GENERAL PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY OF 1851.
In the foregoing notices of proceedings in parliament, reference was made to them in connection with the great subjects which agitated the country at large. Those notices necessarily abridge the relation of this section of the chapter.
Although the session was not fruitful in legislation, a considerable range of important subjects was embraced by the discussions which took place. The ministry was desirous to improve the laws, and carry some useful measures. Private members in vain sought opportunity to direct the attention of parliament to practical and useful legislation: the great agitations of the day, and mere party disputes, consumed the time of the house. The Protectionists caught at so many opportunities for prolonged debates, for the purposes of gaining some pecuniary advantage, and of worrying the ministry, that the public business was greatly impeded. The Peelites, especially in the commons, were hostile to the ecclesiastical titles bill. That small section of the house which prided itself in following the policy of Sir Robert Peel in everything, belonged, in almost every individual case, to the Puseyite party in the established church, and viewed with apparently bitter animosity the attempt of Lord John Russell to curb the pretensions of the Romish hierarchy. Mr. Gladstone and Sir James Graham, always hostile to the religious liberties of Protestant dissenters, led the opposition to the government measure. It was obvious enough that the house and the country were resolved upon the passing of the bill, but the Peelite and Puseyite orators resisted it at every stage, with a zeal and activity which surpassed that of the Roman Catholic members. In vain the government pressed upon the house the urgency of the public business, and the number of the measures which ought to occupy attention: Puseyites and Protectionists maintained debates on every possible occasion, rendering legislative measures on a great variety of subjects impracticable.
The ministerial crisis has been already referred to, and its termination, by the announcement (on the 3rd of March) that the government had resumed office.
The defeat of the government on the motion of Mr. Locke King, for leave to bring in a bill to assimilate the elective franchise in boroughs and counties upon a tenpound value occupation has incidentally been noticed in connection with the ministerial crisis. Mr. Locke King brought in his bill, and moved the second reading on the 2nd of April. The debate which ensued was remarkable from the circumstance that Lord John Eussell pledged himself to bring in, at the beginning of the next session, a bill to extend the franchise. This pledge, up to the close of the session of 1859, more than eight years, has never been redeemed. The excuse urged has been always the same—the pressure of public business—an excuse, the sincerity of which cannot be accepted by the most credulous friends of his lordship’s party. Mr. Disraeli declared that he desired to see the “great settlement of 1831” improved, in the sense of confirming “the proper territorial influence and power,” which he assured the house was essential to the liberties of the English nation. Mr. Disraeli desired an improvement of the Reform Bill which would consolidate the power of a class: Lord John promised a reform which would increase the power of the people. Persuaded by his lordship’s specious promises, those of Mr. Fox Maule, and other members of the government, the Liberals supported the government, and Mr. Locke King’s bill was lost by a vast majority. The speech of Mr. Bright much conduced to this result, as he showed that the ten-pound occupants, in counties, would be under the control of the landed interest, which Mr. Bright denounced as opposed to the material interests and civil and religious liberties of the people.
Mr. Henry Berkeley endeavoured to secure another measure of reform—the conducting of elections by vote by ballot. The government resisted this, and Lord John Eussell, with a tone of ridicule and acrimony, offered the motion an ostentatious opposition. The government was beaten by a majority of eighty-seven to fifty. The bill was read a first time, but Mr. Berkeley did not proceed with it, the same pretence set up by the government on Locke King’s motion soothing the reformers.
Mr. Cobden signalized himself by proposing a resolution pledging the house to arbitration in case of national differences. Mr. Cobden’s motion was in itself impracticable, his statistics partial, and his tone personal and unjust to the statesman by whom our foreign relations had been conducted. Lord Palmerston replied in one of the most happy speeches he ever delivered, vindicating himself from the implications made by Mr. Cobden. Mr. Roebuck supported Mr. Cobden, whom, and whose party, he has so often opposed since, when their peculiar opinions were advocated in a similar manner. The motion was withdrawn, in consequence of the conviction of all parties being strongly expressed that the course proposed by Mr. Cobden was utterly impossible.
In the House of Lords a remarkable debate arose upon a proposition of the Earl of St. Germains, to make marriage with a deceased wife’s sister legal. The measure was opposed by the bishops. The Bishop of Norwich made a speech of remarkable clearness and force in opposition. Lord Campbell, the lord-chief-justice, made an oration of an eccentric and illogical character; its spirit and temper were even worse than its arguments; the people of Germany and America were referred to in a manner the most insulting and unjust. The bishops and the law lords defeated the bill.
Lord Redesdale, one of the champions of Puseyism in the established church, made a motion in the peers for the revival of convocation, which was successfully opposed by the evangelical “primate of all England.”
One of the subjects introduced during the session which excited most interest in the country, was the removal of Jewish disabilities. Lord John Russell produced a bill in the commons which was carried, but was thrown out in the lords. Events followed of an important nature and of historical interest. An alderman of the city of London, named Salomons, had been elected to sit in parliament for the borough of Greenwich. He determined to take his seat. He presented himself at the table of the house on the 18th of July, but refused to take the oaths “on the true faith of a Christian,” the form prescribed by the rules of the house. He was then ordered by the speaker to withdraw. Mr. Salomons sat down on one of the benches of the ministerial side of the house, but the speaker insisted upon his withdrawal, upon which he returned to the bar, but under protest of his right to take his seat. Called upon, in the course of the discussion which ensued, by various members to do so, he repeatedly resumed his seat, addressed the house, and voted on divisions concerning himself. After long protracted and violent discussions, he was conducted forcibly by the sergeant-at-arms below the bar. The house, at the instance of Lord John Russell, resolved that he had not a right to sit until he took the oath of abjuration on the true faith of a Christian. Lord John at the same time intimated his intention to persevere in seeking the emancipation of Jewish citizens from all civil disabilities on account of their religion. These events in the English House of Commons attracted the attention of the Jewish community all over the world, and the reports were perused extensively abroad as well as at home.
On the 27th of May a party debate arose upon the conduct of Lord Torrington, when governor of Ceylon. Debates occurred in both houses, the object of the opponents of government being to condemn the policy of Lord Torrington, and the friends of government to uphold him. Nothing was proved against his lordship sufficient to justify the course pursued against him, but it was made plain that his appointment to the government of a colony as distracted as it was important, did not arise from the noble lord’s fitness, but from his political interest; and that Earl Grey, the whig colonial minister, had performed his official duties in a way crotchety, self-sufficient, and arrogant—in the spirit of the partizan rather than of the patriot.
Various bills were passed in reference to administrative departments of the church, and of the state. A bill for the removal of Smithfield market was carried on humane and sanitary considerations, after a discreditable opposition from the corporation of London. Law reform made some progress, especially in connection with the court of chancery. There were several sharp discussions and important motions on colonial and foreign affairs, which will be more appropriately noticed when referring to those departments of the history of the year.
On the 8th of August parliament was prorogued, and the legislative history of 1851 terminated.