THE IRISH FAMINE: STARVING PEASANTS AT A WORKHOUSE GATE.
outworks of a great system of landlordism which gave the State a solid basis. His firm conviction was that Mr. Cobden and the Leaguers were eager to capture the outworks, that they might the more easily storm the citadel. And this idea, too, was common to the Whigs, who were advocates of a duty on corn, which, though small, was to be fixed. Through Lord Melbourne they had taught the country and the Queen that a man must
LORD GEORGE BENTINCK.
be mad who would dream of abolishing the Corn Laws—and they showed no sign, as a Party, of wavering in that conviction till the 22nd of November, 1845, when Lord John Russell sent the famous “Edinburgh Letter” to his constituents in the City of London, abandoning Protection once and for ever. It is but fair to remind a later generation of the relation in which the two great Parties stood to the Corn Law, because partisan writers often present an inadequate conception of the arduous task which Peel set himself, when he undertook to abolish the Corn Duties, in defiance of beliefs long rooted in the minds not only of the people, but of the governing classes of England.
There is no denying the fact that the admirable behaviour of the Queen throughout the epoch-marking Ministerial crisis of 1845-46 did a great deal to restore the influence of the Crown as an operative factor in English politics. Since the death of George IV. that influence had been waning. Under William IV. it had been exercised, but without subtlety of tact or breadth of sympathy; and therefore, when exercised, it was somewhat rudely “abated” by the popular Party. Nothing was further from Lord Melbourne’s heart than to turn the Queen into a Whig, for it is on record that it was he who urged her to conciliate the Tories, and put confidence in Peel, against whom she bore a grudge for opposing the Parliamentary grant to the Prince Consort. Yet, in the early days of the Queen’s reign, the influence of the Crown was not a popular influence, because it was supposed that Melbourne had become a sort of Mayor of the Palace, and had made the Sovereign the tool of Party. In the beginning of 1846, however, we notice a remarkable change in public feeling on this subject. There was then a growing belief, even among the Tories, that their suspicions of Melbourne had been unwarrantable, and the people ceased to fear that the Queen intended to base her Government on a system of favouritism. It is of the utmost importance, says Edmund Burke, “that the discretionary powers which are necessarily vested in the monarch, whether for the execution of the laws or for the nomination to magistracy or office, or for the conducting of the affairs of peace and war, or for ordering the revenue, should all be exercised upon public principles and national grounds, and not on the likings or prejudices, the intrigues or fooleries, of a Court.”[19] This was really the sound teaching which Melbourne had impressed on the Queen, and her bearing in the crisis, which ended in Sir Robert Peel’s reassumption of office, showed that she had been an apt pupil.