The first overt proof of schism in the Cabinet was presented by the opposite sides which Sir James Graham and his colleagues took on Mr O’Connell’s motion of censure upon the Irish judge, Sir William Smith. Sir James stoutly resisted it. Mr Stanley, Lord Althorpe, and Lord John Russell voted for it. On a division, Sir James went out with a minority of 74, and next morning tendered his resignation. He had proved himself, however, too valuable a member of the Administration to be cast adrift, and Earl Grey refused to part with him. Three nights afterwards he committed another crime by acknowledging in his place that the economy effected by his predecessors at the Admiralty was quite equal to his own. Then followed a discussion upon the Corn Laws, which he defended as they stood; whereas Mr Poulett Thompson, Vice-President of the Board of Trade, proposed to substitute a fixed duty for a sliding-scale. And here an incident befell which deserves notice. Mr Poulett Thompson endeavoured to confute his opponent by reading extracts from a pamphlet which had appeared in 1830, and in which the author, under the nom de guerre of a Cumberland Landowner, advocated entire freedom of trade in corn, as in other commodities. Strange to say, Sir James Graham took no notice of the ironical cheers which followed these quotations, and which marked the conviction of the House that the pamphlet had emanated from his pen. Yet such was not the case. The pamphlet was the work of a Mr Rooke, and was acknowledged as such when, four years subsequently, the author gave to the world a volume on the science of geology. Why Sir James Graham did not decline the honour thrust upon him at the moment, we are at a loss to conceive, and his biographer certainly assigns no satisfactory reason for the proceeding.
The Cabinet worked on not very amicably, and Sir James Graham did it what service he could by taking charge of its bill for remodelling the Exchequer Office. But the time was come when he felt that he could serve it no longer. Lord Wellesley’s measure for converting tithes in Ireland into a permanent rent-charge on the land was cumbered by a question from Mr Shiel, drawing from Lord John Russell something like a pledge, that the Government might hereafter consider the propriety of applying a portion of this rent-charge to secular purposes. And a few days later Mr Ward brought forward his motion, “That the Protestant Episcopal Establishment in Ireland exceeds the spiritual wants of the Protestant population, and that, it being the right of the State to regulate the distribution of Church property in such a manner as Parliament might determine, it is the opinion of this House ‘that the temporal possessions of the Church of Ireland, as established by law, ought to be reduced.’” There was no evading a movement like this. The Cabinet must either resist or accept Mr Ward’s motion, and a majority determined to accept it. Now, however Radical Sir James Graham’s views might be on other points, he was then, as he always had been, a consistent Churchman. On many previous occasions he had declared his determination to defend to the uttermost the inviolability of what he regarded as a fundamental institution of the Empire; and the Duke of Richmond, Lord Ripon, and Mr Stanley agreed with him. When, therefore, this Act for confiscating the property of the Church was accepted by the Cabinet as its own, the four Ministers above named felt that only one course lay open to them: they retired from the Administration, and shook it thereby to its base.
Sir James sat below the gangway, on the Ministerial side of the House, while those gyrations went on which ended in shaking Earl Grey out of the Premier’s chair, and Lord Melbourne into it. With Mr Stanley, and the half-dozen friends who adhered to him, Sir James kept aloof from each of the rival parties, becoming one of the company who, as Mr O’Connell described it, “travelled by themselves in the Derby Dilly.” It is not for us to inquire into the motives which animated the little band at that time. But considerations of delicacy towards old friends were surely rated above their just value when they induced Mr Stanley and Sir James Graham, a few months subsequently, to decline taking office under Sir Robert Peel. Had they met his advances as frankly as they deserved, the Conservative Government of 1835 would have probably stood its ground; and though it be difficult to conceive, looking both at things present and things past, how the commercial system, now in the ascendant, could have been pushed aside, still the progress of that system would have been probably more gradual; it certainly might have achieved its triumph at a sacrifice less costly than the disruption of the great Tory party, which followed on the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.
Sir James was coldly looked upon by the Liberals for abandoning Earl Grey’s Administration, and a cabal was got up to resist his re-election for East Cumberland in the event of his taking office with Sir Robert Peel. He refused to take office, as we have shown, and defended himself well at the hustings against the attacks which were made upon him. East Cumberland chose him again to be its representative, and he again took his seat below the gangway on the Ministerial side of the House. As an independent member, however, he stood aloof from the struggle between Sir Robert Peel and the Whigs, till Lord John Russell brought forward his famous motion “For the appropriation to secular purposes of a portion of the Church property in Ireland.” Then Sir James Graham threw over all party scruples. He delivered against the motion one of the most telling speeches which he ever uttered in Parliament, and went out into the gallery with that gallant band which failed to keep their chief in office by twenty-five votes only. From that moment his severance from the Whigs became a mere question of time, and the bitterness with which the Municipal Reform Bill was argued hurried it on. Sir James had never desired to swamp the poorer voters, either in counties or boroughs, and voted against the extinction of the class of freemen. Having gone out with the Tories, he was preparing to cross the House to his old seat, when a storm of derisive cheering greeted him, accompanied by shouts of “Stay where you are!” He stopped, looked angrily at the benches whence the sounds proceeded, and then sat down with a smile of scorn on his lips on one of the Opposition benches.
For the part which he took in resisting the extension to Ireland of the municipal changes which were effected in England and in Scotland, Mr Torrens severely censures Sir James Graham. This is natural enough. Going far beyond his hero in Radical propensities, Mr Torrens dispenses blame where men of moderate views would award praise. He seems to forget that all legislation for Ireland was undertaken in those days with a twofold purpose only—to conciliate Mr O’Connell, and to humble the House of Lords. The Melbourne Ministry, however, rode their hobby too fast. Not a few of the most distinguished of the old reformers fell off from them. Indeed, to such a height was the spirit of alienation carried, that not Sir James Graham only, but likewise Lord Brougham, Sir Francis Burdett, and Lord Stanley, withdrew their names from Brookes’s, into which Mr O’Connell had been received as a member.
From this date up to the death of William IV. in 1837, party spirit prevailed in Parliament and out of it, with a bitterness which has no parallel in modern times. The Ministers, existing by the breath of Mr O’Connell and the Radicals, seemed indifferent to the consequences of the measures which they proposed. The great body of the Opposition, carried away by personal dislike to their opponents, fought more than one battle which it would have been wise to avoid, and compelled their more judicious leaders to fight with them. On the whole, however, the Duke in the House of Lords and Sir Robert Peel in the Commons managed matters well; and it is only just to Sir James Graham to add, that they found in him a hearty as well as a prudent coadjutor.
The accession of her present Majesty led, of course, to a dissolution, and Sir James Graham had the mortification to find himself opposed in East Cumberland by Major Aglionby, formerly his fastest friend. He received, on the other hand, but a doubtful support from the Conservatives, and on the day of nomination the mob refused to hear him. Naturally proud, and perhaps a little dissatisfied with himself, he quitted the hustings, and went to the poll in bad heart. He was defeated by a majority of upwards of 500 votes, and withdrew, full of indignation, to Netherby. He had suffered not long before this a heavy domestic affliction in the death of his mother; and mortified ambition, coming on the back of private sorrow, wellnigh broke him down. He took no further part in county business; he shut himself out from county society, and spent his time chiefly in reading every new book that came out, and corresponding on important subjects with Sir Robert Peel. It was the interval between his defeat for East Cumberland and his return to Parliament as member for the Welsh borough of Pembroke which made him, what he ever after continued to be, a Peelite to the backbone.
In 1838 Sir James Graham was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, in opposition to the Duke of Sussex. He delivered an inaugural address, which is probably still remembered in consequence of the uproar which it called forth by certain allusions to the necessity of keeping the Church in alliance with the State; for then the fever of Free-Kirk folly was at its height in Scotland. But in 1839 he had graver matters to attend to. That systematic agitation against the Corn Laws having already begun of which Mr Charles Villiers, and not Mr Cobden, was the author. Sir James spoke in his place against interference with the sliding-scale; at the same time he guarded himself from the charge of desiring to secure a monopoly in the corn-market for the English landowner, and went out of his way to warn the House that nothing could be more perilous to English interests than that monopoly in the supply of cotton which had been conceded to America. He was anxious even then that steps should be taken to encourage the better cultivation of the plant in India, and pressed upon the President of the Board of Control the wisdom of originating such a scheme. Words of warning which, disregarded at the moment, come back upon us now with a melancholy echo!
The progress of the struggle, which ended in the withdrawal of the Appropriation Clause and the passing of the Irish Municipal Reform Bill through both Houses of Parliament, is of too recent date to require that we should speak of it in detail. So is the contest which arose about softening down some of the clauses in the New Poor-Law, of which Sir James, though advocating the law itself, was a strenuous advocate. His speech on that occasion, as well as his censure of the job which pensioned Sir John Newport and raised Mr Spring Rice to the peerage, more and more drew towards him the sympathies of the Conservative party, which indeed had already begun to look to him as one of its future leaders. He was equally efficient in his attacks on the Whig mismanagement of affairs in India and in China, and certainly did not spare his old friends when stirred by their rebukes into invective. At last the collapse came, and in 1841 the country declared against the Whigs. A new Administration was formed, with Sir Robert Peel at its head. Sir James Graham accepted the seals of the Home Office, and for five years public affairs were carried on, if not smoothly in all respects, with remarkable success upon the whole. No doubt, Lord Aberdeen’s legislation in the matter of the Church of Scotland proved unfortunate, and there was little in Sir James Graham’s manner to reconcile the discontented portion of the Scottish clergy to the law as it stood. Indeed, it is a remarkable fact, that almost all the failures in Sir Robert Peel’s policy occurred on points of which the management devolved upon Sir James Graham. To him, in a great degree, was attributed the disruption in the Scottish Church. His bill for the amendment of the Factory Act of 1833 hung fire, and was withdrawn; while his attempt to reform the ecclesiastical courts in England utterly broke down.
In 1843 the difficulties of the Administration really began. Ireland was the rock ahead which they found it impossible to weather. They brought in one bill, which they ultimately abandoned, and were content to appoint a Commission, with Lord Devon at its head, to inquire into the state of the country with a view to future legislation. To some of their adherents, moreover, they appeared to be shaken in their adhesion to the sliding scale of duties on the importation of foreign corn; and day by day the great fact became more obvious that Parliamentary government, based on a widely-extended suffrage, is scarcely compatible with the continuance of monarchy. Fortunately, perhaps, for them, Mr O’Connell chose this moment to reawaken the demand in Ireland for the dissolution of the Union, and to inflame the passions of the people by his monster meetings. Great, we should now say unnecessary, forbearance was exhibited in dealing with this movement; but at last a manifesto appeared, which, besides calling upon the masses to assemble at Clontarf, invited the “Repeal cavalry” to attend in troops of twenty-five,—each under its own officers. The Lord-Lieutenant and Lord Chancellor of Ireland happened both to be in London at the time. They met Sir James Graham at the Home Office with the law officers of the Crown, and that decisive step was taken which not only dispersed the meeting of Clontarf, but shut up Mr O’Connell in jail.