced, which bore the name of a Registration Act for
Ireland, but which was not confined to that object. On the contrary, it
contained a provision for lowering the qualification for the franchise
by one-half; so that it was, in fact, a new Reform Bill for
Ireland,[252] calculated greatly to increase his influence by the number
of voters of the poorer classes whom it would create. The bill was
defeated, but the odium of having proposed it remained.
But, besides these home difficulties, there were troubles abroad, both
in the East and in the West. In the East, the complications inseparable
from a dominion like that of ours in India, where constant expansion
seemed to have become a law of its existence, had involved us in a war
with a new enemy, the warlike Afghan nation; in the West, both Jamaica
and Canada were in a state threatening insurrection. Indeed, the
troubles in Jamaica had been the immediate cause of that resignation of
the ministry in 1839 which has already been mentioned. Measures adopted
in the English Parliament with reference to the termination of that
apprenticeship system which, as we have seen, formed a part of the bill
for the abolition of slavery, and another for the regulation of the
prisons in the island, had given such offence to the colonial Assembly,
never very manageable, that the members passed a resolution that their
legislative rights had been violated, and that they would abstain from
all exercise of their legislative functions, except such as might be
necessary "to preserve inviolate the faith of the island with the public
creditor, until" (by the rescinding of the resolutions, etc., of which
they complained) "they should be left to the free exercise of their
inherent rights as British subjects." And this resolution was seconded
by an insulting protest, in which they drew an offensive comparison
between the state of crime in the island and that which prevailed in
Great Britain, taunting the British Parliament with the murders and acts
of incendiarism which terrified Ireland night and day, with the murders
of Burke and Hare in Scotland, with the law of divorce and _crim. con._
trials in England, and "a Poor-law which has taken millions from the
necessities of the destitute to add to the luxuries of the wealthy." The
Governor dissolved the Assembly, but that which succeeded re-adopted the
resolutions of its predecessor, and the ministers, in consequence,
brought in a bill "to suspend the existing constitution of the island
for a limited number of years, and to provide that during that interval
its legislative functions should not be exercised by a Governor, a
Council, and a House of Assembly, but should reside in the Governor and
Council alone." The emergency was too great and undeniable, the remedy
proposed was also too unprecedented in its stringency, to be dealt with
without the gravest deliberation; and the House of Commons accordingly
gave the matter the patient consideration which became both it and
themselves. They allowed the island to appear by counsel against the
bill, and listened for many hours to an elaborate defence of the conduct
of the Assembly, which if it failed to change the intention of the
ministers, convinced Sir Robert Peel and his party that their measure
was doubtful in its justification and impolitic in its severity. He
pointed out that "the bill was neither more nor less than one for the
establishment of a complete despotism--one which would establish the
most unqualified, unchecked, unmitigated power that was ever yet applied
to the government of any community, in place of that liberal system
which had prevailed for upward of one hundred and fifty years." And,
though he did not for a moment question the power of Parliament to pass
such a measure, he greatly doubted the policy of such an exertion of it.
A somewhat similar measure affecting Canada they had been compelled to
enact in the preceding year, and he feared lest "it might seem to be
coming to be a practice of Parliament to suspend a constitution every
session." And he quoted a speech of Canning, delivered fifteen years
before, in which that eloquent statesman, a man by no means inclined to
a timorous policy, had declared that "no feeling of wounded pride, no
motive of questionable expediency, nothing short of real and
demonstrable necessity, should ever induce him to moot the awful
question of the transcendental power of Parliament over every dependency
of the British crown. That transcendental power was an ordinance of
empire, which ought to be kept back within the penetralia of the
constitution. It exists, but it should be veiled. It should not be
produced on trifling occasions, or in cases of petty refractoriness or
temporary misconduct."
And Sir Robert, "looking at all the papers before the House, could not
say that there was here any vindication for bringing forward this
transcendental power." He asked whether "they had ever treated with so
much severity a conquered colony amid the first heat of animosity after
the contest." And he traced the history of our government of the island
back to the time of Charles II., pointing out (as Burke had formerly
argued with respect to our Colonies in North America) that "Jamaica owed
its colonization by British subjects to the conquest that was made of it
by the arms of Cromwell; that its first English population was composed
of those who, disgusted with the excesses of the civil wars, there found
a refuge," and who had carried with them that attachment to liberty
which, as early as 1678, had led them successfully to repel the attacks
made on the privileges of their House of Assembly by the ministers of
Charles II. He warned the House, also, that if this measure were passed,
"a sympathy for the people of Jamaica would be excited throughout the
other West Indian possessions of the crown." And, while fully admitting
that the conduct of the Assembly had been "foolish and unjustifiable,"
he still recommended that it should be treated in a conciliatory spirit,
which as yet had not been shown toward it.
The government carried their proposal by a majority of no more than five
in a very full house, a success which they regarded as a defeat, and, as
has been already mentioned, resigned. But as the state of the question
and of the island did not admit of delay, on their resumption of their
offices they introduced a fresh measure, which the Conservatives again
curtailed of its most severe clauses, and which, in the form in which it
was eventually passed, gave the Assembly time to reconsider its conduct,
and, without the humiliation of confessing itself guilty, to give a
practical recantation of their offensive resolutions, by resuming its
work of legislation, any farther delay of which would on many subjects
be very mischievous to the island itself. The distinct assertion by both
parties of the power of the Parliament to inflict even the severest
penalty enabled the Houses to take this conciliatory course without loss
of dignity; while the stern disapproval of the conduct of the Assembly
which the Conservative leader had expressed, even when pleading for a
milder treatment of it, convinced the colonists that any protracted
contumacy would be dangerous, and would deprive them for the future of
all title to even the modified protection which on this occasion had
saved them.
In the discussion of these transactions, Peel, as we have seen, had
alluded to the affairs of Canada, which had been of a still more serious
complexion; since there the discontent of the colonists in the Lower
Province had developed into armed insurrection. We have seen that, from
the first moment after the country had passed into our possession, there
had been almost constant dissensions between the old French colonists
and the English immigrants who crossed over both from England and from
the colonies on the southern side of the St. Lawrence in the early part
of the reign of George III. The desire of terminating these divisions,
which had their root in a difference of religion as well as of race, the
French settlers being Roman Catholics, had been one of the chief motives
which had led Pitt in 1791 to divide the country into two
provinces.[253] And for many years the scheme was fairly successful;
but, toward the end of the reign of George IV., the political excitement
caused by the agitation in England of the question of Catholic
Emancipation, and subsequently of Reform, spread across the Atlantic to
the Canadas; and the French portion of the colonists, who almost
monopolized the representation in Lower Canada, began to urge the
adoption of changes utterly inconsistent with the existing constitution
of the colony. In the hope of compelling the compliance of the home
government with their demands, in 1832 and the following years they
refused to vote the necessary supplies; and, gaining courage, as it
were, from the contemplation of their own violence, and under the
guidance of a leader of French extraction, a M. Papineau, who scarcely
concealed his hope of effecting the complete severance of the Lower
Province from the British dominion, they proceeded to put forth farther
demands, which they regarded as plausible from the apparent resemblance
of the changes which they required to the system of the English
constitution, but which, to use the words in which Sir Robert Peel
described them, would have established "a French republic." The most
important of them were that the Upper or Legislative Council should,
like the Assembly, be rendered elective, instead of, as had hitherto
been the case, being nominated by the crown. And another asked that the
Executive Council should be made responsible to the Assembly, in the
same manner as in England the ministers of the crown were responsible to
Parliament. As it was at once shown that the ministry at home had no
intention of granting these demands, Papineau collected a band of
malcontents in arms, with whom he took possession of one or two small
towns, and ventured even to measure his strength with the
Commander-in-chief of the province, Sir John Colborne, one of the most
distinguished of Wellington's comrades and pupils. His force was utterly
routed, and he himself fled across the frontier to New York. A similar
outbreak, excited in the Upper Province by a newspaper editor, was
crushed with equal ease and rapidity.[254] And the next year, 1838, Lord
John Russell brought forward a bill to suspend the constitution of the
colony, and to confer on a new Governor, who was at once to proceed
thither, very ample powers for remodelling the government of the
province, subject, of course, to the sanction of the home government. In
the previous year he had succeeded in carrying some resolutions
announcing the determination of Parliament not to concede the demands of
the Assembly of the Lower Province, which have been already mentioned.
And the reasons which he gave for this course are worth preserving, as
expressing the view recognized by Parliament of the relations properly
existing between the mother country and a colony. It was on a proper
understanding of them that he based his refusal to make the Executive
Council in Canada responsible to the Assembly. He held such a step to be
"entirely incompatible with those relations. Those relations require
that his Majesty should be represented, not by a person removable by the
House of Assembly, but by a Governor sent out by the King, responsible
to the King, and responsible to the Parliament of Great Britain. This is
the necessary constitution of a colony; and if we have not these
relations existing between the mother country and the colony, we shall
soon have an end of these relations altogether." And he pointed out the
practical difficulties which might reasonably be apprehended if such a
change as was asked were conceded. "The person sent out by the King as
Governor, and those ministers in whom the Assembly confided, might
differ in opinion, and there would be at once a collision between the
measures of the King and the conduct of the representatives of the
colony."
The plan of sending out a new Governor free from any previous
association with either of the parties, or any of the recent
transactions in the colony, was, probably, the wisest that could have
been adopted. Unfortunately, it was in some degree marred by the choice
of the statesman sent out, Lord Durham, a man of unquestioned ability,
but of an extraordinarily self-willed and overbearing temper. He drew up
a most able report of the state of the provinces, combined with
recommendations of the course to be pursued toward them in future, so
judicious that subsequent ministers, though widely differing from his
views of general politics, saw no better plan than that which he had
suggested; but, unhappily, the measures which he himself adopted,
especially with respect to the treatment of those who had been leaders
in the late rebellion, were such manifest violations of law, that the
government at home had no alternative but that of disallowing some of
them, and carrying a bill of indemnity for others. He took such offence
at their treatment of him, though it was quite inevitable, that he at
once resigned his appointment and returned home. But the next year the
Queen sent down a message to the Houses recommending a union of the two
provinces (a measure which had been the most important, and the very
foundation, of his suggestions), and Lord John Russell introduced a bill
which, as he described its object, he hoped would "lay the foundation of
a permanent settlement of the affairs of the entire colony." The main
feature of the government policy was the formation of "a legislative
union of the two provinces on the principles of a free and
representative government," and the establishment of such a system of
local government as amounted to a practical recognition of the principle
so earnestly repudiated, as we have seen, by Lord John Russell a year or
two before. It was not, perhaps, fully carried out at first. Lord
Sydenham, who had succeeded Lord Durham, reported to the home
government, as the result of a tour which he had taken through a great
part of the country, that in the whole of the Upper Province, and among
the British settlers of the Lower Province, "an excellent spirit
prevailed, and that he had found everywhere a determination to forget
past differences, and to unite in an endeavor to obtain under the union
those practical measures for the improvement of the country which had
been too long neglected in the struggle for party and personal objects."
But of the French Canadians he could not give so favorable a report.
Efforts were still made by some of the old Papineau party to mislead the
people; but he was satisfied they would not again be able to induce the
peasantry to support any attempt at disturbance. It was natural that
that party should still feel some soreness at the utter failure of their
recent attempts and the disappointment of their hopes; and affairs took
the longer time in being brought into perfect order and harmony through
a strange mortality which took place among the first Governors-general.
Lord Sydenham died the next year of lockjaw, brought on by a fall from
his horse; Sir Charles Bagot was forced to retire in a state of hopeless
bad health after an administration equally brief; two years later, Sir
Charles Metcalfe, who succeeded him, returned home only to die; and it
was not till a fourth Governor, Lord Elgin, succeeded to the government
that it could be said that the new system, though established five years
before, had a fair trial.
Fortunately, he was a man admirably qualified by largeness of
statesman-like views and a most conciliatory disposition for such a post
at such a time; and he strictly carried out the scheme which was implied
by the bill of Lord John Russell, and to a certain extent inaugurated by
Lord Sydenham, selecting his advisers from the party which had the
confidence of the Legislative Assembly, and generally directing his
policy in harmony with their counsels; so that under his government the
working of the colonial constitution was a nearly faithful reproduction
of the parliamentary constitution at home. Such a policy was in reality
only a development of the principle laid down by Pitt half a century
before, and warmly approved by his great rival, that "the only method of
retaining distant colonies with advantage is to enable them to govern
themselves."[255] And since that day similar constitutions have been
established in our other distant dependencies as they have become ripe
for them--in New Zealand, the Cape, and the Australian colonies--almost
the only powers reserved to the home government in those colonies in
which such constitutions have been established being that of appointing
the governors; that of ratifying or, if necessary, disallowing measures
adopted by the colonial government; and, in cases of necessity, that of
prescribing measures for the adoption of the local Legislatures, and
even of compelling such adoption, in the event of any persevering
opposition. The act of 1850, which established a constitution in
Victoria, went even farther in the privileges it conferred on the
colonists, inasmuch as it gave power to the Legislative Council to alter
some of its provisions, and even to remodel the Legislative Council and
Assembly. It may be doubted whether this last concession did not go too
far, since in more than one important instance the government of that
great colony has availed itself of it so liberally as to render it
necessary to pass a fresh act of Parliament to enable her Majesty to
give her royal assent to some of the changes which the Assembly had
enacted.[256] Indeed, it cannot be said that the system has worked in
every part or on every occasion quite as well as might have been hoped;
nor can it be denied that the colonies have occasionally claimed a power
of independent action in opposition to the home Parliament in a way to
try severely the patience of the home government. After the British
Parliament had adopted the policy and system of free-trade, the Canadian
Assembly adhered to the doctrine of protection so obstinately that it
actually established a tariff of import duties injurious to the commerce
of the mother country, and apparently intended as a condemnation of its
principles. But its contumacy showed how wholly different was the spirit
of the British government from that which had prevailed in the last
century; for though the home government had unquestionably the right of
disallowing the offensive tariff, it forbore to exercise it; and,
probably, by this striking proof that it considered a complete
recognition of the principle of local self-government more important
than any trifling financial or commercial advantage, contributed greatly
to implant in Canada and all the colonies that confidence in the
affectionate moderation of the home government which must be the
strongest, if not the only indissoluble, bond of union.
On the whole, it is hardly too much to say that no more statesman-like,
and (if sentiment may be allowed a share in influencing the conduct of
governments) no more amiable spirit animates any act of our modern
legislation than is displayed in these arrangements for the management
of our colonies. They are a practical exemplification of the idea
embodied in the expression, "the mother country." A hundred years ago,
Burke sought to impress on the existing ministers and Parliament the
conviction that, "so long as our Colonies kept the idea of their civil
rights associated with our government, they would cling and grapple to
us, and no force under heaven would be of power to tear them from their
allegiance." In the case of which he was speaking his warning, as we
have seen, fell on deaf ears; but the policy of the present reign is a
willing and full adoption of them, on a far larger scale than even his
farseeing vision could then contemplate. Within the century which has
elapsed since his time the enterprise of Britain has sent forth her sons
to people another hemisphere; and they, her children still, cling to the
parent state with filial affection, because they feel that, though
parted from her by thousands of miles and more than one ocean, they are
still indissolubly united to her by their participation in all the
blessings of her constitution, her generous toleration, her equal laws,
her universal freedom.
On one transaction of these years the leaders of the Opposition were
found acting in close agreement with the ministers. We have seen how, in
the early part of the reign of George III., the House of Commons threw
the sheriffs of London into prison, on account of their performance of
what they conceived to be their duty as magistrates; and in 1840 it
subjected the same officials to the same treatment on a question of the
same character--the extent of the privilege of the House of Commons to
overrule the authority of the courts of law. The question was in
appearance complicated by the institution of several suits at law, and
by the fact that the House was not consistent in its conduct, but
allowed its servants to plead to the first action, and refused the same
permission in the second, when the result of the first trial had proved
adverse to them. The case was this: some inspectors of prisons has
presented a report to Parliament, in which they alleged that they had
found in Newgate a book of disgusting and obscene character, published
by a London publisher named Stockdale. The House of Commons had ordered
the report to be printed and sold by Messrs. Hansard, the Parliamentary
publishers, and Stockdale brought an action against Messrs. Hansard for
libel. Chief-justice Denman charged the jury that "the fact of the House
of Commons having directed Messrs. Hansard to publish their reports was
no justification to them for publishing a Parliamentary report
containing a libel;" and Stockdale obtained damages, which were duly
paid. Stockdale, encouraged by this success, when, in spite of the
result of the late trial, Hansard continued to sell the report, brought
a fresh action; but now the House forbade the publishers to plead to it;
and, as they obeyed the prohibition, and forbore to plead, the case
eventually came before the Sheriff's Court; fresh damages were given,
and, in obedience to the writ of the Queen's Bench, the sheriffs seized
Hansard's goods, and sold them to satisfy the judgment. Lord John
Russell, as leader of the House, moved to bring to the Bar of the House
all the parties concerned in the action--the plaintiff, his attorney,
the sheriffs, and the under-sheriffs. He was opposed by nearly all the
legal members of the House except the crown lawyers, Sir Edward Sugden
especially warning the House that "a resolution of the House was of no
avail in a court of justice;" while others taunted the House with want
of courage in not proceeding against the judges themselves, rather than
against their officers, which in this case the sheriffs were.
There could be no doubt of the importance of the question, since it was
no less, as the Attorney-general, Sir J. Campbell, put it, than a
question whether Parliament or the courts of law had the superiority;
and now Sir Robert Peel, as leader of the Opposition, came to the
support of Lord John Russell, declaring his opinion to be, first, that
"the House possessed every privilege necessary for the proper and
effectual discharge of its functions;" secondly, that "the publication
of evidence which had led the House to adopt any course was frequently
essential to justify that course to the nation;" and thirdly, that "to
judge of the extent of their privileges, and to vindicate them by their
own laws, belonged to the House alone." And he pressed strongly on the
House that it was "the duty of the House to fight the battle to the
last," though he confessed that "it was with pain that he had come to
the determination of entering into a contest with the courts of law." On
one point the judges agreed with the House of Commons. The House
committed the sheriffs; but, when they sued out their _habeas corpus_,
the judges decided that the return of the Sergeant-at-arms that they
were committed by the House for breach of privilege was a sufficient
return. Stockdale brought fresh actions. But meantime the case was
arousing a strong excitement in the country.[257] The singular hardship
of the position of the sheriffs excited general sympathy: if they obeyed
the House of Commons, which prohibited them from paying over to
Stockdale the damages which they had received for him, the Court of
Queen's Bench would be bound to attach them for disobedience to its
order. If they obeyed the Queen's Bench, the House would imprison them
for breach of privilege. And the national feeling is always in favor of
the strictly defined authority of the courts of law, rather than of the
somewhat indefinite claims of Parliament to interpret, and even to make,
privilege. Another consideration, probably, weighed a little with the
champions of the House--that their power of imprisonment ended with the
session. As matters went on, it was found that even the Attorney and
Solicitor-general differed as to the course to be pursued; and
eventually Lord John Russell consented to adopt the advice which had
been given by a former Attorney-general, Sir F. Pollock, and to bring in
a bill to legalize all similar proceedings of Parliament in future, by
enacting that a certificate that the publication of any document had
been ordered by either House should be a sufficient defence against any
action. The introduction of such a bill was in some degree an
acknowledgment of defeat; but it can hardly be denied to have been not
only a judicious step, but the only one practicable, if the contest
between Parliament and the courts of law were not to be everlasting; and
it met with general approval. If it was a compromise, it was one that
satisfied both parties and both ends. It upheld the authority of the
courts of law, and at the same time it practically asserted the
reasonableness of the claim advanced by the House of Commons, by giving
it for the future the power which it had claimed. Nor were people in
this day inclined to be jealous of the privileges of Parliament, so long
as they were accurately defined. They felt that it was for the advantage
and dignity of the nation that its powers and privileges should be
large; what they regarded with distrust was, a claim of power of which
no one knew the precise bounds, and which might, therefore, be expanded
as the occasion served.
Notes:
[Footnote 245: Fifty-two mills and 30,000 persons were thrown out of
employment for ten weeks at Ashton in 1830 by the turning out of 3000
"coarse spinners," who could clear at the time from 28s. to 31s. per
week. The following passage is extracted from an oath said to have been
administered by the combined spinners in Scotland in 1823: "I, A B, do
voluntarily swear, in the awful presence of God Almighty, and before
these witnesses, that I will execute with zeal and alacrity, as far as
in me lies, every task or injunction which the majority of my brethren
shall impose upon me in furtherance of our common welfare, as the
chastisement of _knobs_, the assassination of oppressive and tyrannical
masters, or the demolition of shops that shall be deemed
incorrigible."--_Annual Register_, 1838, pp. 204-207.]
[Footnote 246: See page 221.]
[Footnote 247: The question was examined with great minuteness by Lord
Brougham a fortnight after the ministerial explanation. See
"Parliamentary Debates," 3d series, xlvii., 1164.]
[Footnote 248: It is stated on good authority that Lord Melbourne, in
private conversation, justified or explained the line he had taken by
his consideration for his friends, scores of whom would have had their
hopes blighted by his retirement.]
[Footnote 249: See "Life of the Prince Consort," i., 55.]
[Footnote 250: "Life of the Prince Consort," i., 57.]
[Footnote 251: Macaulay's "History of England," i., 386.]
[Footnote 252: This is the name which the Liberal historian of the time,
Miss Martineau, gives it. "The so-called Registration Bill was, in fact,
an unannounced new Reform Bill for Ireland."--_History of the Peace_,
book v., c. vi.]
[Footnote 253: See _ante_, p. 127.]
[Footnote 254: In one instance the rebels were aided by a party of
citizens of the United States, who, without any sanction from their own
government, seized an island on the St. Lawrence belonging to us, and
attacked some of the Canadian villages. And this led to the discussion
of a question of international combined with constitutional law, which
Lord Campbell thus describes: "'Whether, if the subjects or citizens of
a foreign state with which we are at peace, without commission or
authority from their own or any other government, invade the English
territory in a hostile manner, and levy war against the Queen in her
realm, we are entitled to treat them as traitors?' The Canadian courts
held that we could not, as they had never acknowledged even a temporary
allegiance to our sovereign. And of this opinion was Sir William
Follett. But, after reading all that is to be found on the subject, I
come to the conclusion that they owed allegiance when, as private
individuals, they voluntarily crossed the English frontier; that it was
no defence for them to say that they then had arms in their hands and
intended to murder the Queen's subjects."--_Life of Lord Campbell_,
ii.,119. It certainly would have been no _defence_; but would it not
have taken their conduct from under the definition of _treason_, and
made it an act of _piracy_?]
[Footnote 255: See Fox's words, quoted by Lord Stanhope.--_Life of
Pitt_, ii., 90.]
[Footnote 256: A couple of years after the period which is the boundary
of the present work, this Canadian constitution of 1841 was superseded
by a measure uniting Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick in one
federal government, with, as the act recites, "a constitution similar in
principle to that of the United Kingdom." The act farther provided for
the admission of other dependencies of the crown in North America,
Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, and Rupert's Land
into the union, and established as the constitution of the whole one
scarcely differing from that of 1841, with the exception that both the
Houses of the Legislature--called in the act the Senate and the House of
Commons--were to be representative bodies, and that powers were
conferred on them so absolutely free and independent, that it was
thought necessary to add a clause providing that their "privileges,
immunities, and powers were never to exceed those at the passing of the
act held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Commons House of Parliament of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by the members
thereof."]
[Footnote 257: Lord Campbell, in his autobiography, puts the
transaction, in the phase at which it had now arrived, in a very serious
light: "Next came a proceeding which placed me in a most difficult
position; and the public never knew the danger which then existed of a
convulsion unexampled in our history. The sheriffs sued out a writ of
_habeas corpus_, directed to the Sergeant-at-arms, commanding him to
produce before the Court of Queen's Bench the sheriffs of Middlesex,
alleged to be illegally in custody, with the cause of their detention.
Wilde, the Solicitor-general, was strong for refusing to make any return
to the writ, and for setting the Court of Queen's Bench at defiance. Had
I concurred in this opinion it would certainty have been acted on. The
consequences would have been that the Sergeant-at-arms, even with the
mace in his hand, would have been sent to Newgate by the Court of
Queen's Bench. The House must have retaliated by committing the judges.
The crown would then have had to determine on which side the army should
be employed, and for a time we must have lived under a military
government" (ii., 129). The noble and learned autobiographer does not
explain why it should have been indispensable to employ the army on
either side.]