Chapter 3

The new Parliament then turned its attention to a reduction of taxes. The duty on tiles was repealed; also the two-shilling stamp duty on advertisements, together with the vexatious duty on soap. Dramatic copyrights also received protection, and an improvement in the judicial administration was effected. Sinecure offices were abolished in the Court of Chancery, and the laws of dower and inheritance were amended.

The members most active in these reforms were Lord Althorp, Daniel O'Connell, Joseph Hume, and William Cobbett. Lord Althorp, afterward Earl Spencer, made not less than one thousand speeches, and O'Connell six hundred, in support of these reforms,--all tending to a decrease in taxation, made feasible by the great increase of wealth and the abolition of useless offices.

The Trade Unions (a combination of operatives to secure improvement in their condition) marked the year 1834, besides legislative enactments to reduce taxation. Before 1824 it was illegal for workmen to combine, even in the most peaceable manner, for the purpose of obtaining an increase of wages. This injustice was removed the following year, and strikes became numerous among the different working-classes, but were generally easily suppressed by the capitalists, who were becoming a great power with the return to national prosperity. For fifty years the vexed social problem of "strikes" has been discussed, but is not yet solved, giving intense solicitude to capitalists and corporations, and equal hope to operatives. The year 1834, then, showed the commencement of the great war between capital and labor which is so damaging to all business operations, and the ultimate issue of which cannot be predicted with certainty,--but which will probably lead to a great amelioration of the condition of the working-classes and the curtailment of the incomes of rich men, especially those engaged in trade and manufactures. There will always be, without doubt, disproportionate fortunes, and capitalists can combine as well as laborers; but if the strikes which are multiplying year by year in all the countries of Europe and the United States should end in a great increase of wages, so as to make workmen comfortable (for they will never be contented), the movement will prove beneficent. Already far more has been accomplished for the relief of the poor by a combination of laborers against hard-hearted employers than by any legislative enactments; but when will the contest between capital and labor cease? Is it pessimism to say that it is likely to become more and more desperate?

The "Poor Law Amendment" was passed July, 1834, during the administration of Lord Melbourne,--Lord Grey having resigned, from the infirmities of age and the difficulties of carrying on the government. He had held office nearly four years, which exceeded the term of his predecessor the Duke of Wellington; and only four premiers have held office for a longer period since 1754. The Poor Law Amendment, supported by all political parties, was passed in view of the burdensome amount of poor rates and the superior condition of the pauper to that of many an independent laborer.

The ill management of the beer-houses led to another act in 1834, requiring a license to sell beer, which was granted only to persons who could produce a certificate of good character from six respectable inhabitants of a parish.

The session of Parliament in 1834 was further marked by a repeal of the house tax, by grants for building schoolhouses, by the abolition of sinecure offices in the House of Commons, and by giving new facilities for the circulation of foreign newspapers through the mails. There was little or no opposition to reforms which did not interfere with landed interests and the affairs of Ireland. Even Sir Robert Peel, in his short administration, was not unfriendly to extending privileges to Dissenters, nor to judicial, municipal, and economical reform generally.

The most important of the measures brought forward by Whig ministers under Lord Melbourne was the reform of municipal corporations. For two hundred years the abuses connected with these corporations had been subjects of complaint, but could not easily be remedied, in consequence of the perversion of municipal institutions to political ends. The venal boroughs, which both Whig and Tory magnates controlled, were the chief seats of abuses and scandals. When these boroughs were disfranchised by the Reform Bill, a way was opened for the local government of a town by its permanent residents, instead of the appointment of magistrates by a board which perpetuated itself, and which was controlled by the owners of boroughs in the interests of the aristocracy. In consequence of the passing of the municipal reform act, through the powerful advocacy of Lord John Russell, the government of the town passed to its own citizens, and became more or less democratic, not materially differing from the government of cities in the United States. Under able popular leaders, the towns not only became a new political power in Parliament, but enjoyed the privilege of electing their own magistrates and regulating their domestic affairs,--such as the police, schools, the lighting of streets, and public improvements generally.

Besides this important act, some other salutary measures for the general good were carried by parliamentary leaders,--such as enlarging the copyrights of authors, lecturers, and dramatists; abolishing imprisonment for debt for small sums; amending the highway and the marriage laws; enforcing uniformity in weights and measures, regulating prison discipline, and commuting death punishment for many crimes. These reforms, having but little reference to partisan politics, received the approbation of both Whigs and Tories. Most of the important bills which passed the Parliament from the accession of William IV., however, were directly or indirectly the result of the Reform Bill of 1832, which had enlarged the representation of the people.

William IV. died in January, 1837, after a short but prosperous reign of seven years, much lamented by the nation. He was a frank, patriotic, and unconventional king, who accepted the reforms which made his reign an epoch. At his death there were more distinguished men in all departments of politics, literature, science, and art in Great Britain than at any previous period, and the condition of the people was more ameliorated than had been known since the Reformation. A great series of reforms had been peaceably effected without revolution; the kingdom was unusually prosperous; so that Queen Victoria, William's niece, the daughter of his brother the Duke of Kent (whose previous death had made Victoria heir-apparent to the throne), entered upon her illustrious reign under hopeful auspices, June 21, 1837. The reform spirit had passed through no reactions, and all measures which were beneficent in their tendency were favorably considered.

In 1837 Mr. Rowland Hill proposed the startling suggestion that all existing rates of postage should be abolished, and the penny postage substituted for all parts of the kingdom, irrespective of distance. This was not at first accepted by the government or post-office officials; but its desirableness was so apparent that Parliament yielded to the popular voice and it became a law, with increased gain ultimately to the national finances, to say nothing of its immense influence in increasing knowledge. The old postage law had proved oppressive to all classes except members of Parliament, who had the franking privilege, which the new law abolished. Under the old system, the average of letters mailed was annually only four to each person. In 1875 it was thirty-three, and the net revenue to the nation was nearly two million pounds sterling.

Another great reform was effected in the early part of the reign of Victoria,--that of the criminal code, effected chiefly through the persevering eloquence of Sir James Mackintosh; although Sir Samuel Romilly, an eminent and benevolent barrister, as early as 1808, had labored for the same end. But thirty years had made a great change of opinion in reference to the punishment of crime, which was cruelly severe. Capital offences numbered at the beginning of the century nearly two hundred and fifty, some of which were almost venial; but in 1837 only seven crimes were punishable with death, and the accused were allowed benefit of counsel. Before this, the culprit could be condemned without a hearing,--a gross violation of justice, which did not exist even under the imperial despotism of the Caesars.

Such were the most important measures passed by the reformed Parliament during the ten years' administration of the Whigs, most of which were the logical results of the Reform Bill of 1832, which made the reign of William IV. the most memorable in the domestic history of England since the great Revolution which hurled the Stuarts from their throne. But the country was not satisfied with these beneficent reforms. A great agitation had already begun, under the leadership of Cobden and Bright, for a repeal of the Corn Laws. The half measures of the Liberal government displeased all parties, and the annual deficit had made it unpopular. After vainly struggling against the tide of discontent, the Melbourne ministry was compelled to resign, and in 1841 began the second ministry of Sir Robert Peel, which gave power to the Tories for five or six years. Lord Lyndhurst returned to his seat on the woolsack, Mr. Goulburn was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, Sir James Graham became home secretary, Lord Aberdeen took the foreign department, and Lord Stanley the colonial office. Into this cabinet Mr. Gladstone entered as president of the board of trade, on the retirement of Earl Ripon.

The Duke of Wellington also had a seat in the cabinet, but held no office, his age and infirmities preventing him from active duties. He was "the grand old man" of his generation, and had received unparalleled honors, chiefly for his military services,--the greatest general whom England has produced, if we except Marlborough. Although his fame rests on his victories in a great national crisis, he was also an able statesman,--sensible, practical, patriotic; a man of prejudices, yet not without tact; of inflexible will, yet yielding to overpowering necessities, and accepting political defeat as he did the loss of a battle, gracefully and magnanimously. If he had not, however, been a popular idol for his military exploits, he would have been detested by the people; for no one in England was more aristocratic in his sympathies than he, no one was fonder of honors and fashionable distinctions, no one had a more genuine contempt for whatever was plebeian and democratic.

In coming lectures,--on Sir Robert Peel, Gladstone, etc.,--we shall find occasion to trace the course of Victoria's beneficent reign over Great Britain, beginning (as it did) after the abuses and distresses culminating under George IV. had been largely relieved during the memorable reform epoch under William IV.

AUTHORITIES.

Miss Martineau's History of England; Molesworth's History of England; Mackenzie's History of the Nineteenth Century, Alison's History of Europe; Annual Register; Lives of Lord Brougham, Wellington, Lord Melbourne, Lord John Russell, Lord Liverpool, and Sir Robert Peel. These are the most accessible authorities, but the list is very large.

SIR ROBERT PEEL.

1788-1850.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

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.