REFORM
Unblest by Virtue, Government a league
Becomes, a circling junto of the great
To rob by law; Religion mild, a yoke
To tame the stooping soul, a trick of State
To mask their rapine, and to share their prey.
THOMSON, _Liberty_.
The distempers of monarchy were the great subjects of apprehension
and redress in the last century; in this, the distempers of
Parliament.--BURKE, _Thoughts on the present Discontents_.
The experience of statesmen has generally led them to link together the
question of retrenchment with that of Reform. The connection between
these two topics indeed lies in the nature of things. The brunt of
taxation has in the past fallen on the middle and artisan classes; and
where they have only a small share in the government, the spending
departments are apt to run riot. Under an oligarchy or plutocracy
the Government is likely to become a close preserve for the benefit
of landless younger sons, the preservation of great estates being
thus assured by means which lower the public services to the level
of eleemosynary institutions. Whenever the mass of taxpayers gains
political power, it will insist on efficiency and economy; or, at the
worst, it will claim that the unprivileged shall also have an entry
into the domain of Government. In either case, the result will be not
unlike that which happens in a household where the husband sleepily
pays and the wife lavishly spends. When the rude awakening comes, the
spending department will probably yield to the power that holds the
purse. The _ultima ratio_ of husbands and Parliaments is, after all,
much the same. On the other hand, if the House of Commons represents
little more than the rent-receiving classes, what hope is there that
it will draw the purse strings? Whence it comes about that economists
have for the most part pleaded for a truly representative system.
As we have seen, Pitt had twice brought forward the question of the
Reform of Parliament, and had twice suffered defeat. The need of
caution was obvious; and this explains his conduct in begging that
veteran reformer, Alderman Sawbridge, not to press his motion on this
subject in the short session of May–August 1784. The Prime Minister,
however, promised to bring it before the House of Commons early in the
following session.[261] Some surprise was therefore felt on the opening
day, 25th January 1785, when the King’s Speech contained no promise
more definite than that he would concur in every measure which would
“secure the true principles of the constitution.”[262] Pitt himself,
while admitting that the King’s Speech might in that House be assumed
to be the speech of the chief Minister, stated that it was impossible
to include in it a reference to that topic. The inference was obvious,
that the King objected to its inclusion in the speech.
For Pitt’s interest in the subject certainly had not cooled. In the
spring of 1784 he had assured the Rev. Christopher Wyvill and the
Yorkshire Association of his devotion to the cause in the following as
yet unpublished letter.
London, March 11, 1784.[263]
GENTLEMEN,
I consider myself greatly obliged to you for the favour of your
letter, which I received upon the 6th instant. I beg leave to
assure you that my zeal for Reform in Parliament is by no means
abated, and that I will ever exert my best endeavours to accomplish
that important object.
(Signed) W. PITT.
Further, on 27th December 1784 he stated to Wyvill his intention to
bring forward a Reform Bill as early as possible in the next session,
and that he would “exert his whole power and credit _as a man, and as
a minister, honestly and boldly_, to carry such a meliorated system of
representation as may place the constitution on a footing of permanent
security.”[264] This at least was the version of his words which Wyvill
at once circulated to Reform Committees throughout the country. With
a belated access of prudence, he added a postscript, urging that it
must in no case be published; but some foolish friend or wise opponent
bruited it abroad, with the result that members of the House now
contrasted his eagerness for Reform with his inability to secure any
mention of it in the King’s Speech. He might declare that the subject
was the nearest to his heart, and that nothing but its complexity
prevented him sketching an outline of his proposal; but members drew
their own conclusions. North made a skilful use of Wyvill’s letter, but
elicited from Pitt no definite disclaimer of the words quoted from it.
Indeed Pitt afterwards assured Wyvill that those words well expressed
his thoughts.[265]
Pitt judged that it would be best to proceed circumspectly in the
matter of Reform, perhaps because he wished the affair of Wyvill’s
letter to blow over, or because he had obstacles to face in his
Cabinet. Owing to these or other causes he decided to give precedence
to his resolutions for according greater freedom of trade to Ireland,
which will be dealt with in another chapter; and not until 18 April
1785 did he bring before Parliament the subject of parliamentary
Reform. The delay was unfortunate, for the trading classes were by this
time ruffled by proposals which promised to bring in the products of
Irish cheap labour.
Meanwhile Pitt drew up a draft scheme of Reform and sent it to Wyvill
for his perusal. He proposed to set aside a sum of somewhat more than
£1,000,000 in order to indemnify electors in nomination boroughs,
provided that two-thirds of their total number should agree to forego
their right of sending members to Parliament. In that case the borough
should be disfranchised, the electors receiving compensation by a
Parliamentary Committee after due examination of their claims. The
seats thus vacated were to be added to counties or to districts of the
larger counties. Pitt also hinted at the enfranchisement of certain
suburban areas of London, and suggested that notoriously corrupt
boroughs (such as Shoreham and Cricklade) should be disfranchised
without compensation, their electoral powers being transferred to
counties. He further proposed to widen the county franchise by
admitting copyholders of 40 shillings a year and leaseholders whose
leases had a certain term yet to run.[266]
These suggestions strike us as strangely cramped, except in the matter
of copyholds, which were dealt with more generously than in Earl Grey’s
Bill of 1831. The proposals for disfranchising the pocket boroughs
resemble a political auction, Pitt dangling a million before the
potwallers of Gatton, Grampound, Castle Rising, etc., as the sole means
of endowing the great counties with political power, and of enabling
Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and Sheffield to find articulate
utterance. Wyvill in 1797 noted that these towns formed a part of
Pitt’s scheme of enfranchisement; but the Prime Minister does not seem
in 1785 to have ventured distinctly to formulate so revolutionary a
proposal. In the draft of a preamble to his Bill he suggested the
advisability of enlarging the electorate in the case of several towns
such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Winchester, where the Corporation or
the Guild Merchant alone returned the members of Parliament.
These draft proposals reveal the caution, not to say nervousness, with
which Pitt approached this great subject; and the same characteristics
appear in the speech of 18th April 1785 in which he introduced his
measure. While lacking glow and enthusiasm, it was instinct with
moderation and persuasiveness. He started with the assumption that
the House of Commons ought to be “an Assembly freely elected, between
whom and the mass of the people there was the closest union and most
perfect sympathy”; but he proceeded to allay the fears of those who,
like Burke, saw in any change a death-blow to the constitution, by
disclaiming “vague and unlimited notions.” He desired, he said,
“a sober and practicable scheme which should have for its basis
the original principle of representation.” He then showed how that
principle had been warped by time and Court intrigues. Sometimes method
was discoverable, and he cited a case that occurred shortly after
the Restoration when, after the disfranchisement of 72 boroughs, 36
of them regained their rights on petition, but the 36 others, having
decreased in size, remained without representatives. Therefore, by
the discretionary powers of the Crown to grant, or to withhold,
representation, there was a clear recognition of the principle that
the chief towns, not the decayed towns, should return members to
Parliament. Who, he asked, was the truer supporter of the constitution?
He who sought to preserve the mere form of it, or he who preferred its
substance and essence to the empty shell? Coming next to the outlines
of his scheme, he declared that he would change neither the proportion
of Scottish to English members, as settled by the Act of Union of 1707,
nor the numbers of the House. All that he aimed at for the present was
to disenfranchise 36 decayed boroughs and to assign their 72 members
to the counties which most needed a larger representation, as also to
London and Westminster.
Moderation such as this implies timidity. Moreover this was not
all. As we have seen, Pitt did not intend to carry out this reform
by compulsion; and he now declared that, recognizing as he did the
monetary value of the franchises of these decayed boroughs, he proposed
to form a fund whence they might gain compensation for this undoubted
loss. Very skilfully he introduced this novel proposal by deprecating
the “squeamish and maiden coyness” which members affected in speaking
there on a topic which they frankly discussed outside the House. For
himself he faced the fact that the right of returning two members to
Parliament had a certain monetary value, and he therefore offered a
due indemnity. Further, if in the future any other decayed borough
should wish to surrender its franchise “on an adequate consideration,”
he proposed to facilitate such a surrender, and to allot the two
seats to any district or town that seemed most to need the franchise.
Finally he desired to widen the electorate in the counties by including
copyholders, whose property was as secure as, sometimes more secure
than, that of the freeholders.[267]
Such were the proposals. They were brought forward at a time when Pitt
had suffered in the opinion of the House, first by his obstinacy in
persevering with the Westminster election scrutiny, and, secondly,
by the Irish Commercial Resolutions. Members were therefore in an
unsettled state of mind, and an eye-witness describes them as listening
to the Prime Minister “with that sort of civil attention which people
give to a person who has a good claim to be heard, but with whom the
hearers are determined to disagree.” The same witness, Daniel Pulteney,
found that most of Pitt’s friends “lamented that he would not keep
clear of this absurd business--this Yorkshire system of Reform.”[268]
Despite this chilling reception, Pitt set forth his proposals “with the
attractions of a most seductive eloquence.” Such is the testimony of
Wraxall, which by itself would tend to refute the venomous assertion
that Pitt was not in earnest. The contrary is proved by his words and
deeds. At Christmastide 1784 he begged Wilberforce to return from the
south of France in order to work in the cause of Reform; and on 12th
January 1785 he wrote to the Duke of Rutland in these terms: “I really
think that I see more than ever the chance of effecting a safe and
temperate plan [of Reform], and I think its success as essential to the
credit, if not to the stability, of the present administration, as it
is to the good government of the country hereafter.”[269] Further, it
is certain that those ardent reformers, Robert Smith (afterwards Lord
Carrington) and Wyvill, had no doubt of his earnestness. The latter
stated in his letters that Pitt was striving his hardest to arouse
interest in the Reform of Parliament.[270]
There is also ground for thinking that the King had privately assured
him that, though he regretted his advocacy of Reform, no word of his
should influence any one against that measure. Wraxall, who voted
against Pitt, admits that his plan of Reform was highly attractive in
theory--a phrase which leaves us wondering what would have been the
practical scheme of reform after which this earth-born soul was dimly
groping.[271] Even Burke, who saw mortal danger to the body politic in
the removal of the smallest rag of antiquity, complimented the Minister
on the skill with which he had sought to make the change palateable to
all parties. None the less did that fervid Celt consider the whole plan
an _ignis fatuus_, calculated to mislead and bewilder. Herein Burke for
once voiced the feelings of the country gentry who thought the fate of
the constitution bound up with the maintenance of the rotten boroughs.
The speeches of Duncombe and Wilberforce in support of the measure
were poor and rambling. Dundas, an unwilling convert to Reform, had
nothing better to say than that he highly approved the principle of
compensation.
The chief arguments against the measure were those of North, Fox, and
Bankes. The first declared that the country cared not a jot for Reform.
Birmingham had not petitioned for it. One of the members for Suffolk,
who sought advice from his constituents, had received no instructions
from them. The effort to get up a Reform meeting in London had resulted
in the attendance of only three hundred persons; and the outcome of
similar efforts in the provinces might be summed up in the line from
“The Rehearsal”:
What horrid sound of _silence_ doth assail mine ear?
As for Fox, though he voted with Pitt, he did his best to defeat the
measure. He wittily explained the silence of the people by their alarm
at Pitt’s Irish Resolutions; for when on the point of emigrating
from a land on the brink of ruin, why should they trouble about
its constitution? Further, he stoutly objected to the award of any
indemnity to the owners of pocket boroughs. The same point was shrewdly
pressed by Bankes. The measure, he said, was absurd on the face of
it. For why declare against the whole principle of the traffic in
such boroughs, and yet proceed to allow liberal compensation to the
traffickers? The argument was more clever than sound, as appeared in
1834 when Parliament awarded £20,000,000 to slave-owners. The taunt
also came with an ill grace from the owner and representative of Corfe
Castle; but it cut Pitt to the quick. He immediately arose and avowed
that the remark wounded him deeply on account of his long friendship
with the speaker; the point touched was a tender one; but the evil
was such that it must be cured, and it could be cured in no other way
than the present. And so, in this mood of “Et tu, Brute,” Pitt and
his friends withdrew into the lobby, and soon learned that his third
attempt to redress the glaring ills of the representation had been
defeated by 248 votes to 174.
The blow was crushing and final as regards Parliamentary Reform in that
age. The storms of the French Revolution and the mightier subterranean
forces of the Industrial Revolution were to work upon the old order
of things before the governing classes of England were brought to see
the need of renovation; and when the change came in 1832, it was not
until the nation had drawn near to the verge of civil war. In 1785 the
transition would have been peaceful and progressive. Pitt was content
to work by permissive methods, and to leave open the decision as to
which of the rising industrial towns should gain the franchise as it
was sold by the decaying boroughs. Such a mode of advance seems to us
that of a snail, and marked by a trail of slime. But we must remember
that the brains of that generation worked very slowly on political
questions; for in truth they had to do with a society which was to
ours almost as a lake is to a torrent. Further, it is noteworthy that
the offer to buy out the pocket boroughs was the chief recommendation
of Pitt’s measure to the House of Commons. Burke praised him for thus
gilding his pill; and Dundas’s chief plea for the measure was that
it did not outrage “the sacred inheritance of property.” Alone among
Pitt’s supporters Bankes reprobated these bartering methods. The
attitude of the House should be remembered, as it bears on the question
how far Pitt was justified in buying off the opposition of the Irish
borough-holders and others who suffered by the Act of Union of 1800.
Could Pitt have taken any further steps to ensure the passing of his
Reform Bill? Mr. Lecky, followed in this by lesser historians, has
maintained the affirmative. He avers that, by making it a ministerial
measure, Pitt could have brought to bear on it all the influence of
party discipline.[272] To this it may be replied that Pitt’s majority,
though large, was very independent. As will appear in the next chapter,
we find him writing that he could not then count on the support of many
of his followers from one day to another. They had floated together
from the wreckage of the Fox and North parties, and had as yet gained
no distinct cohesion, except such as arose from admiration of him.
Further, he strained this feeling too severely in the session of 1785
by his harsh treatment of Fox over the Westminster election, and by
pressing on three unpopular measures, namely, the Irish Resolutions
(22nd February), the fortification of Portsmouth and Plymouth (14th
March), and Parliamentary Reform (18th April). Sooner or later he
suffered defeat on all these proposals. Yet it is clear that his
followers did not intend to drive him from office, but merely to teach
him caution. In this they succeeded only too well. Thereafter he acted
far more warily; and, except in the Warren Hastings’ case, and in the
French Commercial Treaty, he for some time showed little of that power
of initiative which marked the early part of the session of 1785. The
fact is to be regretted; but the need of caution is manifest when we
remember that a single irretrievable blunder would have entailed a
Fox-North Ministry with all the discords and confusion that must have
come in its train. Even zealous reformers, while regretting that Pitt
did not persevere with Reform, continued to prefer him to Fox and
North. This appears in a letter written by Major Cartwright at the
close of the year 1788. On the news of the mental derangement of George
III, that veteran reformer wrote to Wilberforce: “I very much fear that
the King’s present derangement is likely to produce other derangements
not for the public benefit. I hope we are not to be sold to the
Coalition faction. Mr. Fox is, I see, arrived, and cabal, I doubt not,
is labouring with redoubled zeal under his direction to overturn the
present Government.”[273] The distrust felt for Fox after his union
with North survived in full force even in 1788. Their accession to
power, and the triumph of the Prince of Wales, were looked on as the
worst of all political evils. This, I repeat, explains and justifies
the determination of Pitt to continue in office.
But other reasons must also have influenced his decision to shelve
the question of Reform at least for the present. His Cabinet was too
divided on it to warrant his risking its existence on a proposal which
had always been rejected. The marvel was that a Prime Minister should
bring it forward. Further, if we may judge from George III’s letter
of 20th March, the active though secret opposition of the King was
averted only by Pitt giving an unmistakable hint that he would resign
if it were used against the measure.[274] Having secured the King’s
neutrality, Pitt could hardly go further and leave his sovereign in the
lurch by breaking up his Cabinet on a question on which he alone of the
executive Government felt strongly.
Another possible alternative was that he himself should resign.
But this again would almost certainly have involved the fall of an
Administration of which he was the keystone. It is also noteworthy
that the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, whether collective
or personal, had not then been definitely established. Cabinets and
individual Ministers resigned on points of honour, or when they held
that the Government could no longer be satisfactorily carried on.
But neither of these cases had arisen. The Government of the country
obviously could go on as well as before. True, a legislative proposal
of great importance had been rejected; but it cannot be too clearly
stated that in that century the chief work of Government was to govern,
not to pass new laws. Far on in the next century the main business of a
Cabinet came to be the proposing and carrying through of new measures;
but this idea was foreign to that more stationary age; and probably
everyone would have accused Pitt of deserting his post had he resigned
owing to his inability to carry a legislative enactment of a very
debatable character. Walpole has not been blamed because he held to
office despite his failure to carry his very important Excise Bill.
Again, why should Pitt have persevered with the cause of Reform?
Despite all the efforts of Wyvill and the Associations, only eight
petitions had been sent up to the House in favour of it. The taunts
of North as to the apathy of the country were unanswerable. No voice
was heard in protest against the rejection of the measure; and the
judgement of Wilberforce was that of practically all reformers, that,
after Pitt’s failure, Reform was hopeless.[275] Wyvill himself, in
a pamphlet written amidst the excitements of 1793, admitted that
Pitt’s measure received little attention in 1785, and soon fell into
oblivion--a fact which he explained by the complete satisfaction which
the nation then felt with its new Ministry. Here we have the true
explanation, furnished by the man who had his hand on the nation’s
pulse. Wyvill saw that the practical character of the reforms already
carried by Pitt had reconciled the people even to rotten boroughs.
He also stated that the proposals of 1785 did not go far enough to
satisfy many reformers, but that they aroused the bitter hostility of
the boroughmongers. There, indeed, was the gist of the difficulty. The
boroughmongers carried the House with them; and it was impossible at
that period to stir up a national enthusiasm which would brush aside
the fears of the timid and the sophistries of the corrupt. Only under
the overpowering impulse of 1832 could the House be brought to pass
sentence against itself. Because Grey and Russell carried a Reform Bill
nearly half a century later, is Pitt to be blamed for abandoning, after
the third attempt, a measure which aroused invincible opposition in
Parliament, and only the most languid interest in the nation at large?
Further, be it noted that the conduct of Fox had irretrievably damaged
the cause of Reform. His union with Lord North had split in twain
the party of progress; and we have the testimony of an ardent young
reformer, Francis Place, that that unprincipled union dealt a death
blow to the London Society for promoting Constitutional Information,
the last expiring effort of which was to publish a volume of political
tracts in the year 1784.[276] Not until the year 1791 was this useful
society revived, and then owing to the impulses set in motion by French
democracy.
Finally, it is noteworthy that Pitt gave his support to a smaller
measure of Reform brought forward in the session of 1786 by Earl
Stanhope. That nobleman had persuaded Wilberforce to widen the scope
of a proposal which the member for Yorkshire had first designed for
that county alone. It provided for the registration of all freeholders
and the holding of the poll in several places at the same time. Pitt
spoke warmly for the Bill as tending to remedy the chief defects in
the county representation, and he expressed the hope that at some
future time the whole of the representation would undergo the same
improvements (15th May). Despite the opposition of Grenville and Powys,
leave was granted to bring in the measure by 98 votes to 22. Though
Stanhope emphatically declared in the Lords that the summary rejection
of a Bill affecting the Commons would be an act of “unutterable
indecency,” the Peers rejected the measure by 38 votes to 15.[277]
This was the last effort made by Pitt’s friends and supporters to
improve the old system. For the present, Reform had come to an
_impasse_. Even practical little proposals which passed the Commons
were doomed to failure in the Lords; and it was clear that nothing
short of a convulsion would open up a passage. The events that followed
tended to discredit the cause of progress. As will appear in Chapter
XIV, the violence of the Dutch democrats threatened to wreck their
constitution, to degrade the position of the Prince of Orange, and to
make their country a footstool of the French monarchy. Pitt perforce
took the side of the Prince; and this question, together with the
torpor of the populace, served by degrees to detach the young statesman
from uncompromising reformers like Stanhope and Wyvill.
* * * * *
The defection or apathy of many of his friends in the session of 1785
was undoubtedly a severe blow to Pitt. It sounded the death-knell of
his earlier idealism, and led him on, somewhat dazed, to a time marked
by compromise and a tendency to rely upon “influence.” Daniel Pulteney
noted, when he saw him in the park on the day following the rebuff,
that he was in deep sorrow.[278] That was natural in a man who had
hoped to arouse the nation to a vivid interest in good government, and
suddenly found himself headed back to the old paths. The shock must
have been the greater as he had been guided by what I have termed his
bookish outlook on life.
Pulteney, as a man of the world, pointed out to his patron, the Duke
of Rutland, this defect in the young Prime Minister: “This system of
Pitt’s, to act upon general ideas of the propriety or wisdom of a
measure, without attending enough to the means by which it can be best
and most happily introduced--I mean, knowing the general opinion of the
House at the time--must, I foresee, involve him in time in one or other
of these difficulties,” namely, the rash introduction of a measure,
or its abandonment through a sudden access of distrust. Again he says
that Pitt is very much “fettered in his conduct on great affairs. From
a very partial and confined knowledge of the world, he is too full
of caution and suspicions where there does not exist the shadow of a
pretext for them; and, from having no immediate intercourse with the
generality of the House of Commons here, he is as ignorant of their
opinions on particular questions as if he was Minister of another
country.” He then states that, when Pitt suddenly came to see the facts
of the case, he was apt to be unduly despondent and to bring forward
only those questions on which he was sure of a majority. He concludes
that this habit of “acting only on abstract principles” would greatly
embarrass him; but that he might expect long to continue in power,
because “whenever he was to quit, I think no Ministry, not founded on
corruption, could stand against him.”[279]
This estimate, by a practical politician, though marked by a desire
to depreciate Pitt and exalt the Duke of Rutland, goes far towards
explaining the symptoms of change which are thereafter noticeable
in Pitt’s career. It shows us Pitt, not a superb parliamentarian
dominating men and affairs from the outset, but rather an idealist,
almost a _doctrinaire_, who hoped to lead his majority at his will
by the inspiring power of lofty principles, but now and again found
that he had to do, not with Humanity, but with humdrum men. We see
him in the midst of his upward gazings, disconcerted by the force of
material interests, and driven thenceforth to pay more attention to the
prejudices of his party.
First in importance among the expedients to which he was driven after
the spring of 1785 was the use of “influence.” As was shown in the
Introduction, that word, when used in a political sense, denoted the
system of rewards or coercion whereby the King and his Prime Minister
assured the triumph of their policy. Peerages, bishoprics, judgeships,
magistracies, sinecures and gaugerships, were the dainties held out
by every Ministry in order to keep their sleek following close to
heel and thin the ranks of the lean and hungry Opposition. Peerages
alone counted for much; for we find Pitt writing, during the Fox-North
Ministry of 1783, that the King’s determination not to create a single
peer during their term of office must sooner or later be fatal to
them. Government by rewards and exclusions was looked upon as the
natural order of things; but up to the session of 1785 Pitt used
“influence” sparingly. At a later date Wilberforce ventured on the
very questionable assertion that Pitt’s command over Parliament after
the General Election of 1784 was so great that he might have governed
by “principle” and have dispensed with “influence.” He expressed,
however, his admiration of him for refusing to associate with trading
politicians, a connection which, even in the hours of recreation, was
certain to bring defilement.[280]
Pitt, as we have seen, never stooped to associate with jobbers, but
he seems to have decided, after the severe rebuffs of February–April
1785, to use “influence” more and more. We notice in his letters to the
Duke of Rutland and Orde several injunctions as to the management of
members in the Irish Parliament; and he sought to conciliate waverers
by other means, such as the abandonment of those clauses of the Irish
Resolutions which were most obnoxious to British traders, and an almost
lavish use of honours and places. This last expedient he adopted
unwillingly; for on 19th July 1785 he wrote to the Duke of Rutland
that circumstances compelled him to recommend a larger addition to
the British peerage than he liked, and that he was very desirous not
to increase it farther than was absolutely necessary.[281] This shows
that his hand was forced either by his colleagues or by the exigencies
of the time. Possibly the promises of peerages had to be made in order
to secure the passing of the Irish Resolutions even in their modified
form. It is humiliating to reflect that this descent from a higher to a
lower level of policy thenceforth secured him a majority which followed
his lead, except on the isolated questions of the fortification of
Portsmouth and Plymouth, and of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, the
latter of which he left entirely open.
* * * * *
It will be convenient to consider here the question of the
fortification of the chief national dockyards, as it shows the
determination of the Prime Minister to secure economy and efficiency in
the public services. As we have seen, his great aim was to carry out
a work of revival in every sphere of the nation’s life. When thwarted
in one direction he did not relax his energies, but turned them into
new channels. On the rejection of the Irish Resolutions, he urged the
Duke of Rutland to seek out the most practicable means of healing the
discontent in that island. Above all he suggested an alleviation in the
matter of tithe (then the most flagrant of all material grievances), if
possible, with the assent of the (Protestant) Established Church.[282]
Similarly in the cause of Free Trade, when foiled by Anglo-Irish
jealousies, he turned towards France; and, after discovering the
impossibility of carrying out his aim for the regeneration of
Parliament, he vindicated the claims of morality in the administration
of India. Finally, it is a crowning proof of the many-sidedness and
practical character of his efforts that, amidst all his strivings to
reduce the National Debt, he sought to strengthen the nation’s defences.
Despite the many distractions of the years 1785–1786, he devoted much
care and thought to the navy. Already, in 1784, he had instituted a
Parliamentary inquiry into the state of the fleet and the dockyards,
which brought to light many defects and pointed the way to remedies.
His anxiety respecting the first line of defence also led him to keep
the number of seamen at 18,000, a higher total than ever was known
in time of peace; and he allotted the large sum of £2,400,000 for
the building of warships by contract. Further, he sought to stop the
corruption which was rife in the dockyards and the naval service.
The letter which Sir Charles Middleton (afterwards Lord Barham) wrote
to him on 24th August 1786 reveals an astounding state of affairs. From
his official knowledge he declared--
The principle of our dockyards at present is a total disregard to
public œconomy in all its branches; and it is so rooted in the
professional officers that they cannot divest themselves of it
when brought into higher stations. They have so many relatives
and dependants, too, in the dockyards, that can only be served by
countenancing and promoting improper expences, that they never lose
an opportunity of supporting them when in their power, and on this
account ought to have as small a voice as possible in creating
them.[283]
In this and other letters to Pitt, Middleton expressed his belief
that much might be done to check these evils by the help of a firm
and upright Minister. Probably this appeal from a patriotic and
hard-working official sharpened the attention which Pitt bestowed on
naval affairs. We know from the notes of Sir T. Byam Martin that Pitt
frequently visited the Navy Office in order to discuss business details
with the Comptroller, and by his commanding ability left the impression
that he might have been all his life engaged on naval affairs. In
particular he used to inspect the reports of the building and repairing
of the ships-of-the-line.--“He also (wrote Martin) desired to have a
periodical statement from the Comptroller of the state of the fleet,
wisely holding that officer responsible personally to him without any
regard to the Board.” The results of this impulse given by one master
mind were speedily seen. More work was got out of the dockyards, and
twenty-four new sail-of-the-line were forthcoming from private yards
in the years 1783–1790. Thus, by the time of the Spanish war-scare in
1790, ninety-three line-of-battle ships were ready for commission.[284]
The crises of the years 1786–1788 had also been so serious that they
might speedily have led to war had not Britain’s first line of defence
been invincible.
In regard to the proposal to strengthen the defences of Portsmouth and
Plymouth, Pitt was less fortunate. The proposal really came from the
Duke of Richmond, Master of the Ordnance, who was far from popular--a
fact which perhaps influenced the votes of members. Though Pitt and
other Ministers adduced excellent reasons for not leaving those vital
points in their present weak state, he did not carry the House of
Commons with him. After an exciting debate, which lasted till 7 a.m. of
28th February 1786, the numbers on a division were found to be exactly
equal. Then there arose a shout such as had not been heard since the
memorable vote which wrecked Lord North’s Ministry. At once all eyes
turned to the Speaker, Cornwall. He declared that he was too exhausted
to give his reasons for his vote, but he would merely declare that the
“Noes” had it. Wraxall states that the sense of the House was against
Pitt, the country gentlemen especially disliking the addition of
£700,000 to the next year’s expenses.[285] One of the arguments of the
Opposition seems to us curious. It was urged that the fortification of
the two towns in question might be the beginning of a despotic system
which would undermine the liberties of Englishmen. While treating
this argument with the contempt it deserved, Pitt declared that he
bowed before the feeling of the House. The commencement of huge works
at Cherbourg later in the year must have caused qualms even to the
watch-dogs of the constitution.
Some of the more eager Whigs called out for him to resign, it being
the third time in twenty-two months that he had failed to carry an
important measure. We may, however, point out that the proposal
emanated from the Duke of Richmond; and there is the curious fact that
Courtenay during the debate of 20th March 1789 asserted that the plan
was merely the Duke’s, and had not come from the Royal Engineers. He
was also not contradicted.[286] Further, it should be noticed that
though Pitt made the proposal his own, Dundas and others of his Cabinet
were known to dislike it. There is the final consideration already
dwelt on, that the custom which requires a Ministry to resign on the
rejection of any important measure, had not yet crystallized into a
rule.
This was the last severe check which Pitt sustained in Parliament for
many years. The fact that he suffered as many as three in twenty-two
months with little or no diminution of prestige shows that his majority
really trusted him and had no desire to put Fox and North in power.
That alternative was out of the question, as Fox knew, even when he
twitted his rival with being kept in office solely by the royal favour.
Nevertheless in the years following 1785 we notice a distinct weakening
in Pitt’s progressive tendencies. Whig though he was in his inmost
convictions, he drifted slowly but surely towards the Tory position.
Fortunately for him, the folly of his rivals in the year 1784, and
again in the Regency crisis of 1788–9, enabled him to link the cause of
the King with that of the nation. But these occasions were exceptional.
It is never safe to owe a triumph to the mistakes of opponents amidst
unusual conditions. For mistakes will be made good; and in the whirl of
life circumstances will arise which range men and parties according to
elemental principles.
* * * * *
Even before the French Revolution tested the strength of Pitt’s
reforming convictions, there came a question which acted as a
touchstone. This was the proposal to repeal the Corporation and Test
Acts of the reign of Charles II. Those measures had excluded from
office in Corporations, or under Government, all who would not receive
the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. By this
ban a large body of intelligent and loyal citizens were thrust out of
the pale of political and civic preferment; and though the Toleration
Act and Annual Acts of Indemnity screened them from actual persecution,
their position was yet one of hardship. Certain bodies had not
scrupled to make money out of their conscientious objections. As is
well known, the Corporation of the City of London hit upon the plan of
augmenting the building fund of their new Mansion House by passing a
by-law in 1748 fining any Londoner who refused to serve when presented
for nomination as Sheriff, and then proposing rich Nonconformists
for that office. Not until 1767 did the able pronouncement of Lord
Mansfield in the Upper House secure the rejection of this odious
device. Thenceforth Nonconformists secured immunity from fines for
refusing to serve in offices that were barred by the test of the
Sacrament.
Nevertheless their position was far from enviable. By the freaks
of insular logic Protestant Dissenters were allowed to vote in
parliamentary elections and even to sit in the House of Commons; but
though they had a share in the making and amending of laws, they could
hold no office in a Corporation, or any of the great London Companies;
commissions in the army, navy, and offices in other public services
were also legally closed to them. Severe penalties hung over the head
of any one who, in reliance on the annual Act of Indemnity, ventured
to infringe any of these singular enactments. Public opinion approved
this exclusiveness; and an anecdote told of that humorous mass of
intolerance, Dr. Johnson, shows that prejudice was still keen in the
circles which he frequented. He, Sir Robert Chambers, and John Scott
(the future Lord Eldon), were walking in the gardens of New Inn Hall
at Oxford, when Chambers began picking up snails and throwing them
into the next garden. Johnson sharply rebuked him for this boorish
act, until there came the soothing explanation that the neighbour was
a Dissenter.--“Oh,” said the Doctor, “if so, Chambers, toss away, toss
away as hard as you can.”[287]
The choice blend of Anglicanism and culture discernible in Chambers and
Johnson, might be seen elsewhere than in the seat of learning on the
Isis. It was the rule in the rural districts, except among the sturdy
yeomen of the Eastern Counties, where the spirit that fought at Naseby
had so far survived as to render snail-throwing a pastime of doubtful
expediency. The same remark applies to London, where the tactics of
the city fathers had signally failed to suppress Dissent. Very many
churchmen were ashamed of these petty attempts at persecution, and the
progress of the Evangelical revival aroused a feeling of uneasiness at
seeing the most sacred rite of the Church degraded into a political
shibboleth. Comprehension within the bosom of Mother Church was highly
desirable; but clearly it might be too dearly purchased by Erastian
laws which enabled a lax Nonconformist to buy his way into the Customs
or Excise by presenting himself at the altar of the nearest church
along with convinced communicants.
Accordingly Nonconformists had a strong body of opinion on their
side in the session of 1787, when they asked for the repeal of those
exclusive statutes. A staunch churchman, Mr. Beaufoy, championed their
cause in a very powerful and eloquent speech, which won the admiration
of Wraxall.[288] Beaufoy dwelt on the anomaly of retaining this
old-world exclusiveness, which would expose to the penalties of the
law the illustrious John Howard, if ever he returned to this country.
He showed that no danger need be apprehended for the Established
Church, especially as the Act of Supremacy would continue to exclude
from office all Roman Catholics, as well as Quakers. Further, the
loyalty of the Protestant Dissenters had been sufficiently shown in
the election of 1784, when they voted with Pitt on behalf of the
prerogatives of the Crown. He then inveighed against the continuance
of enactments which “degraded the altar into a qualification-desk for
tax-gatherers and public extortioners.” Fox followed with a strong plea
for religious toleration, quoting Locke and other writers who denounced
the imposition of religious tests in political matters. The Church of
England, said the Whig leader, was disgraced by the present state of
things; and, seeing that it represented the majority of the English
people, it could not be endangered by the proposed change.
On the other hand North, now quite blind, came into the House leaning
on his son, Colonel North, in order to oppose the motion. Speaking with
much earnestness, he declared that the Test and Corporation Acts were
the bulwarks of our Constitution. Pitt must have felt some surprise
at speaking on the same side as North; but he now asserted that those
Acts did not impose any stigma or penalty on Nonconformists, for whom,
indeed, he had a great respect. There must be a Church Establishment,
and it of necessity implied some restrictions on those outside its
pale. The constitution of Society involved limitations of individual
rights; and he averred that the laws in question were justified by that
consideration. Further, there were no means whereby moderate Dissenters
could be admitted to these privileges while the more violent were
excluded. If all were admitted, they might overthrow the outworks of
the Establishment. These arguments carried the day by one hundred and
seventy-six votes to ninety-eight (28th March 1787).[289]
Bishop Watson, of Llandaff, in his “Reminiscences,” explains Pitt’s
conduct on this occasion. He declares that the Chancellor of the
Exchequer had no strong feelings of his own on the subject, and had
therefore referred the matter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The
Primate had assembled his colleagues at Lambeth, and by ten votes to
two they had decided to uphold the Caroline enactments. If this be
correct, Pitt’s action was weak. Certainly his speech was half-hearted,
and utterly different in tone from his orations on Reform, the
Regency, Slavery, and other topics which moved him deeply. Moreover,
the referring a matter of this kind to the bench of bishops was about
as reasonable as taking the opinion of country squires on a proposed
mitigation of the Game Laws, or of college dons on a reform of their
university. A Prime Minister abdicates his functions when he defers to
the opinions of a class respecting a proposal which will trench on its
prerogatives.