Lord John Russell

by Stuart J. Reid

FIRST VISIT TO IRELAND

Ireland drew forth his sympathies, but he failed to see any way out of the difficulty. ‘I wish I knew what to do to help your country,’ were his words to Moore, ‘but, as I do not, it is of no use giving her smooth words, as O’Connell told me, and I must be silent.’ It was not in his nature, however, to sit still with folded hands. He held his peace, but quietly crossed the Channel to study the problem on the spot. It was his first visit to the distressful country for many years, and he wished Moore to accompany him as guide, philosopher, and friend. He assured the poet that he would allow him to be as patriotic as he pleased about ‘the first flower of the earth and first gem of the sea’ during the proposed sentimental journey. ‘Your being a rebel,’ were his words, ‘may somewhat atone for my being a Cabinet Minister.’ Moore, however, was compelled to decline the tempting proposal by the necessity of making ends meet by sticking to the hack work which that universal provider of knowledge, Dr. Lardner, had set him in the interests of the ‘Cabinet Encyclopædia’—an enterprise to which men of the calibre of Mackintosh, Southey, Herschell, and even Walter Scott had lent a helping hand.

Lord John landed in Ireland in the beginning of September 1833, and went first to Lord Duncannon’s place at Bessborough. Afterwards he proceeded to Waterford to visit Lord Ebrington, his colleague in the representation of Devonshire. He next found his way to Cork and Killarney, and he wrote again to Moore urging him to ‘hang Dr. Lardner on his tree of knowledge,’ and to join him at the eleventh hour. Moore must have been in somewhat reduced circumstances at the moment—for he was a luxurious, pleasure-loving man, who never required much persuasion to throw down his work—since such an appeal availed nothing. Meanwhile Lord John had carried Lord Ebrington back to Dublin, and they went together to the North of Ireland. The visit to Belfast attracted considerable attention; Lord John’s services over the Reform Bill were of course fresh in the public mind, and he was entertained in orthodox fashion at a public dinner. This short tour in Ireland did much to open his eyes to the real grievances of the people, and, fresh from the scene of disaffection, he was able to speak with authority when the late autumn compelled the Whig Cabinet to throw everything else aside in order to devise if possible some measure of relief for Ireland. Stanley was Chief Secretary, and, though one of the most brilliant men of his time alike in deed and word, unfortunately his haughty temper and autocratic leanings were a grievous hindrance if a policy of coercion was to be exchanged for the more excellent way of conciliation. O’Connell opposed his policy in scathing terms, and attacked him personally with bitter invective, and in the end there was open war between the two men.

POOR LAW REFORM

Lord Grey, now that Parliamentary Reform had been conceded, was developing into an easy-going aristocratic Whig of somewhat contracted sympathies, and Stanley, though still in the Cabinet, was apparently determined to administer the affairs of Ireland on the most approved Tory principles. Althorp, Russell, and Duncannon were men whose sympathies leaned more or less decidedly in the opposite direction, and therefore, especially with O’Connell thundering at the gates with the Irish people and the English Radicals at his back, a deadlock was inevitable. Durham, in ill health and chagrin, and irritated by the stationary, if not reactionary, attitude of certain members of the Grey Administration, resigned office in the spring of 1833. Goderich became Privy Seal, and this enabled Stanley to exchange the Irish Secretaryship for that of the Colonies. He had driven Ireland to the verge of revolt, but he had nevertheless made an honest attempt to grapple with many practical evils, and his Education Bill was a piece of constructive statesmanship which placed Roman Catholics on an equality with Protestants. Early in the session of 1834 Althorp introduced the Poor Law Amendment Act, and the measure was passed in July. The changes which it brought about were startling, for its enactments were drastic. This great economic measure came to the relief of a nation in which ‘one person in every seven was a pauper.’ The new law limited relief to destitution, prohibited out-door help to the able-bodied, beyond medical aid, instituted tests to detect imposture, confederated parishes into unions, and substituted large district workhouses for merely local shelters for the destitute. In five years the poor rate was reduced by three millions, and the population, set free by the new interpretation of ‘Settlement,’ were able, in their own phrase, to follow the work and to congregate accordingly wherever the chance of a livelihood offered. One great question followed hard on the heels of another.

In the King’s Speech at the opening of Parliament, the consideration of Irish tithes was recommended, for extinguishing ‘all just causes of complaint without injury to the rights and property of any class of subjects or to any institution in Church or State.’ Mr. Littleton (afterwards Lord Hatherton), who had succeeded Stanley as Irish Secretary accordingly introduced a new Tithe Bill, the object of which was to change the tithe first into a rent-charge payable by the landlord, and eventually into land tax. The measure also proposed that the clergy should be content with a sum which fell short of the amount to which they were entitled by law, so that riot and bloodshed might be avoided by lessened demands. On the second reading of the bill, Lord John frankly avowed the faith that was in him, a circumstance which led to unexpected results. He declared that, as he understood it, the aim of the bill was to determine and secure the amount of the tithe. The question of appropriation was to be kept entirely distinct. If the object of the bill was to grant a certain sum to the Established Church of Ireland, and the question was to end there, his opinion of it might be different. But he understood it to be a bill to secure a certain amount of property and revenue destined by the State to religious and charitable purposes, and if the State should find that it was not appropriated justly to the purposes of religious and moral instruction, it would then be the duty of Parliament to consider the necessity of a different appropriation. His opinion was that the revenues of the Church of Ireland were larger than necessary for the religious and moral instruction of the persons belonging to that Church, and for the stability of the Church itself.

Lord John did not think it would be advisable or wise to mix the question of appropriation with the question of amount of the revenues; but when Parliament had vindicated the property in tithes, he should then be prepared to assert his opinion with regard to their appropriation. If, when the revenue was once secured, the assertion of that opinion should lead him to differ and separate from those with whom he was united by political connection, and for whom he entertained the deepest private affection, he should feel much regret; yet he should, at whatever cost and sacrifice, do what he should consider his bounden duty—namely, do justice to Ireland.

UPSETTING THE COACH

He afterwards explained that this speech, which produced a great impression, was prompted by the attitude of Stanley concerning the permanence and inviolability of the Irish Church. He was, in fact, afraid that if Stanley’s statement was allowed to pass in silence by his colleagues, the whole Government would be regarded as pledged to the maintenance in their existing shape of the temporalities of an alien institution. Lord John accordingly struck from his own bat, amid the cheers of the Radicals. Stanley expressed to Sir James Graham his view of the situation in the now familiar phrase, ‘Johnny has upset the coach.’ The truth was, divided counsels existed in the Cabinet on this question of appropriation, and Lord John’s blunt deliverance, though it did not wreck the Ministry, placed it in a dilemma. He was urged by some of his colleagues to explain away what he had said, but he had made up his mind and was in no humour to retract.

Palmerston, with whom he was destined to have many an encounter in coming days, thought he ought to have been turned out of the Cabinet, and others of his colleagues were hardly less incensed. The independent member, in the person of Mr. Ward, who sat for St. Albans, promptly took advantage of Russell’s speech to bring forward a motion to the effect that the Church in Ireland ‘exceeds the wants of the population, and ought to be reduced.’ This proposition was elbowed out of the way by the appointment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the revenues of the Irish Church; but Stanley felt that his position in the Cabinet was now untenable, and therefore retired from office in the company of the Duke of Richmond, Lord Ripon, and Sir James Graham. The Radicals made no secret of their glee. Ward, they held, had been a benefactor to the party beyond their wildest dreams, for he had exorcised the evil spirits of the Grey Administration.