_Jewish Disabilities_
IT WOULD seem to follow from the views expressed in the preceding
chaptet, that in communities professing a belief in our Lord, the
Jewish race ought not to be subject to any legislative dishonour or
disqualification. These views, however, were not those which influenced
Lord George Bentinck in forming his opinion that the civil disabilities
of those subjects of her Majesty who profess that limited belief in
divine revelation which is commonly called the Jewish religion should
be removed. He had supported a measure to this effect in the year
1833, guided in that conduct by his devoted attachment to the equivocal
principle of religious liberty, the unqualified application of which
principle seems hardly consistent with that recognition of religious
truth by the state to which we yet adhere, and without which it is
highly probable that the northern and western races, after a disturbing
and rapidly degrading period of atheistic anarchy, may fatally recur
to their old national idolatries, modified and mythically dressed up
according to the spirit of the age. It may be observed that the decline
and disasters of modern communities have generally been relative to
their degree of sedition against the Semitic principle. Since the great
revolt of the Celts against the first and second testament, at the close
of the last century, France has been alternately in a state of collapse
or convulsion. Throughout the awful trials of the last sixty years,
England, notwithstanding her deficient and meagre theology, has always
remembered Sion. The great Transatlantic republic is intensely
Semitic, and has prospered accordingly. This sacred principle alone has
consolidated the mighty empire of all the Russias. How omnipotent it
is cannot be more clearly shown than by the instance of Rome, where it
appears in its most corrupt form. An old man on a Semitic throne baffles
the modern Attilas, and the recent invasion of the barbarians, under the
form of red republicans, socialists, communists, all different phases
which describe the relapse of the once converted races into their
primitive condition of savagery. Austria would long ago have dissolved
but for the Semitic principle, and if the north of Germany has never
succeeded in attaining that imperial position which seemed its natural
destiny, it is that the north of Germany has never at any time been
thoroughly converted. Some perhaps may point to Spain as a remarkable
instance of decline in a country where the Semitic principle has
exercised great influence. But the fall of Spain was occasioned by the
expulsion of her Semitic population: a million families of Jews and
Saracens, the most distinguished of her citizens for their industry and
their intelligence, their learning and their wealth.
It appears that Lord George Bentinck had offended some of his followers
by an opinion expressed in his address to his constituency in ‘47, that
in accordance with the suggestion of Mr. Pitt, some provision should
be made for the Roman Catholic priesthood of Ireland out of the land.
Although this opinion might offend the religious sentiments of some,
and might be justly looked upon by others as a scheme ill-suited to the
character of an age adverse to any further religious endowments, it must
be acknowledged that no member of the Protectionist party had any just
cause of complaint against Lord George for the expression of an opinion
which he had always upheld, and of his constancy to which he had fairly
given his friends notice. This was so generally felt that the repining
died away. The Jewish question, as it was called, revived these
religious emotions. These feelings, as springing from the highest
sentiment of our nature, and founded, however mistaken in their
application, on religious truth, are entitled to deep respect and
tenderness; but no one can indulge them by the compromise of the highest
principles, or by sanctioning a course which he really believes to be
destructive of the very object which their votaries wish to cherish.
As there are very few Englishmen of what is commonly called the Jewish
faith, and as therefore it was supposed that political considerations
could not enter into the question, it was hoped by many of the followers
of Lord George Bentinck that he would not separate himself from his
party on this subject, and very earnest requests and representations
were made to him with that view. He was not insensible to them; he gave
them prolonged and painful consideration; they greatly disquieted him.
In his confidential correspondence he often recurs to the distress
and anxiety which this question and its consequences as regarded his
position with those friends to whom he was much attached occasioned him.
It must not, therefore, be supposed that, in the line he ultimately
took with reference to this question, he was influenced, as some have
unkindly and unwarrantably fancied, by a self-willed, inexorable, and
imperious spirit. He was no doubt, by nature, a proud man, inclined even
to arrogance, and naturally impatient of contradiction; but two
severe campaigns in the House of Commons had already mitigated these
characteristics: he understood human nature, he was fond of his party,
and, irrespective of other considerations, it pained his ardent and
generous heart to mortify his comrades. It was therefore not in any
degree from temper, but from principle,--from as pure, as high, and as
noble a sense of duty as ever actuated a man in public life,--that Lord
George Bentinck ultimately resolved that it was impossible for him
to refuse to vote for the removal of what are commonly called Jewish
disabilities. He had voted in this particular cause shortly after
his entrance into public life; it was in accordance with that general
principle of religious liberty to which he was an uncompromising
adherent; it was in complete agreement with the understanding which
subsisted between himself and the Protectionist party, when at their
urgent request he unwillingly assumed the helm. He was entreated not to
vote at all; to stay away, which the severe indisposition under which
he was then labouring warranted. He did not rudely repulse these latter
representations, as has been circulated. On the contrary, he listened
to them with kindness, and was not uninfluenced by them. Enfeebled by
illness, he had nearly brought himself to a compliance with a request
urged with affectionate importunity, but from which his reason and sense
of duty held him aloof. After long and deep and painful pondering, when
the hour arrived, he rose from his bed of sickness, walked into the
House of Commons, and not only voted, but spoke in favour of his
convictions. His speech remains, one of the best ever delivered on the
subject, not only full of weighty argument, but touched with a high and
even tender vein of sentiment.
This vote and speech of Lord George Bentinck no doubt mortified at the
moment a considerable portion of his followers, and occasioned great
dissatisfaction among a very respectable though limited section of
them. This latter body must either have forgotten or they must have been
strangely unacquainted with the distinct understanding on which Lord
George had undertaken the lead of the party, or otherwise they could
not have felt authorized in conveying to him their keen sense of
disapprobation. Unfortunately he received this when the House had
adjourned for the holidays, and when Mr. Bankes, who had been the organ
of communication with him in ‘46, was in the country, and when the party
was of course generally dispersed. Lord George did not take any pains to
ascertain whether the representation which was made to him was that of
the general feeling of a large party, or that only of a sincere, highly
estimable, but limited section. He was enfeebled and exhausted by
indisposition; he often felt, even when in health, that the toil of his
life was beyond both his physical and moral energies; and though he was
of that ardent and tenacious nature that he never would have complained,
but have died at his post, the opportunity of release coming to him at
a moment when he was physically prostrate was rather eagerly seized, and
the world suddenly learnt at Christmas, with great astonishment, that
the renowned leader of the Protectionist party had relinquished his
trust.
The numerous communications which he received must have convinced
him that the assumed circumstances under which he acted had not been
accurately appreciated by him. He was implored to reconsider his course,
as one very detrimental to the cause to which he was devoted, and
which would probably tend to the triumph of those whose policy he
had attempted to defeat, and whose personal conduct he had at least
succeeded in punishing.
‘The prophesied time has come,’ he wrote to his friend Mr. Bankes, on
the 23rd of December, 1847, ‘when I have ceased to be able to serve
the party, the great cause of Protection, or my country, by any longer
retaining the commission bestowed on me in the spring of 1846. You will
remember, however, that when unfeignedly and honestly, but in vain,
trying to escape from being raised to a position which I foresaw I must
fail to maintain with advantage to you or honour to myself, I at last
gave my consent, I only did so on the express understanding that my
advancement should be held to be merely a pro tempore appointment,
waiting till the country should have the opportunity of sending to
Parliament other men better fitted to lead the country gentlemen of
England. I have recalled these circumstances to your mind with no other
purpose than that the party may feel how entirely free they are, without
even the suspicion of doing an injustice to me or of showing me in
this any disrespect, to remodel their arrangements, and to supersede my
lieutenancy by the appointment of a superior and permanent commander.’
And again on Christmas-day, to the same gentleman, in reply to an
acknowledgment of the preceding, he says, while thanking Mr. Bankes
‘for his warm-hearted letter as very grateful to his feelings,’--’
Confidentially I tell you, that far from feeling in the least annoyed,
I shall feel greatly relieved by a restoration to privacy and freedom. I
worked upon my spirit in ‘46 and ‘47; but I have learnt now that I have
shaken my constitution to the foundation, and I seriously doubt my being
able to work on much longer.’
He wrote on the 24th of December to one of his most intimate friends and
warmest supporters, Mr. Christopher, the member for Lincolnshire, who
had remonstrated with him as to his decision: ‘It is not in my nature to
retain a station one moment after I get a hint even that any portion
of those who raised me to it are wearied of seeing me there. The old
members of the party will all recollect how clearly I foresaw and
foretold that I should be found a very inconvenient as well as a very
inefficient leader, so soon as the great Protection battle was brought
to a close. I predicted all that has since occurred; and no one more
cordially agrees than I do in the wisdom of the present decision, the
spirit I presume of which is that no great party or large body of men
can be successfully, or to any good purpose, led except by a man
who heart and soul sympathizes with them in all their feelings,
partialities, and prejudices. Cold reason has a poor chance against such
influences. There can be no _esprit de corps_ and no zeal where there
is not a union of prejudices as well as of commercial opinions. The
election of a leader united with the great body of the party in these
respects, will tend greatly to reunite its scattered particles, even on
those questions where I shall be able to give my aid with all my wonted
zeal, which will not be the less spirited because it will be free and
independent.’
At a later period, acknowledging an address signed by the great body
of the Protectionist party, and presented to him by the present Earl
Talbot, then a member of the House of Commons, Lord George wrote, ‘The
considerations which obliged me to surrender a post of honour which
every independent and high-minded English gentleman has at all times
prized above the highest rewards in the gift of the crown, “the
leadership of the country gentlemen of England,” will never influence
me to swerve from any endeavours of which my poor abilities and bodily
energies are capable in the promotion of the prosperity of all classes
in the British empire at home and in the colonies, any more than
they can ever make me forget the attachment, the friendship, and the
enthusiastic support of those who stood by me to the end of the death
struggle for British interests and for English good faith and political
honour, and to whose continued friendship and constancy I know I am
indebted for this graceful and grateful compliment.’
If Lord George Bentinck was inexorable to the entreaties of his friends,
it must not be supposed that he was influenced in the course which he
pursued, as was presumed by many at the time not acquainted with the
circumstances, by any feeling of pique or brooding sullenness. No
high-spirited man under vexatious and distressing circumstances ever
behaved with more magnanimity. In this he was actuated in a great degree
by a sense of duty, but still more by that peculiar want of selfishness
which was one of the most beautiful traits of his character. The moment
he had at all recovered from the severe attack by which, to use his own
language, he had been ‘struck down in the first week of the session,’
and from the effects of which it may be doubted whether he ever entirely
recovered, he laboured zealously to induce some competent person to
undertake the office which he had thought it expedient to resign,
offering in several instances to serve in the ranks, and to assist with
his utmost energies, both in and out of the House, the individual who
would undertake the responsible direction in the Commons.
These efforts, though indefatigable, were not successful, for those who
were competent to the office cared not to serve under any one except
himself. About this time, a personage of great station, and who very
much admired Lord George Bentinck, wrote to him, and recommended him
not to trouble himself about the general discipline of the party, but
to follow his own course, and lead that body of friends who under all
circumstances would adhere to him, instancing the case of Mr. Canning,
under circumstances not altogether dissimilar. Lord George replied: ‘As
for my rallying a personal party round myself, as Mr. Canning did, I
have no pretension to anything of the kind; when Mr. Canning did that,
the House of Commons, and England too, acknowledged him to be the
greatest orator who had survived Pitt and Fox; he had been Secretary of
State for foreign affairs, and had taken a conspicuous part in rousing
the country to carry on the war against France.’
The nature of the subject, dealing as it necessarily does with so
many personal details, renders it impossible to make public the
correspondence in which Lord George Bentinck was engaged at this time in
his attempts to place the Protectionist party under the guidance of one
who would unite all sympathies; but were that publication possible, it
would place Lord George Bentinck in a very noble and amiable light, and
prove a gentleness and softness in his nature for which those who were
not very intimate with him did not give him credit. Not that it must be
for a moment supposed that he was insensible to what was occurring. He
was the most sensitive as well as the proudest of men. When the writer
called at Harcourt House, to bid him farewell, before the Christmas
holidays, and, conversing very frankly on the course which he was then
pursuing, inquired as to his future proceedings, Lord George said with
emotion: ‘In this cause I have shaken my constitution and shortened
my days, and I will succeed or die.’ In the course of the year 1848,
walking home, talking together, from the House of Commons, he twice
recurred to this terrible alternative.
But all considerations were merged at this moment in the predominant one
which was to keep the party together. He wrote to a friend at the end of
January, who urged him, as the hour of work approached and the injurious
inconveniences of his abdication would be more felt, to confer with his
former followers and reconsider his position, that no personal feeling
prevented his taking that course, but that he felt any resumption of
responsibility on his part would not be pleasing to a section of those
who formerly served with him, and that there would be a ‘split’ in the
ranks. ‘As far as I am personally concerned,’ he added, ‘I could submit
to anything short of having my ears cut off and appearing as a “Croppy,”
to be free again. My pride cannot stand leading an unwilling party; I
would just as soon thrust myself into a dinner-room where I was at once
an uninvited and an unwelcome guest.’
In the meantime, according to his custom, the moment that he had
sufficiently recovered from his illness, he prepared with the utmost
zeal for the coming struggle respecting the fate of our sugar colonies,
in which subject he was soon absorbed.
Parliament reassembled on the 3rd of February, and on that night Lord
George Bentinck brought forward his motion for ‘a select committee
to inquire into the present condition and prospects of the interests
connected with and dependent on sugar and coffee planting in her
Majesty’s East and West Indian possessions and the Mauritius, and to
consider whether any and what measures can be adopted by Parliament for
their relief.’ When he entered the House, Lord George walked up to the
head of the second bench below the gangway, on the opposition side,
and thus significantly announced that he was no longer the responsible
leader of the Protectionist party. It was the wish of the writer of
these pages, who had resolved to stand or fall by him, to have followed
his example and to have abdicated the prominent seat in which the writer
had been unwillingly and fortuitously placed; but by the advice, or
rather at the earnest request, of Lord George Bentinck, this course was
relinquished as indicative of schism, which he wished to discourage; and
the circumstance is only mentioned as showing that Lord George was not
less considerate at this moment of the interests of the Protectionist
party than when he led them with so much confidence and authority.
The session, however, was to commence without a leader, without any
recognized organ of communication between parties, or any responsible
representative of opinion in debate. All again was chaos. There is,
however, something so vital in the Conservative party that it seems
always to rally under every disadvantage.
Lord George spoke well to his resolution: the House soon recognized
he was master of his case, and though few foresaw at the moment the
important consequences to which this motion would lead, the House was
interested from the first; and though there was no division, the debate
lasted two days, and was sustained on both sides with great animation.
The mover vindicated himself very successfully for only proposing a
committee of inquiry. ‘It has been represented to me,’ he said, ‘by the
colonies and by persons in this country who are interested in them, that
the course which I am proposing is not consistent with the necessities
of the case; that there is something pusillanimous in the motion which
I am going to make; that in point of fact the interests connected with
sugar and coffee planting are in extremis; and that while the question
of their redress is being discussed in a committee above-stairs, these
great interests will perish. They say to me that a committee of inquiry
will be to them of the nature of that comfort which,
“Like cordials after death, come late; ”
and that before the committee shall have reported, the West-Indian
interest will be altogether past recovery. But, sir, it is for me to
consider what my power is to obtain any substantial relief by a direct
vote of this House; and when I remember that in July, 1846, I moved a
resolution the purport of which was, to maintain the protection for
the West-Indian and the East-Indian free-labour colonies which they now
seek, and that I had but one hundred and thirty gentlemen to support me,
while two hundred and sixty-five votes were recorded in favour of the
measure of the Government admitting slave-labour sugar, I feel that it
is hopeless for me to endeavour in this House, where I have no reason
to suppose any addition has been made to the members acquiescing in my
views, to convert that minority into a majority; and more especially
when I recollect that on that occasion but five gentlemen connected with
the West-Indian and East-Indian interests recorded their votes with me,
I think the West-Indian interest has not a good case against me when
they blame me for not taking a more resolute step on this occasion.’
He was not, however, without hope from the course which he had decided
to pursue. ‘Looking, as I have done, at the deplorable state of the
West Indies, the East Indies, and the Mauritius, and holding, as I do,
in my hand a list of forty-eight great houses in England--twenty-six
of the first commercial houses in London, sixteen in Liverpool, and six
elsewhere--which have failed, and whose liabilities amount in the whole
to £6,300,000 and upwards, none of which I believe would have fallen had
it not been for the ruin brought upon them by the change in the sugar
duties and the consequent reduction in the price of their produce,--I
do hope, through the intervention of a committee of this House, I may be
able to prevail upon the House to change its policy with regard to this
great question.’
Lord George was supported in this debate by Mr. Thomas Baring, in one
of the best speeches ever made in the House of Commons. Few more combine
mastery of the case with parliamentary point than this gentleman. It is
not impossible to find a man capable of addressing the House of Commons
who understands the subject; it is not impossible to find a man who
can convey his impressions on any subject to the House in a lively and
captivating manner, though both instances are rarer than the world would
imagine; but a man who at the same time understands a question and can
handle it before a popular assembly in a popular style, who teaches
without being pedantic, can convey an argument in an epigram, and
instruct as the Mexicans did by picture, possesses a talent for the
exercise of which he is responsible to his sovereign and his country.
Mr. Baring said that he could not perfectly agree either with Lord John
Russell or Lord George Bentinck, that Protection or Free Trade must be
in what they called a circle, round which in their legislation they must
always move; that they must either give protection to everything or
free trade to everything. He could not say that because sugar claimed
protection, coals must have protection also. Neither would he, on the
other hand, apply free trade to every article. He acknowledged the
advantage of competition as a stimulus: he thought that, placing things
on equal grounds, competition was undoubtedly a great advantage. He
could understand a competition to try the mutual speed of race-horses;
but there could be no competition between a race-horse and a
steam-engine, for the power of the animal could bear no comparison with
that of the machine!
Mr. Baring could look back to no legislation more humiliating than the
legislation regarding our colonies. No great interest was ever so much
trifled with, so much sacrificed to the cry of the day; at one moment to
no slavery and another to cheap sugar.
The committee was granted, and it was generally felt that the question
was consequently quieted for the session.