Epochs of Modern History EDITED BY EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A., J. SURTEES PHILLPOTTS, B.C.L. AND C. COLBECK, M.A. THE EPOCH OF REFORM, 1830-30 JUSTIN McCarthy, m. p. Epochs of Modern History THE EPOCH OF REFORM^ 1830-1850 /\^ BY \ \ JUSTIN McCarthy, m.r AUTHOR OF "a history OF OUR OWN TIMES* NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIENER'S SONS ^ imt PREFACE. The object of this little book is, in the first instance, to give a clear and concise account of the changes in our political system, from the introduction of Lord Grey's first Reform Bill to the death of Sir Robert Peel. That epoch of Reform encloses a group of constitutional changes so important as to entitle it to a distinct place in the history of England. Lord Grey's Reform Bill estatlislfed^e basis of a popular suffrage, gave representajipiV'to the great industrial towns, and abolished many old standing anomalies and sources of corruption. The tithe system was brought to an end in Ireland. Slavery was banished from our colonies for ever. The working of women and children in mines and factories was placed under wholesome regulation. The foundation of a system of national education was laid. Our penal code was made human and reasonable. The corn laws were repealed. These changes, and others hardly less important, are the birth of that marvellous period of political activity. Moreover, during this epoch of Reform the relations of the Sovereign to Parliament, vi Preface. and of Parliament to the People, "were established on a well defined and satisfactory principle. The manner in which all these changes were brought about is a lesson of the deepest political interest to every student. I have been especially anxious to show how the policy which opens the way to Reform is the true antidote to the spirit of Revolu- tion. Some of the grievances under which the English people suffered before this epoch of Reform were severe enough to have warranted an attempt at Revolution, if no other means of relief seemed attain- able, and if that desperate remedy had some chance of success. Revolution, however, was avoided in England because English statesmen had learnt the wisdom which statesmen on the Continent had not acquired — the wisdom which teaches a Minister when to make his own opinions and prejudices give way before the pressure of evidence and experience, and of opinions that have not yet become his own. That was the wisdom which English Ministers during that epoch proved themselves especially to possess. They were not for the most part men of great intellect or political genius. Some of the continental statesmen whose mistakes and perversity brought misfortune on their country were men of higher intellectual grasp than some of the English Ministers whose shrewd sound judgment saved England from the peril of Revolution. But themanner in which England was governed during Preface. vii the period I have described, made it evident to all that every change in our political system needed for the good of the nation can be obtained by the patient and persistent use of argument and of reason, without any thought of an ultimate appeal to force. This, in itself, is the true principle of political freedom. I have endeavoured to give my readers something like a picture of each leading public man on both sides of politics during this epoch of Reform. The more vividly we can form an impression as to the appearance, the bearing, and the personal peculiarities of a statesman, the more likely are we to understand the part he took in public affairs, and the purposes and principles which inspired him. The National Portrait Gallery in London is a valuable instructor even to the profoundest student of English history. No period of equal length in that history encloses a greater number of remarkable figures than the states- men, orators, and politicians from Lord Grey, Lord John Russell, and O'Connell, to Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Cobden. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGB 1815. State of Europe after the Peace of Paris and events leading to Reform or Revolution 5 The Holy Alliance of Austria, Russia, and Prussia . . 9 England under Lord Liverpool and Lord Castlereagh . 11 Repression of popular agitation 16 1817-19. The Blanketeers. Peterloo, Orator Hunt 16 1822. Change of policy with Canning's accession to power . 11 1824. Recognition of the South American Republics .... 11 1826. Struggle of Greece for independence. The Great Powers intervene ii 1827. Battle of Navarino 12 1828. Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts a 1829. Catholic Emancipation Act S2 Progress of the agitation for Reform. Its leaders . , 25 1830. Revolution in France. Charles X. abdicates 42 Death of George IV. Election of a new Parliament . 38 October 26. Parliament meets. The Duke of Wellington and the Government declare against Reform and are forced to resign 43 Lord Grey's Reform Ministry 46 1831. March i. Lord John Russell introduces the Reform Bill 50 March 21. Second reading of the Bill carried by 302 to 301 . 60 The Gascoigne amendment. Lord Grey appeals to the country 61 X Contents, FAGB June 24. Reform Bill introduced into the new Parliament. Prolonged debates in Committee 63 1831, August 18. Chandos clause 66 September 22. The Bill finally passes the Commons by 345 to 239, and goes up to the Lords, who throw it out on second reading 67 Excitement in the country ; 69 December 6. Parliament reassembles 72 March 23. Third Reform Bill passes the Commons 73 Position of the Lords. The ' Waverers ' 73 Lord Lyndhurst's motion. Resignation of Lord Grey. The Duke of Wellington cannot form a Ministry. The King consents to the creation of New Peers and the Lords give way 75 June 4. The Bill passes the Lords and receives the King's assent a few days later 76 1833. Emancipation of the West Indian slaves 83 Lord Stanley's resolutions 86 The trade of India thrown open to the world .... 93 Lord Ashley's Factory Act 94 Poor Law Reform 124 The Irish Tithe War 98 1834. Mr. Ward's motion on the Irish Church 104 Resignations in the Ministry. Commission appointed to report upon the Irish Church no Lord Grey resigns and is succeeded by LordMelbourne. The King dismisses his Ministers 117 Sir Robert Peel's first Administration 118 1835. June 26. Peel defeated on Lord John Russell's Resolution on the Irish Church. Lord Melbourne returns to office. Irish Tithe" Bill, which was finally passed by Lord John Russell in 1838 119 Municipal Corporations reformed. Lord John Russell's Bill passed September 7 130 1837. Death of William IV. Accession of Queen Victoria . 139 1838. Separation of Hanover from England 141 Anti-Corn Law League formed 179 Contents, xi FAGB 1832-37. Mitigation of the Criminal Laws 144 1837, Electric Telegraph invented 161 1839. State grant in aid of National Education increased, and henceforward managed by a Committee of the Privy Council 143 Alteration of the Convict Laws 147 Abolition of the Press Gang for the Navy 151 1840. January i. Sir Rowland Hill's Penny Postage adopted . 153 March 3. The Publication of Parliamentary Debates pro- tected against actions for libel 162 1841. Lord Melbourne resigns. Sir Robert Peel's second Administration 181 Agitation for Repeal of the Com Laws. The Free Trade controversy 181 1845. Irish Education. Queen's Colleges. Opposition of Sir Robert Inglis. Establishment of the Irish Board of National Education . 167 Famine in Ireland brings the agitation for Free Trade to a head. History of the Corn Laws. Bright, Cobden, Villiers 17S-81 Dissensions in the Cabinet. Lord John Russell's letter to the Electors of London 184 Peel is deserted by some of his colleagues and resigns . 186 Lord John Russell fails to form a Ministry and Peel returns to office 186 1846, January 22. A new Parliament meets. Sir Robert Peel declares va. favour of Free Trade. Protectionist party of Lord George Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli . 186 May 15. Repeal of the Corn Laws passes the Commons . . . 187 June 27.* The Bill passes the Lords. Peel's Ministry over- thrown in the Commons on the Irish Coercion Bill. Lord John Russell's first Administration 188 Triumph of Free Trade 189 1849. Repeal of the Navigation Laws 192 Agitation for further reform. Chartism. The Six Points of the Charter. Charter riots at Newport 195 O'Connell's agitation for the Repeal of the Union . . 196 xii Contents, PAGB He is prosecuted for seditious speaking, but his con- demnation is reversed by the Lords. The Young Ireland Confederation 200 Revolutions on the Continent . 200 1848. Fall of the Guizot Ministry in France 201 Dethronement of Louis Philippe 201 Popular rising in Austria 202 Republic proclaimed in Venice 202 Pius IX. in exile at Gaeta. A Republic at Rome. Mazzini 202 Hungarian revolts. Kossuth 203 March 23. Defeat of Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, at the head of the Italians at Novara 203 April 12. France restores the Pope to Rome 203 In England Chartism ends and the Young Ireland party is broken up 204 Reform triumphs over Revolution 205 1850, July 2. Death of Sir Robert Peel 205 A Survey, Political and Social 208 Xlll PRIME MINISTERS, 1830—1850. Duke of Wellington Jan. 25, 1828 to Nov. 22, 1830. Earl Grey Nov. 22, 1830 *' July 18, 1834. Lord Melbourne July 18, 1834 " Dec. 26, 1834. Sir Robert Peel Dec. 26, 1834 " April 18, 1835. Lord Melbourne April 18, 1835 " Sept. 6, 1841. Sir Robert Peel Sept. 6, 1841 " July 6, 1846, Lord John Russell July 6, 1846 " Feb. 24, 1851. ADMINISTRA TIONS, 1830—1830. I. 1828. DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S MINISTRY. Prime Minister Duke of Wellington. Lord Chancellor Lord Lyndhurst. Chancellor of the Exchequer . . Mr. H. Goulbum. Home Secretary Sir R. Peel. Foreign " Lord Aberdeen. Colonial '' Sir George Murray. Secretary of War Sir Henry Hardinge. First Lord of the Admiralty . . Lord Melville, succeeded by Sir James Graham. 2. 1830. THE REFORM MINISTRY. Prime Minister Earl Grey. Lord Chancellor Lord Brougham. Chancellor of the Exchequer . . Lord Althorp. Home Secretary Lord Melbourne. XIV Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston. Colonial Secretary Lord Goderich, afterwards Mr. Stanley. Secretary of War Mr. C. N. W. Wynn, not in the Cabinet. First Lord of the Admiralty . . Sir. J. R. Graham. Lord John Russell was Paymaster of the Forces but not in the Cabinet. Mr. Stanley and Sir James Graham resigned office in 1834 upon the Irish Church question, and were succeeded by Mr. Spfing Rice and Lord Auckland. In July, 1834, Earl Grey retired and Lord Melbourne suc- ceeded him : the rest of the Ministers remamed in office : Lord Duncannon became Home Secretary in place of Lord Melbourne. 4. 1834. SIR R. PEEL'S FIRST MINISTRY. Prime Minister Sir R. Peel. Lord Chancellor Lord Lyndhurst. Chancellor of the Exchequer . . Sir R. Peel. Home Secretary Mr. H. Goulburn, Foreign " Duke of Wellington. Colonial " Earl of Aberdeen. Secretary of War Lord Wharncliffe. In this Ministry Mr. W. E. Gladstone was Under-Secretary for the Colonies. 5. 1834. LORD MELBOURNE'S SECOND MINISTRY. Prime Minister Lord Melbourne. Lord Chancellor In commission, afterwards Lord Cottenham. Chancellor of the Exchequer . . Mr. Spring Rice. Home Secretary ....... Lord John Russell. Foreign " Lord Palmerston. Colonial " Mr. Grant. Secretary of War Lord Howick. First Lord of the Admiralty . . Lord Auckland. XV Later Lord J. Russell became Colonial Secretary, Mr. Spring Rice entered the Upper House as Lord MoTiteagle, and was suc- ceeded as Chancellor of the Exchequer by Mr. Baring : Lord Howick was succeeded at the War Office by Mr. Macaulay. 6. 1841. SIR R. PEEL'S SECOND MINISTRY. Prime Minister Sir R. Peel. Lord Chancellor Lord Lyndhurst. Chancellor of the Exchequer . . Mr. Goulburn. Home Secretary . Sir James Graham. Foreign " Lord Aberdeen. Colonial " Lord Stanley. Secretary of War Sir Henry Hardinge. First Lord of the Admiralty . . Lord Haddington. President of the Board of Trade Earl Ripon, afterwards Mr. Glad- stone. Without office but in the Cabinet Duke of Wellington. 7. 1846. LORD J. RUSSELL'S FIRST MINISTRY. Prime Minister Lord J. Russell. Lord Chancellor Lord Cottenham. Chancellor of the Exchequer . . Mr. C. Wood. Home Secretary Sir G. Grey. Foreign " Lord Palmerston. Colonial " Earl Grey (Lord Howick). First Lord of the Admiralty . . Lord Auckland. Paymaster- General Mr. Macaulay. President of the Board of Trade Earl of Clarendon. THE EPOCH OF REFORM. 1830-1850. CHAPTER I REFORM AND REVOLUTION. The epoch of Reform in England is the period of transi- tion during which the representative system in Parlia- ment and the constitutional system in Monarchy became settled institutions. The representative principle in Parliamentary Government is that which secures to the people the right of freely choosing an adequate number of men to speak for them in the House of Commons. The constitutional principle in Monarchy is that which requires the sovereign to act on the advice of his minis- ters, who are themselves responsible to Parliament, and not to attempt to govern the country according to his own notions and his own will. The epoch of Reform in England coincides very nearly with the epoch of revolu- tion on the Continent of Europe. Where such reforms as those which took place in England are resisted by the force of arbitrary government, the natural result is revo- lution. As the intelligence of a people develops, and education spreads, there grows up among them a convic- tion that "the common sense of all," as Mr. Tennyson describes it, is better able to take care of the common interest than the arbitrary judgment of any sovereign or B 2 Rieform and Revolution. 1830 statesman, however sagacious and well-meaning. A time comes when that conviction has taken full and firm hold of the great majority of a people, and when that time comes, it is no longer possible to prevent the accom- plishment of a change in the political system. It is not possible to resist that change, any more than it is to resist the action of any physical law governing the movements of the world. No matter how strong the despotic power which endeavours to resist, the resistance is overcome in the end. The movement of civilised men is everywhere towards representative institutions, and where there is a monarchy, towards the constitutional principle in the monarchy. The wisdom of statesmen and of rulers con- sists in seeing when the stages of political development have been reached at which successive conditions of arbitrary rule have to give way before the popular move- ment. When statesmen are wise enough to see this for themselves by the light of their own intelligence, or are made to feel it by the pressure brought to bear on them and are willing to give way before the pressure, we have reform. Where this is not done we have revolt or revo- lution. If revolt, it is probable that after a severe strain there follows a period of reaction. But that reaction is sure to be succeeded by another period of revolt, and if the resistance of the ruling power be prolonged, there comes at last the period of revolution. This chapter of history begins with the year 1830, after the repeal of the Test and Corporation Act, in 1828, and after the passing of the great Act of Catholic Eman- cipation in 1829. Such measures, great as were their results and obvious as were their justice, do not come within the sphere of that kind of political reform which is to be studied in this volume. The principle on which the admission of Dissenters to civil and municipal office, 1830 Political Reform'. 3 and the political emancipation of Catholics, was founded, was one of moral justice. No matter what the system of government which prevailed in England, the justice of religious equality in civil and political affairs would have been recognised in time. In some of the most despotic countries in the world there never was any idea of main- taining such a principle of religious exclusion and intoler- ance as that illustrated by the disenfranchisement of Roman Catholics, and the Test and Corporation Acts. Curiously enough, some of the countries which even in the present day maintain the most antique and anomalous systems of arbitrary government, have never had reli- gious exclusiveness or religious tests as any part of their governing principle. Therefore, it is not right to regard Catholic Emancipation, the recognition of the civil rights of Dissenters, or the admission of the Jews to the House of Commons, as mere measures of political reform. ' The disqualification was in itself an obvious and gross outrage on the common principle of justice which must be sup- posed to be the basis of every state system. But while it is perfectly obvious to the modern mind that no man ought to be excluded from citizenship and its full privi- leges because of his religious faith, it is not by any means equally obvious that a certain proportion of persons living in houses of a certain rental should be either admitted to or excluded from the right to vote. When we come to consider that question we come into the region of pure political reform. In the same way the functions of the sovereign cannot be defined on any principle of obvious and fundamental justice. It must be a matter of growth and development, of adaptation to the wants and the condition of each particular stage ot each country's growth : a matter of compromise and ar- rangement. 4 Reform and Revolution. 1830 Here then, also, we have the working of the principle ('^ of political reform^ The two most significant reforms ^^^ accomplished and established in England during the period which this history describes are the reforms in representation and the changes gradually made in the relation of the sovereign towards the people. These principles were formally established in England between the years 1830 and 1850. No matter what further changes may take place in the governing system of this country ; no matter how the functions of the sovereign may hereafter be either extended or restricted ; no matter how the principle of election may be expanded or varied ; all such changes can be but further developments of the principles recognised and established between 1830 and 1850. All over Europe we see the varying process of development of the same principles. In every country of the European Continent the recognition of this princi- ple has been preceded by a period of revolution or of revolt, followed by reaction, and then revolt again. Only in England have the reforms been accomplished without a struggle. Nor is this owing, as is generally supposed, to the fact that the English political system embodied no serious grievance and no genuine oppres- sion. On the contrary, there were many anomalies of English political life which bore down on certain classes more severely and more unjustly than such classes were borne down upon in almost any continental state. The reason why the changes in England were so quiet and so satisfactory, was that English statesmen had arrived at that condition of political intelligence which made them able to recognise the fact that changes which they them- selves disliked, and would, if they could, have resisted, had nevertheless become inevitable, and must take place sooner or later, peacefully or with violence. Enghsh 1 769-1821 Napoleon. 5 statesmen were fortunately able to see the immense ad- vantage of accepting the inevitable at the right moment. Wellington and Peel saw that they could not success- fully resist the changes which the Metternichs and the Polignacs believed they could successfully resist. To this fact is due the whole difference between the manner in which political changes were wrought out in this coun- try and on the Continent, Had English statesmen been like those of foreign countries, we, too, should have had to describe the period between 1830 and 1850 as a pe- riod, not of reform, but of revolution. In 1830 Europe was just beginning to rise from a long period of depression and of political reaction. The French Revolution had swept over the Continent as a forest fire in America flames from tree to tree. The victories of the great Napoleon set the flag of France floating in every continental capital. From the heights of Boulogne Napoleon threatened England herself with invasion. Suddenly, however, there came a turn in the tide. Napoleon attempted impossibilities, and thus brought ruin upon his ambition and himself. It has been well observed by a French writer that the great difference between Napoleon and Julius Caesar is that Caesar knew what he could not do as well as what he could do, and was therefore successful to the end ; Na- poleon did not know what he could not do, and there- fore failed. Napoleon dreamed of the complete subju- gation of Europe ; of himself as the sole autocrat of the Continent; even of England beaten to her knees and brought under his dominion. He was not a man of sound political education, and did not thoroughly under- stand any country but his own. He was under the impression that the murmurs of political discontent which reached him from England really showed that the Eng- 6 Reform and Revolution. 1 798-181 2 lish people would be glad of a revolution effected in their country by means of an invasion from France. He had crushed Austria, Prussia, Spain, Italy, Holland, and all the continental states except Russia, and he had defeated Russia in the battle-field and forced the Czar to come to terms dictated by himself. He had set up his brothers as kings in Spain, Holland, and Westphalia; he had made his brilliant cavalry officer Murat king of Naples, and one of his marshals, Bernadotte, king of Sweden. At one point of his career Napoleon had no acknow- ledged enemy in Europe but England alone. Pitt, the Prime Minister, son of the great Chatham, had striven long and hard to keep up an alliance of the other Euro- pean powers against Napoleon, but it had utterly failed; and Pitt never recovered from the shock given to him by the news of the crushing defeat inflicted upon Austria in the battle of Austerlitz. England stood alone against Napoleon for a long time. She was always victorious on the seas. The genius of Nelson and his successive vic- tories kept alive the spirit and enthusiasm of the English people, even in the hours of deepest depression. At last Napoleon went so far as to issue decrees from Berlin and from Milan in which he prohibited all the European na- tions from trading with England. He entertained the preposterous idea that he could thus actually destroy the whole trade of England, and reduce her to something like starvation. He quarrelled anew with Russia, and entered upon the desperate scheme of an invasion of that country. Despite the fierce and patient resistance of the Russians he forced his way to Moscow. The people set their city on fire rather than endure its occupation by the French. Napoleon had to begin a retreat amid the terrible rigours of a Russian winter. The Russians harassed his retreating army at every step. The retreat i8i5 The Escape from Elba. y was only a long series of battles. Between Russian arms and the Russian climate Napoleon lost six -sevenths of his army. He had entered Russia with more than 600,000 soldiers ; he brought less than 80,000 back. Meanwhile the Duke of Wellington had been defeat- ing some of Napoleon's best marshals in Spain, and rendering the French occupation of that country an im- possible task. Austria and Prussia had been recovering their courage and strength. The folly of Napoleon's idea, that he could really extinguish the nationality of the Germans and reduce them to the condition of abject bondmen to the power of France, soon began to show itself. Germany rose against him, and he received an overwhelming defeat at Leipzig. An alliance was again formed for the purpose of crushing him ; England was the inspiring influence of the alliance ; Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and other powers were joined in it. Napoleon was defeated ; the allied powers entered Paris ; he was deposed and sent to Elba, an islet in the Medi- terranean. The allied powers left him the title of Emperor and gave him a little army with which to amuse himself. Lord John Russell visited Napoleon in Elba, and had some conversation with him. Napoleon showed how littje he understood of England by telling Lord John Russell that he had no doubt the Duke of Wellington would make use of the great influence of his military success to have himself declared king of England. The sovereigns of Europe called together a congress at Vienna for the purpose of restoring what they con- sidered to be order, and reorganising the systems and countries which had been swept over by Napoleon's victories. The Bourbon king Louis XVIII. was set up in France. Suddenly, while the congress was sitting, Napoleon escaped from Elba, landed in France, and was 8 Reforjn and Revolution. 1815 welcomed everywhere by the army and the people. The congress broke up ; King Louis XVIII. fled in very unkingly fashion out of the country ; Napoleon was Emperor of the French once more. The allies prepared to attack him, and pledged themselves never to rest until they had completely broken his power. The only forces immediately available were the English and the Prus- sians under Wellington and Blucher in Belgium. Napo- leon flung himself on the Prussians and defeated them. One of the best of his splendid marshals, Ney, attacked the English at the same time, but had to fall back with- out success. The object of the English and the Prus- sians was to draw their forces together ; Napoleon's pur- pose was to crush the English before the Prussians could come up. Wellington took up a fine position at Waterloo, not very far from Brussels, the capital of Belgium. He was attacked by Napoleon there : he had to bear the whole brunt of the day alone, for the Prussians only came up late in the evening, and his army was not only outnum- bered by that of Napoleon, but had only a comparatively small number of English, Irish, and Scotchmen in it, being in great measure made up of Belgians, Hanover- ians, and Hessians. Wellington's generalship and the indomitable courage of his own men triumphed over every difficulty. The finest of the French cavalry could make no impression on them. Marshal Ney himself led more than one desperate charge. It is worth observing, to show how different the real business of a commander often is from the part which he would be made to play on the stage or in a picture, that Ney prepared for one charge by putting his sword into its sheath in order that it might be out of his way, and that Murat, the most bril- liant cavalry officer of his day, hardly ever went into action 1814-15 -^^ Congress of Vie?ina. 9 with any weapon more formidable than a riding-whip in his hand. At last the Prussians came up, and the defeat of the French was complete. Napoleon had to fly for his life. He reached Paris almost alone. He abdicated the throne, went on board an English man-of-war, the Bcllerophon, and surrendered himself prisoner. He was sent to exile in St. Helena, an island in the South Atlan- tic. Thackeray, the great novelist, when a child return- ing from India, was taken at St. Helena to see the fallen Emperor walking up and down his little garden. Napo- leon never succeeded in regaining his freedom, and he died in St. Helena ; still, after all that wild and wonder- ful career, having scarcely passed middle age. Meanwhile the Congress of Vienna set to work to re- store the old conditions of things in Europe. The conti- nental sovereigns and statesmen had not the faintest comprehension of the realities of the situation. They did not understand that Napoleon had really effaced feudalism and what was called the divine right of kings. The French Revolution, of which he had been the great weapon and instrument, had destroyed all in the old sys- tems that really deserved destruction and had long been waiting for it. No congress, no Holy Alliance, as the union of some of the continental sovereigns was after- wards called, could restore what the Revolution had ac- tually removed. But the continental sovereigns and statesmen did not see this, and were fully convinced that it only needed a little exertion of energy to bring back the old order of things. The Holy Alliance was framed by a convention signed with the names of Francis, Em- peror of Austria, Frederick William, King of Prussia, and Alexander, Emperor of Russia. The convention declared that these sovereigns had no other object in framing the agreement than to publish to the world their lo Reform and Revolution. 1814-27 fixed resolution to take, in the administration of their own states and in their relations with other powers, the pre- cepts of religion for their sole guide. They therefore pledged themselves to " remain united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fraternity," and to help each other and to use their arms to protect religion, peace, and jus- tice. Finally, the document declared that all powers which should choose " solemnly to avow the sacred prin- ciples which have dictated the present act will be received with equal ardour and affection into this holy alliance." These last words gave to the alliance the name by which it has ever since been known. It soon appeared, how- ever, that by maintaining peace, religion, and justice, the allied powers only meant the carrying out of their own despotic will, and securing their own supposed interests. They proclaimed themselves the champions and minis- ters of religion and justice, but reserved to themselves the right of defining what justice and religion were. Justice and religion meant, according to their definition, the di- vine right of kings, the sacredness of despotic power, and the suppression of free speech and public liberty of every kind, wherever they could exercise any power of intervention. So they complacently set to work to put back the hand of time to the historical hour at which it was pointing when the mob of Paris destroyed the Bastile. They re- stored the dethroned princes and princelings ; they sus- tained arbitrary authority everywhere ; they proclaimed once again the principle of the divine right of kings ; they put a stop to liberty of speech or publication ; they governed by soldiers and police. They bound themselves by the engagement from which was taken the name of " holy alliance " to unite in putting down revo- lutionary agitation wherever it should show itself. For a 1814-27 The Policy of Canning. n time, England, under such ministers as Lord Liverpool and Lord Castlereagh, lent herself to this policy of reac- tion and repression. It was only when Canning, the great parliamentary orator and statesman, came to be really powerful that this country distinctly and finally withdrew from any participation in the principles and the policy of the holy alliance. Gradually the very strin- gency of the reaction brought about the undoing of much of its own work. The resolve of the Bourbon Govern- ment of France to intervene in the affairs of Spain, in order to put down popular movements there, impelled Canning to recognise the independence of the Spanish colonies in Mexico and South America that were then in revolt against Spanish dominion, and thus, as he said himself in the House of Commons, to call in the New World to redress the balance of the Old. The allies had joined Holland and Belgium under the crown of an Orange Prince — a union impossible of realisation since the days of William the Silent himself; and the result thus far was but a growing evidence of an incompatibil- ity which could only end, as it actually did end soon after, in convulsion and in the total separation of the countries thus forced together against their inclination. The independence of Greece is due to the foreign policy of England. Greece had long been suffering the most cruel oppression under the rule of the Turk. A rebel- lion broke out among the Greeks. The English states- men endeavoured at first to restore peace by securing a genuine reform in the system by which Greece was governed ; but as it becam.e more and more evident that the Turks would not reform and that Greece would not submit, the sympathy of England was cordially given to the Greeks in their gallant struggle, and at last an alli- ance v/as formed by England, France, and Russia, in 12 England after the War with Napoleon. 1815—30 which England took the lead, and the result was the establishment of Greek independence. No English statesman would accept the responsibility of the battle of Navarino, in which the Turkish fleet was destroyed by the united fleets of the allies under an English Admi- ral. But the policy of England had none the less brought about the freedom of Greece. In fact, the prin- ciple on which the Holy Alliance had acted tended only to accomplish the very results which it was formed to prevent. The extravagances of the French Revolution and the reckless aggressive ambition of Napoleon had set in motion that reaction which reached its height in the Holy Alliance. The Holy Alliance in its turn, by trying to suppress every free movement, made revolution unavoidable on the Continent, and opened the way for reform in England. CHAPTER n. ENGLAND AFTER THE WAR WITH NAPOLEON. The years between 181 5 and 1830 were specially favour- able for the growth of a spirit encouraging a new move- ment towards pohtical reform. England was weary of a war which had lasted with little intermission for more than twenty-one years. Her people had had their fill of military glory, and had paid their ample share of personal and public sacrifice. Domestic improvement had long been neglected. All schemes of political reform had been thrown into the shade for the time. England and her statesmen were filled with the one paramount idea — that of crushing the national enemy. Even while the process of crushing the national enemy was going on there were a good many persons here and there who 1815-30 England after Waterloo. 1 3 never felt quite certain whether a different kind of pohcy on the part of the Enghsh government might not have changed the enemy into a friend. There were many who doubted whether a different course pursued towards the French Repubhc might not have avoided all the hatred and all the warlike rivalry which imposed so much sacrifice on both peoples. At this distance of time we only hear of the uprising of the national spirit against Napoleon and the French, and the hatred felt for " the Corsican ogre," and the exultation of Europe over his fall. But anyone who takes the trouble to look a little closely into the history of that time will find that the sympathy which welcomed the birth of the French Re- public outlived amongst certain classes in this country the errors and excesses of that Republic, and went with Napoleon long after he had ceased to represent the Republican principle. At all events, there were many who much doubted whether the triumphs which the long struggle brought to England were worth the cost and the suffering by which they were bought. After the war was over and the nation had settled down to peace again, there came naturally a certain time of political prostration, owing in part to the reaction against the first enthusiasm created by the French Re- public and the disappointment of so many generous hopes, which, like those of Fox, were founded on the uprising of that great new principle in Europe. But the continuance of peace brought a revival of domestic pros- perity, and with it a revival of the feelings which make for political reform. Mr. Walpole in his " History of England" justly observes, in contrasting the England of 1830 with the England of 181 5, that in 181 5 legislation had been directed to secure the advantage of a class. During the interval between 181 5 and 1830 most of the 1 4 England after the War with Napoleon. 1 8 1 5-30 sinecures established for the benefit of the higher classes had been abolished. It seems now almost incompre- hensible that people should have endured so long the existence of many of those gross and monstrous sine- cures — offices with large pay and no duties — invented for the purpose of pensioning some bankrupt member of the aristocracy. The practice which allowed public officers to discharge their duties by deputies had also been to a great extent abolished. Roman Catholics were allowed to sit in Parliament. Dissenters might hold all manner of civil and political offices. A Jew might be a civic ofiicer of London. In commercial legislation the princi- ple of reform was making its appearance also. In foreign policy there was a reaction going on against the princi- ples of the Holy Alliance and "the crowned conspirators of Verona," as Sydney Smith called them, and there was a tendency to recognise that principle of nationalities which has inspired so profoundly the foreign policy of our own time. The criminal code had been mitigated by the abolition of some of its most cruel excesses. The Chancery Courts and Ecclesiastical Courts had felt the influence of the growing spirit of inquiry and of reforma- tion. It would not have been possible that political reform should remain long inactive under conditions so favour- able to the development of reasonable principles in every other direction. At the same time that all this improve- ment was making itself manifest, the condition of the labouring classes in the counties was not growing better. Perhaps it would be rash to say that the labouring poor were positively worse off in 1830 than they had been half a century before, but at least they were relatively worse off. Their condition had not improved in any sense, while the artisans in the towns were getting more pros- i8i7 The Blanketeers, 15 perous and more intelligent and more capable of acting in combination. The manufacturing power of England had grown immensely. New inventions, new appliances in almost every department of industrial science were giving fresh employment in every direction. Even the .very mechanism which the artisans dreaded and detested at first, under the idea that it would interfere with man's labour and his wages, was obviously operating only to increase the amount of employment in all the manufac- turing centres of the country. Here we have three con- ditions each acting in its own way as an influence in favour of political reform. War is over and there seems no prospect of its return ; artisans in towns are better paid and more self-reliant than they were ; labourers in the counties are, if not poorer, certainly no better off than at any previous time. The interval of peace gives men leisure to think of domestic politics. The sinking, or apparently sinking, condition of the labouring classes in the counties, where privilege is strongest, shows the necessity for some step of reform being undertaken ; and the working classes in the cities better paid, more inde- pendent and more capable of combination than ever they had been before, furnish a kind of reserve force at the command of political reformers. Many causes had operated to throw the artisan classes of the northern and midland towns into hostility against Tory principles and Governments. The memory of the Blanketeers was still fresh in the public mind. In 18 1 7 some starving colliers of the North had thought of making a pilgrimage to the house of the Prince Regent in London, in the hope of being allowed to tell their tale of misery to him, and induce him to do something on their behalf. Following the example of those poor fellows, a large body of Manchester working men resolved that 1 6 England after the War with Napoleon. 1 8 1 7- 1 9 they would walk to London, make known their griev- ances to the authorities there, and ask for parliamentai7 reform as one means of improving their condition. The plan was that each pilgrim was to carry a blanket with him, so that they might rest by the way at any chance place of shelter. For this they were called Blanketeers., The Government regarded this harmless movement in exactly the same light as the Government of Louis the Sixteenth's earliest years had regarded the attempt of a starving crowd to excite the compassion of the sovereign : " And so, on May 2, 1775, these vast multitudes do here at Versailles chateau, in widespread wretchedness, in sallow faces, squalor, winged raggedness, present, as in legible hieroglyphic writing, their Petition of Grievances. The chateau gates must be shut ; but the king will ap- pear on the balcony and speak to them. They have seen the king's face ; their Petition of Grievances has been, if not read, looked at. For answer two of them are hanged on a * new gallows forty feet high,* and the rest driven back to their dens for a time. " No leader of the Blanketeers was hanged, but some of them were seized and imprisoned. Troops were placed along the line of march ; many of the pilgrims were sent back to their dens again ; others were thrown into prison forth- with. It is needless to say that these high-handed measures did not prevail on people to be content with their condi- tion, to refrain from holding meetings, and renounce their demand for political reform. A very widespread and vehement agitation sprang up. Manchester took a lead- ing part in it. Most of the towns in the North fermented with it. Orator Hunt, as he was called, a Radical agitator and stump speaker, became famous for a moment as a hopeful leader. He found his level afterwards 1 8 1 9 Pctoioo. 1 7 in the House of Commons, and the recognition of the principle of reform would in any case probably have extinguished him, for he was not in any sense a genuine orator or even a great demagogue. But the Government set about to deal with the agitation in a fashion which made agitation popular and widespread, and the same sort of policy made Orator Hunt into a popular idol, and brought the condition of England, to adopt Mr. Gladstone's famous phrase, " within a measurable distance of civil war. " On August i6, 1819, a great meeting was held in the large field near St. Peter's Church, Man- chester, the spot on which the Free Trade Hall now stands. About 80,000 persons seem to have been present, and Orator Hunt was to be the hero of the day. Special Con- stables and Yeomanry were present in large numbers. When Hunt began to speak some movement took place amongst the Yeomanry which the crowd interpreted as an attempt to disperse them. The Yeomanry seem them- selves to have been alarmed by the swaying motions of the crowd. The result was an unlucky demonstration of authority on the one side, and a counter demonstra- tion of force on the other. The Riot Act was read. Hunt was arrested the moment he began to speak. He gave himself up quietly, recommended peace and order to the crowd, and was taken to the prison — for no offence that anyone could see. A scene of confusion took place which has never been clearly explained, but at last the Yeomanry rode at the crowd flourishing their swords. The immense size and weight of the crowd rendered its dispersion impossible, and the result was that many poor people were trampled under the feet of the horses or sabred by the swords of the Yeomanry. Some of the crowd flung stones at the horsemen. Altogether between three and four hundred persons were more or less injured. C 1 8 England after the Wa?' with Napoleon. 1817-29 Every attempt to have the action of the Yeomanry pun- ished or even rebuked proved hopeless. The event was long afterwards remembered as the massacre of Peterloo. Its immediate effect was to swell up the fire of anger on both sides into something that seemed to threaten a dan- gerous explosion. The Government had no idea of dealing with the crisis in any other way than by bringing in new measures authorising them to search for arms and seize them, to disperse great popular meetings, to punish seditious pub- lications, and to apply the principle of coercion every- where. Any coercion Bill was sure to be carried by a large majority of the House of Commons, but any propo- sal to inquire into the causes of the existing discontents and distress had little chance of obtaining even a decent number of supporters. The one great reform which, articulately or inarticulate- ly, the public voice began now to demand, was a measure which should make the House of Commons a represen- tative institution. This was a change to be accomplished by law. There was, however, another reform necessary to be effected in order to make the English Government constitutional in the true sense. This latter reform did not require legislative action to give it effect, and, indeed, could hardly be brought about by any Act of Parliament. It was a change in the relations of the Sovereign to the Ministry and to the House of Commons, a change which should make the majority of the House of Commons practically supreme over the Sovereign as well as over the Ministry. The one reform, as we shall presently see, brought about the other. The representation of the people of these countries was in an anomalous condition. The House of Commons did not, in any sense, fairly represent the nation. The I Si 7-29 The Rep7'esentaiive Principle. 19 theory of a representative constitution is very simple. It is founded on what may be called an ordinary principle of business. There is no mystery about it, and no pro- found philosophy. It is simply the principle that every man understands best his own business, and that for a Government to get to understand the best way to manage the affairs of a country the surest method is to get as nearly as possible the opinion of every man in the coun- try. Out of all these opinions a reasonable Government is supposed to be able to form a general idea of what the wishes of the country are, and it is fairly to be supposed that the common wish of the country will in ordi- nary cases tend in the direction of the country's welfare. Now, as it is not possible that each man shall give his opinion and have his say in public affairs, the principle of representation forces itself into recognition. Certain spokesmen are chosen by the people, or at least by those of the people who are electors and have the votes, and the spokesmen represent the views of those who have chosen them. Thus in a constitutional assembly the Government will always have the advantage of hear- ing the opinions of the majority in each constituency and also of the minority throughout the whole country. In truth this principle of representation really belongs in more or less crude form to every system of government. There used to be at one time a great deal of speculation as to the relative advantages of a representative system and of what was called a benevolent despotism. But, in fact, the comparison is one that cannot be fairly made. There is no absolute despotism in countries which have emerged even from the rudest forms of barbarism. No one man really exercises an unlimited and unconditional sway over a people, and manages their affairs " out of his own head," or according to his own caprice. In every state, 20 England after the War with Napoleon. 1829 however despotic its constitution may seem to be, the Sovereign has to take into account the feehngs and opinions of those over whom he rules. Whether he does this perfectly or imperfectly, whether by means of a recognised representative system or by means of inqui- ries and investigation made through his agents and his creatures, the principle is the same. He has to consult and does consult what he believes to be the general wish of his people. The Sultan Haroun Alraschid goes forth at night in disguise and wanders through the streets of Bagdad to find out what the people are saying. Louis the Great endeavours to get at what people are saying through the medium of police spies and court gossip. Napoleon I. sets himself to work to manufacture a public opinion which may supply the place of the genuine article, and may support him in every enterprise which he feels inchned to undertake. The Emperor Nicholas of Russia condescends to confer with his council of notables, and endeavours to get at the opinions of the various govern- ments and provinces of his Empire. No ruler, however autocratic, ventures to govern in absolute independence of the opinions of his subjects. He gets some hint at public opinion through police reports, through epigrams ; or at last through infernal machines, Orsini bombs, daggers, dynamite. What men think will be made known. Where a constitutional principle is recognised, and where the system of open representation is admitted, it is obviously of the utmost importance that the system shall be genuine, and shall answer the purposes it pro- fesses to attain. The benevolent despot, making his in- quiries after his own fashion, would be much more likely to get a just notion of what his people wanted than the so- called constitutional Sovereign who rehed upon an inadc- 1829 Catholic Emancipation. 21 quate and imperfect system of representation. There never was a time in England when the authority of tlie Sovereign was held to be absolute over the people, and when the King, in his dealings with any class or person of the community, was supposed to have the sam^e kind of power which some of the peasantry of Russia are still willing to believe is possessed by their Czar. For gene- rations in England the only absolute authority claimed for or by the Sovereign, was an authority over his Ministers ; these were, in fact, considered his Ministers in the strictest sense, his subordinates, his clerks, the officers of his authority, the instruments of his will. Down almost to 1830, it was still the habit of the Sovereign to govern the country, when he chose, with a set of Minis- ters who were continually outvoted and censured in the House of Commons. The king, up to the same period, did really exercise the right which now exists only as a name, that of appointing and dismissing Ministers to suit his own will and pleasure. The great change which in our time has been brought about makes it certain that although there be no written law or constitutional pre- cept to enforce it, the Sovereign no longer chooses or dismisses Ministers, except with reference to the ex- pressed will of the nation through its representative chamber. It is impossible in our time to suppose that a Sovereign could attempt to return to the principles so completely, although so silently, abolished. A country is a constitutional country only when this change has been accomplished. The transition which was made by Eng- land in the period between the reign of George III. and the first few years of the reign of Queen Victoria, was, in this respect, as important a reform as any which could be effected in our Parliamentary institutions. Although this little history does not deal with the story 22 England after the War with Napoleon. 1829 of Catholic emancipation, it is of material bearing on our task to point out the result of the manner in which Catholic emancipation was granted. The world has justly praised the wisdom of English statesmen like Wellington and Peel, who would have refused Catholic emancipation if they could, but yet saw that the time had come when they could no longer safely refuse it. Un- doubtedly, by the adoption of such a political principle English statesmen have more than once avoided revolu- tion. But while avoiding a greater they established a lesser evil. They did not surround their policy with the dignity and the glory of justice. They did not impress the popular imagination and stimulate the popular rever- ence by the spectacle of a statesmanship that acted only on the principle of right. Men saw that their rulers did the just act, not because they themselves believed it to be just, but because they found it to be expedient. Men saw that whatever was demanded with force enough at its back was likely to be regarded as a demand which it would be expedient to grant. Catholic emancipation was yielded not as a matter of justice, but in deference to a pressure from without which the Duke of Wellington declared that he could not resist. He said he had to choose between emancipating the Catholics and en- countering a civil war, and he was not prepared to en- counter a civil war. Even when emancipation was granted, and on these conditions, it was granted grudg- ingly. Every possible attempt was made to minimise its immediate influence. The man whose eloquence and energy had done more than any other influence to force emancipation on the Government, Mr. O'Connell, was kept out of Parliament as long as it was possible by any craft on the part of the Government to continue his exclusion. The effect of all this was to impress on the 1829 Popular Agitation. 23 English as v/ell as the Irish people the conviction that no justice could be had without a threat of violence, and that anything could- be obtained which was supported by- sufficient demonstration of strength. It is hardly too much to say that to the manner in which the Govern- ment resisted Catholic emancipation, and their grudging way of at last conceding it, is due a great part of the discontent and disaffection which have existed in Ireland from that time. It is clearly one of the defects of our constitutional system, that a reform of any kind is seldom made in mere obedience to the justice of the demand. Perhaps this is a defect inseparable from a popular system, and to be accepted merely as one of the disad- vantages attending every organisation worked out by men. The defect at all events is there, and its operation may be observed in every chapter of our political history. No matter how just may be the claims of a certain re- form, no politician expects to see it granted spontaneously and because of its justice. There must be agitation, there must be popular clamour, there must very often be something like a hint of possible resistance to the law before the reform is carried. Indeed, under our present system it is not easy to see how the condition of things could well be different. The House of Commons undertakes to manage the business of the country. Every improvement of every institution must be accomplished through its means. Each year brings fresh demands for reform, and new development in almost every direction. Anomalies which our fore- fathers put up with good-humouredly and perhaps did not even observe, are irritating and intolerable to us. With the growth of education we become continually more and more anxious to bring the practical working of our systems into harmony with reasonable theories. All 24 England afte?' tlie War with Napoleoii. 1S29 our commercial and industrial systems require, in their gradual development, new changes of legislation to suit the altered conditions. Thus we find a multitude of voices crying out together for a change in some law. It is impossible that Parliament can undertake all the changes together, and it has therefore come to be under- stood that the reform which has the most and the loudest voices clamouring on its side must have precedence. It is a question not of the survival of the fittest but of the precedence of the fittest. Therefore, the course of legis- lation in our times is almost certain to go through suc- cessive stages each one of which can be foreseen and speculated on by prudent persons in anticipation. The reform is first discussed and justified by writers and thinkers. At this stage of its history Parliament cares nothing about it. Then it becomes a subject of agitation out of doors. When it has made stir enough in that way it becomes a question of Parliamentary debate. Parliament however for a long time takes no further account of the proposed reform than to have a discussion on it every session. Suddenly, however, by chance or otherwise, it grows strong with the country. Great meetings are held; stormy crowds come together; per- haps there are riots ; at all events there is danger of public disturbance, and then at length Parliament sud- denly finds that it has to deal with a more vehement claimant than any other just then demanding to be heard, and yields to popular clamour what it never would have thought of yielding to justice. As Comte described all the intelligence of man as passing through its three distinct gradations of the supernatural, the metaphysical, and the positive, so we m.ay describe English reform as passing distinctly through the three stages of the study, the platform, and the Parliament. 183-0 Popular Agitatiofi. 25 It is worth noting, too, that the manner in which the representative constitution of the House of Commons has been expanded has not thus far tended in any degree to make it more ready to take the initiative in legislation. Still, as before, it waits patiently until the voice of the country calls on it to act and tells it distinctly what it is to do, before venturing on any action. In no matter of any importance whatever, does Parliament attempt to take the initiative, or to anticipate the wants and wishes of the country. In the days just before the passing of the Reform Bill, the epoch with which we are now imme- diately concerned, it seemed to be the principal office of Parliament to resist as long as possible every public and popular demand. Statesmanship then appeared to have accepted, in domestic policy at least, the simple business of obstruction. To resist change so long as it could safely be resisted, was then apparently an English Minister's notion of his duty. Well was it for England that this was all that her statesm.anship felt itself called upon to do. Statesmen in other countries believed themselves conscientiously bound to resist change even at the peril of national peace, to resist it to the death. CHAPTER III. THE LEADERS OF REFORM. For a long time previous to 1830, there seemed to be no fixed rule in these countries for the selection of the towns to have representatives in the House of Commons. The principle in former times appears to have been that the Sovereign issued his writ to any town or place he chose to select. The King invited such a place to send a re- presentative to advise him. The assumption was that he 26 The Leaders of Reform. 1830 chose the places to be represented in accordance with their population and their importance, but it is almost needless to say that the power which the Sovereign assumed was exercised very often in the most arbitrary fashion. Habit came in many cases to make the arbitrary choice permanent and perpetual. Many places which had been tolerably populous when the Sovereign first invited them to send representatives to the House of Commons, lost their population and their importance and fell into actual decay. Yet the Sovereign continued to issue his writ and to invite those places to send represen- tatives to Parliament, In some instances the places named actually ceased to be anything more than geo- graphical expressions. The hamlet or village, or what- ever it might have been, fell into ruin. There was no population. The owner of the soil was perhaps the sole resident. The case of Old Sarum is famous. Old Sarum was a town in Wiltshire. It stood not far from where Salisbury now stands ; Salisbury is in fact New Sarum. It returned members to Parliament in Edward I.'s time and after- wards in the days of Edward III., and from that period down to the time of the Reform Bill, which we are now about to consider. But the town of Old Sarum gradually disappeared. Owing to the rise of " New Sarum,'' Salisbury, and to other causes, the population gradually deserted Old Sarum. The town became prac- tically effaced from existence ; its remains far less palpa- ble and visible than those of any Baalbec or Palmyra. Yet it continued to be represented in Parliament. It was at one time bought by Chatham's grandfather, " Govern- or Pitt," as he was called after he had been Governor of Madras, the owner of the famous diamond. It was cool- ly observed at the time that " Mr. Pitt's posterity now 1830 Bribery, 27 have an hereditary right to a seat in the House of Com- mons as owners of Old Sarum, as the Earls of Arundel have to a seat in the House of Peers as Lords of Arundel Castle." Ludgershall in Wiltshire was another place which continued to send members to Parliament long after it had ceased to be a constituency. This was the place which was offered up as a free sacrifice by its rep- resentative during the debates on the Reform Bill. Grave- ly announcing himself as the patron of Ludgershall, the constituency of Ludgershall, and the member for Lud- gershall, this gentleman declared that in all three capa- cities he meant to vote for the disfranchisement of Lud- gershall. A place called Gatton, with seven electors, had two members. Two-thirds of the House of Com- mons was made up of the nominees of peers or great landlords. The patrons owned their boroughs and their members just as they owned their parks and their cattle. One duke returned eleven members ; another, nine. Seats were openly bought and sold. In some instances they were publicly advertised for sale. The poll might remain open at one period for six weeks. In 1784 its limit was reduced to fifteen days. Bribery, drunkenness, hideous scenes of debauchery and riot went on without intermission during all that time. A county or borough, during a contest, was as completely surrendered to a saturnalia of infamy, as a captured town used at one time to be given up for a certain number of days to the license of the conqueror's soldiery. Allowing for the exaggeration permissible to a great humourist, it does not seem as if Hogarth's famous picture of the election gave any very extravagant notion of the things that were done and the sights that were seen during a parlia- mentary contest in England. Public opinion had hardly any influence on the choice of many, if not most of the 2 8 The Leaders of Refor7n. 1830 constituencies, even when there were constituencies to choose. Territorial influences and money settled the matter between them. While places no longer marked on the map had any representatives, the great manufactur- ing towns, such as Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, were without representations. They had grown up to bo prosperous and populous communities while Gatton and Old Sarum were sinking into decay and death, but the Sovereign's power to summon representatives did not deign to take account of them. In Ireland and Scot- land the condition of things was on the whole still worse and more anomalous, if that were possible, than in Eng- land. The franchise, both in counties and in boroughs, was so high as to preclude anything like the possibility of popular representation. On the other hand, this high level of franchise was balanced in the boroughs and cities by a number of arbitrary franchises, conferred on what were called freemen, resident and non-resident : on forty- shilling freeholders, and on various associations or cor- porations of men ; and these, connecting no moral or political responsibility whatever with the exercise of the vote, really tended only to give better facilities for cor- ruption. Some of these antiquated and anomalous fran- chises only introduced into the constituency a class of persons who were completely at the service of the highest bidder. They sold their votes as the informers in certain days of the Roman Empire sold their testimony. Meanwhile, great English populations were growing into importance in the manufacturing districts. Towns and cities began to arise here and there whose vastness, wealth, and intelligence surpassed anything that could have been represented by local communities in earlier days of the Parliament. Towns like Birmingham and 1793 -^^- Grcf s Petition. 29 Leeds and Manchester and Sheffield began to have a pubUc opinion of their own, interests of their own, am- bitions and aspirations of their own. Very naturally they began to crave for some place in the representative system of the country. Reform schemes were brought forward every now and then, and came to nothing. Lord Chatham, in 1770, supported a motion made by the Marquis of Rockingham, in favour of Parliamentary re- form, and pointed out that "the strength and vigour of the constitution " must reside, not " in the little dependent bor- oughs," but in "the great cities and counties." The American War interposed and diverted attention from the whole subject. In 1782 his son, William Pitt, moved for a Select Committee on the subject of Parliamentary reform. In 1785, when Pitt was Prime Minister, he made an attempt to amend the representation by taking from thirty-six small boroughs their right to return members, and endowing certain counties or populous places with the privilege. His scheme also included a provision for gradually extinguishing the franchise of boroughs which might have fallen into decay. This scheme, however, was negatived by a majority of 74. It is not likely that Pitt was much in earnest about the matter; he would have had a much larger following if jt had been gen- erally understood that he really meant reform. Then the French Revolution intervened. That revolution, how- ever, in the first instance, did more to excite the enthu- siasm of reformers than to arouse the alarms of those who were opposed to reform. Mr. Charles Grey, the friend and pupil of Fox, afterwards Earl Grey, whose stately eloquence still survives in the memory of living men, took up the cause of reform, and presented a peti- tion from Sheffield, from Birmingham, from the city ot Edinburgh, and various other places, praying for Parlia- 30 The Leaders of Refor7n . 1793-1830 mentary reform. The most important, however, of the petitions which Mr. Grey presented, was the famous Prayer from "the members of the Society of the Friends of the People, associated for the purpose of obtaining a Parhamentary reform." This remarkable petition, pre- sented to the House of Commons on May 6, 1793, de- clared that no less than 1 50 members were actually nom- inated by members of the House of Lords ; that 40 Peers returned 8 1 members by their own positive authority in small boroughs, and that an absolute majority of the Re- presentative Chamber were returned by influences entirely independent of, and opposed to the representative prin- ciple. The petition also complained of the length and the cost of electoral contests, and of the complicated "fancy franchises" which we have already mentioned. The House of Commons, whose constitution was chal- lenged by this petition, decided by an overwhelming ma- jority in its own favour. Then the wild days of the French Revolution interposed, and a reaction led by Burke's famous Essay set in amongst all the influential classes of English society. Reform, the safeguard against revolution, became identified with revolution itself, in the minds of most men. The reform question fell into something like oblivion. Mr. Grey, indeed, raised the subject in Parliament once or twice, but each time apparently with less chance of success and with diminished favour. Not for some years after the fall of Napoleon, and the temporarily decisive victory of Waterloo, did the subject of Parliamentary re- form become a serious question in the House of Com- mons. It was not allowed to lie wholly in abeyance all this time. Now and again a motion was brought forward in the House by Sir Francis Burdett, by Lord John Rus- sell, by the Marquis of Blandford, by Lord Howick, son 1 764-1845 Lord Grey. 31 of Charles, now become Earl Grey, and by other men having the object of dealing with the question, or with some branch of it, but without any marked result. Lord Grey was still the recognised leader of the reform party. He had been the friend and pupil of Fox. He was a man of remarkable energy and unbending character. Macaulay has paid a well-merited tribute of praise to the stately eloquence of which he was a master. In his younger days he had been one of the managers of the famous impeachment of Warren Hastings. He ap- peared side by side with Burke and Fox and Sheridan and Windham. "Nor," as Macaulay says, " though surrounded by such men. did,t.be youngest manager pass unnoticed." " Those," adds tilie historian, "who within the last ten years have listened with delight till the morning sun shone on the tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate of the powers of a race of men amongst whom he was not the foremost." Lord Grey's eloquence was probably of a kind hardly known to our time. It seems to have been measured, stately, grand, better suited to illustrate great principles and advocate large reforms, than to deal with what we may call the mere business details which take up most of the work of Parliament at the present day. Although the pupil of Fox, Lord Grey does not seem to have caught from his master any of that spontaneous and impassioned elo- quence which has been described by Grattan as " rolling in resistless as the waves of the Atlantic." Those, perhaps, among us who can remember the lofty, half- poetic oratory of the late Lord Ellenborough, with its diction apparently raised above the level of ordinary events and common debate, will have a better impression of the style of eloquence in which Lord Grey was distin- 32 The Leaders of Refo7'in. 1 792-1840 guished. Lord Grey was a man of the highest personal honour and character. Nature had not, perhaps, given him any great force of will or power of initiative. He was therefore apt to be sometimes under the influence of those immediately around him. He was said, for ex- ample, to be very much under the control of his son-in- law, Lord Durham. But Lord Grey had the entire con- fidence of the reformers of England, and was in every way a man fitted to stand between Sovereign and people at a great political crisis. He had the courage to tell a Sovereign what it became . the Sovereign's duty to do, although the admonition might be distasteful to royal ears, and he had the firmness not <"CL?Jlow.ixhnself to be led away too far by the impatient demaiids of a re^on- ably dissatisfied people. ' * The reformers out of doors would probably not have been sorry if Lord Durham's influence over his father-in law had been even greater than it was reported to be. Lord Grey was ready to give that opportunity to younger men which the leader of a political party is not always found considerate enough to allow, and his most Radical colleague at that time was Lord Durham. The fame of Lord Durham has curiously faded and become dim in our day. He was a inan of a ' masterful ' character, to adopt an expressive provincial word. He was a bold and earnest Radical, going much further in some of his notions on the subject of reform than most of the pro- fessed Radicals of our own day would be inclined to do. He had a strong and resolute will. His temper was overbearing, and often swept away his judgment in its fitful and sudden gusts. He was too sensitive for his own happiness or his success as a politician. Lord Durham's political career was short. He had been long out of politics when he died in the July of 1840, and he was i'j'j()-i86S Lord B7'ougham. 33 then only in his forty-ninth year. But at the time we are now describing he was tlie hope of all the more ad- vanced Radicals of the country, and he had still a gieat career before him. It is fairly to be called a great career, although it was a failure so far as Lord Durham's poli- tical advancement was concerned. Lord Durham was sent out to settle the disturbances in misgoverned and rebellious Canada ; and he founded the great, prosper- ous, self-governing country, in whose fortunes and pro- gress we all now take ^sg^^j^dee^u-^ninterest. He evolved order out of chao^''^:-^QBctfe0l ffl^^^^^igie as a dictator. He had to xj ence, would remove the only chance which the poorer classes and the working classes in particular had of in- fluencing the elections. Peel's argument in favour of the close borough system was based on a principle that we can easily understand. He pointed to the number of men who had entered the House for boroughs which the present Bill would disfranchise. Lord North, Burke, Pitt, Flood, Fox, Plunket, Canning, Windham, Huskisson, Brougham, Romilly, and several others were all first re- turned for close boroughs. When by caprice or v/ant of money, or otherwise, some eminent men were deprived of larger seats they were rescued by some of the close boroughs, and their valuable labours thus secured to their country. Sheridan defeated at Stafford found shelter at Ilchester; Windham rejected by Norwich was received at Higham Ferrers ; Lord Grey refused by Northumberland was accepted by Tavistock. This was the kind of argument with which England was made familiar in later years. It was an argument used by Sir Robert Peel's greatest pupil, Mr. Gladstone, against a further disfranchisement of small boroughs. It is plain, however, that any such advantage attaching to the exist- ence of small boroughs is only one casual benefit to be measured against a great many certain and inevitable disadvantages. The close boroughs were nests of cor- ruption, where they were not actually pocket boroughs and the property of some peer or landowner. Neither the system of corruption nor the system of nomineeship can be said to be creditable or endurable in a civilised coun- try. Against these gross and monstrous defects we have to set off the single and chance advantage that a close borough, owned by an intelligent master, might sometimes be the means of returning an able man to the House of Commons. This is all that can be said in justification of 58 Introduction of the Reform Bill. 1831 the system, and it is not much to say. Besides, it is plain that with the growth of education, of independence, and of pubhc spirit the close boroughs would lose entirely this preponderating advantage. As large and popular constituencies grow more enlightened and more inde- pendent they would show themselves not less willing to return distinguished men than the closest borough owned by the most liberal proprietor. In our own day, we see that men of talent, without family or wealth, have a much better chance, in the large and populous boroughs, than they would have in a small close borough the property of a peer or a landlord. Where the small borough was not the property of a peer or a landlord, it had of course no advantage ; for the class of voters who could be bought by the dozen for money and beer were not likely to be greatly impressed by the genius and the claims of some moneyless Sheridan or too conscientious Burke. Sir Robert Peel's speech was answered by Mr. Stan- ley, afterwards Lord Derby, and answered very effectively as to that one point about the small boroughs. What- ever advantage, Mr. Stanley said, might be derived from that mode of admission would be more than counter- balanced by the disadvantage that the class of persons thus introduced, whatever their talents, would not be looked upon by the people as representatives at all. The debate was adjourned to Tuesday, March 8, and was then resumed by Mr. O'Connell. He gave the Bill his earnest support. There were, he said, objections to it. He declared that he himself was by conviction a Radical reformer, and that this was not a measure of Radical reform. " In every practical mode universal suffrage," he contended, " ought to be adopted as a matter of right." " The duration of Parliaments should be shortened to the time stipulated in the glorious Revolution of 1688, and 1 8 3 1 O' ConneW s Speech . 5 g above all, votes should be taken by ballot." It will now perhaps strike many persons as strange to find a man of Mr. O'Connell's country and faith describing the Revolu- tion which unseated James II. and put William on the throne as the "glorious Revolution of i688." But Mr. O'Connell was perhaps the last, as he was certainly the greatest, of the Irish public men whose political creed was on the whole identical with that of the advanced English Liberals. Another point in Mr. O'Connell's speech is worth noting. He contended that the repre- sentation of many parts of the country ought to be largely reorganized. He gave as an instance the fact that the population of Dublin amounted to considerably more than a fourth of the population of London, and that on that ground Dublin was fairly entitled to larger repre- sentation. The relative position of London and Dubhn has marvellously changed since that time. Instead of being considerably more than one-fourth of the popula- tion of London Dublin is indeed considerably less than one-eighth. "When I hear triumphant assertions made," said O'Connell, "as to the working well of the present system, I would refer you to Ireland for an illustration. We have had a complete trial of it for thirty years at least, and yet Ireland is one of the most miserable countries on the earth, with wretchedness and starvation spreading desolation through the land." The debate went on during seven nights until an early hour of the morning of March lo. Lord Russell then replied. The Speaker put the question, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the representation of the people in England and Wales." The motion was agreed to without a division. The House of Commons seldom divides on a motion for the first reading of any measure introduced even by a private member, not to say 6o Introduction of the Reform Bill. iS J a measure introduced by the Government. Leave was then granted to introduce Reform Bills for Scotland and for Ireland. It will easily be seen that the measures thus introduced must have fallen very far short of the wishes of advanced reformers. Everyone who pretended to the name of a Radical reformer and who took part in the debate expressed a certain sense of disappointm.ent. We know that in the Cabinet, by which it was introduced, there were influential members who would gladly have gone much further than Lord Grey or even Lord John Russell would have consented to go. The feeling of the country, therefore, was not one of very great enthusiasm at first. Perhaps if the Conservative leaders had been crafty, not to say prudent men, and had allowed the Bill to go through its various stages without serious opposi- tion, the interest of the country would have diminished and languished, and it might have passed into law without arousing any feeling whatever. It ought to have been clear to the Conservative leaders that when once the Government of Lord Grey had proposed such a scheme there could be no quiet until that measure at least was carried, and that any decided opposition would only tend to inflame the passions and increase the demands of the people out of doors. Most of the mode- rate reformers in the country understood this perfectly well. They saw that nothing would satisfy the public, even for the present, short of the full provisions of the Bill as introduced by the Government. They dreaded lest, emboldened by the lack of popular enthusiasm, the Tory leaders should endeavour to defeat the Bill, and thus rouse public spirit into a passionate demand for some stronger measure. Therefore nearly all the leaders of popular movements out of doors lent what we may call a generous assistance to Lord Grey and Lord John 1 031 The Feeling of the Coiiiitiy. Ci Russell. Their assistance was generous because th2 measure was not what they would themselves have pro- posed, and, indeed, in many points fell short of the scheme which a few months before they thought them- selves entitled to expect at the hands of the Whig Go- vernment. CHAPTER VI. THE PROGRESS OF THE STRUGGLE. On March 21, 1831, Lord John Russell moved the second reading of the Reform Bill. An amendment was moved to the effect that it be read a second time that day six months, and a debate took place which lasted two nights and was of a somewhat languid character, nearly all the great speakers of the House having already ex- pressed their opinions and fully argued the question from all points of view. Three hundred and two mem- bers voted for the second reading, three hundred and one for the amendment, and the second reading was therefore carried only by a majority of one. The Opposition were for the time triumphant. They felt perfectly certain that a Bill which passed its second reading by only a majority of one could easily be so mutilated in Committee as to render it of little harm, even if it should succeed in pass- ing through the House of Lords. When the Bill was about to go into Committee, General Gascoigne moved an instruction declaring that in the opinion of the House, " The total number of knights, citizens, and burgesses returned to Parliament for that part of the United King- dom called England and Wales ought not to be dimin- ished." Lord Althorp at once understood the meaning of this attempt. It was the first of a series of motions by 6 2 The Progress of the Struggle. ^ 3 3 1 which the Opposition intended to interfere with the pro- gress of the Committee in a manner which, as he said, if submitted to would be fatal to the Bill, or at least so det- rimental to it as to render it valueless. When the House divided there were 299 votes for General Gascoigne's motion and 291 against it. The majority against Government was therefore eight. The Ministers made up their mind to appeal to the country. The King, it appeared, was strongly opposed to a dissolution, and had intimated to his Ministers when they first came into office that he did not feel inclined to dissolve a Parliament so newly elected in order to enable them to carry a Reform Bill. Now, however, the Minis- ters were determined that Parliament should be pro- rogued at once with a view to its speedy dissolution. There was a great deal of trouble to induce the King to consent to this arrangement. On Lord Brougham fell the disagreeable task of announcing to William the advice of the Ministry. Something like a scene is said to have taken place. The King made all sorts of tech- nical objections to the dissolution of Parliament, and even, it is said, went to the point of accusing Lord Grey and Lord Brougham of something like high treason in having made arrangements to call out the Life Guards for the closing ceremony of prorogation. At last, how- ever, William was prevailed upon, and the dissolution took place. Sir Robert Peel was actually speaking, de- nouncing the Ministry with a vehemence such as he hardly ever showed before or after in the whole course of his career, when the knock of "Black Rod" was heard to summon the Commons to attend at the bar of the Peers and hear the prorogation announced. The dissolution of the Parliament was celebrated by reformers all over the country with the utmost enthu- 1831 Parliament Dissolved. 63 siasm. There were illuminations in London and in most of the great towns. At the West-end of London some of the anti-reformers who refused to put lights in their windows had their houses attacked and the windows broken. The Duke of Wellington was one of those who became in this way the victim of a popular demonstra- tion. The windows of Apsley House which look into Hyde Park were broken. The shutters on that side of the house were kept closed for years and years after, and popular rumour had it that the Duke of Wellington refused to allow the windows ever again to be opened which the anger of the public had thus vehemently assailed. When the elections came on vast sums of money were spent on both sides. It is to be feared that bribery and corruption were almost as active and as flourishing on the one side as on the other. In nearly all the great towns the result of the election was in favour of reform. General Gascoigne, one of the members for Liverpool, the man whose "instructions" to the Com- mittee had been the first cause of the dissolution, found himself driven out of his seat by an overwhelming majority. Nearly all the English county members were now pledged to reform. The transformation effected by the elections was as great as any ever witnessed even in our own days, when complete changes of power are familiar to us as the result of an appeal to the country. In the new Parliament Lord John Russell and Mr. Stanley appeared as Cabinet Ministers. On June 21 the King opened Parliament. As he went down to the House of Lords he was received with immense enthu- siasm both without and within the walls of Westminster Palace. On June 24 Lord John Russell introduced a second Bill on the subject of Parliamentary Reform. Except for some slight alterations in detail the new Re- 64 The Progress cf the Struggle. 1831 form Bill was practically the same as the old. The second reading was brought forward on July 4, and the debate occupied three nights. Three hundred and sixty- seven votes were given for the second reading and two hundred and thirty-one against it, thus showing a ma- jority of one hundred and thirty-six in favour of the Government. The Opposition now made up their mind to try what they could do by a process more familiar to our days than to theirs, the device of Parliamentary ob- struction. Repeated motions for adjournment were made, on each of which a discussion and a division took place. There was something ingenious in the device by which the debate was kept up through the whole of the night. For example, some member cf the Opposition would move "that the Speaker do now leave the Chair." On the motion being lost it would be moved " that the debate be now adjourned." That motion being lost, somebody would again move that the Speaker do leave the Chair, and so with alternations of motions for the Speaker to leave the Chair, and for the House now to adjourn, the whole night was passed through, and it was half-past seven in the morning when exhausted members were allowed to go home, only to assemble again at three o'clock that day. Scenes of this kind were repeated again and again. Week after week passed on while de- termined Conservatives were talking against time, and were making use of the forms of the House with every possible ingenuity in order to delay the passing of the Bill. The same speeches in almost the same words were made over and over again, on every point concerning which a discussion could possibly be raised. Reformers both in and out of Parliam.ent began to be seriously alarmed. It seemed not impossible that, if tactics of this kind were pursued, the Governm.ent might find it out of 1 83 1 ParUamenta7y Obstruction. 65 their power to carry through the Bill in any time during which Parliament could be expected to sit. The disfran- chising clauses of the Bill gave immense opportunity for debate. As each rotten borough proposed for sacrifice came under consideration, opportunity was taken not only for defending the existence of that particular place, but for repeating all over again the arguments against any manner of reform, with which the ears of the House had been wearily familiar for months. Time and the hour, however, run through the roughest day. The extinguishing of the condemned boroughs was accomplished at last. The struggle then began over the boroughs which were to be reduced from two mem- bers to one. The work of obstruction set in again. It was arranged and drilled by a systematised process of organ- isation. " There was," says Mr. Molesworth in his " His- tory of the Reform Bill," "a regular division of labor in the work of obstruction, which was arranged and superintended by a committee, of which Sir R. Peel was the President." " In order to promote delay," says the same author, "the leaders of the Opposition stood up again, and again repeated the same stale statements and arguments, and often in almost the same words." Be- tween July 12 and 27, Sir R. Peel spoke forty-eight times, Mr. Wilson Croker fifty-seven times. Sir C. Wcth- erell fifty-eight times. At last, however, on August 2, the disfranchising clauses were finally disposed of, and the house then went on to consider the third clause, which gave two members each to large towns previously unrepresented. A night was spent in resisting the claim of Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds to have repre- sentatives in the House of Commons. Meanwhile, meetings were being held in London and throughout the countiy, urging on the Government not to give way, to F 66 The Progress of the St7'uggle. fight against the obstruction to the very last, and to keep Parhament sitting as long as might be necessary for the purpose of carrying the Bill. An important meeting of the supporters of the Government was held at the Foreign Office, over which Lord Althorp himself presided, and at that meeting he declared that "the enemies of reform are miserably mistaken if they hope to defeat the Bill by delay." " Rather than abandon the Bill," he declared, "Parliament will be kept sitting till next December, or next December twelve months if necessary." August 1 8 was a somewhat memorable day. The Marquis of Chandos moved an amendment on the i6tla clause, with the object of giving a vote to any farmer occupying on his own account land at the rent of not less than 50/. per annum, without any reference to the condi- tion of his tenure. Lord Althorp opposed the amend-- ment, on the ground that tenants at will, upon whom Lord Chandos proposed to confer the franchise, were for the most part completely dependent upon their landlords. A considerable number, however, of the re- formers themselves took a different view, and supported the amendment on the ground that to enlarge as much as possible the principle of enfranchisement was the ob- ject they had mainly at heart. The amendment was carried by a majority of eighty-one. The Bill passed through committee on September 7. The report was taken on Tuesday, 13th, and its consideration occupied several evenings. On September 19 the Bill was read a third time. One hundred and thirteen voted for the third reading, and fifty-eight against. The majority was fifty-five. The numbers on both sides were small, be- cause the House did not expect a division so soon. The anti-reformers took it for granted that there would be a long debate, but as it happened very few of them were 1 83 1 The Bill and the Lords ^ 67 in their seats when the third reading was proposed. Every captain of the Opposition apparently expected that somebody else would be ready to begin the discus- sion. Only one chief of their band, Sir J, Scarlett, hap- pened to be in his place, and he endeavoured to talk against time, but was frightened out of his design by the vehement shouts of " divide." He gave way at last, and the division was taken, to the surprise of crowds of Tories who came rushing up to prolong the discussion, and ar- rived only in time to find themselves too late. The motion that "the Bill do now pass," gave them, however, an opportunity for a discussion of three even- ings more. At five o'clock on the morning of September 22, the last division took place. Three hundred and forty-five members voted for the passing of the Bill, 239 against it, showing a majority of 106 on the side of the Government. The Bill, however, had still to go before the House of Lords. It was brought up on the evening of the 22nd to that House. Lord Grey moved its first reading. No discussion took place, and on October 3, Lord Grey moved that the Bill be read a second time. His speech appears on the testimony of all contempora- ries to have been fully worthy of the great occasion. It was closely argumentative in substance, stately and elo- quent in style. Especially impressive was the con- cluding portion, in which he appealed to the archbishops and bishops in the House not to assist a narrow majority in rejecting the Bill. He appealed to them to remember that if their influence should enable the opponents of reform to throw out the Government proposition, the prelates would then stand before the people of England as the enemies of a moderate and just scheme of reform. Lord Wharncliffe moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. The Duke of Wellington and 68 The Progress of the Struggle. Lord Lyndhurst opposed the Bill ; Lord Brougham sup- ported it, with characteristic energy and power. The division took place on the morning of October 8, and there was found to be a majority of forty -one against the second reading. The whole work of a session in the Commons had been done in vain. The Lords interposed at the last moment, and there was an end of reform for that year. Some, at least, of the peers must have felt the respon- sibility of the situation very deeply, and must have found their hearts sink within them as they left the House of Lords on the dawn of that morning in autumn, and were able to say to themselves that they had inter- posed between the English people and a moderate and yet popular scheme of reform. Passionate emotion spread over the country when the news went abroad. Tumultuous meetings were held everywhere. In many towns the shops were closed, and m^ourning bells tolled from the churches. " Run for gold," became the popu- lar cry, and a run was really made upon the Bank of England which at one time caused great alarm. Vast crowds assembled along the street from Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament, cheering the reform leaders, and denouncing with furious execrations the members of either House who had opposed the Bill. The Duke of Newcastle, the Marquis of Londonderry, and several other peers were attacked by mobs, and were saved not without some struggle and some danger. The bishops were the objects of special detestation, and a cry arose everywhere for their expulsion from the Upper Chamber. Indeed, proposals for the abolition of the House of Lords became popular almost everywhere over the country. Riots took place at Derby and at Nottingham. Notting- ham Castle, the seat of the Duke of Newcastle, who had 1 83 1 The Reform Riots. 69 made himself specially odious as an opponent of the Reform Bill, was burnt to the ground. One of the innocent victims of the time was Mrs. Musters, once celebrated as Mary Chaworth, Lord Byron's first love, about whom he had written his poem " The Dream." The house of Mr. Musters was set on fire. The fire was not allowed to spread, and indeed was put out without much trouble, but Mrs. Musters in alarm fled from the house, and took refuge in a garden. Terror and the chill air brought on a fit of illness, which ended shortly after in her death. Belvoir Castle, the seat of the Duke of Rutland, was attacked by a mob. Bristol saw a series of riots, the like of which had hardly ever been witnessed in this country before. Sir Charles Wetherell, one of the most notorious opponents of the Reform Bill, was Recorder of Bristol, and came down to hold an assize court there. When he entered the city, the carriage in which he sat was escorted by a large number of special constables, but it was attacked by a crowd. Stones were thrown, several of the attendants were severely injured, and it was with no little difficulty that Sir Charles was enabled to make his way into the hall where the court was to be held. A series of riots began. The rioters for a time gained the upper hand, and Sir Charles Wetherell had to escape from the Mansion House in disguise ; had to climb over the roofs of the houses near, and had to be smuggled out of the city as quickly as possible. The troops were at last called out, the officers and men behaved with great forbearance and discretion, and the riot was at last suppressed, but not before the Mansion House, the Bridewell, and some other public buildings had been thoroughly destroyed. In almost every cathedral town there was what might be called a special disturbance. The unpopularity of the 70 The Progress of the Struggle. 1831 bishops was broad and deep, and many of the fiercer spirits in every mob took the opportunity to urge an attack upon cathedrals and churches. Even the reform Government themselves came in for a certain share of the fury against anti-reformers. Some wild suspicion got about that there were divisions in the Cabinet as to the expediency of pressing the Reform Bill, and it was feared that Lord Grey might be induced to put off the reintroduction of the measure to some indefinite time. Lord Grey felt a little hurt at these suspicions, and on one or two occasions rebuked a public deputation with something like asperity. The whole condition of things was such that a very slight act of indiscretion, or even a very slight excess of zeal at an inopportune moment, among the leaders on one side or the other, might have led to something like a distinctly revolutionary move- ment. How near England came at this time to the verge of actual revolution, will probably be never known with certainty. It is easy now, as we look back from a safe distance, to underrate the extent of the danger. We have grown so accustomed to stability in our political affairs, that it seems hard to believe in the imminence of revolu- tion at a time so near to our own. Yet it is hardly pos- sible to doubt that during the reform struggle, England was brought once or twice very close to revolution, and that the great leaders of the liberal party of the day were aware of the danger, and were making preparations against it. Some of the Liberal leaders must have begun to be afraid lest the King should ultimately resist the pressure of the Ministry and of the public. They must have asked themselves what course it would be their duty to take in such an emergency. If the King persisted in opposing the operation of constitutional principles, it 1 83 1 Possible Revolution. 71 would be practically to attempt a revolution. Were the ijreat Liberal nobles of England to side with the Kino- against the Parliament and the people, or to endeavour to take such action on behalf of the Parliament and the people as might anticipate the unconstitutional action of the Crown ? The dilemma appeared not unlike that which was presented when Charles I. broke away from his Parliament. Some at least of the influential English nobles seem to have been inclined to cast in their lot with the Parliament and against the Sovereign in the event of the Sovereign proving faithless to the constitu- tional principles by virtue of which alone he held his crown. Many years afterwards it came out that there was a tentative sort of correspondence going on under the sanction, or at least with the connivance, of some of the Liberal leaders, the object of which was to make arrangements for the disposition of the army in the event of the King's unconstitutional action rendering a struggle inevitable. During the trial of the Irish state prisoners at Clonmel in 1848 evidence was called to prove the existence of a correspondence which undoubtedly showed that some influential reformers were prepared, should the necessity be forced upon them, to side with the Parliament and the people against the King, and that they were trying to secure in advance the co-operation of the great soldier. Sir Charles Napier. Meanwhile popular excitement everywhere was growing to the wild- est pitch. O'Connell, the Irish leader, threw all the aid of his eloquence and his energy into the cause of English Reform. He once addressed a great meeting at Charing Cross, and pointing with his outstretched right hand in the direction of Whitehall Palace, he reminded his audience that there a King had lost his head. Why, O'Connell asked, had this doom come on him ? The 72 The Progress of tha Sti'ltgglc. 1S31 orator supplied the answer himself. "It was," said O'Connell, "because he obeyed the dictation of a foreign wife." The allusion to the supposed influence of the Oucen over King William was • taken up by the crowd with instant appreciation, and was cheered with a ve- hemence which gave new emphasis to its political meaning. Parliament reassembled on December 6, 1831. The King in person opened the session. His speech an- nounced that measures for the reform of the Commons would be introduced, and added that " the speedy and satisfactory settlement of this question becomes daily of more pressing importance to the security of the State and the contentment and the welfare of the people." On Monday, December 12, Lord John Russell rose in the House of Commons to ask leave to bring in his third Reform Bill. There were no very important differences between the new Bill and the former measures. Some slight changes, of little account to us at this distance of time, were introduced, and these on the whole were rather of a nature to moderate than to strengthen the character of the Bill. The Opposition struggled hard to have the second reading delayed, and made it a reproach to Ministers that whatever changes they had introduced into their measures had been borrowed from the Con- servative side of the House. The second reading of the Bill was taken on December 18, a Sunday morning. There were 324 votes for the second reading, 162 against it; a majority of exactly 2 to i. Parliament adjourned for the Christmas holidays. Much of the early part of the New Year was occupied in trying the rioters who had made disturbances throughout the country. They were severely dealt with in some cases. Four m^en were executed at Bristol, three at Nottingham. Parliament I S3 2 The Waverers. 73 reassembled on January 17, 1832 ; on the 20th the House went into committee on the Reform Bill. The tactics of obstruction came promptly into play again. From January 20 to March 14, was occupied in this sort of opposition. The Bill got out of committee then, and passed its third reading on IMarch 23, by a majority of 116. It was introduced into the House of Lords at once, and its second reading fixed for April 9. The great question now was whether the Lords would give way. A small group of peers, led by Lord Wharn- cliffe and Lord Harrowby, came into considerable promi- nence at this crisis. They were called " the Waverers," because their political action oscillated backwards and forwards between the Ministry and the Opposition. They really held the balance of power in the House of Lords. The course that they might decide upon at any moment would settle for the time the fate of the Reform Bill. Lord Wharncliffe went so far as to admit that some sort of reform measure must be introduced, but he voted against the second reading of the former Bill because he declared he had still a hope that something more moder- ate might be introduced. The key of the difficulty, however, was held in the hands of the King. If he would increly give his consent to a large creation of new peers, Lord Wharncliffe and his waverers would most certainly never put the Government to the trouble of carrying such a measure into effect. They would never run the risk of having their House flooded with reforming peers. But this was exactly what the King was unwilling to do. He hoped that the Waverers would assist him in his desire to get a very moderate, and from his point of view, a very harmless Reform Bill introduced. So long as there was any hope of thus tampering with the constitution, he was determined not to give way to the urgent demands of the 74 The Progress of the Struggle. Ministry. He would not authorise them to threaten a new creation of peers. When the Bill was brought into the House of Lords on April 9, the Duke of Wellington announced that he was as determined as ever to offer it an uncompromising opposition. He was indiscreet enough in his speech to declare that he did not believe the King himself wished for any such reform as the Bill proposed. He said he was fully persuaded that it was a mistake to believe that the King had any interest in that Bill, and was satisfied that if the King's real feelings were made known to the country, Lord Grey would never be able to pass such a measure. The Waverers, however, supported the second reading of the Bill, and it was carried by a majority of nine. The policy of the Waverers seemed still to be carried out in the spirit and almost in the letter. They had helped the Minister to pass the second reading, but by a majority so small as almost to allow the Opposition to feel fully confident that they could so muti- late it in committee as to render it practically worthless. When the House went into committee. Lord Lyndhurst led the Opposition, and moved that the consideration of the disenfranchising clauses should be postponed until the enfranchising clause had first been considered, so that instead of making enfranchisement a consequence of disenfranchisement, disenfranchisement might follow en- franchisement. The Waverers declared that they would go with Lord Lyndhurst. It may seem that the question was of little importance, and only concerned the order in which the various clauses of the Bill were to be taken by the committee, but Lord Grey now, as on a former occasion, promptly declared that the real question for him was whether the control of the measure was to be left in the hands of its friends and its promoters, or whether it was to pass into the power and guidance of those who were always its bitter and deadly enemies. 1832 Lord Grey' s Resignation. 75 He declared that if Lord Lyndhurst's motion were car- ried, he would regard it as fatal to the Bill. Lord Lynd- hurst persevered, and his motion was carried by a ma- jority of thirty-five. Lord Grey at once moved the ad- journment of the debate and the further consideration of the Bill until May 10. It was now clear that Lord Grey was determined to carry the measure by the assistance of the King, or to resign his office. The King at first refused to give his consent to the creation of a sufficient number of peers to insure the passing of the measure. Lord Grey tendered his resignation, and the resignation was accepted. The wild commotion that spread all over the country alarmed for a while even the stoutest opponents of re- form. The Duke of Wellington himself may have felt his heart sink within him. Utter coinmotion prevailed in the palace. The King sent for Lord Lyndhurst and begged for his advice. Lord Lyndhurst recommended that the Duke of Wellington should be sent for. The King endeavoured to prevail on the Duke to take the leadership of a new administration. The Duke did not sec his way, and recommended that Peel should be in- vited to form a Government. Peel knew well that he could not maintain a Ministry, and he naturally and pro- perly declined. The Duke of Wellington was once more urged, and, out of sheer loyalty and devotion to his Sovereign, he actually made the vain attempt to get to- gether an anti-reform administration. It was only an attempt. It came to nothing. Before the game was fairly started it had to be given up. Nothing was left but for the King to recall Lord Grey to power and con- sent to the measures necessary for the passing of the Reform Bill. Meantime the perplexed King was openly denounced all over the country. When his carriage was 76 The Progress of the Struggle. seen in London it was surrounded by hooting and shriek- ing crowds. The guards had to take the utmost care lest some personal attack should be made on him. Lord Grey and Lord Brougham insisted, as a condition of their returning to office, that the King should give his consent to the creation of a sufficient number of new peers. The King yielded at last and yielded in dissatisfied and angry mood, a mood which was intensified when Lord Brougham requested that the consent should be put into writing. At last William gave way, and handed a piece of paper to Lord Brougham, containing the statement that " the King grants permission to Earl Grey and to his Chancellor, Lord Brougham, to create such a num- ber of peers as will be sufficient to insure the passing of the Reform Bill." When that consent had been given there was an end to the opposition. The Duke of Well- ington withdrew, not only from any part in the debates on the Bill, but even from the House of Lords altogether until after the Bill had been passed. The Waverers of course gave way. It would be no further use to oppose the Bill. Lord \\Tiarncliffe spoke bitterly against it be- cause he evidently thought he had been outwitted, if not actually deceived, by the Ministry, but there was no fur- ther substantial opposition to the measure. The Bill passed through the Lords on June 4, and the Royal as- sent was given to the measure a few days later. The House of Lords, in yielding without further struggle, settled a principle without which our constitu- tional system could now hardly continue to work. They settled the principle that the House of Lords were never to carry resistance to any measure coming from the Commons beyond a certain point — ^beyond the time when it became unmistakably evident that the Commons were in earnest. Since that day no serious attempt has been 1832 The End cf Personal Sovereignty. 7 7 made by the House of Lords to carry resistance to the popular will any further than just such a period as will allow the House of Commons to reconsider their former decision. When the House of Commons have recon- sidered their decision and still adhere to it, it is now almost as clearly settled as any other principle in our constitutional system that the House of Lords are then to give way and withdraw all further opposition. It may be stated in plain words, that were the House of Lords now to depart from this implied arrangement, some modification of our constitutional system, as regards the Upper Chamber, would be inevitable. Another question settled we may hope for ever by the pressure brought to bear upon King William, was that which concerns the influence of the Sovereign's own personal will in legisla- tion. The King gave way to the advice of his Ministers on a matter of vital importance to the nation, and on which his opinions were opposed to those of the majority. He yielded, not to mere argument or to mere persuasion, but to actual pressure. It became thereby settled that the personal will of the Sovereign was no longer to bo a decisive authority in our scheme of Government. That was, we believe, the last time when the question ever was tested. With the close of the reign of William IV. and the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne, ended that chapter of our history in which the personal will of the Sovereign made one of the conditions under which the country is to be governed. It is now satisfactorily, and we trust finally settled, that the Sovereign always yields to the advice of the Ministers. As in the case of the House of Lords so in the case of the Crov/n, it may be said that any departure from the well-established and well-recognized principle, could we suppose such a thing possible, M'ould now lca.d beyond doubt to some impor- tant..modification cf our whole constitutional r,ystem. 78 The Progress of the Struggle, 1832 Some alterations, as we have seen, were introduced into the reform scheme in the course of its long struggle through both Houses of Parliament. But its main fea- tures underwent no material change. To us, looking back on the Reform Bill from this distance of time, it seems that nothing could have been more moderate and even modest in its proposals. Not that the change effected by it was not great. It amounted in truth to something like a parliamentary revolution. But there were certain distinct objects necessary to be accom- plished if Parliament was to remain any longer in har- mony with the spirit of the country, and in a condition to deal with its political wants, and it is not easy to see how the change could have been effected in a more cautious and a more gradual way. What the Reform Bill actually did was to pass sentence on the system of close or nomination boroughs, to establish in practical working order the principle that the House of Commons was a representative assembly, bearing due proportion in its numbers and in its arrangement to the numbers and the interests of the constituents, and to extend the suf- frage so as to enfranchise the great bulk of the middle and lower middle classes of the community. The Re- form Act was indeed very far from bringing representa- tion and constituency into anything like exact proportion, but it made a distinct advance in that way, and it esta- blished a principle which is left to be wrought into a more perfect system by future generations. The Bill was only a compromise, but under all the circumstances it could hardly have been anything else. Lord Grey and his colleagues might have brought in a very modest measure of reform, some such scheme as other reformers were frequently bringing forward during the long dull interval when the question was not occupying the attention of 1832 Disappointment with the Bill. 79 any Government. Such a Bill, however, would have been almost as difficult to pass as that which they at last succeeded in carrying into law. On the other hand they might have endeavoured to satisfy the demands of the more Radical members of the House of Commons and of Radicals generally out of doors, and introduced a meas- ure at once bold and comprehensive which would have settled the question for many generations. But we doubt very much whether it would have been possible to carry such a Bill just then. Certainly it would have involved the risk of a most serious struggle, perhaps of something like a warfare of class against class. Lord Grey attempted no uprooting of ancient institutions, and he carried with him what may be called the common sense and common instincts of the great bulk of the English population, in proceeding strictly on what were since his time called the old lines of the constitution. But it is certain that the Bill disappointed a great many not only outside the House of Commons but within it, and we may add not only outside the Government but even in the Cabinet itself. Its one main defect, as will afterwards appear, was the manner in which it left the great body of the working classes entirely outside what was called the pale of the constitution. It redeemed the political power of the State from being the monopoly of one great class, and made it the partnership of two great classes. That was an advance in itself, and it established the principle which made further advance possible. But it disappointed those who found themselves not better off but even v/orse off as regards the franchise than they had been before. It is clear that the Bill was above all things one which it would have been wise on the part of the Con- servatives to accept with as little 'resistance as possible. 8o The Progress of the Struggle. It Y/as the most moderate measure of reform which it was possible for any really reforming government to offer, or which would have been accepted by the people at large. It ought, one would think, to have been clear even then to an intelligent Conservative, that the country would never again be content to listen to any smaller project of reform. Yet the Conservatives had not the slightest idea of accepting any compromise. On the contrary, they had strong hopes that they would be able to resist the whole reform movement and beat it back. There were Tories who not only believed that the Government would never be able to carry any Reform Bill, but were even satisfied that the leaders of the Government did not expect to succeed. Sir James Graham was spoken to by a member in the lobby on the night after the first Re- form Bill had been explained. The member who ad- dressed him complimented him and his colleagues on their courage and honesty, but added that he supposed of course they were perfectly prepared to go out of office the next day. In the course of one of the closing debates on the Reform Bill in the House of Commons, Lord John Russell made use of certain words which were often afterwards cited against him. They were quoted by ex- treme reformers to his reproach, and they were quoted by extreme opponents of reform as a Ministerial pledge against further change. Lord John Russell said, that in his opinion " so far as Ministers are concerned, this is a final measure. I declared on the second reading of the Reform Bill that if only a part of the measure were carried it would lead to new agitations, but that is now avoided by the state in which the Bill has come from the other House." It was instantly assumed by the extreme advocates of reform that Lord John Russell meant by 1832 '' Finality y 81 these words to express his opinion that the era of reform had closed in England, that enough had been done in the way of change for all time, that the political system of this country was then the good made perfects On the other hand, when many years after Lord John Russell undertook further schemes of reform, the extreme oppo- nents of change accused him of having broken a solemn pledge. The speech was constantly referred to as Lord John Russell's " finality " declaration, and indeed the noble Lord himself was irreverently dubbed by certain critics, " finality Jack." The meaning, however, of Lord John Russell's statement is perfectly obvious, nor was there anything in it inconsistent with his taking up fur- ther schemes of reform at a distant period. What he meant was that as regarded that particular chapter of re- form, Lord Grey's government felt that it had closed. They had done enough for the time. They knew very well that in English politics reforms are made in eras or in sections, and that the country will not stand the ma- king of fresh changes year after year. The habit of the English people is to lay in a stock of reform which they believe will last a certain time, and to have no more to do with the question until the time seems to have nearly run out. Any practical politician v/ould have seen that no matter how great might be the class grievances left unre- medied by the Reform Bill of 1832, it would be impossible to induce Parliament and the public to set about a new scheme of reform immediately after. Lord John Russell meant, therefore, as indeed he said in plain words, that the government of Lord Grey regarded themselves as having done their part in the settlement of reform, and that having accomplished so much they did not propose to attempt anything further. Lord John Russell it seems almost needless to say, continued to be as steady an ad- G 82 The Progress of the Struggle. vocate of reform, after the passing of Lord Grey's Bill, as he had been before. He knew well that the Bill was but a beginning and a compromise, and that much more re- mained to be done even in his own time. He could not be supposed to shut his eyes to the fact that that artisan class, with whom he had always shown much sympathy, were not only still left out of the franchise, but were, in- deed, deprived of special franchises and political privi- leges which they had before the passing of the Bill. No one of Lord John Russell's political sagacity could have failed to see that the enfranchisement of the working class would become a "burning question " before many years should have gone over the heads of statesmen. With the passing of the Reform Bill, the name of Lord Grey may be said to pass out of history. He had done his own special and appointed work, and had done it patiently and well. It was a great effort on the part of a man of his aristocratic descent, and some- what, cold and haughty temperament, to interest himself so deeply and risk so much in a movement to extend the franchise to a class of men with whom he could have had but an imperfectly developed sympathy. His is not a great figure in history, but it is a dignified and stately figure. It represented a great movement, of which he was not indeed the source and the inspiration, but of which he was the successful guide and the graceful, im- posing figure-head. His life links together two distinct eras of our history, which but for that connecting bond would be completely sundered. Lord Grey began his political career as the friend and the associate of that great group of statesmen and orators of whom it is not too much to say that as a group they had not their rivals in the previous history of England, and that they have not found their rivals in the history of later days. We have 1832 West Indian Slavery. Z^t had since that time, as we had before, many great names, names in themselves perhaps as great as any which were shining in the early part of Lord Grey's career. But there was not before his time, and there has not been since, any group of statesmen who could be compared with the two Pitts, with Burke, with Fox, with Sheridan, and with Windham. Amongst such men Lord Grey did not indeed hold a commanding place ; but he was ad- mitted into their company, he was looked upon as one of them, and some of their lustre is still allowed to shine over his more modest personal fame. CHAPTER VIL BLACK AND WHITE SLAVERY. The period which succeeded the passing of the Reform Bill was one of immense activity and earnestness in legislation. During the ten years of the Whig adminis- tration from 1 83 1 to 1 84 1 — for we may take it as a whole period, notwithstanding one or two small breaks already mentioned or still to be mentioned — there were more plans and projects of reform in all directions set on foot and carried through than in any previous period of English history or in any subsequent period, if we except the marvellous three or four years of Mr. Gladstone's first administration. The first great reform was the complete abolition of the system of slavery in the British colonies. The slave trade had itself been suppressed so far as we could suppress it long before that time, but now the whole system of West Indian slavery was brought to an end. Despite the most gloom^y prophecies on the part of lovers of the old system, despite the elaborate and ex- haustive arguments that free labour never could compete 84 Black and WJiite Slavery. with slave labour, and that the actual ruin of our sugar- growing colonies must be the result of abolition, the Government, driven on by public opinion, persevered and put an end to slavery in our colonies. A long agitation of the small but energetic anti-slavery party brought about this practical result in 1833. In many parts of the colonial empire of Great Britain, espe- cially in the West India islands, England had succeeded to the inheritance of a slave system and of an immense number of negro slaves. Granville Sharpe, Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian and statesman, Thomas Fowell Buxton, Wilberforce, Brougham, and many others had for a long time been stiriving hard to rouse up public opinion to the abolition of the slave system. The slave owners were strongly represented in Parlia- ment. The idea that it was incumbent on any nation to abolish a slave system which they found in existence was something new to the public in general. The slave trade had already been abolished, not without many struggles and much difficulty, but the slave trade seemed to most persons to involve entirely different moral and economical principles from those which attached to the system of domestic slavery. To many intelligent and conscientious men it seemed quite reasonable to say that England should not allow a trade to go on in the forcible abduction and importation of unfortunate negroes from their homes in Africa, but they did not see that anything like a moral obligation rested upon England to abolish at a stroke a system of domestic slavery which had grown up in her colonies independent of any action of her own, which she found existing there, which had come down from almost all time, and which many or most of them believed to be not only necessary for the development of colonial interests, but for the advantage 1832 The Abolitionists. 85 and protection of the slaves themselves. Some three- quarters of a million of slaves would have to be convert- ed into free labourers in order to satisfy the appeal which Granville Sharpe and Wilberforce were making. Fowell Buxton was in Parliament. Zachary Macaulay had resigned the management of a West Indian estate because of his detestation of the slave system, and had taken a leading part in promoting an attempt to found a new negro colony at Sierra Leone, an attempt which ended in failure. He was a man who thoroughly under- stood the condition of the slave colonies, and he was able to furnish Buxton with a mass of hard facts which were of immense influence in arousing public opinion in Eng- land. The most terrible disclosures were made as to the brutal treatment of the negroes. For a long time the slave owners had met every argument for emancipation by insisting that it would necessarily be followed by a negro insurrection, that the colonies would be exposed to the most terrible danger, and above all, that the slaves were treated with consideration and affection, such as free labourers hardly ever received in England itself. All the stories vaguely floating in England about the flog- ging of negro men and women, the branding and muti- lations, were treated as absurd fables and were described as such with the overbearing authority of the men who have been there, and ought to know. The facts which Zachary Macaulay assisted Buxton to collect put a stop to this comfortable way of dealing with the question. It was shown that the most horrible and wholesale system of flogging and branding prevailed throughout the West Indies. The names, the facts, the places, the dates, were given. Women actually with child had been scourged with as many as a hundred and seventy lashes. Women had been stripped, tied up to a post, and left S6 Black and White Slavery. 1823-33 there naked through a whole day, writhing under a tropi- cal sun and with a flogging inflicted at stated intervals. Half-caste women, almost as white as English women, were frequently to be identified by the brand on their breasts. The newspapers of the islands constantly con- tained advertisements for runaway slaves. Nearly all of these were to be identified by the brandings or the marks of flogging. It was occasionally emphasised as a means of identifying a particular woman that she was branded on both breasts. So long before as May 1823, Buxton brought on his first motion for the abolition of slavery. The resolution declared the slavery system repugnant to the principles of the British Constitution and of the Chris- tian religion, and declared that it ought to be gradually abolished throughout the British colonies, with such ex- pedition as may be found consistent with a due regard for the well-being of the parties concerned. Canning was then the leading member of the House of Commons. He did not go so far as to support Buxton, but he proposed three resolutions affirming the expediency of improving the condition of the slaves, preparing them for civil free- dom, and at the same time pledging the House to take care that all this should be compatible with the well-being of the slaves, the safety of the colonies, and a full consid- eration for the rights of private property. These resolu- tions were adopted, and the colonists urged to take at least one step towards complying with their spirit by abol- ishing the flogging of women. The colonies, of course, were under different systems of government. Some were under the direct authority of the Colonial Office, others were governed by local legislatures. Jamaica was one of these, and its House of Assembly was furious with anger at the idea of the British legislature attempting to interfere in the affairs 1823-33 ^^^ Demerara Court- Martial. 87 of the colony. In Jamaica there were nearly a half a million of negroes, Barbadoes and Demerara, the latter a crown colony, governed directly by the Colonial Office, broke into still greater fury of wrath. In Demerara some of the slaves had heard vague rumours from Eng- land that the day of their freedom was coming, and in a part of the colony they refused to work. Their re- fusal was called an insurrection, and the insurrection was stamped out with the most savage cruelty. An Eng- lish missionary, the Rev. John Smith, a dissenter, was charged with inciting the slaves to revolt. He was im-. prisoned ; he was treated with barbarous severity ; he was tried with utter disregard of most of the forms of justice, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He es- caped the scaffold, however. He died in consequence of the ill-treatment he had suffered, while some of his prosecutors, less cruel than others, were pleading that the recommendation to mercy with which the court-mar- tial had accompanied its verdict ought to be made a reality. The whole question was taken up in England. Brougham, Mackintosh, and Lushington denounced the proceedings of the court-martial. The Ministers reversed the proceedings of the court, and even when they had made this necessary concession to justice and decency, Brougham's motion, denouncing the whole transaction, was defeated by 193 to 146. The Colonial Office at once issued new regulations for the treatment of slaves in the Crown colonies. These regulations prevented the driver from carrying a whip in the field, abolished alto- gether the flogging of women, ordered that no punish- ment should be inflicted until twenty-four hours at least after the offence, that no slave should receive more than twenty-five lashes in one day, and that married slaves were not to be separated from their children. This was 88 Black and White Slavery. 1823-33 undoubtedly an improvement so far as the Crown colonies were concerned, but it was not easy to get the local au- thories of Jamaica to legislate. In 1826 they did indeed pass what professed to be an Act to amend the slave laws, but the Act had nothing really valuable in it. It allowed the use of a whip in the field, and it did not abolish or interfere in any way with the flogging of women. The Colonial Office declined to sanction the Act. The Jamaica Assembly would not assent to the views of the Colonial Office, and thus the supposed reform dropped through altogether. In May 1830, a great meeting was held in London to agitate again for the total abolition of slavery, Wilberforce, who had long been out of public life owing to illness, presiding, and Mr. Buxton proposed a resolution calling on the country to agitate for the en- tire abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions. One of the results of this meeting was that Lord Brougham raised the whole question in the House of Commons. He brought forward a motion in the close of the session of 1830, on the general subject of slavery. He narrated some of the most appalling stories of the abuse of despotic power in the colonies. He thrilled the House by his eloquence and his passion. His motion was defeated, as the motion of an independent member in such a case is almost sure to be, but the course he had taken succeeded in arousing the attention of the country, and making the question of abolition one which no Government could long afford to neglect. Mr. Buxton drew attention to the subject the following year. Lord Althorp, unable to accept Buxton's propositions, offered a poor sort of compromise, the effect of which was that the colonies which really improved the condition of their slaves should be allowed to import their sugar into this country at reduced rates of duty. This absurd and 1833 Lord Stanley on Slavery. 89 feeble suggestion to bribe the planters into a little moderation towards their slaves would have been un- worthy of serious consideration, even if the whole ques- tion had merely refen-ed to the physical treatment of the unfortunate serfs. But the question, in the mind of Buxton, and now of the country in general, was whether slavery should exist at all, whether it should be abol- ished unconditionally, or whether, at least, some steps should be taken to insure its gradual extinction. Par- liament, however, was dissolved almost immediately after, in consequence of the Reform Bill, and the newly- elected House of Commons was for some time occupied with other subjects. When Parliament met in 1833, everyone expected that the speech from the throne would contain some allusion to the question of emanci- pation. No word, however, in the speech, long though it was, had any reference to the subject of slavery. ' Bux- ton, therefore, at once gave notice of a motion on the question, and appealed to the Government to say whether they did not really intend to introduce a measure them- selves. The Government asked for some time to con- sider the course they could take. In the meantime. Lord Goderich, Secretary of the Colonies, had been transferred to the office of Lord Privy Seal, and the department of the Colonies was placed in charge of Lord Stanley. Lord Stanley was just the man to undertake a bold and hazardous task. He set to work to study the whole question of colonial slavery, and in a few weeks after his acceptance of office, he was enabled to state the policy of the Government on that subject. The speech has been described by all who heard it as a masterpiece of eloquence. The subject was one which exactly har- monised with his impetuous and generous nature. When Lord Stanley's feelings were really roused in some great go Black and White Slavery. cause, he was always able to rise to the height of a genuine eloquence. He was not a man of lofty intellect, or even, perhaps, of deeply-penetrating intelligence, but his style, when animated by feeling, carried with it all the persuasiveness and all the force which are especially adapted to move an assembly like the English Parlia- ment. Lord Stanley proposed a plan, the effect of which was that slavery proper should cease at once, but that in order to prepare the slave for the freedom he was ulti- mately to have, and to meet the chance of the eman- cipated negroes plunging into excesses of any kind, there should be a transition period — a time of apprenticeship before the negro became a thorough free man. The Colonial Secretary moved five resolutions, one declaring the opinion of the House "that immediate and effectual measures be taken for the entire abolition of slavery throughout the colonies, under such provisions for regu- lating the condition of the negroes as may combine their welfare with the interests of the proprietors." The second declared it expedient that all children born after the passing of an Act of Parliament for this purpose, or who should be under the age of six years at that time, should be declared free ; " subject, nevertheless, to such temporary restrictions as may be deemed necessary for their support and maintenance." The third declared all persons now slaves entitled to be registered as appren- ticed labourers, and to acquire thereby all the rights and privileges of free men, " subject to the restriction of labouring under conditions and for a time to be fixed by Parliament for their present owners." The fourth resolu- tion enabled the Government to advance by way of a loan, to be raised from time to time, a sum not exceeding 15,000,000/., to provide against the risk of loss which proprietors of slaves m^ight sustain by the abolition of 1833 Macaulay and Emancipation, 91 slavery. The fifth merely authorised the Crown to meet the expense necessary for establishing a staff of stipen- diary magistrates in the colonies, and giving the local magistrates means to provide for the religious and moral education of the emancipated slaves. The first and second resolutions were adopted after some discussion, but the third resolution, which contained the principles of the apprenticeship system, gave rise to a strong opposition. Mr. Buxton himself led the Opposi- tion, and was followed by the professed friends of eman- cipation. Lord Howick, son of Earl Grey, also opposed this part of the scheme. He contended that the proposed interval of apprenticeship would in no way improve the character of the negroes, or render them more fit for the enjoyment of perfect liberty at the expiration of twelve years. He had given evidence of his sincerity on the subject by the fact that he resigned the office of Under- Secretary for the Colonies on account of the objection he felt to this part of the Ministerial scheme. Among those who supported the Government was Mr. T. B. Macaulay, afterwards famous as the historian, essayist, and orator. Mr. Macaulay spoke with all the more influence because he was the son of that Zachary Macaulay who had done more than almost any other man for the cause of emancipation, at a period when that cause was yet only beginning its struggles, and seemed to have little chance indeed of approaching success. Macaulay and others contended that the transition from slavery to a state of apprenticeship was, at all events, a great step in advance, that it settled the question of slavery, and that the delay of a few years was a matter of little consequence, as long as absolute emancipation was to follow in its course. Mr. Buxton was prevailed upon to withdraw his amendment and substitute another, g2 Black and White Slavery. ^^33 to the effect that the labour of the emancipated slaves in the apprenticeship period should be for wages. Further pressure induced him to withdraw this amendment too, but Mr. O'Connell, who had seconded him and who was an uncompromising opponent of slavery in every form, would not give way, pressed the amendment to a division and carried forty votes with him against 324. The reso- lution which proposed the loan of 15,000,000/. to the planters was fiercely opposed by that party in Parliament which represented their interests, and took up their cause. The Government were most unwilling to be defeated in so great a public question, because of a mere difficulty about a sum of money. They therefore agreed to change the proposed loan of 15,000,000/. into an absolute gift of 20,000,000/. There might have been a good deal said against the policy of an absolute gift. There was certainly enough of what might be called superfluous and unnecessary injustice perpetrated or allowed by the planters as a body, to warrant any Government in refusing absolutely to buy them out of their odious privileges. The Government, however, acted wisely in not haggling about terms, and the country was willing to fling almost any amount of money away in order to get rid of so detestable a system. The resolu- tion, therefore, was carried without a division. It passed the House of Lords along with the rest. A Bill based on all the resolutions was promptly brought in and easily co.rried with a single change, reducing the term of apprenticeship from twelve years to seven in one class and seven to five in another. Thus the slaves were made free, and the planters were bought out of their privileges. Many of them found themselves positively enriched by the sum of money which fell to their share. They had as a body no part of the credit of the emanci- ^^33 -^^^^ Factory Commission. 93 pation. They had not even such perverted honour as might fall to the lot of the planters of the Southern States of America, who, believing themselves justified in maintaining their privileges, held both to the last, and preferred war ; for the men of the Southern States could only be forced to yield by superior strength, and were not to be bought or bribed out of their ill-omened claims. The Liverpool merchants were deeply concerned in the slave trade. Cooke, the famous actor, was once hissed in a Liverpool theatre for some offence he had committed. He came forward as if to apologise, and, amid the silence of an expectant audience, hissed out the words: "There is not a stone in the walls of Liverpool but is cemented by the blood of Africans." The saying was a little rude and out of place just then, but it was metaphorically if not literally true. Another reform of no small importance was accom- plished when the charter of the East India Company came to be renewed in 1833. The clause giving them a commercial monoply of the trade of the East was abolished, and the trade thrown open to the merchants of the world. There were other slaves in those days as well as the negro. There were slaves at home, slaves to all intents and purposes, who were condemned to a servitude as rigorous as that of the negro, and who, as far as personal treatment went, suffered more severely than negroes in the better class plantations. We speak now of the workers in the great mines and factories. No law up to this time regulated with anything like reasonable strin- gency the hours of labour in factories. Not merely men, but women and children were forced to work for a num- ber of hours absolutely inconsistent with physical health. A commission was appointed to investigate the condition 94 Black and WJiite Slavery. of those who worked in the factories. Lord Ashley, since everywhere known as the Earl of Shaftesbury, was then at the opening of his long career of practical benevolence. Lord Ashley brought forward the motion which ended in the appointment of the commission. The commission quickly brought together an immense amount of evidence to show the terrible effect, moral and physical, of the overworking of women and children, and an agitation set in for the purpose of limiting by law the duration of the hours of labour. This raised a most important econo- mical question. Many men of undoubted humanity and good feeling towards the working classes were strongly opposed to the idea, and maintained not only that it was an improper interference with the operations of private industry on the part of the Government, but that it would end in, great injury to the workers themselves. Lord Ashley, however, won the day. The principle of legisla- tive interference to protect children working in factories was estabhshed by an Act passed in 1833, limiting the work of children to eight hours a day, and that of young persons under eighteen to sixty-nine hours a week. The agitation then set on foot and led by Lord Ashley was engaged for years after in endeavouring to give that principle a more extended application. A kind of side controversy began between the representatives of the landowning interest and the representatives of the manu- facturing interest. Many of the latter earnestly opposed the whole plan of legislation. Its result, they contended, must necessarily be to interfere injuriously with the trade of the country, and thereby to deprive the men of the employment on which they and their families had to live. It would be impossible, they contended, to apply any general rule to all the various branches of manufacturing industry. It would be impossible to fmd any one law t833 ^^^^ Factory Act. 95 which could work with equal effect on different sorts of business requiring different hours ; on business which comes with a rush at one period of the year and is almost slack at another ; on business in which much depends on the assisting labour of women and children, and other occupations in which the women and children might be restricted as to their labour without any cessation of the operations of the establishment. Then, seeing that the reform was greatly pressed by benevolent landowners, the manufacturers retorted upon them and asked tliem what was the condition of their working labourers. The manufacturers insisted that the condition of children em- ployed in agricultural labour called far more loudly for the intervention of the State than that of the children at work in a Lancashire cotton mill. Moreover, the men employed in the mills, they insisted, were well looked after, were well paid, and were therefore very well able to take care not only of themselves but of their wives and children. On the other hand, the wretched la- bourer of Dorsetshire or Somersetshire never had more than was just enough to keep himself and his chil- dren from starvation, and at the end of his weary- career of drudgery the workhouse was his only refuge. Why then, they asked, not make laws for him, or if not for him, why not at least protect by legislation his wife and his children from the consequences of over- work ? The controversy was of some interest at the time, but it has little importance for us now. Parliament has long since established the principle that it is part of the right and the duty of the State to look after not merely the labour of children but also the conditions under which adult women are set to work. Parliament since that time has gone on advancing and advancing in the path g6 Black and IVJiite Slavery, 1S33 of such legislation. It will no doubt some day or other undertake to do for the children working in the fields something like that which it has done for the women and children working in the factories. It is now admitted that the legislation for the factories has worked with almost entirely beneficent results. None of the evils anticipated from it have come to pass. Almost all the good it proposed to do has been realised. Each further step of extension in the same direction has been made with satisfactory results. Lord Ashley obtained at a later period a commission to inquire into the effects of the employment of women and girls in mines. It was found that in some of the coal mines women were employed as beasts of burden in the literal sense. The seams of coal were sometimes too narrow to allow them to stand upright, and they had therefore to crawl back and forwards on their hands and knees for fourteen or sixteen hours a day, drawing after them the trucks laden with coals. These trucks were usually made fast to a chain which passed between the legs of the women engaged in the work, and was then attached to a belt strapped round their waists. The women seldom wore any clothing but an old pair of trousers made of sacking. They were dressed like the men, and only differed from the men in the fact that they had to do the most laborious and degrading part of the work. The physical and moral injuries created by such a state of things need hardly be described. The mind must be dull indeed which has not imagination enough to conceive them. The agitation which Lord Ashley set on foot ended in the passing of an Act of Parliament prohibiting for ever the employment of wo- men or girls underground in the mines. Children were not allov/ed to be employed at all until they were at least 1833 Paternal Legislation. 97 ten years of age, and then their hours for work were limited. Government officials were intrusted with the supervision of the mines in order to see that the enact- ments were honestly and thoroughly carried out. It seems almost certain that for some time to come, at least, Parliament will go on enlarging the sphere of its experiments of 1833, in regulating the hours and con- ditions of labour for the working classes. A strong effort has been recently made to resist the claim of Government to interfere for the protection of the grown women employed in various branches of industry, and it has been made professedly in the interest and on behalf of the free rights of women. But it is only fair to observe that until Parliament makes up its mind to re- cognize women as citizens entitled to a vote, it is hardly reasonable to seek to withdraw from women the protec- tion which assuredly those have a right to claim who are not allowed to protect themselves. Those v/ho op- posed the principle of the factory legislation were, how- ever, in many instances, men of the purest and most unselfish motives, who sincerely believed that any at- tempt on the part of the Government or the legislature to interfere with the conditions of labour would end not in serving but in seriously injuring the veiy class Avhom it was especially proposed to benefit. The course of legislation on the subject of labour seems to have passed through three distinct stages For generations, and even for centuries, the only legislation which took notice of the condition of the labourer was legislation to coerce him, legislation to put him absolutely at the mercy of his employer. Then there came a short time during which it was maintained that the working of economic princi- ciples and of absolute freedom of contract would be enough to undo the evils that centuries of bad legislation H 98 The Irish Tithe War 1832 and ignorance of social and hygienic laws had engen- dered. " Leave things to themselves," was the dogma of that time, " and they will come right." To this period succeeded the third season, that of energetic desire to intervene in every possible way and direction for the regulation of labour in the interest of the working classes. This last period of activity has certainly not yet worked itself thoroughly out. The evils which gene- rations of a different sort of principle had created have not yet been wholly rooted out. When it has fully done its work, it too, we may be sure, will come to an end. At present, however, the balance has not yet been pro- perly adjusted, and legislation has still something to do in the interest of the working man before it can repair all the injury which it did in the days when it was only busy to coerce and oppress him. CHAPTER VIII.^ THE IRISH TITHE WAR. Irish tithes were one of the grievances which came under the energetic action of this period of reform. The people of Ireland complained with justice of having to pay tithes for the maintenance of the church esta- blishment in which they did not believe, and under whose roof they never bent in worship. Sydney Smith had well said of the Irish Church in his own peculiar fashion : " There is no abuse like it in all Europe, in all Asia, in all the discovered parts of Africa, and in all we have ever heard of Timbuctoo." " On an Irish Sabbath," he said, " the bell of a neat parish church often summons to church only the parson and an occasionally conform- ing clerk, while two hundred yards off a thousand 1832 The Strike against Tithes. 99 Catholics are huddled together in a miserable hovel and pelted by all the storms of heaven." To the collection of tithes, he declared, " in all probability about one milhon of lives may have been sacrificed in Ireland." A miserable, petty civil war was always smouldering ; many times the parson's dues had to be collected at the point of the bayonet and with the aid of musket shot. Riots took place. Men were killed on both sides. One of the most thrilling speeches ever made by O'Connell was that in which he describes a fearful scene that took place at a tithe riot, when a blind man was led near the scene of the struggle by a little girl, his daughter. A bullet from one of the police, passing across the field of fight, struck the harmless child and killed her, and the blind father found her blood flowing over his hands. It is stated that Charles Dickens was a reporter in the Gallery at the time when O'Connell made this speech. He was skilled in his craft to an extent which has rarely been equalled, but he threw down his pencil in the middle of the speech, and declared himself so much overpowered by the pathos of the description and of the orator's m.anner that he was unable to get on with his task. In the county of Kildare a very serious struggle arose, partly out of the tithe question pure and simple, and partly out of a broader religious controversy. There were two over-zealous curates of the Established Church in neighbouring parishes. One anxious to rebuild the parish church succeeded "by packing a vestry with Protestants," as Mr. Walpole puts it in his "History of England," in obtaining a rate for the purpose. The example was followed by the other clergyman. The parishioners, irritated by this, formed an association in which they determined never to pay tithe or church cess in voluntary cash payment again. The unpopularity of loo The Irish Tithe War. 1832 the Protestant clergymen of that district greatly increased. An act done by one of them tended to embitter it. The Roman Catholic priest had been usually exempted in Ireland from the payment of the tithe, to which, no doubt, he as well as any other parishioner was legally liable. In one instance, however, a clergyman who was also a magistrate for the county and tithe proctor to the incumbent, an absentee, departed from the usual conve- nient principle, demanded tithes from the priest, and seized the priest's horse in default of payment. The parish priest of the place denounced from the pulpit the whole system and principle of tithes. Shortly after the cattle of two farmers were seized for tithes, and were released only on a promise that they should be brought up for sale in a fortnight. An impression got abroad among the tithe collectors that the cattle would not be brought up on the appointed day. The clergyman applied for assistance and a strong force of police was brought to the place. The principal town of the place was occu- pied by more than three hundred police, while dragoons and infantry were stationed at adjoining villages. The police were turned, for the time, into cattle drivers ; per- haps it should rather be said that they were turned for the time into a foraging party engaged in futile attempts to get cattle in order to drive them off. Wherever the police were supposed to be coming the cattle were locked up, and it was not legal to break open a lock in order to get at them. The efforts of the police were therefore, in most instances, reduced to nothing. In some few ex- ceptional cases where the police did succeed in capturing some of the cattle, no bidder could be found for them at the sale except the owner himself. They had therefore to be sold for a merely nominal price. A tithe collection which had to be conducted on this principle naturally 1832 Organized Resistance. loi brought but little profit to the Church authorities. The same kind of dexterity and perseverance was shown in evading the collection of tithes which in later days has been shown in evading the levy of distress warrants for the collection of arrears of rent. It required the march- ing and counter marching of fatigue parties, reconnais- sajices, sorties, military expeditions of various kinds, and a regular army of police and soldiers to secure to a country clergyman the tithes which he claimed of a reluctant and hostile parish. The resistance, thus brought into organised shape, was not slow in spreading over parishes and counties. It was not then lawful to hold a public meeting in Ire- land, but no law prevented people from gathering toge- ther for an Irish sport called a hurling match. Great meetings were brought together in this way. There was an appointment for a hurling match. People came fre- quently armed, and made no scruple about admitting that their object was not to see who could send the ball farthest along the road, or across the fields, but who could lend the most efScient assistance in driving the tithe system out of the country. Intimidation was exer- cised by these crowds upon mild parishioners who were willing to pay the tithe which they detested for the sake of. living at quiet with their neighbours. They were taught to feel that if they could by this process concihate the Protestant clergy, and relieve themselves from inter- ference by the police, they only brought down on their shoulders the much more formidable oppression of their fellow-religionists and fellow-parishioners. Resistance to the payment of tithes very soon grew into organised resistance to the payment of rent. When men were made prisoners for nearly any offence of this kind it was found practically impossible to obtain a conviction. I02 2'he Irish Tithe War. 1832 Lord Grey announced on one occasion that the Govern- ment were determined to enforce the law while it existed, but enforcement of the law in any practical sense was now out of the question. With great good fortune and almost supernatural courage and energy the Government might possibly have succeeded in punishing any very daring and exceptional offender against the public peace, but the idea of securing the collection of tithes by any administrative energy or ability was no longer to be entertained by any rational creature. Armies could not have collected the tithes, and the very efforts to collect them only brought increased and increasing hardship and distress on the poorer of the Protestant clergy them- selves. Active resistance may be easily put down, even by a weak Government, but a determined and organised passive resistance, suppressed here and there, but al- ways reforming itself on opportunity and having the sym- pathy of the great mass of the community, is beyond the reach of any administrative power. Many of the Protestant clergymen themselves were be- ginning to find their positions untenable, and to lament the unavailing bloodshed which attended the effort to collect the obnoxious tithes. Their own interests were gradually bringing them to join with their opponents in desiring an abolition of the system. A committee of the House of Lords reported that a complete extinction of tithes was required, not only for the welfare of Ireland but for the interests of the Church itself, and added that this extinc- tion might be obtained " by commuting them for a charge upon land," or by "an exchange for an investment in land." A committee of the House of Commons made a report in which they declared themselves unable to shut their eyes to the absolute necessity of an extensive change in the present system of providing for the ministers of 1832 Government Action. 103 the Established Church. They gave it as their opinion that such a change, to be satisfactory and secure, " must involve a complete extinction of tithes, including those of lay impropriators, by commuting them for a charge upon land." These reports, therefore, from the two Houses of Parliament, were produced in 1832. They practically agreed in purpose, and each of them suggested a tempo- rary measure for the relief of the interests now suffering under the struggle. They recommended that the Gov- ernment should be authorised to advance to every incum- bent a sum not exceeding the amount due to him as tithes for 1 83 1, and that the Government should then be au- thorised to buy up the arrears of tithes and to repay itself for its advances out of the sum which they might recover. On March 8, 1832, the Government announced their intention to take steps to give effect to the object of these reports. It was also announced that the Government desired to supplement their measure for the temporary collection of tithes by some Bill which would result in their absolute extinction, either by commuting them for a charge on land or exchanging them for real property. The House of Lords accepted the measure easily enough, with no resistance greater than was contained in a pro- test from Lord Eldon. The House of Commons were not equally willing to accept the scheme. On the part of the Irish members it was insisted that the only change was to turn the Government into a tithe collector, and that the existence of tithes, not the mode of their collec- tion, was the grievance of which Ireland complained. The Government, however, succeeded in carrying three resolutions, affirming that a difficulty had arisen, that it would be expedient for the time to distribute a sum of money among distressed incumbents, and authorising the I04 The Irish Tithe War. 1834 Government to collect the tithes the best way they could, in order to recover these advances. Having obtained the carrying of these resolutions, they went a little further by adding two resolutions which pledged the Legislature to deal with the tithe system as a whole at the earliest opportunity. The Bill, when thus made complete, was opposed in various ways in both Houses, but it carried substantial majorities at each reading and at each stage, and finally passed into law. Year after year the Government kept tinkering at the tithe system. They tried various plans of composition for tithes, now leaving the task of collection to the land- lord who compounded, and now accepting it as the busi- ness of the State and making grants of money to supply deficiencies. O'Connell once said the Government had made the Lord-Lieutenant tithe-proctor-general for Ire- land. But the viceregal tithe-proctor could not get in his tithes any more than the parson's tithe-proctor had done. In 1833 the arrears of tithes amounted to nearly a million and a quarter of money. The Govern- ment prevailed on the House of Commons to advance a million to be handed over to the tithe owners on the security of the arrears, and the House saw the water poured into the sieve. The tithe question was but a part of the Church question in Ireland. That general question was brought up in 1834 by Mr. Ward, one of the most rising among the new members of the House of Com- mons. He was a son of that Plumer Ward, author of a popular novel once called " Tremaine," which now lives in the memory of novel readers less by virtue of its own merits than by the fact that it is referred to in Lord Beaconsfield's "Vivian Grey." Henry Ward won some distinction afterwards as an administrator in the Ionian Islands and in Ceylon. Mr. Walpole, in his "His- 1834 ^^^ Irish Church. 105 tory of England," says that Ward is remembered by a few persons " for the witty epigram which praises his memory at the expense of his affections." The epigram is: Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it ; He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it. These hnes, however, we think, were not written for Henry Ward. They were written by Rogers and re- ferred to John W. Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley and Ward. Henry Ward, however, was at this time a rising politician, and had formed very strong opinions with regard to the condition and the revenues of the Irish Church. He was convinced that the revenues were much more than sufficient for the requirements of the Establish- ment, and that any surplus not needed for the Church ought to be appropriated by Parliament to other and more public purposes. He brought forward a resolution setting forth this opinion. The debate on the resolution was fixed for May 27, 1834, and it formed an era in the history of the Irish Church Establishment. Many persons, among whom Lord Palmerston was one, were of opinion that Mr. Ward, in bringing forward his motion, was acting merely on the inspiration of Lord Durham. It is not at all unlikely that Lord Durham may have suggested the course which at that time seemed so bold. Mr. Ward's motion declared "that the Protestant Episcopal Establishment in Ireland exceeds the spiritual Avants of the Protestant population, and that it being the right of the State to regulate the distribution of Church property in such manner as Parliament may determine, it is the opinion of this House that the temporal pos- sessions of the Church of Ireland as now established io6 The Irish Tithe War. 1834 ought to be reduced." This would seem to us now to be so plain a statement of fact as hardly to call for any argument. But at that time it was regarded as the in- troduction of a new and daring principle. The argu- ments with which Mr. Ward sustained his proposition went in their tendency far beyond the limits of the reso- lution which he moved. The purpose of the resolution really was to lay down the principle that the State had a right to consider the existence of the Irish Church as de- pendent upon its practical uses for the Irish people. Mr. Ward went on to show that the tithe collection was the principal cause of the disturbance and tumult that had lately been spreading over Ireland. He proved that the objection and resistance to the payment of tithes was not now any longer confined to the Catholics only. It had spread from Catholics to Protestants, from one part of the country to all parts. The arrangement in existence at that time and established by Government compromise would end with the close of the autumn, and then either the Church must fall back to its old rough system of tithe collection or be maintained out of the civil funds of the State. The tithe-collectors had tried civil law and military force, and in vain. Mr. Ward mentioned the astonishing fact that for a period of about eight years there had been maintained in Ireland an army almost exactly as strong as that which was required for the government of our whole Indian Empire. It fell short only by one-third of the military strength which was needed to occupy all our colonies in the rest of the world besides. From 1825 to 1833 the military force had been little below 20,000 at its lowest and about 23,000 at its highest. During the year preceding Mr. Ward's motion this military force had cost more than a million of money. The cost of the police force was 1834 ^'^ Irish Church, 107 about 3(X>,ooo/. in addition. The Government had spent 26,000/. in collecting 12,000/. of tithes. Mr. Ward also pointed out one great abuse of the Irish Church system, which consisted in the grossly unfair distribution of its revenues, the immense sums paid to clergymen who had nothing to do, and the exceedingly small and miserable stipends doled out to some of the clergy who did whatever work there was to be done. There were nearly as many clergy non-resident as resident. Some of the non-resident clergy had benefices varying in value from 800/. to 2,800/. a year. Some of the resident clergy, who did the work, had in certain cases incomes as low as 20/. a year. An income of 70/. was above the average. What kind of respect, Mr. Ward asked, can the Irish people have for such an institution, when they see its actual work done for a miserably small sum, and the great bulk of its revenue given away to men who do nothing ? How, he asked, is it possible to sup- pose that the existence of such an institution, worked in such a way, could attract the Irish Catholics towards it and make them feel inclined to seek comfort in its minis- trations ? He showed that rather less than one-four- teenth of the whole population of Ireland belonged to the State Church. Indeed, he brought together such a monstrous array of anomalies and abuses as probably could not have been found in the contemporary history of any other civilized country. Mr. Ward recommended a redistribution of the Church revenues in some way which might proportion the pay to the work, and give the pay to the men who did the work. With regard to the tithe system, he was for its entire abolition, because, as he showed, the grievance was not one which could be remedied by any improvement in the manner of collect- ing the tax. The objection was deep and essential, and io8 The Irish Tithe War. 1834 consisted in the fact that the great majority who paid the tax for the support of the Church were Catholics, who did not acknowledge its supremacy and who could never be induced to cross the threshold of any of its temples. Mr. Ward made it clear that the maintenance of the Church, such as it was, cost the Government a sum of money far beyond the value of the revenues attached to the Church, large as they were, and that even as a mat- ter of economy it would be cheaper to pay the Irish clergy out of the public funds than to allow the existing system to continue any longer. The motion was seconded by Mr. Grote, the historian of Greece. Even at this comparatively early day the best independent intellect of the House of Commons was already engaged in an effort to draw the attention of the country to the vast fundamental difference between the conditions of the State Church in Ireland, and those of the State Church in England. Mr. Grote's speech was a remarkable contribution to a memorable debate. He addressed himself chiefly to the task of showing how wide was the difference between the principles on which the two State Churches rested. His speech was in fact a clear and just argument to show that not only were the principles different but that they were fundamentally antagonistic. Those, he said, who compared the two churches would only degrade the one without elevating the other. They were not only not the same, but they were actually opposed in spirit and in principle. One church, as he showed, rested its claim to be national on the plain broad fact that it represented the religious convictions of the great majority of the people. More than this it was, from its representative position, in this respect the natural and the only guardian of what we may call the waifs and strays of the population. If a 1834 Divisions in the Cabinet. 109 parentless child were found in the streets or were brought to one of the public institutions, nothing could be more reasonable, nothing in fact could be more neces- sary, than that it should be supposed to belong to the Church which expressed the religious feelings of the great bulk of the English people. On the other hand the State Church in Ireland represented at the very most the religious opinions of one-fourteenth of the popula- tion, and both Mr. Ward and Mr. Grote gave it as their opinion that one-fourteenth was too large a proportion for the members of the Episcopalian Church when com- pared with the Roman Catholics and the Dissenters of Ireland. Mr. Grote's speech, though very short, was very effective, and must, one would think, have made some impression on the political intelligence of the time. It was known already to everyone that Mr. Ward's motion was certain to lead to distraction and to division in the Cabinet itself. Lord Brougham had been endea- vouring to establish a compromise by suggesting that a commission should be appointed to inquire into the re- venues of the Irish Church, and the proportion which her revenues bore to the whole population of Ireland. It is clear that this was a suggestion which opponents of dis- establishment could not possibly accept. A man like Lord Stanley, for instance, whose principle it was that the Irish Church must be maintained, both as a piece of mechanism for the sustentation of English power and as a possible agency towards the ultimate conversion of the Irish people to Protestantism, could not possibly admit that the future fate of the Church should depend upon the proportion of worshippers which entered the doors of its temples. Once start such a principle as this, and the result, however long postponed, was certain to follow. no The Irish Tithe War. 1834 Once admit that the State had the right to dispose of the revenues of the Irish Church itself with any regard for the opinions and professions of the majority of the Irish pubhc, and there could be no issue but one ; the Church State Establishment must fall. Lord Stanley, therefore, set himself against any compromise and any commission such as Brougham proposed. Mr. Ward's in- troduction of his motion led at once to the resignation of Lord Stanley the Colonial Secretary, Sir James Graham First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Ripon Privy Seal, and the Duke of Richmond Postmaster-General. On the very night when Mr. Ward brought forward his motion Lord Althorp learnt that his colleagues had resigned, and rose to ask the House for the adjournment of the debate. It was after Mr. Grote's speech that Lord Althorp thus appealed to the House of Commons to consent to an adjournment, because, as he said, of facts which had come to his knowledge since the debate began. He frankly acknowledged that it was not in his power at present to state the exact nature of the facts, but he appealed to the House to accept his assurance, that he would not have made such a proposition withoujt having been satisfied of its propriety and its necessity. Every- one knew at once that the Ministerial crisis had come. Everyone knew also what its cause and its nature must have been, and most people were able even to tell in advance the names of the men on both sides who were concerned in the undoubted disruption of the Ministry. Before the crisis was complete some of the independent or semi-independent friends of the Ministry hastened to get up an address to Lord Grey, imploring him, what- ever might happen, to remain at the head of the Govern- ment, and declaring that the confidence of the House of 1834 Changes in the Ministry, iii Commons and of the country was still entirely given to him. Lord Grey, in replying to the address, declared that he was prepared to make every personal sacrifice in support of the principles for which he had taken office, but he complained in his clear, cold, and somewhat sharp manner, of the harm that was being done to the progress of Liberal principles by the heedless desire for innovation. He declared that to him it seemed indispen- sable, if any improvement was to be made in the institu- tions of the country, that the Government should be allowed to go on with deliberation and with caution, and that they should not be harassed by a constant pressure from without to go further and faster than seemed neces- sary to them. Lord Grey's reply made it more clear than almost anything else had done that a crisis had arisen in the history, not merely of the Whig Cabinet but of. the Liberal party. It was evident that the time had now come when a certain number of the Whigs were disin- clined to go any further. The Liberal party was now distinctly dividing itself into Whigs and Radicals. On the other hand some who up to that moment were Whigs were now clearly about to fall away and join the Con- servative ranks. The impulse and the energy of the reform movement had welded together for a certain time three strands of the party, the Conservative portion, the Whig portion, the Radical portion. The strands were now about to separate. The adjournment of the debate took place as a matter of course. There was nothing to be done but to adjourn and give the Government time to reorganize itself. The discussion was resumed with the reconstitution of the Ministry. Lord Conyngham had become Postmaster- General in place of the Duke of Richmond. Lord Auck- land had taken Sir James Graham's position at the head 112 The Irish Tithe War. 1834 of the Admiralty, Lord Carlisle became Privy Seal, and Mr. Spring-Rice, afterwards Lord Monteagle, who had been for some years Secretary of the Treasury, succeeded Lord Stanley in the Colonial Office. When the debate was renewed Lord Althorp rose and announced to Mr, Ward that the Government had made up their minds to issue a commission to inquire into the whole question as to the revenues and organisation of the Irish Church, and he appealed to Mr. Ward to withdraw his motion in favour of this proposal, urging that there would have to be an inquiry by commission or otherwise before legis- lation could take place even if Mr. Ward's motion were carried, and therefore it would be as well to save the trouble of a debate and a division, and issue a commis- sion at once. To this Mr. Ward made a very reasonable answer. He admitted that the commission would have to be issued, but if his resolution were carried the com- mission would be issued under very different auspices from those which would surround it if it were to be issued before the adoption of his motion. His resolution, if carried, would pledge the House of Commons to the principle that the revenues of the State Church in Ireland were absolutely under the control of Parliament. That principle, it is true, the present Ministry fully acknow- ledged, and therefore a commission issued by them would no doubt be animated by the recognition of such a fact. But they might go out of office at any m^oment. Facts occurring every day showed that their tenure of power was not particularly secure, nor their continued coherence much to be depended on. Their successors, therefore, would be by no means pledged to any such principle, or to any course of action to follow a report from the commission. On the other hand a distinct and deliberate vote of the House of Commons would 1834 The Previous Question. - 113 undoubtedly, Mr. Ward contended, have some influence over the action of any subsequent Ministry, however ilhberal and reactionary. He therefore firmly refused to withdraw his motion. Lord Althorp then said he had no course left but to evade the difficulty by moving the previous question- Perhaps it may be an advantage to some of our read- ers unskilled in the formalities of the House of Com- mons, to explain what is meant by moving the previous question. A motion for some particular purpose is be- fore the House of Commons. That motion is what is called a question. The Government are not disinclined to admit the principle contained in the motion, but they have some reason for thinking the present time unsuited for such a debate. They are unable to vote for the motion because they think its discussion inconvenient and perhaps dangerous just then. They do not feel inclined to vote directly against it, because that might imply that they are opposed to its general principle, which they are not. It is therefore open to them to get outofthe difficulty by moving "the previous question, "as it is called; that is, by raising the question whether the motion ought to be put. They move, in substance, as an amendment that this is not the proper time for discussing the question, and that the motion before the chair be not put to a division. Lord Althorp voted in this instance that Mr. Ward's motion be not put to a division. The debate which followed was animated, and is interesting to read even now. On the part of the Government the only case urged against Mr. Ward's motion was that which we have already suggested, that the Government were about to issue a commission, that inquiry must follow in any case, and therefore the adoption of the motion was a mere waste of power and loss of time. On the other 114 The Irish Tithe War. 1834 hand, Lord Stanley and Sir Robert Peel strongly opposed the motion on direct and simple grounds. Lord Stanley contended, and justly, that the adoption of such a motion associated the existence of the Irish State Church in principle with the proportion of representation which it had in the community. He contended, and justly, that by admitting Mr. Ward's motion Parliament claimed for itself the right to abolish a State Church in Ireland al- together, if the proportion of its worshippers were greatly below that of the rest of the community. He contended that, according to the principle of a State Church, it did not matter how few were the worshippers : he urged, in- deed, that the fewer there were, the more necessity there was for such an institution. What, he asked, is there in our Parliamentary system which, if this resolution were passed, would not leave the Government open to esta- blish a Roman CathoHc Church in Ireland if they thought fit ? Of course the answer to this is plain. As long as the Imperial Government recognises the Protestant as the State religion, it is certain that it will not establish a Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. On the other hand it is equally certain that if the majority of the English people were Roman Catholics, and were inclined to maintain a State Church, they would establish a Catholic Church. We cannot have the same State Church resting on the principle of a majority in England and on the principle of a minority in Ireland. But Lord Stanley was right in saying that the moment we recognise the supremacy of numbers at all we foredoom an institu- tion like the State Church in Ireland. Sir Robert Peel dwelt strongly on that feeblest of all arguments (so feeble that it seems at this distance of time a marvel to find it put forward by so great a statesman), the argument that the CathoHcs had pledged themselves at the time of their 1834 ^^^<^ Governme7it Co7nmission. 115 emancipation, from the lips of Grattan, and even in the preambles of Acts of Parliament, not to ask for any measure which could affect the Established Church in Ireland. It seems marvellous how such a man could have relied on such an argument, or could have assumed that it was in the power of one generation of men to bind their successors to a surrender of any fair and legitimate claims. Of course when a generation of men are seek- ing some right which they greatly desire to have, they are ready enough to undertake that if they get this they will ask for no more. The mere fact that such a promise is made is more discreditable to those who accept than to those who make it. It can hardly be serious in the mouths of those who make it or in the minds of those who receive it. The argument had been torn to pieces by Sydney Smith and by other authors, even before Sir Robert Peel put it forward thus gravely again. O'Connell spoke in the debate, and spoke with robust good sense as well as with eloquence. He especially cautioned the Government against refusing justice to the Irish people and so driving them into despair, and into that conspiracy Vvhich he truly said was the natural offspring of despair. The House divided after a long debate on the issue that the question be now put. One hundred and twenty mem- bers voted in favour of putting Mr. Ward's resolution to the vote and 369 against it. A majority of 276 declared, therefore, that the motion was not to be put. The House hastened to adopt the suggestion of the Government for the issue of a commission. A puzzled Government always falls back on the appointment of a commission. Lord Stanley tried in vain to oppose this compromise, and to show that even the appointment of a commission involved a principle destructive of the very existence of the Established Church. He found little ii6 The Irish Tithe War. 1834 support for this extreme view among the more sensible members of the Tory party. Sir Robert Peel himself was quite willing to consider the propriety and feasibility of redistributing the property of the Church. So far did Peel go in this direction, that it was sneeringly suggested that he ought to have succeeded to the place in the Whig Government vacated by Lord Stanley. As a matter of expediency and of compromise, Sir Robert Peel was undoubtedly right ; but, on the other hand, the view of Lord Stanley was sound and prophetic as regards the fate of the Established Church in Ireland. It is not true that the appointment of a commission involved a princi- ple destructive of the very existence of an Established Church, that is of any Established Church. The right ofthe State to redistribute the revenues and reorganise the system of an Established Church in a country whose religious opinions it fairly and fully represent- ed would by no means involve any principle fatal to its existence. But in a country where five out of every six of the people were resolutely opposed to the teachings of the State Church, and could never, under any conditions, be brought to cross the threshold of one of its Church buildings, the moment inquiry set in as to the appropriation of its revenues and the right of the State to redistribute them, then indeed, as Lord Stanley contended, the principle was admitted which must inevit- ably lead to its destruction. Thirty-five years later the principle which the House of Commons adopted when they accepted the compromise suggested by Lord Broug- ham, was pushed to its legitimate conclusion in the famous suspensory resolutions introduced by Mr. Gladstone when in opposition, and the schemes for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church which he carried through when in office. 1834 The New Parliament. . 117 There was fresh effort at tithe compromises, and the Government got into trouble about the renewal of an Irish Coercion Act. Tired of political life, glad of any excuse to escape from it, Lord Grey resigned office, and the Ministry was reorganised, with Lord Melbourne for its leader. Few things are more curious than the con- trast between Lord Melbourne's political character and the general character of his administrative work. Lord Melbourne cared little or nothing for reform. He was not interested in change of any kind. He was a genial, easy-going, not incapable, man. The whole principle of his public life might well enough be illustrated in his own favourite remonstrance with energetic reformers and innovators, *' Can't you let it alone ?" He would gladly, if he could, have let every proposed change alone. Things seemed to be very well as they were. In any case he was not afforded, just now, much chance of undertaking important work. The King had gradually been turning more and more against his Whig Ministers, because of what he considered their lack of firmness on Church questions. In reply to an address delivered to him on his birthday by a deputation of the Irish prelates, the King made a speech filled with the most earnest protestations of his determination to maintain the Church ; a speech which was in fact a spoken censure on his Ministry. No one was surprised, therefore, when on the occasion of a slight reconstruction of the administration, consequent on the death of Lord Althorp's father, which raised Lord Al thorp to the House of Lords, the King bluntly informed Lord Melbourne that he did not intend to go on with his present Ministers any longer. Sir Robert Peel was summoned from Rome to form an ad- ministration. Sir Robert Peel undertook the task, but thought it necessary to dissolve Parliament and appeal to ii8 , The Irish Tithe War. 1835 the country. The result of the general election brought little comfort to the Tories. The Whigs lost much of their overwhelming power, but they still remained strong enough to command a majority against the Government on any convenient occasion. Peel saw a trying task before him. Few tasks can be more painful and humili- ating to a high-spirited statesman than to have to try to govern with a minority, knowing that there is a sure majority ready at any moment to declare against him. The new Parliament met on February 19, 1835. The opposing parties had a trial of strength in the election of a Speaker. The Government was defeated by ten votes; 316 voted one way and 306 the other. Sir Robert Peel, however, was resolved that he would not resign his office, but struggle on as best he could. He was again defeated on the moving of the Address, an amendment being carried by a majority of seven. Still he did not think he was called upon to resign, considering the diffi- culties by which the Government of every kind was em- barrassed just then. He resolved to do the best he could to carry on the administration. On March 30, Lord John Russell moved a resolution calling on the House to form itself into a committee to consider the state of the Church Establishment in Ireland, with the view of ap- plying any surplus of the revenues not required for the spiritual care of its members to the education of all classes of the people^ without distinction of religious de- nomination. Sir Robert Peel of course strongly opposed the motion, and he was supported by Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham. Mr. O'Connell spoke strongly for the motion. "I shall content myself," he said, "by laying down the broad principle that the revenues of the Church ought not to be raised from a people who do not belong to it." The result of a long debate was another 183s Lord MorpetJC s Tithes Bill. 119 defeat of the Government; 322 voted for the motion, and 289 against it, A new discussion on the question of Irish tithes exposed the Ministers to yet another defeat. Sir Robert Peel found it impossible to continue in office any longer. He resigned on April 8. An effort was made to induce Lord Grey to form an administration, but Lord Grey was not to be tempted, and the King was at last obliged to send for Lord Melbourne. A few days later an administration was formed, Lord Melbourne for First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Lansdowne President of the Council, Lord Palmerston Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell Home Secretary, and Mr. Spring-Rice Chancellor of the Exchequer. Among other members of the new Government may be mentioned Sir Henry Parnell, whose motion not long before had upset the Government of the Duke of Wel- lington. Sir J. C. Hobhouse, the friend of Byron, took charge of the India Department. Lord Morpeth became Chief Secretary of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The new Government had come into power by de- feating their predecessors on the subject of the Irish Church and Irish tithes, and, of course, they had to un- dertake some sort of legislation in harmony with the professions and the policy which they relied upon when in opposition. Accordingly, on June 26, 1835, Lord Mor- peth introduced a Tithe Bill. Lord Morpeth was the eldest son of Lord Carlisle. He was well known in later days as one of the most pleasing and popular Viceroys Ireland ever had. He was a man of a certain graceful literary style, both in writing and in speaking, of agree- able, kindly manners, and winning social ways. He might have been a successful Viceroy if his lot had been cast in times when genial good manners and graceful accomplishments were sufficient stock-in-trade for a 120 The Bish Tithe War. 1835 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. At the time, however, to which we now refer, he was practically an untried states- man learning his business in the Irish Office. His Tithes Bill was a distinct advance on anything which his predecessors had introduced. Twelve years before, Mr. Goulburn had introduced the principle of the volun- tary composition of tithes. Nine years later Mr. Stanley had made composition compulsory. In 1834 Mr. Little- ton endeavoured to convert the composition into a rent charge. In 1835 the Government proposed to convert the tithe itself into a rent charge. All parties, therefore, had come to an agreement that the tithe as a burden should be transferred from the occupier to the owner, and all too were willing that the rent charge should be much smaller than the tithe, and that the titheoAvner should sacrifice some portion of his income in return for the better security he was to have. Lord Morpeth pro- posed to reduce the rent charge to a lower amount than any of his predecessors. He proposed to commute one hundred pounds of tithe for seventy pounds of rent charge. He proposed to charge on the owner of the tithes the cost of collection, and to abandon to the owner the uncollected arrears of tithes on the security of which the Government had made liberal advances of money. But his measure did not stop with the simple adjustment of tithes. He proposed to act on the spirit of Lord John Russell's resolution, and introduce certain appropriation clauses, as they were called, to deal with the surplus revenues of the Irish Church. No presentation was to be made for the time to any benefice which did not con- tain at least fifty members of the Church of England. But in order to provide meanwhile for the religious ac- commodation of the members of that Church, it. was pro- posed that in parishes where there was no church the ^S35~3^ RusselV s Tithes Bill. 121 minister of the adjoining parish was to receive an addi- tional 5/. a year for the cure of souls which might be supposed to exist in the neighbouring district. This Bill was read a first time on July 7. Sir Robert Peel then at once announced that he approved of that part of the Bill which proposed to substitute a rent charge for tithes, but to the clauses which would appropriate to other purposes the property of the Church he was prepared to offer the strongest opposition. He allowed the Bill to be read a second time, but he announced his intention to move in committee that it be divided into two parts, so that those who agreed with him in thinking the existing tithe sys- tem ought to be abolished would be free to support that part of the measure without assenting to the other part of it, which dealt with the revenues and arrangements of the Church. When the House went into committee'. Sir Robert Peel's amendment to divide the Bill into two was rejected by a majority of 319 against 282. This majority was not large enough to bear down the opposition of the Lords, and accordingly, when the Bill reached the Upper House the Peers adopted the advice which Sir Robert Peel had given to the Commons. They passed that part of the Bill which substituted a rent charge for tithes, and by an enormous majority they struck out the part which dealt with the revenue of the Church. Lord Morpeth's attempt therefore had come to nothing. The Bill was withdrawn. The same difficulty followed the proposed reform through successive years. The Conservatives per- sistently refused to agree to any Bill which dealt with any part of the revenues of the State Church. On the other hand, the Government were pledged deeply and again and again to pass no Bill which did not contain an ap- propriation clause. In 1836 Lord Morpeth brought on 122 The Irish Tithe War. 1835-38 his measure again, but the appropriation clause was only carried by 290 votes against 264. Naturally this gave the Peers fresh encouragement. Once again they muti- lated the Bill. The Commons refused to accept the amendments, and the Tithe Bill was a failure once more. In 1838 Lord John Russell took up the subject. He in- troduced a Bill based on the principle which his pre- decessors had adopted. He proposed to convert the tithe composition into a rent charge of seventy per cent, of the nominal value of the tithe, and to secure this income to existing incumbents by the guarantee of the State. Despite a sort of promise given by Sir Robert Peel that the conservatives would not oppose the measure if it did not contain a sweeping appropriation clause, there was a strong opposition made to it by the Tories. Finally, Lord John Russell consented so far to modify his pro- posal as to confine the measure merely to a Bill con- verting the tithe composition into a rent charge. He also went so far as to fix the rent charge at seventy-five per cent, instead of seventy, as he had at first proposed. They introduced clauses giving up the claim of the country to have the great advance already made to the titheowners repaid to the nation, and they agreed to devote a quarter of a million of money to the extinction of the remaining arrears. The more advanced party amongst the English Liberals were enraged at what they called a surrender of principle. They declared that the very object to maintain which Sir Robert Peel had been driven out of office had now been given up by the Whig administration. They insisted that Lord John Russell's Bill simply squandered immense sums of the national money on the Church of a minority. It is plain, indeed, that the Bill which was now passed was in substance the very measure which might have been obtained with the ^S35"33 The Poor Laws, 123 assent of Sir Robert Peel in 1835. The difficulty dur- ing many years had been that which we have already described, the question of appropriation — that is, of se- questration of part of the revenues of the State Church and interference with its internal arrangements. To secure that principle the Whigs had stood out against the Tories ; to prevent that principle from being adopted in legislation was for many years the sole object of the Tories. Both parties were willing to agree on the change of the tithe into a rent charge, and the Bill therefore which Lord John Russell passed in 1838 might have been passed many years sooner if the Whig Ministry could have made up their minds as to the distance they were willing to go in order to meet a compromise. Mean- while the agitation on Irish tithes had produced an agita- tion about English tithes as well. Many grievance's ex- isted in England as well as in Ireland, although, of course, they were not aggravated in England by the con- tinued and inevitable hostility between the State Church and the people. At the worst, in England, the tithe was unfairly levied and badly appropriated, but in Ireland it was like a humiliating tribute exacted by the conqueror from the conquered. The question was settled in England before its settlement in Ireland. A Bill intro- duced in 1836 by Lord John Russell made the commuta- tion of tithes compulsory, appointed commissioners to value the tithes on an average estimate of three crops during the seven preceding years, and awarded to the titheowner a commutation not less than sixty per cent, and not more than seventy-five per cent, of the nominal gross value of the tithe. This measure was passed with no practical modification. The commissioners soon suc- ceeded in getting at a rate of commutation for every parish, and the payment of tithe in kind came to an end 124 Poor Law and Mimicipa I Reform. 1834 in this country. The effect of the measure thus intro- duced was found in the end to be as satisfactory to the Church as it was to the tithe payers. The Church ob- tained a certain revenue in return for the very uncertain and haphazard kind of collection. The owners and occupiers found themselves rid of a very disagreeable and fluctuating kind of charge, the collection of which was troublesome, and the effect of which was very often to make the clergyman of the parish an object of dis- trust and dislike much more than of affection and con- fidence to his parishioners. But in Ireland the change in the system of tithe collecting was only a small part of a great, a necessary, and an inevitable reform, which, although seen by many even then to be inevitable, was postponed and resisted for more than a generation. CHAPTER IX. POOR LAW AND MUNICIPAL REFORM. Much of the misery of the rural labourer in England was to be traced directly to the condition of the poor law system. The famous statute of Elizabeth, which was intended to put a stop to vagrancy and mendicancy and to encourage industry, had been worked for generations in such a manner as to foster pauperism and create quite a disease of beggary. The laws of settlement, which were intended merely to protect districts from actual invasions of hordes of paupers, had practically put it in the power of parishes which were rich to turn over the surplus of their labouring population on smaller and poorer places. When the Reformed Parliament came into existence, Lord Grey and his colleagues determined 1834 Parish Relief . 125 to seek out some cure for the evils which were con- stantly increasing. They did what was invariably done by the Whig administrations of that time. They began by issuing a commission. That was a time when Sydney Smith said that the whole earth was put into commission by the Whigs. In this instance the com- mission was a very important matter, and was composed of men well qualified for the investigation. The com- mission appointed assistant commissioners to make the actual inquiries. The result of the investigation was to show that the poor law system was administered almost everywhere in such a manner as to engender abuses even where abuses had not previously existed. In many places the local tradesmen and the parish officers played into each other's hands, as the servants and the trades- men of a nobleman might be supposed to do. The tradesmen overcharged for every article they supplied to the parochial authorities, and the parish officers were bribed to assist them in this system of extortion. The poor rates were openly made use of for the purpose of bribing the holders of the franchise. But probably worse than all this was the manner in which the system en- couraged and promoted pauperism. The pauper in the workhouse was well fed, and too well fed, at the expense of the poor ratepayer, who, sometimes but one degree above the level of pauperism, was too independent to eat the bread of beggary while he could maintain himself and his family by any amount of incessant and hopeless labour. When a person had once taken poor-house relief it became a sort of property or inheritance. Once in the family it never got out of the family. Generations of paupers bequeathed to the country new generations of paupers. The character of a recipient was not held to be any reason for denying relief. He might be a well- 126 Poor Law and Municipal Reform. 1834 known thief. She might be a well-known prostitute. In either case the relief was given just when it was asked for. A father spent all his wages in drink, and came to get relief for his family when there was nothing to give them at home. In some places whole populations were turned into paupers. People lived on the relief given by the workhouse rather than on wages. Workhouse sup- port was constantly given in relief of wages. A farmer dismissed his labourers because he did not care to pay them the market price of labour ; they at once became paupers ; they received a certain contribution from the parish and then the farmer took them back and gave them employment at lower wages than before, so that in point of fact the local taxation became a sort of rate in aid of the farmers. In some places the manufacturers followed the example of the farmers, discharged their workpeople, and allowed them to become paupers in the receipt of parish relief, well knowing that when once they had begun to receive that relief no workhouse offi- cial would ever challenge their right to the continuance of the dole. They then re-employed them at much lower rates, and so received a subsidy from the parochial funds in aid of their business. It has been distinctly stated that the commissioners found many cases in which men spent their wages as rapidly as they could, in drink or in amusement, in order that they might be able to say they had actually nothing and so be entitled to get their names on the workhouse list. In fact, to have one's name put down as a recipient of workhouse relief was like having it put down on a pension list. Once put down it was not supposed that it would be taken off again unless at the request of the recipient himself. The re- lieving-officer's book was to the low class ne'er-do-well what the pension list was to his aristocratic fellow. It 1834 The Poor Law Commission^ 127 seems almost needless to say that such a system encour- aged early improvidence and reckless marriages. A man might as well marry as not, for he received relief, his wife would receive relief, and as his children began to grow up they would come in for their share of the general subsidy. The evil had grown so great that some eminent reformers were positively of opinion that the only remedy would be the entire abolition of the poor laws, leaving the relief of genuine pauperism to the operation of private benevolence, energy, and super- vision. The commissioners, however, were not of opinion that so sweeping a remedy could be attempted. They held that the principle of public relief was that a certain provision should be made for that surplus, or residuum as it may be called, of every population, the infirm and the aged who have no friends to support them ; for those who, under some temporary pressure, cannot obtain work, however wilHng to take it; and likewise, it may be added, for those who even by their idleness or miscon- duct had brought themselves into such a condition, that if not fed for a time at the public expense, they needs must commit actual crime or else lie down and starve. The principal recommendations of the commissioners were based on the principle that the then existing system of poor laws was " destructive to the industry, forethought, and honesty of the labourers, to the wealth and morality of the employers of labour andthe owners of property, and to the mutual goodwill and happiness of all." The com- missioners declared that the system "collects and chains down the labourers in masses, without any reference to the demand for their labour ; that while it increases their numbers it impairs the means by whjch the*fund for their subsistence is to be reproduced, and impairs the motives 128 Poor Law and Municipal Reform. 1 834 for using those means which it suffers to exist ; and that every year and every day these evils are becoming more overwhelming in magnitude and less susceptible of cure." The evils, they held, might be at least diminished by the combination of workhouses, and by a rigid administra- tion and practical management instead of the existing " neglect, extravagance, robbery, and fraud," An altera- tion or abolition of the law of settlement might, the commissioners thought, save a great part or the whole of the enormous sums now spent in litigation and in re- movals, and allow the labourers to be distributed accord- ing to the demand for labour. They suggested that no relief should be given to the able-bodied or to their families except in return for adequate labour, or in a well regulated workhouse ; that thereby a broad line would be drawn between the independent labourers and the paupers; that the number of paupers would be imme- diately diminished in consequence of the reluctance of persons to accept relief on such terms ; and that pauper- ism would in the end, instead of forming a constantly in- creasing proportion of the population, become a small and well-defined part of it, capable of being provided for at less than half the amount of the existing poor rates. Finally, the commissioners recommended that the ad- ministration of the poor laws should be entrusted to the general superintendence of one central authority with extensive powers. A Bill framed on these recommendations and em- bodying them as nearly as possible, was introduced into Parliament. It naturally created a very strong opposition. There was everything in the proposed measure which could raise up against it all the sentimental feelings that tend to foster and cherish pauperism. Beggary had been so long an institution of the country that many persons 1835 The Mu7iicipal Corporations. 129 had come to regard it with a sort of kindly feehng, and had been accustomed to think that the relation between the mendicant and the donor was of a mutually improv- ing kind, something like that between a good master and a faithful servant. All that sort of easy benevolence by which we each of us feel inspired now and then when we are inclined to throw coppers among whining beggars in the street, raised itself in opposition to the somewhat stringent policy of the Government. The measure was, however, passed almost in its mtegrity through both Houses. The Duke of Wellington was liberc-l enough to give it his strong support, and to pro- test against the efforts of some of his own party in the House of Lords to oppose the Bill, in consequence of the lateness of the period at which it was introduced. It was carried into law, and we believe we may safely state that on the whole the hopes with which it was introduced have been well-sustained and the prophecies of evil have come to nothing. Many and various defects indeed have been found since that time and still exist in the working of the poor law. Many changes have been made which deviate a good deal from the rigid principle of self- dependence on which it was introduced. The adminis- tration of outdoor relief in large towns is still a source of much corruption and demoralisation. But it would be hardly possible to administer such a system with any regard to mercy, not to say generosity, and not at the same time to open the door to fraud and to depravity. In great towns it very often happens that the poor law officials, acting sternly in some particular case where they suppose relief is not really needed, make a complete mistake and deny assistance exactly where it is most imperatively required. Some poor creature dies at the door of a workhouse to which he or she has just been K 130 Poor Law and Municipal Reform. 1835 refused admission. Some old woman sends a pathetic appeal to the relieving officers ; they disbelieve her story or neglect the appeal, and after a while she is found by her neighbours dead from sheer starvation in her miser- able garret. Then a natural outcry is raised by the public. The feelings of every humane person are touched and the impression goes abroad that the work- house officials are hardened against all sense of pity. A relaxation in their system naturally takes place, and for a while outdoor relief is heedlessly given to almost any- one who asks for it. These, however, are only some of the casual defects of a system which by its very nature could hardly be so administered as not to fall into error every now and then. No one, we believe, will deny that on the whole the change in the poor law system made by Lord Grey's Government was wise and just, and has been attended with results even more satisfactory than those which its promoters might at one time have felt themselves entitled to expect. In 1835 Lord Melbourne's Government just settled firmly in office, took on themselves the task of reform- ing the whole system of municipal corporations. Lord John Russell had charge of the Bill which was to accom- plish this object. The reform of the municipal corpora- tions was a necessary sequel to the reform of the House of Commons itself. Petitions for reform had been pour- ing in from all manner of places, and Lord Althorp some years before had moved for a select committee to inquire into the state of municipal corporations in Eng- land and Ireland and Wales. Scotland was not inclu- ded within the terms of the inquiry, because it was understood that Lord Jeffi^ey, as Lord Advocate, would undertake to deal with the Scotch boroughs himself. The committee recommended the appointment of a 1835 Municipal Comtption. 131 commission capable of making inquiries locally into the state of each separate corporation. The inquiry began in 1833, and was not finished until after the opening of Parliament in 1835. The Report was a very interesting contribution to history. It traced the whole growth of the municipal corporation in this country. It showed how the institution began by the collecting together of a few men within a certain limited space, in order to carry on in security the humble trades by which they lived. All around them the great majority of their fellow-coun- trymen were the mere serfs of the local landlord. The traders found that a mere serf who had no rights of per- son or property which his landlord was bound to respect, could not with success carry on any trade or business. They therefore refused to admit the claims of the local magnate, and insisted on their right to personal freedom. Little colonies, brought together for the purposes of trade, became established in various parts of England, and were the first centres of personal and political lib- erty there. The man who had once proclaimed himself free, claimed the same right for his descendants. Not only that, but it was a condition of almost all these free settlements, that one who married a freeman's daughter should himself become a freeman. One who served an apprenticeship to trade became as free as his master when his time was out. When the traders thus formed themselves into little communities, they found it necessary to meet occasionally and talk over common measures. In time it was found that large public meet- ings could not serve the purpose, and so the affairs of each locality were entrusted to committees, and these committees gradually grew into what we now call local corporations. Some of the English Sovereigns were especially 132 Poor Law and Municipal Refor7n. 1 835 anxious to conciliate the traders, who had the means of assisting them in many ways. The Tudor monarchs began to grant charters of incorporation to certain of these communities. In some cases the whole bulk of the resident freemen formed the corporation, but in a greater number of cases only a small and chosen body was constituted a municipality. After a while it was understood that the corporations consisted only of the ruling body. The government of a corporation was generally vested in a chief magistrate and a town coun- cil. In many small places the mayor had the authority almost entirely in his own hands, and not uncommonly dispensed as he pleased the revenues of the munici- pality. After a while corruption began to creep into many of these institutions. Most of the town councils were self-elected, and the members held their seats for life. They spent their funds as they pleased. They in- creased the salary of officers who had nothing to do. They lavished money on entertainments to themselves and their friends. They let out the property of the borough to their own members at merely nominal rents. They made every possible use of their position and their power to promote the success of the political party to which the majority happened to belong. Customs, tolls, or dues, which they were chartered to collect for public purposes, were in some cases coolly converted by the corporations into private property. The corporations had all varieties of jurisdiction. They had local courts of the most various authority. In some large towns their local courts were not empowered to try any case of felo- ny. In one or two very small places they had, on the contrary, the right to try capital cases, and even to pro- nounce the capital sentence. They had recorders in most cases to try criminal cases, but the recorder was 1 8 35 Russell 's " Gigantic Lmovation. " 133 not always a lawyer. In some places the recorder al- lowed twenty years or more to pass without taking the trouble to visit the seat of his local authority. In his absence the town clerk or somebody else tried the cases, and it occasionally happened that the town clerk, or other sub-deputy who acted in this capacity, was called upon to act as judge in some case which nearly con- cerned the interests, if not of himself, at least of some member of his family, or some partner in business. Both the great English political parties made use of the corporations, and with about equal recklessness, in order to promote their political interests. When Lord John Russell made an attack on the manner in which the Tory party had used their influence over certain rotten corporations. Sir Robert Peel retorted by de- scribing the case of the corporation of Derby. In Der- by, Peel stated, that whenever the Whigs thought that the number of freemen in their interest was getting low, the mayor or some other leading member of the corpora- tion applied to the agents of the Cavendish family, and re- quested a list of the names of persons who might be ad- mitted as honorary freemen. He also stated that on the last occasion when this application was made, the honor- ary freemen were almost all of them tenants of the Duke of Devonshire, and the fees on their admission were paid by the Duke's agents. Indeed, it is hardly necessary to point out that such a complicated, heterogeneous, and irresponsible system as that on which most of the cor- porations were founded must necessarily lead to corrup- tion. Where bodies of men are self-elected, where they are empowered, or at least empower themselves, to ad- minister without responsibility the revenues collected for public purposes and the property which belongs to the public ; where they can obtain exclusive commercial 134 Poor Law and Municipal Reform. 1835 and trading privileges, and assert for themselves the right to put in use the most various judicial authority ; and where, in addition, they can make themselves politi- cal engines, and assist in every way the poHtical party whose interests they desire to forward, it is not necessary to say that political and social corruption must be the inevitable result. The Whig Government determined to deal resolutely with these abuses. Lord John Russell, now leader of the House of Commons, introduced his Bill on June 5, 1835. He proposed that it should apply to 183 boroughs not including the Metropolis, and containing an aggre- gate population of two millions of people, or an average of eleven thousand persons in each borough. In most cases he designed that the boundary of the parliamentary borough should be the boundary of the municipal borough likewise, and in a few cases the Crown was to have the right of defining the municipal borough. The governing body was to consist of a mayor and a council, and the councillors were to be elected by resident ratepayers. Twenty of the largest boroughs were to be divided into wards, and a certain number of councillors were to be elected by each ward. The rights of existing freemen were to be maintained, but as the freemen gradually died out the rights were to be extinguished. Exclusive trading privileges were to be abolished. The management of the charitable funds was to be entrusted to bodies chosen not from the council but from the ratepayers at large. The Crown was to nominate a recorder for each borough which was willing to provide a proper salary for the office, but the recorder was always to be a barrister of at least five years* standing. This seems to us now a very moderate measure of reform. It left a great many ano- malies and abuses untouched. But at the time of the 1835 Freemen. 135 introduction of the measure it was thought a most auda- cious attempt. It was regarded, to adopt a phrase that afterwards became famous in politics, as "a gigantic innovation.'* Sir Robert Peel followed Lord John Russell. He made a remarkable speech. He did not oppose the in- troduction of the Bill. On the contrary, he acknow- ledged the necessity for some sort of legislation on the subject, but he took advantage of the opportunity to find some fault with the Government scheme, and to make known once for all his own opinion with regard to muni- cipal reform. It was clear that he had no intention of acting the part of an obstructionist in regard to such legislation. He advised all members of corporations to concur readily in the amendment of the existing system, but on the express condition that there was to be a real and genuine reform, and that the occasion was not to be made a mere pretext for transforming power from one party in the State to another. What the country wanted, he declared, was a good system of municipal govern- ment, taking security, as far as security could be taken, that a really intelligent and respectable portion of the community of each town should be called to administer its municipal affairs, and that the future application of the charitable or corporate funds should never be diverted to any other than charitable and corporate purposes. Sir Robert Peel was not unreasonable in the fear which he expressed as to the possibility of municipal reform being made the means of advancing the interests of one party. At that time we are afraid that few public men had entirely emerged from the condition of political development which makes it seem fair to take advan- tage of such an opportunity for such a purpose. Mr. O'Connell expressed his approval of the measure, but 136 Poor Law hnd Municipal Reform, 1835 said that the title of the Bill wanted one word which greatly diminished its value ; it was called a Bill for the better regulation of Municipal Corporations in England and Wales. The word he wished to see introduced was " Ireland." It was shortly after stated that the Govern- ment intended to bring forward a Bill for Ireland of much the same nature as that for England and Wales. The Bill was read a second time on June 15, without a division, and was in committee for not quite a month. The Conservative party had begun to understand that mere obstruction is of little use when a strong force of public opinion is behind those who introduce a measure. It is also right to say that the opposition was very much mitigated by the conduct of Sir Robert Peel, who set himself to work sincerely to make a good measure of municipal reform out of the Government scheme, and did his best to prevent anything like unnecessary resist- ance. The chief objection which the Conservative party raised was to the clause which declared that after the passing of the Act no person should be elected a citizen, freeman, liveryman, or burgess of any borough in respect of any right and title other than that of occupancy and payment of rates within the borough. The object of this clause was to get rid of the system which allowed the freedom of a borough, and with it the parliamentary and municipal franchise, to be acquired by birth, apprentice- ship, purchase, marriage, or the favour of the corporation. These honorary freemen, as we may call them, had valu- able privileges in many boroughs. They had rights of pasturage, or a share in the commons near the towns, and of the proceeds of the sale of common land, if there should be any sold. In other places they had the privi- lege to enter free of toll in any fair or market. In others they shared in the monopoly of trade which was enjoyed 1835 ^^ Lords and the Bill, 137 by the resident freemen generally. An amendment was moved by Sir William FoUett, for the purpose of pre- serving the franchise for the freemen. Lord Grey had very unwillingly allowed existing freemen to retain the parliamentary franchise, and the clause in the Municipal Reform Bill would put an end to the future admission of freemen to that privilege. Sir William Follett insisted therefore that the clause was really a new measure of political reform, and contended that the Government had already pledged themselves that their Reform Act of 1832 was final. It was argued, with perhaps more show of justice, that if the freemen were to be deprived of the privilege which the Reform Bill allowed them to retain, it should be done by a separate Act of Parliament and not be brought in casually as a mere chance result of the reorganization of the municipalities. The argu- ment, however, of the Government and its supporters against the whole system was clear and direct. The freemen were not necessarily residents of the borough or ratepayers. They had no natural interest in its affairs or in its prosperity, and they were not open to the con- trol of its public opinion. They regarded their privilege in many cases merely as something to be sold. There was no reason why a man who had been in prison might not give a vote as well as the most respectable citizen. It would be impossible to reform any municipality if this class of persons were still to be allowed the control of its affairs. On the other hand, if they were unfit to exercise the municipal franchise, with what show of reason could the Government allow them the right to vote for members of Parliament ? The amendment, and others having the same object in view, were rejected. Mr. Molesworth, in his " History of England," points out that the Bill had "one most valuable, though indirect, 138 Poor Law and Municipal Reform, 1 835 effect," which was not contemplated perhaps by its au- thors. "By putting an end," he says, "to the rights ot apprenticeship and exclusive trading, it struck off one fetter on industry, as the poor law, in dealing with set- tlements, had struck off another. Both of them, by pre- venting men from trading or working where they would, interfered most mischievously with tlie freedom of la- bour." Sir Robert Peel proposed that in the case of the larger boroughs, members of the governing body should be re- quired to have personal property to the value of 1,000/., or to be rated on a rental of not less than 40/. a year, and that in the smaller boroughs the qualifications should be a' property of 500/., or a rated rental of 20/. a year. This proposal, too, was rejected, and was, indeed, in direct opposition to the spirit and purpose of the Bill. Mr. Grote took advantage of the opportunity to move that the ballot be employed in municipal elections. It is almost needless to say that he was unsuccessful. Nearly forty years more had to pass away, and the country had to go through an unspeakable amount of political and municipal corruption and degradation, before the mind of England could be brought to perceive the value of the system for which the historian of Greece pleaded so patiently and so long. The Bill was sent up to the House of Lords on July 21, without any material change in its character. The majority there were, of course, opposed to it. They had not the courage to reject it, especially after the stand which had been taken by Sir Robert Peel, but they determined to mutilate and mangle it as much as they thought it would be safe to attempt. The speech in which Lord Melbourne introduced the Bill, probably rather encouraged than discouraged the House of Lords in such a course. Lord Melbourne 1837 Queen Victoria. 139 was never a very earnest or resolute man, and he was already beginning to think that his administration was loosing a little of its hold on Parliament and the public. The House of Lords, therefore, took courage enough to introduce amendments into the Bill, virtually the same as those which the House of Commons had rejected. The Conservative peers with Lord Lyndhurst at their head went wild over the Bill. They seemed to have for the most lost their heads. They mutilated the Bill with reckless hands. They restored all, or nearly all, the anomalies which the Government had been endea- vouring to abolish. They positively introduced entirely novel anomalies and fresh springs of abuse into it. They contrived to make it a Bill for increasing the stringency of religious tests. Of course the House of Commons could not accept such alterations. Peel strongly dis- countenanced the wild attempts of Lord Lyndhurst and the Tory peers. Wellington advised the Tories to give way, and at last even Lyndhurst himself had to offer counsel of the same kind. Lord John Russell on his side recommended the Commons to yield a few small and unimportant points. The Lords saw no way out of the difficulty but to submit, and on September 7, 1835, the Bill, substantially the same as when it left the House of Commons, became the law of the land. CHAPTER X. LEGAL AND SOCIAL REFORM. On June 20, 1837, King William IV. died. He had reigfned but a short time. He came to the throne when he was already an old man. He had been a sailor, and a sailor of the roughest school, and in many of his opinions, as, for example, his views on the question of 1 40 Legal and Sociai Reform. 1^37 the slave trade and slavery, he ran counter to the feeling of the great majority of Englishmen. But on the whole he had made a respectable constitutional Sovereign, and during the struggles which ended in the passing of the Reform Bill he had behaved with fair- ness and with prudence. His death was followed by the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne. The Princess Victoria was his niece. She was the daughter of the Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. Wil- liam IV. left no child living when he died, and the Crown therefore passed over to his niece, Victoria. The Queen was born on May 24, 18 19. She was therefore little more than eighteen years of age when she was thus suddenly called to a throne which, at her birth, there could have been little expectation that she would ever have to fill. She was named Alexandrina Victoria. The name Alexandrina was given to her by her father, in compliment to the Emperor of Russia. The intention was that she should also bear the name Georgiana, after her uncle, George IV., then Prince Regent. The Duke of Kent, however, insisted that Alexandrina should be her first name, and thereupon the Prince Regent declared that the name of Georgiana could not stand second to any other in the country, and that therefore she must not bear it at all. It was, perhaps, fortunate on the whole that, the name of Georgiana was not given to the young Princess. Its more recent associations were not of happy omen ; to perpetuate them would not have been welcome to the country. The Queen had been carefully brought up by her mother in almost absolute seclusion. None of the statesmen or officials of the time had any close per- sonal acquaintance with the young Princess, or any reason to feel satisfied with regard to her opinions or her capacity. The Duchess of Kent naturally desired seclu- 1837 "^^^^ Window Tax. 141 sion for the Princess, because neither at the Court of George IV. nor at that of William IV. were the manners of society such as to make a careful mother anxious that her daughter should see much of Court circles. The young Queen surprised everyone almost from the first moment when she came into public life by her compo- sure, her force of character, and her intelligence. Yet so strong was the influence of party spirit, and so high did its passions run, that on both sides of the political field there were heard wild cries of alarm at the Queen's ac- cession. On one side of the field, the clamour was that the Tories were trying to bring about a revolution in favour of the Hanoverian branch of the Royal Family, that they were plotting to depose the Queen and put the Duke of Cumberland in her place. On the other side, the alarm-cry was that the Queen was sure to favour the Roman Catholics, that she would turn Catholic herself, or at the very least would marry a Catholic prince. The leading paper of that day thought it convenient and be- coming to remind the Queen that if she were to turn Catholic or to marry a Catholic, she would immediately forfeit her crown. The Queen had not been many months on the throne when she satisfied every one that she was a thoroughly constitutional Sovereign, that she was capable of acting with absolute impartiality between Liberal and Tory, and that she had full capacity for the duties so suddenly imposed on her. In 1840, the Queen was married to her cousin. Prince Albert ofSaxe-Coburg- Gotha, who afterwards received the title of Prince Con- sort. One important result of the accession of Queen Vic- toria was the severance of the connection between this country and the kingdom of Hanover. Hanover had become connected with England, because it was ruled by 1 42 Legal and Social Reform. 1^37 the Prince who, after the death of Queen Anne, came to be Sovereign of this country. But the law of Hanover limited the sovereignty to men, and therefore, when Queen Victoria succeeded to the throne of England, she did not become Queen of Hanover, but Hanover passed over to her uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, eldest sur- viving brother of William IV. It was fortunate for England that she was thus disentangled from her connec- tion with Hanover. The Hanoverian connection had always been distasteful to most people here, and in times much more near to our own, England might have been involved in war if her Sovereign had still continued to be Sovereign of Hanover. The great movement for German unity, which went on in later years, would hardly have been stayed by the existence of a kingdom of Hanover under what would have been practically a foreign Sove- reign. England would either have had to face the responsibility of maintaining Hanover against Germany or the discredit of surrendering it. The reforms which were going on satisfactorily under a Sovereign so narrow-minded and uncultured as Wil- liam IV., were not likely to be stayed in their course or to become less substantial in their character under the rule of a Queen so intelligent and liberal-minded as Victoria, On the contrary, the energy of reform seemed to grow in strength and to be guided with increasing enlightenment. Apart from purely political questions, the great subjects of the reformer's interest when Queen Victoria came to the throne were the condition of na- tional education, the criminal law, and the system of taxation. It seems hard to believe now how stupid and barbarous were the principles on which, even up to the time of the Queen's accession, and for long after, the taxation of the country and its criminal law were carried 1 832-3 7 Criminal Law Reforms, 1 43 on. Newspapers were taxed, as if people ought to be prevented from reading them ; windows were taxed, as if it were the business of the Government to take care that men and women did not have too much air and sunlight in their houses. The window tax had been in existence for centuries, and about this time used to re- turn more than a million of money every year to the revenue. A house was taxed according to the number of its windows, and the result of course was that house- holders reduced the number as much as possible, and the poorer a man was the greater was the necessity for his depriving his family of light and air. A common practice was to paint rows of windows on one of the solid walls of a house, so that the house might at least seem to the hasty passer-by to enjoy that light which the rigour of taxation denied it. Twenty years had yet to pass away before this odious tax was finally abol- ished. Soon after the Queen's accession an attempt was made to establish something like a system of national educa- tion. The first movement that way had been made a few years earlier, in 1834. The movement then began by a grant of money for the purposes of elementary edu- cation. Twenty thousand pounds was the sum first given, and the same grant was made each successive year until 1839, when Lord John Russell asked for an increase of 10,000/., and proposed a change in the way of distributing the money. At first the grant was given through the National School Society, a body in direct connection with the English Church, and the British and Foreign School Association, which admitted chil- dren of all denominations without imposing on them sectarian instruction. Lord John Russell obtained an order in council transferring the distribution of the mo- 1 44 Legal and Social Reform. 1837 ney to a committee of privy council. The proposals of the Government were bitterly opposed in both Houses of Parliament. An application of the public money through the hands of the committee of the privy council, not in any sense under the direct control and authority of the State, was denounced as a State endowment of popery and heresy. The Government, however, succeeded in carrying their point, and established their Committee of Privy Council on Education, the institution in whose hands the management of the whole system of public instruction has rested ever since. Some of the most effective and benign measures to mitigate the harshness of our criminal legislation were taken in this chapter of our history. The Custody of Infants Bill was one of the first legislative declarations that there is any difference between an English wife and a purchased slave woman, so far as the power of the master over either is concerned. The Custody of In- fants Bill gave to mothers of irreproachable conduct, who, from no fault of their own, were living apart from their husbands, occasional access to their children, with permission and under control of the judges. It seems marvellous to us now to think that there ever could have been a time when such a measure met with resist- ance from rational human beings. Reforms were going on year after year in the criminal law. The severity of the death punishment was mitigated by successive Acts of Parliament. In 1832, capital punishment was abol- ished in cases of horse-stealing, sheep-stealing, coining, larceny to the value of 5/. in a dwelling-house, and other offences. In 1833, house-breaking ceased to be a capital crime. In 1834, a m^an who had escaped from ' transportation, and come back to this country, was no longer liable to the punishment of death. In 1835, letter- ^1837 Transporfatio7i. 145 stealing by servants in the Post Office was removed from the black list of capital offences, One curious result of all these gradual reductions of the death pen- alty, has been to establish a much nearer proportion, in our days, between the number of persons sentenced to death and the number of persons actually executed. When the death sentence was made to apply to almost every offence that men or women could commit, it was impossible, seeing that human nature must then, as now, have had some compassion in it, that all these /-sentences, or even a considerable portion of them, could ever have been carried into effect. For example, in 1824, 1,066 persons were sentenced to death, of whom only 40 were executed. In the following year, 1,036 were sentenced and 50 executed. In 1837, 438 persons were sentenced to death, of whom only 8 were executed. But if we come down to milder times, we find that in i860, 48 were sentenced and 12 executed. In 1861, 50 persons were sentenced and 15 executed. In the earlier years the number of executions is hardly i in 20 to the number of sentences, while, in the later years, it is sometimes i in 2. The superiority in the policy of our times is not merely its being a policy of greater mercy, but also in its being a policy of greater efficacy. If the death sen- tence is to have any influence at all in deterring from crime, its influence must be, in a great degree, by the certainty of its infliction. It is obvious, therefore, that a sentence of which there are 15 inflictions out of 50 con- demnations, must be more effective as a deterrent than a sentence which is only inflicted 40 times in 1,066 cases of its delivery. The question whether the death penalty ought to be inflicted at all, whether its deterring effect is really so considerable as to render it worth retaining the punishment, is one of great public interest and im- L 146 Legal and Social Reform. 1837 portance, but into which it is not necessary at present to enter. The point on which we desire particularly to insist is, that not only have our modern principles miti- gated the action of the death penalty, but they have, at the same time, so applied it as to render its deterrent effect, if it has any, more distinct and operative than it could have been in days less humane. How to deal with criminals not sentenced to the death penalty, or on whose behalf that penalty had been miti- gated, was a question which occupied the attention of Parliament during many successive years. The system of transportation had grown to be an intolerable nui- sance to our rising colonies. Transportation, as a sys- tematised means of getting some of our criminals out of our way, began in the time of Charles II. The judges then gave power for the removal of criminals to the North American colonies. The colonies, however, as they grew into civilisation and strength, began to protest against this use being made of their soil, and of course the revolt of the North American provinces, and the creation of the United States of America, rendered it necessary for England to send her convicts to some other part of the world. In 1787 a cargo of criminals was sent to Botany Bay, on the eastern shore of New South Wales. Afterwards, convicts were sent to Van Diemen's Land and to Norfolk Island, a solitary island in the Pacific, 800 miles, or thereabouts, from the shores of New South Wales. Norfolk Island has been de- scribed as the penal settlement for the convicted among convicts, that is to say, criminals, who having been transported to New South Wales committed new crimes there, might be selected by the colonial authorities, and sent for severer punishment to Norfolk Island. There had been growing up in this country an im- 1837 Transportation. 147 pression for a long time that the transportation system was the parent of intolerable evils. It had been con- demned by Romilly and Bentham. In 1837, the House of Commons appointed a committee to consider the whole question. Amongst others on the committee were Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, Mr. Charles Buller, Sir William Molesworth, and Lord Howick, afterwards Earl Grey. The evidence put before that committee disclosed a number of horrors which made it certain that the transportation system must come to an end. Norfolk Island, as we have said, was kept for the con- victed among the convicts. A number of men, thorough- ly brutalised, were left there to herd together like beasts. They worked, when they did work at all, in chains. They were roused at daybreak, turned out to labour in their chains, and allowed to huddle back to their dens when dark had set in. In Sydney, the convicts received, after a certain period of probation, a conditional free- dom, or what we have lately called a ticket-of-leave. They were allowed to work for the colonists. Anyone requiring labourers or servants could apply to the au- thorities and have male or female convicts assigned to him to do his work. These convict labourers and servants were hardly better in condition than slaves. They were assigned over to masters and mistresses, for whom they had to work as ordered, and whose commands, however capricious, they had to obey. A special code of laws existed for the discipline of these unfortunate creatures. They moved about openly in the ordinary life of the place, working in trades, acting as domestic servants, labouring in the fields. They were living under con- ditions unknown to civilised life elsewhere. On the complaint of a master or mistress, men could be flogged with as many as fifty lashes for ordinary disobedience. 1 48 Legal and Social Reform. 1 700-1 840 After a while, of course, they lost all hope of reform, all sense of decency. Their lives were alternations of pro- fligacy and punishment. The worse a man was, the better he was likely to be able to endure such an existence. Indeed, a genuine, downright, irreclaimable scoundrel often liked well enough the kind of life he found in New South Wales. He had ample opportunity for profligacy, and as long as he obeyed the immediate orders of his master or mistress, he was not likely to be flogged. Sometimes the wives of convicts went out to the colony, started some business or some farming work there, and had their husbands assigned to them as servants. It is shown in the evidence that in a certain number of instances the women, probably to pay off old scores, took occasion now and then to have their hus- bands flogged. The publication of the report of the committee filled the public mind with so much horror that it was evident to all persons that the abandonment of transportation was only a question of time. The colonists themselves in most places began to interfere and to protest against it. At last it came so far that only in Western Australia were residents willing to receive convicts on any conditions, and Western Australia had little opportunity of receiving many of our outcasts. The finding of gold in Australia settled at last the question of these colonies being made any longer places for the shooting of our human rubbish. It would be im- possible to send out shiploads of criminals to a region full of the temptations of gold. Various projects were formed of starting convict settlements in other places, but in every case some clear objection arose, and although for many years after, committees of both Houses of Parliament reported in favour of some sort of transportation system, they also recorded their conviction 1829 The Police Fo7'ce. 149 that it would be impossible to carry on the existing sys- tem any longer. Its death sentence was passed when the report of the commission was published. It would not be right, ijn surveying the political and social improvements which belong to this period, not to speak of the great advantage secured for peace and order in towns and cities, and indeed everywhere over the country, by the organization and development of the police system. The London police force, remodelled by Sir Robert Peel, and constructed very much as we now know it, began its duty about the time when this history opens. Before that time there had only been a miserably inefficient watch system, the sport of satirists, and not at all the terror of evil-doers. The Metropolitan organiza- tion became the model for the police force of all the great towns of England and Scotland, and for the capital of Ireland. But the police force of Ireland in general is a semi-military body, embodied to deal with a condition of things entirely different from that which exists in England. A few words may be given to the small but very im- portant reform effected in the interests of humanity by the suppression of the practice of sending boys up chimneys to clean them. The trade of the chimney-sweep pursued in this way was unknown, we believe, to any country ex- cept in England. It began in England about the begin- ning of that eighteenth century whose ways have lately occupied so much of our attention, and called forth so many more or less unsuccessful attempts at imitation. Most of the chimneys of the English houses were narrow and crooked, and it was for a long time held as an article of faith that there was no efficient way of cleansing them except by sending a poor boy to climb from the fireplace to the top of the chimney, and proclaim that he had 150 Legal and Social Reform. 1835 accomplished his task by crying " sweep," when his soot- covered head and shoulders emerged into the open air. Nothing could have been more brutal than the treatment of these poor climbing boys. Their hands, arms and knees were abrased and injured by the constant friction against the walls of the chimney. It sometimes happened that the boy was sent up before the chimney had had time to cool after the extinction of the fire, and then the poor creature ran the risk of being severely burnt. Sometimes he was severely burnt. Frequently the chim- ney was narrow and the child stuck fast in it, and was only rescued with much trouble. In certain cases the boy when taken out was found to be dead. Most people had grown so familiarised with this abominable habit that it never occurred to them to think of the suffering of the poor creatures whom they saw sent up into their chimneys — sometimes forced to go up by threats and blows from the master sweep. At last, however, humane persons began to call attention to the evil, and then an agitation set in against it. Evidence was brought before the public to show that in some cases where a boy had stuck fast, the master sweep insisted that he was lazy and perverse, and lit a fire in the grate in order to force the poor creature to climb. It was shown that in several instances the master sweeps had employed little girls where they could not easily g6t boys, and it was stated in Liverpool that a case was discovered in which a master sweep for many years employed his wife, a young and small woman, to do the work of a climbing boy. The barbarous practice was suppressed by legislation in 1840, but for a considerable time after its legal suppression it continued to be secretly practised, in some places prac- tised with almost no pretence of secrecy. Finally, public opinion became thoroughly awakened to the horrors of 1 835 ^^^ Press- Gang. 151 the whole system, and the practice of using climbing boys fell into absolute disuse. Chimneys now are built to suit a rational and humane system, and the sweeping machines have been found to do their work far better than even the most patient and energetic poor little boy who ever was victimized in the early days. Among the earlier reforms of this period we must not omit to mention one which abolished a great grievance that had long supplied themes for the romancist, the poet, and the painter, and even still continues occasion- ally to supply them. This was the abolition of the law of impressment for the navy. The law of impressment, rather indeed a custom than a law, was of the most ancient practice. In the days of Richard II. it was spoken of as a system long in existence and well known. It was, however, regulated by a great variety of Acts of Parlia- ment in various times, but by no possible regulation could it be anything except a monstrous grievance. From Richard II. 's time, through Philip and Mary, Elizabeth, William III., Anne, George II. and George III., Acts of Parliament had been passed for its regulation and re- striction. The principle simply was that when the Government required seamen to carry on a war, they would take them where they could get them. The sea- port towns were of course the place where they sought them, and sailors in the merchant marine were the men preferred for service on board ship. Our literature is full of pathetic stories of young seamen pressed as they were returning from the church where they had been married, and carried off to serve the Sovereign on the seas, per- haps not to return during many long years, perhaps not to return at all. There is, we believe, at least one true story of a seaman who was thus carried off after his wedding, who served all through the long stretch of the 152 L egal and Social Reform . ^ S 3 9 war between France and England, and who returned a raan of more than middle age, to find his wife long since dead, and himself a forgotten stranger in the home of his youth. Sometimes the carrying out of the impressment service led to serious riots. In Captain Marryat's once popular novels there are given descriptions, which we doubt not are true in the main, of the difficulties which attended sometimes the capture of seamen for His Majesty's fleet. We read of serious resistance offered in some of the lower quarters of Portsmouth, and of the women joining in the fray, and seamen being dangerously wounded, of shots fired from windows, of a stubborn resistance made from room to room, and at last of the objects of the search being captured and carried off much as the remnants of a stubborn garrison might be taken by storm. Many anti-reformers of that time thought, as anti-reformers have always done when any improvement is proposed, that it would be utterly impos- sible to carry on the service if the power to impress sea- men was not allowed to remain in the hands of the authorities. The press-gang was, however, abolished by a Bill which the Government brought in in 1835, and which limited compulsory service to five years in the navy. Since that time Governments have again and again been occupied in the consideration of measures to supply the navy with a sufficient stock of seamen, and also to maintain a good naval reserve. The first step, hov/ever, to maintaining a really respectable body of men in the service, was taken when the Government abolished the press-gang. So long as that system existed it was not practically possible to do away with the flogging discipline. The men who were snatched up and pressed for service on board ship were not likely at first to settle down quietly to all the proper discipline and organization 1S39 Postal Reform. 153 of the navy. Sometimes the press-gang carried off men who were but the scum of the seaport towns, hardly- better than the gaol-bird class. One or two of these men impregnated with his bad habits half a forecastle full of sailors, and it is fairly to be acknowledged that very stringent measures of discipline were sometimes required to keep such persons in order. The abolition of the press-gang system rendered possible the abolition of flogging, and one can hardly believe that there can be any serious difficulty, by wise and liberal measures on the part of the Government, to maintain an excellent naval reserve, and to induce a good class of men to enter that naval service which has been always so es- pecially popular among the English people. One of the greatest social reforms accomplished during all this time was the change in the postal system. For a long succession of years the charge for the delivery of letters through the post had amounted to a practical exclusion of all the poorer classes from its substantial benefits. The rates of postage had been high and varied. They varied with regard to distance and with regard to the weight and even the size or shape of a letter. There was a London district post which was a distinct branch of the whole department, and with a different scale for the transmission of letters. The average charge on every letter throughout the kingdom was a little more than (id, A letter from London to Brighton cost 8^., from London to Aberdeen i^. ^d., from London to Belfast \s. \d. As if this tax was not enough, there was an arrangement that if the letter included more than one sheet of paper it should, no matter what its weight, come under a higher rate of charge. Members of Parliament could send letters free through the post to a certain extent ; members of the Government could send them throu LL. D. , ex-President of Cornell University. 7 THE EPOCH OF REFORM, 1830-1850. By Justin McCarthy. EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. A SERIES OF BOOKS NARRATING THE HISTORY OF GREECE AND ROME, AND OF THEIR RELATIONS TO OTHER COUNTRIES AT SUCCESSIVE EPOCHS. Edited by Rev. G. W. Cox and Charles Sankey, M.A. Eleven volumes, i6mo, with 41 Maps and Plans. Sold separately. Price per vol., $1.00. The Set, Roxburgh style, gilt top, in box, ^zx.oo. TROY— ITS LEGEND, HISTORY, AND LITERATURE. By S. G. W. Benjamin. THE GREEKS AND THE PERSIANS. By the Rev. G. W. Cox. THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE— From the Flight of Xerxes to the Fall of Athens. By the Rev. G. W. Cox. THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACIES. By Charles Sankey, M.A. THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE— Its Rise and Culmination tc the Death of Alexander the Great. By A. M. CURTEIS, M.A. The Jive volumes above give a connected and complete history of Greece from the earliest times to the death of Alexander. EARLY ROME— From the Foundation of the City to its Destruc tion by the Gauls. By W. Ihne, Ph.D. ROME AND CARTHAGE— The Punic Wars. By R. Bosworth Smith, M.A. THE GRACCHI, MARIUS, AND SULLA. By A. H. Beesly, M.A. THE ROMAN TRIUMVIRATES. By the Very Rev. Charles Merivale, D.D. THE EARLY EMPIRE — From the Assassination of Julius Csesar to the Assassination of Domitian. By the Rev. W. Wolfe Capes, M.A. THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES— the Roman Empire of the Second Century. By the Rev. W. Wolfe Cape«, M.A. The six volumes above give the History of Rome from the founding of the City to the death of Marcus A melius Antoninus, Just Published A NEW VOLUME IN THE SERIES. THE EARLY TUDORS—HENRY VII.. HENRY VIII. By the Rev. C. E. Moberly, M.A., late Master in Rugby School. With Four Maps. One vol., i6mo, $i.oo. PRESS COMMENTS. "A marvel of clear and succinct brevity and good historical judgment. There is hardly a better book of its kind to be named." — The Independent. "The volume, as a whole, gives a very complete and satisfactory relation of the chief events in the history of the early Tudors ; it is concise, scholarly, and accurate. On the epoch of which it treats, we know of no work which equals it." — Nevj York Observer. " The book is ably written, and entirely free from sectarian bias," — New York Titnes. " One of the most interesting and valuable of the whole series. 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" As in the other books of the series, compactness and simplicity of style have been followed in order to compress the greatest quantity of material within the smallest space compatible with the clear and thorough setting forth of the subject. This volume shows wide reading and thoughtful study on the part of the author, who here presents a remarkably clear and instructive picture of the condition of England under the two Henrys," — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. *** The volumes in this series are for sale by all booksellers, or wil be sent J postpaid, on receipt of price, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. A New Edition^ Library Style. ^§F j^isforg of Ploinp, FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PERIOD OF ITS DECLINE By Dr. THEODOR MOMMSEN. Translated, with the author's sanction and additions, by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, Re^itis Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Glasgow, late Classical Examiner o{ the University of St. Andrews. With an introduction by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, and a copious Index of the whole four volumes, prepared especially for this edition. REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED LONDON EDITION. Four Volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. Price per Set, $8.00. Dr. Mommsen has long been known and appreciated through his re- searches into the languages, laws, and institutions of Ancient Rome and Italy, as the most thoroughly versed scholar now living in these depart- ments of historical investigation. To a wonderfully exact and exhaustive knowledge of these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a vigorous, spirited, and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical pow- ers, which give this history a degree of interest and a permanent value possessed by no other record of the decline and fall of the Roman Com- monwealth. "Dr. Mommsen's work," as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the introduction, *' though the production of a man of most profound and ex- tensive learning and knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for the professional scholar as for intelligent readers of all classes who take an interest in the history of by-gone ages, and are inclined there to seek information that m^ guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of modern history." CRITICAL NOTICES. ** A work of the very highest merit ; its learning is exact and profound ; its narrative full of genius and skill ; its descriptions of men are admirably vivid. We wish to place oa r:cord our opinion that Dr. Mommsen's is by far the best history of the Decline and F..'ll f)f the Roman Commonwealth." — London Times. " This is the best history of the Roman Republic, taking the work on the whole — the juhor's complete mastery of his subject, the variety of his gifts and acquirements, his graphic power in the delineation of national and individual character, and the vivid interest which he inspires in every portion of his book. He is without an equal in his own sphere.'- '- Edittbiirgh Review. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 743 AND 745 Broadway, New YoiiK. A New Edition, Library Style, ? IjisfOPg of (JpFPfF. By Prof. Dr. EENST OUETroS. Tijinslated by Adolphus William Ward, M. A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, Cai» bridge, Prof, of History in Owen's College, Manchester. UNIFORM WITH MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME, rive volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. Price per set, $10.00. Curtius's History of Greece is similar in plan and purpose to Mommsen's History of Rome^ with which it deserves to rank in every respect as one of the great masterpieces of historical literature. Avoiding the minute de- tails which overburden other similar works, it groups together in a very picturesque manner all the important events in the history of this king- dom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the world's civilization. The narrative of Prof. Curtius's work is flowing and ani- mated, and the generalizations, although bold, are ^philosophical and sound. CRITICAL NOTICES. " Professor Curtius's eminent scholarship is a sufficient guarantee for the trustworthiness of his history, while the skill with which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of narrat- ing them, combine to render it no less readable than sound. Prof. Curtius eveiywhere maintains the true dignity and impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are on the side of justice, humanity, and progress" — London Athenteutn. " We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius's book better than by saying that it may be fitly ranked with Theodor Mommsen's great work." — London Spectator. "As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to the present for vivacity and picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which enrich the literature of the age." — N. Y. Daily Tribune. " The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit oi the nineteenth century, that it becomes in his hands one of the worthiest and most instruct- ive branches of study for all who desire something more than a knowledge of isolated facts for their education. This translation ought to become a regular part of the accepted course of reading for young men at college, and for all who are in training for the free political life of our country." — N. Y. Evening Post. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 743 AND 745 Broadway, New Yor» Manual of Mythology FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS, ART STUDENTS AND GENERAL READERS, ^OUNLED ON THE WORKS OF PETISCUS, PRELLER; AND WELCKER. By ALEXANDER S. MURRAY, Department of Greek and Koman Antiquities, British Museum. With 45 Plates on tintec? paper, representing: more tb.an 00 llytholog^ical Subjects. RKPRINTED FROM THE SECOND REVISED LONDON EDITION. One volume, crown 8vo, $2.25. There has long been needed a compact, manageable Manual o( Mythology, which should be a guide to the Art student and the general reader, and at the same time answer the purposes of a school text-book. This volume which has been prepared by the Director of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, upon the basis of the works of Petiscus, Preller, and Welcker, has had so extensive a sale in the English edition, as to prove that it precisely supplies this want. This American edition has been reprinted from the latest English edition, and contains all the illustrations of the latter, while the chapter upon Eastern Mythology has been carefully revised by Prof. H"^, D, Whitney if Yale College. N. B. — Teachers wishing to examine this work with a view t^ introducing it as a text-book, will have it sent to them, by >v:rwarding their address and $1.35. •** The above book for sale by all booksellers, or ivill be stMt, Jfost or excess •Jt^rget faid^ u^on rt.eij>t of the price by the publishers, CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SQM.c;. 7^3 AND 74^ UkOAUVVAV. N»?'*' V^rk, The Standard Edition of Gladstone's Essays. Fanings of JPasI^ Sfhps. nv The Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE. Seven Volumes, 16mo, Cloth, per volume, $1.00, The extraordinary scope of Mr. Gladstone's learning — the wonder ol his friends and enemies alike — and his firm grasp of every subject he discusses, make his essays much more than transient literature. Their collection and publication in permanent shape were of course certain to be undertaken sooner or later ; and now that they are so published with the benefit of his own revision, they will need little heralding in England or America. What Mr. Gladstone has written in the last thirty-six years — the period covered by this collection — has probably had the attention of as large an English-speaking public as any writer on political and social topics ever reached in his own life-time. The papers which he has chosen as of lasting value, and included here under the title of Gleanings of Pas: Years, will form the standard edition of his miscellanies, both for hh present multitude of readers, and for those who will study his writings Uter. Vol. i. The Throne, and the Prince Consort; The Cabinet, and Constitution. Vol. II.— Personal and Literary. Vol. III.— Historical and Speculative. Vol. IV.— Foreign. ., .' w." r Ecclesiastical. 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