For our part, had we been free-traders, most earnestly should we have implored that our cause might not be encumbered with the sinister aid of Sir Robert Peel.
Weighing, then, well all the circumstances of the case; considering the relative value of moral and economical advantages; nay, even looking principally merely to the latter, it appears to me, as the result of Sir R. Peel’s recent proceedings, that no residuum of benefit to the country is left, but a very considerable amount of injury. Such a result is not one of sufficient lustre and brightness to enable us to grant him the title in question of “splendide mendax.”
Let us, however, inquire into the other point, as to the character of those who were the dupes of his insincerity, and how far the duty of sincerity between him and them was binding.
The duty of sincerity between a leading statesman and that body of men who were termed his party, does not result from any verbal promise given by one to the other, but is a tacit compact, arising from the nature of things, mutually understood, though not defined; and, precisely on account of its tacit nature, and of so much being left to good faith, is perhaps the more incumbent on an honourable mind. Not, indeed, that the party who have placed a public man in power, have therefore the smallest right to claim an influence over his opinions;—not that because they think they have done a service to him, they are to claim his support of their views as a recompense for that service. He is perfectly free to hold what opinions he pleases, but he is under an obligation honestly to profess those opinions. He is free to change them when he likes, but he is bound to give an intimation of those changes. This is not a case of services bandied to and fro between one party and another, but it is a mutual duty which all public men owe to each other for the furtherance of the welfare of the State. Unless public men of all parties and positions are sincere in the avowal of their opinions, public business sustains severe injury. For in this, as in other things, isolated individuals can accomplish little; men must combine their efforts, and organise themselves, that they may act effectually; and in order to do this, they must know the general tenor of each other’s opinions, and count on their support or their hostility accordingly. If they once took to deceiving one another on these points; if a body of Whigs came over to the Tory benches, (or vice versâ,) and acted and spoke like Tories, merely with the view of deceiving them, leading them into erroneous calculations, and then profiting by the error they had caused, such conduct would justly be stigmatised as baneful and dishonourable. For public men act and concert measures in matters of the greatest importance upon the belief which they thus entertain of the general views of others, and unless they can act in security on this belief, there is an end of all public confidence. But this general sincerity of profession and behaviour, though binding on all, even the humblest member of the House, is more especially so on the leading and more distinguished statesmen, inasmuch as its breach in their case is productive of greater evils. A knowledge of their real views is of the greatest importance to all parties, whose measures vitally depend on the opinion they entertain of the general views of these statesmen. Upon this belief they securely act in matters of the greatest importance; upon this they support or oppose a ministry; and if they are deceived in this belief, they are thus induced to act in a way which they would, if they knew the truth, think contrary to the public welfare. If a man should knowingly induce in another, though without any actual falsehood, an erroneous belief, and suffer him to act in consequence in a way prejudicial to his private fortune, (of which we have seen many instances in the late railroad transactions,) such conduct is justly denounced as highly censurable. But much more censurable is the conduct of him who induces an erroneous belief in another, so as to lead him to act in a way prejudicial (under his views) to the public welfare. By how much the public welfare is dearer to the high-minded man than his own individual fortune, by so much is the misconduct of the hypocrite in Parliament greater than that of the hypocrite upon ’Change. When, therefore, a Prime Minister knowingly suffers an erroneous belief to exist in the minds of men, owing to which they give him their support, which support, if they knew his real views, they would think injurious to the public welfare, he is committing a breach of a solemn trust; he is suffering, or rather he is inducing, men to act contrary to the dictates of their conscience, to do that which he knows they will afterwards repent of, as contrary to what they deem the interests of their country; and his conduct is in every way deserving of the strongest and severest censure.
That Sir Robert Peel knew that men looked upon him as a Protectionist, while he knew that he was not one; that he knew that, in consequence of this belief, they supported him; that he knew that if they were aware of his real views, they would instantly withdraw their support, and that as soon as they discovered them they would grievously repent of that which they had given him, as having been contrary to the real interests of their country;—that he knew all this, and that, nevertheless, he concealed his real views from these men, and allowed them to retain their erroneous belief, and to act consequently in a way diametrically opposite to their conscientious convictions, though a single sentence of his would have sufficed to dispel their error, and enable them to further their country’s interests conformably with their own views—this, I say, is matter of fact, which he would in vain attempt to deny.
This case, then, exactly corresponds with the preceding; he has broken a solemn though tacit trust; he has given a severe blow to public confidence; he has culpably suffered honourable men to deceive themselves in matters deeply concerning the public welfare; and his conduct, therefore, exposes him to a severer censure than I have any wish to seek for language to express.
And when honest men, who have been for a long time conscientiously supporting him, find that he has been tacitly deceiving them, and concealing from them his real views,—that he has been sporting with their convictions, and using them for nothing more than tools for his own secret purposes,—shall we wonder that they feel just indignation at such conduct, and that they express their feelings in stronger terms than suit the delicate ears of Mr. Sidney Herbert?
Sir R. Peel has indeed attempted, in a broken kind of way, to excuse his conduct, by saying,—“I never told you so and so; if you supported me without knowing my real opinions, it was your own fault. I did not say any thing that you can charge me with as a falsehood.” Without mentioning that, in this case, great suspicion is cast on many even of his verbal professions, which come down to no distant period, surely a sexagenarian Premier can scarcely need to be told, that there is a deceit in actions not less than in professions. Does he think it an excuse that he did not deceive others, but only allowed them to deceive themselves? A pleasant kind of sincerity! Why, this is no more than the excuse of a school-boy, who thinks it a sufficient salve to his conscience that he has skilfully managed to deceive without uttering any thing directly false with his lips. And this is the excuse put forth by an English Minister! Miserable excuse, that fitly crowns the deceit—paltriness of mind, almost inconceivable!
Still worse is it, when he attempts to justify his conduct by taunting his friends with a previous inconsistency of their own, which they had been reluctantly induced to commit through him, in order to support him in power.[11] We cannot understand why he should thus delight in exposing the not very pleasing recesses of his ignoble nature. Certainly, “Quem Jupiter vult perdere, prius dementat.” Otherwise he must see that such palliations as these are far more injurious to his character than the severest attacks of his foes.
The only case in which this duty of sincerity towards public men could at all cease to be binding, and admit of a valid excuse, would be, when those upon whom the deceit was practised were not men conscientiously seeking the public good, but were acting from unworthy views, for private or for class interests. In this case, we will admit that the duty of sincerity would not be of any very strict obligation. This is doubtless the view that is taken by many people of the conduct of the Protectionists; by all that numerous class represented by Messrs. Bright, Villiers, &c.—men who, however sincere themselves, are not probably endowed by nature with very comprehensive or liberal minds. From these gentlemen we hear nothing but attacks on the character of the whole body of the landlords; they look on them as a selfish oligarchy, sacrificing the public good to their own class interests. Such views having been industriously propagated by the League, are entertained with more or less of bitterness by a considerable body of the people. It is on this account that Sir R. Peel’s conduct has met with so much applause among them; this it was which animated the cheers that consoled him on his resignation of power; his treachery to the Protectionists, so far from appearing censurable in the eyes of these admirers, has rather enhanced the merit of his success. But such views, however they may suit the minds of those whose passions are aroused in the party warfare of the day, can meet with no acceptance from the impartial judge. It is impossible to admit for a moment that a very large portion of the whole population of the country, including not only landlords but people of all classes, merchants, tradesmen, and operatives, were so lamentably destitute of all regard for their country, and that public spirit was entirely monopolised by the party advocating free-trade. Neither can we admit that the large body of Protectionist members in the House, forming upwards of a third of the whole, were all playing so unworthy a part. For, adding them to the converts of “Government influence,” we should thus have more than half the House of Commons acting upon questionable motives—a prospect certainly not cheering, nor honourable to the country.