This compact, if it can be so called, was fulfilled in the letter, for the bill was read a first time without a division, and it passed the second reading on April 14 by a majority of 184 to 175. To all appearance a notable process of conversion had been wrought among the peers, seventeen of whom actually changed sides, while ten opponents of the former bill absented themselves, and twelve new adherents were gained. However encouraging these figures might be, the ministers were under no illusion. They had the best reason for expecting the worst from the struggle in committee, and they were conscious of gradually losing the king's confidence. The very demonstrations of popular enthusiasm for reform which impressed others with a sense of its necessity impressed him with a sense of its danger; the political unions and the Bristol riots alarmed him extremely; and the foreign policy of the government elicited from him so outspoken a protest that Grey tendered his resignation. The difficulty was overcome for the moment, but recurred in a more serious form when parliament reassembled on May 7. Lyndhurst at once proposed in committee to postpone the consideration of schedule A; in other words, to shelve the most vital provisions of the bill until the rest should have been dissected in a hostile spirit. This proposal is supposed to have been concerted with Harrowby and Wharncliffe, if not to have received the sanction of the Duke of Wellington. It was adopted by 151 votes to 116, and the cabinet, on May 8, courageously determined to make a decisive stand. They firmly advised the king to confer peerages on "such a number of persons as might ensure the success of the bill". The principle thus expressed had, as has been seen, been reluctantly approved by the king himself, but he recoiled from the application of it when he learned that it would involve at least fifty new creations. After a day's thought, he closed with the only alternative, and accepted the resignation of his ministry. He then sent for Lyndhurst, who of course at once communicated with the duke.
The king, as we have seen, had never been able to understand the real force of the reform movement, and his leading idea was that the demand for reform might be satisfied by a moderate reform bill, which the house of lords would not reject or reduce to nullity. Wellington shared this impression, and, though an implacable opponent of reform, was willing to undertake office for the purpose of carrying, not merely a mild substitute for the whig reform bill, but the whig reform bill itself with little modification. Such an act might appear immoral in a statesman whose integrity was more open to question, but the duke's political moral appears to have been of a less delicate type than that which is commonly expected in party politicians. As a general, he considered, first of all and above all, what manœuvres would best advance his plan of campaign. As a political leader, he regarded himself not as the chief of a party, still less as the exponent of a creed, but rather as a public servant to whom his followers owed allegiance, whether in office or in opposition. As a public servant he felt bound to obey the king's summons, and conduct the administration, honestly and efficiently, but without much concern for personal convictions. He was also anxious to preserve the house of lords from being swamped and so rendered ridiculous by an extensive creation of peers.[105]
ATTEMPTS TO FORM A TORY MINISTRY.
But Wellington knew that he was powerless to manage the house of commons without the aid of Peel, and Peel, though pliable in the case of catholic emancipation, was inflexible in the case of reform. He drew a distinction between these cases, and absolutely rejected the advice of Croker that he should grasp the helm of state to avert the worse evil of the whigs being recalled. "I look," he wrote, "beyond the exigency and the peril of the present moment, and I do believe that one of the greatest calamities that could befall the country would be the utter want of confidence in the declarations of public men which must follow the adoption of the bill of reform by me as a minister of the crown."[106] This language, repeated under reserve in the house of commons, after a direct appeal from the king, strongly contrasts with that of the duke who roundly asserted that he should have been ashamed to show his face in the streets if he had refused to serve his sovereign in an emergency. The marked divergence of views and conduct between the two leaders of the conservative party led to a temporary estrangement which materially weakened their counsels, and was not finally removed until a fresh crisis arose two years later.
While Lyndhurst and the duke were vainly endeavouring to patch up a government without Peel or his personal adherents, Goulburn and Croker, the house of commons and the country gave decisive proofs of their resolution. A vote of confidence in Grey's ministry, proposed by Ebrington, was carried on May 10 by a majority of eighty. Petitions came in from the city of London and Manchester, calling upon the commons to stop the supplies, and the reckless populace clamoured for a run upon the Bank of England. A mass meeting convened by the Birmingham political union had already hoisted the standard of revolt against the legislature, unless it would comply with the will of the people; the example was spreading rapidly, and events seemed to be hurrying on towards a fulfilment of Russell's prediction that, in the event of a political deadlock, the British constitution would perish in the conflict. The duke was credited, of course unjustly, with the intention of establishing military rule, and doubts were freely expressed whether he could rely either on the army or on the police to put down insurgent mobs. The excitement in the house of commons itself was scarcely less formidable, and it soon became evident that high tories were almost as much incensed by the prospect of a tory reform bill as radicals and whigs by the vote on Lyndhurst's amendment.
On the 14th Manners Sutton and Alexander Baring, Lyndhurst's trusted confidants, plainly informed the duke that his self-imposed task was hopeless, and on the next day the duke advised the king to recall Grey. The king, who had apparently grasped the position earlier, acquiesced in this solution of the question. He agreed to recall Grey and his colleagues, and to use his own personal influence in persuading tory peers to abstain from voting. He attempted to impose upon his old ministers the condition of modifying the bill considerably, but they continued to insist on maintaining its integrity, and on swamping the upper house, unless its opposition should be withdrawn. It was, happily, unnecessary to resort to such extreme measures. A letter from the king, dated the 17th, informed Wellington that all difficulties would be removed by "a declaration in the house of lords from a sufficient number of peers that they have come to the resolution of dropping their further opposition to the reform bill". On that night, after stating what had passed, the duke retired from the house, followed by about 100 peers, and absented himself from the discussion of the bill in committee. A stalwart minority remained, and took issue on a few clauses, but their numbers constantly dwindled, and when the report was received on June 1 only eighteen peers recorded their dissent in a protest. Grey himself, though suffering from illness, moved the third reading on the 4th, when it was carried by 106 to 22. His last words did not lack the dignity which had marked his bearing throughout, and expressed the earnest hope that, in spite of sinister forebodings, "the measure would be found to be, in the best sense, conservative of the constitution".
ROYAL ASSENT TO THE BILL.
The amendments made in the house of lords were slight, and the house of commons adopted them without any argument on their merits. Peel, who had made a convincing defence of his recent conduct, and who afterwards took a statesmanlike course in the reformed parliament, declared, with some petulance, that he would have nothing to do with the consideration of provisions or amendments passed under compulsion, and that he was prepared to accept them, en bloc, whatever their nature or consequences. The bill, therefore, received the royal assent on the 7th, but the king could not be induced to perform this ceremony in person. Though his scruples had been respected in framing the scheme of reform, though he was consulted at every turn and clearly recognised the necessity to which he bowed, and though he was spared the resort to a coup d'état which he abhorred, he could not but feel humiliated by the ill-disguised subjection of the crown and the nobility to a single chamber of the people. It is greatly to his honour that, with limited intelligence, and strong prejudices, he should have played a straightforward and strictly constitutional part in so perilous a crisis.
By the great reform bill, as it was still called even after it became an act, the whole representative system of England and Wales was reconstructed. Fifty-six nomination boroughs, as we have seen, lost their members altogether; thirty more were reduced to one member, and Weymouth which, coupled with Melcombe Regis, had returned four members, now lost two. Twenty-two large towns, including metropolitan districts, were allotted two members each; twenty smaller but considerable towns received one member each; the number of English and Welsh county members was increased from ninety-four to one hundred and fifty-nine, and the larger counties were parcelled out into divisions. All the fanciful and antiquated franchises which had prevailed in the older boroughs were swept away to make room for a levelling £10 household suffrage, the privileges of freemen being alone preserved. The rights of 40s. freeholders were retained in counties, but they found themselves associated with a large body of copyholders, leaseholders, and tenants-at-will paying £50 in rent. The general result was to place the borough representation mainly in the hands of shopkeepers, and the county representation mainly in those of landlords and farmers. The former change had a far greater effect on the balance of parties than the latter. The shopkeepers, of whom many were nonconformists, long continued to cherish advanced radical traditions, partly derived from the reform agitation, and constantly rebelled against dictation from their rich customers. The farmers, dependent on their landlords and closely allied with them in defending the corn laws, proved more submissive to influence, and constituted the backbone of the great agricultural interest.
The enactment of the English reform bill carried with it as its necessary sequel the success of similar bills for Scotland and Ireland. In Scotland electoral abuses were so gross that reform was comparatively simple, and that proposed, as Jeffrey, the lord advocate, frankly said, "left not a shred of the former system". The nation, as a whole, gained eight members, since its total representation was raised from forty-five to fifty-three seats, thirty for counties and twenty-three for cities and burghs. Two members were allotted to Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively; one each to Paisley, Aberdeen, Perth, Dundee, and Greenock, as well as to certain groups of boroughs. Both the county and burgh electorates were entirely transformed. The "old parchment freeholders" in counties, many of whom owned not a foot of land, were superseded by a mixed body of freeholders and leaseholders with real though various qualifications. The electoral monopoly of town councils was replaced by the enfranchisement of householders with a uniform qualification of £10. A claim to representation on behalf of the Scottish universities was negatived in the house of lords. The number of representatives for Ireland was raised from 100 to 105. The disfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders was maintained against the strenuous attacks of O'Connell and Sheil, but the introduction of the £10 borough franchise amply balanced the loss of democratic influence in counties. On the whole the transfer of power from class to class was greater in Scotland and Ireland than in England itself, and in Ireland this signified a corresponding transfer of power from protestants to catholics. The rule of the priests was almost as absolute as ever until it was checked for a while by a purely democratic movement, and the Irish vote in the house of commons was generally cast on the radical side.