FACTION AND FAMINE
1846-1847
Peel and Free Trade--Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck lead the
attack--Russell to the rescue--Fall of Peel--Lord John summoned to
power--Lord John's position in the Commons and in the country--The
Condition of Ireland question--Famine and its deadly work--The
Russell Government and measures of relief--Crime and coercion--The
Whigs and Education--Factory Bill--The case of Dr. Hampden.
LORD STANLEY'S place in the 'organised hypocrisy,' as the Protectionists
termed the last Ministry of Sir Robert Peel, was taken by Mr. Gladstone.
Sir Robert Peel resumed office in the closing days of December, and all
the members of his old Cabinet, on the principle of bowing to the
inevitable, returned with him, except the Duke of Buccleuch and Lord
Stanley, who resolutely declined to have part or lot in the new
departure which the Premier now felt called upon to make. The Duke of
Wellington, though hostile to Free Trade, determined to stand by Peel;
but he did not disguise the fact that his only reason for remaining in
office was for the sake of the Queen. He declared that he acted as the
'retained servant of the monarchy,' for he did not wish her Majesty to
be placed under the necessity of taking members of the Anti-Corn-Law
League, or, as he put it, 'Cobden & Co.,' for her responsible advisers.
[Sidenote: THE QUEEN'S SPEECH]
The opening days of 1846 were full of political excitement, and were
filled with all kinds of rumours. Wellington, on January 6, wrote: 'I
don't despair of the Corn Laws,' and confessed that he did not know what
were the intentions of Sir Robert Peel concerning them.[15] Peel kept
his own counsel, though the conviction grew that he had persuaded
himself that in boldness lay the chance as well as the duty of the hour.
Peel, like Russell, was converted to Free Trade by the logic of events,
and he determined at all hazards to avow the new faith that was in him.
Parliament was opened by the Queen in person on January 22, and the
Speech from the Throne laid stress on the privation and suffering in
Ireland, and shadowed forth the repeal of prohibitive and the relaxation
of protective duties. The debate on the Address was rendered memorable
by Peel's explanations of the circumstances under which the recent
crisis had arisen. He made a long speech, and the tone of it, according
to Lord Malmesbury, was half threatening and half apologetic. It was a
manly, straightforward statement of the case, and Sir Robert made it
plain that he had accepted the views of the Manchester school on the
Corn Laws, and was prepared to act without further hesitation on his
convictions. One significant admission was added. He stated before he
sat down that it was 'no easy task to insure the harmonious and united
action of an ancient monarchy, a proud aristocracy, and a reformed House
of Commons.'
New interests were, in fact, beginning to find a voice in Parliament,
and that meant the beginning of the principle of readjustment which is
yet in progress. A few days later the Prime Minister explained his
financial plans for the year, and in the course of them he proposed the
gradual repeal of the Corn Laws. Free trade in corn was, in fact, to
take final effect after an interval of three years. Meanwhile the
sliding scale was to be abandoned in favour of a fixed duty of ten
shillings the quarter on corn, and other concessions for the relief not
only of agriculture but of manufactures and commerce were announced. The
principle of Free Trade was, in fact, applied not in one but in many
directions, and from that hour its legislative triumph was assured. In
the course of the protracted debate which followed, Disraeli, with all
the virulence of a disappointed place-hunter, attacked Sir Robert Peel
with bitter personalities and barbed sarcasm. On this occasion, throwing
decency and good taste to the winds, and, to borrow a phrase of his own,
'intoxicated with the exuberance of his own verbosity,' and with no lack
of tawdry rhetoric and melodramatic emphasis, he did his best to cover
with ridicule and to reduce to confusion one of the most chivalrous and
lofty-minded statesmen of the Queen's reign.
[Sidenote: OUTCAST PROTECTIONISTS]
Disraeli's audacity in attack did much to revive the drooping courage of
the Protectionist party, the leadership of which fell for the moment
into the hands of Lord George Bentinck, a nobleman more renowned at
Newmarket than at Westminster. Once saddled with authority, Lord George
developed some capacity for politics; but his claims as a statesman were
never serious, though Disraeli, in the political biography which he
published shortly after his friend's sudden death, gives him credit for
qualities of mind of which the nation at large saw little evidence.
After long and tedious discussion, extending over some twenty nights,
the Free Trade Bill was carried through the Commons by a majority of
ninety-eight votes, and in the Lords it passed the second reading by
forty-seven votes. Croker--true to the dismal suggestion of his
name--promptly took up his parable against Sir Robert. He declared that
the repeal of the Corn Laws meant a schism in the great landed interest
and broad acres, in his view, were the only solid foundation on which
the government of the nation could possibly be based. He asked, how was
it possible to resist the attack on the Irish Church and the Irish Union
after the surrender of the Corn Laws? He wanted to know how
primogeniture, the Bishops, the House of Lords, and the Crown itself
were to be maintained, now that the leader of the Conservative party had
truckled to the League. Sir Robert Peel, he added, had imperilled these
institutions of the country more than Cobbett or O'Connell; he had
broken up the old interests, divided the great families, and thrown
personal hostility into the social life of half the counties of
England--and all to propitiate Richard Cobden. Such was the bitter cry
of the outcast Protectionist, and similar vapourings arose in cliques
and clubs all over the land. The abolition of the Corn Laws was the last
measure of Sir Robert Peel's political life, and he owed the victory,
which was won amid the murmurs and threats of his own followers, to the
support which his political antagonists gave him, under the leadership
of Lord John Russell, who recognised both the wisdom and the expediency
of Sir Robert's course.
Meanwhile the dark winter of discontent which privation had unhappily
brought about in Ireland had been marked by many crimes of violence, and
at length the Government deemed it imperative to ask Parliament to grant
them additional powers for the suppression of outrage. The measure met
with the opposition alike of Lord John Russell and Daniel O'Connell.
The Government moved the second reading of the Irish Coercion Bill, and
the Protectionists, who knew very well not only the views of Daniel
O'Connell, but of Smith O'Brien, saw their opportunity and promptly took
it. Lord George Bentinck had supported the Coercion Bill on its
introduction in the spring, and had done so in the most unmistakable
terms. He was not the man, however, to forego the mean luxury of
revenge, and neither he nor Disraeli could forgive what they regarded as
Sir Robert's great betrayal of the landed interest. He now had the
audacity to assert that Peel had lost the confidence of every honest man
both within and without the House of Commons, and in spite of his
assurances of support he ranged himself for the moment with Russell and
O'Connell to crush the Administration. The division took place on June
25, and in a House of 571 members the Ministry was defeated by a
majority of 73. The defeat of the Government was so crushing that Whigs
and Protectionists alike, on the announcement of the figures, were too
much taken aback to cheer. 'Anything,' said Sir Robert, 'is preferable
to maintaining ourselves in office without a full measure of the
confidence of this House.'
[Sidenote: THE RUSSELL CABINET]
Lord John had triumphed with the help of the Irish, whom Peel had
alienated; but the great Minister's downfall had in part been
accomplished by the treachery of those who abandoned him with clamour
and evil-speaking in the hour of need. Defeat was followed within a week
by resignation, and on July 4 Peel, writing from the leisured seclusion
of Drayton Manor, 'in the loveliest weather,' was magnanimous enough to
say, 'I have every disposition to forgive my enemies for having
conferred on me the blessing of the loss of power.' Lord John was
summoned to Windsor, and kissed hands on July 6. He became Prime
Minister when the condition of affairs was gloomy and menacing, and the
following passage from his wife's journal, written on July 14, conjures
up in two or three words a vivid picture of the difficulties of the
hour: 'John has much to distress him in the state of the country. God
grant him success in his labours to amend it! Famine, fever, trade
failing, and discontent growing are evils which it requires all his
resolution, sense of duty, and love for the public to face.' Lord
Palmerston was, of course, inevitable as Foreign Secretary in the new
Administration; Sir Charles Wood became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and
Sir George Grey, Home Secretary. Earl Grey's scruples were at length
satisfied, and he became Secretary to the Colonies; whilst Lord
Clarendon took office as President of the Board of Trade, and Lord
Lansdowne became President of the Council. Among the lesser lights of
the Ministry were Sir J. C. Hobhouse, Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Fox Maule,
Lord Morpeth, and Mr. (afterwards Lord) Macaulay. Sir James Graham was
offered the Governor-Generalship of India, but he had aspirations at
Westminster, which, however, were never fulfilled, and declined the
offer. The Tory party was demoralised and split up into cliques by
suspicion and indignation. Stanley was in the House of Lords by this
time, Peel was in disgrace, and Lord George Bentinck was already
beginning to cut a somewhat ridiculous figure, whilst nobody as yet was
quite prepared to take Disraeli seriously. 'We are left masters of the
field,' wrote Palmerston, with a touch of characteristic humour, 'not
only on account of our own merits, which, though we say it ourselves,
are great, but by virtue of the absence of any efficient competitors.'
The new Ministry began well. Lord John's address to his constituents in
the City made an excellent impression, and was worthy of the man and the
occasion. 'You may be assured that I shall not desert in office the
principles to which I adhered when they were less favourably received. I
cannot indeed claim the merit either of having carried measures of Free
Trade as a Minister, or of having so prepared the public mind by any
exertions of mine as to convert what would have been an impracticable
attempt into a certain victory. To others belong those distinctions. But
I have endeavoured to do my part in this great work according to my
means and convictions, first by proposing a temperate relaxation of the
Corn Laws, and afterwards, when that measure has been repeatedly
rejected, by declaring in favour of total repeal, and using every
influence I could exert to prevent a renewal of the struggle for an
object not worth the cost of conflict. The Government of this country
ought to behold with an impartial eye the various portions of the
community engaged in agriculture, in manufactures, and in commerce. The
feeling that any of them is treated with injustice provokes ill-will,
disturbs legislation, and diverts attention from many useful and
necessary reforms. Great social improvements are required: public
education is manifestly imperfect; the treatment of criminals is a
problem yet undecided; the sanitary condition of our towns and villages
has been grossly neglected. Our recent discussions have laid bare the
misery, the discontent, and outrages of Ireland; they are too clearly
authenticated to be denied, too extensive to be treated by any but the
most comprehensive means.'
[Sidenote: EVER A FIGHTER]
Lord John had been thirty-three years in the House of Commons when he
became for the first time Prime Minister. The distinction of rank and of
an historic name gave him in 1813, when government by great families
was still more than a phrase, a splendid start. The love of liberty
which he inherited as a tradition grew strong within him, partly through
his residence in Edinburgh under Dugald Stewart, partly through the
generous and stimulating associations of Holland House, but still more,
perhaps, because of the tyranny of which he was an eye-witness during
his travels as a youth in Italy and Spain at a period when Europe lay
under the heel of Napoleon. Lord John was ever a fighter, and the
political conflicts of his early manhood against the triple alliance of
injustice, bigotry, and selfish apathy in the presence of palpable
social abuses lent ardour to his convictions, tenacity to his aims, and
boldness to his attitude in public life. Although an old Parliamentary
hand, he was in actual years only fifty-four when he came to supreme
office in the service of the State, but he had already succeeded in
placing great measures on the Statute Book, and he had also won
recognition on both sides of the House as a leader of fearless courage,
open mind, and great fertility of resource alike in attack and in
defence. Peel, his most formidable rival on the floor of the Commons,
hinted that Lord John Russell was small in small things, but, he added
significantly that, when the issues grew great, he was great also.
Everyone who looks at Lord John's career in its length and breadth must
admit the justice of such a criticism. On one occasion he himself said,
in speaking of the first Lord Halifax, that the favourite of Charles II.
had 'too keen a perception of errors and faults to act well with
others,' and the remark might have been applied to himself. There were
times when Lord John, by acting hastily on the impulse of the moment,
landed his colleagues in serious and unlooked for difficulties, and
sometimes it happened that in his anxiety to clear his own soul by
taking an independent course, he compromised to a serious extent the
position of others.
Lord Melbourne's cynical remark, to the effect that nobody did anything
very foolish except from some strong principle, carries with it a
tribute to motive as well as a censure on action, and it is certain that
the promptings to which Lord John yielded in the questionable phases of
his public career were not due to the adroit and calculating temper of
self-interest. His weaknesses were indeed, after all, trivial in
comparison to his strength. He rose to the great occasion and was
inspired by it. All that was formal and hesitating in manner and speech
disappeared, and under the combined influence of the sense of
responsibility and the excitement of the hour 'languid Johnny,' to
borrow Bulwer Lytton's phrase, 'soared to glorious John.' Palmerston,
like Melbourne, was all things to all men. His easy nonchalance, sunny
temper, and perfect familiarity with the ways of the world and the
weaknesses of average humanity, gave him an advantage which Lord John,
with his nervous temperament, indifferent health, fastidious tastes, shy
and rather distant bearing, and uncompromising convictions, never
possessed. Russell's ethical fervour and practical energetic bent of
mind divided him sharply from politicians who lived from hand to mouth,
and were never consumed by a zeal for reform in one direction or
another; and these qualities sometimes threw him into a position of
singular isolation. The wiles and artifices by which less proud and less
conscientious men win power, and the opportune compliments and unwatched
concessions by which too often they retain it, lay amongst the things to
which he refused to stoop.
[Sidenote: HIS PRACTICAL SAGACITY]
Men might think Lord John taciturn, angular, abrupt, tenacious, and
dogmatic, but it was impossible not to recognise his honesty, public
spirit, pluck in the presence of difficulty, and high interpretation of
the claims of public duty which marked his strenuous and indomitable
career. His qualifications for the post of Prime Minister were not open
to challenge. He was deeply versed in constitutional problems, and had
received a long and varied training in the handling of great affairs. He
possessed to an enviable degree the art of lucid exposition, and could
render intricate proposals luminous to the public mind. He was a shrewd
Parliamentary tactician, as well as a statesman who had worthily gained
the confidence of the nation. He was ready in debate, swift to see and
to seize the opportunity of the hour. He was full of practical sagacity,
and his personal character lent weight to his position in the country.
In the more militant stages of his career, and especially when he was
fighting the battles of Parliamentary reform and religious liberty, he
felt the full brunt of that 'sullen resistance to innovation,' as well
as that 'unalterable perseverance in the wisdom of prejudice,' which
Burke declared was characteristic of the English race. The natural
conservatism of growing years, it must be frankly admitted, led
eventually in Lord John's case, as in that of the majority of mankind,
to the slackening of interest in the new problems of a younger
generation, but to the extreme verge of life he remained far too great a
statesman and much too generous a man ever to lapse into the position of
a mere _laudator temporis acti_. Lord John did not allow the few
remaining weeks of a protracted and exhaustive session to elapse without
a vigorous attempt to push the principle of Free Trade to its logical
issues. He passed a measure which rendered the repeal of the Corn Laws
total and immediate, and he carried, with the support of Peel and in
spite of the opposition of Bentinck and Disraeli, the abolition of
protection to sugar grown in the British Colonies.
Ireland quickly proved itself to be a stone of stumbling and a rock of
offence to the new Administration. Lord John's appointment of Lord
Bessborough--his old colleague, Duncannon, in the Committee on Reform in
1830--as viceroy was popular, for he was a resident Irish landlord, and
a man who was genuinely concerned for the welfare of the people.
O'Connell trusted Lord Bessborough, and that, in the disturbed condition
of the country, counted for much. The task of the new viceroy was hard,
even with such support, and though Bessborough laboured manfully and
with admirable tact to better the social condition of the people and to
exorcise the spirit of discord, the forces arrayed against him proved
resistless when famine came to their aid. As the summer slipped past,
crime and outrage increased, and the prospect for the approaching winter
grew not merely gloomy but menacing. Peel had been turned out of office
because of his Irish Arms Bill, and Bessborough was no sooner installed
in Dublin than he made urgent representations to the Cabinet in Downing
Street as to the necessity of adopting similar repressive measures, in
view of the prevailing lawlessness and the contempt for life and
property which in the disaffected districts were only too common. In
August the crisis was already so acute that the Government, yielding to
the fears of its Irish advisers, stultified itself by proposing the
renewal of the Arms Bill until the following spring. The step was ill
advised, and provoked much hostile criticism. Lord John did not relish
the measure, but Lord Bessborough declared that Ireland could not be
governed for the moment without it, and as he also talked of throwing
up his appointment, and was supported in this view of the situation by
Mr. Labouchere (afterwards Lord Taunton), who at that time was Chief
Secretary, the Prime Minister gave way and introduced in the House of
Commons proposals which were out of keeping with his own antecedents,
and which he personally disliked. In speaking of Sir Robert Peel's
Coercion Bill in his published 'Recollections,' Lord John makes no
secret of his own attitude towards the measure. 'I objected to the Bill
on Irish grounds. I then thought, and I still think, that it is wrong to
arrest men and put them in prison on the ground that they _may_ be
murderers and housebreakers. They may be, on the other hand, honest
labourers going home from their work.' On the contrary, he thought that
every means ought to be promptly taken for discovering the perpetrators
of crime and bringing them to justice, and he also believed in giving
the authorities on the spot ample means of dealing with the reign of
terror which agrarian outrages had established.
[Sidenote: THE IRONY OF THE SITUATION]
If O'Connell had been at Lord John's side at that juncture, England
might have sent a practical message of good-will to Ireland instead of
falling back on the old policy of coercion. O'Connell had learnt to
trust Russell--as far, at least, as it was possible for a leader of the
Irish people to trust a Whig statesman--and Russell, on the other hand,
was beginning to understand not merely O'Connell, but the forces which
lay behind him, and which rendered him, quite apart from his own
eloquence and gifts, powerful. Unfortunately, the Liberator was by this
time broken in health, and the Young Ireland party were already in
revolt against his authority, a circumstance which, in itself, filled
the Premier with misgivings, and led him to give way, however
reluctantly, to the demand of the viceroy for repressive measures. Lord
John was, in fact, only too well aware that force was no remedy. He
wished, as much as O'Connell, to root up the causes which produced
crime. Young Ireland, however, seemed determined to kick over the traces
at the very time when the Liberator was inducing the Whigs to look at
the question in a practical manner. Lord John knew, to borrow his own
expression, that the 'armoury of penal legislation was full of the
weapons of past battles, and yet the victory of order and peace had not
been gained.' The Liberal party set its face against coercion in any
shape or form, and the Government withdrew a proposal which they ought
never to have introduced. This course had scarcely been taken when a new
and terrible complication of the social problem in Ireland arose.
[Sidenote: THE IRISH FAMINE]
Famine suddenly made its presence felt, and did so in a manner which
threw the privation and scarcity of the previous winter altogether into
the shade. The potato crop was a disastrous failure, and, as the summer
waned, the distress of an impoverished and thriftless race grew acute.
The calamity was as crushing as it was rapid. 'On July 27,' are Father
Mathew's words, 'I passed from Cork to Dublin, and this doomed plant
bloomed in all the luxuriance of an abundant harvest. Returning on
August 3 I beheld with sorrow one wide waste of putrefying vegetation.'
A million and a half of acres were at the moment under cultivation, and
the blight only spared a quarter of them, whilst, to make matters worse,
the oat crop, by an unhappy coincidence, proved to a startling extent
insufficient. The financial loss in that disastrous harvest, in the
reckoning of experts, amounted to between fifteen and sixteen millions
sterling. Fever and dysentery made fatal inroads on the dwindling
strength of the gaunt and famished peasantry, and in one district alone,
out of a population of 62,000 inhabitants, no less than 5,000 persons
died, directly or indirectly, of starvation in the course of three
months. 'All our thoughts,' wrote O'Connell, 'are engrossed with two
topics--endeavouring to keep the people from outbreaks, and endeavouring
to get food for them.' In many instances the landlords seemed robbed of
the characteristics of ordinary humanity, for the ruthless process of
eviction was carried on with a high hand, and old men and children were
left unsheltered as well as unfed.
Property had neglected its duties, but, as usual, did not neglect its
rights, and in that terrible crisis it overrode the rights of humanity.
Many of the landowners, however, manfully did their best to stay the
plague, but anything which they could accomplish seemed a mockery amid
the widespread distress. Readers of Sir Gavan Duffy's 'Four Years of
Irish History' will recall his vivid description of the manner in which
some of the landowners, however, saw their cruel opportunity, and
accordingly 'closed on the people with ejectments, turned them on the
road, and plucked down their roof-trees,' and also that still more
painful passage which describes how women with dead children in their
arms were seen begging for a coffin to bury them. Relief committees
were, of course, started; the Friends, in particular, busied themselves
in practical efforts to cope with the distress, and Mr. W. E. Forster,
who went to Ireland to distribute relief, declared that his wonder was,
as he passed from village to village, not that the people died, but that
so many contrived to live.
The Russell Government met the crisis with courage, though scarcely with
adequate understanding. Ireland remembered with bitterness their Arms
Bill and their repressive measures. Public feeling ran high over some of
their proposals, for the people resented Lord John's modification of Sir
Robert Peel's plan by which the cost of public works was to be defrayed
by the State and district in which employment was given. Lord John
determined that the cost should be met in the first instance by
Government loans, which were to be repaid with an almost nominal
interest by the people of the district. This was interpreted to mean
that Ireland was to bear her own burdens, and in her impoverished state
was to be saddled with the financial responsibilities inseparable from
so pitiable a collapse of prosperity. Bread riots and agrarian
disturbances grew common, and the Government met them with rather more
than becoming sternness, instead of dealing promptly with the
land-tenure system which lay at the root of so much of the misery. At
the beginning of the session of 1847 it was stated that 10,000,000_l._
would be required to meet the exigencies of the situation. Lord George
Bentinck proposed a grant of 16,000,000_l._ for the construction of
Irish railways, but Lord John made the question one of personal
confidence in himself, and threatened resignation if it passed. His
chief objection to the proposal was based on the fact that seventy-five
per cent. of the money spent in railway construction would not reach the
labouring classes. Lord George Bentinck's motion was rejected by a
sweeping majority, though at a subsequent stage in the session the
Government consented to advance a substantial sum to three Irish
railways--a concession which exposed them to the usual taunts of
inconsistency.
[Sidenote: MEASURES OF RELIEF]
Measures were also introduced for promoting emigration to the colonies,
and for the suspension of certain clauses of the Navigation Laws which
hindered the importation of foreign corn. At one time during the
distress there were no less than six hundred thousand men employed on
public works in Ireland, and the Government found it no easy task to
organise this vast army of labour, or to prevent abuses. Lord
Bessborough urged that the people should be employed in the improvement
of private estates, but Lord John met this proposal with disapproval,
though he at length agreed that the drainage of private land should come
within the scope of public works. It was further determined to lend
money in aid of the improvement of private property, the operation of
the Irish Poor Law was also extended, and in other directions energetic
measures were taken for the relief of the prevailing destitution. Lord
John was a keen observer both of men and of movements, and the
characteristics of the peasantry, and more particularly the personal
helplessness of the people, and the lack of concerted action among them,
impressed him. 'There are some things,' he declared, 'which the Crown
cannot grant and which Parliament cannot enact--the spirit of
self-reliance and the spirit of co-operation. I must say plainly that I
should indeed despair of this task were it not that I think I see
symptoms in the Irish people both of greater reliance on their own
energies and exertions, and of greater intelligence to co-operate with
each other. Happy will it be, indeed, if the Irish take for their maxim,
"Help yourselves and Heaven will help you," and then I think they will
find there is some use in adversity.'
Lord John Russell's Irish policy has often been misunderstood, and not
seldom misrepresented, but no one who looks all the facts calmly in the
face, or takes into account the difficulties which the famine threw in
his path, will be inclined to harsh criticism. Lady Russell's journal
at this period reveals how great was her husband's anxiety in view of
the evil tidings from Ireland, and one extract may be allowed to speak
for itself. After stating that her husband has much to distress him in
the state of the country, these words follow: 'God grant him success in
his labours to amend it--famine, fever, trade failing, and discontent
growing are evils which it requires all his resolution, sense of duty,
and love for the public to face. I pray that he may, and believe that he
will, one day be looked back to as the greatest benefactor of unhappy
Ireland.' When once the nature of the calamity became apparent, Lord
John never relaxed his efforts to grapple with the emergency, and,
though not a demonstrative man, there is proof enough that he felt
acutely for the people, and laboured, not always perhaps wisely, but at
least well, for the amelioration of their lot. He was assailed with a
good deal of personal abuse, and was credited with vacillation and
apathy, especially in Ireland, where his opponents, acting in the
capacity of jurymen at inquests on the victims of the famine, sometimes
went so far as to bring in a verdict of wilful murder against the Prime
Minister. It is easy enough after the event to point out better methods
than those devised at the imperious call of the moment by the Russell
Administration, but there are few fair-minded people in the present day
who would venture to assert that justice and mercy were not in the
ascendent during a crisis which taxed to the utmost the resources of
practical statesmanship.
[Sidenote: LORD CLARENDON IN IRELAND]
The new Parliament assembled in November, and a Committee of both Houses
was appointed to take into consideration the depressed condition of
trade, for symptoms of unmistakable distress were apparent in the great
centres of industry. Ireland, moreover, still blocked the way, and Lord
Clarendon, who had succeeded to the viceroyalty, alarmed at the
condition of affairs, pressed for extraordinary powers. The famine by
this time was only a memory, but it had left a large section of the
peasantry in a sullen and defiant mood. As a consequence stormy
restlessness and open revolt made themselves felt. Armed mobs, sometimes
five hundred and even a thousand strong, wandered about in lawless
fashion, pounced upon corn and made raids on cattle, and it seemed
indeed at times as if life as well as property was imperilled. Lord
Clarendon was determined to make the disaffected feel that the law could
not be set aside with impunity. He declared that the majority of these
disturbers of the peace were not in actual distress, and he made no
secret of his opinion that their object was not merely intimidation but
plunder. 'I feel,' were his words as the autumn advanced, 'as if I was
at the head of a provisional government in a half-conquered country.'
It is easy to assert that Lord Clarendon took a panic-stricken view
of the situation, and attempts have again and again been made to
mitigate, if not to explain away, the dark annals of Irish crime.
The facts, however, speak for themselves, and they seemed at the moment
to point to such a sinister condition of affairs that Lord John Russell
felt he had no option but to adopt repressive measures. Sir George
Grey stated in Parliament that the number of cases of fatal bloodshed
during the six summer months of 1846 was sixty-eight, whilst in the
corresponding period in 1847 it had increased to ninety-six. Shooting
with intent to slay, which in the six months of 1846 had numbered
fifty-five, now stood at 126. Robbery under arms had also grown with
ominous rapidity, for in the contrasted half-years of 1846 and 1847
deeds of violence of this kind were 207 and 530 respectively, whilst
outrage in another of its most cruel and despicable forms--the firing of
dwelling-houses--revealed, under the same conditions of time, 116 acts
of incendiarism in 1847, as against fifty-one in the previous year.
The disaffected districts of Clare, Limerick, and Tipperary made the
heaviest contribution to this dismal catalogue of crime; but far beyond
their borders though with diminished force, the lawless spirit
prevailed.
Mr. Spencer Walpole, in his standard and authoritative 'Life of Lord
John Russell,' has shown, by an appeal to his correspondence with Lord
Clarendon, how reluctant the Prime Minister was to bring forward a new
Arms Bill. He has also made it plain that it was only the logic of
events which finally convinced the Prime Minister of the necessity in
any shape for such a measure. Mr. Walpole has also vindicated, at
considerable length, Lord John from the familiar charge of having
adopted in power the proposals which led to the overthrow of the Peel
Administration. He lays stress on the fact that the Arms Bill, which the
Government carried at the close of 1847 by a sweeping majority, was, to
a noteworthy extent, different from that which Sir Robert sought to
impose on Ireland twelve months earlier, and which the Whigs met with
strenuous and successful opposition. In Mr. Walpole's words, the new
proposals 'did not contain any provision for compensating the victims of
outrages at the expense of the ratepayers; they did not render persons
congregated in public-houses or carrying arms liable to arrest; above
all, they did not comprise the brutal clause which made persons out of
doors at night liable to transportation.' The condition of Ireland was,
indeed, so menacing that the majority of the English people of all
shades of political opinion were of one mind as to the necessity for
stern measures. Sir Robert Peel, with no less candour than chivalry,
declared that the best reparation which could be made to the last
Government would be to assist the present Government in passing such a
law. Perhaps still more significant were the admissions of Mr. John
Bright. At the General Election the young orator had been returned to
Parliament, not for a Sleepy Hollow like Durham, which had first sent
him, but for the commanding constituency of Manchester, and almost at
once he found himself in opposition to the views of a vast number of the
inhabitants. He was requested to present a petition against the bill
signed by more than 20,000 persons in Manchester. In doing so he took
the opportunity of explaining in the House of Commons the reasons which
made it impossible for him--friend of peace and goodwill as he assuredly
was--to support its prayer. He declared that the unanimous statements of
all the newspapers, the evidence of men of all parties connected with
Ireland, as well as the facts which were placed before them with
official authority, made it plain beyond a doubt that the ordinary law
was utterly powerless, and, therefore, he felt that the case of the
Government, so far as the necessity for such a bill was concerned, was
both clear and perfect.
[Sidenote: JOHN BRIGHT AND IRISH AFFAIRS]
Mr. Bright drew attention to the fact that assassinations in Ireland
were not looked upon as murders, but rather as executions; and that some
of them at least were not due to sudden outbursts of passion, but were
planned with deliberation and carried out in cold blood. He saw no
reason to doubt that in certain districts public sentiment was 'depraved
and thoroughly vitiated;' and he added that, since the ordinary law had
failed to meet the emergency the Government had a case for the demand
they made for an extension of their present powers, and he thought that
the bill before the House was the less to be opposed since, whilst it
strengthened the hands of the Executive, it did not greatly exceed or
infringe the ordinary law. Mr. Bright at the same time, it is only fair
to add, made no secret of his own conviction that the Government had not
grappled with sufficient courage with its difficulties, and he
complained of the delay which had arisen over promised legislation of a
remedial character.
Lord John himself was persuaded, some time before Mr. Bright made this
speech, that it was useless to attempt to meet the captious and selfish
objections on the question of agrarian reform of the landlord class;
and, as a matter of fact, he had already drawn up, without consulting
anyone, the outline of a measure which he described to Lord Clarendon as
a 'plan for giving some security and some provision to the miserable
cottiers, who are now treated as brute beasts.' Years before--to be
exact, in the spring of 1844--he had declared in the House of Commons
that, whilst the Government of England was, as it ought to be, a
Government of opinion, the Government of Ireland was notoriously a
Government of force. Gradually he was forced to the view that centuries
of oppression and misunderstanding, of class hatred and opposite aims,
had brought about a social condition which made it necessary that
judicial authority should have a voice between landlord and tenant in
every case of ejectment. Lord John's difficulties in dealing with
Ireland were complicated by the distrust of three-fourths of the people
of the good intentions of English statesmanship. Political agitators,
great and small, of the Young Ireland school, did their best to deepen
the suspicions of an impulsive and ignorant peasantry against the
Whigs, and Lord John was personally assailed, until he became a sort of
bogie-man to the lively and undisciplined imagination of a sensitive but
resentful race.
[Sidenote: THE TREASON FELONY ACT]
Even educated Irishmen of a later generation have, with scarcely an
exception, failed to do justice either to the dull weight of prejudice
and opposition with which Lord John had to contend in his efforts to
help their country, or to give him due credit for the constructive
statesmanship which he brought to a complicated and disheartening
task.[16] Lord John Russell was, in fact, in some directions not only in
advance of his party but of his times; and, though it has long been the
fashion to cavil at his Irish policy, it ought not to be forgotten, in
common fairness, that he not only passed the Encumbered Estates Act of
1848, but sought to introduce the principle of compensation to tenants
for the improvements which they had made on their holdings. Vested
interests proved, however, too powerful, and Ireland stood in her own
light by persistent sedition. The revolutionary spirit was abroad in
1848 not only in France, but in other parts of Europe, and the Irish,
under Mr. Smith O'Brien, Mr. John Mitchel, and less responsible men,
talked at random, with the result that treasonable conspiracy prevailed,
and the country was brought to the verge of civil war. The Irish
Government was forced by hostile and armed movements to proclaim certain
districts in which rebellion was already rampant. The Treason Felony Act
made it illegal, and punishable with penal servitude, to write or speak
in a manner calculated to provoke rebellion against the Crown. This
extreme stipulation was made at the instance of Lord Campbell. Such an
invasion of freedom of speech was not allowed to pass unchallenged, and
Lord John, who winced under the necessity of repression, admitted the
force of the objection, so far as to declare that this form of irksome
restraint should not be protracted beyond the necessity of the hour. He
was not the man to shirk personal danger, and therefore, in spite of
insurrection and panic, and the threats of agitators who were seeking to
compass the repeal of the Union by violent measures, he went himself to
Dublin to consult with Lord Clarendon, and to gather on the spot his own
impressions of the situation. He found the country once more
overshadowed by the prospects of famine, and he came to the conclusion
that the population was too numerous for the soil, and subsequently
passed a measure for promoting aided emigration. He proposed also to
assist from the public funds the Roman Catholic clergy, whose livelihood
had grown precarious through the national distress; but, in deference to
strong Protestant opposition, this method of amelioration had to be
abandoned. The leaders of the Young Ireland party set the authorities at
defiance, and John Mitchel, a leader who advocated an appeal to physical
force, and Smith O'Brien, who talked wildly about the establishment of
an Irish Republic, were arrested, convicted, and transported. O'Connell
himself declared that Smith O'Brien was an exceedingly weak man, proud
and self-conceited and 'impenetrable to advice.' 'You cannot be sure of
him for half an hour.' The force of the movement was broken by cliques
and quarrels, until the spirit of disaffection was no longer formidable.
In August, her Majesty displayed in a marked way her personal interest
in her Irish subjects by a State visit to Dublin. The Queen was
received with enthusiasm, and her presence did much to weaken still
further the already diminishing power of sedition.
[Sidenote: SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS]
The question of education lay always close to the heart of Lord John
Russell, who found time even amid the stress of 1847 to advance it. The
Melbourne Administration had vested the management of Parliamentary
grants in aid of education in a committee of the Privy Council. In spite
of suspicion and hostility, which found expression both in Parliament
and in ecclesiastical circles, the movement extended year by year and
slowly pervaded with the first beginnings of culture the social life of
the people. Lord John had taken an active part in establishing the
authority of the Privy Council in education; he had watched the rapid
growth of its influence, and had not forgotten to mark the defects which
had come to light during the six years' working of the system. He
therefore proposed to remodel it, and took steps in doing so to better
the position of the teacher, as well as to render primary education more
efficient. Paid pupil teachers accordingly took the place of unpaid
monitors, and the opportunity of gaining admittance after this practical
apprenticeship to training colleges, where they might be equipped for
the full discharge of the duties of their calling, was thrown open to
them. As a further inducement, teachers who had gone through this
collegiate training received a Government grant in addition to the usual
salary. Grants were also for the first time given to schools which
passed with success through the ordeal of official inspection.
The passing of the Factory Bill was another effort in the practical
redress of wrongs to which Lord John Russell lent his powerful aid. The
measure, which will always be honourably associated with the names of
Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. Fielden, was a victory for labour which was
hailed with enthusiasm by artisans and operatives throughout the land.
It came as a measure of practical relief, not merely to men, but to
upwards of three hundred and sixty-three thousand women and children,
employed in monotonous tasks in mill and manufactory. Another change
which Lord John Russell was directly instrumental in bringing about was
the creation of the Poor Law Commission into a Ministerial Department,
responsible to Parliament, and able to explain its work and to defend
its policy at Westminster, through the lips of the President of the Poor
Law Board. Regulations were at the same time made for workhouse control,
meetings of guardians, and the like. The great and ever-growing needs of
Manchester were recognised in 1847 by the creation of the Bishopric.
Parliament was dissolved on July 23, and as the adoption of Free Trade
had left the country for the moment without any great question directly
before it, no marked political excitement followed the appeal to the
people. The Conservative party was in truth demoralised by the downfall
of Peel, and the new forces which were soon to shape its course had as
yet scarcely revealed themselves, though Lord Stanley, Lord George
Bentinck, and Mr. Disraeli were manifestly the coming men in Opposition.
If the general election was distinguished by little enthusiasm either on
one side or the other, it yet brought with it a personal triumph to Lord
John, for he was returned for the City at the head of the poll. The
Government itself not only renewed its strength, but increased it as a
result of the contest throughout the country. At the same time the
hostility of the opponents of Free Trade was seen in the return of two
hundred and twenty-six Protectionists, in addition to one hundred and
five Conservatives of the new school of Bentinck and Disraeli.
[Sidenote: DIFFICULTIES OF A PLAIN ENGLISHMAN]
In other directions, meanwhile, difficulties had beset the Government.
The proposed appointment of a Broad Churchman of advanced views, in the
person of Dr. Hampden, Regius Professor at Oxford, to the vacant see of
Hereford filled the High Church party with indignant dismay. Dr. Newman,
with the courage and self-sacrifice which were characteristic of the
man, had refused by this time to hold any longer an untenable position,
and, in spite of his brilliant prospects in the English Church, had
yielded to conscience and submitted to Rome. Dr. Pusey, however,
remained, and under his skilful leadership the Oxford Movement grew
strong, and threw its spell in particular over devout women, whose
aesthetic instincts it satisfied, and whose aspirations after a
semi-conventual life it met.[17] Lord John had many of the
characteristics of the plain Englishman. He understood zealous
Protestants, and, as his rejected scheme for aiding the priests in
Ireland itself shows, he was also able to apprehend the position of
earnest Roman Catholics. He had, however, not so learnt his Catechism or
his Prayer Book as to understand that the Reformation, if not a crime,
was at least a blunder, and therefore, like other plain Englishmen, he
was not prepared to admit the pretensions and assumptions of a new race
of nondescript priests. Thirteen prelates took the unusual course of
requesting the Prime Minister to reconsider his decision, but Lord
John's reply was at once courteous and emphatic. 'I cannot sacrifice the
reputation of Dr. Hampden, the rights of the Crown, and what I believe
to be the true interests of the Church, to a feeling which I believe to
have been founded on misapprehension and fomented by prejudice.'
Although Dr. Pusey did not hesitate to declare that the affair was 'a
matter of life and death,'[18] ecclesiastical protest availed nothing,
and Dr. Hampden was in due time consecrated.
Neither agrarian outrages in Ireland nor clerical agitation in England
hindered, in the session of 1848, the passing of measures of social
improvement. The Public Health Act, which was based on the
representations of Sir Edwin Chadwick and Dr. Southwood Smith, grappled
with the sanitary question in cities and towns, and thus improved in a
variety of directions the social life of the people. It had hitherto
been the fashion of Whigs and Tories alike to neglect practical measures
of this kind, even though they were so closely linked to the health and
welfare of the community.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] _The Croker Papers_, vol. iii. ch. xxiv. p. 53.
[16] Judge O'Connor Morris, in his interesting retrospect, _Memories and
Thoughts of a Life_, just published, whilst severely criticising the
Whig attitude towards Ireland, admits that Russell's Irish policy was
not only 'well-meant,' but in the main successful.
[17] The first Anglican Sisterhood was founded by Dr. Pusey in London in
the spring of 1845.
[18] _Life of E. B. Pusey, D.D._, by H. P. Liddon, D.D., vol. iii. p.
160.