REACTION AND REFORM.
1815-1832.
The great struggle was now over, and a new period had commenced, in
which European wars were to be as rare as they had of late been common,
for between 1815 and 1848 there was no serious strife between any of
the powers of Western and Central Europe, and the general peace was
only interrupted by comparatively unimportant broils in the Balkan
peninsula and in Spain.
England, whose troops were not destined to fire another shot in Europe
for forty years, had full leisure to look around her and count up the
cost of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. The table of profit and
loss was not at first sight a very cheerful one. The weight of debt and
taxation was obvious to every man, while the compensating advantages,
resulting from the firm establishment of our naval and commercial
supremacy in all the seas of the world, were only just beginning to
make themselves felt. The country and its governors were at the same
time beginning to feel very uneasy at a silent change in the social
life of England.
[Sidenote: =The industrial revolution.=]
For, noticeable as were the years 1793-1815 for the display of
England's vigour abroad, they were even more remarkable for the social
change which was taking place within. In those twenty-three years
was consummated the transformation of England from an agricultural
to a manufacturing community, a transformation the stranger because
agriculture was being all the time artificially stimulated, by laws for
the protection of the English farmer against foreign competition. So
the change in the general character of the English state was due not
to a decay in agriculture, but solely to an increase in manufactures.
The war which, as Napoleon had trusted, would crush our industries,
had only fostered them, by putting us beyond the reach of foreign
competition, and throwing open to us alone every market and line of
trade outside Europe. For instead of our prosperity being checked by
the loss of our continental trade, continental prosperity had been
checked by the loss of all maritime traffic with Asia and America,
which passed entirely into our hands.
[Sidenote: =English manufacturing supremacy.=]
England, therefore, had become the manufacturer of the goods of the
whole world, not merely owing to her monopoly of trade, but owing to
the improved machinery, and methods of transit which she adopted long
before the rest of Europe. She obtained such a start in the use of
the means of industrial production, that no state has yet been able
to catch her up in the race of commerce. Hence England was at the end
of the war able to bear a weight of taxation and debt which must have
ruined her in its earlier years. Nine hundred millions of National
Debt, though a tremendous burden, turned out not to be, as many had
feared, a ruinously heavy infliction. The forced paper currency, whose
introduction in 1797 had appeared to mark a step on the downward
road to national bankruptcy, was successfully taken off a few years
after the war ended. The great army and navy which had been draining
our exchequer were disbanded, when they had finished their duty of
protecting us against the threatened invasions of the Revolution and
the Empire, and had afterwards played the decisive part in exhausting
Napoleon's resources, by that long struggle in the Spanish peninsula,
which encouraged the rest of Europe to throw off the French yoke.
[Sidenote: =Poverty and discontent of the labouring classes.=]
But there were other aspects in which the results of the war had been
less happy for England. If the increase of wealth had been enormous,
the method of that wealth's distribution was not satisfactory. The
new masses of population, which had been called into existence by the
development of manufactures, were poor with a poverty which had been
unknown in the days when England was still mainly an agricultural
country. The introduction of improved machinery, great as was its
ultimate benefit, caused during the years of transition much misery
to the classes whose industry was superseded by it. While English
manufactures were driving out foreign competition all over the
world, English mobs were often wrecking the machinery which made
these manufactures possible, in their rage at the ruin of the old
handicrafts. Actual famine seemed several times during the war to
be staring the lower classes in the face, for the largely increased
population could no longer be supported on the food supply of England.
Nevertheless, in their zeal to encourage English agriculture, the Tory
governments of the early years of the century refused to allow the
free introduction of the foreign corn which was really necessary for
the increased consumption of the population. And while wheat was dear,
because limited in quantity, owing to Protection, the agricultural
classes were not being enriched in the manner which might have been
expected. The enhanced profit passed entirely to the farmer and the
landlord, not to the labouring population; and at the same moment at
which the artisan was breaking machinery, the agricultural labourer
was burning his employer's ricks. This unfortunate state of things,
however, was due rather to misguided legislation than to any actual
danger in the economic conditions of England, and could therefore be
relieved by methods which cannot come into play when a real and not a
fictitious crisis in the internal state of a country is at hand.
[Sidenote: =Poor Law administration.=]
The main cause of the degradation of the agricultural labourer in the
early years of the nineteenth century was a series of unwise Poor-Laws,
which had been passed at intervals since 1795. There had been much
local distress in the early years of the revolutionary war, and to
alleviate it many parishes had commenced a system of indiscriminate
doles of money to poor residents, without much inquiry whether the
recipients were deserving or idle, able-bodied or impotent. The
old test of compelling paupers to enter the workhouse was entirely
forgotten, and money was given to every one who chose to ask for it.
Moreover, the rule was laid down that the larger the family, the more
was it to draw from the rates in its weekly subsidy. This unwise scheme
at once led to the evil of reckless marriages and enormous families,
for the labourers saw that the more their children increased, the
larger would be their dole from the parish.
[Sidenote: =The farmers and the Poor Law.=]
But not the labourer only was to draw profit from the new Poor Laws.
The farmers began to see that if they kept down the wages of their
men, the parish could be trusted to make up the deficiency. It thus
became easy for them to pay starvation-wages to the labourers, and then
force the local rates to support them with a subsidy just sufficient to
keep each family out of the workhouse. Thus the agricultural classes
began to live, not on their natural wages, but on a pittance from
their employer, supplemented by a weekly-grant from the parish. This
suited the farmers well enough, but was ruinous to every one else, for
well-nigh every labourer was forced to ask for local aid, and thereby
to become a pauper. At the same time the rapid growth of population
caused the burden on the parish to advance by leaps and bounds. At last
the poor-rate became an intolerable drain on the resources of the less
wealthy districts. A well-known case is quoted in Buckinghamshire,
where the annual dole to the paupers grew till it actually exceeded
the annual rating of the parish. And as long as every one who chose
was able to demand outdoor relief, it was impossible to see where the
trouble would end. In the years after the great war had ended actual
bankruptcy seemed to be threatening scores of parishes, yet corn was
high in price, and the profits of farming, if fairly distributed,
ought to have sufficed to keep both landowner, farmer, and labourer in
comfort.
In considering the political history of England in the years after
1815, this abject distress of the working class, both in town and in
countryside, must be continually borne in mind. It was the discontent
of the ignorant multitude, feeling its poverty but not understanding
its cause, and ready to seek any scheme of redress, wise or unwise,
that was at the bottom of the political trouble of the time. The
discontent was really social, the result of unwise laws, and wrong
conceptions of political economy. But it often took shape in political
forms, and the government of the day thought that it heralded the
approach of a catastrophe like the French Revolution.
[Sidenote: =Reactionary policy of the Tories.=]
Unfortunately for the prosperity of England, its rulers were at this
moment committed to a stern and reactionary policy, and would listen
to no proposals for change or reform of any kind. The generation of
Tories who had grown up during the great French war, had forgotten the
old liberal doctrines of their great leader Pitt. Of all the ministers,
George Canning was almost the only one who remembered his old master's
teaching, and was ready to think of introducing reforms, now that peace
had once more been obtained. The majority of his colleagues, especially
the premier, the narrow-minded Earl of Liverpool, and the harsh and
unbending Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, set their faces against
any change in the constitution, however small.
[Sidenote: =Renewed popularity of the Whigs.=]
Now the Tories had merited well of their country by carrying the war
to a successful close, but when the war was over, it was time to be
thinking of some way of alleviating the social ills which had been
accumulating during its course. This they refused to do, quoting the
fate of Lewis XVI. as the sample of what happens to rulers who yield
one inch to the pressure of mob violence. They were still firm in
office, for the Whig party had not yet recovered from the discredit
which they had won from the hopeless failure of the Fox-Grenville
cabinet of 1806-1807. But now that their ideas on foreign policy could
do no harm, they began to be viewed with more favourable eyes. The ten
years which followed the battle of Waterloo were marked by the gradual
passing over of the great middle class to the Whig party. It was felt
that the only hope for the introduction of any scheme of social and
political reform lay with the Whigs, and that from them alone could
England obtain the liberal measures which Pitt would have granted years
ago, if the French Revolution had not intervened.
But the Whigs were still in a hopeless minority in Parliament, though
they were gradually growing stronger in the ranks of the nation. It was
not till fifteen years had elapsed since the end of the great war, that
a Whig ministry once more received the seals of office.
[Sidenote: =Projects of reform.--Attitude of the Tories.=]
The general discontent of the lower classes in the years 1815-20
found vent in two very different ways. The wilder spirits talked of
general insurrection, and an assault not only on the government but
on all forms of property and all established institutions. A few
mischievous demagogues set themselves to fan these rash and ignorant
aspirations into a flame, and to bring about anarchy in order thereby
to rid the nation of the existing social evils. The cooler and wiser
heads were not influenced by these wild notions, but pinned their
faith to the modification of the constitution in the direction of
popular government. It was their belief that matters would improve the
moment that England was governed _by_ the people and _for_ the people.
And this end could only be secured by reform of the real governing
body--the House of Commons. The idea of making the House truly
representative of the nation had been one of Pitt's cherished plans;
in 1785 he had actually brought forward a bill for doing away with the
worst of the rotten boroughs, but had failed, owing to the factious
opposition of the Whigs. But Pitt's successors at the head of the Tory
party had contrived to forget his teaching; they owed much of their
strength to the support of the great borough-mongers, and they now
refused to take any measures tending to Parliamentary Reform. At the
bottom of their hearts they did not trust the masses, and feared that a
House of Commons really representing the nation would proceed to wild
measures of radical reform, and sweep away all the institutions that
they held dear.
[Sidenote: =The Whigs and reform.--Lord Grey.=]
Hence it came to pass that the Whigs alone supported the idea of
Parliamentary Reform in the early years of the nineteenth century,
and the multitudes who saw in that measure the panacea of all ills
were bound to follow them. All the old chiefs of the Whigs were now
gone: Fox had died in 1806; Sheridan in 1816; Grenville had retired
from public life, and the party was now led by Charles Lord Grey,
a very capable and moderate man, who fully shared the notion that
Parliamentary Reform was the one pressing question of the day, but was
careful not to go beyond the bounds of wisdom and law in pressing for
it.
[Sidenote: =The royal family and the succession.=]
The Whigs got no help from their old friend the Prince of Wales; since
he had obtained the regency in 1811 owing to his father's insanity,
George had thrown himself into the hands of the Tories. Personally
he disliked all reforms--for the person in England who most needed
reforming was himself. He was now a man of fifty-five, but age had not
improved him; to the last he was as false, vicious, and selfish as in
his youth. For many years his quarrels with his foolish and flighty
wife, Caroline of Brunswick, had been a public scandal. She was an
intolerably vain and silly woman, but the provocation which he gave her
would have driven a wiser head into rebellion. But George's health was
weak, owing to his evil life, and it was hoped by many that he would
not survive his aged father. At his death the crown would fall to his
only daughter, the Princess Charlotte, an amiable and high-spirited
young woman of whom all spoke well. But the princess, having married
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg in 1816, died in childbirth before the next
year was out, to the general grief of the nation. The next heir was
Frederick, Duke of York, but as he--though married--had no children and
was no stronger in health than his elder brother, it was clear that
the crown would not stay long with him. Therefore all the younger sons
of George III. hurried into wedlock in 1818, that their father's line
might not be extinguished. William, Duke of Clarence, who afterwards
reigned as William IV., married Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen; Edward,
Duke of Kent, was wedded to Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, and became by her
the father of our present queen; Adolphus of Cambridge and Ernest of
Cumberland also took wives and had issue, who are still among us.
[Sidenote: =The Government and the agitation.=]
The last days of the reign of George III. were full of trouble and
disorder, provoked rather than repressed by the obstinate rigour
with which Lord Liverpool's government put down all agitations, both
harmless and dangerous. Some of the riots and risings of the years
1816-20 were remarkable for the violence and for the wild aims of those
who led them. In December, 1816, a body of revolutionary enthusiasts,
who called themselves "Spencean Philanthropists," raised a tumult in
Spa fields, and tried to seize the Tower, to distribute arms from
its arsenals among the mob. But they were as weak as they were wild,
for though they shot one man dead, Lord Mayor Wood and a handful
of constables turned them back in front of the Royal Exchange and
dispersed them. In June, 1817, there was another rising near Derby, but
five hundred armed rioters allowed themselves to be stopped and routed
by eighteen hussars.
[Sidenote: =The Manchester massacre.=]
But the most celebrated riot of the time was that at Manchester in
August, 1819; a great mob of 30,000 persons had assembled in St.
Peter's Field to listen to addresses by a demagogue named Hunt. The
magistrates attempted to arrest him, but being prevented from reaching
him by the enormous crowd, rashly and cruelly ordered a regiment
of cavalry to charge the unarmed multitude. There was no resistance
made, but some four or five persons were crushed to death, and sixty
or seventy injured, as they trod each other down in escaping from
the horsemen. This event was called the "Manchester massacre" by the
enemies of the government, who were made responsible for it because
they commended the violent action of the magistrates.
[Sidenote: =The Cato Street conspiracy.=]
It was with the object of revenging the Manchester massacre that a
bloodthirsty demagogue, named Arthur Thistlewood, one of the "Spencean
Philanthropists" of 1816, formed a plot for murdering the whole
cabinet. Hearing that the ministers were about to dine together on
February 23, 1820, he collected a band of twenty-five desperadoes
who vowed to slay them all. But one of the gang betrayed the scheme,
and Thistlewood and his men were seized by the police, as they were
arming at their trysting-place in Cato Street, Edgware Road. They
resisted fiercely, and blood was shed on both sides, ere they were
overpowered. Thistlewood and four of his associates were hung and then
beheaded--being the last persons who suffered by the axe in England,
for the horrid sight of their decapitation moved public opinion to
demand the abolition of this ancient punishment of criminals guilty of
treason.
Even after the mad Cato Street conspiracy had shocked all the wiser
friends of reform, there were isolated outbreaks of rioting all over
the north of England and the Scottish Lowlands, the last being a
skirmish at Bonnymuir, near Glasgow, between some Lanarkshire mill
hands and the local yeomanry (April, 1820).
[Sidenote: =The Six Acts.=]
The government dealt very harshly with all who gave it trouble, not
merely with dangerous rioters, but with writers or speakers who did no
more than protest against reactionary legislation or advocate radical
reform. Their chief weapons against their enemies were the celebrated
"Six Acts" of 1819, which Addington[56] and Castlereagh, the sternest
members of the cabinet, had elaborated with much care. They imposed the
heaviest penalties not only on persons caught drilling, or using arms,
or engaging in riots, but on all who wrote what the government chose to
consider seditious libels--a term that covered any newspaper article
or pamphlet which abused themselves.
[Sidenote: =George IV. and Queen Caroline.=]
Repression was in full swing when the old king died, in the tenth year
since he had gone mad (January 29, 1820). The prince-regent now began
to rule as George IV., but his accession made no practical difference
in politics. His conduct, however, soon gave his subjects one more
additional reason for despising him. He brought his long quarrel with
his foolish and reckless wife to a head, by refusing to acknowledge
her as queen or allow her to be crowned. He accused her of adultery,
and made Lord Liverpool bring in a "Bill of Pains and Penalties"
to enable him to divorce her. George's life had been such that his
attack on Queen Caroline, for conduct much less blameworthy than his
own, provoked universal contempt and dislike. Lord Liverpool withdrew
his bill in a panic, when all London was in an uproar in the queen's
favour. More trouble would undoubtedly have followed if the unhappy
Caroline had not died in August, 1821. Her funeral was the occasion of
a bloody riot.
[Sidenote: =Addington resigns.--Suicide of Castlereagh.=]
The abortive bill against the queen had added the last straw to the
unpopularity of the ministry--the best-hated cabinet that England has
ever known. They felt the fact themselves: Addington resigned in 1821,
and Castlereagh, the most harsh and unbending of them all, was so worn
out by the stress of his responsibilities and the knowledge of the
detestation in which he was held, that he cut his own throat in a fit
of temporary insanity in September, 1822.
[Sidenote: =The Liverpool-Canning Ministry.=]
Lord Liverpool was helpless when deprived of the two men who had
been the chief instigators of his reactionary measures. Abandoning
his old policy, he took into partnership George Canning, the chief
of the moderate Tories and the wisest disciple of Pitt. Canning took
Castlereagh's place as Foreign Secretary, while Addington's place as
Home Secretary was given to Robert Peel, a rising young politician
with a turn for political economy and an open mind--a very different
person from his case-hardened predecessor in the post. Shortly after,
Huskisson, the first Free-Trader who had presided over our commercial
policy since the younger Pitt, was made President of the Board of
Trade.
[Sidenote: =Social tranquillity restored.=]
Thus the character of the Liverpool cabinet was completely changed, and
for the last four years of its existence it dropped its old repressive
measures, and became quite liberal in its legislation. The country
at once began to grow quiet, and the old riots and risings ceased.
The gradual growth of prosperity in the land, now that the effects
of the great war were passing away, alleviated the violence of the
social discontent. But there was a sense of impending change; the
immediate domestic question was the removal of religious disabilities,
but beyond this lay the questions of parliamentary and municipal
reform, of freedom of trade, of simplifying law and legal procedure,
and especially of humanizing the criminal law. Strange to say, the
treatment of the Catholic claims to be represented in Parliament was
regarded as an open question in Lord Liverpool's cabinet. Canning was
in favour of the admission of the Catholics. Peel was their strenuous
opponent.
[Sidenote: =Reform of the criminal law.=]
The rule of the Liverpool-Canning ministry was distinguished by the
abolition of many old and oppressive laws, and the introduction of
several reforms of great value. In 1823 Peel began the reform of the
criminal law, and the reduction of that tangled mass, with its ghastly
list of capital offences, to a shape more consistent with scientific
order and common humanity. The old system, a monstrous survival
from the Middle Ages, had worked very badly--for juries refused to
convict persons who were clearly guilty, because they thought the
offence did not deserve the fearful penalty of death. The abolition
of capital punishment for so many minor offences put an end to this
state of things, and in future the proportion of criminals escaping was
marvellously reduced.
[Sidenote: =Huskisson's Free Trade policy.=]
In the province of trade and finance several valuable improvements
were introduced by the influence of Huskisson. The old "Navigation
Laws," dating from the time of Cromwell,[57] which impeded free trade
with foreign countries, were abolished. The wise policy of reducing
import duties on the raw materials needed for English manufactures was
adopted, so that the cost of goods was perceptibly lowered, without
any harm to the makers of them. Commercial treaties were concluded
with several foreign powers, to the great benefit of both parties
concerned. A considerable relief was given to the Exchequer by reducing
the interest of the many loans raised during the great war from 5 or 4
per cent. to 3-1/2. Huskisson had also in hand measures for reducing
the duty on the importation of foreign corn, and for the abolition of
slavery in the British colonies, but before they could be carried out
the unhappy death of Canning in 1827 broke up the ministry.
[Sidenote: =The Holy Alliance.--Canning's foreign policy.=]
A word is needed as to the foreign policy of England. The main
characteristic of European history from 1815 to 1830 was the renewed
despotism of the continental monarchs, when the fear of Bonaparte had
vanished from their minds. The Emperors of Austria and Russia and the
King of Prussia had formed a league called the "Holy Alliance," for the
putting down of liberal opinions and demands for popular government
in their own and their neighbours' dominions. The restored Bourbon
monarchy in France was equally narrow and reactionary. Not content with
crushing liberty in their own realms, the Austrians invaded Naples
and the French Spain, when the kings of those countries had been
forced to grant constitutional government to their subjects. In each
case the constitution was abolished and despotic rule restored. While
Castlereagh was guiding the Foreign Office, the English ministry had
refused to interfere with these continental troubles, and had allowed
the members of the Holy Alliance to do what they pleased with their
smaller neighbours. Canning's advent to power changed this policy. He
protected Portugal from an invasion by the French and Spaniards, allied
in the cause of despotism, and recognized the independence of the
revolted Spanish colonies in America, "calling," as he said, "the New
World into existence to redress the balance of the Old."
[Sidenote: =The Greek insurrection.--Battle of Navarino.=]
But the sympathy of Canning, and of all men of generous mind in
England, was most deeply stirred by the Greek insurrection against
the grinding tyranny of the Turks, which had commenced in 1821, and
had been struggling on, accompanied by all manner of atrocities and
massacres, for six years. The resurrection of the ancient people of
Hellas stirred all the memories of the past, and called forth much
enthusiasm in England. Many English volunteers hastened to the East
to aid the insurgents: Lord Cochrane took command of their fleet, and
General Church headed some of their land forces. Even Lord Byron, the
poet, roused himself from his mis-spent life of luxury in Italy, and
went out to offer his sword and fortune to a people rightly struggling
to be free. His death from marsh-fever at Missolonghi caused him to
be looked on as the martyr of liberty, and gave England yet a further
interest in the cause that he had championed. When the Turks failed
to put down the rising, in spite of all their massacres, the Sultan
called in the aid of his vassal Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, who
landed his well-trained army in the Peloponnesus and overran half the
peninsula. Canning then induced the Russian and French governments,
who had their own private ends to serve, to join him in interfering,
and an English fleet was sent out to the coast of Greece. When the
Egyptian troops refused to quit the Peloponnesus, and the atrocities
continued, Sir Edward Codrington, the English admiral, aided by a few
French and Russian ships, sailed into the bay of Navarino--the ancient
Pylos--where the Turkish and Egyptian fleets lay, and destroyed them
all save a few vessels. In this he had exceeded his instructions,
but he saved the independence of Greece, and English public opinion
ratified his action (Oct. 20, 1827).
[Sidenote: =Death of Canning.=]
But ere Navarino had been fought, a new ministry was in power in
England. Lord Liverpool had been stricken by paralysis in February,
1827, and Canning, as was natural, became prime minister. But the
weakness of his position was soon apparent. Many Tories who opposed the
Catholic claims deserted him; the Whigs would not join him; the strain
of responsibility told fatally on his health, and he died on August 8,
after less than five months' tenure of the premiership. The ministry
which he had formed continued for a few months, under the leadership of
the weak and fussy Lord Goderich, who found himself unable to manage
Canning's motley following, and was forced to resign before the meeting
of Parliament.
[Sidenote: =Wellington and the Greek insurgents.=]
The king then proposed that a strong head should be found for the
ministry, in the person of a man universally respected and owning a
splendid reputation for loyalty and stern sense of duty--the Duke of
Wellington, the hero of the Peninsular War. The suggestion was an
unhappy one, for Wellington had little political knowledge, had never
managed Parliament, and was full of honest but obstinate prejudices. He
was, however, made prime minister, and troubles soon began to follow.
Almost the first utterance of the duke was to stigmatise the victory
of Navarino as "an untoward event"--which gave great offence, for most
men looked upon it as a righteous blow against tyranny and oppression.
He refused to continue Canning's efforts in favour of Greece, and that
country ultimately obtained her freedom from the not very disinterested
hands of Russia. For in 1828 Czar Nicholas attacked the Turks, sent his
armies across the Balkans, and imposed peace on Sultan Mahmoud, helping
himself to a large slice of Ottoman territory in Asia at the same time
that he stipulated for the recognition of Greek independence.
[Sidenote: =Wellington as prime minister.=]
Though the most upright and conscientious of men, Wellington proved
a very unsatisfactory prime minister. His main fault was precisely
the one that would least have been expected from an old soldier--a
tendency to flinch from his resolves and engagements when he found
that public opinion was set against him. Personally he was a Tory of
the old school: for popular cries and magnificent programmes he had a
rooted distrust, which he had picked up in the Peninsula, while dealing
with the bombastic and incapable statesmen who led the liberal party
in the Spanish Cortes. But, on the other hand, he had seen so much of
the horrors of civil war, that he had imbibed a great dread of making
himself responsible for any measure that might split the nation into
hostile camps and cause domestic strife. These two conflicting impulses
acted on his mind in strange and often abrupt alternations. He was
always making reactionary declarations, and then receding from them
when he found they were unpopular.
At first it seemed likely that he was about to make himself the
mouthpiece of the stern and unbending Tories of the school of
Castlereagh. Before he had been three months in office he had dismissed
Huskisson, and the other disciples of Canning followed Huskisson into
retirement.
[Sidenote: =Catholic Emancipation.--Daniel O'Connell.=]
But very soon he disappointed his more fanatical followers. In the
summer of 1828 he was confronted with a great national agitation in
Ireland. Since the Union, that country had been in its normal condition
of unrest, but the main grievance which Irish agitators mooted was the
non-fulfilment of the promise of Catholic Emancipation which Pitt had
made in 1800, when he united the two Parliaments. The demand that the
majority of the nation should be granted equality of political rights
with the minority was obviously just, yet not only Irish Orangemen
but English Tories had a violent prejudice against Romanism. It was
evident that Emancipation would not be conceded without a struggle. But
the Irish at this moment were headed by the adroit and capable Daniel
O'Connell, a wealthy squire of old family, a platform orator of great
power and pathos, and a skilful party leader, but vain, scurrilous, and
noisy. He founded an "Association," the prototype of the Land Leagues
and National Leagues of our own day, to forward the Catholic claims.
He filled the land with monster public meetings, and frightened the
champions of Protestant ascendency by vague threats of civil war. To
his great credit he kept his followers from crime, a feat which his
successors have not always accomplished. His power was shown by his
triumphant return to Parliament, in defiance of the law, for County
Clare. Under the influence of their priests, the Irish farmers had
broken away from their old subservience to the great landlords, and
placed themselves at O'Connell's disposal.
[Sidenote: =Wellington concedes Emancipation to the Catholics.=]
Wellington was by birth an Anglo-Irish Protestant, and he detested
Romanism, but he detested civil war still more. When O'Connell's
agitation grew formidable, and the old Tories urged him to repress
it by force, he refused. At last his mind was made up to grant
Emancipation. His own words explain his mental attitude, "I have passed
a longer period of my life in war than most men, and principally in
civil war, and I must say this, that if I could avert by any sacrifice
even one month's civil war in the country to which I am attached,
I would give my life to do it." In the spring of 1829 Wellington
announced his intention of granting complete equality of civil rights
to all Romanists. Many of his followers called him a weathercock and
a turncoat, while the vicious old king pretended--in imitation of his
father's action in 1801--that his conscience forbade him to violate his
coronation oath. But Wellington carried his Emancipation bill with the
aid of Whig support, and against the votes of all the narrower Tories.
The king swallowed his scruples with cowardly haste, and the Act was
made law (April 14, 1829). O'Connell and some scores of his followers,
his "Tail" as the English called them, entered Parliament and allied
themselves to the Whigs.
[Sidenote: =The Reform agitation renewed.=]
The Emancipation question being moved out of the way, the topic
of Parliamentary Reform came once more to the front as the great
difficulty of the day. When the Whigs began to moot it again, they
found the time favourable, for the Wellington ministry was grown very
weak. The duke had expelled the moderate Tories from his cabinet in
1828, he had angered the old Tories by his concession to the Romanists
in 1829, and could no longer command the loyalty of either section of
his party.
[Sidenote: =Europe in 1830.=]
The agitation for the reform of the Commons began to become formidable
in the stormy year 1830. Unrest was in the air, and all over the world
popular risings were rife. In July the French rose in arms, dethroned
their dull and despotic king, Charles X., and replaced him by his
popular cousin Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans. The Poles raised an
insurrection against the tyranny of Czar Nicholas. There were troubles
in Italy and Germany, and open war in Belgium and Portugal; everywhere
the partisans of the Holy Alliance and the old régime were being
assailed by riot and insurrection. It was natural that England should
feel the influence of this wave of discontent.
[Sidenote: =Accession of William IV.=]
In the midst of the year King George died, worn out by his evil living
(June 26, 1830). He was succeeded by his third brother, William Duke
of Clarence, for Frederick of York, the second son of George III.,
had died in 1827. The new king was an eccentric but good-natured old
sailor. He was simple, patriotic, and kindly, and carried into all his
doings something of the breezy geniality of his old profession. But his
elevation almost turned his brain, and in the first months of his reign
he was guilty of a dozen absurd actions and speeches which made men
fear for his sanity. "It is a good sovereign," punned a contemporary
wit, "but it is a little cracked." The best feature in William was
that he was not a party man; he acted all through his reign as a
constitutional monarch should, and his personal popularity did much to
make the crisis of the reform agitation of 1830-1832 pass off without
harm.
[Sidenote: =Fall of Wellington's ministry.=]
The fall of Wellington's ministry followed very closely on the
accession of the new king. A general election in the autumn of 1830 was
fatal to the duke's majority in the Commons. The old Tories refused to
interest themselves in his fate, and would not work for him, while the
Whigs made a great effort and swept off almost all the seats in which
election was really free and open. No less than sixty out of eighty-two
county seats in England were captured by them. Parliament reassembled
on November 2, and on November 15 Wellington was beaten by a majority
of twenty-nine in the Lower House and promptly resigned.
[Sidenote: =The Whigs return to office.=]
William IV. immediately took the proper constitutional step of
sending for the leader of the opposition, Lord Grey. After an
absence of twenty-three years from power the Whigs once more crossed
to the treasury bench and took over the management of the realm.
Their long exile from office had made them better at criticism
than administration, and they found it hard to settle down into
harness--more especially as some of the new ministry were wanting in
restraint and gravity, notably the Lord Chancellor Brougham, one of
the most versatile and able, but also one of the most eccentric and
volatile men who has ever sat on the woolsack. But the cabinet was much
strengthened by the adhesion of two of the Canningite Tories, Lord
Melbourne and Lord Palmerston, who became respectively Secretary for
Ireland and Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
The Whigs at once took in hand the chief item of their programme,
Parliamentary Reform, though O'Connell was doing his best to bring
another topic to the front by agitating for Home Rule, or "Repeal" as
it was then called, and was enlisting all Catholic Ireland in a league
for that end.
[Sidenote: =The Peers throw out the Reform Bill.=]
In March, 1831, Lord John Russell, a young member of one of the
greatest Whig houses, and the great-grandson of the Bedford who was
minister in 1763, brought forward his famous Reform Bill, which
disfranchised most of the rotten boroughs, and distributed their
seats among the large towns and the more populous counties. Owing to
differences of opinion among the Whigs themselves as to the exact
shape it should assume, the bill never reached its third reading in
the Commons. The ministry then dissolved Parliament, in order to get
a clear verdict from the constituencies on the Reform question. They
came back to Westminster with a magnificent majority of 136. Lord John
Russell again introduced his bill, which passed all its readings with
ease, but was rejected by the Tory majority in the House of Lords on
October 8, 1831.
[Sidenote: =Violent demonstrations against the Peers.=]
This rash action of the peers brought about such a quarrel between
the two Houses as has never been seen before or since, and nearly
wrecked the old order of the English constitution. For the peers had
never before dared to cross such a crushing majority as the Whigs then
possessed in the Commons, backed by the public opinion of the nation.
Riotous demonstrations in favour of Reform burst out all over the
country, often accompanied by violence. At Bristol there was a wild
rising, ending in the burning and pillaging of many buildings, public
and private. In London a "National Union" of reformers was formed to
bring pressure to bear on the Lords. At Birmingham a local Radical
named Attwood formed an association of 200,000 members, who swore to
march on London and use force if their cry of "The Bill, the whole
Bill, and nothing but the Bill," was denied.
Strengthened by these demonstrations of popular sympathy, the ministers
brought in their bill for the third time, and again sent it up to the
Lords. The Upper House was seriously frightened by the turmoil in the
country, and allowed the bill to pass its second reading. But the more
fanatical Tories made a final rally and mutilated the bill in committee
by postponing the clauses which disfranchised the rotten boroughs (May
7, 1832).
[Sidenote: =Wellington refuses to take office.=]
This brought England within a measurable distance of civil war.
The ministry resigned, throwing on the king and the Lords the
responsibility for anything that might occur. King William, in strict
constitutional form, asked the Duke of Wellington to form a Tory
cabinet. The duke unwillingly essayed the task; but the feeling of the
majority of the Tories was so strongly in favour of leaving to the
Whigs the responsibility of facing the crisis, that the duke threw up
the cards, and acknowledged his inability to form a ministry. This was
fortunate, for the Radicals had been organizing armed multitudes, and
threatened open insurrection. But the eventful ten days during which
war was in the air passed over, and the Grey cabinet came back to power.
[Sidenote: =The Reform Bill carried.=]
In the end of May the bill was sent up to the Lords for the third time.
The king promised Lord Grey that if the bill was again rejected, he
would create enough new Whig peers to carry it against any opposition.
The House of Lords was made aware of this promise, and, to avoid
forcing the king to this extremity, Wellington and one hundred Tory
peers solemnly left their seats, and allowed the Act to pass by a
considerable majority (June 4, 1832).
[Sidenote: =The redistribution of seats.=]
The details of the measure in its final shape deserve a word of notice.
It disfranchised all the absolutely rotten boroughs, _i.e._ all places
with less than 2000 inhabitants--which were no less than 56 in number.
It took away one member each from 30 boroughs more, which had more than
2000 but less than 4000 residents. This gave 143 seats for distribution
among the unrepresented or under-represented districts. Of these 65
were given to the counties and 78 to new boroughs. In the former case
the county was broken up into two or more divisions, each returning two
members. In the latter, five London boroughs[58] and twenty-two large
places (such as Birmingham and Manchester) received two members each,
while twenty-one considerable towns of the second rank got one member
each.
[Sidenote: =The new borough and county franchise.=]
At the same time the franchise was made regular all over England.
Previously it had varied in the most arbitrary fashion; some towns had
practically manhood suffrage; in others the corporation had been the
only electors. Now, in the boroughs, the power to vote was given to all
resident occupiers of premises of £10 yearly value--so that all the
shopkeeping class and the wealthier artisans got the franchise, but
not the poorer inhabitants. In the counties freeholders, copyholders,
and holders of leases for 60 years to the annual value of £10, with
occupiers paying a yearly rent of £50, were enfranchised. Thus the
farmers and yeomen ruled the poll, and the agricultural labourers had
no voice in the matter. The franchise in Ireland was assimilated to
that in England, thus depriving of their power the £2 householders who
had hitherto been allowed to vote in that country. In Scotland, on
the other hand, the rule was slightly more liberal than in England, as
occupiers of £10 farms were given the franchise, instead of £50 being
left as the limit.
Thus the United Kingdom acquired its first representative Parliament.
But the new body was as yet representative of the middle classes alone;
it was thought, wisely enough, that the agricultural labourers and the
town poor were as yet unfit to be electors. For thirty years no serious
attempt to extend the limits of the franchise was made, and fifty
were to elapse before simple household suffrage in town and county
alike was to be made the rule. Meanwhile, the first Reform Bill amply
justified itself, and gave England two generations of quiet and orderly
government.
FOOTNOTES:
[56] Addington had been created Lord Sidmouth long before this, but to
avoid confusion his better-known name is still used.
[57] See page 409.
[58] Lambeth, Greenwich, Marylebone, Finsbury, Tower Hamlets.