Historical Characters: Mackintosh, Talleyrand, Canning, Cobbett, Peel

by Baron Henry Lytton Bulwer Dalling and Bulwer

“With such prospects I feel it to be my duty—my first and paramount duty—to maintain the post which has been confided to me, and to stand by the trust which I did not seek, but which I could not decline. I call upon you not to condemn before you have heard—to receive at least the measures I shall propose—to amend them if they are defective—to extend them if they fall short of your expectations; but at least to give me the opportunity of presenting them, that you yourselves may consider and dispose of them. I make great offers, which should not be lightly rejected! I offer you the prospect of continued peace—the restored confidence of powerful states, that are willing to seize the opportunity of reducing great armies, and thus diminishing the chances of hostile collision. I offer you reduced estimates, improvements in civil jurisprudence, reform of ecclesiastical law, the settlement of the tithe question in Ireland, the commutation of the tithe in England, the removal of any real abuse in the Church, the redress of those grievances of which the Dissenters have any just grounds to complain. I offer you those specific measures, and I offer also to advance, soberly and cautiously, it is true, in the path of progressive improvement. I offer also the best chance that these things can be effected in willing concert with the other authorities of the State; thus restoring harmony, ensuring the maintenance, but not excluding the Reform (where Reform is really requisite) of ancient institutions.”

It was difficult to use more seducing language, but the Opposition would not be seduced. From the 24th of February till the beginning of April, Sir Robert struggled against its unsparing attacks. It was not easy, however, to catch him exposed on any practical question; at last, however, he had to deal with one—he had promised to settle the tithe question in Ireland. How was he to do so? He thought to balk his assailants by bringing forward a measure this year very similar to one which they themselves had brought forward the year before. But once on Irish ground, he was pretty sure of being beaten. The difference between Lord John Russell and Mr. Stanley, which had led to the secession of the latter, was a difference of principle as to the nature of Church property: the former contending that if the revenue possessed by the Protestant Church in Ireland was larger than necessary for the decent maintenance of the Protestant clergy, the State might dispose of it as it thought proper; the latter asserting that the State could not employ it for any purposes that were not ecclesiastical.

This was a great question; it was brought to an issue in a very small manner. Lord John Russell proposed as a resolution that no Irish tithe bill would be satisfactory which did not contain a clause devoting any surplus over and above the requirements of the Church establishment to the purposes of secular education. A committee was then sitting to determine whether there was any such surplus as that alluded to or not, and it would have been, doubtless, more regular first to have got the surplus and then to have determined about its use. Besides, if we were to deal with so great a principle as the alienation of the property of the Protestant Church, it would surely have been worth while to do so for some great practical advantage. The majority, nevertheless, voted for Lord John Russell’s proposition, partly because it established a public right, partly because it answered a party purpose. Thus Parliament decided against the inviolability of Church property—a decision certain to affect the future; which did affect the present; and Sir Robert Peel was forced to resign the seals of the Treasury.

But let us be just. Never did a statesman enter office more triumphantly than Sir Robert Peel left it. His self-confidence, his tact, his general knowledge, his temper, filled even his opponents with admiration!

It was impossible not to acknowledge to oneself that there was a man who seemed shaped expressly for being first minister of England. But, on the other hand, a sense of justice compelled one to consider that Lord Melbourne had done nothing to justify the manner in which he had been dismissed; that the party he represented had but two years since achieved a popular triumph which rendered the reign of William IV. almost as memorable in our annals as that of William III.—that it had added to this triumph in the name of Liberty, a triumph quite as great in the cause of Humanity; and that it would have inflicted a stigma of fickleness on our national character to pass by with indifference and neglect the author of the Reform Bill and the Negro Emancipation Bill—condemning a party still possessed of a majority in the most important branch of the Legislature, on the ground that the late Earl of Spencer was no more, and that it was necessary to replace Lord Althorpe—an honest man of respectable talents—by Lord John Russell—an honest man of very eminent talents.

Sir Robert’s attempt, in fact, though made bravely and sustained with consummate ability, was premature; made a few years later,—when the Stanley party had joined and were conformed with the Peel party, and made in consequence of some parliamentary measure, not as the consequence, which it then appeared to be, of Royal patronage and favour,—the result would have been different.

At the same time, it made an immense change in the condition of the Tory party. That party, after this attempt, was no longer a shattered band of impossible politicians, placed by public opinion without the pale of political power.

It became a compact, numerous, and hopeful party, considered by the country as prudent and practical, and having at its head the man most looked up to in that House of Parliament, which he declared publicly he would never quit.

For four years after this struggle Sir Robert Peel remained at the head of the powerful opposition he had gradually collected around him; the Whig Government having in the meantime to perform the very difficult and ungrateful task of carrying out changes which it deemed necessary, against Conservatives, and opposing innovations which it deemed dangerous, against Reformers. The friends of Liberal institutions and of religious toleration, and even of administrative improvement, owe it a debt of gratitude which they have never fully paid. The introduction of popular suffrage into the system of municipal government; the removal of various grievances that still existed and were mortifying and harassing to the Dissenters; the reduction of newspaper stamps; the commutation of tithes, are the footprints which Lord Melbourne’s administration left on those times. On the other hand, Lord John Russell resisted in its name vote by ballot (a question of which both its advocates and opponents exaggerated the importance); any further extension of the suffrage, and also the re-establishment of triennial Parliaments. His great antagonist aided him in respect to all measures which the public, irrespective of parties, were prepared to adopt, and supported him against all demands which the more democratic portion of his adherents put forward, but depreciated his general authority by showing that, though invested with the functions of Government, he and his colleagues had not the power of governing.

The great battle-field, however, between Whig and Tory, or as the latter now called themselves “Conservatives,” was, as it had long been and seems always destined to be,—Ireland; for there was still to settle that Irish Tithes Bill, into which the Whigs had insisted for some time on inserting the principle of appropriation; and there was also another question at stake, more pressing and more practical,—that of the Irish corporations.