A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV

by Justin McCarthy; Justin H. McCarthy

The new Prime Minister believed that it would be in every way more suitable to the convenience of the country that he and his colleagues should submit their political claims and purposes to the judgment of the constituencies by means of a general election. A dissolution accordingly took place, and Peel issued an address to the electors of Tamworth, which will always be regarded as an important political document. Although Peel had been an opponent of the principles embodied in the Reform Bill, no reformer in the country understood better than he did the impossibility, at such a time, of carrying on the work of the Government without a thorough understanding between the Ministry and the Parliament, between the Parliament and the public out-of-doors. No one knew better than Peel that the time had gone by, never to return, when an English minister could rule as an English minister even so lately as in the days of Pitt had done, merely by the approval and the support of a monarch without the approval and support of a majority of the electors. When, therefore, Peel prepared his address to his Tamworth constituents he knew perfectly well that his words were meant, not merely for the friendly ears of the little constituency, but for the consideration of the whole country. The same feeling actuated the great statesman during the entire course of his subsequent career, and the constituency of Tamworth had therefore the advantage of being favored from time to time with election addresses which form chapters of the highest interest and importance in the historical literature of the country. The address which he issued to his constituents before the general election in December, 1834, proclaimed, in fact, the opening of a new political era in England.

[Sidenote: 1834-34—Peel's Tamworth address]

Peel made frank announcement that, so far as he and his friends were concerned, the controversy about Parliamentary reform had come to an end. By him and by them the decision of Parliament, which sanctioned the introduction of the Reform Bill of 1832, was accepted as a final settlement of the question. Peel declared that he regarded it as "a settlement which no friend to the peace {241} of the country would attempt to disturb, either by direct or by insidious means." Of course it was not to be understood that Peel had any intention of describing the Reform Act of 1832 as the last word of the Reformers' creed, and the close of all possible controversy with regard to the construction of the whole Parliamentary system. Peel no more meant to convey any idea of this kind than did Lord John Russell, when he used the word finality in connection with the Reform Act, mean to convey the idea that, according to his conviction, Parliament was never again to be invited to extend the electoral franchise or to modify the conditions under which the votes of the electors were to be given. The announcement which Peel made to the electors of Tamworth, and to the world in general, was that he and his friends recognized the establishment of the representative principle in English political life, accepted the new order of things as a result of a lawful decree, and separated themselves altogether from the antiquated Toryism which enshrined the old ideas of government as a religious faith, and revered the memory of the nomination boroughs, as the Jacobites revered the memory of the Stuarts. With the issue of Peel's Tamworth address in the December of 1834, the antique Tory, the Tory who made Toryism of the ante-reform days a creed and a cult, may be said to disappear altogether from the ranks of practical English politicians. The Tory of the old school appears, no doubt, here and there through all Parliamentary days down to our own time. We saw him in both Houses of Parliament as a heroic, unteachable opponent of Peel himself, of Bright and Cobden, of Gladstone, and sometimes even of Lord Derby and of Lord Salisbury, but he was merely a living protest against the succession of new ideas, and was no longer to be counted as a practical politician.

Sir Robert Peel soon saw that he had not gained much by his appeal to the constituencies. The results of the general election showed that the Conservatives had made a considerable addition to their numbers in the House of Commons, but showed also that they were still in a disheartening minority. The return of the first Reform {242} Parliament had, indeed, exhibited them for the time as completely down in the dust, for there was a majority of more than three hundred against them, and now the Liberal majority was hardly more than one hundred. A very hopeful Conservative, or a Conservative who had a profound faith in the principles of antique Toryism, might fill himself with the fond belief that this increase in the Conservative vote foretold a gradual return to the good old days. But Peel was too practical a statesman to be touched for a moment by any such illusion. He had fully expected some increase in the Tory vote. He knew, as well as anybody could know, that there had been some disappointment among the more advanced and impatient reformers all over the country with the achievements of the first reformed Parliament, and, indeed, with the Act of Reform itself. After victory in a long-contested political battle there comes, almost as a matter of course, a season of relaxed effort among the ranks of the victors, for which allowance would have to be made in the mind of such a statesman as Peel, and, in this instance, allowance also had to be made for a falling off in the enthusiasm of those who had helped to carry the Reform movement to success, and found themselves in the end left out of all its direct advantages.

[Sidenote: 1835—The Office of Speaker]

Peel saw at once that his Government must be absolutely at the mercy of the Opposition when any question arose on which it suited the purposes of the Opposition leaders to rally their whole forces around them and take a party division. So far as the ordinary business of the session was concerned, the Ministry might get on well enough, for there must have been a considerable amount of routine work which would not provoke the Opposition to a trial of strength; but if chance or hostile strategy should bring about at any moment a controversy which called for a strictly party division, then the Government must go down. Nothing can be more trying to a proud-spirited statesman in office than the knowledge that he can only maintain his Government, from day to day, because, for one reason or another, it does not suit the convenience of the Opposition to press some vote which must leave him and his colleagues {243} in a distinct minority. Peel had not long to wait before he found substantial evidence to justify his most gloomy forebodings.

The new Parliament met on February 19, 1835. The first trial of strength was on the election of a new Speaker. The former occupant of the office having been put forward for re-election, the Government were beaten by a majority of ten. Now this was a very damaging event for the ministers, and also an event somewhat unusual in the House of Commons. There is generally a sort of understanding, more or less distinctly expressed, that the candidate put forward by the Government for the office of Speaker is to be a man on whom both sides of the House can agree. It is obviously undesirable that there should be a party struggle over the appointment of the official who is assumed to hold an absolutely impartial position and is not supposed to be the mere favorite of either side of the House. In later years there has often been a distinct arrangement, or, at all events, a clear understanding, between the Government and the Opposition on this subject, and a candidate is not put forward unless there is good reason to assume that he will be acceptable to the two great political parties. In this instance no such understanding existed, or had been sought for. The Opposition set up a candidate of their own, and the nominee of the Government was defeated. There was, however, one condition in this defeat which, although it did not take away from the ominous character of the event, might, to a certain extent, have relieved Peel from the necessity of regarding it as an absolute party defeat. The majority had been obtained for the Opposition by the support of the Irish members who followed the leadership of Daniel O'Connell, and thus Sir Robert Peel saw himself outvoted by a combination of two parties, one of them regarded with peculiar disfavor by the majority of the English public on both sides of the political field. It was something for the followers of the Government to be able to say that their Liberal opponents had only been able to score a success by the help of the unpopular Irish vote, and it became, in fact, a new accusation against the {244} Liberals that they had traded on the favor of O'Connell and his Irish followers. From about this time the Irish vote has always played an important part in all the struggles of parties in the House of Commons; and it will be observed that the English Party, whether Liberal or Tory, against which that vote is directed is always ready with epithets of scorn and anger for the English Party for whom that vote has been given.

[Sidenote: 1835—Peel and the Opposition]

Several other humiliations awaited Peel as the session went on. Sometimes he was saved from defeat on a question of finance by the help of the more advanced Liberals, who came to his assistance when certain of his own Tory followers were prepared to desert him because his views on some question of taxation were much too new-fashioned for their own old-fashioned notions. Every one who has paid any attention to Parliamentary history can understand how distressing is the position of a minister who has no absolute majority at his command, and how more distressing still is the position of a minister who can only look to chance disruptions and combinations of parties for any possible majority. Peel bore himself throughout all the trials of that most trying time with indomitable courage and with unfailing skill. Never during his whole career did he prove himself more brilliant and more full of resource than as the leader of what might be called an utterly hopeless struggle. The highest tribute has been paid to his never-failing tact and temper during that trying ordeal by his principal opponent in the House of Commons, Lord John Russell. Russell was now the leader of the Liberal Opposition in the House of Commons, and the struggle of parties was once again illustrated by a sort of continuous Parliamentary duel between two rival leaders. The same phenomenon had been seen, from time to time, in the days of Queen Anne and in the days of the Georges; and it was seen again, at intervals, during some of the most vivid and fascinating passages of Parliamentary history in the reign of Queen Victoria.

The crisis, however, came soon to this first Ministry of Sir Robert Peel. Peel had announced, in a reasonable and {245} manful spirit, considering how the task of holding together a Ministry had been imposed on him and the temptation which it afforded for the attacks of irresponsible enemies, that he would not resign office on any side issue or question of purely factitious importance, and that he would hold his place unless defeated by a vote of want of confidence or a vote of censure. He challenged the leader of the Opposition to test the feeling of the House by a division on a question of that nature. Lord John Russell refused to take any such course, declaring that he believed it his duty to wait and see what might be the nature of the measures of reform which the Government had promised to introduce before inviting the House to say whether the Government deserved or did not deserve its confidence. Some of the measures announced by the Government had to do with the reform of the ecclesiastical courts and the maintenance of Church discipline, and Sir Robert Peel had himself given notice of a measure to deal with the Irish tithe system, the principal object of which was understood to be the transfer of the liability of the payment of tithes from the shoulders of the tenant to the shoulders of the landlord. It was not unreasonable that the Opposition should proclaim it their policy to wait and see what the Tory ministers really proposed to do before assailing them with a direct and general vote of want of confidence. Even, however, if the Opposition had been inclined to linger before inviting a real trial of strength, there was a feeling growing up all over the country which seemed impatient of mere episodical encounters leading to nothing in particular. The leaders of the Opposition had a very distinct policy in their minds, and on March 30, 1835, it found its formal expression.