Part 78

The last renewal of the Bank charter had been in 1800; since then events of the greatest importance with regard to currency and credit had taken place,--the resumption of cash payments at the close of the war, and the great commercial crisis of 1825 and 1826. It was felt that the system of the Bank required close examination, and in May 1832 a very influential committee had been appointed to examine it preparatory to the renewal of the charter, which came to an end in August 1833. Upon the information gained by this committee the ministerial propositions were based. On the whole it appeared clear that a single bank of issue was better than several competing banks. The Bank was therefore to retain its monopoly. The principle of the Directors, that a third of the value of their obligations should be kept in hand in specie, was considered sound; but that the public might in future have control of the issue of notes, the Bank was required to publish a weekly account of its notes and deposits, and a quarterly average showing its general condition. No other bank of more than six partners, within sixty-five miles of London, was to be allowed to issue paper, while notes of the Bank of England and its branches were made legal tender, except at the bank from which they were issued. It was hoped by this means that country banks, being able to meet their demands with bank notes, would be saved from the necessity of making large and rapid demands upon the Bank of England, and thus dangerously lessening the supply of gold. The whole sum due from the Government to the Bank, and from which that institution derived its great credit, was fourteen millions. This was regarded as too much; it was to be reduced to eleven millions, twenty-five per cent., being at once repaid to the Bank, while to balance its advantages the Bank was to receive £120,000 a year less than hitherto for the management of the National Debt. On these terms the charter was to be renewed for twenty-one years, but with an option allowed to Government for breaking it off on a year's notice after eleven years. The two points which met with the greatest opposition were the terms which the Government had made with the Bank and the compulsory currency given to bank notes. On the first of these points it seemed almost unanimously felt that the Bank had made too good a bargain; on the second it was hastily urged by many that it was a partial resumption of the inconvertible currency. It was shown without much difficulty that this was not the case, as the Bank of England was bound ultimately to meet its liabilities in gold; but even Sir Robert Peel objected to the measure, avowing his fear that it would cause a depreciation of the paper. Experience has proved that this fear was groundless, and although the arrangements with the Bank had subsequently to be somewhat modified, the Bill passed, and was a distinct advantage.

[Sidenote: Settlement of the East India Company. July.]

But, if it had been thought well to continue the monopoly of the great banking corporation in England, the whole force of the commercial feeling of the time set directly against the perpetuation of the monopoly of the East India Company. The necessity for corporate trading had disappeared. The restrictions it laid upon free trade had become only so many obstacles in the way of extended commerce. Already, in 1813, this had been so clearly felt that the merchants of the great trading centres, Liverpool, Glasgow, Paisley, and Manchester, had succeeded in procuring the admission of traders to the territories of the Company, and to India generally, but the corporation still retained the trade with China. The accounts of the Company after this renewal of its charter rendered it plain that it could not compete with private merchants. It seemed clear that in China, as in India, the destruction of the monopoly would extend commerce. It was therefore determined to destroy the Company as a commercial body, allowing it to keep its territorial position. After April 1834 its commercial property was to be sold. It was, however, to retain the government of India, and to receive for forty years an annuity from the Indian revenue of £630,000, at the close of which period Parliament might redeem it by the payment of £12,000,000. It was further arranged that all restrictions in the way of the settlement of Europeans in the East should be removed, that natives and Europeans should have equal opportunities of employment and office, and should be under one law. The Bill was vehemently opposed by Lord Ellenborough, but was carried by large majorities, and proved to be the means of opening, in accordance with the principles of free trade, an enormous market for English commerce, so that in ten years the Chinese trade had doubled, and British exports to India and Ceylon had increased from two to six millions.

[Sidenote: Emancipation of the slaves. Aug.]

[Sidenote: Condition of trade in the West India Islands.]

But the most important measure of the session was the Bill which was passed on the 30th of August for the emancipation of the slaves. The abolitionists had been successful in 1807 in putting an end to the traffic in slaves, but though raised in value and lessened in number, by means of smuggling and of the natural increase of the race the supply of human cattle had been kept up and slavery had continued. The Resolutions of 1823 had aimed at the gradual extinction of slavery, at alleviating its worst horrors, and raising the slaves to a fitting condition to receive freedom; but they had practically been inoperative: not only had they been continually thwarted by the planters, but the discovery that they had rights, and that those rights were acknowledged, caused a very natural uneasiness among the slaves, and had added greatly to the difficulties under which the planters laboured. Their position was constantly becoming worse. Injudicious protection had been afforded to sugar, their chief production. Enormous duties had been laid on it, with a preference always to the West Indian and slave-grown article. During the war the monopoly of production had fallen chiefly into their hands. They had been able to make enormous profits. As a consequence, just as in the case of corn in England, the cultivation of the sugar-cane had been carried on in the most reckless fashion. Plantations were temporarily occupied only to be exhausted or sold at a heavy loss, and fresh land taken in. In the midst of this false prosperity, a wasteful expenditure and a total want of economy, the natural consequences of easily-gotten wealth, had become prevalent; the planters as a body had become deeply involved. The cessation of the war had admitted other competitors to the market. The commercial crisis in England had seriously affected the planters' credit, and just as the greatest efforts would have been necessary to restore them at all to their old state of prosperity, their supply of slaves was diminished, it became more difficult to work their exhausted land, and the Resolutions of 1823, and subsequent orders in Council, made the employment of slave labour, which economists had long known to be really an extravagant form of labour, more and more difficult. These evils were naturally attributed to the abolitionists in England and to the Government which had even partially listened to them. As long as the unreformed Parliament existed, the West Indian interest was very strong in the House, and the planters, who believed that with some help from England, and with the management of the slaves left in their own hands, they might yet retrieve their position, were not without hopes. The accession of the Grey ministry was a heavy blow to them, for a large section of the supporters of the Government were almost as anxious for the abolition of slavery as for the passage of the Reform Bill, and it was impossible that a ministry of which Lord Brougham was the Chancellor, who had owed his last election chiefly to the abolitionists' votes, should postpone the settlement of the question long.

[Sidenote: Opposition of the planters to the orders in Council. 1831.]

The conduct of the planters forced on the crisis. A new series of orders in Council was issued in 1831 for the better and more merciful management of the slaves, for the limitation of the hours of labour, and for the establishment of official slave-overseers. All the colonies except the Crown colonies, where but little difficulty was met with, resented highly this interference with what they considered their rights and property. The language of their assemblies became disrespectful and almost rebellious. In Trinidad it was determined to stop the payment of taxes till the order was repealed, while on the other side the slaves in Jamaica burst into open rebellion, producing a loss estimated at £1,000,000. In April 1831, a great meeting in London declared that Government was liable for these losses, and claims were sent in to the Colonial Secretary for damages caused by the measures pursued by his Majesty's ministers. It was a sort of declaration of war, which was brought to a point when, on the 17th of April, Lord Harewood presented a petition from the West India interest begging for a full inquiry into the laws, usages, and condition of the West Indian colonies, and the possible future improvements, with due regard always to the rights of private property. This was in the very heat of the discussions on the Reform Bill. Bent upon his great measure, Lord Grey could not afford to risk anything at the moment. He therefore not only at once granted the committee, but allowed a sum of £100,000, which had been voted for the relief of the colonies, to be raised to £1,000,000 on account of a late destructive hurricane. On the 24th of May Sir Fowell Buxton, the leader of the abolitionists, brought the matter before the Lower House, while the Chancellor presented a gigantic petition, followed by many others, in favour of emancipation; for the great crisis was now over, Wellington's efforts to form a Government had proved futile, and the hope of the abolitionists were consequently high. But, somewhat strangely, Lord Althorp could not be induced in the Lower House to give up Canning's idea of gradual emancipation, and moved and carried amendments upon Buxton's motion in favour of the continuance of the policy of 1823. It must be remembered that the House of Commons was still unreformed, and that the great Bill was not yet carried.

[Sidenote: The Emancipation Bill passed. Aug. 30, 1833.]

With the change in the character of the House all prudential reasons for opposition on the part of the ministry disappeared, and the pressure brought to bear upon them had become much stronger. They therefore now undertook the question, and the appointment of Mr. Stanley to the Colonial Office insured the success of the measure. It was not wholly satisfactory to the abolitionists. It still bore traces of the lingering wish for gradual emancipation. All children of slaves born after the passing of the Act, and all children of six years of age and under, were declared free, but the rest of the slaves were to serve a sort of apprenticeship; three-fourths of their time was for a certain number of years to remain at the disposal of the masters, the other fourth was their own, to be paid for at a fixed rate of wages. The complete failure of the Resolutions of 1823 should have taught the Government the impossibility of this scheme. The period of apprenticeship was shortened from twelve to seven years, and subsequently, after a four years' trial, the plan was given up. The second part of the Government scheme was the remuneration of the planters by a loan of £15,000,000; but as Parliament regarded this as much too small a boon, it was subsequently changed for the enormous gift of £20,000,000. The vastness of the sum was held by many as totally disproportionate to the loss of the planters; by others it was thought that, as slavery was in itself contrary to all right, the planters deserved no compensation for the loss of what they should never have possessed. On the whole, however, it was thought better that so great an act of justice should be generously completed, and the great sacrifice was willingly made. Wilberforce, the father of the movement, lived just long enough to bless God that the object of his life had been reached; he heard the success of the second reading of the Bill, and died a few days afterwards, on the 29th of July.

[Sidenote: Weakness of the ministry shown in the Parliament. Feb. 4, 1834.]

Of the great questions of the day there still remained the all-important one, the condition of the labouring classes, but it was to another Prime Minister and to a modified Cabinet that the honour of the introduction of the new Poor Law was to belong. In spite of their large majorities, no single measure of the Government had been passed without important modifications, no scheme had been introduced that did not bear upon it the marks of compromise, and afford a distinct proof of the inherent weakness of a Cabinet divided against itself. The speech from the throne in the opening of the year 1834 did not give any hope of a firmer and more united Government. The Duke of Wellington was not wrong in complaining that there was no definite promise of a single Government Bill, that the foreign policy of the Cabinet had not produced European peace, that in spite of its majorities the Church policy of the Government had failed, and that it had carefully avoided, even while vaunting the success which had attended it, to state whether it intended the Coercion Bill to be renewed in Ireland or not. Nor was it doubted that he was uttering the opinions of some at least of the Cabinet itself when he warned the Lords against the tendency visible in several of the late proceedings of the Government towards tampering with property and the introduction of the beginnings of the policy of confiscation.

[Sidenote: Rejection of repeal, a Government victory.]

[Sidenote: Ministerial difficulty on Mr. Ward's motion on the Irish Church.]

[Sidenote: Resignation of the most conservative ministers.]

In the Lower House both the strength and weakness of the Government were shortly to be displayed. O'Connell, who had talked so long about the repeal of the Union, and had thus kept up the agitation which was so lucrative to himself, was compelled at length to make good his promises and to introduce a substantive motion for repeal. A lengthened debate followed, but terminated in a most complete victory for the Government; the division showing a majority of 485 in favour of an amendment exactly contradicting O'Connell's motion. The central position occupied by the Government enabled it, when it occasionally joined heartily with one side or the other, still to command the House of Commons, but when questions arose of a more doubtful sort its weakness became visible. Measures for the relief of Ireland had been promised, and Mr. Ward, a private member, determined to bring these promises to a test, by introducing a motion (May 27) with regard to the difficult question of the Irish Church, which the ministers would gladly have left quiet. Mr. Ward's resolution stated that the Protestant Episcopal Establishment of Ireland much exceeded the spiritual wants of the Protestant population, that it was the right of the State and of Parliament to distribute Church property, and that the temporal possessions of the Irish Church ought to be reduced. This motion put the Government into the greatest perplexity; to uphold the direct negative was to resign its pretensions to be the party of progress; to accept it was to shock some of its most important members. The ministers determined to adopt a middle course, and appoint a commission of inquiry. They hoped thereby to induce Mr. Ward to withdraw his motion, because the question was already in Government hands, but they seemed at the same time to pledge themselves to act in accordance with the recommendations of the commission. Armed with this compromise, Lord Althorp went to the House to meet Mr. Ward's motion. But the seconder, Mr. Grote, had advanced but a short way in the speech when the Chancellor of the Exchequer rose and said, that since the beginning of the debate information had been brought to him which induced him to beg for a postponement. His personal influence was so great that the House at once granted his request. The news he had received was the resignation of Mr. Stanley, the Colonial minister, and of Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty, who regarded any interference with Church property with great abhorrence. They were followed by the Duke of Richmond, Postmaster-General, and by Lord Ripon, Privy Seal. The more conservative members of the Cabinet had thus openly retired from it. It might have been expected that Lord Durham, who had previously left it upon opposite grounds, would have now returned to office, and the Government have assumed a more distinctly radical character. He was, however, personally obnoxious to such members of the party of Canning as still remained in office, and his influence was dreaded by Lord Grey, who, though he continued as yet to hold the Premiership in accordance with the generally expressed desire of the Liberal party, sympathized at heart more with the Tories than with the Radicals. He expressed his feelings in his answer to an address which Lord Ebrington got up intreating him to retain his place. "In pursuing," he said, "a course of salutary improvement I feel it indispensable that we shall be allowed to proceed with deliberation and caution; and, above all, that we should not be urged by a constant and active pressure from without to the adoption of any measures the necessity of which has not been fully proved, and which are not strictly regulated by a careful attention to the settled institutions of the country both in Church and State. On no other principle can this or any other administration be conducted with advantage or safety." No difficulty was found in filling the vacant places; Mr. Spring Rice, who had distinguished himself in the debate on the Union, became Secretary for the Colonies, and Lord Auckland succeeded Sir James Graham.

[Sidenote: Difficulties of Grey's position.]

Under Lord Grey's leadership the Government was enabled to continue its course, because it was recognized at the time as the only possible Government; the Conservative feeling in England was far too strong to allow the success of a Radical Government with Durham at its head. On the other hand, on the great questions of the day it was impossible to go back. Sir Robert Peel clearly understood this position of affairs. He saw that a Tory Government would have no hope of permanence if it rested only on the support of the extreme members of the party. If the party was ever to be reconstituted it must loyally accept the changes which had been made, admit within its limits the more conservative-minded of the reformers, and take its stand on the great Conservative instincts of the nation--the love of the State Church, and the dread of any attack upon property. For the formation of a Liberal Conservative Government the time had not yet arrived, and the present Government of compromise was therefore allowed to continue. But the difficulties of the Premier, from the divergence of his opinions from those of his colleagues, soon became overwhelming. It was necessary to determine whether the Coercion Bill should be renewed or not. But it was possible to renew it in a softened form, and to omit the most objectionable parts--the suppression of the right of petition and the establishment of military courts. Such a course seemed advisable to Mr. Littleton, the Chief Secretary, and recommended itself also to the more liberal members of the Government, Lord Brougham and Lord Althorp. The mischievous activity of Lord Brougham led him to suggest to the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Wellesley, who had succeeded Anglesey, the advisability of officially informing the Government that he could do without these stringent clauses. Wellesley had already expressed himself privately to the contrary effect, but was overpersuaded, and followed the advice of Littleton and Brougham in his official despatches. These contradictory opinions from the chief of the Government were naturally very embarrassing to Lord Grey. To make matters worse, Littleton had attempted a personal reconciliation with O'Connell. Lord Althorp had known and approved of this step, but had warned Littleton against making any pledges. The Secretary unluckily allowed himself to be drawn into an admission that neither himself nor the Lord Lieutenant nor Lord Althorp approved of the renewal of the obnoxious clauses. To complete his blunder, he did not inform Lord Althorp what he had done, and trusted to a promise of secresy on the part of O'Connell, the most untrustworthy of men. So strong was Lord Althorp's opinion on the subject, backed as he believed it to be by that of Wellesley and of Littleton, that after being outvoted in the Cabinet, he in fact tendered his resignation, but was overruled by Lord Grey.

[Sidenote: Resignation of Grey's ministry. July 1834.]

On the 1st of July the Premier introduced the Bill in its full form, asserting, as from Wellesley's private letters to him he had a right to assert, that it was considered necessary by the Irish Government. On this, O'Connell, forgetful of his promise, disclosed in the Lower House his conversation with Littleton, which was in fact a direct contradiction of Lord Grey's assertion, at the same time implicating Lord Althorp in the deception played upon him. The Government seemed convicted not only of internal division, but of duplicity. Lord Grey reiterated his assertion in the Upper House with regard to the feelings of the Irish Government as expressed to him, while Lord Althorp admitted that he disliked the clause, and that Mr. Littleton was justified in telling O'Connell that the question was unsettled at the time of their conversation. The divergence of opinion in the Cabinet was thus fully brought out, and Lord Althorp was made to appear as guilty at once of having held out false hopes to O'Connell, and of having waived his own opinions for the sake of retaining office. Nothing could have been more alien to his nature than this charge, especially as, far from having really pledged himself to O'Connell, he had particularly warned Littleton against committing himself. But there seemed no way of escape without rendering still more glaring the weakness of the administration. On this ground, Littleton's offer to resign, which he felt in honour bound to make, was rejected; but, when in their eagerness to embarrass Government the Opposition moved for the production of the private letters of the Cabinet, Lord Althorp, in disgust at his equivocal position and at the attempted introduction into Parliament of matters which he held to be wholly beyond its jurisdiction, determined to resign. Lord Grey, by no means wedded to office, and feeling that Althorp's personal influence was the main security of the Government, at once declared the administration at an end. The King had already shown, when giving an answer to an address from the Bishops, a strong feeling against any attack upon the property of the Church. This known division between the sovereign and his advisers, and the evident weakness of the Cabinet itself, rendered the resignation of the ministry less surprising than it otherwise would have been.

[Sidenote: Lord Melbourne's ministry. July 16.]