BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCXCV. SEPTEMBER, 1848. Vol. LXIV.
A REVIEW OF THE LAST SESSION.
There is perhaps no body of men confederated in her Majesty’s dominions who are less properly the subjects of envy than the members of the present Cabinet. A session, begun under circumstances of unexampled commercial pressure, continued amidst insurrection abroad and turbulence at home, and ending with an Irish rebellion, ought surely to have exhibited some specimens of extraordinary and judicious legislation. Slovenliness in high places, at no time decorous, is most undecent, dangerous, and unendurable, at a period when the whole world is drunk with the revolutionary elixir. France, that old irreclaimable bacchante, is staggering to and fro, madly bellicose, and threatening incendiarism in her cups. Germany, once thought too stolid to be roused, is hiccuping for national unity, and on the fair way of contributing largely to the overthrow of the equilibrium of power in Europe. The Irish symptoms have by no means surprised us. The insurrection there is the inevitable fruit of the measures and policy against which, for the last twenty years, we have entered our strong and unflinching protest. The shameful truckling of the Whigs to O’Connell and his scandalous followers; the unconstitutional fostering of the Roman Catholic Church; and the conciliation system, which, while it did gross injustice to the people of England and Scotland, contributed to confirm the spirit of improvidence and pauperism among the Irish, without in any way securing their gratitude,—have resulted in a rebellion, imbecile, indeed, and almost ludicrous in its issue, but not, on that account, less afflicting to the supporters of order and the crown.
More than once, too, we have been threatened at home by manifestations of the insurrectionary spirit. In so densely populated a country as this, it is impossible that commercial distress and slackness can exist for any length of time, without trying sorely the patience and the fortitude of the working classes. Such distress undoubtedly did prevail, towards the close of last year, in a most alarming degree; and throughout the whole spring there was a vast want of employment in the manufacturing districts. The completion of some of the great lines of railway, and in others the partial abandonment or suspension of the works, caused by the extreme tightness of the money market, also threw a great deal of unemployed labour on the public; and this evil was increased by the heterogeneous character of the masses. Irish immigration has increased to such an extent, that not only in all the towns of Britain, but almost in every village, especially on the western coast, there exists a Hibernian colony; unreclaimed by civilisation—uneducated as the brutes that perish—knowing nothing of religion, save as an idolatrous form, and professing rebellion as a principle. This class have always formed a nucleus for disaffection, and, but for the extreme reluctance of the native labourers to fraternise with those children of Esau, the results might ere now have been more serious than we altogether care to contemplate. As it was, the British demagogue was always sure of finding a ready partisan, confederate, and coadjutor in the western Celt; and we need hardly say that the Chartist leaders availed themselves to the full of that sympathy. We shall presently see how far this state of matters received the attention of the men in power.
In this critical position we were entitled to expect that the government would have shown itself fully adequate to the crisis—that the causes of distress, which lie at the root of turbulence and disaffection, would be probed with a firm and prudent hand—that every possible relief and assistance would be given to the home market—and that, above all, nothing should be done which might tend, in the remotest degree, to endanger the integrity of the empire. The welfare of Great Britain is a terrible trust in times like these, and the responsibility of those who have professed themselves ready to govern, and who, in fact, have rather claimed the government than received it, is proportionally great.
Let us then take a candid and impartial review of the proceedings which have characterised this session of Parliament, extending over a period more fertile in insurrection than any which the world has known. Let us examine how Lord John Russell and his colleagues have acquitted themselves in the discharge of their important functions. We shall be sparing neither of praise nor blame: glad, indeed, if we can find an opportunity of being lavish of the former, or, in case of neglect, of stumbling upon an honest excuse.
Our readers cannot have forgotten the circumstances under which this last session of Parliament commenced. The commercial world has not, for very many years, felt any thing like a corresponding crisis; and the change is most remarkable, when we reflect that the depression followed immediately upon a period of almost unexampled prosperity. Our opinion is still unchanged, as to the causes which led to this. We pointed out, in former articles, long before the pressure began, what must be the inevitable result of a wholesale departure from our older system, of the adoption of the free-trading economical views, and of the arbitrary contraction of the currency, as devised by Sir Robert Peel. Every word we then said has been verified to the letter; and, as we expected, the very contingencies which we suggested as likely to operate in producing this unfavourable state of matters, and which actually did subsequently occur, have been paraded, by the free-traders and extreme bullionists, as the causes of the whole disaster. It is of great importance that the public should understand this subject clearly; and, therefore, without repeating what we have elaborately attempted to demonstrate before, let us merely remark that the tendency of free trade, and of fettered currency combined, was to prostrate the whole commercial world, on the first occurrence of a bad season and a scarcity of food, by stimulating the exportation of gold, and at the same time by withdrawing its representative. In fact, Sir Robert Peel constructed his machinery so, that the result, in the event which we have instanced, could be calculated on with mathematical certainty. The realised wealth of Britain was rendered of no avail in this emergency, for the counters which represented it were amissing, and nothing else would be received in exchange. Hence arose that total prostration of credit, and consequent lack of employment, which was so lamentably felt towards the close of the year 1847.
So intolerable was the pressure that, after much delay and repeated refusals to interfere, the Whig ministers were compelled to bestir themselves, and to suspend the operation of the Banking Act, in order to save the country from actual convulsion. Parliament was summoned about the middle of November, more, perhaps, for the sake of obtaining a bill of indemnity for the suspension—a measure which, after all, did not lead to any infringement of the Act—than with the view of boldly facing the increasing difficulties of the country. Notwithstanding annual disappointment, every one waited for the speech from the throne with the most intense anxiety, trusting that at such a time some comforting glimpses for the future, some earnest ministerial schemes would be announced, likely to retrieve the commercial world from its embarrassment. These expectations were destined to receive an immediate check. The financial prose of the author of “Don Carlos” was as vague and unsatisfactory as his halting tragic verse. There was, of course, a decent show of regret for public calamity, but no vestige of an intention to interpose any remedial measure. In point of finance, the only intelligible topic contained in the speech was ominous of the repeal of the Navigation Laws. Sanitary improvements, the great Whig hobby, which they are constantly thrusting forward beneath the public nose, were also recommended. Ireland, then testifying the humane and Christian disposition of its inhabitants, by a series of the most cold-blooded and revolting murders, was recommended to the benevolence of the state. A treaty with the Republic of the Equator, touching the suppression of the slave-trade, was announced; and the Whigs looked forward “with confidence to the maintenance of the general peace of Europe.” A more paltry programme was never yet submitted to the public eye.