Robert Peel.
Memorandum by the Prince Albert.
THE NEW ARRANGEMENTS
Windsor Castle, 25th December 1845.
We had a Council yesterday, at which Parliament was prorogued to the 22nd of January, then to meet for the despatch of business. Lord Stanley had an audience of the Queen before, and delivered up the Seals of his office. He was much agitated, and had told Sir Robert that he dreaded this interview very much. The Queen thanked him for his services, and begged he would do his best out of office to smooth down the difficulties her Government would have to contend with. At the Council Lord Dalhousie took his seat, and Mr Gladstone received the Colonial Seals. The Queen saw the Duke of Buccleuch and thanked him for the devotion he had shown her during these trying circumstances; the same to the Duke of Wellington, who is in excellent spirits. On my saying, "You have such an influence over the House of Lords, that you will be able to keep them straight," he answered: "I'll do anything; I am now beginning to write to them and to convince them singly of what their duty is."
We saw afterwards Sir Robert Peel, who stayed more than three hours. He is in the highest spirits at having got Mr Gladstone and kept the Duke of Buccleuch; he proposed that the Duke should be made President, and Lord Haddington Privy Seal in his stead. (Lord Haddington had behaved very well, had given up his place to Sir Robert, and told him he should do with him just as he liked—leave him out of the Cabinet, shift him to another place, or leave him at the Admiralty, as would suit him best.)
Sir Robert hinted to Lord Ripon that Lord Haddington had behaved so well, but got no more out of him, but "that he would almost have done the same." Sir Robert proposes to see Lord Ellenborough in order to offer him the Admiralty, received the Queen's sanction likewise to Lord St Germans (the Postmaster-General) being put into the Cabinet. I said: "With your Government that has no inconvenience, and even if you had a hundred members in the Cabinet, as you don't tell them but what is absolutely necessary, and follow your own course." He said in reply, that he should be very sorry if he had to have told his Cabinet that he meant to send for Lord Ellenborough. We could not help contrasting this conduct with the subjection Lord John has shown to his people. It is to his own talent and firmness that Sir Robert will owe his success, which cannot fail. He said he had been determined not to go to a general election with the fetters the last election had imposed upon him, and he had meant at the end of the next Session to call the whole Conservative Party together and to declare this to them, that he would not meet another Parliament pledged to the maintenance of the Corn Laws,THE CORN LAWS which could be maintained no longer, and that he would make a public declaration to this effect before another general election came on. This had been defeated by events coming too suddenly upon him, and he had no alternative but to deal with the Corn Laws before a national calamity would force it on. The league had made immense progress, and had enormous means at their disposal. If he had resigned in November, Lord Stanley and the Protectionists would have been prepared to form a Government, and a Revolution might have been the consequence of it. Now they felt that it was too late.
Sir Robert has an immense scheme in view; he thinks he shall be able to remove the contest entirely from the dangerous ground upon which it has got—that of a war between the manufacturers, the hungry and the poor against the landed proprietors, the aristocracy, which can only end in the ruin of the latter; he will not bring forward a measure upon the Corn Laws, but a much more comprehensive one. He will deal with the whole commercial system of the country. He will adopt the principle of the League, that of removing all protection and abolishing all monopoly, but not in favour of one class and as a triumph over another, but to the benefit of the nation, farmers as well as manufacturers. He would begin with cotton, and take in all the necessaries of life and corn amongst them. The experiments he had made in 1842 and 1845 with boldness but with caution had borne out the correctness of the principle: the wool duty was taken off, and wool sold higher than ever before; foreign cattle were let in, and the cattle of England stood better in the market than ever. He would not ask for compensation to the land, but wherever he could give it, and at the same time promote the social development, there he would do it, but on that ground. For instance, one of the greatest benefits to the country would be the establishment of a rural police on the same principle as the metropolitan police. By taking this on the Consolidated Fund, the landowners would be immensely relieved in all those counties which kept a police. One of the heaviest charges on the land was the present administration of law and the carrying on of prosecutions. Sir Robert could fancy this to be very much improved by the appointment of a public prosecutor by the State, which would give the State a power to prevent vexatious, illegal, and immoral prosecutions, and reduce the expenses in an extraordinary degree. Part of the maintenance of the poor, according to the Poor Law, might be undertaken by the State. A great calamity must be foreseen, when the innumerable railroads now in progress shall have been terminated, which will be the case in a few years. This will throw an enormous labouring population suddenly out of employment. THE UNEMPLOYEDThere might be a law passed which would provide employment for them, and improve the agriculture and production of the country, by enabling the State to advance money to the great proprietors for the improvements of their estates, which they could not obtain otherwise without charging their estates beyond what they already have to bear.
Sir Robert means to go with Mr Gladstone into all these details.