Part 8

Mr. POULETT SCROPE: ... Sir, the plea of the weight of national taxation for a Corn Law appears to me not only a false, but a dishonest one. By no possible contrivance or juggle of protection can you fix the debt on the foreigner; it must still be paid by British subjects of some kind; and if you relieve yourselves from your share of it by any trickery of this kind, you can only do it by shifting the burden upon the rest of the community. You have chosen to place it on the most helpless of all the masses—the eaters of bread—who by your law must buy at your shop, at your artificial prices, and so pay the debt for you or starve. Is this right or is it wrong? No, sir, I repeat: if the Corn Laws do not raise the price of corn, they at least diminish its supply to a half-fed people. If they do, they can only benefit one class at the expense of every other. I take the speech of the hon. member for Northamptonshire, who may be considered to represent the pure protectionists. I appeal to the recollection of the House, if the main point of that speech was not an attack on what the hon. member called a stern dogma of a cold and hard political economy—viz., “that we should buy as cheap and sell as dear as we can”—a maxim which I would venture to call, not a dogma of political economy, but the very first principle of all commerce, the ABC of trade. But perhaps the hon. member despises trade and its shopkeeping maxims. But I am much mistaken if his friends and clients, the tenant farmers, act on any other than this vulgar and cruel mercantile principle themselves. They would not like to be compelled to act on the opposite principle of buying dear and selling cheap. No; what they really mean, and the hon. member too, in railing against the principle of buying cheap and selling dear is that the manufacturers should sell cheap to them, the farmers, while they sell dear to the manufacturers; and this is, in fact, the object aimed at by the Corn Laws. But the hon. member illustrated the cruelty of this flagitious dogma of a cold political economy by pathetic pictures, which were not without their effect on the feelings of the House. The first was that of a crowd of paper-stainers and silk-weavers thrown out of employment by the unpatriotic and anti-national preference of French silks and paper-hangings to those of British manufacture. Every picture has its reverse, and to the hon. member’s picture of an ideal scene resulting from the operation of our mercantile principle, I will oppose a picture of the result of his protective principle, not drawn from the imagination, but one of the real scenes which did occur, in hundreds of instances, but a few years ago, in Paisley, in Stockport, in Manchester, and other places. Let the hon. member imagine a manufacturer at that time, his warehouses choked with goods which he could not dispose of; imagine that, after putting his workpeople first on low wages, next on half-work, he finally finds himself obliged to discharge them altogether, and to shut up his mill. They crowd in hundreds round him—a melancholy spectacle—men, women, and children imploring him for work and food. What is his answer? “All my capital lies locked up in yonder warehouses, and I have exhausted my credit likewise. The foreigner can buy no more of the goods you make because our laws prohibit his paying for them in the only thing he has to sell—his corn, the very food you want....” The hon. member does not seem to be aware of the fact that to buy anything from the foreigner we must sell to him something of equal value—that for every quarter of foreign corn or every piece of foreign silk imported we must expect to pay for it an equal value of goods the produce of our own manufacturers, and that British or native industry is as much employed in the one case as in the other, the only difference being (and a great difference it is) that by the free exchange we get more of what we want, or of a better quality, in return for our industry, than if we attempted to produce it at home. And this is just the benefit which commerce confers. The hon. member does not seem to be aware that the principle he declaims against as a cold dogma of a stern political economy is the one sole vivifying principle of all commerce, the stimulus to all improvement, the mainspring of civilisation—the principle, namely, of obtaining the largest and best result at the least cost; in other words, to get the most you can of what you want for your money or your labour. But I can hardly wonder at the opinions held by the hon. member, when I see him sitting on the same bench with the hon. member for Knaresborough, who abhors machinery as the root of all evil. It is a fitting alliance; in fact, it is the same fallacy in a different form. The notion that it is better to buy dear than to buy cheap is the same as that it is better to spend much labour than little to produce the same result. The idea is that the more of labour and capital anything costs to obtain it the better. So stated, it seems incredible that any man should entertain the idea. And yet this is the notion which lies at the bottom of all the declamations against machinery for economising labour and against the mercantile principle of economising capital. In both cases an increase of produce is obtained at a less cost, the very circumstance which alone raised the condition of civilised man above that of the savage.

PEEL’S DEFENCE OF HIS METHOD (1846).

=Source.=—_Memoirs by Sir R. Peel_, vol. ii., p. 318. (London: 1858.)

There are, I know, many who have freely admitted that a Minister was fully justified in the adoption of the measures of 1846, and who do not blame the resolution taken, but consider that some better mode of giving effect to it might have been devised—who are of opinion that a needless reserve was maintained towards a powerful party, and that a degree of irritation was thereby produced which more frank and unreserved communications would have prevented or mitigated.

I wish to give some explanation upon this point. I am the more desirous to give it because it was my intention—but for the unforeseen events of the autumn of 1845—to enter into that friendly communication, the omission of which is blamed and lamented, to apprise the Conservative party before the Corn Law could be discussed in the Session of 1846, that my views with regard to the policy of maintaining that law had undergone a change, and that I could no longer undertake as a Minister to resist a motion for the consideration of the whole question.

Had I been enabled to act upon this intention, I should, I presume, have fulfilled every obligation which party connections can impose, unless it be contended that a Minister may safely disregard the various circumstances which, even within a brief interval of time, may alter the character and position of many questions of public policy, and that, having once adopted a certain course, he is so committed to a blind perseverance in it that he must steel his mind against the influence of argument, the result of experience, the conviction of his own deliberate judgment.

That unreserved communication which I had thus contemplated—which is possible and most desirable under ordinary circumstances—was in this case unfortunately precluded by the peculiar character of the unforeseen emergency for which it was necessary to provide, and the peculiar position of the Cabinet in respect to the measures to be adopted.

There was no period between the first alarming indications of the failure of the potato crop, and the resignation of the Ministers on the 9th of December, 1845, at which I could with propriety have given the slightest intimation to the supporters of the Government with regard either to my own course or to the probable decision of the Cabinet. I could not have alluded to the differences which prevailed among the members of the Government without extinguishing whatever degree of hope there might be that those differences would be ultimately reconciled.

The course of events subsequently to the resignation of the Government on the 9th of December, equally precluded any confidential communication on my part with the supporters of the Government, which would have had a tendency to soothe irritated feelings, or to mitigate hostility to the measures about to be proposed.

It was a matter of public notoriety that the Government had resigned on the 9th of December, in consequence of differences on the subject of the Corn Laws—that Lord John Russell had attempted, and had failed in the attempt, to form a Government—that the Queen had thereupon appealed to her former servants, and that they had resumed power with the full intention of proposing measures with regard to the import of food to which Lord Stanley had refused to be a party.

To assemble the supporters of Government under such circumstances, for the mere purpose of communicating to them facts which were notorious to the whole world, would have given offence rather than have calmed irritation.

Had a meeting taken place, there would naturally have been the demand for a full explanation, not only of the grounds on which the decision of the Government had been taken, but of the peculiar character of the measures which it was intended to propose.

Explanation could not have been given on the first point without serious prejudice to the Government by anticipating the Parliamentary discussion which must shortly follow. It could not have been given on the second, namely, on the precise mode in which the duties on corn were to be dealt with, without disturbing all commercial operations connected with the corn trade, and incurring the risk of giving to some parties an unfair advantage over others.

There is no security against these evils in cases wherein the imposition or repeal of duties is concerned, excepting entire silence and reserve on the part of a Minister, until the hour when the intentions of the Government can be publicly declared in Parliament.

IRELAND: THE MOLLY MAGUIRES (1846).

=Source.=—_Memoirs by Sir Robert Peel_, vol. ii., p. 302.

_Letter from Colonel Sir Charles O’Donnell to the Military Secretary, Dublin._

CAVAN, _June, 15, 1846_.

Upon the whole, outrages have probably decreased both in number and in the seriousness of their character during the past period, and the general state of most of the country above-mentioned (Cavan, Leitrim, Roscommon, King’s County, Westmeath, and Longford) may be considered tolerably peaceable; but in the wild parts of Leitrim and Roscommon, and their adjacent districts, the state of things is not altogether so satisfactory. Here Ribbonism is still in force; intimidation by means of threatening notices and visits from armed and disguised “Molly Maguires” is persevered in; waylaying, assaults, and robberies of arms and money take place; and all these arising, for the most part, from what is termed agrarian causes.

A man of the name of Donohue was, about the beginning of the month, fired at in the open day in the neighbourhood of Killeshandra, by several men, merely for having taken a farm in preference to another person, whose relative had previously held it. This man is marked for assassination, and will probably suffer.

A man and his wife, of the name of Tuthill, residing between Drummod and Ushill, were, on the morning (early) of the 7th instant, visited by a party of six men armed with guns and bayonets; and having beaten the husband till he was senseless, they stripped his wife, and placed her on her back over some fire which they raked out of the fireplace for the purpose. This was also for the same agrarian cause; and so intimidated are the sufferers that, although it is supposed they know perfectly well the perpetrators of the offence, they refrain from giving evidence.

Some few days ago, Bryan Kenny returning to Mullingar on a car, with a labouring man, while passing some cottages and a public-house, was fired at and wounded by a man who walked deliberately away unmolested by several persons who witnessed the event. Sir John Nugent had given Kenny some land, from which he had ejected another tenant for non-payment of rent; and though Sir John had given the ejected tenant compensation, and Kenny had paid him and taken a receipt for his “goodwill in full,” the transaction was not considered satisfactory.

The day before yesterday, about 2 o’clock a.m., a party of nine or ten persons, some of them armed, went to the house of John Hazard, residing near Miltown. On gaining entry by force they wounded the man’s wife in the breast with a sharp instrument, and then, dragging Hazard outside, after beating him, endeavoured to induce him to swear he would not accept a situation as herd, from which another man had been dismissed.

Petty robberies and depredations continue to be committed in many parts of the country.

The Repeal movement goes on, but I have observed little energy with regard to it of late. Dissensions and mistrust are apparent amongst the members of this Association.

[NOTE.—“Repeal” at this time generally meaning repeal of the Corn Laws, it should be remarked that in the above paragraph it means Repeal of the Union.]

ENGLAND AND THE YEAR OF REVOLUTION (1848).

=I.—Source.=—_The Life of Lord Palmerston_, by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, vol. i., p. 76. (London: 1876.)

A. _Lord Palmerston to Lord Normanby (British Ambassador in Paris)._

_February 26._

What extraordinary and marvellous events you give an account of! It is like the five acts of a play, and has not taken up much more time. Strange that a King who owed his crown to a revolution brought about by royal blindness and obstinacy, should have lost it by exactly the same means, and he a man who had gone through all the vicissitudes of human existence, from the condition of a schoolmaster to the pomp of a throne; and still further that his overthrow should have been assisted by a minister deeply read in the records of history, and whose mind was not merely stored with the chronology of historical facts, but had extracted from their mass the reasons of events and the philosophy of their causes.

I can give you but provisional instructions. Continue at your post. Keep up unofficial and useful communication with the man who from hour to hour (I say not even from day to day) may have the direction of events, but commit us to no acknowledgment of any men, nor of any things. Our principles of action are to acknowledge whatever rule may be established with apparent prospect of permanency, but none other. We desire friendship and extended commercial intercourse with France, and peace between France and the rest of Europe. We will engage to prevent the rest of Europe from meddling with France, which indeed we are quite sure they have no intention of doing. The French rulers must engage to prevent France from assailing any part of the rest of Europe. Upon such a base our relations with France may be placed on a footing more friendly than they have been or were likely to be with Louis Philippe and Guizot.

B. _To Lord Westmorland, Ambassador at Berlin. February 29._

It must be owned that the prospect of a republic in France is far from agreeable; for such a Government would naturally be more likely to place peace in danger than a monarchy would be. But we must deal with things as they are, and not as we would wish to have them. These Paris events ought to serve, however, as a warning to the Prussian Government, and should induce them to set to work without delay to complete those constitutional institutions of which the King last year laid the foundations.

C. _To Lord Ponsonby, Ambassador at Vienna. February 29._

I should advise the Austrians to come to a good understanding with Sardinia as to mutual defence if attacked, which, however, they are not at present likely to be. But if the Austrian Government does not mitigate its system of coercion in Lombardy, and grant liberal institutions, they will have a revolt there; and if there shall be conflict in Lombardy between the troops and the public, and much bloodshed, it is to be feared that the French nation will break loose in spite of Lamartine’s efforts to restrain them.

D. _To Lord Normanby. April 11._

Yesterday was a glorious day, the Waterloo of peace and order. They say there were upwards of one hundred thousand special constables—some put the number at two hundred and fifty thousand; but the streets were swarming with them, and men of all classes and ranks were blended together in defence of law and property. The Chartists made a poor figure, and did not muster more than fifteen thousand men on the common. Fergus was frightened out of his wits, and was made the happiest man in England at being told that the procession could not pass the bridges. The Chartists have found that the great bulk of the inhabitants of London are against them, and they will probably lie by for the present and watch for some more favourable moment.

E. _To Lord Ponsonby. November 12._

It is totally and absolutely impossible that Austria can keep quiet possession of the Italian provinces; and all you hear at Vienna to the contrary is nothing but the _bon à dire_ of the Metternich school, and is the result of the established practice of the disciples of that school to go on asserting as facts that which they know to be false, but wish to be true, under the absurd notion that by frequent repetition falsehood may become truth. The only consequence of this system is that those who act upon it and those who are misled by it govern their conduct upon entirely erroneous data; and the results of such false policy are, that men like Metternich and Guizot meet in exile in London; that Sovereigns like Louis Philippe drink unwholesome water and sour small beer at Claremont, instead of champagne and claret at the Tuileries; and that ancient empires like Austria are thrown into anarchy and confusion, and are brought to the very verge of dissolution....

I quite understand the drift and meaning of Prince Windischgratz’s message to our Queen, but pray make the Camarilla understand that, in a constitutional country like England, these things cannot answer; and that a foreign Government which places its reliance upon working upon the Court against the Government of this country is sure to be disappointed.

II.—=Source.=—_Letters of Queen Victoria_, 1837-1861, vol. ii., p. 221. (London: 1907.)

_Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell._

OSBORNE, _July 25, 1848_.

The Queen must tell Lord John what she has repeatedly told Lord Palmerston, but without apparent effect, that the establishment of an _entente cordiale with the French Republic_, for the purpose of driving the Austrians out of _their dominions_ in Italy, would be a _disgrace_ to this country.... The notion of establishing a Venetian State under French guarantee is too absurd.

CONQUEST OF THE PUNJAB (1849).

=Source.=—_Letters of Queen Victoria_, 1837-1861, vol. ii., p. 257. (London: 1907.)

_The Earl of Dalhousie to Queen Victoria._

CAMP, FEROZEPORE, _March 24, 1849_.

The Governor-General is not without fear that he may have intruded too often of late upon your Majesty’s time. But he is so satisfied of the extreme pleasure which your Majesty would experience on learning that the prisoners who were in the hands of the Sikhs, and especially the ladies and children, were once again safe in the British camp, that he would have ventured to convey to your Majesty that intelligence, even though he had not been able to add to it—as happily he can—the announcement of the surrender of the whole Khalsa army, and the end of the war with the Sikhs.

Major-General Gilbert pushed on rapidly in pursuit of the Sikhs, who were a few marches in front of him, carrying off our prisoners with them.

At Rawul Pindee, halfway between the Jhelum and Attock, the Sikh troops, as we have since heard, would go no further. They received no pay, they were starving, they had been beaten and were disheartened; and so they surrendered.

All the prisoners were brought safe into our camp. Forty-one pieces of artillery were given up. Chuther Singh and Shere Singh, with all the Sirdars, delivered their swords to General Gilbert in the presence of his officers; and the remains of the Sikh army, 16,000 strong, were marched into camp, by 1,000 at a time, and laid down their arms as they passed between the lines of the British troops.

Your Majesty may well imagine the pride with which British officers looked on such a scene, and witnessed this absolute subjection and humiliation of so powerful an enemy.

How deeply the humiliation was felt by the Sikhs themselves may be judged by the report which the officers who were present have made, that many of them, and especially the grim old Khalsas of Runjeet’s time, exclaimed, as they threw their arms down upon the heap: “This day Runjeet Singh has died!”

CHARACTER OF SIR ROBERT PEEL (1850).

=Source.=—_The Greville Memoirs_, 1837-1852, vol. iii., p. 349. (London: 1885.)

My acquaintance with Peel was slight and superficial. He scarcely lived at all in Society; he was reserved but cordial in his manner, had few intimate friends, and it may be doubted whether there was any person except his wife to whom he was in the habit of disclosing his thoughts, feelings, and intentions with entire frankness and freedom. In his private relations he was not merely irreproachable, but good, kind, and amiable. The remarkable decorum of his life, the domestic harmony and happiness he enjoyed, and the simplicity of his habits and demeanour, contributed largely, without doubt, to the estimation in which he was held. He was easy of access, courteous, and patient, and those who approached him generally left him gratified by his affability. The sacrifices he made upon two memorable occasions, upon both of which he acted solely with reference to the public good, forbid us to believe that he was ever influenced by any considerations but such as were honest and conscientious.... It is now impossible to fathom the depths of Peel’s mind and to ascertain whether he had any doubts and misgivings, or whether he sincerely believed that Catholic Emancipation could be resisted and prevented. I do not see how he can be acquitted of insincerity, save at the expense of his sagacity and foresight. The truth is that he was hampered and perverted by his antecedents and by the seductive circumstances of his position....