Among the great prime ministers of England Sir Robert Peel is to be
classed. He ranks with Pitt, Canning, and Gladstone for his intellectual
force, his services, and his patriotism. He was to England what Guizot
and Thiers were to France,--a pre-eminent statesman, identified with
great movements, learned, eloquent, and wise. He was a man of unsullied
character, commanding the respect and veneration of superior
minds,--reserved and cold, perhaps; not a popular idol like Fox and
O'Connell, but a leader of men.
There was no man in his cabinet more gifted or influential than he. Lord
Liverpool, Lord Melbourne, and Lord Aberdeen were placed in their
exalted posts, not for remarkable abilities, but by the force of
circumstances, for the purpose of uniting greater men than they in a
coalition in order to form a strong government. Thus, Canning really was
the master spirit in the cabinet of Lord Liverpool, as Lord Palmerston
was in that of Lord Aberdeen. Peel, however, was himself the controlling
intellect of the government of which he was the head, and was doubtless
superior in attainments and political genius to Wellington, to Earl
Grey, and Lord John Russell,--premiers like him, and prominent as
statesmen. Lord Goderich, Lord Stanley, Lord Althorp, Sir James Graham,
Mr. Goulburn, Lord Wharncliffe, Lord Howick, Earl Ripon, Mr. C. Wood,
Mr. Macaulay, Mr. Croker, were all very able ministers, but not to be
compared with Sir Robert Peel in shaping the destinies of the country.
His administration was an epoch in English political history, to be long
remembered as singularly successful and important.
Sir Robert Peel came from the people, although his father was a baronet
and a very wealthy man, proud and aristocratic as he was rich. His
riches were acquired by manufacturing cotton goods, like those of his
father before him, whose business he inherited; but the
great-grandfather of Sir Robert was a plain and unimportant cotton
spinner in Lancashire, of no social rank whatever. No noble blood flowed
in the veins of the great premier, nor was he ever ambitious of
aristocratic distinction. He declined an earldom, though rich enough to
maintain its rank. He accepted no higher social rank than what he
inherited, and which came from successful business.
But Peel was educated with great care by an ambitious father. He was
sent to Harrow and Christ Church, and was distinguished as a boy for his
classical attainments, as was Canning before him. At an early age he
reached all the honors that Oxford could bestow; and when he was only
twenty-one was brought into Parliament for the close borough of Cashel,
in Ireland, in the gift of some noble lord. He entered the House of
Commons in 1809, at the same time with Palmerston, and a few years
earlier than Lord John Russell, during that memorable period when
Napoleon was in the midst of his victories, and when a noble
constellation of English statesmen combined their energies for the good
of their country,--Wilberforce, Wyndham, Tierney, Perceval, Grattan,
Castlereagh, Canning, Romilly, Brougham, Mackintosh, Huskisson, and
others,--all trained in the school of Pitt, Fox, or Burke, who had
passed away. Among these great men Peel made his way, not so much by
force of original genius--blazing and kindling like the eloquence of
Canning and Brougham--as by assiduity in business, untiring industry,
and in speech lucidity of statement, close reasoning, and perfect
mastery of his subject in all its details. He was pre-eminently a man of
facts rather than theories. Like Canning and Gladstone, he was
ultra-conservative in his early political life,--probably in a great
measure from his father's example as well as from the force of his
university surroundings,--and, of course, joined the Tory party, then
all-powerful. So precocious were his attainments, and so promising was
he from the force of his character, that at the age of twenty-four he
was made, by Mr. Perceval, under-secretary for the Colonies; the year
after (in 1812) he was promoted, by Lord Liverpool, to the more
important post of secretary for Ireland. In the latter post he had to
combat Canning himself in the matter of Catholic emancipation, but did
his best to promote secular education in that priest-ridden and unhappy
country. For his High Church views and advocacy of Tory principles,
which he had been taught at Oxford, he was a favorite with the
university; and in 1817 he had the distinguished honor of representing
it in Parliament. In 1819 he made his financial reputation by advocating
a return to specie payments,--suspended in consequence of the Napoleonic
wars. In 1820 he was married to a daughter of General Sir John Floyd,
and his beautiful domestic life was enhanced by his love of art, of
science, of agriculture, and the society of eminent men. In 1822 he
entered Lord Liverpool's cabinet as home secretary; and when the
ministry was broken up in 1827, he refused to serve in the new
government under Canning, on account of the liberal views which the
premier entertained in reference to Catholic emancipation.
The necessity of this just measure Sir Robert Peel was made to feel
after Canning's death, during the administration of the Duke of
Wellington. Conservative as he was, and opposed to all agitations for
religious or political change even under the name of "reform," the fiery
eloquence of O'Connell and the menacing power of the Catholic
Association forced upon him the conviction of the necessity of Catholic
emancipation, as the cold reasoning of Richard Cobden afterward turned
him from a protectionist to a free-trader. He was essentially an honest
man, always open to reason and truth, learning wisdom from experience,
and growing more liberal as he advanced in years. He brought the Duke of
Wellington to his views in spite of that minister's inveterate
prejudices, and the Catholics of Ireland were emancipated as an act of
expediency and state necessity. Peel, although only home secretary under
Wellington, was the prominent member of the administration, and was
practically the leader of the House of Commons, in which character he
himself introduced the bill for Catholic relief. This great service was,
however, regarded by the ultra Tories as an act of apostasy, and Peel
incurred so much reproach from his former friends that he resigned his
seat as member for Oxford University, and accepted the constituency of
Westbury. During this administration, too, Sir Robert, as home
secretary, reorganized the police force of London (whence their popular
nicknames of "Peelers" and "Bobbies"), and performed other
important services.
In 1830 the Whigs came into power under Lord Grey, and for ten years,
with the brief interval of his first administration, Sir Robert Peel was
the most able leader of the opposition. In 1833 he accepted the
parliamentary membership for Tamworth, which he retained to the end of
his great career. He persistently opposed the Reform Bill in all its
stages; but when it was finally passed, he accepted it as unmistakably
the will of the nation, and even advocated many of the reforms which
grew out of it. In 1841 he again became prime minister, in an alarming
financial crisis; and it was his ability in extricating the nation from
financial difficulties that won for him general admiration.
Thus for thirty years he served in Parliament before he reached the
summit of political ambition,--half of which period he was a member of
the ministry, learning experience from successive administrations, and
forging the weapons by which he controlled the conservative party, until
his conversion to the doctrines of Cobden again exposed him to the
bitter wrath of the protectionists; but not until he had triumphantly
carried the repeal of the corn laws,--the most important and beneficent
act of legislation since the passage of the Reform Bill itself.
It was this great public service on which the fame of Sir Robert Peel
chiefly rests; but before we can present it according to its Historical
importance, we must briefly glance at the financial measures by which he
extricated his country from great embarrassments, and won public
confidence and esteem. He did for England what Alexander Hamilton did
for the United States in matters of finance, although as inferior to
Hamilton in original genius as he was superior to him in general
knowledge and purity of moral character. No one man can be everything,
even if the object of unbounded admiration. To every great man a
peculiar mission is given,--to one as lawgiver, to another as conqueror,
to a third as teacher, to a fourth as organizer and administrator; and
these missions, in their immense variety, constitute the life and soul
of history. Sir Robert Peel's mission was that of a financier and
political economist, which, next to that of warrior, brings the greatest
influence and fame in a commercial and manufacturing country like
England. Not for lofty sentiments, such as Burke uttered on the eve of
the French Revolution, are the highest rewards given in a material
country like that of our ancestors, but for the skill a man shows in
expounding the way in which a nation may become prosperous and rich. It
was Sir Robert Peel's mission to make England commercially prosperous,
even as it was that of Brougham and Russell to give it liberty and
political privileges, that of Pitt and Castlereagh to save it from
foreign conquest, and that of Wilberforce to rescue it from the disgrace
and infamy of negro slavery.
Sir Robert Peel came into power in 1841, the Russell Whig ministry
having failed to satisfy the country in regard to financial questions.
There had been an annual deficit, and the distress of both the
agricultural and manufacturing classes was alarming. The new premier
proceeded with caution in the adoption of measures to relieve the
burdens of the people and straighten out the finances, which were in
great disorder. His first measure had reference to the corn laws, for
the price of food in England was greater than in other European
countries. He finally proposed to the assembled Parliament, in 1842, to
make an essential alteration in the duties; and instead of a fixed duty
he introduced a sliding scale, by which the duty on corn should be
thirteen shillings a quarter[2] when the price was under sixty
shillings, increasing the duty in proportion as the price should fall,
and decreasing it as the price should rise,--so that when the price of
corn was under fifty shillings the duty should be fixed at twenty
shillings, and when the price was above seventy-three the duty should be
only a shilling a quarter. This plan, after animated discussion, was
approved; for although protection still was continued, the tendency of
the measure was towards free-trade, for which the reformers were
clamoring. Notwithstanding this measure, which was triumphantly carried
through both Houses, the prevailing distress continued, and the revenue
was steadily diminishing. To provide revenue, Peel introduced an income
tax of seven pence in the pound, to stand for three years; and to offset
that again lowered the import duties on domestic animals, dairy
products, other articles of food, and some drugs.
[Footnote 2: "The fourth of a ton in weight, or eight bushels of
grain."]
When Parliament assembled in 1843 the discussions centred on free-trade.
Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone and Sir James Graham admitted the
general soundness of the principles of free-trade, but felt that the
time had not yet come for their adoption, fearing an increased distress
among the agricultural population. At that time, and for a long period
before, the interests of agriculture were regarded as paramount, and
those of manufacturing secondary; but, as time passed, it was generally
felt that reduced taxes on all the necessities of life were imperative.
Fifty years earlier, England produced corn enough for all the wants of
the country; but with a population increasing at the rate of two hundred
thousand a year, it was obvious that the farmers could not supply the
demand. In consequence of which, at then existing tariffs, bread became
yearly still dearer, which bore hard on the manufacturing operatives.
The year 1844 opened under happier auspices. The financial measures of
the government had answered public expectations, and changed the growing
deficiency into an increasing surplus. Improvements in machinery had
increased the gains of the manufacturers; a war in India had been
terminated successfully, and England was at peace with all the world.
The only formidable troubles were in Ireland,--the standing difficulty
with all administrations, Conservative or Liberal, and which no
administration has ever been able to surmount. Sir Robert Peel had hoped
that the Catholic Emancipation Act would lead to the tranquillity of
Ireland. But that act did not content the Irish reformers. The fiercest
agitation was conducted by O'Connell for the repeal of the Union itself
and the restoration of the Irish parliament. At bottom, the demands of
the great agitator were not unreasonable, since he demanded equal
political privileges for both Ireland and England if the Union should
continue,--that, in short, there should be one law for both countries.
But since the ministry insisted on governing Ireland as a foreign and
conquered country, denying equality of rights, the agitation grew to
fearful proportions, chiefly in the shape of monster meetings. At last
the government determined on the prosecution of O'Connell and some
others for seditious conspiracy, and went so far as to strike off the
name of every Catholic on the jury which was to try him. The trial
lasted twenty-four days, and the prisoners were convicted. The hard and
unjust sentence on O'Connell himself was imprisonment for twelve months
and a fine of two thousand pounds. Against this decision an appeal was
made to the House of Lords, and the judgment of the court was reversed.
But the old man had already been imprisoned several weeks; his
condemnation and imprisonment had told on his rugged constitution. He
was nearly seventy years of age, and was worn out by excitement and
unparalleled labors; and although he tried to continue his patriotic
work, he soon after sickened, and in 1847 died on his way to Rome in
search of rest.
O'Connell's death did not end the agitations, which have continued from
that time to this with more or less asperity, and probably will continue
until justice shall be done to Ireland. It is plain that either Ireland
should be left free to legislate for herself, which would virtually be
the dismemberment of the empire; or should receive equal privileges with
the English; or should be coerced with an iron hand, which would
depopulate the country. It would seem that Ireland, if it is to form
part of the empire,--not as a colony, but an integral part, like the
different States of the American Union,--should be governed by the same
laws that England has, and enjoy the same representation of its
population. Probably there never will be order or tranquillity in the
island until it shall receive that justice which the prejudices of the
English will not permit them at present to grant,--so slow are all
reforms which have to contend with bigotry, ignorance, and selfishness.
The chain which binds nations and communities together must be a chain
of love, without reference to differences in color, religion, or race.
In the session of 1844 the factory question occupied a large share of
public attention. Lord Ashley, whose philanthropic aims commanded great
respect, contended for a limitation of the hours of labor. The ministry
insisted upon twelve hours; but Lord Ashley carried his measure, with
some amendments, the government being brought over to the side of
humanity. The result was that the working-hours of children under
thirteen was limited to six and a half hours, and the amount of fines
imposed for a violation of the laws was lowered; while a provision was
made for the instruction of children employed in the mills of three
hours in summer, and two and a half in the winter.
The confidence in the government showed itself in the rise of public
securities, so that it became practicable to reduce the interest on
consols (the consolidated government debt) from three and a half to
three percent, by which a saving accrued to the country of £1,250,000,
indicating general prosperity. The income increased with the revival of
trade and commerce, and the customs alone increased to nearly
£2,500,000, chiefly from duties on tea and sugar, which increasing
prosperity enabled the poorer classes to use more freely. The surplus of
the revenue amounted to over £4,000,000 sterling, owing largely to the
income tax, which now the ministers proposed to reduce. The charter of
the Bank of England was renewed in a form which modified the whole
banking system in England. The banking business of the Bank was placed
on the same footing with other institutions as to its power of issuing
notes, which beyond a certain amount should depend on the amount of
bullion in the Bank. Substantially, this was the same principle which
Daniel Webster advocated in the United States Senate,--that all
bank-notes should be redeemable in gold and silver; in other words, that
a specie basis is the only sound principle, whether in banking
operations or in government securities, for the amount of notes issued.
This tended to great stability in the financial world, as the Bank of
England, although a private joint-stock association, has from its
foundation in 1694 been practically the fiscal agent of the
government,--having the management of the public debt, paying dividends
upon it, holding the government moneys, making advances when necessary,
helping the collection of the public revenue, and being the central bank
of the other banks.
In addition to the financial measures by which Sir Robert Peel increased
the revenues of the country, and gave to it a greater degree of material
prosperity than it had enjoyed during the century, he attempted to
soothe the Catholics of Ireland by increasing the grant to the Roman
Catholic College of Maynooth, in Ireland; indeed, he changed the annual
grant to a permanent endowment, but only through a fierce opposition. He
trebled the grant for national education, and exhibited increasing
liberality of mind as he gained experience. But his great exploit was
the repeal of the corn laws, in a Parliament where more than three
quarters of the members represented agricultural districts, and were
naturally on the side of a protection of their own interests. In order
to appreciate more clearly the magnitude of this movement, we must trace
it from the beginning.
The centre of agitation for free-trade, especially in breadstuff's, was
Manchester,--the second city of the kingdom for wealth, population, and
influence, taking in the surrounding towns,--a very uninteresting place
to the tourist and traveller; dingy, smoky, and rainy, without imposing
architecture or beautiful streets; but a town of great intellectual
activity in all matters pertaining to industrial enterprise and
economical science,--the head centre of unpoetical materialism, where
most of the well-to-do people dined at one o'clock.
As soon as this town was permitted to send members to Parliament it
selected eminent free-traders,--Poulett Thomson and Mark Phillips,--who
distinguished themselves for the fearlessness of their speeches on an
unpopular subject. The agitation in Parliament had begun in 1836, at a
period of great depression in all kinds of business and consequent
suffering among the poor; but neither London nor the House of Commons
was so favorable to the agitation of the principles of free-trade as
Manchester was, and the subject began to be discussed throughout the
country. An unknown man by the name of Poulton was the first to gain
attention by his popular harangues; and he was soon followed by Richard
Cobden,--a successful calico printer.
An Anti-Corn-Law Association was started by these pioneers, and £1,800
were raised by small subscriptions to enlighten the people on the
principles of free-trade, when protection was the settled policy of the
government. The Association was soon after reinforced by John Bright, an
exceedingly brilliant popular orator, who was rich enough to devote a
large part of his time to the spread of his opinions. Between him and
Cobden a friendship and cordial co-operation sprang up, which lasted to
the death of the latter. They were convinced that the cause which they
had so much at heart could be effectually advanced only by the widest
dissemination of its principles by public meetings, by tracts and by
lectures. It was their aim to change public opinion, for all efforts
would be in vain unless the people--and especially their leaders--were
enlightened on the principles they advocated. They had faith in the
ultimate triumph of these principles because they believed them to be
true. From simple faith in the power of truth they headed the most
tremendous agitation known in England since the passage of the Reform
Bill. It was their mission to show conclusively to all intelligent
people that it was for the interest of the country to abolish the corn
laws, and that the manufacturing classes would be the most signally
benefited. To effect this purpose it was necessary to raise a large sum
of money; and the friends and advocates of the movement most liberally
subscribed to circulate the millions of tracts and newspapers which the
Association scattered into every hamlet and private family in England,
besides the members personally giving their time and effort in public
speeches and lectures in all parts of the country. "It was felt that the
battle of free-trade must be fought first by the conversion of
individuals, then at the hustings, and lastly in the House of Commons."
The principle of protecting the country against the importation of
foreign breadstuffs was upheld as fostering the agricultural interests,
as inciting the larger cultivation of poor lands, as providing against
dangerous dependence on foreign countries, and as helping the large
landowners and their tenants to patronize manufactures and trade; so
that, although the high prices of breadstuffs were keeping vast numbers
of people in misery and the country on the edge of revolution, the
protectionist doctrine was believed in religiously by the laboring
classes, the small shopkeepers, nearly all the educated classes, and a
large majority of the members of Parliament.
To combat this unshaken traditional belief was a gigantic undertaking.
It was the battle of reason and truth against prejudice and
bigotry,--the battle of a new enlightenment of general interests against
the selfishness of unenlightened classes. While Villiers and Thomson
appealed to members in the House of Commons, Cobden and Bright with
still greater eloquence directly addressed the people in the largest
halls that could be found. In 1838 Cobden persuaded the Chamber of
Commerce in Manchester to petition Parliament for a repeal of the duties
on corn. In 1839, the agitation spreading, petitions went up from
various parts of the country bearing two million signatures. The motion
to repeal, however, was lost by a large majority in the Commons. Then
began the organization of Free-Trade Leagues. In 1841 a meeting in
Manchester was held, at which were present seven hundred nonconformist
ministers, so effectually had conversions been made among intelligent
men. Nor did the accession of the conservative Sir Robert Peel to power
discourage the agitators, for in the same year (1841) Cobden was sent to
Parliament. Meetings were still more frequently held in all the towns of
the kingdom, A bazaar held in favor of the cause in the Theatre Royal,
Manchester, in 1842, produced a clear profit of £10,000. In 1843 the
great Free-Trade Hall was opened in Manchester, built expressly for
public meetings for the anti corn-law agitation, and the sum of £150,000
was raised by private subscription to disseminate knowledge. At last,
recognizing with keen instinct the inevitable turn in public opinion,
the "Times" came out with a leading article of great power, showing a
change of views on the subject of protection. Great noblemen, one after
another, joined the League, and the Marquis of Westminster contributed
£500 to the cause.
The free-trade movement was now recognized as a great fact which it was
folly to ignore. Encouraged by the constant accession to the ranks of
reform, the leaders of the League turned their attention to the
registration of voters, by which many spurious claims for seats were
annulled, and new members of Parliament were chosen to advocate
free-trade. At last, in 1846, Sir Robert Peel himself, after having been
for nearly his whole career a protectionist, gave in his adhesion to the
new principles. Cobden, among others, had convinced him that the
prosperity of the country depended on free-trade, and he nobly made his
recantation, to the intense disgust of many of his former
followers,--especially of Disraeli, who now appears in Parliament as a
leader of the protectionists.
This brilliant man, who in 1837, at the age of thirty-two, took his seat
in Parliament, had made no impression in that body for several years;
but having learned from early failures his weak points, and by careful
study of the successes of others trained himself to an effective style
of parliamentary speech, he became, at the critical time of Peel's
change of front, the representative of Shrewsbury, and gradually
organized about himself the dissatisfaction and indignation of the
landed proprietors with Sir Robert Peel's concessions to the free-trade
movement. His strictures on Peel were severe, caustic, and bitter.
"What," said this eloquent speaker, "shall we think of the eminent
statesman, who, having served under four sovereigns, who, having been
called to steer the ship on so many occasions and under such perilous
circumstances, has only during the last three or four years found it
necessary entirely to change his convictions on that most important
topic, which must have presented itself for more than a quarter of a
century to his consideration? I must, sir, say that such a minister may
be conscientious, but he is unfortunate.... It is all very well for the
right honorable gentleman to come forward and say, 'I am thinking of
posterity; my aim is heroic; and, appealing to posterity, I care neither
for your cheers nor for your taunts,' It is very well for the right
honorable gentleman to take this high-flying course, but I can but say
that my conception of a great statesman is one who represents a great
idea,--I do not care whether he is a manufacturer or a manufacturer's
son. I care not what may be the position of a man who never originates
an idea,--a watcher of the atmosphere,--a man who, as he says, 'takes
his observations,' and when he finds the wind in a certain quarter trims
his sails to suit it. Such a man may be a powerful minister, but he is
no more a great statesman than a man who gets up behind a carriage is a
great whip."
All this tirade was very unjust,--though it pleased the
protectionists,--for Sir Robert Peel was great enough to listen to
arguments and reason, and give up his old sentiments when he found them
untenable, even if he broke up his party. His country was greater in
his eyes than any party.
As prime minister, Peel then unfolded his plans. He announced his
intention to abandon the sliding scale entirely, and gradually reduce
the duty on corn and other articles of necessity so that at the end of
three or four years the duty would be taken off altogether. This plan
did not fully satisfy the League, who argued for immediate repeal.
Indeed, there was a necessity. The poor harvests in England and the
potato-rot in Ireland were producing the most fearful and painful
results. A large part of the laboring population was starving. Never
before had there been greater distress. On the 2d of March, 1846, the
ministerial plan had to go through the ordeal of a free-trade attack.
Mr. Villiers proposed an amendment that would result in the immediate
and total repeal of the corn laws. Nevertheless, the original bill
passed the Commons by a majority of ninety-eight.
It was at once carried to the House of Lords, where it encountered, as
was expected, the fiercest opposition, no less than fifty-three lords
taking part in the discussion. The Duke of Wellington, seeing that the
corn laws were doomed, and that further opposition would only aggravate
the public distress, supported the bill, as did Lord Aberdeen and other
strong conservatives, and it was finally carried by a majority of
forty-seven.
Before the bill for the virtual repeal of the corn laws was passed by
the House of Lords, the administration of Sir Robert Peel abruptly
closed. An Irish coercion bill had been introduced by the government,
not very wisely, even while the corn bill was under discussion by the
Commons. The bill was of course opposed by the Irish followers of
O'Connell, and by many of the Liberal party. The radical members, led by
Cobden and Bright, were sure to oppose it. The protectionists, full of
wrath, and seeing their opportunity to overthrow the government, joined
the Liberals and the Irish members, and this coalition threw out the
bill by a majority of seventy-three. The government of course resigned.
Nor was the premier loath to throw off his burdens amid calumny and
reproach. He cheerfully retired to private life. He concluded the
address on his resignation, after having paid a magnificent tribute to
Cobden--by whose perseverance, energy, honesty of conviction, and
unadorned eloquence the great corn-law reform had been thus far
advanced--in these words: "In quitting power, I shall leave a name
severely blamed, I fear, by many men, who, without personal interest but
only with a view of the public good, will bitterly deplore the rupture
of party ties, from a belief that fidelity to party engagements and the
maintenance of great parties are powerful and essential means of
government. [I fear also] that I shall be blamed by others who, without
personal interest, adhere to the principles of protection, which they
regard as necessary to the prospects of the country; that I shall leave
a name detested by all monopolists, who, from less honorable motives,
claim a protection by which they largely profit. But I shall perhaps
leave a name which will sometimes be pronounced by expressions of
good-will by those whose lot in this world is to labor, who in the sweat
of their brow eat their daily bread; and who may remember me when they
renew their strength by food at once abundant and untaxed, and which
will be the better relished because no longer embittered by any feeling
of injustice." He then resumed his seat amidst the loudest applause from
all sides of the House; and when he left Westminster Hall, leaning on
the arm of Sir George Clark, a vast multitude filled the street, and
with uncovered heads accompanied him in respectful silence to the door
of his house.
Sir Robert Peel continued to attend the meetings of Parliament as an
independent member, making no factious opposition, and giving his
support to every measure he approved,--more as a sage than a partisan,
having in view mainly the good of the country whose government he no
longer led.
It was soon after Peel's retirement from office that O'Connell, too,
made his last speech in the House of Commons, not as formerly in
trumpet tones, but with enfeebled voice. "I am afraid," said the
fainting athlete, "that the House is not sufficiently aware of the
extent of the misery in Ireland. I do not think that members understand
the accumulated miseries under which the people are at present
suffering. It has been estimated that five thousand adults and ten
thousand children have already perished with famine, and that
twenty-five per cent of the whole population will perish, unless the
House will afford effective relief. I assure the House most solemnly
that I am not exaggerating; I can establish all that I have said by many
and painful proofs. And the necessary result must be typhus fever, which
in fact has already broken out, and is desolating whole districts; it
leaves alive only one in ten of those whom it attacks." This appeal
doubtless had its effect in demonstrating the absolute need of a repeal
of the corn laws. But it is as the "liberator" of the Roman Catholic
population of Ireland in the great emancipation struggle,--triumphantly
concluded as early as 1829,--and the incessant labors after that for the
enlargement of Irish conditions, that O'Connell will be remembered.
"Honor, glory, and eternal gratitude," exclaimed Lacordaire, "to the man
who collected in his powerful hand the scattered elements of justice and
deliverance, and who, pushing them to their logical conclusions with a
vigorous patience which thirty years could not exhaust, at last poured
on his country the unhoped-for delight of liberty of conscience, and
thus deserved not only the title of Liberator of his Country but the
oecumenical title of Liberator of his Church."
O'Connell, Cobden, and Sir Robert Peel,--what great names in the history
of England in the agitating period between the passage of the Reform
Bill and that of the repeal of the corn laws! I could add other
illustrious names,--especially those of Brougham and Lord John Russell;
but the sun of glory around the name of the first was dimmed after his
lord chancellorship, while that of the latter was yet to blaze more
brightly when he assumed the premiership on the retirement of his great
predecessor, with such able assistants as Lord Palmerston, Earl Grey,
Macaulay, and others. These men, as Whigs, carried out more fully the
liberal and economic measures which Sir Robert Peel had inaugurated amid
a storm of wrath from his former supporters, reminding one of the fury
and disappointment of the higher and wealthy classes when Mr.
Gladstone--a still bolder reformer, although nursed and cradled in the
tenets of monopolists--introduced his measures for the relief
of Ireland.
During the administration of Sir Robert Peel there was another agitation
which at one time threatened serious consequences, but as it came to
nothing it has not the historical importance of the Anti-Corn-Law
League. It was a fanatical uprising of the lower classes to obtain still
greater political privileges, led by extreme radicals, of whom Mr.
Feargus O'Connor was the most prominent leader, and Mr. Henry Vincent
was the most popular speaker. The centre of this movement was not
Manchester, but Birmingham. The operatives of Manchester wanted cheaper
bread; those of Birmingham wanted an extension of the franchise: and as
Lord John Russell had opposed the re-opening of the reform question, the
radicals were both disappointed and infuriated. The original leaders of
parliamentary reform had no sympathy with such a rabble as now clamored
for extended reform. They demanded universal suffrage, annual
Parliaments, vote by ballot, abolition of property qualifications,
payment of members of Parliament, and the division of the country into
equal electoral districts. These were the six points of the people's
charter,--not absurd to the eyes of Americans, but utterly out of the
question in such an aristocratic country as England, and advocated only
by the working-classes and their incendiary leaders. Discontent and
misery were the chief causes of the movement, which was managed without
ability. The agitation began in 1836 and continued to 1848. At first the
government allowed it, so far as it was confined to meetings, speeches,
and the circulation of tracts,--knowing full well that, as it made no
appeal to the influential and intelligent classes, it would soon expend
itself. I was lecturing at the time in Birmingham, and the movement
excited contempt rather than alarm among the people I met. I heard
Vincent two or three times in his chapel,--for I believe he was educated
as a dissenting minister of some sort,--but his eloquence made no
impression upon me; it was clever and fluent enough, but shallow and
frothy. At last he was foolishly arrested by the government, who had
really nothing to fear from him, and imprisoned at Newport in Wales.
In England reforms have been effected only by appeals to reason and
intelligence, and not by violence. Infuriated mobs, successful in France
in overturning governments and thrones, have been easily repressed in
England with comparatively little bloodshed; for power has ever been
lodged in the hands of the upper and middle classes, intolerant of
threatened violence. In England, since the time of Cromwell, revolutions
have been bloodless; and reforms have been gradual,--to meet pressing
necessities, or to remove glaring injustice and wrongs, never to
introduce an impractical equality or to realize visionary theories. And
they have ever been effected through Parliament. All popular agitations
have failed unless they have appealed to reason and right.
Thus the People's Charter movement, beginning about 1838, was a signal
failure, because from the practical side it involved no great principles
of political economy, nothing that enriches a nation; and from the side
of popular rights it was premature, crude, and represented no
intelligent desire on the part of the people. It was a movement nursed
in discontent, and carried on with bitterness and illegal violence. It
was wild, visionary, and bitter from the start, and arose at a period
when the English people were in economic distress, and when all Europe
was convulsed with insurrectionary uprisings, and revolutionary
principles were mixed up with socialism and anarchy. The Chartist
agitation continued with meetings and riots and national conventions
until 1848, when the Revolution in France gave a great impulse to it.
At last some danger was apprehended from the monster meetings and
inflammatory speeches of the Chartists, and government resolved to
suppress the whole movement by the strong arm. The police force
throughout the kingdom was strengthened, and one hundred and seventy
thousand special constables were sworn in, while extensive military
preparations were intrusted to the Duke of Wellington. The Chartists,
overrating their strength, held a great meeting on Kensington Common,
and sent a petition of more than five millions of names to the House of
Commons; but instead of half a million who were expected to assemble on
the Common with guns and pikes, only a few thousand dared to meet, and
the petition itself was discovered to be forged, chiefly with fictitious
names. It was a battle on the part of the agitators without ball
cartridges, in which nothing was to be seen but smoke. Ridicule and
contempt overwhelmed the leaders, and the movement collapsed.
Although the charter failed to become law, the enfranchisement of the
people has been gradually enlarged by Parliament in true deliberate
English fashion, as we shall see in future lectures. Perhaps the
Chartist movement may have ripped up the old sod and prepared the soil
for the later peaceful growth; but in itself it accomplished nothing for
which it was undertaken.
The repeal of the corn laws in 1846 was followed, as was the Reform Bill
of 1832, by a series of other reforms of a similar kind,--all in the
direction of free-trade, which from that time has continued to be the
established principle of English legislation on all the great
necessities of life. Scarcely had Lord John Russell in 1846 taken the
helm of state, when the duties on sugar were abolished, no
discrimination being shown between sugar raised in the British colony of
Jamaica and that which was raised in Cuba and other parts of the world.
The navigation laws, which prohibited the importation of goods except
in British ships, or ships which belonged to the country where the goods
were produced, were repealed or greatly modified. The whole colonial
system was also revised, especially in Canada; and sanitary measures
were taken to prevent disease in all the large towns of the country.
In the midst of these various reforms, which the government under Lord
John Russell prosecuted with great zeal and ability, and by which a
marked improvement took place in the condition of the people, Sir Robert
Peel was thrown from his horse in London, June 29, 1850, and survived
but a few days. His accidental death created universal lamentation, for
everybody felt that a great national loss had occurred. In spite of the
bitterness of the monopolists, disappointed in their gains, no death was
ever more seriously and universally lamented in England. Other statesmen
blazed upon their contemporaries with more brilliant original genius
than Peel, but no one ever had more force of character than he, or was
more respected for his candor, truthfulness, and patriotism. If he had
not the divination to originate, he showed transcendent ability in
appropriating and making his own the worthy conceptions of others. He
was among those few statesmen who are willing to renounce the dearest
opinions of youth and the prejudices of manhood when convinced of their
unsoundness.
Peel was a great administrator and a great debater. His character was
austere, his temperament was cold, his manners were awkward and shy; he
was chary in the bestowal of pensions and rewards; and by reason of his
rather unsympathetic nature he never was a favorite with artists and
literary men. It was his conviction that literary men were not
sufficiently practical to be intrusted with political office. Hence he
refused to make Monckton Milnes an under-secretary of state. When
Gladstone published his book on Church and State, being then a young
man, it is said that Peel threw it contemptuously on the floor,
exclaiming, "What a pity it is that so able a man should injure his
political prospects by writing such trash!" Nor was Peel sufficiently
passionate to become a great orator like O'Connell or Mirabeau; and yet
he was a great man, and the nation was ultimately grateful for the
services he rendered to his country and to civilization. Had his useful
and practical life been prolonged, he probably would again have taken
the helm of state. He was always equal to the occasion; but no occasion
was sufficiently great to give him the _éclat_ which Pitt enjoyed in the
wars of Napoleon. Under the administration of Peel the country was at
peace, and no such internal dangers threatened it as those which marked
the passage of the Reform Bill.
Sir Robert Peel was one of the most successful ministers that England
ever had. Certainly no minister was ever more venerated than he; and
even the Duke of Wellington did nothing without his advice and
co-operation. In fact, he led the ministry of the duke as Canning did
that of the Earl of Liverpool; and had he been less shy and reserved, he
would not have passed as so proud a man, and would have been more
popular. There is no trait of character in a great man less understood
than what we call pride, which often is not pride at all, but excessive
shyness and reserve, based on sensitiveness and caution rather than
self-exaggeration and egotism.
Few statesmen have done more than Peel to advance the material interests
of the people; yet he never was a popular idol, and his history fails to
kindle the enthusiasm with which we study the political career of Pitt
or Canning or Disraeli or Gladstone. He was regarded as a great
potentate rather than as a great genius; and he loved to make his power
felt irrespective of praise or censure from literary men, to whom he was
civil enough, but whose society he did not court. Politics were the
element in which he lived, and politicians were his chief associates
outside the family circle, which he adorned. And yet when distinguished
merit in the Church or in the field of literature was brought to his
notice, he was ready to reward it.
As a proof of the growing fame of Sir Robert Peel, no less than three
biographies of him have lately been issued from the Press. Such, after a
lapse of forty years, indicates the lasting reputation he has won as a
statesman; but as a statesman only. He filled no other sphere. He was
not a lawyer like Brougham; not a novelist like Beaconsfield; not a
historian like Macaulay; not an essayist and reviewer like Gladstone. He
was contented to be a great parliamentary leader alone.