THE TWO FRONT BENCHES
1840-1845
Lord John's position in the Cabinet and in the Commons--His
services to Education--Joseph Lancaster--Lord John's Colonial
Policy--Mr. Gladstone's opinion--Lord Stanmore's recollections--The
mistakes of the Melbourne Cabinet--The Duke of Wellington's opinion
of Lord John--The agitation against the Corn Laws--Lord John's view
of Sir Robert Peel--The Edinburgh Letter--Peel's dilemma--Lord
John's comment on the situation.
THE truth was, Lord John could not be spared, and his strong sense of
duty triumphed over his personal grief. One shrewd contemporary observer
of men and movements declared that Melbourne and Russell were the only
two men in the Cabinet for whom the country cared a straw. The opinion
of the man in the street was summed up in Sydney Smith's assertion that
the Melbourne Government could not possibly exist without Lord John, for
the simple reason that five minutes after his departure it would be
dissolved into 'sparks of liberality and splinters of reform.' In 1839
the Irish policy of the Government was challenged, and, on the motion of
Lord Roden, a vote of censure was carried in the House of Lords. When
the matter came before the Commons, Lord John delivered a speech so
adroit and so skilful that friends and foes alike were satisfied, and
even pronounced Radicals forgot to grumble.
Lord John's speech averted a Ministerial crisis, and on a division the
Government won by twenty-two votes. A month later the affairs of Jamaica
came up for discussion, for the Government found itself forced, by the
action of the House of Assembly in refusing to adopt the Prisons Act
which had been passed by the Imperial Legislature, to ask Parliament to
suspend the Constitution of the colony for a period of five years; and
on a division they gained their point by a majority of only five votes.
The Jamaica Bill was an autocratic measure, which served still further
to discredit Lord Melbourne with the party of progress. Chagrined at the
narrow majority, the Cabinet submitted its resignation to her Majesty,
who assured Lord John that she had 'never felt more pain' than when she
learnt the decision of her Ministers. The Queen sent first for
Wellington, and afterwards, at his suggestion, for Peel, who undertook
to form an Administration; but when her Majesty insisted on retaining
the services of the Whig Ladies-in-Waiting, Sir Robert declined to act,
and the former Cabinet was recalled to office, though hardly with flying
colours.
Education, to hark back for a moment, was the next great question with
which Lord John dealt, for, in the summer of 1839, he brought in a bill
to increase the grant to elementary schools from 20,000_l._ a year to
30,000_l._--first made in 1833--and to place it under the control of the
Privy Council, as well as to subject the aided schools to inspection. 'I
explained,' was his own statement, 'in the simplest terms, without any
exaggeration, the want of education in the country, the deficiencies of
religious instruction, and the injustice of subjecting to the penalties
of the criminal law persons who had never been taught their duty to God
and man.' His proposals, particularly with regard to the establishment
of a Normal school, were met with a storm of opposition. This part of
the scheme was therefore abandoned; 'but the throwing out of one of our
children to the wolf,' remarks Lord John, 'did little to appease his
fury!' At length the measure, in its modified shape, was carried in the
Commons; but the House of Lords, led on this occasion by the Archbishop
of Canterbury, by a majority of more than a hundred, condemned the
scheme entirely. Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London, at this juncture came
forward as peacemaker, and, at a private meeting at Lansdowne House,
consisting of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and
Salisbury, Lord Lansdowne, and Lord John Russell, the dispute was
amicably adjusted, on the basis of the reports of the Inspectors of
Schools being sent to the Bishops as well as to the Committee of Privy
Council, and co-operation between the Bishops and the Committee in the
work of education.
[Sidenote: JOSEPH LANCASTER]
The Duke of Bedford was one of the first men of position in the country
to come to the aid of Joseph Lancaster--a young Quaker philanthropist,
who, in spite of poverty and obscurity, did more for the cause of
popular education in England in the early years of the century than all
the privileged people in the country.[10] Here a floating straw of
reminiscence may be cited, since it throws momentary light on the
mischievous instincts of a quick-witted boy. Lord John, looking back
towards the close of his life, said: 'One of my earliest recollections
as a boy at Woburn Abbey is that of putting on Joseph Lancaster's broad
hat and mimicking his mode of salutation.'
Other changes were imminent. Lord Normanby had proved himself to be a
popular Viceroy of Ireland; indeed, O'Connell asserted that he was one
of the best Englishmen that had ever been sent across St. George's
Channel in an official capacity. He was now Colonial Secretary; and, in
spite of his virtues, he was scarcely the man for such a position--at
all events, at a crisis in which affairs required firm handling. He
managed matters so badly that the Under-Secretary (Mr. Labouchere,
afterwards Lord Taunton) was in open revolt. The cards were accordingly
shuffled in May 1839, and, amongst other and less significant changes,
Normanby and Russell changed places. Lord John quickly made his presence
felt at the Colonial Office. He was a patient listener to the permanent
officials; indeed, he declared that he meant to give six months to
making himself master of the new duties of his position. Like all men of
the highest capacity, Lord John was never unwilling to learn. He held
that the Imperial Government was bound not merely by honour, but by
enlightened self-interest, to protect the rights and to advance the
welfare of the Colonies. His words are significant, and it seems well to
quote them, since they gather up the policy which he consistently
followed: 'If Great Britain gives up her supremacy from a niggardly
spirit of parsimony, or from a craven fear of helplessness, other Powers
will soon look upon the Empire, not with the regard due to an equal, as
she once was, but with jealousy of the height she once held, without the
fear she once inspired. To build up an empire extending over every sea,
swaying many diverse races, and combining many forms of religion,
requires courage and capacity; to allow such an empire to fall to pieces
is a task which may be performed by the poor in intellect, and the
pusillanimous in conduct.'
[Sidenote: COLONIAL POLICY]
When Lord John was once asked at the Colonial Office by an official of
the French Government how much of Australia was claimed as the dominion
of Great Britain, he promptly answered, 'The whole.' The visitor, quite
taken aback, found it expedient to take his departure. Lord John
vigorously assailed the view that colonies which had their own
parliaments, framed on the British model, were virtually independent,
and, therefore, had no right to expect more than moral help from the
Mother Country. During his tenure of office New Zealand became part of
the British dominions. By the treaty of Waitangi, the Queen assumed the
sovereignty, and the new colony was assured of the protection of
England. Lord John assured the British Provinces of North America that,
so long as they wished to remain subjects of the Queen, they might
confidently rely on the protection of England in all emergencies.
Mr. Gladstone has in recent years done justice to the remarkable
prescience, and scarcely less remarkable administrative skill, which
Lord John brought to bear at a critical juncture in the conduct of the
Colonial policy of the Melbourne Government. He lays stress on the
'unfaltering courage' which Russell displayed in meeting, as far as was
then possible, the legitimate demand for responsible self-government. It
is not, therefore, surprising that, to borrow Mr. Gladstone's words,
'Lord John Russell substituted harmony for antagonism in the daily
conduct of affairs for those Colonies, each of which, in an infancy of
irrepressible vigour, was bursting its swaddling clothes. Is it
inexcusable to say that by this decision, which was far ahead of the
current opinion of the day, he saved the Empire, possibly from
disruption, certainly from much embarrassment and much discredit.'[11]
Lord John was a man of vision. He saw, beyond most of his
contemporaries, the coming magnitude of the Empire, and he did his best
to shape on broad lines and to far-reaching issues the policy of England
towards her children beyond the seas. Lord John recognised in no
churlish or half-hearted spirit the claims of the Colonies, nor did he
stand dismayed by the vision of Empire. 'There was a time when we might
have stood alone,' are his words. 'That time has passed. We conquered
and peopled Canada, we took possession of the whole of Australia, Van
Dieman's Land, and New Zealand. We have annexed India to the Crown.
There is no going back. For my part, I delight in observing the
imitation of our free institutions, and even our habits and manners, in
colonies at a distance from the Palace of Westminster.' He trusted the
Colonies, and refused to believe that all the wisdom which was
profitable to direct their affairs was centred in Downing Street. His
attitude was sympathetic and generous, and at the same time it was
candid and firm.
Lord Stanmore's recollections of his father's colleague go back to this
period, and will be read with interest: 'As a boy of ten or twelve I
often saw Lord John. His half-sister, Lady Louisa Russell, was the wife
of my half-brother, Lord Abercorn, and Lord John was a frequent guest at
Lord Abercorn's villa at Stanmore, where my father habitually passed his
Saturdays and Sundays during the session, and where I almost wholly
lived. My first conscious remembrance of Lord John dates from the summer
of 1839, and in that and the following years I often saw him at the
Priory. Towards the close of 1839 Lord John lost his first wife, and the
picture of his little figure, in deep mourning, walking by the side of
my father on the gravel walks about the house in the spring and summer
of 1840 is one vividly impressed on my recollection. His manner to
children was not unpleasant, and I well remember his pausing, an amused
listener to a childish and vehement political discussion between his
step-daughter, Miss Lister, and myself--a discussion which he from time
to time stirred up to increased animation by playfully mischievous
suggestions.'
[Sidenote: A HOSTILE RESOLUTION]
Early in the session of 1840, the Ministry was met by a vote of want of
confidence, and in the course of the discussion Sir James Graham accused
Lord John of encouraging sedition by appointing as magistrate one of the
leaders of the Chartist agitation at Newport. Lord John, it turned out,
had appointed Mr. Frost, the leader in question, on the advice of the
Lord-Lieutenant, and he was able to prove that his own speech at
Liverpool had been erroneously reported. The hostile resolution was
accordingly repelled, and the division resulted in favour of the
Government. For six years Turkey and Egypt had been openly hostile to
each other, and in 1839 the war had been pushed to such extremities that
Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia entered into a compact to
bring about--by compulsion if necessary--a cessation of hostilities.
Lord Holland and Lord Clarendon objected to England's share in the
Treaty of July 1840, but Lord Palmerston compelled the Cabinet to
acquiesce by a threat of resignation, and Lord John, at this crisis,
showed that he was strongly in favour of his colleague's policy. The
matter, however, was by no means settled, for once more a grave division
of opinion in the party arose as to the wisdom of practically throwing
away our alliance with France. Althorp--now Lord Spencer--reminded his
former colleagues that that nation was most fitted to be our ally of any
in Europe, on the threefold ground of situation, institutions, and
civilisation.
Lord John drew up a memorandum and submitted it to his colleagues, in
which he recognised the rights of France, and proposed to summon her,
under given conditions, to take measures with the other Powers to
preserve the peace of Europe. The personal ascendency of Lord Palmerston
on questions of foreign policy was, however, already so marked that Lord
Melbourne--now his brother-in-law, was reluctant to insist on
moderation. Lord John, however, stood firm, and the breaking up of the
Government seemed inevitable. During the crisis which followed, Lord
Palmerston, striking, as was his wont, from his own bat, rejected, under
circumstances which Mr. Walpole has explained in detail in his Life of
Lord John Russell, a proposal for a conference of the allied Powers.
Lord John had already entered his protest against any one member of the
Cabinet being allowed to conduct affairs as he pleased, without
consultation or control, and he now informed Lord Melbourne in a letter
dated November 1, 1840--which Mr. Walpole prints--that Palmerston's
reply to Austria compelled him to once more consider his position, as he
could not defend in the House of Commons measures which he thought
wrong. Lord Melbourne promptly recognised that Russell was the only
possible leader in the Commons, and he induced Lord Palmerston to admit
his mistake over the despatch to Metternich, and in this way the
misunderstanding was brought to an end. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the
war in the East turned against Ibrahim Pasha, and Palmerston's policy,
though not his manner of carrying it out, was justified.
[Sidenote: DIVIDED COUNSELS]
The closing years of the Melbourne Administration were marked not only
by divided counsels, but by actual blunders of policy, and in this
connection it is perhaps enough to cite the Opium war against China and
the foolhardy invasion of Afghanistan. At home the question of Free
Trade was coming rapidly to the front, and the Anti-corn Law League,
which was founded in Manchester in 1838, was already beginning to prove
itself a power in the land. As far back as 1826, Hume had taken up his
parable in Parliament against the Corn Laws as a blight on the trade of
the country; and two years after the Reform Bill was passed he had
returned to the attack, only to find, however, that the nation was still
wedded to Protection. Afterwards, year after year, Mr. Villiers drew
attention to the subject, and moved for an inquiry into the working of
the Corn Laws. He declared that the existing system was opposed by the
industry, the intelligence, and the commerce of the nation, and at
length, in a half-hearted fashion, the Government found itself
compelled, if it was to exist at all, to make some attempt to deal with
the problem. Lord Melbourne, and some at least of his colleagues, were
but little interested in the question, and they failed to gauge the
feeling of the country.
In the spring of 1841 action of some kind grew inevitable, and the
Cabinet determined to propose a fixed duty of eight shillings per
quarter on wheat, and to reduce the duty on sugar. Lord John opened the
debate on the latter proposal in a speech which moved even Greville to
enthusiasm; but neither his arguments nor his eloquence produced the
desired impression on the House, for the Government was defeated by
thirty-six votes. Everyone expected the Ministry at once to face the
question of dissolution or resignation; but Melbourne was determined to
cling to office as long as possible, in spite of the growing
difficulties and even humiliations of his position. On June 4, the day
on which Lord John was to bring forward his proposal for a fixed duty on
wheat, Sir Robert Peel carried a vote of want of confidence by a
majority of one, and, as an appeal to the country was at length
inevitable, Parliament was dissolved a few days later. The Melbourne
Ministry had outstayed its welcome. The manner in which it had left Lord
Durham in the lurch over his ill-advised ordinances had aroused
widespread indignation, for the multitude at least could not forget the
greatness of his services to the cause of Reform. If the dissolution had
come two or three years earlier, the Government might have gone to the
country without fear; but in 1841, both at home and abroad, their
blunders and their vacillation had alienated confidence, and it was not
difficult to forecast the result. The General Election brought Lord John
a personal triumph. He was presented with a requisition signed by
several thousand persons, asking him to contest the City of London, and
after an exciting struggle he was returned, though with only a narrow
majority; and during the political vicissitudes of the next eighteen
years London was faithful to him.
Lord John Russell was essentially a home-loving man, and the gloom which
bereavement had cast over his life in the autumn of 1839 was at best
only partially dispelled by the close and sympathetic relations with his
family. It was, therefore, with satisfaction that all his friends, both
on his own account and that of his motherless young children, heard of
his approaching second marriage. Immediately after the election for the
City, Lord John was married to Lady Fanny Elliot, second daughter of the
Earl of Minto, a union which brought him lasting happiness.
[Sidenote: 'A HOST IN HIMSELF']
Parliament met in the middle of August, and the Government were defeated
on the Address by a majority of ninety-one, and on August 28 Lord John
found himself once more out of harness. In his speech in the House of
Commons announcing the resignation of the Government, he said that the
Whigs under Lord Grey had begun with the Reform Act, and that they were
closing their tenure of power by proposals for the relief of commerce.
The truth was, the Melbourne Administration had not risen to its
opportunities. Its fixed duty on corn was a paltry compromise. The
leaders of the party needed to be educated up to the level of the
national demands. Opposition was to bring about unexpected political
combinations and new political opportunities, and the years of conflict
which were dawning were also to bring more clearly into view Lord John
Russell's claims to the Liberal leadership. When the Melbourne
Administration was manifestly losing the confidence of the nation,
Rogers the poet was walking one day with the Duke of Wellington in Hyde
Park, and the talk turned on the political situation. Rogers remarked,
'What a powerful band Lord John Russell will have to contend with!
There's Peel, Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham----;' and the Duke
interrupted him at this point with the laconic reply, 'Lord John Russell
is a host in himself.'
Protection had triumphed at the General Election, and Sir Robert Peel
came to power as champion of the Corn Laws. The Whigs had fallen between
two stools, for the country was not in a humour to tolerate vacillation.
The Melbourne Cabinet had, in truth, in the years which had witnessed
its decline and fall, spoken with the voice of Jacob, but stretched
forth the hands of Esau. The Radicals shook their heads, scouted the
Ministry's deplorable efforts at finance, and felt, to say the least,
lukewarm about their spirited foreign policy. 'I don't thank a man for
supporting me when he thinks me right,' was the cynical confession of a
statesman of an earlier generation; 'my gratitude is with the man who
supports me when he thinks me wrong.' Melbourne was doubtless of the
same mind; but the man in the crowd, of Liberal proclivities, was, for
the most part, rather disgusted with the turn which affairs had taken,
and the polling booths made it plain that he thought the Prime Minister
wrong, and, that being the case, he was not obliging enough to return
him to power. The big drum had been successfully beaten, moreover, at
the General Election by the defenders of all sorts and sizes of vested
interests, sinecures, monopolies, and the like, and Sir Robert
Peel--though not without personal misgivings--accordingly succeeded
Melbourne as First Lord, whilst Stanley, now the hope of stern unbending
Tories, took Russell's place as Secretary for the Colonies.
The annals of the Peel Administration of course lie outside the province
of this monograph; they have already been told with insight and vigour
in a companion volume, and the temptation to wander at a tangent into
the history of the Queen's reign--especially with Lord John out of
office--must be resisted in deference to the exigencies of space. In the
Peel Cabinet the men who had revolted under Melbourne, with the
exception of the Duke of Richmond, were rewarded with place and power.
Lord Ripon, who was spoken of at the time with scarcely disguised
contempt as a man of tried inefficiency, became President of the Board
of Trade. Sir James Graham, a statesman who was becoming somewhat
impervious to new ideas, and who as a Minister displayed little tact in
regard to either movements or men, was appointed Home Secretary.
Stanley, who had proved himself to be a strong man in the wrong camp,
and therefore the evil genius of his party, now carried his
unquestionable skill, and his brilliant powers of debate, as well as his
imperious temper and contracted views, to the service of the Tories. One
other man held a prominent place in Peel's Cabinet, and proved a tower
of strength in it--Lord Aberdeen, who was Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
and who did much to maintain the peace of Europe when the Tahiti
incident and the Spanish marriages threatened embroilment. Lord
Aberdeen, from 1841 to 1846, guided the foreign policy of England with
ability and discretion, and, as a matter of fact, steered the nation
through diplomatic quarrels which, if Lord Palmerston had been at the
Foreign Office, would probably have ended in war. This circumstance
heightens the irony of his subsequent career.
[Sidenote: THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK]
The outlook, political and social, when Peel took office and Russell
confronted him as leader of the Opposition, was gloomy and full of
hazard. The times, in Peel's judgment, were 'out of joint,' and this
threw party Government out of joint and raised issues which confused
ordinary minds. The old political catchwords 'Peace, retrenchment, and
reform,' no longer awoke enthusiasm. Civil and religious liberty were
all very well in their way, but they naturally failed to satisfy men and
women who were ground down by economic oppression, and were famished
through lack of bread. The social condition of England was deplorable,
for, though the Reform Bill had brought in its wake measures of relief
for the middle classes, it had left the artisans and the peasants almost
where it found them. In spite of the new Poor Law and other enactments,
the people were burdened with the curse of bitter and hopeless poverty,
and the misery and squalor in which they were permitted to live threw a
menacing shadow over the fair promise of the opening years of the young
Queen's reign. The historians of the period are responsible for the
statement that in Manchester, for example, one-tenth of the population
lived in cellars; even in the rural districts, the overcrowding, with
all its attending horrors in the direction of disease and vice, was
scarcely less terrible, for in one parish in Dorset thirty-six persons
dwelt, on an average, in each house. The wonder is, not that the
Anti-Corn Law League under such circumstances grew strong and the demand
for the People's Charter rang through the land, but that the masses in
town and country alike bore the harsh servitude of their lot with the
patience that was common, and with the heroism that was not rare.
[Sidenote: PEEL'S OPEN MIND]
Lord John Russell never refused to admit the ability of Peel's
Administration. He described it as powerful, popular, and successful. He
recognised the honesty of his great rival, his openness of mind, the
courage which he displayed in turning a deaf ear to the croakers in his
own Cabinet, and the genuine concern which he manifested for the
unredressed grievances of the people. In his 'Recollections' he lays
stress on the fact that Sir Robert Peel did not hesitate, when he
thought such a step essential to the public welfare, to risk the fate of
his Ministry on behalf of an unpopular measure. Ireland was a stone of
stumbling in his path, and long after he had parted with his old ideas
of Protestant ascendency he found himself confronted with the suspicion
of the Roman Catholics, who, in Lord John's words, 'obstinately refused
favours at Peel's hands, which they would have been willing to accept
from a Liberal Administration.' The allusion is, of course, to the
Maynooth Grant--a measure of practical relief to the Irish Catholics,
which would, without doubt, have thrown Sir Robert Peel out of office if
he had been left to the tender mercies of his own supporters. Disraeli
was fond of asserting that Peel lacked imagination, and there was a
measure of truth in the charge. He was a great patriotic statesman,
haunted by no foolish bugbear of consistency, but willing to learn by
experience, and courageous enough to follow what he believed to be
right, with unpolitical but patriotic scorn of consequence. Men with
stereotyped ideas, who persisted in interpreting concession, however
just, as weakness, and reform, however urgent, as revolution, were
unable to follow such a leader.
Peel might lack imagination, but he never lacked courage, and the
generosity of vision which imposed on courage great and difficult tasks
of statesmanship. He could educate himself--for he kept an open
mind--and was swift to seize and to interpret great issues in the
affairs of the nation; but it was altogether a different matter for him
to educate his party. In the spring of 1845, Sir Robert Peel determined
to meet the situation in Ireland by bold proposals for the education of
the Catholic priesthood. Almost to the close of the eighteenth century
the Catholics were compelled by the existing laws to train young men
intended for the work of the priesthood in Ireland in French colleges,
since no seminary of the kind was permitted in Ireland. The French
Revolution overthrew this arrangement, and in 1795, by an Act of the
Irish Parliament, Maynooth College was founded, and was supported by
annual grants, which were continued, though not without much
opposition, by the Imperial Parliament after the Union. On April 3, Sir
Robert Peel brought forward his measure for dealing in a generous manner
with the needs and claims of this great institution. He proposed that
the annual grant should be raised from 9,000_l._ to upwards of
26,000_l._, that a charter of incorporation should be given, and that
the trustees should be allowed to hold land to the value of 3,000_l._ a
year. He also proposed that the new endowment should be a charge upon
the Consolidated Fund, so that angry discussions of the kind in which
bigotry and prejudice delight might be avoided. Moreover, in order to
restore and enlarge the college buildings, Sir Robert finally proposed
an immediate and separate grant of 30,000_l._ Few statesmen were more
sensitive than Peel, but, convinced of the justice of such a concession,
he spoke that day amid the angry opposition of the majority of his usual
supporters and the approving cheers of his ordinary opponents.
Peel was not the man to falter, although his party was in revolt. He had
gauged the forces which were arrayed in Ireland against the authority of
Parliament; he stated in his final words on the subject that there was
in that country a formidable confederacy, which was prepared to go any
lengths against a hard interpretation of the supremacy of England. 'I do
not believe that you can break it up by force; I believe you can do much
by acting in a spirit of kindness, forbearance, and generosity.' At once
a great storm of opposition arose in Parliament, on the platform, and in
the Press. The Carlton Club found itself brought into sudden and
unexpected agreement with many a little Bethel up and down the country,
for the champions of 'No Surrender' in Pall Mall were of one mind with
those of 'No Popery' in Exeter Hall. Society for the moment, according
to Harriet Martineau, seemed to be going mad, and she saw enough to
convince her that it was not the extent of the grant that was deprecated
so much as an advance in that direction at all. Public indignation ran
so high that in some instances members of Parliament were called upon to
resign their seats, whilst Dublin--so far at least as its sentiments
were represented by the Protestant Operative Association--was for
nothing less than the impeachment of the unhappy Prime Minister.
Sectarian animosity, whipped into fury by rhetorical appeals to its
prejudices, encouraged the paper trade by interminable petitions to
Parliament; and three nights were spent in debate in the Lords and six
in the Commons over the second reading of the bill.
[Sidenote: HOW PEEL TRIUMPHED]
Lord John Russell was assailed with threatening letters as soon as it
was known that he intended to help Peel to outweather the storm of
obloquy which he was called to encounter. Sir Robert's proposals were
welcomed by him as a new and worthy departure from the old repressive
policy. It was because he thought that such a measure would go far to
conciliate the Catholics of Ireland, as well as to prove to them that
any question which touched their interests and welfare was not a matter
of unconcern to the statesmen and people of England, that he gave--with
a loyalty only too rare in public life--his powerful support to a
Minister who would otherwise have been driven to bay by his own
followers. It was, in fact, owing to Lord John's action that Peel
triumphed over the majority of his own party, and his speech in support
of the Ministry, though not remarkable for eloquence, was admirable
alike in temper and in tact, and was hailed at the moment as a presage
of victory. 'Peel lives, moves, and has his being through Lord John
Russell,' was Lord Shaftesbury's comment at the moment. Looking back at
the crisis from the leisure of retirement, Lord John Russell declared
that the Maynooth Act was a work of wisdom and liberality, and one which
ought always to be remembered to the honour of the statesman who
proposed and carried it. The controversy over the Maynooth Grant
revealed how great was the gulf between Peel and the majority of the
Tories, and Greville, as usual, in his own incisive way hit off the
situation. 'The truth is that the Government is Peel, that Peel is a
Reformer and more of a Whig than a Tory, and that the mass of his
followers are prejudiced, ignorant, obstinate, and selfish.' Peel
declared that he looked with indifference on a storm which he thought
partly fanatical and partly religious in its origin, and he added that
he was careless as to the consequences which might follow the passing of
the Maynooth Bill, so far at least as they concerned his own position.
Meanwhile another and far greater question was coming forward with
unsuspected rapidity for solution. The summer of 1845 was cold and wet,
and its dark skies and drenching showers were followed by a miserable
harvest. With the approach of autumn the fields were flooded and the
farmers in consequence in despair. Although England and Scotland
suffered greatly, the disaster fell with still greater force on Ireland.
As the anxious weeks wore on, alarm deepened into actual distress, for
there arose a mighty famine in the land. The potato crop proved a
disastrous failure, and with the approach of winter starvation joined
its eloquence to that of Cobden and Bright in their demand for the
repeal of the Corn Laws. In speaking afterwards of that terrible crisis,
and of the services which Cobden and himself were enabled to render to
the nation, John Bright used these memorable words: 'Do not suppose
that I wish you to imagine that he and I were the only persons engaged
in this great question. We were not even the first, though afterwards,
perhaps, we became before the public the foremost, but there were others
before us, and we were joined, not by scores, but by hundreds, and
afterwards by thousands, and afterwards by countless multitudes, and
afterwards famine itself, against which we had warred, joined us, and a
great Minister was converted, and minorities became majorities, and
finally the barrier was entirely thrown down.'
[Sidenote: COBDEN'S PREDICTION]
Quite early in the history of the Anti-Corn-Law League, Cobden had
predicted, in spite of the apathy and opposition which the derided
Manchester school of politics then encountered, at a time when Peel and
Russell alike turned a deaf ear to its appeals, that the repeal of the
Corn Laws would be eventually carried in Parliament by a 'statesman of
established reputation.' Argument and agitation prepared the way for
this great measure of practical relief, but the multitude were not far
from the mark when they asserted that it was the rain that destroyed the
Corn Laws.[12] The imperative necessity of bringing food from abroad if
the people were not to perish for lack of bread brought both Sir Robert
Peel and Lord John Russell almost at the same moment to the conclusion
that this great economic problem must at once be faced. Peel declared in
1847 that towards the end of 1845 he had reached the conclusion that the
repeal of the Corn Laws was indispensable to the public welfare. If
that was so, he seems to have kept his opinion to himself, for as late
as November 29, in the memorandum which he sent to his colleagues, there
is no hint of abolition. On the contrary, Sir Robert, who was always
fond of setting forth three alternatives of action, wrote as follows:
'Time presses, and on some definite course we must decide. Shall we
undertake without suspension to modify the existing Corn Law? Shall we
resolve to maintain the existing Corn Law? Shall we advise the
suspension of that law for a limited period? My opinion is for the last
course, admitting as I do that it involves the necessity for the
immediate consideration of the alterations to be made in the existing
Corn Law; such alterations to take effect after the period of
suspension. I should rather say it involves the question of the
principle and degree of protection to agriculture.'[13] As to the
justice of the demand for Free Trade, Peel, there can be no doubt, was
already convinced; but his party was regarded as the stronghold of
Protection, and he knew enough of the men who sat behind him to be fully
alive to the fact that they still clung tenaciously to the fallacies
which Adam Smith had exploded. 'We had ill luck,' were Lord Aberdeen's
words to the Queen; 'if it had not been for the famine in Ireland, which
rendered immediate measures necessary, Sir Robert would have prepared
the party gradually for the change.'[14]
[Sidenote: THE 'EDINBURGH LETTER']
Cobden, it is only fair to state, made no secret of his conviction that
the question of the repeal of the Corn Laws was safer in the hands of
Sir Robert than of Lord John. Peel might be less versed in
constitutional questions, but he was more in touch with the
manufacturing classes, and more familiar with economic conditions. Sir
Robert, however, was sore let and hindered by the weaklings of his own
Cabinet, and the rats did not disguise their intention of quitting the
ship. Lord John Russell, who was spending the autumn in Scotland, was
the first 'responsible statesman' to take decisive action, for whilst
Peel, hampered by the vacillation and opposition of his colleagues,
still hesitated, Russell took the world into his confidence in his
historic 'Edinburgh Letter,' dated November 22, 1845, to his
constituents in London. It was a bold and uncompromising declaration of
policy, for the logic of events had at length convinced Lord John that
any further delay was dangerous. He complained that Her Majesty's
Ministers had not only met, but separated, without affording the nation
any promise of immediate relief. He pointed out that the existing duties
on corn were so contrived that, the worse the quality of the wheat, the
higher was the duty. 'When good wheat rises to seventy shillings a
quarter, the average price of all wheat is fifty-seven or fifty-eight
shillings, and the duty fourteen or fifteen shillings a quarter. Thus
the corn barometer points to fair, while the ship is bending under a
storm.' He reviewed the course of recent legislation on the subject, and
declared that he had for years endeavoured to obtain a compromise. He
showed that Peel had opposed in 1839, 1840, and 1841, even qualified
concession, and he added the stinging allusion to that statesman's
attitude on other great questions of still earlier date. 'He met the
proposition for diminished Protection in the same way in which he had
met the offer of securities for Protestant interests in 1817 and
1825--in the same way in which he met the proposal to allow Manchester,
Leeds, and Birmingham to send members to Parliament in 1830.' Finally,
Lord John announced his conviction that it was no longer worth while to
contend for a fixed duty, and his vigorous attack on the Ministry ended
with a call to arms. 'Let us unite to put an end to a system which has
been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the
source of bitter divisions among classes, the cause of penury, fever,
mortality, and crime among the people. The Government appear to be
waiting for some excuse to give up the present Corn Law. Let the people,
by petition, by address, by remonstrance, afford them the excuse they
seek.'
[Sidenote: THE 'POISONED CHALICE']
Sir Robert, when this manifesto appeared, had almost conquered the
reluctance of his own Cabinet to definite action; but his position grew
now untenable in consequence of the panic of Stanley and the Duke of
Buccleuch. Lord John's speech was quickly followed by a Ministerial
crisis, and Peel, beset by fightings without and fears within his
Cabinet, had no alternative but resignation. He accordingly relinquished
office on December 5, and three days later Lord John, much to his own
surprise, was summoned to Windsor and entrusted with the task of forming
a new Ministry. He was met by difficulties which, in spite of
negotiations, proved insurmountable, for Howick, who had succeeded in
the previous summer to his distinguished father's earldom, refused to
serve with Palmerston. Lord Grey raised another point which might
reasonably have been conceded, for he urged that Cobden, as the leader
of the Anti-Corn-Law League, ought to have the offer of a seat in the
Cabinet. Lord John was unable to bring about an amicable understanding,
and therefore, as the year was closing, he was compelled to inform her
Majesty of the fact, and to hand back what Disraeli theatrically
described as the 'poisoned chalice' to Sir Robert. 'It is all at an
end,' wrote Lord John to his wife. 'Power may come, some day or other,
in a less odious shape.'
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Justice has never yet been done to the founder of the Lancasterian
system of education. Joseph Lancaster was a remarkable man who aroused
the conscience of the nation, and even the dull intelligence of George
III., to the imperative need of popular education.
[11] 'The Melbourne Government: its Acts and Persons,' by the Right Hon.
W. E. Gladstone, M.P. _The Nineteenth Century_, January 1890, p. 50.
[12] 'The Corn Law of 1815 was a copy of the Corn Law of 1670--so little
had economic science grown in England during all those years. The Corn
Law of 1670 imposed a duty on the importation of foreign grain which
amounted almost literally to a prohibition.'--_Sir Robert Peel_, by
Justin McCarthy, M.P., chapter xii. p. 136.
[13] _The Croker Papers_, edited by Louis Jennings, vol. iii. p. 35.
[14] _Life of the Prince Consort_, by Sir Theodore Martin, vol. i. p.
317.