A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Formation of Lord Grey's ministry.

At such a crisis it was impossible that any statesman except Lord Grey should be intrusted with the formation of a Cabinet. Now nearly seventy years of age, he had been the prominent leader in every attempt at parliamentary reform for the last forty years. He found no difficulty in selecting his ministers. As far as talents and debating power went the Liberal party was very strong; it was not yet discovered that the long absence of the party from office, and its consequent ignorance of the routine and traditions of official work had rendered most of its members rather weak administrators. The Chancellorship of the Exchequer was given to Lord Althorp, a most amiable and excellent man, a steady partisan of reform and retrenchment, but of an easy and not very vigorous character. Lord Lansdowne was President of the Council; Lambton, now become Lord Durham, Grey's son-in-law, was Lord Privy Seal; the Secretaryships were supplied from the ranks of the Canningites; Palmerston, Melbourne, and Goderich were respectively Foreign, Home, and Colonial Secretaries. Charles Grant was President of the Board of Control. Holland, Auckland, and Graham were also in the Cabinet. In office, but not of the Cabinet, were Lord John Russell as Paymaster-General, and Mr. Stanley, subsequently Lord Derby, as Secretary for Ireland.

The duty which this ministry undertook was by no means a light one; for though it was plain that reform in some shape or other could no longer be delayed, its introduction was beset with difficulties, of which the greatest was by no means the opposition to be apprehended Difficulties attending reform. from the open opponents of the measure. Any advance towards a fair representation was certain to meet with the strongest opposition from men who regarded any change as revolutionary, and saw a diminution of their own interests in the slightest attacks upon the system of nominee boroughs. But such bigoted and selfish opposition might certainly sooner or later be overcome. A far greater danger was to be found in the exaggerated hopes which had been fostered for many years among the suffering artisans, who had been taught by their leaders and demagogues to ascribe all their miseries to the want of fair representation. No measure which a ministry, aristocratic in its character as the present ministry was, could introduce, no measure which could satisfy the intelligent middle classes, to whom social change was almost as abhorrent as to the Tories, could fail to cause disappointment to the hopes of the lower classes; and when they found how little practical relief they would gain by the measure, there was only too much danger lest the revolution of which the opponents of the measure were so fond of talking might really come into existence. Signs of popular discontent were, as has been already mentioned, clearly to be seen. Rick-burning still continued its course in the South, and trades unions in their most aggravated form, and accompanied by murder, had made their appearance in the manufacturing districts. Extreme measures, such as the issuing of a special commission in the disturbed districts, were urged upon the Government; but Lord Grey replied that he considered the regular powers of the Government, if properly used, were sufficient for all purposes. In fact, the ministry understood that the contest was not an ordinary parliamentary one; it was scarcely to be expected that of its own free will the House of Commons should accept a Bill which must exclude many of its members from their seats; it was as the spokesmen of a great national wish that the ministers regarded themselves, and they intended to rely upon the nation for their support. Not only did they therefore refrain from any exceptional measures for the suppression of disturbance, they also allowed to pass unquestioned the legality of the numerous political unions which, following the example of the Union of Birmingham, of which Mr. Attwood was the president, had sprung into existence all over England, and which aimed at bringing into some sort of harmony the demands of the wealthy and poorer classes. The ministry had in fact determined to use all expressions of the national temper, even when verging upon breaches of the Constitution, to forward what they conceived to be the great healing measure which the evils of the times demanded. The struggle thus assumed a far more dignified form than that of an ordinary political question. In its first stage it was the people, as usual with aristocratic leaders, who demanded and insisted upon their will being heard by the Lower House. When that House had been reconstituted, and become favourable to the popular claims, it was the people speaking by the voice of their constitutionally chosen representatives, supported by an irresistible and probably unconstitutional action from without, which engaged in a life and death struggle with the aristocracy, clinging tenaciously to their ancient privileges.

On the 3rd of February, when the Parliament reassembled, the intention of the ministry to produce a measure of parliamentary reform in both Houses was made known. The day for its introduction was fixed for the 1st of March. The interval was passed in Parliament in the ordinary business of the session, and in the introduction of a budget which, betraying as it clearly did a tendency towards the policy of Huskisson in favour of the manufacturing industries, was received with an opposition which showed the temper of the House, and which would probably under ordinary circumstances have caused the fall of the ministry. But it was understood that it was upon reform and upon no other question that the fate of the Government depended. Without the walls of Parliament agitation was vigorously at work. Petition after petition for and against the approaching measure was prepared, and the whole country was upon the tiptoe of expectation when on the appointed day Lord John Reception of the Reform Bill. March 1, 1831. Russell made his statement as to the character of the Bill. Although it has since been found necessary more than once to enlarge it, at the time the completeness of the Bill surprised even the friends of Government, while it seemed to its opponents little better than an ill-timed jest. As in all Bills for reform of the representation, there were two points to be regarded: in the first place, to secure that the representatives of the people should be really representatives and not nominees; in the second place, to secure by the arrangement of the franchise that they should as far as practicable represent all classes of the nation. On the first of these points the Bill was complete, with very few exceptions rotten boroughs were entirely swept away; it is on the second point that subsequent legislation has been found necessary. The Bill as originally presented destroyed at once sixty rotten boroughs, but with regard to the franchise and the distribution of seats, as will be seen subsequently, it showed considerable favour to the counties, that is to the landed interest and to the middle classes, excluding entirely the artisan class, which, when its members are prosperous and possess property, is one of the most valuable elements in the constitution of the nation. As Lord John Russell read the list of disfranchised boroughs, he was greeted with shouts of laughter and ironical cries of "Hear" from the members who represented them. The debate on the first reading continued for seven nights; the chief objection raised was that the balance of the Constitution would be changed and the power of the House of Lords diminished. It was, however, passed without division, the struggle being deferred to the second reading. Although its deficiencies were obvious enough to the advanced reformers, the importance of securing the one great step in advance which it promised in the annihilation of rotten boroughs caused its general acceptance, and "The Bill and nothing but the Bill" became the watchword of the Liberal party in England. There was considerable disturbance, as was to be expected, throughout the country, and in anticipation of a strong opposition many of the political unions came to the formal determination that, if necessary, they would refrain from paying taxes, and would even march to London; they issued lists showing the numbers on which they could count, and it began to be plain that, if constitutional means failed, the Bill would be carried by unconstitutional pressure.

The second reading of the Reform Bill. March 21.

The second reading at length came on, and in the fullest House ever known, 608 members being present, the ministry secured a majority of one. Precedent would have demanded their resignation, but regarding themselves as charged with a great national duty they kept their places, and all England illuminated at the news. The next process was to pass the Bill through Committee, and there the weakness of the Government at once disclosed itself. They were defeated by a majority of eight on a clause for reducing the whole number of members, and three days afterwards the House refused to go into a question of supply. The ministry, determined to bring matters to a crisis, regarded this, not without some exaggeration, as a refusal of supplies, and declared that they could do nothing but resign; but the King, as yet true to them, refused their resignation, at the same time expressing a very strong wish not to dissolve the House. As the Parliament was now in its first session, this wish of the King was by no means unnatural, yet only by a dissolution could the ministers and the Reform Bill be saved. They themselves subsequently declared their belief that this was the real crisis of the question. The Opposition also felt the importance of the moment, and through their leader, Lord Wharnecliffe, moved an address to the King, remonstrating against the intended dissolution. What the arguments of Dissolution of the Parliament. April 22. the ministry had been unable to effect was done at once by this ill-judged piece of violence, which the King considered an attack upon his prerogative. He immediately declared his determination to dissolve the House. The scene of excitement in the Lords has rarely been equalled when he suddenly made his appearance and demanded the presence of the Commons. An equally tumultuous scene had been going forward in the Lower House, the Speaker had himself been unable to obtain a hearing. At the summons of the Usher of the Black Rod, the Commons appeared at the bar of the Upper House, and were at once told by the King, in an unusually cheerful and firm tone, that he had come there for the purpose of proroguing them, with a view to immediate dissolution, in order to ascertain the sense of his people on the question of representation.

The dissolution thus taking place in the midst of the violent and strongly-organized agitation of the nation, virtually secured the passing of the Bill, although a long and dangerous period of contest had yet to be passed. That the mob should break out here and there in riots was inevitable; but it was the firm and determined attitude, not of the rioters, but of the great body of intelligent non-electors, which really influenced the elections. In all directions reformers were successful. Six county members only were opposed to the Bill, and when in July the second reading came on, the ministers found themselves in a majority of 136. Manifestly outnumbered, the opponents to the measure had recourse to an irritating form of warfare. Every single detail was fought over in Committee. There was a hope that, as the summer went on, the patience of members would be tired out, that the session must either be terminated or an accidental victory be snatched from the Government. So weary was the nation of the lengthened delay, that the political unions held a meeting to settle how much longer they would wait, but the question was too important to allow of any laxity on the part The Bill passes in the Commons. Sept. 23. of its supporters, and on the 7th of September the report of the Committee was brought up. On the 21st, after another debate of three nights, the Bill passed the Commons by a majority of 109. Its fate now rested with the Peers, and The Bill rejected in the Lords. Oct. 8. they were not long in showing how they meant to deal with it. On the first reading it was thrown out by a majority of forty-one. The opponents of the measure fondly hoped that its fate and that of the administration were now sealed, but the Lords had not yet secured a victory. Indignant at the rejection of their Bill, the Commons at once passed a vote of confidence in the ministry, and all fear of their resignation was thus removed.

Consequent riots in the country.

But the indignation of the Commons was nothing to that of the people at large, who saw the measure from which they hoped so much snatched from them by the votes of a few wealthy and important men, who in no sense represented them, and whose opposition bore in the popular eye all the appearance of a selfish struggle for an exclusive and injurious privilege. Again the disorderly mobs of London and other large towns broke out into riots, but the number of rioters was usually few, and many of them were known as belonging to the regular criminal and ruffianly class. Of these riots the most important was that which occurred in Bristol on the 29th of October. The occasion was the public entry of Sir Charles Wetherell, a bitter opponent of reform, into the city, of which he was recorder. It afforded another instance of the mismanagement of the local magistracy. A mob, which seems never to have reached a thousand in number, took possession of the town for two days, broke into the mansion-house, and got drunk in the cellars, and then, undisturbed, and after giving full notice of their intention, set fire to Queen's Square, and burnt two sides of it to the ground. The military had been in the town all day; at length they proceeded to act, and re-established order with little difficulty, though with some loss of life. Their commander was Colonel Brereton. The mayor and magistrates had weakly given him but a general authority to act on his discretion, willing no doubt to shift the responsibility to his shoulders. A man of kind heart, he had shrunk from acting without more distinct authority; he had tried his best to calm the crowd by friendly means, which only increased their confidence and encouraged them with hopes of impunity. He was tried by court martial, and, unable to face the prospect of a slur on his professional character, committed suicide. But far more important than these Organized action of the political unions. riots was the constantly increasing vigour shown by the organized unions. Hitherto left untouched by the Government, they now proceeded to measures which clearly brought them under the action of the law. The London Radicals held a great meeting on the 31st of October in Lincoln's Inn Fields, presided over by Sir Francis Burdett, when a National Union was established, intended to draw together the various unions of the country, and to form a central directory of delegates. Before the meeting separated, it was plain that some of its members were ready to go much further than the unions had yet gone, and the Metropolitan Union summoned a meeting for the 7th of November, and issued a programme demanding the abolition of all hereditary privileges and distinctions of rank. On this occasion the Government acted quickly and wisely. Lord Melbourne received a deputation of the Union, and persuaded them to postpone their meeting, and shortly afterwards, on the 22nd of November, a proclamation was issued for the suppression of such political clubs.