A DISTRESSFUL COUNTRY.
The Irish Crisis--Famine and Free Trade--Evictions and
Imports--Fiscal Policy and Small Holdings--Shocking Scenes among
the Irish People--The Mistake of the Government--Lord John
Russell’s Relief Measure Rejected by his Colleagues--An Autumnal
Cabinet Meeting--Opening of Parliament--The Queen and the
Distress--The Remedial Measures of the Government--Rival Schemes of
the Protectionists--Lord George Bentinck’s Railway Subsidies
Bill--A Rival Ministerial Scheme--The Attack on the Bank Act of
1844--The Currency Controversy--Peel on a Convertible Currency--The
Effect of the Railway Mania--Blaming the Bank--The Education
Question--Opposition of Dissenters--Colonisation and
Emigration--Lord Lincoln’s Motion--Is Emigration a Remedy for a
Redundant Population?--The Cabinet and the Ten Hours Bill--Mr.
Fielden’s Victory--Opposition of Manufacturers--Evading the
Act--The Budget--The Queen and the Duchy of Lancaster--Lord
Campbell and the Queen--A Famous Duchy Dinner--Privy Councillors at
“High Jinks”--Death of Lord Bessborough--Lord Clarendon appointed
Irish Viceroy--Death of O’Connell--Growing Weakness of the
Cabinet--Prorogation of Parliament--Dissolution--The General
Election--The State of Parties--Appalling Outrages in
Ireland--Another Commercial Panic--Suspension of the Bank Act--The
Queen and Sir Robert Peel--Parliament Summoned--A Coercion Bill for
Ireland--Ireland and the Vatican--Lord Palmerston’s Correspondence
with Lord Minto--Denunciations of the Queen’s Colleges--Projected
Renewal of Diplomatic Relations with Rome--Lord Palmerston’s
Objections--The Jews in Parliament--New Bishops--The Hampden
Controversy--Baffled Heresy-hunters.
Distress is the word that sums up the life of the nation during 1847. If
there be any inadequacy in the summary, it may be made good by the
addition to it of--sectarian bigotry. Famine in Ireland, two commercial
panics in England, religious controversies of the narrowest and most
paltry character, and over all, the wind of Socialism moaning
bodefully--there, in a sentence, we have a picture of this melancholy
year. It will spot black in English history as the year of the Great
Irish Famine. Whether Free Trade did or did not aggravate the distress
in Ireland will always be a moot point with writers and historians who
are partisans. The Protectionists warned Parliament that Free Trade
would bring hard times to the rural poor in Ireland, and in 1847 they
began to take credit for being good prophets, for it was
[Illustration: GLENDALOUGH VALLEY, CO. WICKLOW--VIEW IN GLENDALOUGH.
(_After Photographs by W. Lawrence, Dublin._)]
not only famine that had to be dealt with in that country; it was famine
plus pauperism and pestilence.
Looking back at the condition of affairs that obtained in Ireland in
1847, one is surprised that statesmen did not foresee what was coming.
Irish industries, with the exception of the manufacture of linen, had
been crushed by the commercial policy of England. It was not till 1825,
a quarter of a century after the Union, that a true commercial union
between Ireland and Great Britain was effected, and absolute Free Trade
was established between the two countries. By that time English
industries had got a great start, and when Free Trade was conceded to
Ireland, she was no longer fit to compete with England, even in the
industries that were indigenous to her soil. But as her wealth was
chiefly agricultural, in husbandry, at all events, she might have been
expected to hold her own. The high prices that followed the wars with
France made Irish farmers, large and small, both rich and prosperous.
But in 1815 the piping times of peace brought ruin to many of them. The
fall in prices tempted the tenants to demand more land, so that, by
carrying on tillage on a larger scale, they might be able to hold the
market. This logically led to consolidation of holdings, which, in turn,
led to evictions, agrarian outrage, and crime.
In one respect, however, the position of Ireland was safeguarded. The
Corn Laws, which imposed a prohibitory duty on foreign grain, allowed
Irish corn to enter the English market freely. Corn was therefore
largely grown in Ireland under Protection. But when Protection was
abandoned, Irish, farmers lost the only prop they had--the tariff which
left them profits in excess of rent. The effect of Free Trade in Ireland
was naturally to reduce prices. It therefore did not pay after 1846 to
grow corn in Ireland, and the alternative crop was cattle. But the
rearing of cattle is best managed on a large scale and on large farms.
Hence a movement in Ireland was set on foot for further consolidation of
holdings--a movement, in other words, for a fresh policy of eviction
that brought outrage in its train. Mr. Jephson has shown that “the
adoption by Great Britain of free importation of food supplies from any
part of the world must have revolutionised Irish agriculture and vitally
affected the circumstances of the Irish, and it is not on the political
connection between the two countries (which the Nationalists are now
trying to break), but it is on the economic dependence of Ireland
on England (which is unbreakable) that must be thrown the
responsibility.”[65] A very curious and instructive table of figures
might be drawn up to prove this point:--
AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS IN IRELAND.
+-----+--------------+-----------------+-------------------+------------+
|Year.|Above One Acre|Above Five Acres |Above Fifteen Acres|Above Thirty|
| |to Five Acres.|to Fifteen Acres.| to Thirty Acres. | Acres. |
+-----+--------------+-----------------+-------------------+------------+
| 1841| 310,436 | 252,800 | 79,342 | 40,625 |
| 1851| 88,083 | 191,854 | 141,311 | 149,090 |
| 1861| 85,469 | 183,931 | 141,251 | 157,833 |
| 1871| 74,809 | 171,383 | 138,647 | 159,303 |
| 1881| 67,071 | 164,045 | 135,793 | 159,834 |
+-----+--------------+-----------------+-------------------+------------+
Thus it is seen that since Free Trade was adopted, small holdings in
Ireland have been diminishing, whereas large holdings have been
increasing; and that would be in favour of Lord George Bentinck’s
contention, which in 1847 gave the utmost annoyance to Mr. Cobden and
his friends, that Free Trade caused the Irish Famine. Perhaps the true
view is, that in manufacturing districts, where the mass of the people
did not live by selling produce from the soil, the fall in the price of
grain which followed Free Trade was a boon. To a country like Ireland,
on the other hand, where the mass of the people lived on the profits of
tillage on a small scale, Free Trade came as a disaster. Coupled with
the failure of the potato crop, it meant famine in 1847.
Literally, the great mass of the Irish people were by this time
starving. Their savings were gone, and as for economising, it was
hopeless. A nation that lives on potatoes alone--the cheapest and worst
form of human food the earth can yield--has already lowered its standard
of comfort to zero. Beggary is the only alternative to a potato diet:
for potato-feeders, as Mr. J. S. Mill has observed, “retrenchment is
impossible.” Public works were therefore started for the relief of the
people, and to these tottering skeletons dragged themselves in despair,
often to die almost as soon as they began their task. A few ounces of
oatmeal were reckoned a day’s ration for a family, and those who
survived cold and hunger were swept away by typhus. The scenes in the
overcrowded workhouses recalled the horrors that are immortalised in
Defoe’s “History of the Plague.” In the towns the sufferings of the
people were not less keen and cruel. “Daily in the street,” writes Mr.
A. M. Sullivan in “New Ireland,” “and on the footway, some poor creature
lay down as if to sleep, and presently was still and stark. In one
district it was a common occurrence to find, on opening the front door
in the early morning, leaning against it the corpse of some victim who
in the night had ‘rested’ in its shelter. We raised a public
subscription and employed two men with horse and cart to go round each
day to gather up the dead. One by one they were taken to Ardrahahair
Abbey, and dropped through the hinged bottom of a ‘trap coffin’ into a
common grave below. In the rural districts even this rude sepulchre was
impossible. In the fields and by the ditches the victims lay as they
fell, till some charitable hand was found to cover them with the
adjacent soil.” And yet during this time, as Lord George Bentinck said,
the food exports of Ireland were greater than those of any other country
in the world, not merely relatively but absolutely in proportion to
people or area. As Mr. Henry George observes,[66] “grain and meal and
butter were carted for exportation along roads lined with the starving,
and past trenches into which the dead were piled.”
During the preceding autumn the Government had quite under-estimated the
gravity of the situation in Ireland. They had given a pledge that they
would not disturb the food market, and they relied on the ordinary
capital of the nation to obtain supplies for a starving country, in the
greater part of which there was by this time neither capital nor
commerce. They imagined
[Illustration: THE IRISH FAMINE: INTERIOR OF A PEASANT’S HUT.]
that the law of supply and demand would feed the people, and that
whenever hunger smote them in a desolate district, there merchants and
retailers of food would spring up as if by magic. Meetings of the
Cabinet Council were
[Illustration: LORD BROUGHAM, 1850. (_From a Sketch of the Period_.)]
held, it is true; and a glimpse at their deliberations is afforded us by
Lord Campbell, who says he was summoned to attend a meeting of the
Cabinet on the 20th October, at which the impending aggravation of the
calamity was discussed. He adds:--“Lord John Russell has been severely
blamed for not having immediately made an Order in Council to open the
ports for the introduction of corn _duty free_. He actually proposed
this measure, but was overruled, his colleagues being almost unanimously
against him. In our then state of knowledge I think we were right not to
tamper with the law as it had been recently settled, particularly as an
Order in Council of this nature would have induced a necessity for the
immediate meeting of Parliament, which, on account of the state of
Ireland, was universally deprecated. The course we adopted was applauded
till the accounts of Irish destitution became daily more appalling. We
employed ourselves in considering the Bills which were to be brought
forward at the meeting of Parliament, and Committees of the Cabinet were
appointed to prepare them. Cabinet dinners were given once a week, and
we were still in good spirits, hoping that the scarcity of this winter
would not be more severe than that of the preceding.”[67] Ministers were
painfully undeceived.
When the Session of Parliament opened on the 19th of January, 1847, the
Queen, in reading her speech, seemed downcast and sorrowful, and her
voice is said to have trembled and fallen low as she spoke of the
sufferings of the Celtic population, and commended the patience and
exemplary resignation with which their hardships were borne. And well
might her voice and heart sink, for at that time the newspapers teemed
with descriptions of scenes of suffering in Ireland, more harrowing than
any which the most lurid pages of history record--scenes in which
pestilence dogged the track of famine, and perishing wretches fought
with each other like wild beasts for carrion. They were more dreadful
even than those that live for ever in the ghastly narrative of Josephus,
and, as Lord Brougham said in the Upper House, they recalled the canvas
of Poussin and the dismal chant of Dante.[68]
Lord John Russell explained, on the 25th of January, the plans of the
Government. Some £2,000,000 were advanced to feed the Irish people on
doles of Indian meal, and to give them work and wages. A new Irish Poor
Law, based on the English principle that property must support
pauperism, was introduced, much to the disgust of the Irish landlords.
The Corn Law and Navigation Acts were to be temporarily suspended. The
Tories, not to seem laggards in the race of philanthropy, through Lord
George Bentinck brought in a Bill to raise £16,000,000 for the
construction of new railways in Ireland, so that employment might be
given to the poor. His plan was that for every £100 expended on a line,
£200 should be lent to its promoters by the Government at the same rate
of interest at which it had been borrowed, and it was significant that
in drafting his measure Lord George had been guided by Mr. Hudson, “the
Railway King,” who made railways, and Mr. Alderman Thompson, who
supplied materials for their construction. The House rejected the
project as one designed to invest the money of the taxpayers in
speculative enterprises for the benefit of financial “rings,” who had
duped the Protectionist leader. Ministers, however, to the surprise of
the House, followed up this rejected measure with a Bill of their own on
the 26th of April, providing for advancing Treasury Loans, amounting in
all to £620,000, repayable at 5 per cent. interest, to Irish railways,
50 per cent. of whose capital was paid up. In fact, it was the fag end
of Lord George Bentinck’s proposal, and, as Sir Robert Peel said, if the
Government had saved money on the expenditure in relief works, it would
have been wiser to increase the Treasury balances than subsidise private
speculators in Ireland. On the other hand, there was a popular feeling
that some aid should be given to Irish railway enterprise, which might
lead to an absorption of unemployed labour, and the objections to Lord
George Bentinck’s gigantic scheme--namely, its interference with the
ordinary operations of trade, and the absence of adequate administrative
machinery--did not lie against a proposal to assist great arterial lines
of railway already under construction.
During the discussions on these measures, Sir Robert Peel’s Bank
Restriction Act of 1844 was continually attacked by the Protectionists
as the cause of the prevailing financial distress. The object of that
Act was to insure the convertibility of paper currency into gold, so
that the holder of a bank-note might always be certain that he could get
an equivalent in coin for it on demand. The country was suffering from a
scarcity of money to trade with, and this scarcity was traced to the
restriction of the Bank’s paper issues. On the contrary, it was really
due (1) to failure of the food crops, which involved a loss of
£16,000,000 sterling of capital; (2) to the rise in the price of cattle,
due to a failure of crops; (3) to a loss of £16,000,000 in gambling
speculations during the railway mania of 1845-46.
This mania, which produced such monstrous schemes during the close of
1845, began to bear evil fruits when holders of scrip, in face of
falling markets, were haunted with visions of bankruptcy. A return was
issued, by order of the House of Commons, containing the names of the
unhappy individuals who, during the Session of 1845, had subscribed
towards railways in England, Scotland, and Ireland, for sums of less
than £2,000. It is a huge catalogue, extending over 540 folio pages, and
forms the oddest jumble of “all sorts and conditions of men.” Vicars and
vice-admirals elbow each other in the reckless race after easy-gotten
gain. Peers struggle with printers, and barristers with butchers, for
the favours of Mr. Hudson, “the Railway King,” who was the presiding
genius of this greedy rabble. Cotton-spinners and cooks, Queen’s Counsel
and attorneys, college scouts and Catholic priests, editors and
flunkeys, dairymen and dyers, beer-sellers and ministers of the Gospel,
bankers and their butlers, engineers and excisemen, relieving officers
and waiters at Lloyd’s, domestic servants and policemen, engineers and
mail-guards, with a troop of others whose callings are not describable,
figured in the motley mob of small gamblers. Lord
Beaconsfield’s brilliant and satirical sketch of Mr. Vigo’s fortunes in
“Endymion” is based on the mania with which Mr. Hudson infected England,
and which exhausted the floating capital of the country in a time of
famine. In the beginning of 1846, when in obedience to the Standing
Order of the House the deposit of 10 per cent. on railway capital had to
be lodged with the Accountant-General, the Money Market was greatly
alarmed. It
[Illustration: THE BANK OF ENGLAND.]
was estimated that £10,000,000 would have to be lodged in compliance
with the law on the 29th of January, and on the 10th the _Times_, in a
memorable article, declared that to lock up half that sum for a week in
the circumstances would produce “the greatest inconvenience and
pressure.”[69]
It was in vain that the officers of the Crown and the Government were
implored by the trading community, who dreaded a Gold Famine, to
sanction a deviation from the rigid rule of the Standing Order in face
of the exceptional outbreak of an epidemic of speculation. This reached
its height, it seems to us, just a month before the Governor of the Bank
of England could be persuaded that the potato-rot was rendering famine
inevitable. In the quarter ending September, 1845, there were in the
market for sale £500,000,000 of stock, scrip, or letters of allotment.
The shocking waste of resources that this covered is proved by two sets
of figures. According to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the years
1842-46, the capital authorised to be raised was in each year
respectively £6,000,000, £4,500,000, £18,000,000, £59,000,000, and for
the last of these years £126,000,000! In 1842-45 the amounts
[Illustration: THE QUEEN IN THE ROYAL GALLERY, ST. GEORGE’S CHAPEL.
(_After the Portrait by G. E. Dawe, 1846._)]
expended, however, were only £3,000,000, £4,500,000, £6,000,000,
£14,000,000, and £36,000,000. In the latter half of 1846, of an
authorised capital of £146,000,000, only £27,000,000 was spent. But in
the records of the Victorian epoch there is nothing more curious than
this fact--that of the vast sum expended during this mania, one-fifth
was spent on buying land and on Parliamentary expenses, and the
remaining four-fifths on materials and labour, skilled and unskilled.
Some idea of the resources and the folly of the England of Queen
Victoria’s youth may be gained from the fact that, during the period
1843-47, £170,000,000 were raised--£130,000,000 by shares and
£40,000,000 by loans--in order to open 3,665 miles of railway for
traffic.[70] It has been said that the Railway Mania was at its height
in the quarter ending September, 1845. The Bank rate of interest then
stood at 2½ per cent. In November it rose to 3½ per cent., and then
panic smote timid investors. They glutted the market with their shares.
And yet the curious thing is that the witnesses who were examined before
the Committee of the House of Commons on Commercial Distress seem to
agree in asserting that the general trade of the country was active at
the time, and that very few people had the slightest suspicion that it
was utterly unsound. Mr. E. Gardner of Manchester, in his evidence, gave
an excellent and vivid sketch of industrial England at this period, when
he said: “The commercial difficulty began, I think, about the middle of
1846. A good deal of business was done in 1846, but trade was not in a
wholesome state; it appeared to flourish by the great abundance of
money, and the great facility in getting long paper discounted.... I
think, in the early part of 1846, _we were at about the height of our
apparent prosperity_.... In the manufacturing districts there was a
greater supply of goods than was justified by the demand. Immediately
after the China Treaty, so great a prospect was held out to the country
of a great extension of our commerce with China, that there were many
large mills built with a view to that trade exclusively, in order to
manufacture that class of cloth which is principally taken for the China
market.... This trade turned out most ruinous; the losses averaged from
10 to 60 or 70 per cent.”[71] This is a fact which may be commended to
the attention of a powerful Party in the latter years of the Queen’s
reign which cherishes the perfectly erroneous belief, that an aggressive
foreign policy necessarily and invariably stimulates commerce by
“opening up new markets.”
No issue of paper money in 1847-48 could relieve a strain due to such
causes as these, though some blame must be given to the Bank for not
checking the drain of gold by raising the discount rate at the beginning
of the year, when the failure of the potato crop in Ireland was
manifest. But to issue £2,000,000 of notes without any increase in the
real capital of the country, which could alone command foreign produce,
would have been an illusory measure of relief. The heated discussions on
these and cognate questions ended in May; in June the pressure on the
Money Market began to be relaxed, and the crisis passed away for the
time--only to reappear, as we shall see, later on in the autumn.
The Education Vote in 1847 raised a great storm of sectarian
controversy, not only in Parliament, but throughout the country. The
first sign that the State in England gave of awakening to the
educational destitution of the country was in 1833, when the House of
Commons voted £20,000 in aid of elementary public instruction. In a
burst of generosity, £39,000 was voted in 1839. In 1845 the grant was
raised to £100,000, but the money could only be shared by Protestant
schools, because the Privy Council decreed that no school was to be
subsidised unless “the Authorised Version of the Scriptures” was read in
it. This of course cut off the Roman Catholics from any participation in
the grant; and when, in 1847, the Education Vote came before the House
of Commons, all liberal-minded men condemned the sectarian restrictions
in dispensing the grants which were imposed by the Government. Sir
Robert Peel, Mr. Macaulay, and Sir W. Molesworth all attacked the
regulation of the Council, which pressed so harshly against the Roman
Catholics; and Lord John Russell was fain to give pledges that the rule
would be relaxed. During these debates, some of the High Church Tories,
like Sir Robert Inglis, the Member for the University of Oxford, accused
Peel of supporting the policy of Toleration in order to conciliate
Catholic voters at the coming election. It is curious to note that the
plan of the Government, offering equal pecuniary aid on equal terms to
all schools accepting Government inspection, was opposed by the
Dissenters; and even Mr. Bright declared that it was a dangerous
interference with the voluntary exertions of the people to educate
themselves. At this time it was thought a lesser evil to let the
children of the poor remain ignorant, than to establish a system of
education which was made applicable to all sects, by omitting
distinctive points of sectarian teaching from the lessons given in the
schools. The Dissenters objected to the Established Church getting a new
endowment in the shape of grants in aid of their schools. The
Secularists objected to public money in any form being spent in
subsidising sectarian schools, even though these were under State
inspection.
In June the subject of colonisation stirred up some discussion in the
country. Ever since Mr. Charles Buller, in 1843, had emphasised the
distinction between colonisation and emigration, a party had existed who
taught that it was not wise to leave the settlement of our Colonial
Empire to the chances of casual or voluntary emigration. Lord Lincoln
attempted to enforce their teaching by drawing the attention of the
House of Commons, on the 1st of June, 1847, to the importance of this
question in its bearing on Irish distress. He moved an Address to the
Queen praying her to take into consideration the means by which
colonisation might be made subsidiary to other measures for the benefit
of Ireland. He urged that the Government should endeavour to direct the
surplus or redundant labouring population of Ireland to Canada and
Natal, and suggested the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry. The
plan was opposed by Mr. Vernon Smith as vague, and as likely to prove
too costly for an embarrassed country like Ireland; and by Lord John
Russell, who thought that the Colonies would be alienated if the mother
country led them to suspect she was exporting to them the dregs of her
population. Still, on the general principle that it was well for a weak
Government to be conciliatory, Lord John Russell permitted Lord Lincoln
to carry his Address, but only on the understanding that it was not to
lead to any practical result.
[Illustration: JOSEPH HUME.]
Emigration, however, was a painful remedy for famine in Ireland, because
the Celt regards exile with horror. Nor was the emigrant in those days
treated very much better in his journey over the Atlantic, than the
slave during the time when tales of the “middle passage” thrilled the
nerves of English philanthropists. The overcrowding in the ships was
scandalous, most of them carrying double their complement of passengers,
utterly regardless of the law. Twelve times as many died on the voyage,
as perished in ordinary circumstances. In quarantine the death rate
rose from 1·75 to 40 per 1,000. Three thousand emigrants are said to
have perished in Montreal in half a year. The emigrants were weaklings,
ill-fitted for the rough life of a colony, and, when they landed with
the symptoms of famine fever, they were shunned like lepers, save when
they found a refuge in a hospital. “There is no subject,” says the late
Sir Charles Trevelyan, “of which a merely one-sided view is more
commonly taken than that of emigration. The evils arising from the
[Illustration: THE WOODS BEFORE THE EMIGRANT: VIRGIN FOREST IN CANADA.]
crowded state of the population, and the facility with which large
numbers of persons may be transferred to other countries, are naturally
uppermost in the minds of landlords and ratepayers; but her Majesty’s
Government, to which the well-being of the British population in every
quarter of the globe is confided, must have an equal regard to the
interests of the emigrant and of the colonial community of which he may
become a member. It is a great mistake to suppose that even Canada and
the United States have an unlimited capacity of absorbing a new
population. The labour market in the settled district is always so
nearly full, that a small addition to the persons in search of
employment makes a sensible difference; while the clearing of land
requires the possession of resources and a power of sustained exertion
not ordinarily belonging to the newly-arrived Irish emigrant. In this,
as well as in the other operations by which society is formed and
sustained, there is a natural process which cannot with impunity be
departed from. A movement is continually going on towards the backwoods
on the part of the young and enterprising portion of the settled
population and of such of the fewer emigrants as have acquired means and
experience, and the room thus made is occupied by persons recently
arrived from Europe who have only their labour to depend on. The
conquest of the wilderness requires more than the ordinary share of
energy and perseverance, and every attempt that has yet been made to
turn paupers into backwoodsmen has ended in signal failure. As long as
they were rationed they held together in a feeble, helpless state, and
when the issue of the rations ceased they generally returned to the
settled parts of the country.”[72]
These considerations were rather lost sight of in this curious
discussion which, with the best of motives, Lord Lincoln initiated. The
feeling of the landed class as reflected in the debate was that,
whenever too many people were reared on their estates, the Government
should in some way or other help them to get rid of their surplus
labour. In Ireland for years a redundant population had been encouraged
for political purposes by the landlords who owned their votes; and it is
curious to observe that those who favoured the growth of that population
do not seem to have considered that they, and not the State, should
assist them to emigrate. A redundant population in every case is
obviously an incident of property in land, and it has to be endured and
dealt with like any other drawback of territorial ownership. The
landlord who has to pay out of his own pocket the emigration expenses of
his surplus labourers, will not be eager to promote emigration to an
extent likely to injure his country.
The weakness of the Government was further illustrated by their manner
of dealing with the Labour Laws. They did not, like their predecessors
in Sir R. Peel’s Ministry, flatly oppose all projects for lessening the
hours of factory work. But they refused to make them Ministerial
questions, though it must be admitted that Lord John Russell, undismayed
by the attitude of the Radical manufacturers, did not flinch from
supporting these benevolent measures.
Here it may not be amiss to say that for several years Lord Ashley had
fought hard to get what was called the “Ten Hours Bill” carried--the
Bill limiting the hours of employment of children and young persons in
factories. The Tory Government had opposed and thwarted him. Radical
Free Traders like Mr. Bright had been among his fiercest antagonists.
Lord Ashley’s courage, however, was undaunted, and he persistently
returned year after year to the charge. In 1846, unfortunately, he
disappeared from the Parliamentary arena. He approved of Sir Robert
Peel’s Free Trade policy, but deemed it his duty to resign his seat, so
that his constituents in Dorsetshire, who had elected him as a
Protectionist, might express their opinions on his change of front. They
rejected him, and thus it came to pass that Mr. John Fielden, Member for
Oldham, took charge of the Ten Hours Bill in his stead. Mr. Fielden was
hopeful of making progress with the measure because, though Sir Robert
Peel and his colleagues had steadily opposed it, the chief of the new
Ministry, Lord John Russell, had favoured the project. Then it so
happened that a large number of the old Tories who followed Lord George
Bentinck were to be counted on as sympathetic allies. The repeal of the
Corn Laws they regarded as a blow dealt by the manufacturing class at
the landed interest. If they voted now for the Ten Hours Bill, they
would in turn be dealing a blow at the manufacturing interest--and,
moreover, they would be delivering a vote of vengeance against the
Peelites. When on the 26th of January Mr. Fielden obtained leave to
bring in a Bill limiting the hours of labour of women and children in
factories to ten hours a day, the Government seem to have found it an
embarrassing question. They therefore determined to treat it as an
“open” one. They appear to have arranged that whilst the Chancellor of
the Exchequer--Sir C. Wood--and Mr. Milner Gibson should vote against
the Bill, Lord John Russell, Lord Morpeth, and Sir George Grey should
vote for it, distinctly saying at the same time that they desired not a
ten hours but an eleven hours Bill. It has been usual to represent the
beneficent factory legislation with which Lord Ashley’s name is
associated as one of the triumphs of Tory policy. It was nothing of the
kind. For years the Tory Government, under Peel’s guidance, had resisted
the measure, and Lord Ashley’s chief antagonist in those days was Sir
James Graham. Lord Ashley was a Peelite himself--but Peel was one of the
strongest opponents of a measure the principles of which, however, his
father approved. Against the Bill the chief speakers were Mr. Joseph
Hume, Mr. Bright, Dr. Bowring, Mr. Mark Phillips, and Mr. Roebuck. For
the Bill were Mr. Fielden, Lord John Manners, Mr. Newdegate, Mr. Muntz,
Mr. Sharman Crawfurd, and Sir Robert Inglis--an odd mixture of Liberals
and Tories. On the 17th of February the second reading was carried by a
vote of 195 to 87, and Lord John Russell received the most effusive
expressions of gratitude from all parts-of the country, for using his
influence as Premier in favour of the Bill. The third reading passed by
a majority of 88, and in the Lords the opposition, despite the furious
assault which Lord Brougham made on the measure, dwindled down so that
the second reading was carried by a vote of 53 to 11.
Yet the Bill was not a model Bill. The Factory Act of 1844 fixed 69
hours a week as the working time for women and children. Mr. Fielden’s
Act fixed the hours at 63 from the 1st of July, 1847, and at 58 from the
1st of May, 1848, But it allowed the period in the day when employment
was offered to remain as fixed by the Act of 1844. The Act of 1847 was
therefore systematically evaded. The ten hours’ work could be exacted
between 5.30 a.m. and 8 p.m. Mills were accordingly kept running during
the full period of employment, with what the mill-owners pretended to
be “relays” of hands, but in such a manner that the inspectors found it
impossible to prevent breaches of the law. The competition in business
was so keen that an extension of the “shift” and “relay” system was
inevitable--and the Act was so badly drawn that when the legality of the
system was tested, the Court of Exchequer ruled that it was not
forbidden.
The Session of 1847 was dull. Members were worn out by the reaction
[Illustration: THE LOWER WARD, WINDSOR CASTLE.]
from the passionate excitement and the repeated shocks of those
Ministerial crises which exhausted Parliament in 1846. One gap in the
long line of Irish relief measures we can descry, and even then it was
made by an eleemosynary measure giving compensation to West India
planters for the loss they were likely to suffer from the abolition of
the differential duties on foreign sugar. A Bill to shorten service in
the army, and one establishing a new Bishopric at Manchester, were also
among the measures passed during the Session. On the 22nd of February
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Charles Wood--afterwards Lord
Halifax--made his financial statement. Wood was a member of the Grey
section of the Cabinet, and it was of him in after-years that Mr. Grant
Duff once impudently remarked, “Providence, in its inscrutable purposes,
had deprived him of clearness of
[Illustration: LORD CAMPBELL’S AUDIENCE OF THE QUEEN. (_See p. 290._)]
expression--nay, almost of the gift of articulate speech itself.” The
reporters of the old school used to tell merry tales of their
difficulties in making sense of his financial speeches, but with some of
his colleagues he was popular. He showed courage in fighting the Irish
famine, and he did not flinch in the monetary crisis of October which
followed it. But his _brusquerie_ of manner and indistinctness of speech
made many enemies, especially among deputations who waited on him. He
was not, therefore, the fittest person to make heavier demands on the
national purse than had been heard of for many years--and yet that was
just what he did. But there was one consoling fact on which he dwelt. In
spite of distress, the revenue from customs and excise during 1846 had
far exceeded Mr. Goulburn’s estimates. It had left Sir C. Wood with a
balance of £9,000,000 in hand, and though it showed no signs of falling
off, yet a commercial crisis was to be looked for similar to those of
1825 and 1836. Sir C. Wood therefore estimated for a forthcoming revenue
of £52,065,000; but then he said he had to provide for an expenditure
which, owing to the changes wrought by the introduction of steam power
into the navy and the arsenals, must rise to £57,570,000. Still, as
£10,000,000 would be wanted as extraordinary expenditure on Irish
distress, there was a deficit to be made good. This he proposed to meet
by borrowing £8,000,000--the other £2,000,000 consisted of advances to
local authorities, and would be repaid--fresh taxation being ill adapted
to hard times. His surplus was £489,000, and to it would be added
£450,000 he hoped to get from China. The Famine Loan was floated at £3
7s. 6d. per cent., but so eager were the Government to get the money
that a discount of 5 per cent. was by a resolution of the House of
Commons ordered to be given to those who paid in their contributions
before the 18th of June.
During the early part of the Session the Queen’s interest seems to have
been chiefly limited to the ceremonial side of affairs, though, of
course, foreign policy, which she made a constant study, the affairs of
the Duchy of Lancaster, and, in some degree, the measures for relieving
famine, engaged her attention. As to ceremonies, her Majesty and Prince
Albert were always curious, and keen to trace out the origins of the old
customs to which she had to defer. “On Thursday,” writes Lord Campbell
in a letter, dated 6th February, 1847, “I went down to Windsor and shook
hands with Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, and their Royal
Highnesses the Princess Royal and the Princess Alice. By-the-by, there
was an amusing scene in the Queen’s closet. I had an audience that her
Majesty might prick a Sheriff for the county of Lancaster, which she did
in proper style with a bodkin I put into her hand. I then took her
pleasure about some Duchy livings and withdrew--forgetting to make her
sign the parchment roll. I obtained a second audience, and explained the
mistake. While she was signing, Prince Albert said to me, ‘Pray, my
Lord, when did this ceremony of pricking begin?’ CAMPBELL: ‘In ancient
times, Sir, when sovereigns did not know how to write their names.’
QUEEN (as she returned me the roll with her signature): ‘But we now show
that we have been to school.’”
Her Majesty’s interest in the affairs of the Duchy was abiding. Writing
on the 9th of March to his brother, Lord Campbell says:--“I have been to
Osborne attending a Council. Had it not been so bitterly cold I should
have enjoyed it. I had a private audience of her Majesty; and when my
business was over she said, ‘How you were attacked in the House of Lords
the other night, Lord Campbell--most abominably.’ I gave a courtier-like
answer,” adds this unblushing old political comedian, “without telling
her Majesty of the dinner I am to give an Saturday to Lord Stanley and
Lord Brougham” (who had attacked him), “for she was excessively angry
with them; and she would not understand the levity with which such
matters are treated among politicians of opposite parties.”[73] The
attack, it may be explained, was due to an indiscreet proposal made by
Lord John Russell to appoint new Councillors for the Duchy without a
view to Party, who should serve permanently. Lords Lincoln, Hardwicke,
Spencer, Portman, and Sir James Graham were named, and the whole project
was attacked as a Whig job, designed to conciliate the Peelites, whose
precarious alliance was worth purchasing. When the fight was over,
Campbell invited all the combatants to dine with the Councillors, old
and new; and he gives a most amusing account of the banquet--telling how
all these public enemies met on the easiest of convivial terms in
private; how Brougham “shook hands with the Premier, and called him
John;” and “Stanley said to Sir James Graham, ‘Graham, how are you?’”
and how Brougham “related a supposed speech of Sir Charles Wetherell’s,
complaining that death is now attended with a fresh terror from Campbell
writing the life of a deceased person as soon as the breath was out of
his body.” One wonders if the Queen would have wasted much sympathy on
Campbell, or much indignation on his enemies, had she known that they
“sat at table till near eleven,” and that, as “Lyndhurst was stepping
into his carriage, he was overheard to say to Lord Brougham, ‘I wish we
had such a Council as this once a month.’”
It is pleasing, however, to record that those who had to deal not only
with the hereditary but private revenues of the Sovereign had proved
themselves this year able and faithful servants. On that topic Mr.
Charles Greville writes in his Journal, on the 8th of March,
1847:--“George Anson told me yesterday that the Queen’s affairs are in
such good order, and so well managed, that she will be able to provide
for the whole expense of Osborne out of her revenue without difficulty;
and that by the time it is finished it will have cost £200,000. He said
also that the Prince of Wales, when he came of age, would have not less
than £70,000 a year from the Duchy of Cornwall. They have already saved
£100,000. The Queen takes for his maintenance whatever she pleases, and
the rest, after paying charges, is invested in the Funds or in land, and
accumulates for him.”
The death of Lord Bessborough in June left the Viceroyalty of Ireland
vacant; and there was some difficulty about selecting his successor.
Lord John Russell would have abolished the office and appointed a
Secretary of State for Ireland, but for the menaces of the Repealers and
Orangemen. The two favourite candidates for the post were the Duke of
Bedford, who was afraid to take it, and Lord Clarendon, who was anxious
to have it; but who desired to make the world believe that he was making
a great sacrifice
[Illustration: THE CUSTOM HOUSE, DUBLIN.]
in accepting the office. He was ultimately appointed, and for five years
ruled Ireland well, with a firm and neutral hand.
The death of O’Connell on the 15th of May, at Genoa, “made little or no
sensation here,”[74] says Mr. Greville. He had quarrelled with half his
followers, and the younger Repealers had grown sick of his policy of
fruitless agitation. But in Dublin, when the news was posted in
Conciliation Hall, vast crowds of mournful patriots assembled and
silently read the placards. The Catholic chapels tolled their dismal
death-knells, and the Corporation met and adjourned for three weeks as a
mark of respect for the Liberator’s memory. In the famine-stricken
districts the anguish of public sorrow sharpened the pangs of popular
distress. His remains were laid in Glasnevin cemetery with imposing
funereal pomp and pageantry. Indeed, no funeral in Ireland has ever been
more numerously attended, for it was reckoned that at least 50,000
persons marched in the procession of mourners. Few people of high rank
and station were there; but the middle and lower classes of the
populace
[Illustration: THE GRAND STAIRCASE, BUCKINGHAM PALACE.
(_From a Photograph by Mr. H. N. King._)]
were conspicuous. Even many afflicted persons from the poorest quarters
were found struggling at daybreak round the mortuary chapel in
Marlborough Street, to catch one glimpse of the remains of a man whom
they believed to have been sent on earth with a divine mission, whose
ultimate translation to the saints was to them a certainty, and a sight
of whose very corpse might perchance work a miracle that would cure
their infirmities.
The Cabinet, despite the weakness of its action, the instability of its
support, and false reports of dissensions among its Members, had held
well together. Even Lords Grey and Palmerston behaved as if they had
ever been on terms of fraternal amity. In July, however, Ministers began
to feel that they were in office but not in power. Bill after Bill had
to be withdrawn. Some of the Peelites, too, whose support was necessary,
took umbrage at the effusive compliments which were bandied about
between Lord John Russell and Lord George Bentinck; indeed, this feeling
was shared by Sir James Graham and by Peel himself. Concessions were
made to opponents to an extent that destroyed the prestige of the
Ministry, which, though indispensable, was neither popular nor
respected. In July, the Cabinet therefore came to the conclusion that it
would be well to appeal to the country to return a new House of Commons
which might fill them with fresh strength. Ministers had appointed a
Committee to feel the pulse of the constituencies, of which Lord
Campbell, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was one; and they
reported that not a day should be lost in bringing about a Dissolution
in the interests of the Party. So eager were they to go to the country
at once that “it was even suggested,” says Lord Campbell, “that, to
expedite the Election by a day, the Queen should dissolve Parliament in
person from the Throne. I found one precedent for this since the
Revolution, in Lord Eldon’s time; but I pointed out a better
expedient--that the Queen should prorogue, as usual, and that, holding a
Council immediately after, she should then sign the Proclamation for the
Dissolution and the calling of a new Parliament, the writs going out by
the post the same evening. This course was successfully adopted.”
The Dissolution took place on July 23, almost immediately after the
prorogation of Parliament. The Whigs, more or less loosely in alliance
with the Radicals, formed one party; the Tory Protectionists, under the
leadership of Lord George Bentinck and Lord Stanley, formed a second;
the Tory Free Traders, under Peel, formed a third. Discord therefore
reigned throughout the whole established system of party Government, and
the dissensions caused by the Free Trade settlement were aggravated by
the religious controversy, as to the possibility of giving State aid to
Roman Catholic education and worship. Public suspicion had been roused
by a declaration which Lord John Russell had made in the House of
Commons as to the expediency of establishing formal diplomatic relations
with Rome. It was intensified by the Secretary at War, who included in
the Army Estimates votes providing means of worship for Roman Catholic
soldiers on foreign service. It was further strengthened by the
promised relaxation of the rule, which virtually cut off Roman Catholic
schools from all share in the Education Grant. “There was,” says Mr.
Evelyn Ashley, “little enthusiasm on either side. The Free Trade
Question appeared settled; and, though a more vigorous policy was
anticipated from a Russell than from a Melbourne Administration, no
great organic changes were expected from it. On the other hand, the
remnants of the Conservative Party had nothing to hold out beyond vague
professions of attachment to an ancient institution.”[75] The result was
the return of 337 Whig and Liberal Free Traders, and 318 Conservatives
and Protectionists--the Protectionists numbering about one-half of the
Conservative return.
Between the Election and the assembling of Parliament the Government was
greatly disturbed by the renewed outbreak of outrages in Ireland, and of
the commercial panic which had long been imminent. These two events
caused Ministers to summon Parliament on the 18th of November. The panic
in spring, which we traced to dearth and high prices of food-stuffs, was
eased in Midsummer by the fall in prices. This, however, in its turn,
produced the second panic in the autumn, for speculators had bought corn
in advance at rates far above those which began to rule the market. Then
money became “tight.” On the 5th of August the Bank raised the rate of
discount to 5½ per cent., and Funds fell 2 per cent. in a week--from 88⅝
to 86¾. At the end of August failures to the extent of £3,000,000 were
announced, and on the 1st of October the Bank of England refused to make
any further advances on Stock. At the end of the week consols fell to
80½. On the 19th of October they were sold for money at 78, and for the
account at 79, and Exchequer bills fell as low as 30 per cent. discount.
Banking-houses of national importance now began to close their doors,
and confidence vanished from the commercial world. On the 25th of
October the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, in response
to piteous appeals from merchants and bankers all over the country,
recommended the directors of the Bank of England “to enlarge the amount
of their discounts and advances upon approved security,” but that the
rate of interest should be 8 per cent., so as “to retain this operation
within reasonable limits.” They were promised an indemnity if this
course led them to infringe the restrictions of the Bank Act. As the
offer of advances at 8 per cent. was not tempting, the Bank never
required to break the law, which established a fixed ratio between their
gold and their securities, but the announcement that the Bank Act was
virtually suspended, restored confidence by restoring hope. Lord
Campbell seems to indicate in his Autobiography that Ministers
themselves were frightened, “there being an apprehension that the
dividends may not be paid, and that the Bank of England may stop, and
that there may be a pecuniary crash, public and private.” All through
this crisis Sir Robert Peel’s Bank Act was virulently attacked as being
one of the causes of the distress. He himself behaved with signal
generosity. He recognised the necessity for giving way to popular
prejudices at a time of panic, and when the Queen informed him at
Windsor that Lord John Russell had decided virtually to suspend the Act,
he observed that the step was
[Illustration: LORD PALMERSTON.]
justifiable in the circumstances, and that he would support the Bill of
Indemnity promised to the Bank. That the attacks on Peel were unfair,
seems evident from the fact that the suspension of the Act had no
practical, though it had a moral, effect on the Money Market. No
indemnity was needed, so that, whatever improvement followed, it could
not be due to the banks expanding their issues, or to their system of
advancing more generously on securities.
Next came the dismal Irish Question. The Cabinet had, after some
controversy, arrived at the conclusion that they must bring in a
Coercion Bill for Ireland, although they were fully aware that they
exposed themselves to the taunt that they had turned out Sir Robert
Peel’s Government for proposing to introduce one. But the case was
urgent. That crime had increased to an appalling extent in Ireland is
indicated by the fact that Sir Robert
[Illustration: QUEEN’S COLLEGE, BELFAST.
(_From a Photograph by W. Lawrence, Dublin._)]
Peel, resisting a very natural temptation to retaliate on his
adversaries, supported the Government and asked the House of Commons to
pass the Bill. His generosity is enshrined in one phrase of his
speech--“The best reparation that can be made to the last Government
will be to assist the present Government in passing this law.” The Bill
was carried by a majority of 213.
Some of the murders in Ireland at the end of the year were truly of a
revolting character. Here is an example. A farmer named St. John, who
was done to death near Lisnamrock, in county Tipperary, had a dispute
with his younger brother about the possession of a farm. The younger
brother seems to have been in the right, and this roused local feeling.
On the 16th of December a party of men went at night, and, dragging the
elder St. John out of bed, ripped his body open and cut off his head
before his wife’s eyes. There was, in fact, an epidemic of crime in the
land. Murder was the remedy that was applied to redress all kinds of
grievances or wrongs, and everybody went about the ordinary affairs of
life armed to the teeth.
What was worse, too, was the hostility of the priesthood to the
Government, and one manifestation of it was regarded as particularly
offensive by her Majesty. That was the Papal Memorandum condemning the
Queen’s Colleges. Although Lord John Russell had actually drafted a Bill
legalising the renewal of diplomatic relations with Rome, the Pope and
the Roman Catholic clergy made but a sorry recompense for his goodwill.
The Sacred Congregation denounced the Queen’s Colleges--“an ungrateful
return,” writes Lord Palmerston in a letter to Lord Minto,[76] which
“can only be explained on the supposition that it was extorted by
intrigue and false representations made at Rome by McHale, and that the
Pope acted ignorantly, and without knowing the mischief he was doing.”
Lord Clarendon, the Irish Viceroy, thought that good results might
follow the visit of a confidential agent from the Vatican to Ireland.
But Lord Palmerston, fearing that the Papal emissary would be suborned
by Archbishop McHale and the enemies of the Government, objected to such
an experiment. In another letter, on the 3rd of December, Lord
Palmerston urges Lord Minto to assure the Pope that “in Ireland
misconduct is the rule and good conduct the exception in the Catholic
priests,” and he points to the murder of Major Mahon, which followed a
priestly denunciation at the altar, as an illustration of the manner in
which the Irish priesthood were instigating crime. He says he cannot
consider it prudent to bring in a Bill for Legalising Diplomatic
Intercourse with the Court of Rome at a time when there is in Ireland “a
deliberate and extensive conspiracy among the priests and peasantry to
kill off and drive away all the proprietors of land.” Public feeling in
England, always easily roused, would have swept away the Ministry in a
tempest of wrath if such a measure had been introduced at such a moment.
On the other hand, it is only fair to the Pope and Cardinal Ferretti to
say that they seemed to be hopelessly ignorant of Irish affairs, and
that they assured Lord Minto they utterly disapproved of the political
activity of the Irish priesthood.
Two other religious disputes, maintained by the zealots, excited the
country. One was waged over the admission of the Jews to Parliament. The
other gave rise to the famous Hampden controversy, which is so
constantly alluded to in the literature and memoirs of the day.
At the General Election one of the members returned for the City of
London was Baron Rothschild, a Jew by race and religion. As such he
could not take his seat, for he could not take the Oath of Allegiance on
the true faith of a Christian. Lord John Russell, his colleague,
submitted to the House of Commons a Resolution declaring that it was
expedient to remove all civil disabilities affecting the Jews--in other
words, the removal of the phrase “on the faith of a Christian” from the
Parliamentary Oath. Lord George Bentinck, Mr. Disraeli, and Mr.
Gladstone, supported the Resolution. A Bill founded on it was carried in
the Lower House, but rejected in the House of Lords.
On the 20th of December Parliament adjourned.
The Government were decidedly unfortunate during 1847 in their
distribution of ecclesiastical patronage. They appointed the Rev. J. P.
Lee, Head Master of King Edward’s School, at Birmingham, to the
newly-constituted see of Manchester, after he had been publicly charged
with drunkenness by a local surgeon, and had never met the accusation.
It was inexplicable that Lord John Russell, when informed of the fact,
should have refused to cancel or delay the appointment. Between his
nomination and his consecration Mr. Lee, however, prosecuted his
traducer for libel, and completely and triumphantly vindicated his
character.
When, the see of Hereford fell vacant Lord John Russell, as if in sheer
defiance of the feelings of Churchmen, appointed Dr. Hampden as the new
Bishop. Dr. Hampden had been censured for heresy by the academic
authorities of Oxford, and deprived, as Regius Professor of Divinity, of
authority to grant as a privilege certificates of attendance at his
lectures to students for Holy Orders. To designate him as Bishop was
taken as a direct insult by the clergy. Hence the Bishop of London,
representing the High Churchmen, and the Bishop of Winchester,
representing the Low Churchmen, along with thirteen Bishops, protested
against the appointment. The Dean of Hereford. Dr. Merewether,
threatened to vote against Dr. Hampden’s election by the Chapter. This
threat drew from Lord John Russell a curt reply to the effect that he
acknowledged receipt of the letter in which the Dean intimated he would
violate the law. Dr. Merewether’s action also drew attention to the
empty formality of the _congé d’élire_, whereby the Crown permits the
Dean and Chapter of a Cathedral to elect the nominee recommended by the
Crown as Bishop. Should they refuse they incur the pains and penalties
of præmunire--deprivation of benefices, confiscation of property, and
imprisonment, during the Royal pleasure.
Hampden was a rather dull man, with a ponderous, obscure style,[77]
whose offence lay, first, in advocating the admission of Dissenters into
the University, and, secondly, in not only attributing, in his Bampton
Lectures, the terminology and phraseology of Christian doctrine to the
scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages, but in further describing that
philosophy as “an atmosphere of mist!” He was supposed to be ambiguous
on the Atonement, and it had been whispered that Blanco White had
“crammed” him for his Bampton Lectures. White was one of the small
group of Broad Churchmen at Oriel College, Oxford, whom Newman dreaded,
and as he had since become a Socinian, suspicions of Dr. Hampden’s
heterodoxy were intensified. The Bishop of Oxford, after joining in the
hue and cry against Hampden, declined to send him up for trial, on the
ground that there was no valid case against him. There is no doubt,
however, that when he discovered the Queen had espoused Dr. Hampden’s
cause, Wilberforce’s zeal cooled rapidly. As for Prince Albert, he
bombarded Lord John Russell with letters urging him to prosecute Dr.
Merewether, who seems to have been far from a disinterested defender of
the faith, if it be true, as is asserted, that he memorialised the Queen
and Lord Lansdowne to terminate the controversy by appointing him to the
see of Hereford in the meantime, and then consoling Dr. Hampden with the
promise of the next vacancy! Much importance attached to the opposition
which the Bishop of Exeter offered to Hampden. But, according to Mr.
Greville, the Bishop of Exeter had, a few years before this strife,
called on Hampden at Oxford to express to him the pleasure with which he
had read his Bampton Lectures.[78] Archbishop Longley, who told Lord
Aberdeen that he would go to the Tower rather than confirm Hampden’s
nomination, subsequently begged the Bishop of Oxford to stay proceedings
in the interests of the Church.
Lord John Russell, it need hardly be said, obstinately refused to cancel
Hampden’s nomination. After the Queen had sanctioned his appointment, to
annul it would have virtually transferred to the Universities the
supreme authority of the Crown over the Episcopate. Preparations were
made to resist the confirmation of Dr. Hampden at Bow Church. The only
question admitted to argument there was whether the Court was competent
to hear objectors summoned by its own apparitor to state their
objections before it. On the 11th of January the Vicar-General of
Canterbury, Dr. Burnaby, with Sir John Dodson and Dr. Lushington as
assessors, decided against the competence of the Court. An application
for a _mandamus_ to compel the Archbishop to hear objectors was refused
by the Queen’s Bench--the judges being equally divided. On the 15th, in
the House of Lords, Lord Denman defended the decision, and declared that
“it was not to be supposed for a moment that the Crown would nominate to
the high position of a Bishop an unfit person; and that the law would
certainly be in a strange state if it should require an archbishop,
before he proceeded to confirm or consecrate a party nominated by the
Crown, to call upon all the world to throw scandal upon the nominee.” He
further said that “the form in the proclamation was a mere form which
was never used; that, if used, the prerogative of the Crown would be
most seriously interfered with;” and he warned the House against “the
fatal consequences of allowing objections to be made to the nominees of
the Crown,” for “by checking every attempt at such interference the
Church was protected from great danger and mischief.”