THE REFORM.
The general election which took place in the summer of 1831 was perhaps
the most momentous on record. The news of the sudden dissolution,
carrying with it the assurance of the king's hearty assent to reform,
stirred popular enthusiasm to an intensity never equalled before or
since. From John o' Groat's to the Land's End a cry was raised of _The
bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill_. This cry signified more
than appears on the surface, and was not wholly one-sided in its
application. No doubt it was a passionate and defiant warning against
any manipulation or dilution of the bill in a reactionary sense, but it
was also a distinct protest against attempts by the extreme radicals to
amend it in an opposite direction. Now, as ever, the impulse was given
by the middle classes, and they were in no mood to imperil their own
cause by revolutionary claims. They could not always succeed, however,
in checking the fury of the populace, which had been taught to clamour
for reform as the precursor of a good time coming for the suffering and
toiling masses of mankind. The streets of London were illuminated, and
the windows of those who omitted to illuminate or were otherwise
obnoxious were tumultuously demolished by the mob, which did not even
spare Apsley House, the town residence of the Duke of Wellington. But,
except in Scotland, no formidable riots occurred for the present, and
some good resulted from the new experience of popular opinion gained by
candidates even from unreformed constituencies hitherto obedient to
oligarchical influence, but animated for the moment by a certain spirit
of independence.
Having sanctioned the dissolution, the king addressed an elaborate
letter to Grey, in which he did not disguise his own misgivings about
the perilous experiment of reform. Chiefly dreading a collision between
the two houses, he never ceased to press on his ministers the expediency
of making all possible sacrifices consistent with the spirit of the bill
in order to conciliate opposition in the house of peers. Grey's constant
reply was that no concessions would propitiate men bent on driving the
government from office, and that no measure less efficacious than that
already introduced would satisfy the just expectations of the people.
Both of these arguments were perfectly sound, and the constitutional
triumph ultimately achieved was largely due to the admirable tenacity of
purpose which refused to remodel the original reform bill in any
essential respect to please either the borough-mongers or the radicals.
The elections were conducted on the whole in good order. Seventy-six out
of eighty-two English county members (including the four Yorkshire
members), and the four members for the city of London, were pledged to
vote for the bill. Several notable anti-reformers were among the many
county representatives who failed to obtain re-election; even some of
the doomed boroughs did not venture to return anti-reformers; and the
government found itself supported by an immense nominal majority. The
new bill, introduced on June 24 by Lord John Russell, who had recently
been admitted in company with Stanley to the cabinet, differed little
from the old one. The number of boroughs to be totally disfranchised was
slightly greater, that of boroughs to be partially disfranchised
slightly less, but the net effect of the disfranchising and
enfranchising schedules was the same, and the £10 rental suffrage was
retained. The measure was allowed to pass its first reading after one
night's discussion. The debates on the second reading lasted three
nights, but the bill passed this stage on July 8 by a majority of 136 in
a house of 598 members.
[Pageheading: _SECOND REFORM BILL._]
The victory, however, though great, was far indeed from proving
decisive. By adopting obstructive tactics, of a kind to be perfected in
a later age, the opposition succeeded in prolonging the discussion in
committee over forty nights, until September 7. Though Peel separated
himself from the old tories, and steadily declined to cabal with
O'Connell's faction against the government, such an unprofitable waste
of time could not have taken place without his tacit sanction. Only one
important alteration was made in the bill. This was the famous "Chandos
clause," proposed by Lord Chandos, son of the Duke of Buckingham,
whereby the county suffrage was extended to all tenants-at-will of £50
rental and upwards. A very large proportion of tenant farmers thus
became county voters, and for the most part followed the politics of
their landlords. It may be doubted whether Grey seriously lamented
Chandos's intervention; at all events it went far to verify his own
prediction that aristocratic dominion would not be undermined by
reform.[104] Meanwhile, the country was naturally impatient of the
vexatious delay, and a somewhat menacing conference took place between
the political unions of Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow. Happily
public attention was diverted to some extent by the coronation, which
took place on the 8th. The bill was carried more rapidly through its
later stages, and was finally passed in the house of commons on the
21st, though by a reduced majority of 345 to 236.
On the following day the bill reached the house of lords and was set
down for its second reading on October 3. Thenceforth all the hopes and
fears of its friends and enemies were concentrated on the proceedings in
that house, whose ascendency in the state was at stake. The question:
"What will the lords do?" was asked all over the country with the
deepest anxiety. The debate lasted five nights, and is admitted to have
been among the finest reported in our parliamentary history. All the
leading peers took part in it, and several of them were roused by the
occasion to unwonted eloquence, but the palm was generally awarded to
the speeches of Grey, Harrowby, Brougham, and Lyndhurst. The first of
these occupied a position which gave increased weight to his counsels,
since he was the veteran advocate of reform and yet known to be a most
loyal member of the nobility which now stood on its trial. In his
opening speech he appealed earnestly to the bench of bishops, as
disinterested parties and as ministers of peace, not to set themselves
against the almost unanimous will of the people. Brougham's great
oration on the last night of the debate contained a masterly review of
the whole question, and, in spite of its theatrical conclusion, when he
sank upon his knees, extorted the admiration of his bitterest critics as
a consummate exhibition of his marvellous powers.
But very few of the peers were open to persuasion; the votes of
anti-reformers were mainly guided by a shortsighted conception of their
own interests, and Eldon did not shrink from contending that nomination
boroughs were in the nature of property rather than of trusts. A
memorable division ended in the rejection of the second reform bill on
the 8th by 199 votes to 158. Twenty-one bishops voted against it. The
king lost no time in reminding Grey of his own warning against
submitting the bill, without serious modifications, to the judgment of
the house of lords. He also intimated beforehand that he could not
consent to any such creation of peers as would convert the minority into
a majority. Grey at once admitted that he could not ask for so
high-handed an exercise of the royal prerogative, and undertook to
remain at his post, on condition of being allowed to introduce a third
reform bill as comprehensive as its predecessor. Thereupon the king
abandoned his intention of proroguing parliament by commission, and came
down in person to do so on the 20th when he delivered a speech clearly
indicating legislation on reform as the work of the next session.
[Pageheading: _REFORM BILL RIOTS._]
During the interval between the 8th and the 20th it became evident that
the reform movement, quickened by the action of the upper house, would
rise to a dangerous height. A vote of confidence in the government,
brought forward by Lord Ebrington, eldest son of Earl Fortescue, was
carried by a majority of 131, and speeches were made in support of it
which encouraged, in the form of prediction, every kind of popular
agitation short of open violence. In the course of this debate Macaulay,
the future historian of the English revolution, delivered one of those
highly wrought orations which adorn the political literature of reform.
The excitement in London was great, but kept for the most part within
reasonable bounds, partly by the firm and sensible attitude of Melbourne
as home secretary. The mob, however, vented its rage in window breaking
and personal assaults on some prominent anti-reformers, one of whom,
Lord Londonderry, was knocked off his horse by a volley of stones. In
the provinces more serious disturbances broke out. At Derby the rioters
actually stormed the city jail, releasing the prisoners, and were only
repelled in their attack on the county jail by the fire of a military
force. At Nottingham they wreaked their vengeance on the Duke of
Newcastle by burning down Nottingham Castle, which belonged to him, and
were proceeding to further outrages when they were overawed by a
regiment of hussars. A great open-air meeting of the political union was
held at Birmingham, while the bill was still before the house of lords,
at which a refusal to pay taxes was openly recommended in the last
resort, and votes of thanks were passed to Althorp and Russell. The
former, in acknowledging it, wisely condemned such lawless proceedings;
the latter unwisely made use of a phrase which gravely displeased the
king: "It is impossible that the whisper of faction should prevail
against the voice of a nation". Both were called to account in the house
of commons for holding correspondence with an illegal association, but
disclaimed any recognition of the Birmingham union as a body, and fully
admitted the responsibility of the government for the maintenance of
order.
This assurance was about to be tested by the most atrocious outbreak
which disgraced the cause of reform. On Saturday, the 29th, Wetherell,
as recorder of Bristol, entered the city to open the commission on the
following Monday. Of all the anti-reformers, he was perhaps the most
vehement and unpopular, but his visit to Bristol was in discharge of an
official duty, and had been sanctioned expressly by the government.
Nevertheless, the cavalcade which escorted him was assailed by a furious
rabble on its way to the guildhall, and from the guildhall to the
mansion house, where he was to dine. For a while, they were kept back or
driven back by a large force of constables, but, on some of these being
withdrawn, their ferocity increased, and threatened a general assault on
the mansion house. In vain did the mayor address them and read the riot
act; they overpowered the constables, and carried the mansion house by
storm, the mayor and the magistrates escaping by the back premises,
while the recorder prudently left the city. At last the military were
called upon to act, and two troops of cavalry were ordered out. But the
military as well as the civil authorities showed a strange weakness and
vacillation in presence of an emergency only to be compared with the
Lord George Gordon riots of a by-gone generation. After making one
charge and dispersing the populace for the moment, the cavalry were sent
back to their barracks, and when one troop was recalled on the following
(Sunday) morning, the rioters were all but masters of the city. Many of
them, having plundered the cellars of the mansion house, were infuriated
by drink; they broke into the Bridewell, the new city jail, and the
county jail, set free the prisoners, and fired the buildings. They next
proceeded to burn down the mansion house, the bishop's palace, the
custom-house, and the excise-office. The cathedral is said to have been
saved by the resolute stand of a few volunteers hastily rallied by one
of the officials. In the midst of all this havoc, the cavalry were
almost passive, Colonel Brereton, the commanding officer, waiting for
orders from the magistrates, and actually withdrawing a part of his
small force when it was most needed, because it had incurred the special
hatred of the criminals.
On the morning of Monday, the guardians of law and order seemed to have
recovered their courage; at all events, the cavalry, no longer forbidden
to charge, and headed by Major Mackworth, soon cleared the streets,
fresh troops poured in, and the police made a number of arrests. The
reign of anarchy was at an end, having lasted three days. When a return
of casualties was made up, it showed that only twelve were known to have
lost their lives, besides ninety-four disabled, most of whom were the
victims of excessive drunkenness or of the flames kindled by themselves.
But, though the riot was quelled, it was some proof of its deliberate
promotion, and of the aims which its ringleaders had in view, that
parties of them issuing out from Bristol attempted to propagate sedition
in Somersetshire. A special commission sent down to Bristol condemned to
death several of the worst malefactors; four were hanged and
eighty-eight sentenced either to transportation or to lighter
punishments; and Colonel Brereton destroyed himself rather than face the
verdict of a court-martial.
On the same Monday, the 31st, Burdett took the chair at a meeting in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, called for the purpose of forming a "National
Political Union" in London. Soon afterwards, however, he retired from
the organisation, on the nominal ground that half of the seats on its
council were allotted to the working classes, but more probably because
he was beginning to be alarmed by the violence of his associates. His
fears were justified by a manifesto summoning a mass meeting of the
working-classes to assemble at White Conduit House on November 7, for
the purpose of ratifying a new and revolutionary bill of rights. This
time the government was on its guard, and Melbourne plainly informed a
working-class deputation that such a meeting would certainly be
seditious, and perhaps treasonable, in law. The plan was therefore
abandoned, and soon afterwards a royal proclamation was issued,
declaring organised political associations, assuming powers independent
of the civil magistrates, to be "unconstitutional and illegal". The
political unions proposed to consider themselves outside the scope of
the proclamation, which had little visible effect, though it was not
without its value as proving that the government was a champion of order
as well as of liberty.
[Pageheading: _NEGOTIATIONS WITH WAVERERS._]
During the short recess of less than six weeks political discontent,
constantly growing, was aggravated by industrial distress and gloomy
forebodings of a mysterious pestilence, already known as cholera. A
voluminous correspondence was carried on between the king and Grey on
the means of silencing the political unions and smoothing the passage of
a new reform bill. It was not in the king's nature to conceal his own
conservative leanings, especially on the imaginary danger of increasing
the metropolitan constituencies, and Grey complained more than once of
these sentiments being confided, or at least becoming known, to
opponents of the government. At the same time attempts were being made
not only by the king himself, but also by peers of moderate views to
arrange a compromise which might save the honour of the government, and
yet mitigate the hostility of the tory majority in the upper house. In
these negotiations behind the scenes, Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury,
and Carr, Bishop of Worcester, took part, as representing the episcopal
bench, while Lords Harrowby and Wharncliffe, in temporary concert with
Chandos, professed to speak for the "waverers" among peers. As little of
importance resulted from their well-meant efforts, and as nearly all the
supposed "waverers," including the bishops, drifted into open
opposition, it is the less necessary to dwell at length on a very
tedious chapter in the history of parliamentary reform. Suffice it to
say that when parliament reassembled on December 6, 1831, the prospects
of the forthcoming bill were no brighter than in October, except so far
as the danger of rejecting it had become more apparent.
The final reform bill introduced by Lord John Russell on the 12th was
identical in its principle and its essential features with the former
ones. The chief alteration was the maintenance of the house of commons
at its full strength of 658 members. This enabled its framers not only
to reduce the number of wholly disfranchised boroughs (schedule A) from
sixty to fifty-six, and that of semi-disfranchised boroughs (schedule B)
from forty-six to thirty, but to assign a larger number of members to
the prosperous towns enfranchised. The bill was at once read a first
time and passed its second reading after two nights' debate on the 16th
by a majority of 324 to 162, or exactly two to one. But, after a short
adjournment for the Christmas holidays, a debate of twenty-two nights
took place in committee, and the opposition made skilful use of the many
vulnerable points in the new scheme. Every variation from the original
bill, even by way of concession, was subjected to minute criticism, and
especially the fact that the schedules were now framed, not on a scale
of population only, but on a mixed basis, partly resting on population,
partly on the number of inhabited houses, and partly on the local
contribution to assessed taxes.
It was easy to pick such a compound scale to pieces, to uphold the
claims of one venal borough against another equally venal, and even to
reproach the government with inconsistency in relying on the census of
1831, instead of on that of 1821--a course which the opposition had
specially urged upon them. But it was not so easy to combat the
irresistible arguments in favour of the bill on its general merits, to
ignore the reasonable concessions on points of detail which it embodied,
or to explain away the patent fact that no measure less stringent would
satisfy the people. There was therefore an air of unreality about this
debate, spirited as it was, nor is it easy to understand what practical
object enlightened men like Peel could have sought in prolonging it. He
well knew, and admitted in private correspondence, that reform was
inevitable; he must have known that a sham reform would be a stimulus to
revolutionary agitation; yet he strove to mutilate the bill so that it
might pass its second reading in the house of lords, and there undergo
such further mutilation as would destroy its efficacy as a settlement of
the question. For the present he yielded. No attempt was made to
obstruct the bill on its third reading, when the division showed 355
votes to 239, and it passed the commons on March 23 without any
division.
[Pageheading: _THE THIRD REFORM BILL._]
Such a result would have been conclusive in any parliament during the
second half of the nineteenth century. A house of commons elected by the
old constituencies, and under the old franchises, had declared in favour
of a well-considered reform bill. The same constituencies voting under
the same franchises had returned an increased majority in support of the
same, or very nearly the same measure; this measure, with slight
variations, had been adopted by an immense preponderance of votes in the
new house of commons: yet its fate in the house of lords was very
doubtful. Ever since the autumn of 1831, the expedient of swamping the
house of lords had been seriously contemplated. It was supremely
distasteful to the king, and Grey himself, in common with a majority of
the cabinet, was strongly averse from it. Then came the intervention of
Harrowby and Wharncliffe, the failure of which strengthened the hands of
the more determined reformers in the cabinet, and induced the king to
give way. Having already created a few peers on the coronation, he
consented to a limited addition in the last resort, but with the
reservation that eldest sons of existing peers should be called up in
the first instance, and upon the assurance that, reform once carried,
all further encroachments of the democracy should be resisted by the
government. He even authorised Grey to inform Harrowby that he had given
the prime minister this power, in the hope that it would never be
needed, and that at least the second reading of the bill would be
carried in the house of lords without it. His objection to a permanent
augmentation of the peerage remained unshaken, and Grey promised to
propose no augmentation at all before the second reading.
This compact, if it can be so called, was fulfilled in the letter, for
the bill was read a first time without a division, and it passed the
second reading on April 14 by a majority of 184 to 175. To all
appearance a notable process of conversion had been wrought among the
peers, seventeen of whom actually changed sides, while ten opponents of
the former bill absented themselves, and twelve new adherents were
gained. However encouraging these figures might be, the ministers were
under no illusion. They had the best reason for expecting the worst
from the struggle in committee, and they were conscious of gradually
losing the king's confidence. The very demonstrations of popular
enthusiasm for reform which impressed others with a sense of its
necessity impressed him with a sense of its danger; the political unions
and the Bristol riots alarmed him extremely; and the foreign policy of
the government elicited from him so outspoken a protest that Grey
tendered his resignation. The difficulty was overcome for the moment,
but recurred in a more serious form when parliament reassembled on May
7. Lyndhurst at once proposed in committee to postpone the consideration
of schedule A; in other words, to shelve the most vital provisions of
the bill until the rest should have been dissected in a hostile spirit.
This proposal is supposed to have been concerted with Harrowby and
Wharncliffe, if not to have received the sanction of the Duke of
Wellington. It was adopted by 151 votes to 116, and the cabinet, on May
8, courageously determined to make a decisive stand. They firmly advised
the king to confer peerages on "such a number of persons as might ensure
the success of the bill". The principle thus expressed had, as has been
seen, been reluctantly approved by the king himself, but he recoiled
from the application of it when he learned that it would involve at
least fifty new creations. After a day's thought, he closed with the
only alternative, and accepted the resignation of his ministry. He then
sent for Lyndhurst, who of course at once communicated with the duke.
The king, as we have seen, had never been able to understand the real
force of the reform movement, and his leading idea was that the demand
for reform might be satisfied by a moderate reform bill, which the house
of lords would not reject or reduce to nullity. Wellington shared this
impression, and, though an implacable opponent of reform, was willing to
undertake office for the purpose of carrying, not merely a mild
substitute for the whig reform bill, but the whig reform bill itself
with little modification. Such an act might appear immoral in a
statesman whose integrity was more open to question, but the duke's
political _moral_ appears to have been of a less delicate type than that
which is commonly expected in party politicians. As a general, he
considered, first of all and above all, what manoeuvres would best
advance his plan of campaign. As a political leader, he regarded
himself not as the chief of a party, still less as the exponent of a
creed, but rather as a public servant to whom his followers owed
allegiance, whether in office or in opposition. As a public servant he
felt bound to obey the king's summons, and conduct the administration,
honestly and efficiently, but without much concern for personal
convictions. He was also anxious to preserve the house of lords from
being swamped and so rendered ridiculous by an extensive creation of
peers.[105]
[Pageheading: _ATTEMPTS TO FORM A TORY MINISTRY._]
But Wellington knew that he was powerless to manage the house of commons
without the aid of Peel, and Peel, though pliable in the case of
catholic emancipation, was inflexible in the case of reform. He drew a
distinction between these cases, and absolutely rejected the advice of
Croker that he should grasp the helm of state to avert the worse evil of
the whigs being recalled. "I look," he wrote, "beyond the exigency and
the peril of the present moment, and I do believe that one of the
greatest calamities that could befall the country would be the utter
want of confidence in the declarations of public men which must follow
the adoption of the bill of reform by me as a minister of the
crown."[106] This language, repeated under reserve in the house of
commons, after a direct appeal from the king, strongly contrasts with
that of the duke who roundly asserted that he should have been ashamed
to show his face in the streets if he had refused to serve his sovereign
in an emergency. The marked divergence of views and conduct between the
two leaders of the conservative party led to a temporary estrangement
which materially weakened their counsels, and was not finally removed
until a fresh crisis arose two years later.
While Lyndhurst and the duke were vainly endeavouring to patch up a
government without Peel or his personal adherents, Goulburn and Croker,
the house of commons and the country gave decisive proofs of their
resolution. A vote of confidence in Grey's ministry, proposed by
Ebrington, was carried on May 10 by a majority of eighty. Petitions came
in from the city of London and Manchester, calling upon the commons to
stop the supplies, and the reckless populace clamoured for a run upon
the Bank of England. A mass meeting convened by the Birmingham
political union had already hoisted the standard of revolt against the
legislature, unless it would comply with the will of the people; the
example was spreading rapidly, and events seemed to be hurrying on
towards a fulfilment of Russell's prediction that, in the event of a
political deadlock, the British constitution would perish in the
conflict. The duke was credited, of course unjustly, with the intention
of establishing military rule, and doubts were freely expressed whether
he could rely either on the army or on the police to put down insurgent
mobs. The excitement in the house of commons itself was scarcely less
formidable, and it soon became evident that high tories were almost as
much incensed by the prospect of a tory reform bill as radicals and
whigs by the vote on Lyndhurst's amendment.
On the 14th Manners Sutton and Alexander Baring, Lyndhurst's trusted
confidants, plainly informed the duke that his self-imposed task was
hopeless, and on the next day the duke advised the king to recall Grey.
The king, who had apparently grasped the position earlier, acquiesced in
this solution of the question. He agreed to recall Grey and his
colleagues, and to use his own personal influence in persuading tory
peers to abstain from voting. He attempted to impose upon his old
ministers the condition of modifying the bill considerably, but they
continued to insist on maintaining its integrity, and on swamping the
upper house, unless its opposition should be withdrawn. It was, happily,
unnecessary to resort to such extreme measures. A letter from the king,
dated the 17th, informed Wellington that all difficulties would be
removed by "a declaration in the house of lords from a sufficient number
of peers that they have come to the resolution of dropping their further
opposition to the reform bill". On that night, after stating what had
passed, the duke retired from the house, followed by about 100 peers,
and absented himself from the discussion of the bill in committee. A
stalwart minority remained, and took issue on a few clauses, but their
numbers constantly dwindled, and when the report was received on June 1
only eighteen peers recorded their dissent in a protest. Grey himself,
though suffering from illness, moved the third reading on the 4th, when
it was carried by 106 to 22. His last words did not lack the dignity
which had marked his bearing throughout, and expressed the earnest hope
that, in spite of sinister forebodings, "the measure would be found to
be, in the best sense, conservative of the constitution".
[Pageheading: _ROYAL ASSENT TO THE BILL._]
The amendments made in the house of lords were slight, and the house of
commons adopted them without any argument on their merits. Peel, who had
made a convincing defence of his recent conduct, and who afterwards took
a statesmanlike course in the reformed parliament, declared, with some
petulance, that he would have nothing to do with the consideration of
provisions or amendments passed under compulsion, and that he was
prepared to accept them, _en bloc_, whatever their nature or
consequences. The bill, therefore, received the royal assent on the 7th,
but the king could not be induced to perform this ceremony in person.
Though his scruples had been respected in framing the scheme of reform,
though he was consulted at every turn and clearly recognised the
necessity to which he bowed, and though he was spared the resort to a
_coup d'état_ which he abhorred, he could not but feel humiliated by the
ill-disguised subjection of the crown and the nobility to a single
chamber of the people. It is greatly to his honour that, with limited
intelligence, and strong prejudices, he should have played a
straightforward and strictly constitutional part in so perilous a
crisis.
By the great reform bill, as it was still called even after it became an
act, the whole representative system of England and Wales was
reconstructed. Fifty-six nomination boroughs, as we have seen, lost
their members altogether; thirty more were reduced to one member, and
Weymouth which, coupled with Melcombe Regis, had returned four members,
now lost two. Twenty-two large towns, including metropolitan districts,
were allotted two members each; twenty smaller but considerable towns
received one member each; the number of English and Welsh county members
was increased from ninety-four to one hundred and fifty-nine, and the
larger counties were parcelled out into divisions. All the fanciful and
antiquated franchises which had prevailed in the older boroughs were
swept away to make room for a levelling £10 household suffrage, the
privileges of freemen being alone preserved. The rights of 40s.
freeholders were retained in counties, but they found themselves
associated with a large body of copyholders, leaseholders, and
tenants-at-will paying £50 in rent. The general result was to place the
borough representation mainly in the hands of shopkeepers, and the
county representation mainly in those of landlords and farmers. The
former change had a far greater effect on the balance of parties than
the latter. The shopkeepers, of whom many were nonconformists, long
continued to cherish advanced radical traditions, partly derived from
the reform agitation, and constantly rebelled against dictation from
their rich customers. The farmers, dependent on their landlords and
closely allied with them in defending the corn laws, proved more
submissive to influence, and constituted the backbone of the great
agricultural interest.
The enactment of the English reform bill carried with it as its
necessary sequel the success of similar bills for Scotland and Ireland.
In Scotland electoral abuses were so gross that reform was comparatively
simple, and that proposed, as Jeffrey, the lord advocate, frankly said,
"left not a shred of the former system". The nation, as a whole, gained
eight members, since its total representation was raised from forty-five
to fifty-three seats, thirty for counties and twenty-three for cities
and burghs. Two members were allotted to Edinburgh and Glasgow
respectively; one each to Paisley, Aberdeen, Perth, Dundee, and
Greenock, as well as to certain groups of boroughs. Both the county and
burgh electorates were entirely transformed. The "old parchment
freeholders" in counties, many of whom owned not a foot of land, were
superseded by a mixed body of freeholders and leaseholders with real
though various qualifications. The electoral monopoly of town councils
was replaced by the enfranchisement of householders with a uniform
qualification of £10. A claim to representation on behalf of the
Scottish universities was negatived in the house of lords. The number of
representatives for Ireland was raised from 100 to 105. The
disfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders was maintained against the
strenuous attacks of O'Connell and Sheil, but the introduction of the
£10 borough franchise amply balanced the loss of democratic influence in
counties. On the whole the transfer of power from class to class was
greater in Scotland and Ireland than in England itself, and in Ireland
this signified a corresponding transfer of power from protestants to
catholics. The rule of the priests was almost as absolute as ever until
it was checked for a while by a purely democratic movement, and the
Irish vote in the house of commons was generally cast on the radical
side.
[Pageheading: _RETROSPECT OF THE REFORM MOVEMENT._]
A calm retrospect of the reform movement, culminating in the acts of
1832, compels us to see how little the course of politics is guided by
reason, and how much by circumstances. Every argument employed in that
and the preceding year possessed equal force at the end of the
eighteenth century, and the benefits of reform might have been obtained
at a much smaller cost of domestic strife; nor can we doubt that, but
for the French revolution, these arguments would have prevailed. Whether
or not the sanguinary disruption of French society furthered the cause
of progress on the continent, it assuredly threw back that cause in
Great Britain for more than a generation. Not only did its horrors and
enormities produce a reaction which paralysed the efforts of liberals in
this country, but the wars arising out of it engrossed for twenty years
the whole energy of the nation. Had it been possible for Pitt to pass a
reform bill after carrying the Irish union, the current of English
history would have been strangely diverted. The sublime tenacity of that
proud aristocracy which defied the French empire in arms, and nerved all
the rest of Europe by its example and its subsidies, would never have
been exhibited by a democratic or middle class parliament, and it is
more than probable that Great Britain would have stood neutral while the
continent was enslaved or worked out its own salvation. On the other
hand, in such a case, Great Britain might have been spared a great part
of the misery and discontent which, following the peace, but indirectly
caused by the war, actually paved the way for the reform movement. It
remained for a second French revolution, combined with the infatuation
of English tories, to supply the motive power which converted a party
cry into a national demand for justice. The reform act was, in truth, a
completion of the earlier English revolution provoked by the Stuarts.
Considering the condition of the people before its introduction, and the
obstinacy of the resistance to be overborne, we may well marvel that it
was carried, after all, so peacefully, and must ever remember it as a
signal triumph of whig statesmanship.
It was the crowning merit of the reform act, from a whig point of view,
that it stayed the rising tide of democracy, and raised a barrier
against household suffrage and the ballot which was not broken down for
a generation more. It put an end to an oligarchy of borough-owners and
borough-mongers; it was a charter of political rights for the
manufacturing interest and the great middle class. But it did nothing
for the working classes in town or country; indeed, by the abolition of
potwallopers and scot-and-lot voters in a few boroughs, they forfeited
such fragmentary representation as they had possessed. Hence the seeds
of chartism, already sown, were quickened in 1832; but socialism was not
yet a force in politics, and it was still hoped that, under the new
electoral system, the sufferings of the poor might be mostly remedied by
act of parliament. The effect of the reform act on the balance of the
constitution was not, at first, fully appreciated. The grievance of
nomination-boroughs had been all but completely redressed, and that of
political corruption greatly diminished, but the hereditary peerage
remained, and the right of the lords to override the will of the commons
had ostensibly survived the conflict of 1831-32. But far-sighted men
could not fail to perceive that, in fact, the upper house was no longer
a co-ordinate estate of the realm. The peers retained an indefinite
power of delaying a measure, but it soon came to be a received maxim
that on a measure of primary importance such a power could only be
exercised in order to give the commons an opportunity of reconsideration
or to force an appeal to the country at a general election, and that a
new house of commons, armed with a mandate to carry that measure, though
once rejected by the peers, could not be resisted except at the risk of
revolution.
The best safeguard against collision, however, was to be found in the
latent conservatism of the house of commons itself. Reformed as it was,
it had not ceased to be mainly a house of country gentlemen, and the
non-payment of members was a security for its being composed, almost
exclusively, of men with independent means and a stake in the country. A
very large proportion of these had been educated at the great public
schools, or the old English universities. They might accept on the
hustings the doctrine, against which Burke so eloquently protested, that
a representative is above all a delegate, and must go to parliament as
the pledged mouthpiece of his constituency. But in the house itself they
could not divest themselves of the sentiments derived from their birth,
their education, and their own personal interests; nor was it found
impossible, without a direct violation of pledges, to act upon their own
opinions in many a critical division. Still, it has been well pointed
out that, with the flowing tide of reform there arose a new and
one-sided conception of statesmanship as consisting in progressive
amendment of the laws rather than in efficient administration, so that
it is now popularly regarded as a mark of weakness on the part of any
government to allow a session to pass without effecting some important
legislative change.[107]
[Pageheading: _CORONATION OF WILLIAM IV._]
The supreme interest of the reform bill and its incidents naturally
dwarfed all other political questions, and the legislative annals of
1831-32 are otherwise singularly devoid of historical importance. The
coronation of William IV., which, as has been seen, took place on
September 8, 1831, was hardly more than an interlude in the great
struggle, yet it served for the moment to assuage the animosities of
party warfare. The king himself, who disliked solemn ceremonials, and
the ministers, deeply pledged to economy, were inclined to dispense with
the pageant altogether. It was found, however, that not only peers and
court officials but the public would be grievously disappointed by the
omission of what, after all, is a solemn public celebration of the
compact between the sovereign and the nation. The coronation was,
therefore, carried out with due pomp and all the time-honoured
formalities, but without the profuse extravagance which attended the
enthronement of George IV. There was no public banquet, and the public
celebration ceased with the ceremony in Westminster Abbey. The Duke of
Wellington and other leading members of the opposition had been duly
consulted by the government; there was a welcome respite from
parliamentary warfare; the king's returning popularity was confirmed;
and all classes of the people were satisfied.
[Pageheading: _THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC._]
Two months later, the appearance of the cholera at Sunderland added
another grave cause of anxiety to all the difficulties created by the
defeat of the reform bill in the house of lords, and the ominous riots
at Bristol. A similar but distinct and infinitely milder disease had
long been known under the name of _cholera morbus_, or more correctly
_cholera nostras_. Asiatic cholera, as the new disease was called, had
no affinity with any other known disease, and excited all the greater
terror by its novelty, as well as by the suddenness of its fatal effect.
It was first observed by English physicians in 1817, when 10,000 persons
fell victims to it in the district of Jessor in Bengal. About the same
time it attacked and decimated the central division of the army of Lord
Hastings, advancing against Gwalior. Before long it spread over the
whole province of Bengal, and eastward along the coasts of Asia as far
as China and Timur in the East Indies, crossed the great wall, and
penetrated into Mongolia. In 1818 it broke out at Bombay, and during the
next twelve years continued to haunt, at intervals, the cities of Persia
and Asiatic Turkey, with the coasts of the Caspian Sea. It was not until
1829 that it reached the Russian province of Orenburg, by way of the
river Volga, visiting St. Petersburg and Archangel in June, 1830. Thence
it travelled slowly but steadily westward through Northern Europe, as
well as southward into the valleys of the Danube and its tributaries,
until it made its appearance at Berlin and Hamburg in the summer of
1831. Long before this, and while the reform crisis was in its acutest
stage, the probability of its advent was fully realised in England, and
orders in council were issued in June, 1831, placing in quarantine all
ships coming from the Baltic. Notwithstanding the outcry against
meddling with trade, men of war were appointed to enforce these orders,
and when the news came that Marshal Diebitsch had died of the disease in
Poland, the alarm increased and all regulations against plague were made
applicable to cholera. Whether or not these precautions were
ineffective, it swooped upon Sunderland on October 26, and prevailed
there for two months, though its true character was very unwillingly
recognised.[108]
The conflict between the newly created board of health and the merchants
importing goods caused the government no little perplexity. The protests
of the latter were strengthened by the somewhat remarkable fact that,
once established at Sunderland, the cholera seemed to be arrested in its
course and for a while spread no further. There seemed to be some ground
for the belief that it was partly due to extreme overcrowding and
neglect of all sanitary rules in that town, but this belief was soon
dissipated by its appearance at Newcastle and progress over the
north-eastern counties even during the winter months. Seven cases of it
occurred on the banks of the Thames just below London early in February,
1832, and though its virulence in England was alleged to be less than on
the continent, further experience hardly justified that opinion. The
appalling violence of its first onslaught on some vulnerable districts
may be illustrated by the example of Manchester, where a whole family
just arrived from an infected locality was swept away within twenty-four
hours. The government did its duty by disseminating instructions for its
prevention and treatment among the local authorities, but the prejudices
of the lower orders were against all interference for their benefit, and
scenes of brutality were sometimes enacted such as may still be
witnessed in oriental cities scourged by the plague. After a temporary
decline, the visitation recurred in all its severity, and in July the
deaths of a few persons in the highest circles occasioned a panic in the
west end of London. Still the declared number of deaths in the
metropolitan area was only 5,275, showing a far lower rate of mortality
in London than in Paris at the same time, and much lower than in London
itself during the epidemic of 1849, when statistics were more
trustworthy. None of the cholera epidemics, however, approached in
deadliness the plagues of 1625 and 1665. In the latter year the number
of deaths in London from plague alone represented about one-fifth of the
entire resident population--a proportion equivalent to a mortality of
above 200,000 in the London of 1831-32. This comparative immunity was
partly due to improved sanitation, the vigorous development of which may
be said to date from the first visitation of cholera.
The census taken in 1831 revealed an increase of population, which,
though not equal to that of the preceding decade, indicated a most
satisfactory growth of wealth and employment. It was found that Great
Britain contained about 16,500,000 inhabitants, but of these, as might
be expected, a smaller percentage was employed in agriculture and a
larger percentage in manufacturing industry than in 1821. It has been
calculated that since the end of the great war the accumulation of
capital had been twice as rapid as the multiplication of the people,
but, in spite of this, pauperism, as measured by poor law expenditure,
had increased almost continuously since 1823, and emigration received a
startling impulse in 1831-32. Rick burning and frame breaking were the
joint result of childish ignorance, miserable wages, mistaken taxes on
the staple of food, and poor laws administered as if for the very
purpose of encouraging improvidence and vice. All these causes were
capable of being removed or mitigated by legislation, for even the rate
of wages was kept down by the ruinous system of out-door relief. But it
was only a few thoughtful persons who then appreciated either the extent
or the real sources of the mischief, and the disputes which soon arose
about the proper remedies to be applied have been handed on to a later
age.
Next to parliamentary reform the state of Ireland was by far the most
important subject which engaged the attention of the legislature in
1831-32. The population had increased from 6,801,827 in 1821 to
7,767,401 in 1831, and the increase, unlike that in England, had been
almost exclusively in the agricultural districts. While the political
motive for multiplying small freeholds had ceased, the motives for
multiplying small tenancies were as strong as ever, and were felt by
landlords no less than by cottiers. This class, often inhabiting huts
like those of savage tribes and living in a squalor hardly to be seen
elsewhere in western Europe, chiefly depended for their subsistence on
potatoes--the most uncertain and the least nutritious of the crops used
for human food. Many hundred thousands of them had no employment in
their own country and no means of livelihood except the produce of the
scanty patches around their own turf cabins. Tens of thousands flocked
to England annually seeking harvest work, and a small number emigrated
to Canada or the United States, the passage money for an emigrant being
then almost prohibitive. Those who could not pay rent were liable to
eviction, and eviction was a more cruel fate then than now, since there
was no poor law in Ireland. Fever was rife in their miserable abodes,
following in the steps of hunger, and for relief of any kind they could
rely only on the mercy of their landlords or the charity of their
neighbours. Under such conditions of life crime and disaffection could
not but flourish, and the Irish peasant could hardly be blamed if he
listened eagerly to the counsels of O'Connell. For him catholic
emancipation had no meaning except so far as it gave him a hope that
parliament, swayed by the great Irish demagogue, would abolish tithes,
if not rent, and find some means of making Irishmen happy in their own
country.
[Pageheading: _ANGLESEY LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND._]
Had O'Connell been a true patriot, or even an honest politician, he
would have devoted his vast powers and influence to practical schemes
for the good of Ireland, and specially to a solution of the agrarian
question. Unhappily, smarting under a not unfounded sense of injustice,
when he was disabled from taking his seat for Clare, he threw his whole
energy into a new campaign for the repeal of the union, which occupied
the rest of his life. So far from acknowledging any gratitude to the
whigs, through whose support emancipation had been carried, he exhausted
all the resources of his scurrilous rhetoric upon them, lavishing the
epithets "base, brutal, and bloody," with something like Homeric
iteration. In December, 1830, Anglesey had returned to succeed the Duke
of Northumberland, and Stanley occupied the post of chief secretary, in
place of Hardinge. The ministers were privately advised to buy O'Connell
at any price, and it was intimated that he would not object to become a
law officer of the crown, or at least would not refuse a judicial
appointment. It may well be doubted whether the offer of such a bargain
to such a man could have been justified by success; it is more than
probable that it would have failed, and it is quite certain that failure
would have brought infinite discredit upon the government. At all events
the attempt was not made, and other catholic aspirants to legal
promotion were passed over with less excuse.
Lord Anglesey proved a resolute viceroy, and proclaimed the various
associations, meetings, and processions organised by O'Connell, with
little regard for his own popularity. O'Connell's policy, carried out
with the cunning of a skilful lawyer, was to obey the law in the letter,
but to break it almost defiantly in the spirit. At last, however, he
went a step too far by advising the people who had come for a prohibited
meeting to reassemble and hold it elsewhere. He was arrested on January
18, 1831, and pleaded "Not guilty," but on February 17, when his trial
came on, he allowed judgment to go by default against him on those
counts of the indictment which charged him with a statutable offence,
provided that other counts, which charged him with a conspiracy at
common law, should be withdrawn. The attorney-general assented, and the
case was adjourned until the first day in Easter term. Before that day
arrived, however, the reform bill had been introduced, and O'Connell had
made a powerful speech in support of it. In the desperate struggle which
ensued, the ministers shrunk from estranging so formidable an ally, a
further adjournment of the case was allowed, a sudden dissolution of
parliament took place, the act under which O'Connell was to be sentenced
expired with the parliament, and no further action was taken.
[Pageheading: _"TITHE-WAR" IN IRELAND._]
During the year 1831, the agitation for repeal which O'Connell had set
on foot, as soon as the emancipation act had been passed, was for a
while thrust into the shade by the fiercer agitation against tithes.
This agitation was connected, in theory, with the demand for the
abolition or reduction of the Irish Church establishment, but was, in
fact, entirely independent of that or any other constitutional movement.
It may seem inexplicable to political students of a later age that Irish
questions of secondary importance, and eminently capable of equitable
treatment, should have convulsed the whole island and disturbed the
whole course of imperial politics, during the reign of William IV. The
rebellion against tithes or "tithe-war," as it was called, had not the
semblance of justification in law or reason. Every tenant who took part
in it had inherited or acquired his farm, subject to payment of tithes,
and might have been charged a higher rent if he could have obtained it
tithe-free. The tithe was the property of the parson as much as the land
was the property of the landlord, and the wilful refusal of it was from
a legal point of view sheer robbery. On the other hand, the mode of
collection was extremely vexatious, perhaps involving the seizure of a
pig, a bag of meal, or a sack of potatoes; and a starving cottier,
paying fees to his own priest, was easily persuaded by demagogues that
it was an arbitrary tribute extorted by clerical tyrants of an alien
faith.
Thus it came to pass that the history of the Irish "tithe-war" exhibits
the Irish peasantry in their very worst moods, and it is stained with
atrocities never surpassed in later records of Irish agrarian
conspiracy. It is among the strange and sad anomalies of national
character that a people so kindly in their domestic relations, so little
prone to ordinary crime, and so amenable to better influences, should
have shown, in all ages, down to the very latest, a capacity for
dastardly inhumanity, under vindictive and gregarious impulses, only to
be matched by Spanish and Italian brigands among the races of modern
Europe. Yet so it is, and no "coercion" (so-called) ultimately enforced
by legal authority was comparable in severity with the coercion which
bloodthirsty miscreants ruthlessly applied to honest and peaceable
neighbours, only guilty of paying their lawful debts. It is not too much
to say that anarchy prevailed over a great part of Ireland, especially
of Leinster, during the years 1831 and 1832. The collection of tithes
became almost impossible. The tithe-proctors were tortured or murdered;
the few willing tithe-payers were cruelly maltreated or intimidated; the
police, unless mustered in large bodies, were held at bay; cattle were
driven, or, if seized and offered for sale, could find no purchasers;
and the protestant clergy, who had acted on the whole with great
forbearance, were reduced to extremities of privations. Five of the
police were shot dead on one occasion; on another, twelve who were
escorting a tithe-proctor were massacred in cold blood. A large number
of rioters were killed in encounters with the police, which sometimes
assumed the form of pitched battles and closely resembled civil war.
Special commissions were sent down into certain districts, and a few
executions took place, but in most cases Irish juries proved as
regardless of their oaths as they ever have on trials of prisoners for
popular crimes. O'Connell, and even Sheil, tacitly countenanced these
lawless proceedings, and openly palliated them in the house of commons.
The whig government, engaged in a life-and-death contest with the
English borough-mongers, hesitated to crush the Irish insurgents by
military force, or to initiate a sweeping reform of the Irish Church.
Early in 1832, however, committees of both houses reported in favour of
giving the clergy temporary relief out of public funds, and of
ultimately commuting tithes into a charge upon the land. A preliminary
bill for the former purpose was promptly carried by Stanley, and made
the government responsible for recovering the arrears. The committee,
pursuing their inquiries, produced fuller reports, and again recommended
a complete extinction of tithes in Ireland. But the method proposed and
embodied in three bills introduced by Stanley in the same year, was too
complicated to serve as a permanent settlement, and was denounced as
illusory by the Irish members. The first bill was, in fact, a compulsory
extension of acts already passed in 1822 and 1823, the former of which
had permitted the tithe-owner to lease the tithe to the landlord, while
the latter permitted the tithe-owner and tithe-payers of each parish to
arrange a composition. Unfortunately, the act of 1823 had provided that
the payment in commutation of tithe should be distributed over
grass-lands hitherto tithe-free in Ireland as well as over land hitherto
liable to tithe. The act was in consequence unpopular with a section of
farmers, while at the same time the bishops resented the commutation, as
likely to diminish the value of beneficies. But in spite of this
opposition the act of 1823 had been widely adopted. Stanley's bill to
render such commutations compulsory passed, but his other two bills,
providing a new ecclesiastical machinery for buying up tithes, were
abandoned at the end of the session. Of course the substitution of the
government for the clergyman as creditor in respect of arrears had no
soothing effect on the debtors. The reign of terror continued unabated,
and O'Connell contented himself with pointing out that without repeal
there could be no peace in Ireland. We may so far anticipate the
legislation of 1833 as to notice the inevitable failure of the
experiment which converted the government into a tithe-proctor. It was
then replaced by a new plan, under which the government abandoned all
processes under the existing law, advanced £1,000,000 to clear off all
arrears of tithe, and sought reimbursement by a land tax payable for a
period of five years.
[Pageheading: _EDUCATION IN IRELAND._]
It reflects credit on the unreformed house of commons that in its very
last session, harassed by the irreconcilable attitude of the catholic
population in Ireland, it should have found time and patience not only
for the pressing question of Irish tithes, but for the consideration of
a resolution introductory to an Irish poor law, of a bill (which became
law) for checking the abuses of Irish party processions, and of a grant
for a board to superintend the mixed education of Irish catholic and
protestant children. The discussion of Sadler's motion in favour of an
Irish poor law was somewhat academic, and produced a division among the
Irish members, O'Connell, with gross inconsistency, declaring himself
vehemently opposed to any such measure. The ministers professed
sympathy with its principle, but would not pledge themselves to deal
immediately with so difficult and complicated a subject, perhaps
foreseeing the necessity of radical change in the English poor law
system. The processions bill was vigorously resisted on behalf of the
Orangemen, as specially aimed at their annual demonstrations on July 12,
but it was so manifestly wise to remove every wanton aggravation of
party spirit in Ireland, that it was passed just before the prorogation.
The experiment of mixed education in Ireland had already been made with
partial success, first by individuals, and afterwards by an association
known as the Kildare Place Society. On the appointment of Dr. Whately to
the archbishopric of Dublin, it received a fresh impulse, and Stanley,
as chief secretary, definitely adopted the principle, recommended by two
commissions and two committees, of "a combined moral and literary and
separate religious instruction". A board of national education was
established in Dublin, composed of eminent Roman catholics as well as
protestants, to superintend all state-aided schools in which selections
from the Bible, approved by the board, were to be read on two days in
the week. Though provision was made for unrestricted biblical teaching,
out of school hours, on the other four days, protestant bigotry was
roused against the very idea of compromise. A shrewd observer remarked,
"While the whole system is crumbling to dust under their feet, while the
Church is prostrate, property of all kind threatened, and robbery,
murder, starvation, and agitation rioting over the land, these wise
legislators are debating whether the brats at school shall read the
whole Bible or only parts of it".[109] The opponents of the national
board failed to defeat the scheme in parliament, and it was justly
mentioned with satisfaction by the king in his prorogation speech of
August 16. But its benefits, though lasting, were seriously curtailed by
sectarian jealousy. Most of the protestant clergy frowned upon the
national schools, as the Roman catholic priesthood had frowned upon the
schools of the Kildare Place Society, and a noble opportunity of
mitigating religious strife in Ireland was to a great extent wasted.
Thus ended the eventful session of 1832.
FOOTNOTES:
[104] See Professor Dicey's observations on this clause, _Law and
Opinion in England_, p. 54, _n._
[105] Wellington, _Despatches, etc._, viii., 206; Parker, _Sir Robert
Peel_, ii., 207.
[106] Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii., 206.
[107] Goldwin Smith, _United Kingdom_, ii., 354; Dicey, _Law and Opinion
in England_, p. 85.
[108] C. Creighton, _History of Epidemics in Britain_, ii., 768, 793-97,
860-62.
[109] Greville, _Memoirs_ (March 9, 1832), ii., 267.