A history of England

by Charles Oman

Peel and the Free Trade movement.

While that question was at its height, England had been going through an unexpected political crisis, caused by Peel's sudden conversion to complete Free Trade. His budget of 1842 had shown that all his tendencies lay in that direction; but he had not yet touched the one point which was certain to bring him into collision with the majority of his own party—the question of Free Trade in corn. Since England had become a great manufacturing country, with a population that advanced by leaps and bounds, it was daily growing more impossible to feed the new mouths with English corn alone. But the heavy duties on imported grain, which survived from the last century, only allowed the foreign wheat to come in at an exorbitant price. Hence the poor man's loaf was always dear. Farmers and landlords profited by this protection of English agriculture, but, since the landed interest had ceased to be the most important element in the state, the Corn Laws injured many more persons than they benefited. For the last five or six years a vigorous agitation in favour of their abolition had been in progress, whose guiding spirit was Richard Cobden, "the prophet of Free Trade." It seemed more likely that the Whigs would be converted by him than the Conservatives, for the backbone of Peel's majority in the House of Commons was composed of the county members, who represented the farmers and landlords of England.

The Protectionists.—Disraeli and Lord G. Bentinck.

But in 1845, a famine in Ireland, caused by the failure of the potato-crop, called for a large importation of corn to feed the starving Irish cottiers. Peel proposed to suspend the Corn Laws as a temporary measure, to allow of the introduction of the needed supply of food at the cheapest possible rate. His colleagues in the ministry resolved to support the proposal, but they proved unable to persuade the whole of their party to follow them. About a hundred members of the House of Commons—the representatives of the corn-growing shires and the old Tory families—refused to be convinced by Peel's arguments. They were headed by two men of mark, neither of whom had as yet been taken very seriously by the House. The first was Lord George Bentinck, a younger son of the great ducal house of Portland, who had hitherto been seen more frequently on the racecourse than at St. Stephen's, but who showed an unexpected ability when he proceeded to attack his chief. The second was Benjamin Disraeli, the son of a Jewish man of letters, then known as a young and volatile member of the House, who combined high Tory notions on Church and State with extreme Radical views on certain social questions. But he had been hitherto more notorious for his eccentric and gorgeous dress, and his curious high-flown and bombastic novels, than for any serious political doings.

The Corn Laws repealed.

When Peel brought forward his bill for abolishing the Corn Laws, he found himself bitterly opposed by Bentinck and Disraeli and their protectionist followers, who scouted him as a turncoat and a traitor to the Tory cause. He carried the abolition of the obnoxious duties by the aid of the votes of his enemies, the Whigs (May 15, 1846). A month later the angry Protectionists took their revenge; on the question of an Irish coercion bill, Bentinck and Disraeli led some scores of Tory members into the opposition lobby, and left the prime minister in a minority of seventy-three (June 25, 1846).

Break up of the Conservative party.

Peel immediately resigned. He had carried his bill, but broken up his party, and the Whigs were now to have a fresh lease of office that lasted thirty years, for the two sections into which the Conservatives had broken up—the Peelites and the Protectionists—would never join again, so bitterly did they dislike each other. In the course of time most of the Peelites drifted over to the Whig camp, among them two who were destined to be prime ministers of England—Lord Aberdeen, who had been Peel's Foreign Secretary, and William Ewart Gladstone, then a rising young member, who had held the Presidency of the Board of Trade from 1843 to 1846.

Lord John Russell's ministry.

The Whigs, or the Liberal party, as they were now beginning to call themselves, came back to power with every advantage, as the opposition was divided into two irreconcilable sections, who would never join on account of their old grudge. Yet the new cabinet was never a very strong one, because the Whigs refused to put Lord Palmerston, their strongest and ablest man, at the head of affairs. Some of the party could never forget that he had once been a Canningite, and thought that he was not Liberal enough for them; others were afraid of his firm and incisive way of dealing with foreign powers, and prophesied that he would some day land England, unexpectedly, in the midst of a great war. Instead of Palmerston, Lord John Russell, the promoter of the great Reform Bill of 1832, was made premier. He was a much less notable personage than Palmerston, and not strong enough for his place, being nothing more than an adroit party tactician with no touch of genius about him. Yet he held power for six years, and made no great mistakes if he performed no great achievements at home; while, as the foreign policy of England was handed over to Palmerston, there was no lack of strong guidance in things abroad.