It may be as well to dispose here of the Irish Church question; for although Lord Morpeth, on the part of the Melbourne Administration, brought in a Bill for settling the Tithe question, which passed the House of Commons by a majority of 26 votes, and contained the appropriation clause—in the House of Lords this clause was struck out, and the Bill was otherwise altered in committee so materially that, when sent back to the Commons, they scarcely knew their own offspring. The Bill was therefore disowned, and thrown out.
When Sir Robert Peel delivered up the seals of office, the first thing the king did was to send for Earl Grey, who declined the task of forming an Administration. He advised his Majesty to entrust it to Viscount Melbourne. The business, therefore, devolved upon Melbourne, and he hastened to complete it out of such materials as he had at his command. These were substantially the same as those which composed his former Administration. Lord Brougham, however, was now left out, as Lord Melbourne, in a series of plain-spoken letters, had already informed him he would be; also Lord Althorp, who, being in the Upper House as Earl Spencer, did not seem to have any ambition for the toils and honours of office. Lord Howick, the eldest son of Earl Grey, became a member of the Cabinet. There was no Lord Chancellor appointed for the present, out of consideration for Brougham's feelings. The Great Seal was put in commission, the three Commissioners being the Master of the Rolls, the Vice-Chancellor, and Mr. Justice Bosanquet. The offices were distributed as follows:—Lord Melbourne, Premier; the Marquis of Lansdowne, President of the Council; Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary; Lord John Russell, Home Secretary; Mr. Charles Grant, Colonial Secretary; Mr. Spring-Rice, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Viscount Duncannon, Lord Privy Seal and Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests; Lord Auckland, First Lord of the Admiralty; Sir John Hobhouse, President of the Indian Board; Mr. Poulett Thompson, President of the Board of Trade; Lord Howick, Secretary-at-War; Lord Holland, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The appointments not in the Cabinet were—Sir Henry Parnell, Paymaster of the Forces; Mr. Charles Wood, Secretary to the Admiralty; Sir George Grey, Under-Secretary of the Colonies; the Honourable Fox Maule, Under-Secretary for the Home Department; Mr. Labouchere, Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint; Attorney-General, Sir John Campbell; Solicitor-General, Mr. Rolfe. The Irish appointments were—The Earl of Mulgrave, Lord-Lieutenant; Lord Morpeth, Chief Secretary; Lord Plunket, Chancellor.
The change of Ministers and some additions to the peerage caused several elections. Mr. Littleton was raised to the Upper House with the title of Lord Hatherton, and Mr. Charles Grant as Lord Glenelg. They were promptly replaced by Conservatives. Lord John Russell having lost his election for South Devon, Colonel Fox made way for him at Stroud, which borough continued to furnish a seat for the noble lord during many years. Lord Palmerston had been defeated in Hampshire at the general election; but Mr. Kennedy retired to make way for him at Tiverton, which had the honour of being represented by the Foreign Secretary until his death. Lord Morpeth had to stand a severe contest in Yorkshire, but he was returned by a large majority.
On the 8th of April the dissolution of the Peel Administration took place, and on the 18th Lord Melbourne announced the completion of his arrangements. On that occasion Lord Alvanley asked the Premier if he had secured the assistance of Mr. O'Connell and his friends, and if so, upon what terms. Lord Melbourne answered that he did not coincide in opinion with Mr. O'Connell; that he had taken no means to secure his support; that he gave the most decided negative to Lord Alvanley's question; adding, "And if he has been told anything to the contrary, he has been told what is false, and without foundation." In the House of Commons, a few days after, Colonel Sibthorpe spoke of O'Connell as the prompter and adviser of the new Ministry, and said: "I do not like the countenances of the honourable gentlemen opposite, for I believe them to be the index of their minds, and I will oppose them on every point, from the conviction that they could not bring forward anything that would tend to benefit the country. I earnestly hope that we shall have a safe and speedy riddance from such a band." This escapade roused the ire of O'Connell, who instantly rose and said that he thought the gallant colonel's countenance was, at all events, as remarkable as any upon the Ministerial benches. He would not abate him a single hair in point of good-humour. "Elsewhere," he said, "these things may be treated in a different style. There is no creature—not even a half-maniac or a half-idiot—that may not take upon himself to use that language there which he would know better than to make use of elsewhere; and the bloated buffoon ought to learn the distinction between independent men and those whose votes are not worth purchasing, even if they were in the market."
O'Connell was promptly challenged by Alvanley, and declined the combat. But his second son, Morgan, was resolved not to let the matter rest. As soon as he heard of the proceedings, he wrote to Lord Alvanley a very spirited letter, in which he designated the challenge as a party manœuvre, with no other object than to cast a stigma upon his father—upon the party to which he belonged, as well as upon the Government and its supporters. He denounced the proceeding as a wretched manœuvre—as an utterly ungentlemanly and braggadocio mode of carrying on party warfare. He adopted his father's insulting language, not, he said, in the vain hope of inducing him to give satisfaction; but, lest he should be wrong in that surmise, he intimated that he was at his lordship's service. This letter was conveyed through Colonel Hodges. The result was that the parties met at Arlington Street, when they arranged to have a meeting at a short distance beyond the turnpike next the Regent's Park, on the Barnet Road. The ground was measured at twelve paces; the parties took their positions; the word was given, "Ready—fire." O'Connell fired, but Lord Alvanley did not, owing to a mistake, and claimed the right to fire, which was refused. Both parties fired two rounds more without effect, each satisfied that the other had acted with perfect fairness. There was no apology made on either side.
Mr. Morgan O'Connell soon found that he had no sinecure in undertaking to give satisfaction with the pistol for all his father's violations of the code of honour. Shortly after, Mr. Daniel O'Connell referred, in strong language, to an attack made upon him by Mr. Disraeli at Taunton:—"In the annals of political turpitude, there is not anything deserving the appellation of black-guardism to equal that attack upon me.... He possesses just the qualities of the impenitent thief who died upon the Cross; whose name, I verily believe, must have been Disraeli. For aught I know, the present Disraeli is descended from him; and with the impression that he is, I now forgive the heir-at-law of the blasphemous thief who died upon the Cross." When Mr. Disraeli read this tremendous philippic, he wrote to Mr. Morgan O'Connell for satisfaction, which the latter denied his right to demand. He had not seen the attack, nor was he answerable for his father's words, though he had taken up his quarrel with Lord Alvanley. Not being able to get satisfaction by means of pistols, he had recourse to the pen; and, certainly, if O'Connell's attack was violent, the retaliation was not of the meekest. However, ink alone was spilt.
Lord Melbourne on announcing the completion of his arrangements made a general statement of his policy. In forming his Cabinet he had had to contend with difficulties "peculiarly great and arduous, and some of them of a severe and mortifying nature." He had no change of policy to declare. "His Government would be based upon the principles of a safe, prudent, and truly efficient reform—principles the tendency of which was not to subvert or endanger, but, on the contrary, to improve, strengthen, and establish the institutions of the country; and in regard to ecclesiastical government, every measure contemplated in reference to that subject would have for its end the increase of true piety and religion through the whole of his Majesty's dominions." From the disposition and character popularly ascribed to Lord Melbourne, it could not be expected that he should prove an energetic Reformer. The Earl of Derby mentions a saying of his which often escaped him as a member of Lord Grey's Cabinet. When they had to encounter a difficulty, he would say, "Can't you let it alone?" This accords with the portrait of him presented by Sydney Smith, in his second letter to Archdeacon Singleton.
Notwithstanding his careless manner, however, there was much sincerity in the nature of Lord Melbourne; and there is no doubt that he laboured with an honest purpose to make his Administration useful to the country, though not with so much activity and energy, or with such constant solicitude to secure success, as his predecessor had brought to the task. As it was now advancing towards the end of the Session, he confined his attention to two great measures of reform—the Irish Tithe question (of which we have already disposed) and the question of Municipal Reform. It is scarcely necessary to remark that abuses in corporations had been a matter of constant and general complaint for two centuries. But it was hopeless to expect a remedy so long as the Parliamentary representation was so inadequate and corrupt. The rotten and venal boroughs, of which the franchise was abolished or amended by the Reform Act, were the chief seats of abuse. The correction of the local evil would have been the destruction of the system by which the ruling party in the State sustained its political power. There were, therefore, the most powerful interests at work, restraining each from attempting the work of reform; but by the Parliamentary Reform Act these interests were abolished, and those local fountains of corruption could no longer pour their fetid contents into the legislature. Statesmen now felt at liberty to abate those nuisances. Yet the work was not as speedily accomplished as might have been expected. It is true that Lord Grey advised the king to issue a commission of inquiry in July, 1833, but it was not until the 5th of June, 1835, that any measure was brought forward upon the subject. Even then Lord Melbourne had to overcome the dislike of the king, who distrusted the measure, and thought that, if the corporations were to be reformed at all, they had best be reformed by granting them new charters. The commission consisted of twenty gentlemen, who were to proceed with the utmost despatch to inquire as to the existing state of the municipal corporations in England and Wales, and to collect information respecting the defects in their constitution, to make inquiry into their jurisdiction and powers as to the administration of justice, and in all other respects; and also into the mode of electing and appointing the members and officers of such corporations, into the privileges of the freemen and other members thereof, and into the nature and management of the income, revenues, and funds of the said corporations. They divided the whole of England and Wales into districts, each of which was assigned to two commissioners. Their reports on individual corporations occupied five folio volumes. The whole was presented in a general report, signed by sixteen of the Commissioners.
The number of places in which the inquiries under the commission were carried on was 237, having a population of 2,028,513. In twenty-five places the number of corporators was not ascertained; in the others (212) they amounted to 88,509. The governing body was self-elected in 186 boroughs. This body elected the mayor in 131 boroughs, appointed the recorder in 136, and the town-clerk in 135. The number of corporators exercising magisterial functions was 1,086, in 188 boroughs. In 112 boroughs the corporations had exclusive criminal jurisdiction, extending to the trial of various descriptions of offences, and in forty-two their jurisdiction was not exclusive. Seventeen boroughs did not enjoy any income whatever; in eight the precise amount could not be obtained. The total income of 212 boroughs amounted to £366,948; their expenditure to £377,027. 103 were involved in debts amounting to £1,855,371, and were besides burdened with annuities amounting to £4,463. In twenty-eight boroughs only were the accounts published; in fifteen the annual income was under £20; in eleven it was between £2,000 and £3,000; in five, £3,000, and under £4,000; in one, £4,000, and under £5,000; in four, £5,000, and under £7,500; in five, £10,000, and under £12,500; in one, £12,500, and under £15,000; in one, £15,000, and under £20,000; and in one, £91,000.
The measure, which was founded on the recommendations of the report, was advocated principally by Lord John Russell, Lord Melbourne, and Mr. C. Hobhouse. The plan was intended to provide for 183 corporations, extending to a population of at least 2,000,000. Many of these corporations governed large and important towns, of which they did not sufficiently represent the property, intelligence, and population. In Bedford the corporation composed only one in seventy of the people, and one-fortieth of the property. In Oxford there were only 1,400 electors, and seldom more than 500 voted at an election. In Norwich 315 of the electors were paupers. In Cambridge there were only 118 freemen, out of a population of 20,000; and while the annual rental was more than £25,000, the property of freemen amounted to little more than £2,000. These were only samples of the strange anomalies that everywhere prevailed. It was obvious to every one that corporations so constituted were altogether unfitted for the objects which they were originally designed to answer. On the contrary, they tended directly to frustrate those objects, and to render the proper government of towns impracticable. They engendered jealousy and distrust between the small governing power and the body of the people. A few persons carrying on the government for their own benefit were connected with a portion of the lower classes, whose votes they purchased and whose habits they demoralised. With such a monopoly the grossest abuses were inevitable. Charitable funds, often large in amount, which had been left for the benefit of the whole people, were either lavishly distributed among the venal dependents of the governing body, squandered on civic feasts, or spent in bribing the freemen in order to secure their votes. In short, the general if not the universal practice had been to use the powers of municipal corporations, not for the good government or benefit of the towns over which they presided—not in order that they might be well and quietly governed in the terms of the charters, but for the sole purpose of establishing an interest which might be useful in the election of members of Parliament.