After passing a Factory Act of some importance, which, however, was

only the forerunner of much subsequent legislation, the House of

Commons engaged in Poor Law Reform. In the winter of 1832-3 a very

startling state of things was disclosed. In a period of great general

prosperity, that portion of England in which the Poor Laws had their

most extensive operation, and in which by much the largest expenditure

of poor-rates had been made, was the scene of daily riot and nightly

incendiarism. There were ninety-three parishes in four counties

of which the population was 113,147 and the Poor-Law expenditure

£81,978, or fourteen shillings and fivepence per head; and there were

eighty parishes in three other counties the population of which was

105,728 and the Poor-Law expenditure £30,820, or five shillings and

ninepence a head. In the counties in which the Poor-Law expenditure

was large the industry and skill of the labourers were passing away,

the connection between the master and servant had become precarious,

the unmarried were defrauded of their fair earnings, and riots and

incendiarism prevailed. In the counties where the expenditure was

comparatively small, there was scarcely any instance of disorder;

mutual attachment existed between the workman and his employer; the

intelligence, skill, and good conduct of the labourers were unimpaired,

or increased. This striking social contrast was but a specimen of

what prevailed throughout large districts, and generally throughout

the south and north of England, and it proved that either through

the inherent vice of the system, or gross maladministration in the

southern counties, the Poor Law had a most demoralising effect upon

the working classes, while it was rapidly eating up the capital upon

which the employment of labour depended. This fact was placed beyond

question by a commission of inquiry, which was composed of individuals

distinguished by their interest in the subject and their intimate

knowledge of its principles and details. Its labours were continued

incessantly for two years. Witnesses most competent to give information

were summoned from different parts of the country. The Commissioners

had before them documentary evidence of every kind calculated to throw

light on the subject. They personally visited localities, and examined

the actual operation of the system on the spot; and when they could not

go themselves, they called to their aid assistant commissioners, some

of whom extended their inquiries into Scotland, Guernsey, France, and

Flanders; while they also collected a vast mass of interesting evidence

from our ambassadors and diplomatic agents in different countries

of Europe and America. It was upon the report of this commission

of inquiry that the Act was founded for the Amendment and Better

Administration of the Laws relating to the Poor in England and Wales (4

and 5 William IV., cap. 76). A more solid foundation for a legislative

enactment could scarcely be found, and the importance of the subject

fully warranted all the expense and labour by which it was obtained.

The statutory provision for all who cannot support themselves had now

existed for upwards of 280 years. There was no considerable increase

of population in England from the period when the Poor Laws were

established up to the middle of the eighteenth century. Its people have

been distinguished for their industry, thrift, and forethought. No

other nation has furnished such unquestionable proofs of the prevalence

of a provident and independent spirit. From the year 1601, when the

Act 43 Elizabeth, the foundation of the old code of Poor Laws, was

put in force, to the commencement of the war with Napoleon, there had

been scarcely any increase of pauperism. In 1815 there were 925,439

individuals in England and Wales, being about one-eleventh of the then

existing population, members of friendly societies, formed for the

express purpose of affording protection to the members in sickness

and old age, and enabling them to subsist without resorting to the

parish fund. It may be asked, How was this state of things compatible

with the right to support at the expense of the parish which the law

gave to the destitute? The answer is, that the exercise of that right

was subjected to the most powerful checks, and restricted in every

possible way. In 1723 an Act was passed authorising the church-wardens

and overseers, with the consent of the parishioners, to establish a

workhouse in each parish; and it was at the same time enacted that the

overseers should be entitled to refuse relief to all who did not choose

to accept it in the workhouse, and to submit to all its regulations.

In consequence of this Act workhouses were erected in many parishes,

and they had an immediate and striking effect in reducing the number

of paupers. Many who had previously received pensions from the parish

preferred depending on their own exertions rather than take up their

abode in the workhouse.

The workhouse test, then, operated powerfully in keeping down

pauperism; but another cause came into operation still more

influential, namely, the Law of Settlement. By the Act 13 and 14

Charles II. a legal settlement in a parish was declared to be gained by

birth, or by inhabitancy, apprenticeship, or service for forty days;

but within that period any two justices were authorised, upon complaint

being made to them by the churchwardens or overseers, if they thought

a new entrant likely to become chargeable, to remove him, unless he

either occupied a tenement of the annual value of ten pounds, or gave

sufficient security that he would indemnify the parish for whatever

loss it might incur on his account. And by a subsequent Act, 3 William

III., every newcomer was obliged to give notice to the churchwarden

of his arrival. This notice should be read in church after divine

service, and then commenced the forty days during which objection might

be made to his settlement. In case of objection, if he remained it

was by sufferance, and he could be removed the moment he married, or

was likely to become chargeable. A settlement might also be obtained

by being hired for a year when unmarried or childless, and remaining

the whole of that time in the service of one master; or being bound an

apprentice to a person who had obtained a settlement. The effect of

this system was actually to depopulate many parishes. The author of a

valuable pamphlet on the subject, Mr. Alcock, stated that gentlemen

were led by this system to adopt all sorts of expedients to hinder the

poor from marrying, to discharge servants in their last quarter, to

evict small tenants, and pull down cottages; so that several parishes

were in a manner depopulated, while England complained of want of

useful hands for agriculture, for manufactures, and for the land and

sea services.

But we come now to a new phase in the Poor-Law system, rather a

complete revolution, by which the flood-gates of pauperism were opened,

and all those barriers that had restrained the increase of population

were swept away. The old system had been somewhat relaxed in 1782

by Mr. Gilbert's Act, which, by incorporating parishes into unions,

prevented grasping landlords and tenants from feeling that intense

interest in the extinction of population and pauperism which they

did when the sphere was limited to a single parish. But in the year

1795 the price of corn rising from 54s. to 74s., and wages continuing

stationary, the distress of the poor was very great and many of the

able-bodied were obliged to become claimants for parish relief. But

instead of meeting this emergency by temporary expedients and extra

grants suited to the occasion, the magistrates of Berks and some other

southern counties issued tables showing the wages which they affirmed

every labouring man ought to receive, not according to the value of his

labour to his employer, but according to the variations in the number

of his family and the price of bread; and they accompanied these tables

with an order directing the parish officers to make up the deficit

to the labourer, in the event of the wages paid him by his employer

falling short of the tabulated allowance. This was the small beginning

of a gigantic evil. The practice originating in a passing emergency

grew into a custom, and ultimately assumed the force of an established

right, which prevailed almost universally, and was productive of an

amount of evil beyond anything that could have been conceived possible.

The allowance scales issued from time to time were framed on the

principle that every labourer should have a gallon loaf of standard

wheaten bread weekly for every member of his family, and one over. The

effect of this was, that a man with six children, who got 9s. a week

wages, required nine gallon loaves, or 13s. 6d. a week, so that he had

a pension of 4s. 6d. over his wages. Another man with a wife and five

children, so idle and disorderly that no one would employ him, was

entitled to eight gallon loaves for their maintenance, so that he had

12s. a week to support him. The increase of allowance according to the

number of children acted as a direct bounty upon early marriage.

The farmers were not so discontented with this allowance system as

might be supposed, because a great part of the burden was cast upon

other shoulders. The tax was laid indiscriminately upon all fixed

property; so that the occupiers of villas, shopkeepers, merchants,

and others who did not employ labourers, had to pay a portion of the

wages for those that did. The farmers were in this way led to encourage

a system which fraudulently imposed a heavy burden upon others, and

which, by degrading the labourers, and multiplying their numbers beyond

the real demand for them, must, if allowed to run its full course,

have ultimately overspread the whole country with the most abject

poverty and wretchedness. There was another interest created which

tended to increase the evil. In the counties of Suffolk, Sussex, Kent,

and generally through all the south of England, relief was given in

the shape of house accommodation, or free dwellings for the poor. The

parish officers were in the habit of paying the rent of the cottages;

the rent was therefore high and sure, and consequently persons who had

small pieces of ground were induced to cover them with those buildings.

The evils of this system had reached their height in the years 1832-3.

That was a time when the public mind was bent upon reforms of all

sorts, without waiting for the admission from the Tories that the

grievances of which the nation complained were "proved abuses." The

Reformers were determined no longer to tolerate the state of things

in which the discontent of the labouring classes was proportioned

to the money disbursed in poor rates, or in voluntary charities; in

which the young were trained in idleness, ignorance, and vice--the

able-bodied maintained in sluggish and sensual indolence--the aged

and more respectable exposed to all the misery incident to dwelling

in such a society as that of a large workhouse, without discipline

or classification, the whole body of inmates subsisting on food far

exceeding, both in kind and in amount, not merely the diet of the

independent labourer, but that of the majority of the persons who

contributed to their support; in which a farmer paid ten shillings

a year in poor rate, and was in addition compelled to employ

supernumerary labourers, not required on his farm, at a cost of from

£100 to £250 a year; in which the labourer had no need to bestir

himself to seek work or to please his master, or to put a restraint

upon his temper, having all a slave's security for subsistence, without

the slave's liability to punishment; in which the parish paid parents

for nursing their little children, and children for supporting their

aged parents, thereby destroying in both parties all feelings of

natural affection and all sense of Christian duty. The Government,

therefore, resolved to apply a remedy. The following is a brief

outline of the main features of the measure they proposed, and which

was adopted by the legislature. They found the greatest evils of the

old system were connected with the relief of the able-bodied; and

in connection with that lay the chief difficulty of administering

relief. It was, above all things, an essential condition that the

situation of the pauper should not be made--really or apparently--so

desirable as that of independent labourers of the lowest class; if it

were, the majority of that class would have the strongest inducements

to quit it, and get into the more eligible class of paupers. It was

necessary, therefore, that an appeal to the parish should be a last

resource--that it should be regarded as the hardest taskmaster and the

worst paymaster. This principle was embodied in the Poor Law Amendment

Act; and the effects which quickly followed on its operation were most

marked and salutary. Able-bodied paupers were extensively converted

into independent labourers, for whose employment a large fund was

created by the reduction of parochial expenditure; next followed a

rise in wages; then a diminution, not only of pauper marriages, but of

early and imprudent marriages of all sorts; and lastly, there was a

diminution of crime, with contentment among the labourers, increasing

with their industry: relief of a child was made relief to the parent,

and relief of a wife relief to the husband. In fact, the law combined

charity with economy.

The Commissioners recommended the appointment of a central board to

control the administration of the Poor Laws, with such assistant

Commissioners as might be found requisite, the Commissioners being

empowered and directed to frame and enforce regulations for the

government of workhouses, and as to the nature and amount of the

relief to be given and the labour to be exacted; the regulations to be

uniform throughout the country. The necessity of a living, central,

permanent authority had been rendered obvious by the disastrous working

of the old system, arising partly from the absence of such control--an

authority accumulating experience in itself, independent of local

control, uninterested in favour of local abuse, and responsible to the

Government. A Board of three Commissioners was therefore appointed

under the Act, themselves appointing assistant Commissioners, capable

of receiving the powers of the Commission by delegation. The anomalous

state of things with regard to districts was removed by the formation

of unions.

In 1831 there were in England and Wales 56 parishes containing less

than 10 persons; 14 parishes containing but from 10 to 20 persons, the

largest of these, on the average, containing 5 adult males; and there

were 533 parishes, containing from 20 to 50 persons, the largest of

which would give 12 adult males per parish. It was absurd to expect

that such parishes could supply proper machinery for the levying and

collecting of rates, or for the distribution of relief. It was found

that a large number of overseers could only certify their accounts

by signing with a mark, attested by the justice's clerk. The size of

the parishes influenced materially the amount of the poor-rate--the

smallest giving the greatest cost per head. For example, the hundred

absolutely largest parishes, containing a population of 3,196,064,

gave 6s. 7d. per head; the hundred intermediate parishes, containing

a population of 19,841, gave 15s. a head; while the hundred smallest

parishes from which poor-rate returns were made, with a population

of 1,708, gave £1 12s. a head. The moral effects were still more

remarkable. In the large parishes 1 in 13 was relieved; in the

intermediate, 1 in 12½; and in the smallest, 1 in 4, or 25 per cent.

of the population, were paupers. Hence arose the necessity of a union

of parishes with a common workhouse and a common machinery, and with

paid permanent officers for the administration of relief.

The most important change in the Settlement Law was the repeal of the

settlement by hiring and service, which prevented the free circulation

of labour, interfered with the liberty of the subject, and fixed an

intolerable burden upon the parish. This law was repealed by the

64th and 65th sections of the Act; the settlement by occupation of a

tenement, without payment of rates, by the 66th; while other sections

effected various improvements in the law of removal. The old law made

it more prudent for a woman to have a number of children without a

husband than with a husband, as she could throw the burden of their

support upon the parish, or through the parish force the putative

father to support them; and if he could not give security to pay, he

was liable to imprisonment. By this means marriages were often forced.

These evils were remedied by rendering the unmarried mother liable for

the maintenance of her children, by rendering it unlawful to pay to her

any sums which the putative father might be compelled to contribute

for the reimbursement of the parish, and by rendering it necessary

that evidence additional to that of the mother should be required to

corroborate her charge against the person accused of being the father.

The law worked fairly well, though it was discovered that many mothers

shrank from prosecuting the fathers of their babies at the price of

disclosing their shame, and thus illegitimate children were brought up

in the utmost squalor.

[Illustration: MR. (AFTERWARDS LORD) MACAULAY. (_From a photograph by

Maull and Fox._)]

Each union of parishes, or each parish, if large and populous

enough, was placed under the management of a board of guardians,

elected annually by the ratepayers; but where under previous Acts an

organisation existed similar to that of unions or boards of guardians,

under the Poor Law Amendment Act these were retained. The following

table exhibits the local divisions of England and Wales made under that

Act:--

AUTHORITY. DESCRIPTION. NUMBER OF

PARISHES.

Poor Law Amendment { 585 unions 13,964

Act { 20 single parishes 20

Local Act (various) { 21 unions 320

{ 15 single parishes 15

Gilbert's Act, (22 Geo. { 12 unions 200

III., c. 83) { 2 single parishes 2

{ 89 parishes (including}

43 Elizabeth, c. 2 { the Scilly Islands } 89

{ as one parish) }

------

Total 14,610

Of these unions and parishes 111 were declared and organised in the

first year, 252 in the second, 205 in the third, and 17 in the fourth.

Within the four years succeeding 1834 as many as 328 unions had

workhouses completed and in operation, and 141 had workhouses building

or in course of alteration. The work went on slowly till the whole

country was supplied with workhouse accommodation. The amount expended

in providing new workhouses up to 1858 was £4,168,759, and in altering

and enlarging old workhouses, £792,772; the total amount thus expended

was upwards of five millions sterling.

The active mind, strong will, and philanthropic spirit of Mr. Stanley,

now transferred from Ireland to the Colonial Secretaryship, found an

important field for their exercise in the Colonial Office. He applied

his energies to the abolition of negro slavery in the West Indies,

and was happily more successful in that work than in his attempt to

tranquillise Ireland. The time had arrived when the labours on behalf

of the negro race, of Clarkson, Wilberforce, Mackintosh, Brougham,

Buxton, Lushington, and William Smith were to be followed with success,

by the abolition of slavery in the British West Indian colonies. The

Society of Friends, as became that philanthropic body, led the van

in the movement which began in 1823, when Wilberforce presented a

petition from them in the House of Commons. Soon afterwards, when Mr.

Buxton brought forward a resolution condemning slavery as repugnant

to Christianity and to the British Constitution, Mr. Canning moved a

counter-resolution as an amendment, recommending reforms in the system,

which, he alleged, might be safely left to the West Indian Assemblies;

and if they refused to do their duty, the Imperial Parliament might

then interfere. These resolutions were carried, although any one

acquainted with the history of the West Indies might have known that

they would be perfectly futile. No amelioration of the system could

be rationally expected from the reckless adventurers and mercenary

agents by whom many West Indian plantations were managed. The infamous

cruelty of which the missionary Smith had been the victim showed that,

while the colonial laws allowed the most horrible atrocities, there

existed among the planters a spirit of brutality which did not shrink

from their perpetration. Time was when such barbarities might have

escaped with impunity; when in Great Britain it was maintained in

high places, and even by the legislature, that slavery was defended

by an impregnable fortress, that property in human flesh was not only

expedient for the good of the commonwealth, and beneficial for the

negro, but also a sacred institution, founded on the authority of the

Bible. But, thanks to the indefatigable labours of the friends of

the negro race, such abominable dogmas had been long reprobated by

public opinion, and at the period now referred to no man ventured to

promulgate such heresies in England. The moral sense of the nation had

condemned slavery in every form. The missionaries had, in the midst of

tremendous difficulties and cruel persecutions, enlightened the West

Indian slaves with regard to their rights as men and their privileges

as Christians; and while they inculcated patience and meek submission

even to unjust laws, they animated their crushed hearts with the hope

that the blessings of liberty would soon be enjoyed by them, and that

humanity and justice would speedily triumph over the ruthless tyranny

under which they groaned.

Ten years passed away from the adoption of Mr. Canning's resolution,

and little or nothing was effectually done to mitigate the system,

not-withstanding various subsequent recommendations of the British

Government. The consolidated slave law for the Crown colonies contained

in an Order in Council issued in 1830, was proposed for the chartered

colonies as a model for their adoption; but it contained no provision

for the education or religious instruction of the slaves. All the

chartered colonies, except two, Grenada and Tobago, had legalised

Sunday markets, and they allowed no other time to the negroes for

marketing or cultivating their provision grounds. The evidence of

slaves had been made admissible; but in most of the colonies the right

was so restricted as to make it entirely useless. Except in the Crown

colonies, the marriage of slaves was subject to all sorts of vexatious

impediments. The provision against the separation of families was

found everywhere inoperative. The right of acquiring property was so

limited as to prove a mockery and a delusion. The Order in Council

gave the slaves the right of redeeming themselves and their families,

even against the will of their owners; but all the chartered colonies

peremptorily refused any such right of self-liberation. In nearly all

the colonies the master had a right by law to inflict thirty-nine

lashes at one time, on any slave of any age, or of either sex, for

any offence whatever, or for no offence. He could also imprison his

victims in the stocks of the workhouse as long as he pleased. There was

no return of punishments inflicted, and no proper record. An Order in

Council had forbidden the flogging of females; but in all the chartered

colonies the infamous practice had been continued in defiance of the

supreme Government. The administration of justice--if the term be

applicable to a system whose very essence was iniquity--was left to

pursue its own course, without any effort for its purification. In

July, 1830, Mr. Brougham brought forward his motion, that the House

should resolve, at the earliest possible period in next Session, to

take into consideration the state of the West Indian colonies, in order

to the mitigation and final abolition of slavery, and more especially

in order to the amendment of the administration of justice. But the

national mind was then so preoccupied with home subjects of agitation

that the House was but thinly attended, and the motion was lost by a

large majority. The Reform movement absorbed public interest for the

two following years, so that nothing was done to mitigate the hard lot

of the suffering negro till the question was taken up by Mr. Stanley,

in 1833, in compliance with the repeated and earnest entreaties

of the friends of emancipation. The abolitionists, of course, had

always insisted upon immediate, unconditional emancipation. But the

Ministerial plan contained two provisions altogether at variance with

their views; a term of apprenticeship, which, in the first draft of the

measure, was to last twelve years, and compensation to the owners--a

proposition which, though advanced with hesitation, ultimately assumed

the enormous amount of twenty millions sterling. On the principle of

compensation there was a general agreement, because it was the State

that had created the slave property, had legalised it, and imposed upon

the present owners all their liabilities. It was therefore thought

to be unjust to ruin them by what would be regarded as a breach of

faith on the part of the legislature. The same excuse could not be

made for the system of protracted apprenticeship, which would be a

continuance of slavery under another name. If the price were to be

paid for emancipation, the value should be received at once. This

was the feeling of Lord Howick, who was then Under-Secretary for the

Colonies, and who resigned his office rather than be a party to the

apprenticeship scheme, which he vigorously opposed in the House, as

did also Mr. Buxton and Mr. O'Connell. But the principle was carried

against them by an overwhelming majority. Among the most prominent

and efficient advocates of the negroes during the debates were Mr.

Buckingham, Dr. Lushington, Admiral Flemming, and Mr. T. B. Macaulay.

The opposition to the Government resolution was not violent; it was led

by Sir Robert Peel, whose most strenuous supporters were Sir Richard

Vivian, Mr. Godson, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, and Mr. Hume. In the House

of Lords the resolutions were accepted without a division, being

supported by the Earl of Ripon, Lord Suffield, Earl Grey, and the Lord

Chancellor Brougham. The speakers on the other side were the Duke of

Wellington, the Earl of Harewood, Lord Ellenborough, and Lord Wynford.

In the Bill which was founded on the resolutions the term of

apprenticeship was limited to six years for the plantation negroes,

and four for all others. The Bill passed the House of Lords with

slight opposition; and on the 28th of August, 1833, it received the

Royal Assent. It does not appear that William IV. urged any plea of

conscience against signing this Act of Emancipation, although in his

early days he had been, in common with all the Royal Family, except

the Duke of Gloucester, opposed to the abolition of the slave trade.

The Act was to take effect on the 1st day of August, 1834, on which

day slavery was to cease throughout the British colonies. All slaves

who at that date should appear to be six years old and upwards were

to be registered as "apprentice labourers" to those who had been

their owners. All slaves who happened to be brought into the United

Kingdom, and all apprentice labourers who might be brought into it

with the consent of their owners, were to be absolutely free. The

apprentices were divided into three classes. The first class consisted

of "predial apprentice labourers," usually employed in agriculture,

or the manufacture of colonial produce, on lands belonging to their

owners, and these were declared to be attached to the soil. The second

class, consisting of the same kind of labourers, who worked on lands

not belonging to their owners, were not attached to the soil. The third

class consisted of "non-predial apprenticed labourers," and embraced

mechanics, artisans, domestic servants, and all slaves not included in

the other two classes. The apprenticeship of the first was to terminate

on the 1st of August, 1840; and of the "non-predial" on the same day in

1838. The apprentices were not obliged to labour for their employers

more than forty-five hours in any one week. Voluntary discharges were

permitted; but, in that case, a provision was made for the support

of old and infirm apprentices. An apprentice could free himself

before the expiration of the term, against the will of his master, by

getting himself appraised, and paying the price. No apprentices were

to be removed from the colony to which they belonged, nor from one

plantation to another in the same colony, except on a certificate from

a justice of the peace that the removal would not injure their health

or welfare, or separate the members of the same family. Under these

conditions the apprentices were transferable with the estates to which

they were attached. Their masters were bound to furnish them with food,

clothing, lodging, and other necessaries, according to the existing

laws of the several colonies, and to allow them sufficient provision

ground, and time for cultivating it, where that mode of maintenance was

adopted. All children under six years of age when the Act came into

operation, and all that should be born during the apprenticeship, were

declared free; but if any children were found destitute, they could be

apprenticed, and subjected to the same regulations as the others. The

Act allowed governors of colonies to appoint stipendiary magistrates,

with salaries not exceeding £300 a year, to carry the provisions of the

law into effect. Corporal punishment was not absolutely abolished, but

it could be inflicted only by the special justices, who were authorised

to punish the apprentices by whipping, beating, imprisonment, or

addition to the hours of labour. The corporal punishment of females was

absolutely forbidden in all circumstances. The quantity of punishment

was restricted, and the hours of additional labour imposed were not to

exceed fifteen in the week.

The sum of twenty millions was divided into nineteen shares, one for

each of the colonies, proportioned to the number of its registered

slaves, taken in connection with the market price of slaves in that

colony, on an average of eight years, ending with 1830. But no money

was payable in any colony until it should have been declared by an

Order in Council that satisfactory provision had been made by law

in such colony for giving effect to the Emancipation Act. Two of

them were so perverse as to decline for several years to qualify for

the reception of the money; but others acted in a different spirit.

Believing that the system of apprenticeship was impolitic, they

declined to take advantage of it, and manumitted their slaves at once.

Antigua was the first to adopt this wise course. Its slaves were all

promptly emancipated, and their conduct fully justified the policy; for

on Christmas Day, 1834, for the first time during thirty years, martial

law was not proclaimed in that island. Thus, the effect of liberty was

peace, quietness, and confidence. Bermuda followed this good example,

as did also the smaller islands, and afterwards the large island of

Barbadoes; and their emancipation was hailed by the negroes with

religious services, followed by festive gatherings. Jamaica, and some

other islands, endeavoured to thwart the operation of the new law, as

far as possible, and took every advantage in making the apprentices

miserable, and wreaking upon them their spite and malice. They met with

harsher treatment than ever, being in many instances either savagely

ill-used or inhumanly neglected. Considering their provocations, it was

generally admitted that they behaved on the whole very well, enduring

with patience and resignation the afflictions which they knew must come

to an end in a few years. The total number of slaves converted into

apprentices on the 1st of August, 1834, was 800,000. The apprenticeship

did not last beyond the shorter time prescribed, and on the 1st of

August, 1838, there was not a slave in existence under the British

Crown, save only in the island of Mauritius, which was soon required by

instructions from the Home Government to carry the Act into effect.

Much inconvenience and misery were caused during the year by the trades

unions and their strikes. In several places the workmen combined in

order to enforce a rise of wages, and a more equitable distribution

of the profits derived from their labour. The striking commenced on

the 8th of March, when the men employed by the London gas companies

demanded that their wages should be increased from twenty-eight

shillings to thirty-five shillings a week, with two pots of porter

daily for each man. On the refusal of this demand they all stopped

working; but before much inconvenience could be experienced their

places were supplied by workmen from the country. On the 17th of

March an event occurred which caused general and violent excitement

among the working classes. At the Dorchester Assizes six agricultural

labourers were tried and convicted for being members of an illegal

society, and administering illegal oaths, the persons initiated being

admitted blindfold into a room where there was the picture of a

skeleton and a skull. They were sentenced to transportation for seven

years. Their case excited the greatest sympathy among the working

population throughout the kingdom. In London, Birmingham, and several

other large manufacturing towns immense meetings were held to petition

the king in favour of the convicts. In the midst of this excitement

the manufacturers of Leeds declared their determination not to employ

any persons in their factories who were members of trades unions. The

consequence was that in that town three thousand workmen struck in

one day. On the 15th of April there was a riot at Oldham, where, in

consequence of the arrest of two members of a trade union, a factory

was nearly destroyed, and one person killed, the mob having been

dispersed by a troop of lancers. Several of the rioters were arrested

and sentenced to terms of imprisonment varying from six to eighteen

months. On the 21st of April a meeting of the trades unions took place

at Copenhagen Fields, to adopt a petition to the Home Secretary praying

for a remission of the sentence on the Dorchester convicts. They

marched to the Home Office through the leading thoroughfares, numbering

about 25,000, in order to back up their deputation, which, however,

Lord Melbourne refused to receive, though he intimated to them that

their petition should be laid before the king if presented in a proper

manner. The multitude then went in procession to Kennington Common.

On the 28th 13,000 London journeymen tailors struck for higher wages.

The masters, instead of yielding, resolved not to employ any persons

connected with trades unions, and after a few weeks the men submitted

and returned to their work.

[Illustration: SLAVERY EMANCIPATION FESTIVAL IN BARBADOES. (_See p._

368.)]

The conduct of the trades unions excited a great deal of angry feeling

amongst the wealthier classes; and the Government were vehemently

condemned for not putting down the combination with a strong hand.

It was said that the mischief they created was well known; that

though their interference with trade, "their atrocious oaths, impious

ceremonies, desperate tyranny, and secret assassinations had been

brought under their observation," Ministers could not be stirred to

any exhibition of energy for the protection of the manufacturer, the

workman, or the public. On the 28th of April the Duke of Newcastle

had brought the trades unions under the consideration of the House of

Lords, and questioned Ministers as to their neglect respecting the

disturbances these combinations occasioned. Lord Grey contented himself

with a quiet expression of regret for their existence, and of a hope

that they would die out if let alone; meanwhile, the Government were

ready to put down disorderly meetings. This apparent indifference

called forth indignant protests from the Marquis of Londonderry and

Lord Eldon. The Lord Chancellor declared that the meetings were

illegal, and that they were likely to produce great mischief; adding,

"Of all the worst things, and of all the most pernicious devices that

could be imagined for the injury of the interests of the working

classes, as well as of the interests of the country at large, nothing

was half so bad as their existence." He also stated that there could

not remain the shadow of a doubt of the justice of the conviction of

the Dorchester labourers. Strikes and combinations, however, continued

during the summer. At the Chester Assizes, on the 5th of August, two

men were indicted for the murder of a manufacturer during a strike in

1831. It appeared on evidence that the deceased had excited the ill

feeling of the trades unions of the place, where he had a mill, in

which he gave employment to a great number of people. Two of his own

workmen had agreed to assassinate him for the sum of £3 6s. 8d. each,

paid by the union. They shot him as he was passing through a lane to

his mills. Being found guilty, they were executed. On the 18th of the

same month the workmen employed by the builders of London struck to

the number of 10,000, including the artisans at the Government works.

This course was adopted in consequence of a combined declaration of the

master-builders, requiring them to abandon their connection with trades

unions.

Meanwhile in Ireland, where Lord Anglesey had been succeeded by Lord

Wellesley and Mr. Stanley by Mr. Littleton, O'Connell was openly

agitating for a Repeal of the Union. His conduct was much resented

by Lord Grey's followers, and at a meeting at Hull Mr. M. D. Hill

challenged the good faith of the Irish party, and declared that an

Irish member, who spoke with great violence against the Coercion Bill,

had secretly urged the Ministers to force it through in its integrity.

O'Connell brought the statement before the House early in the Session,

when it was unnecessarily confirmed by Lord Althorp, who said that he

had good reason to believe it to be true. After a violent scene, he

further admitted that Sheil was one of the members to whom he referred.

Mr. Sheil denied the imputation so passionately that, on the motion of

Sir F. Burdett, both he and Lord Althorp were taken into custody by the

Serjeant-at-Arms. They were released on submitting to the authority

of the House, and a committee, after examining into the matter and

collecting no evidence of value, were glad to avail themselves of an

apology tendered by Hill and to bring the incident to a close.

On the 22nd of April Mr. O'Connell brought forward a very comprehensive

motion. It was for a select committee to inquire and report on the

means by which the destruction of the Irish Parliament had been

effected; on the results of the Union upon Ireland, and upon the

labourers in husbandry and operatives in manufactures in England; and

on the probable consequences of continuing the Legislative Union

between Great Britain and Ireland. This motion originated a debate on

the Repeal question which lasted four days. O'Connell himself spoke

for six hours. The debate was chiefly memorable for a speech of Mr.

Spring-Rice, in defence of the Union, which also occupied six hours

in the delivery. He concluded by proposing an amendment to the effect

that an Address should be presented to the king by both Houses of

Parliament, expressing their determination to maintain the Legislative

Union inviolate. In a very full House the amendment was carried by an

overwhelming majority, the numbers being for, 523; against, 38. Mr.

Spring-Rice's speech served the Government materially, while by the

Conservatives it was regarded as "a damper" to their own hopes.

The chiefs of the Tory party were at this time sanguine in their

expectation of being speedily called to office. Their hopes were

founded mainly upon the dissensions that were known to exist in the

Cabinet. These dissensions were first revealed by O'Connell's motion

for a committee to inquire into the conduct of Baron Smith, when

presiding as a judge in criminal cases, and especially with reference

to a charge addressed by him to the grand jury of Dublin, in which he

said: "For the last two years I have seldom lost an opportunity for

making some monitory observations from the Bench. When the critical

and lawless situation of the country did not seem to be generally and

fully understood, I sounded the tocsin and pointed out the ambuscade.

Subsequent events deplorably proved that I had given no false alarm.

The audacity of factious leaders increased from the seeming impunity

which was allowed them; the progress of that sedition which they

encouraged augmented in the same proportion, till on this state of

things came, at length, the Coercion Bill at once to arrest the

mischief, and consummate the proof of its existence and extent." As

there was no doubt that these shafts were aimed at O'Connell, this last

charge afforded him a fair opportunity of putting a stop to the abuse

by bringing the conduct of the talented but eccentric judge before

Parliament; for, as there was no political case in the calendar, there

was no excuse for the attack. Mr. Littleton declared it impossible to

refuse his consent to the motion. Mr. Stanley, Lord Althorp, and Lord

John Russell expressed a similar view. Sir James Graham briefly but

warmly dissented from his colleagues. He had come down to the House

with the understanding that they meant to oppose the motion. He for

one still retained his opinion, and had seen no reason to change it. As

one who valued the independence of the judges and his own character, he

must declare that if the motion were carried, and if, as its result, an

Address was presented to the Crown for the removal of Baron Smith, it

would be a highly inexpedient--nay, more, a most unjust proceeding. The

present would be the most painful vote he had ever given, since he felt

it incumbent upon him to sever himself from those friends with whom

during a public life of some duration he had had the honour of acting;

but feeling as he did the proposition to be one dangerous in itself, he

conceived he would be betraying the trust committed to him if he did

not declare against it. Baron Smith was ably defended by Mr. Shaw, by

Sir J. Scarlett, and Sir Robert Peel. On a division, the motion for a

committee of inquiry was carried by 167 to 74, Sir James Graham and Mr.

Spring-Rice voting in the minority. Next morning Sir James tendered his

resignation as First Lord of the Admiralty, which was declined, and in

the following week the vote was rescinded by a majority of six.

Thus the Cabinet was evidently fast breaking up, when Mr. Littleton

introduced his Tithe Bill. Its object was much the same as Mr.

Stanley's Act of 1832 for the Compulsory Commutation of Tithe. This

last Act had been a failure, and Mr. Littleton was compelled to ask

Parliament to grant the sum of £1,000,000 to pay the arrears. He

hoped to remedy its defects by reducing the number of people who were

liable to tithe, and then, after the 1st of November, to commute the

tithe into a land tax, payable to the State, to reduce its amount by

one-fifth, and to allow any person having a substantial interest in

the estate to redeem the residue of it, after five years had expired,

on easy terms. After a number of stormy debates the progress of the

measure seemed assured, when Lord John Russell went out of his way

to express his views in favour of the appropriation of the surplus

revenues of the Irish Church to secular purposes. Stanley wrote to

Graham the laconic note, "Johnny has upset the coach." Indeed, the

declaration was the more indiscreet because the Cabinet was hopelessly

divided on the point.

On the 27th of May Mr. Ward brought forward a motion upon this subject.

In an able speech he reviewed the state of Ireland, and remarked that

since 1819 it had been necessary to maintain there an army of 22,000

men, at a cost of a million sterling per annum, exclusive of a police

force that cost £300,000 a year. All this enormous expense and trouble

in governing Ireland he ascribed to the existence of a religious

establishment hostile to the majority of the people; he therefore moved

that "the Protestant episcopal establishment in Ireland exceeds the

spiritual wants of the Protestant population; and that, it being the

right of the State to regulate the distribution of Church property in

such a manner as Parliament may determine, it is the opinion of this

House that the temporal possessions of the Church of Ireland, as now

established by law, ought to be reduced."

The motion was seconded by Mr. Grote. When he had concluded, Lord

Althorp rose and moved that the House should be adjourned until the 2nd

of June. The differences in the Cabinet had now reached their crisis.

It was fully expected that Mr. Ward's motion would be carried, and

Ministers differed as to whether the principle involved in it should

be rejected or accepted; the majority were for accepting it, whereupon

Mr. Stanley, Sir James Graham, Lord Ripon, and the Duke of Richmond

resigned their offices. They were succeeded by Mr. Spring-Rice, as

Colonial Secretary; Lord Auckland, as First Lord of the Admiralty; the

Earl of Carlisle, as Lord Privy Seal; Mr. Abercromby, as Master of the

Mint. Mr. Poulett Thompson became President of the Board of Trade, and

the Marquis of Conyngham Postmaster-General.

On the following day, which was the anniversary of the king's birthday,

the Irish prelates, headed by the Archbishop of Armagh, presented

an address to his Majesty, complaining of the attacks on the Irish

Church, deprecating the threatened innovations, and imploring his

protection. The king was greatly moved by this appeal. Breaking

through the usual restraints, he delivered an extemporaneous answer,

in which, among other things, he said, "I now remember you have a

right to require of me to be resolute in defence of the Church." He

assured the bishops that their rights should be preserved unimpaired,

and that if the interior arrangements of the Irish Church required any

amendment--which, however, he greatly doubted--he hoped it would be

left to the bishops to correct them, without the interference of other

parties. He was now completing his 69th year, and he must prepare to

leave the world with a conscience clear in regard to the maintenance

of the Church. Tears ran down his cheeks while, in conclusion, he

said, "I have spoken more strongly than usual, because of the unhappy

circumstances that have forced themselves upon the observation of all.

The threats of those who are the enemies of the Church make it the more

necessary for those who feel their duty to that Church to speak out.

The words which you hear from me are, indeed, spoken by my mouth, but

they flow from my heart."

These words, indiscreet as they were, and calculated to embarrass

the Ministers, were regarded as in the highest degree precious by

the bishops and clergy, and the whole Tory party. With the utmost

despatch they were circulated far and wide, with the design of bringing

public feeling to bear against Mr. Ward's motion. In the meantime,

great efforts were made by the Government to be able to evade the

motion. Its position at this time appeared far from enviable, and

there was a general impression that it could not long survive. The new

appointments did not give satisfaction. The Cabinet was said to be

only patched up in order to wear through the Session. It was in these

discouraging circumstances that Lord Althorp had to meet Mr. Ward's

motion on Monday, the 2nd of June. In order to avoid a dissolution and

a general election, the results of which might turn upon the existence

of the Irish Church, it was necessary that Mr. Ward's motion should be

defeated. He refused to withdraw it, because he apprehended the speedy

dissolution of the Ministry, and he wished the decision of the House

of Commons on the Irish Church question to be recorded, that it might

stand in the way of a less liberal Administration. The anticipated

contest in the Commons that evening excited extraordinary interest.

The House was surrounded by a crowd anxious to obtain admittance or to

hear the result, while within it was so thronged with members that the

Ministers found it difficult to get to their seats. Rarely has there

been so full a House, the number of members being 516. When Mr. Ward

had spoken in favour of his motion, Lord Althorp rose to reply. He

announced that a special commission of inquiry had been already issued,

composed of laymen, who were to visit every parish in Ireland, and were

to report on the means of religious instruction for the people; and

that, pending this inquiry, he saw no necessity for the House being

called upon to affirm the principles of Mr. Ward's motion. He would,

therefore, content himself by moving the previous question. This was

carried by an overwhelming majority, the numbers being 396 to 120.

But a month only elapsed when fresh differences arose in the Cabinet

leading to further resignations, and ending in the retirement of

Lord Grey from public life. Again Ireland was the rock on which the

Cabinet struck and went to pieces. The Irish Coercion Act, which had

been passed for one year only, was to be renewed, with modifications,

for which purpose a Bill was introduced into the Lords about the

middle of June. A large number of the Liberal members of England

and Scotland, as well as Ireland, required the omission of the

clauses enabling the Lord-Lieutenant to suppress public meetings

by proclamation--a power which Lord Wellesley was induced by his

meddlesome advisers, Mr. Littleton and Lord Brougham, to declare he

did not require. His opinion, however, was overruled in the Cabinet,

and they agreed to support the Bill as it stood. Lord Althorp had

very reluctantly yielded the point, more especially as the necessity

for the extra-constitutional powers was denied by the Irish executive

and by the Lord Chancellor. Mr. Littleton, the Irish Secretary,

having indiscreetly made O'Connell aware of the division in the

Cabinet, and of the fact that several of its members were supporting

the clause contrary to their convictions, the Irish leader used the

knowledge thus obtained with tremendous effect. While sitting under

the fierce invectives of his opponent, Lord Althorp felt his position

to be intolerable. On quitting the House, after a long and harassing

discussion, on the 7th of July, he wrote to the Prime Minister,

announcing this fact. Next morning there was a conference, after which

Lord Grey transmitted to the king his resignation, with that of Lord

Althorp; and on the recommendation of Lord Grey, Lord Melbourne was

appointed to the office of Prime Minister, being succeeded in the

Home Office by Lord Duncannon; while Lord Althorp, relieved from his

obligation with regard to the Coercion Bill, consented to resume the

post he had just resigned.

[Illustration: KENNINGTON COMMON, LONDON, ABOUT 1840.]

On the 9th of July Earl Grey made a statement in the Lords, when the

Duke of Wellington disclaimed all personal hostility in the opposition

he had been obliged to give to his Government. The Lord Chancellor

pronounced an affecting eulogium on the great statesman who was finally

retiring from his work, and expressed his own determination to remain

in office. Lord Grey's popular Administration had lasted three years,

seven months, and twenty-two days, which exceeded the term of his

predecessor, the Duke of Wellington, by nearly a year and a half. Lord

Grey, from the infirmities of age, declining health, and weariness

of official life, had wished to retire at the close of the previous

Session, but was prevailed upon by his colleagues to remain in office.

In delivering his farewell speech he was listened to with profound

attention, and at one moment was so overpowered by his feelings that he

was compelled to sit down, the Duke of Wellington considerately filling

up the interval by presenting some petitions.

Earl Grey had lived to witness the triumphant realisation of all the

great objects for which throughout his public life he had contended,

sometimes almost without hope. Catholic Emancipation had been yielded

by his opponents as a tardy concession to the imperative demand of the

nation. In the debates on that question in the House of Lords, Lord

Grey was said to have excelled all others, and even himself. The long

dormant question of Parliamentary Reform was quickened into life by

the electric shock of the French Revolution of 1830, when the Duke of

Wellington, with equal honesty and rashness, affirmed that the existing

system of representation enjoyed the full and entire confidence of the

country. This declaration raised a storm before which he was compelled

to retire, in order to make way for a statesman with keener eye and

firmer hand, to hold the helm and steer the vessel in that perilous

crisis of the nation's destiny. Throughout the whole of that trying

time Earl Grey's wisdom, his steadfastness, the moral greatness of his

character, and the responsibility of his position, made him the centre

of universal interest, and won for him the respect and admiration of

all parties in the nation. Baffled again and again in the struggle for

Reform, undismayed by the most formidable opposition, not deterred

or disheartened by repeated repulses, he renewed his attacks on the

citadel of monopoly and corruption, till at last his efforts were

crowned with victory. And well did he use the great power for good

which the Reform Parliament put into his hands. The emancipation of

the slaves, the reform of the Irish Church, and the abolition of the

gigantic abuses of the Poor Law system, were among the legislative

achievements which he effected. His foreign policy, in the able hands

of Lord Palmerston, was in harmony with his own domestic policy--bold,

just, moderate, true to the cause of freedom abroad, while vigilantly

guarding the national honour of his own country. By his vigorous

diplomacy he had saved Belgium from being overwhelmed by the Dutch, and

at the same time kept her independent of France. A capable Sovereign

had been provided for her in Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the widowed

husband of Charlotte of England. Finally, when the Dutch declined

to give way to the remonstrances of the Western Powers, a joint

Anglo-French expedition was dispatched, which compelled the citadel of

Antwerp to capitulate on December 23rd, 1832. Nevertheless, such was

the obstinacy of the Dutch that the question remained unsettled on the

fall of the Grey Ministry. Lord Palmerston's foreign policy was equally

noteworthy in other quarters of the globe. If he could do little for

the revolution in Poland, he could at least preserve constitutionalism

in the Peninsula, where it was threatened by Dom Miguel in Portugal,

and, after the death of Ferdinand in 1833, by Don Carlos in Spain.

On the 22nd of April, 1834, Palmerston, in concert with Talleyrand,

now French Minister in London, drew up the Quadruple Treaty, by which

the two Powers undertook to deliver the Peninsula from the Absolutist

pretenders. Its effect for the time being was remarkable; they both

fled from the country, and constitutionalism was restored.

CHAPTER X.

REIGN OF WILLIAM IV. (_continued_).

The Remainder of the Session--The Coercion Bill carried--Rejection

of the Tithes Bill--University Tests--Prorogation of

Parliament--Brougham's Tour in Scotland--Burning of the Houses

of Parliament--Fall of Melbourne's Ministry--Wellington

sole Minister--Peel forms a Ministry--The Tamworth

Manifesto--Dissolution and General Election--Mr. Abercromby

elected Speaker--The Lichfield House Compact--Peel defeated

on the Address--Lord John Russell announces a Resolution on

Appropriation--Lord Chandos's Motion--Lord Londonderry's

Appointment--The Dissenters and London University--Hardinge's

Tithe Bill--The Appropriation Resolution--The Debate--Peel

resigns--Melbourne's second Ministry--Conservative Successes--Lord

Alvanley and O'Connell--The Duel between Alvanley and

Morgan O'Connell--O'Connell and Disraeli--Character of Lord

Melbourne--Municipal Reform--Report of the Commission--The

Municipal Corporations Act introduced--Its Progress in

the Commons--Lyndhurst's Amendments-It becomes Law--Irish

Corporations--Report of the Commission--The Bill is mutilated in

the Upper House, and abandoned--It becomes Law in 1840--Municipal

Reform in Scotland.

On the 17th of July the new Premier, Lord Melbourne, who, declining, on

the king's suggestion, to form a coalition with the Duke of Wellington

and Mr. Stanley, had made few alterations in the Ministry, announced

a less offensive Coercion Bill for Ireland, which led to an animated

debate, in which Lords Wicklow and Wharncliffe, the Duke of Wellington,

and other peers strongly censured the conduct of the Government for

its alleged inconsistency, vacillation, and tergiversation. The new

Coercion Bill passed quickly through both Houses, and became the law of

the land before the end of the month. The Tithes Bill was rejected in

the House of Lords, on the motion of Lord Ellenborough, by 189 votes to

122.

The English Dissenters were led, notwithstanding the difference in

creed, to sympathise to a considerable extent with Irish Catholics

in their agitation against the Church establishment. Dissenters felt

particularly aggrieved by the tests which debarred them from obtaining

University degrees, which, they justly contended, should be attainable

as a matter of right on equal grounds by citizens of all denominations.

A petition was presented by Lord Grey on the 21st of March in the

Upper House, and by Mr. Spring-Rice on the 24th in the Commons; but

no step was taken in consequence till after the Easter recess, when

Colonel Williams moved an Address to the Crown, praying that the

Universities of Oxford and Cambridge should no longer act under the

letters of James I. Mr. Wood moved an amendment to the effect that it

was more advisable to proceed by Bill, which was carried by a large

majority; but before anything could be done the exclusive spirit of

both Universities was roused to a pitch of violent excitement, and in

the midst of the controversial storm the quiet voice of reason could

not be heard. Mr. Stanley could not see why a man should sign the

Thirty-Nine Articles in order to obtain a literary degree, and he

deprecated the idea that such a subscription should be regarded as a

mere matter of form. Sir Robert Peel was not yet prepared to carry out

fully the principle of religious equality. The Bill, he argued, would

give to Jews, infidels, and atheists a statutable right of demanding

admission into our Universities. Dissenters had been freed from all

civil disabilities by the repeal of the Test Acts, and the Roman

Catholics by the Emancipation Act; a vast change had been effected in

the constitution of Parliament by the Reform Act: and after all those

concessions, were they now to be deprived of an Established Church?

What was the essence of an Established Church? What but the legislative

recognition of it on the part of the State? Parliament was therefore

entitled to say to the Dissenters, "With that legislative recognition

you shall not interfere." In a brief speech, full of sound sense, Lord

Althorp showed the absurdity of those arguments and apprehensions. The

second reading of the Bill was carried by a majority of 321 to 194.

It was opposed by the Speaker in committee, but having there received

some amendments, it was read a third time and passed on the 28th of

July by a majority of 164 against 75. In the Lords it was denounced

by the Duke of Gloucester, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge,

who moved that it be read a second time that day six months. He was

followed by the Duke of Wellington, Chancellor of the University of

Oxford. Lord Brougham ably defended the measure, but in vain. The Bill

was rejected by a majority of 187 against 85. An attempt made by Lord

Althorp to abolish church-rates, and to grant in lieu thereof the sum

of £250,000 from the land-tax, to effect a commutation of tithes, and

to allow Dissenters to get married in their own chapels, was equally

unsuccessful.

On the 15th of August Parliament was prorogued by the king in person.

The Speech referred to the postponement of a final settlement between

Holland and Belgium, which his Majesty regretted. He expressed lively

satisfaction at the termination of the civil war in Portugal, and

disappointment at the recurrence of disorders in Spain. He alluded with

satisfaction to the numerous and important questions that had engaged

the attention of Parliament, more especially the amendment of the

Poor Laws, and the establishment of a central court for the trial of

offenders in the metropolis and its vicinity. The important subjects of

jurisprudence and the reform of municipal corporations remained to be

considered in the next Session.

Immediately on the rising of Parliament O'Connell published a violent

attack in the form of a letter to Lord Duncannon. This was taken up

by Lord Brougham in the course of an oratorical tour which he was

making through Scotland, and a mutual exchange of compliments ensued.

Unfortunately the Chancellor's eccentricity did not stop there. Earl

Grey was not permitted to retire into private life without some popular

recognition of his great public services. On the 15th of September a

grand banquet was given in Edinburgh in honour of this illustrious

statesman. "Probably," says a contemporary chronicle, "no Minister

in the zenith of his power ever before received so gratifying a

tribute of national respect as was paid on this occasion to one who

had not only retired from office, but retired from it for ever. The

popular enthusiasm, both in the capital and other parts of Scotland,

was extreme, which the noble earl sensibly felt, and gratefully

acknowledged as among the proudest circumstances of his life. The

dinner took place in a large pavilion, erected for the occasion in the

area of the High School, and was provided for upwards of 1,500 persons,

more than 600 having been admitted after the removal of the cloth. The

principal speakers were Earl Grey, the Lord Chancellor, and the Earl

of Durham. Earl Grey and the Lord Chancellor, in their speeches, said

they considered that the Reform in Parliament afforded the means by

which all useful improvements might be obtained without violence. Both

advocated a deliberate and careful, but steady course of amelioration

and reform, and both derided the idea of a reaction in favour of Tory

principles of government. The Earl of Durham avowed his opinions in

favour of the ballot and household suffrage, and declared that he

should regret every hour which left ancient and recognised abuses

unreformed." This involved the Lord Chancellor in a new controversy in

which more personalities were exchanged.

On the 9th of August, 1834, a fire broke out in part of the Dublin

Custom House, one of the finest buildings in the United Kingdom. Owing

to the immense quantity of combustible materials, the fierceness

of the conflagration was something terrific. By great exertion the

building was saved. This fire naturally produced a great sensation

throughout the United Kingdom, but it was nothing in comparison to the

interest excited by the burning of the two Houses of Parliament, which

occurred on the 16th of October, 1834. According to the report of the

Lords of the Privy Council, who inquired into the cause of the fire,

the tally-room of the exchequer had been required for the temporary

accommodation of the Court of Bankruptcy, and it was necessary to get

rid of a quantity of the old exchequer tallies, which had accumulated

till they would have made about two cartloads. These tallies had been

used for kindling the fires. On one occasion a quantity of them was

burned in Tothill Fields. There had been a question as to the best mode

of getting rid of them, and it was ultimately resolved that they should

be carefully and gradually consumed in the stoves of the House of

Lords. But the work had been committed to workmen who were the reverse

of careful. They heaped on the fuel, nearly filling the furnaces, and

causing a blaze which overheated the flues. The housekeeper of the

Lords' chamber sent to them several times during the day, complaining

of the smoke and heat, but they assured her there was no danger. About

four o'clock in the afternoon two strangers were admitted to see the

House of Lords, and found the heat and smoke so stifling, that they

were led to examine the floor, when they perceived that the floor-cloth

was "sweating." At six o'clock the pent-up flames broke forth through

the windows, and immediately the alarm was spread in all directions.

The Ministers, the king's sons, Mr. Hume, and others, were presently on

the spot, and did all they could in the consternation and confusion.

The law courts were saved by having their roofs stripped off, and

causing the engines to play on the interior. The greatest efforts were

made to save Westminster Hall, which was happily preserved; but the

two Houses of Parliament were completely destroyed, together with the

Commons' library, the Lords' painted chamber, many of the committee

rooms, part of the Speaker's house, the rooms of the Lord Chancellor

and other law officers, as well as the kitchen and eating-rooms. The

king promptly offered Parliament the use of Buckingham Palace; but it

was thought best to fit up temporary rooms on the old site, and to have

them ready for next Session. The committee of the Privy Council sat for

several days, and during the whole of that time the fire continued to

smoulder among the _débris_, and in the coal vaults, while the engines

were heard to play from day to day within the boarded avenues. As soon

as possible the temporary halls were prepared. The House of Lords was

fitted up for the Commons, and the painted chamber for the Lords, at an

expense of £30,000.

[Illustration: BURNING OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. (_See p._ 376.)]

The Ministry had, as a matter of course, been much weakened by the

retirement of Lord Grey; but, having got through the Session, it might

have survived to the next meeting of Parliament but for the death of

Earl Spencer, which occurred on the 10th of November--an event which

removed Lord Althorp to the House of Peers. It was supposed that

this would lead only to a fresh modification of the Cabinet, by a

redistribution of places. For example, Lord John Russell was to succeed

Lord Althorp as the leader of the House of Commons. Lord Melbourne's

Administration seemed to be quietly acquiesced in, as sufficient for

a time; the nation evidently assuming that, in any case, a Liberal

Government was the necessary consequence of a reformed Parliament. The

public were therefore startled when it was announced on the 15th that

the king had dismissed his Ministers. It appeared that Lord Melbourne

had waited upon his Majesty at Brighton, on the 14th, to take his

commands as to the new arrangements he was about to make. But the

king said he considered that Government dissolved by the removal of

Lord Althorp; that he did not approve of the intended construction of

the Cabinet; that Lord John Russell would make "a wretched figure" as

leader of the House, and that Abercromby and Spring-Rice were worse

than Russell; that he did not approve of their intended measure

with regard to the Irish Church; and concluded by informing Lord

Melbourne that he would not impose upon him the task of completing the

Ministerial arrangements, but would send for the Duke of Wellington.

Melbourne returned to town that evening, the bearer of a letter to the

Duke. He communicated the state of affairs to Brougham under pledge

of secrecy, but the Lord Chancellor promptly went to the _Times_ and

gave the editor a report of the circumstances, with the malicious

addition--"The queen has done it all." The king, furious at the insult,

came up to town, and dismissed his Ministers before their successors

were appointed. Meanwhile, the Duke went to Brighton on Sunday, and

advised the king to send for Sir Robert Peel, who was then in Italy. A

messenger was immediately despatched, who in ten days arrived at Rome,

and surprised Sir Robert Peel with the announcement of the king's wish

that he should return to England forthwith. Next morning the right

honourable baronet started for home, and arrived in London on the 9th

of December. The Duke of Wellington details the circumstances of this

Ministerial crisis in a letter to the Duke of Buckingham. According to

his account, the death of the Earl Spencer, which removed Lord Althorp

from the House of Commons, from the management of the Government

business in that assembly, and from the office of Chancellor of the

Exchequer, occasioned the greatest difficulty and embarrassment.

His personal influence and weight in the House of Commons were the

main foundation of the strength of the late Government; and upon his

removal it was necessary for the king and his Ministers to consider

whether fresh arrangements should be made to enable his Majesty's late

servants to conduct the affairs of the country, or whether it was

advisable for his Majesty to adopt any other course. The arrangements

in contemplation must have reference, not only to men, but to measures,

to some of which the king felt the strongest objection. He had also

strong objections to some of the members of the Cabinet. The Duke

was therefore requested to form an Administration, but he earnestly

recommended Sir Robert Peel as the fittest man for the office of Prime

Minister. In the meanwhile he offered to hold the offices of First Lord

of the Treasury and Home Secretary until Sir Robert Peel's return, Lord

Lyndhurst holding the Great Seals temporarily, subject, with all the

other arrangements, to Sir Robert Peel's approbation. On the 21st Lord

Lyndhurst was gazetted as Lord Chancellor, holding in the interim his

office of Chief Baron of the Exchequer, which Lord Brougham, dreading

the prospect of idleness, offered to fill without salary, thus saving

the country £12,000 a year, an offer which exposed him to censure from

his own party, and which he afterwards withdrew.

The plot thickened as it proceeded. It was suspected that the

Conservative section of the Whigs wished for office, and that Sir

Robert Peel wished to have them. Mr. Stanley (now Lord Stanley in

consequence of the death of his grandfather, the Earl of Derby),

Sir. J. Graham, and the Duke of Richmond had a meeting at the Duke

of Sutherland's, to consider what they should do, in consequence of

proposals made to them to join the Administration. But as they would

not pledge themselves to forward Conservative measures to the extent

required, Sir Robert Peel was obliged to form a Government of Tories

exclusively. On the 10th of the month the arrangements were completed,

and the following were announced as the members of the Cabinet:--First

Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Robert

Peel; Lord Chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst; Privy Seal, Lord Wharncliffe;

Secretary of the Home Department, Mr. Goulburn; Secretary of the

Foreign Department, Duke of Wellington; Secretary of the Colonial

Department, Lord Aberdeen; First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl Ripon;

Secretary for Ireland, Sir H. Hardinge; President of the Board of

Control, Lord Ellenborough; President of the Board of Trade and Master

of the Mint, Mr. Baring; Paymaster of the Forces, Mr. E. Knatchbull;

Secretary at War, Mr. Herries; Master-General of the Ordnance, Sir G.

Murray.

Sir Robert Peel did all in his power to form out of the materials

at his disposal a Ministry that should command the confidence of

the country. On the 16th he issued an address to his constituents

at Tamworth, in which he announced the policy that should guide the

new Government. He declared his intention to correct all proved

abuses and real grievances; to preserve peace at home and abroad;

to resist the secularisation of Church property in any part of the

United Kingdom; to fulfil existing engagements with Foreign Powers; to

observe a strict economy in the public expenditure; and promised an

impartial consideration of what was due to all interests, agricultural,

manufacturing, and commercial. He said:--"With regard to the Reform

Bill itself, I accept it as a final and irrevocable settlement of a

great constitutional question; a settlement which no friend to the

peace and welfare of the country would attempt to disturb either by

direct or insidious means. I will carry out its intentions, supposing

those to imply a careful review of old institutions, undertaken in a

friendly spirit, and with a purpose of improvement."

The first Reform Parliament was dissolved by proclamation on the

30th of December, after an existence of only one year and eleven

months. This proceeding was regarded by the Reformers as a sort of

political sacrilege; a manifest flying in the face of the people;

a clear declaration of an intention to destroy popular rights. But

the care bestowed on the registries told strongly in favour of the

Conservatives at the English elections. The exertions they made to

secure a majority were immense. It was believed at the time that the

Carlton Club had expended nearly a million sterling in securing the

success of their candidates in every possible way in which money could

be made available. In the counties and boroughs the Whigs and Radicals

lost about 100 seats, but after all the Conservatives could muster

only 302 members; against 356. The contests were unusually numerous

and severe, but the Reform Act machinery worked so well that the

elections were for the most part conducted in a very orderly manner.

In many places the closeness of the poll was remarkable. It was a

neck and neck race between the rival candidates. In the metropolitan

boroughs the Ministerialists were everywhere defeated. Not one of the

sixteen seats in this vast centre of influence could the Government,

with all its lavish expenditure, obtain. In some of the provincial

towns, however--Bristol, Exeter, Newcastle, Hull, York, Leeds, Halifax,

and Warrington--a Tory supplanted a Whig. At Liverpool the contest

was intensely exciting. During the last hour of polling were seen in

every direction vans, gigs, and flies in rapid motion, and the price

of a vote rose from £15 to £25. The result was the return of Lord

Sandon, a moderate Tory; Sir Howard Douglas, the other Conservative

candidate, being defeated by Mr. Ewart. In Lancashire and Hampshire

both the Liberal candidates were defeated. Manchester, Birmingham,

Bolton, Sheffield, Preston, and most of the manufacturing towns,

returned Liberals. On the whole, the Government had a small majority

of the five hundred English members. In Scotland, however, the Reform

Act had wrought a complete revolution, and the mass of the electors

so long excluded from political power used the privileges they had

obtained with great zeal in favour of the party to which they were

indebted for their enfranchisement. The whole of the burghs, twenty

in number, returned Liberal members. Five of the counties were gained

by the Tories and three by the Whigs, where respectively they had

formerly failed. Glasgow, whose voice had been neutralised by returning

one representative of each party, now returned two Liberals. Serious

disturbances took place at Jedburgh when Lord John Scott, the Tory

candidate, made his appearance. At Hawick, in the same county, the

rioting was still worse. The persons who came to vote for him were spit

upon, pelted with stones, and severely struck. In some cases they were

thrown into the stream that runs through the town, and subjected to the

most shocking indignities, which the judges who afterwards tried the

cases declared to be "worse than death itself."

But the new Government met its Nemesis in Ireland. O'Connell and

the priests were resolved that, so far as in them lay, Protestant

ascendency should not be re-established in that country. The Anti-Tory

Association was but one of many names and forms which the Protean

agitation had assumed, and all were brought to bear with concentrated

power upon every point to secure the defeat of the Ministerial

candidates. Minor differences were sunk for the occasion, and all

forces were combined against the Government. The consequence was

that amongst the large constituencies the cause of Reform was almost

everywhere successful. In Kerry, in Meath, in Youghal, and Tralee,

the candidates returned were the sons and nephew of O'Connell. He

himself stood a severe contest for Dublin, and was returned with Mr.

Ruthven, but was unseated on petition. It was during this contest that

he recommended that a "death's head and cross-bones" should be painted

on the door of every elector who would support the "nefarious and

blood-stained" tithe system.

It was the tremendous exertions of O'Connell and his followers that

secured the triumph of the Liberal party in this memorable struggle.

The first trial of strength was on the election of a Speaker.

Parliament met on the 19th of February, 1835, and Lord Francis

Egerton, one of the members for Lancashire, moved that Sir C. Manners

Sutton, who for eighteen years had filled the chair with the unanimous

approbation of all parties in the House, should be re-elected. Mr.

Denison, one of the members for Surrey, proposed Mr. Abercromby, a

gentleman of high position at the bar, and member for the city of

Edinburgh. The division, it was felt on both sides, would be decisive

as to the fate of the Government, by showing whether or not it was

supported by a majority of the new Parliament which was the response

given to the Prime Minister's appeal to the country. The house was the

fullest on record, there being 626 members present. Mr. Abercromby was

elected by a majority of ten, the numbers being 316 to 306. Sir Charles

Sutton was supported by a majority of the English members--23, but his

opponent had a majority of ten of the Scottish. Still, had the decision

been in the hands of the British representatives, Government would

have had a majority of 13; but of the Irish members only 41 voted for

Sutton, while 61 voted for Abercromby. From this memorable division two

things were evident to the Tories, in which the future of England for

the next half century was to them distinctly foreshadowed; the first

was, that the Ministry was entirely, on party questions, at the mercy

of the Irish Catholic members; the second, that the county members of

the whole empire were outvoted by the borough members in the proportion

of 35 to 20, and that a large majority of the former had declared for

the Conservative side.

It was stated that the overthrow of Peel's Government was decided by

what was called the Lichfield House compact, which made a great noise

at the time. By this compact it was alleged that a formal coalition

had been effected between the Whigs and the Irish Catholics; but they

denied that there was anything formal about the arrangement. There

was a meeting, it is true, at Lichfield House, when Lord John Russell

stated his intentions, and described what would be his Parliamentary

tactics. These met the approval of O'Connell and his friends, and to

that extent alone, even by implication, did any compact exist. There

had also, it appears from Mr. Walpole's "Life of Lord John Russell,"

been certain _pour-parlers_, the result of a formal circular issued

by Lord Duncannon. Mr. O'Connell was accustomed to explain his reason

for supporting the Whigs by a comparison which was not the most

complimentary to them; he said they were like an old hat thrust into a

broken pane to keep out the cold.

Sir Robert Peel hoped that by earnestly promoting practical reforms,

and improving the institutions of the country in the spirit of his

manifesto, he would gradually conciliate a number of members of

independent position and moderate views, so that he might be able to

secure a working majority. He therefore did not resign when defeated

in the first trial of strength on the election of a Speaker; and

the same consideration induced him to hold his ground when he was

defeated on the amendment to the Address. The House of Commons met

for the despatch of business on the 24th of February. The Speech

from the Throne, after lamenting the destruction of the Houses of

Parliament, congratulated the country on the prevalent commercial

prosperity, which, however, was accompanied by a general depression

of the agricultural interest. The king, therefore, recommended to

the consideration of Parliament whether it might not be in their

power, after providing for the exigencies of the public service, and

consistently with the steadfast maintenance of the public credit, to

devise a method for mitigating the pressure of those local charges

which bore heavily on the owners and occupiers of land, and for

distributing the burden of them more equally over other descriptions

of property. When the Address was moved, an amendment was proposed by

Lord Morpeth, which was designed to strike at the very existence of

the new Ministry. It was not a direct censure upon their policy, or

a formal declaration of want of confidence; but it affirmed a policy

materially differing from that which had been announced by Sir Robert

Peel. It expressed a hope that municipal corporations would be placed

under vigilant popular control; that the undoubted grievances of the

Dissenters would be considered; that abuses in the Church of England

and Ireland would be removed; and it lamented the dissolution of

Parliament as an unnecessary measure, by which the progress of these

and other reforms had been interrupted and endangered. This hostile

motion gave rise to a debate of intense earnestness, which lasted four

nights. It was not easy to predict, during the course of the conflict,

which side would be victorious. Even the whippers-in were doubtful of

the issue; but the contest ended in the triumph of the Liberals, who

had a majority of seven, the numbers being 309 to 302. Of the English

members, the Government had a majority of 32; and of the English and

Scottish together, of 16; but in Ireland Sir Robert Peel's supporters

were only 36, while the Liberals mustered 59.

As Ministers did not resign on being placed in a minority the third

time, rumours were industriously circulated by their opponents that

they meant to rule the country despotically; that they were about to

dissolve Parliament the second time, and had resolved to maintain the

army on their own responsibility, without the Mutiny Act. On the 2nd

of March Lord John Russell, referring to these rumours, gave notice

that he intended to bring forward the Irish Appropriation question, and

the question of Municipal Reform. It was for a test of this kind that

Sir Robert Peel waited. In the meantime he denied that he had any such

intentions as those ascribed to him, and compelled Mr. Hume to withdraw

his proposal to limit the supplies to three months. He promised that

Government would bring in a Bill on the Irish Church; but it would

adhere strictly to the principle that ecclesiastical property should

be reserved for ecclesiastical purposes. He declared they would be

prepared to remedy all real abuses when the report of the Commissioners

appointed for their investigation was received.

[Illustration: LORD ALTHORP (3RD EARL SPENCER).]

On the 26th of March the Marquis of Chandos made an attempt to obtain

some relief for the agricultural interest, which was then in a very

depressed state, and the measure he proposed was the abolition of the

malt tax, which brought in the sum of £4,812,000. Sir Robert Peel

prophesied that if this tax were abolished they would be in for a

property tax. He said: "My prophecy is, that if you repeal this tax

you will make an income tax necessary; to that, be assured, you must

come at last, if you repeal the malt tax. You will lay your taxes on

articles of general consumption--on tobacco, on spirits, on wine--and

you will meet with such a storm that will make you hastily recede from

your first advances towards a substitute. To a property tax, then, you

must come; and I congratulate you, gentlemen of the landed interest,

on finding yourselves relieved from the pressure of the malt tax, and

falling on a good, comfortable property tax, with a proposal, probably,

for a graduated scale. And you who represent the heavy land of this

country, the clay soils--the soils unfit for barley--I felicitate you

on the prospect that lies before you. If you think that the substitute

will be advantageous to your interests, be it so; but do not--when

hereafter you discover your mistake--do not lay the blame upon those

who offered you a timely warning, and cautioned you against exchanging

the light pressure of a malt duty for the scourge of a property tax."

The motion was rejected by a majority of 350 to 192.

The Premier was at this time subjected to a great mortification in

being compelled by the House of Commons, and public opinion out of

doors, to cancel the appointment of the Marquis of Londonderry as

ambassador to St. Petersburg. A deep sympathy with the oppressed Poles,

and an abhorrence of the unrelenting despotism of Russia pervaded

the public mind in the United Kingdom. The Marquis of Londonderry

had distinguished himself by sympathies of an opposite kind, and had

characterised the Poles as the Czar's rebellious subjects. It was

generally felt that England could not be fairly represented at the

Court of St. Petersburg by a man of such well-known sentiments. The

press was loud in its condemnation of the appointment, and Mr. Sheil

brought the subject before the House of Commons by moving that an

Address be presented to his Majesty for a copy of the appointment. As

Lord Stanley declared emphatically against the selection of the noble

marquis for such a mission, it was evident that if Government had gone

to a division they would have been defeated. Sir Robert Peel therefore

gave way with a good grace, stating that the appointment had not been

formally made out; and though the House seemed to be interfering

unduly with the Royal Prerogative, he would not advise his Majesty to

persist in it. The motion was then withdrawn, and when Lord Londonderry

read the report of the debate in the papers next day, he immediately

sent in his resignation. In announcing this in the House of Peers, he

said: "Having but one object, and that to serve the king honestly and

to the best of my ability, were I to depart from this country after

what has passed in the House of Commons, I should feel myself, as a

representative of his Majesty, placed in a new, false, and improper

position. My efficiency would be impaired, and it would be impossible

for me to fill the office to which I have been called with proper

dignity or effect. Upon these grounds, I have now to announce that no

consideration will induce me to accept the office which his Majesty has

been graciously pleased to confer on me."

Meanwhile, Sir Robert Peel applied himself with great energy and

diligence to the legislative work that he had proposed for his

Government. On the 17th he moved for leave to bring in a Bill to

relieve Dissenters from the disabilities under which they laboured with

regard to the law of marriage. It was felt to be a great grievance

that Nonconformists could not be married except according to the

rites of the Established Church, to which they had conscientious

objections. Attempts had been made by the Whigs to relieve them, but in

a hesitating manner, and with only a half recognition of the principle

of religious equality. Sir Robert Peel took up the subject in a more

liberal spirit and with more enlightened views. He proposed that, so

far as the State had to do with marriage, it should assume the form

of a civil contract only, leaving the parties to solemnise it with

whatever religious ceremonies they chose. The Bill for this purpose met

the approval of the House, and would have satisfied the Dissenters if

Sir Robert Peel had remained in office long enough to pass it. All the

committees of the preceding year were reappointed, in order to redeem,

as far as possible, the time lost by the dissolution. A measure was

brought forward for the improvement of the resources of the Church

of England, by turning some of the larger incomes to better account,

and by creating two additional bishoprics, Ripon and Manchester. The

Premier did not act towards the Dissenters in the same liberal spirit

with regard to academic education as he did with regard to marriage.

They were excluded from the privileges of the Universities; and yet

when it was proposed to grant a charter to the London University, that

it might be able to confer degrees, the Government opposed the motion

for an Address to the king on the subject, and were defeated by a

majority of 246 to 136.

On the 20th of March Sir Henry Hardinge brought forward the Ministerial

plan for the settlement of the tithe question. It was proposed that

in future tithes should be recoverable only from the head landlord,

and that the owner should be entitled to recover only 75 per cent. of

the amount, 25 per cent. being allowed for the cost of collection and

the risk and liability which the landlord assumed. He might redeem

it, if he wished, at twenty years' purchase, calculated upon the

diminished rate. The purchase-money was to be invested in land or

otherwise for the benefit of the rectors and other tithe-owners. The

arrears of 1834 were to be paid out of the residue of the million

advanced from the Consolidated Fund, and the repayments of the clergy

for the loans they had received were to be remitted. There was a good

deal of discussion on this plan, Lord John Russell contending that it

was the same in substance as the one brought forward last Session by

the late Government. There was, however, some difference between the

two measures. In the former, the landlords were to get two-fifths, or

£40, out of every £100, securing to the clergy 77½ per cent., and

involving an annual charge of 17½ per cent. on the Consolidated

Fund. This was the shape the measure had assumed as the result of

amendments carried in committee. The Ministerial resolution was carried

by a majority of 213 to 198.

But all this was but preliminary to the great battle which commenced

on the 30th of this month and decided the fate of the Ministry. Lord

John Russell, after the House had been called over, moved, "That the

House should resolve itself into a committee of the whole House, to

consider the temporalities of the Church of Ireland, with a view of

applying any surplus of the revenues not required for the spiritual

care of its members to the general education of all classes of the

people, without distinction of religious persuasion." This resolution

was skilfully framed to secure the support of all the Liberal party,

and of the English Dissenters as well as the Irish Catholics; all

of them being able to agree upon it, and to act together without

inconsistency, though each might act from different motives and with

different objects. The discussion was particularly interesting, as it

turned very much upon the great question of religious establishments.

Lord John Russell, Lord Howick, and Mr. Sheil, while fully admitting

that an establishment tends to promote religion and to preserve good

order, contended that it ought not to be maintained where it fails to

secure these objects, and that it must always fail when, as in Ireland,

the members of the Established Church are only a minority of the

nation, while the majority, constituting most of the poorer classes,

are thrown upon the voluntary system for the support of their clergy.

Concurring with Paley in his view of a Church establishment--that it

should be founded upon utility, that it should communicate religious

knowledge to the masses of the people, that it should not be debased

into a State engine or an instrument of political power,--they demanded

whether the Church of Ireland fulfilled these essential conditions of

an establishment. They asked whether its immense revenues had been

employed in preserving and extending the Protestant faith in Ireland.

In the course of something more than a century it was stated that

its revenues had increased sevenfold, and now amounted to £800,000

a year. Had its efficiency increased in the same proportion? Had it

even succeeded in keeping its own small flocks within the fold? On the

contrary, they adduced statistics to show a lamentable falling off in

their numbers.

Such being the facts of the case, the Liberals came to the conclusion

that a reform was inevitable. In order to adapt the Establishment to

the requirements of the Protestant population, there must be a large

reduction, and the surplus funds that remained ought to be applied

to some object by which the moral and religious instruction of the

people would be promoted. The least objectionable mode in which the

money could be applied was the general education of the poor under

the National Board, by which children of all denominations could

be educated in harmony together, as they had been ever since its

establishment. The reformers denied that there was any analogy between

the revenues of the Established Church and private property. The Acts

of Parliament securing those revenues had all treated them as being

held in trust for the benefit of the nation; and after leaving ample

means for the due execution of the trust, so far as it was really

practicable, the Legislature was competent to apply the balance in

accomplishing by other agency than the Protestant clergy, to some

extent at least, the objects originally contemplated by the founders of

the religious endowments.

The case of the Irish Church was stated by Sir Robert Peel, Lord

Stanley, and Sir James Graham, who argued that its revenues were

greatly exaggerated, subjected to heavy drawbacks and deductions.

The vestry cess had been abolished. A tax exclusively borne by the

clergy of three to fifteen per cent. had been laid upon all livings,

and the Church Temporalities Act provided that in all parishes in

which service had not been performed from 1830 to 1833, when a vacancy

occurred, there should be no reappointment, and the revenues of that

living, after paying a curate, should be destined to other parishes

differently situated, but for purposes strictly Protestant. Here was a

provision already made for the progressive diminution or extinction of

the Episcopal Church in those districts where it was not called for,

and could be of no utility. Whence, then, the anxiety to take away a

surplus, which probably would not exceed £100,000 a year, from a Church

already subjected to such heavy and exclusive burdens? It was not

pretended that the object of this appropriation was to apply the income

seized to the payment of the National Debt, or that it was justified

by State necessity. They argued that if the appropriation clause, as

now shaped, once passed into law, not only would the Protestant faith

cease to be the established religion in Ireland, but the measure would

be fatal to the Established Church in England also. In fact, the

Conservatives contended that this was only the first of a series of

measures avowedly intended to annihilate the Protestant Establishment.

O'Connell proposed to confiscate the property of the Church, in order

to relieve the land from its appropriate burdens, and to exempt it from

the support of the poor. They argued, therefore, that on no reasonable

ground could it be maintained that this concession to Irish agitation

could have any other effect than stimulating the agitators to make

fresh demands.

[Illustration: LICHFIELD HOUSE, ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, LONDON.]

The debate lasted four nights, and was kept up with the greatest spirit

and vigour. The division was taken between three and four o'clock

in the morning, when it was found that in a House of 611 members

the numbers were--for the motion, 322; against it, 289; leaving the

Government in a minority of 33. A Cabinet Council was held on the

following day, when it was unanimously resolved to await the result

of the debate on the Irish Tithe question on the same evening. Lord

John Russell, on the report of the committee being brought up, moved

the following resolution:--"That it is the opinion of this House

that no measure upon the subject of tithes in Ireland can lead to a

satisfactory and final adjustment which does not embody the principle

contained in the foregoing resolution." He referred to the principle of

the appropriation clause. On this an animated debate followed, which

lasted till one o'clock in the morning. When the House divided, it was

found that the resolution was carried by a majority of twenty-seven;

the numbers being--ayes, 285; noes, 258. As these divisions took place

on a question of vital policy, Sir Robert Peel had no alternative but

to resign. Accordingly, he announced his decision in the House next

day. After the extraordinary efforts that he had made, and considering

the circumstances in which he had been called upon to assume the reins

of Government, it must have been very painful to him to be thus cut

short in his patriotic labours; but he bore the disappointment with

admirable spirit, and retired from his position so gracefully that he

was warmly cheered from all parts of the House.

[Illustration: SIR ROBERT PEEL.]

It may be as well to dispose here of the Irish Church question; for

although Lord Morpeth, on the part of the Melbourne Administration,

brought in a Bill for settling the Tithe question, which passed

the House of Commons by a majority of 26 votes, and contained the

appropriation clause--in the House of Lords this clause was struck out,

and the Bill was otherwise altered in committee so materially that,

when sent back to the Commons, they scarcely knew their own offspring.

The Bill was therefore disowned, and thrown out.

When Sir Robert Peel delivered up the seals of office, the first

thing the king did was to send for Earl Grey, who declined the task

of forming an Administration. He advised his Majesty to entrust it to

Viscount Melbourne. The business, therefore, devolved upon Melbourne,

and he hastened to complete it out of such materials as he had at his

command. These were substantially the same as those which composed

his former Administration. Lord Brougham, however, was now left out,

as Lord Melbourne, in a series of plain-spoken letters, had already

informed him he would be; also Lord Althorp, who, being in the Upper

House as Earl Spencer, did not seem to have any ambition for the toils

and honours of office. Lord Howick, the eldest son of Earl Grey, became

a member of the Cabinet. There was no Lord Chancellor appointed for

the present, out of consideration for Brougham's feelings. The Great

Seal was put in commission, the three Commissioners being the Master of

the Rolls, the Vice-Chancellor, and Mr. Justice Bosanquet. The offices

were distributed as follows:--Lord Melbourne, Premier; the Marquis

of Lansdowne, President of the Council; Lord Palmerston, Foreign

Secretary; Lord John Russell, Home Secretary; Mr. Charles Grant,

Colonial Secretary; Mr. Spring-Rice, Chancellor of the Exchequer;

Viscount Duncannon, Lord Privy Seal and Chief Commissioner of Woods and

Forests; Lord Auckland, First Lord of the Admiralty; Sir John Hobhouse,

President of the Indian Board; Mr. Poulett Thompson, President of

the Board of Trade; Lord Howick, Secretary-at-War; Lord Holland,

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The appointments not in the

Cabinet were--Sir Henry Parnell, Paymaster of the Forces; Mr. Charles

Wood, Secretary to the Admiralty; Sir George Grey, Under-Secretary

of the Colonies; the Honourable Fox Maule, Under-Secretary for the

Home Department; Mr. Labouchere, Vice-President of the Board of

Trade and Master of the Mint; Attorney-General, Sir John Campbell;

Solicitor-General, Mr. Rolfe. The Irish appointments were--The Earl of

Mulgrave, Lord-Lieutenant; Lord Morpeth, Chief Secretary; Lord Plunket,

Chancellor.

The change of Ministers and some additions to the peerage caused

several elections. Mr. Littleton was raised to the Upper House with

the title of Lord Hatherton, and Mr. Charles Grant as Lord Glenelg.

They were promptly replaced by Conservatives. Lord John Russell having

lost his election for South Devon, Colonel Fox made way for him at

Stroud, which borough continued to furnish a seat for the noble lord

during many years. Lord Palmerston had been defeated in Hampshire at

the general election; but Mr. Kennedy retired to make way for him at

Tiverton, which had the honour of being represented by the Foreign

Secretary until his death. Lord Morpeth had to stand a severe contest

in Yorkshire, but he was returned by a large majority.

On the 8th of April the dissolution of the Peel Administration took

place, and on the 18th Lord Melbourne announced the completion of his

arrangements. On that occasion Lord Alvanley asked the Premier if he

had secured the assistance of Mr. O'Connell and his friends, and if

so, upon what terms. Lord Melbourne answered that he did not coincide

in opinion with Mr. O'Connell; that he had taken no means to secure

his support; that he gave the most decided negative to Lord Alvanley's

question; adding, "And if he has been told anything to the contrary,

he has been told what is false, and without foundation." In the House

of Commons, a few days after, Colonel Sibthorpe spoke of O'Connell

as the prompter and adviser of the new Ministry, and said: "I do not

like the countenances of the honourable gentlemen opposite, for I

believe them to be the index of their minds, and I will oppose them

on every point, from the conviction that they could not bring forward

anything that would tend to benefit the country. I earnestly hope

that we shall have a safe and speedy riddance from such a band." This

escapade roused the ire of O'Connell, who instantly rose and said that

he thought the gallant colonel's countenance was, at all events, as

remarkable as any upon the Ministerial benches. He would not abate him

a single hair in point of good-humour. "Elsewhere," he said, "these

things may be treated in a different style. There is no creature--not

even a half-maniac or a half-idiot--that may not take upon himself to

use that language there which he would know better than to make use

of elsewhere; and the bloated buffoon ought to learn the distinction

between independent men and those whose votes are not worth purchasing,

even if they were in the market."

O'Connell was promptly challenged by Alvanley, and declined the combat.

But his second son, Morgan, was resolved not to let the matter rest.

As soon as he heard of the proceedings, he wrote to Lord Alvanley

a very spirited letter, in which he designated the challenge as a

party manœuvre, with no other object than to cast a stigma upon his

father--upon the party to which he belonged, as well as upon the

Government and its supporters. He denounced the proceeding as a

wretched manœuvre--as an utterly ungentlemanly and braggadocio mode of

carrying on party warfare. He adopted his father's insulting language,

not, he said, in the vain hope of inducing him to give satisfaction;

but, lest he should be wrong in that surmise, he intimated that he was

at his lordship's service. This letter was conveyed through Colonel

Hodges. The result was that the parties met at Arlington Street, when

they arranged to have a meeting at a short distance beyond the turnpike

next the Regent's Park, on the Barnet Road. The ground was measured

at twelve paces; the parties took their positions; the word was given,

"Ready--fire." O'Connell fired, but Lord Alvanley did not, owing to a

mistake, and claimed the right to fire, which was refused. Both parties

fired two rounds more without effect, each satisfied that the other had

acted with perfect fairness. There was no apology made on either side.

Mr. Morgan O'Connell soon found that he had no sinecure in undertaking

to give satisfaction with the pistol for all his father's violations

of the code of honour. Shortly after, Mr. Daniel O'Connell referred,

in strong language, to an attack made upon him by Mr. Disraeli at

Taunton:--"In the annals of political turpitude, there is not anything

deserving the appellation of black-guardism to equal that attack upon

me.... He possesses just the qualities of the impenitent thief who

died upon the Cross; whose name, I verily believe, must have been

Disraeli. For aught I know, the present Disraeli is descended from

him; and with the impression that he is, I now forgive the heir-at-law

of the blasphemous thief who died upon the Cross." When Mr. Disraeli

read this tremendous philippic, he wrote to Mr. Morgan O'Connell for

satisfaction, which the latter denied his right to demand. He had not

seen the attack, nor was he answerable for his father's words, though

he had taken up his quarrel with Lord Alvanley. Not being able to get

satisfaction by means of pistols, he had recourse to the pen; and,

certainly, if O'Connell's attack was violent, the retaliation was not

of the meekest. However, ink alone was spilt.

Lord Melbourne on announcing the completion of his arrangements made

a general statement of his policy. In forming his Cabinet he had had

to contend with difficulties "peculiarly great and arduous, and some

of them of a severe and mortifying nature." He had no change of policy

to declare. "His Government would be based upon the principles of a

safe, prudent, and truly efficient reform--principles the tendency of

which was not to subvert or endanger, but, on the contrary, to improve,

strengthen, and establish the institutions of the country; and in

regard to ecclesiastical government, every measure contemplated in

reference to that subject would have for its end the increase of true

piety and religion through the whole of his Majesty's dominions." From

the disposition and character popularly ascribed to Lord Melbourne, it

could not be expected that he should prove an energetic Reformer. The

Earl of Derby mentions a saying of his which often escaped him as a

member of Lord Grey's Cabinet. When they had to encounter a difficulty,

he would say, "Can't you let it alone?" This accords with the portrait

of him presented by Sydney Smith, in his second letter to Archdeacon

Singleton.

Notwithstanding his careless manner, however, there was much sincerity

in the nature of Lord Melbourne; and there is no doubt that he laboured

with an honest purpose to make his Administration useful to the

country, though not with so much activity and energy, or with such

constant solicitude to secure success, as his predecessor had brought

to the task. As it was now advancing towards the end of the Session,

he confined his attention to two great measures of reform--the Irish

Tithe question (of which we have already disposed) and the question

of Municipal Reform. It is scarcely necessary to remark that abuses

in corporations had been a matter of constant and general complaint

for two centuries. But it was hopeless to expect a remedy so long

as the Parliamentary representation was so inadequate and corrupt.

The rotten and venal boroughs, of which the franchise was abolished

or amended by the Reform Act, were the chief seats of abuse. The

correction of the local evil would have been the destruction of the

system by which the ruling party in the State sustained its political

power. There were, therefore, the most powerful interests at work,

restraining each from attempting the work of reform; but by the

Parliamentary Reform Act these interests were abolished, and those

local fountains of corruption could no longer pour their fetid contents

into the legislature. Statesmen now felt at liberty to abate those

nuisances. Yet the work was not as speedily accomplished as might have

been expected. It is true that Lord Grey advised the king to issue a

commission of inquiry in July, 1833, but it was not until the 5th of

June, 1835, that any measure was brought forward upon the subject.

Even then Lord Melbourne had to overcome the dislike of the king, who

distrusted the measure, and thought that, if the corporations were to

be reformed at all, they had best be reformed by granting them new

charters. The commission consisted of twenty gentlemen, who were to

proceed with the utmost despatch to inquire as to the existing state

of the municipal corporations in England and Wales, and to collect

information respecting the defects in their constitution, to make

inquiry into their jurisdiction and powers as to the administration

of justice, and in all other respects; and also into the mode of

electing and appointing the members and officers of such corporations,

into the privileges of the freemen and other members thereof, and into

the nature and management of the income, revenues, and funds of the

said corporations. They divided the whole of England and Wales into

districts, each of which was assigned to two commissioners. Their

reports on individual corporations occupied five folio volumes. The

whole was presented in a general report, signed by sixteen of the

Commissioners.

The number of places in which the inquiries under the commission were

carried on was 237, having a population of 2,028,513. In twenty-five

places the number of corporators was not ascertained; in the others

(212) they amounted to 88,509. The governing body was self-elected

in 186 boroughs. This body elected the mayor in 131 boroughs,

appointed the recorder in 136, and the town-clerk in 135. The number

of corporators exercising magisterial functions was 1,086, in 188

boroughs. In 112 boroughs the corporations had exclusive criminal

jurisdiction, extending to the trial of various descriptions of

offences, and in forty-two their jurisdiction was not exclusive.

Seventeen boroughs did not enjoy any income whatever; in eight the

precise amount could not be obtained. The total income of 212 boroughs

amounted to £366,948; their expenditure to £377,027. 103 were involved

in debts amounting to £1,855,371, and were besides burdened with

annuities amounting to £4,463. In twenty-eight boroughs only were the

accounts published; in fifteen the annual income was under £20; in

eleven it was between £2,000 and £3,000; in five, £3,000, and under

£4,000; in one, £4,000, and under £5,000; in four, £5,000, and under

£7,500; in five, £10,000, and under £12,500; in one, £12,500, and under

£15,000; in one, £15,000, and under £20,000; and in one, £91,000.

The measure, which was founded on the recommendations of the report,

was advocated principally by Lord John Russell, Lord Melbourne, and Mr.

C. Hobhouse. The plan was intended to provide for 183 corporations,

extending to a population of at least 2,000,000. Many of these

corporations governed large and important towns, of which they did not

sufficiently represent the property, intelligence, and population. In

Bedford the corporation composed only one in seventy of the people,

and one-fortieth of the property. In Oxford there were only 1,400

electors, and seldom more than 500 voted at an election. In Norwich

315 of the electors were paupers. In Cambridge there were only 118

freemen, out of a population of 20,000; and while the annual rental

was more than £25,000, the property of freemen amounted to little more

than £2,000. These were only samples of the strange anomalies that

everywhere prevailed. It was obvious to every one that corporations so

constituted were altogether unfitted for the objects which they were

originally designed to answer. On the contrary, they tended directly to

frustrate those objects, and to render the proper government of towns

impracticable. They engendered jealousy and distrust between the small

governing power and the body of the people. A few persons carrying on

the government for their own benefit were connected with a portion of

the lower classes, whose votes they purchased and whose habits they

demoralised. With such a monopoly the grossest abuses were inevitable.

Charitable funds, often large in amount, which had been left for the

benefit of the whole people, were either lavishly distributed among the

venal dependents of the governing body, squandered on civic feasts, or

spent in bribing the freemen in order to secure their votes. In short,

the general if not the universal practice had been to use the powers

of municipal corporations, not for the good government or benefit of

the towns over which they presided--not in order that they might be

well and quietly governed in the terms of the charters, but for the

sole purpose of establishing an interest which might be useful in the

election of members of Parliament.

It was impossible to defend a system like this, and therefore the

Conservatives offered no opposition to the principle of the Bill; their

aim being to save as much as possible of the old system, which had

rendered much more service to them than to the Whigs, and presented

a number of barriers to the advance of democratic power. Sir Robert

Peel, with Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, who were now the ablest

antagonists their former Whig colleagues had to encounter, pleaded

powerfully for the delinquent boroughs; not for absolute acquittal, but

for mitigation of punishment. They would not go the length of asserting

that freemen were altogether immaculate; for of what body of electors

could that be predicated? The question was not whether it was right to

admit these men for the first time, but whether they should be deprived

of the rights that they and their ancestors had enjoyed for centuries.

The Reformers were the first to propose covertly and insidiously, a

great and important change in the Reform Bill. What did they mean by

first bringing in a Bill which was based on perpetuating the rights of

freemen and recognising them as an integral part of the Constitution,

and now, within three years, bringing in another intending to deprive

them of their rights? Was not this a precedent for breaking up the

final settlement, which might be followed on future occasions? Might

not another Ministry deem it for their advantage to extinguish the £10

electors? And where was this to stop? Could it stop while a fragment

remained of the Reform Act--the boasted second Charter of the people

of England? If there were guilty parties, let them be punished. Let

convicted boroughs be disfranchised; but let not whole bodies of

electors be annihilated because some of their members may have been

corrupt. Were the £10 voters perfectly immaculate? and, if not, on what

principle were they spared, while the freemen were condemned? The Whigs

had created the Reform Act; but now--infatuated men!--they were about

to lay murderous hands upon their own offspring.

[Illustration: THE MANSION HOUSE, LONDON, 1891.]

Thus argued the Conservatives, and not without effect, for the clause

against disfranchising the freemen was carried only by a majority of

twenty-eight; and in the passage through the Lords several important

amendments were carried against the Government, owing chiefly to the

vigorous opposition of Lord Lyndhurst. He proceeded to convert the

Bill into what was called a Conservative arrangement, and when Peel's

moderation was brought up against him, is said to have remarked, "Peel!

What is Peel to me? D---- Peel!" On an amendment which he proposed--to

omit the clause disfranchising the freemen--he defeated the Government

by a majority of 93; the numbers being 130 to 37. He followed up this

victory by a motion to secure to the freemen their Parliamentary

franchise, which was carried without a division. The Commons thought

it better to adopt some of these alterations, however repugnant to

their feelings, rather than lose the measure. The Bill, as amended, was

accordingly passed on the 7th of September. London, with its numerous

and wealthy incorporated guilds, was reserved for future legislation,

which the lavish hospitalities of the Mansion House and Guildhall

postponed to a later date than municipal reformers then thought of.

The Irish corporations were included in the inquiry, which commenced

in 1833. The Irish Commissioners took for their local investigations

the one hundred and seventeen places which had sent representatives to

the Irish Parliament. They found everywhere the grossest abuses. By an

Act of George II., residence had been dispensed with as a qualification

for corporate offices. The effect of this was to deprive a large number

of them of a resident governing body. In some cases a few, very rarely

a majority, of the municipal council were inhabitants of the town.

In others, the whole chartered body of burgesses were non-resident,

and they attended as a mere matter of form, to go through the farce

of electing members of Parliament, or for the purpose of disposing

of the corporate property. In some boroughs the charter gave the

nomination of a member of Parliament to the lord of the manor or some

local proprietor. In others the power of returning the Parliamentary

representative was vested in a small self-elected body of freemen;

almost invariably the power of nomination was actually possessed by

the gentleman known as the "patron" or "proprietor," who could dispose

of the seat as he thought proper, and if not reserved for himself or

some member of his family, it was sold for the highest price it would

bring in the market--treated in every respect as absolute property,

which was transmitted, like the family estate, from father to son. This

property was fully recognised at the Union, and it was by buying it

up at an exceedingly liberal price that Lord Castlereagh was enabled

to carry that measure. By the Act of Union a large number of those

rotten corporations, some of which had not even a hamlet to represent,

were swept away. But a considerable number remained, and of these the

Commissioners of inquiry remarked:--"This system deserves peculiar

notice in reference to your Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. In the

close boroughs they are almost universally excluded from all corporate

privileges. In the more considerable towns they have rarely been

admitted even as freemen, and, with few exceptions, they are altogether

excluded from the governing bodies. In some--and among these is the

most important corporation in Ireland, that of Dublin--their admission

is still resisted on avowed principles of sectarian distinction. The

exclusive spirit operates far more widely and more mischievously than

by the mere denial of equal privileges to persons possessing perfect

equality of civil worth; for in places where the great mass of the

population is Roman Catholic--and persons of that persuasion are

for all efficient purposes excluded from corporate privileges--the

necessary result is that the municipal magistracy belongs entirely to

the other religious persuasions; and the dispensation of local justice,

and the selection of juries being committed to the members of one class

exclusively, it is not surprising that such administration of the law

should be regarded with distrust and suspicion by the other and more

numerous body."

In pursuance of this report, Mr. O'Loughlin, the Irish

Attorney-General, introduced a Bill, early in the Session of 1836, for

the better regulation of Irish corporations. There still remained,

he said, 71 corporations, which included within their territories

a population of 900,000, while the number of corporators was only

13,000. Of these, no less than 8,000 were to be found in four of the

larger boroughs, leaving only 5,000 corporators for the remaining 67

corporations, containing above 500,000 inhabitants. So exclusive had

they been, that though, since 1792, Roman Catholics were eligible

as members, not more than 200 had ever been admitted. In Dublin

the principle of exclusion was extended to the great majority of

Protestants of wealth, respectability, and intelligence. In a word,

the Attorney-General said that the management of corporations, and the

administration of justice in their hands, was nothing but a tissue of

injustice, partisanship, and corruption. He concluded by laying down a

plan of Reform which would assimilate the Irish corporations to those

of England. On the part of the Conservatives it was admitted that the

greater part of the corporations in Ireland were created by James I.,

avowedly as guardians of the Protestant interests, and to favour the

spread of the Protestant religion; and that ancient and venerable

system this Bill would annihilate--a revolution against which they

solemnly protested, even though it covered many abuses which had crept

into it during the lapse of time. They were quite appalled at the

prospect of the evils that this Bill would produce. Borough magistrates

were to be elected by popular suffrage. What a source of discord and

animosity! First, there would be the registration of the voters, then

the election of the town councillors, and then the election of the

mayor, aldermen, and town clerks. What a scene would such a state of

things present! How truly was it said that the boroughs would be the

normal schools of agitation! Then what was to become of the corporate

property, which yielded an income of £61,000, while the expenditure was

only £57,000, and the debt charged on it only £133,000? Was all this

property to be placed under the control of the priests, whose influence

would determine the elections?

The second reading of the Bill was not opposed, but Lord Francis

Egerton, with Sir Robert Peel's concurrence, moved that the committee

should be empowered to make provision for the abolition of corporations

in Ireland, and for securing the efficient and impartial administration

of justice, and the peace and good government of the cities and towns

in that country. The Tories thought it better that there should be no

corporations at all, than that their privileges should be enjoyed by

the Roman Catholics. The motion was lost by a majority of 307 to 64,

and the Bill ultimately passed the Lower House by a majority of 61. In

the Upper House a motion similar to that of Lord Francis Egerton was

moved by Lord Fitzgerald, and carried in a full House by a majority of

84. Other amendments were carried, and it was sent back to the Commons

so changed that it was difficult to trace its identity. Lord John

Russell said that it contained little or nothing of what was sent up:

out of 140 clauses, 106 had been omitted or altered, and 18 new ones

introduced. He moved that the amendments of the Lords be rejected, and

that the Bill be sent back to the Upper House. The motion was carried

by a majority of 66, the numbers being 324 to 258. But the Lords

refused by a majority of 99 to undo their work; and upon the Bill being

returned to the Lower House in the same state, Lord John Russell got

rid of the difficulty by moving that the Bill should be considered that

day three months.

Notwithstanding the hopes which might have been fairly entertained that

the measure of Reform would have been rendered complete throughout the

kingdom, a considerable time elapsed before its benefits were extended

to the sister country; and a large amount of persevering exertion

was required before a measure for the purpose was carried through

Parliament, although its necessity was unquestionable. This arose

from certain difficulties which it was not found easy to overcome,

so as to meet the views, or, at least, to secure the acquiescence,

of the various parties in the House. And hence it happened that it

was not until 1840 that an Act was passed for the regulation of

municipal corporations in Ireland, after repeated struggles which had

to be renewed from year to year, and the question was at length only

settled by a sort of compromise. On the 7th of February, 1837, Lord

John Russell moved for leave to bring in the Irish Municipal Bill,

which was passed by a majority of 55; but the consideration of it was

adjourned in the Peers till it was seen what course Ministers were to

adopt with regard to the Irish Tithe Bill. Early in 1838 the Bill was

again introduced, when Sir Robert Peel, admitting the principle by

not opposing the second reading, moved that the qualification should

be £10. The motion was lost, but a similar one was made in the Upper

House, and carried by a majority of 60. Other alterations were made,

which induced Lord John Russell to relinquish his efforts for another

year. In 1839 he resumed his task, and the second reading was carried

by a majority of 26. Once more Sir Robert Peel proposed the £10

qualification for the franchise, which was rejected in the Commons,

but adopted in the Lords by nearly the same majorities as before. Thus

baffled again, the noble lord gave up the measure for the Session.

In February, 1840, the Bill was introduced by Lord Morpeth with a

qualification of £8. Sir Robert Peel now admitted that a settlement of

the question was indispensable. With his support the Bill passed the

Commons by a majority of 148. It also passed the Lords, and on the 18th

of August received the Royal Assent.

Fortunately, Municipal Reform in Scotland did not give much trouble.

It was accomplished almost without any discussion or party contention.

It was based upon the provisions of the Scottish Reform Bill, which

settled the whole matter by the simple rule that the Parliamentary

electors of every burgh should be the municipal electors; also that

the larger burghs should be divided into wards, each of which should

send two representatives to the town council, chosen by the qualified

electors within their respective bounds; and that the provost and

bailies, corresponding to the English mayor and aldermen, should be

chosen by the councillors, and invested with the powers of magistrates

in the burgh. The functionaries were to be elected for three years, and

then to make way for others elected in the same manner to succeed them.

They were invested with the control and administration of all corporate

property and patronage of every description.