The difficulties of the ministry, nevertheless, were great. In the preceding years it had carried most of the reforms which were demanded in Great Britain; but it had failed to obtain the assent of the House of Lords to its Irish measures. Lord Melbourne’s difficulties. It had desired (1) to follow up the reform of English corporations by a corresponding reform of Irish municipalities; (2) to convert the tithes, payable to the Irish Church, into a rent charge, and to appropriate its surplus revenues to other purposes; (3) to deal with the chronic distress of the Irish people by extending to Ireland the principles of the English poor law. In the year which succeeded the accession of the queen it accomplished two of these objects. It passed an Irish poor law and a measure commuting tithes in Ireland into a rent charge. The first of these measures was carried in opposition to the views of the Irish, who thought that it imposed an intolerable burden on Irish property. The second was only carried on the government consenting to drop the appropriation clause, on which Lord Melbourne’s administration had virtually been founded.
It was not, however, in domestic politics alone that the ministry was hampered. In the months which immediately followed the queen’s accession news reached England of disturbances, or even insurrection in Canada. The rising was easily put down; but the condition of the colony was so grave that the ministry decided to suspend the constitution of lower Canada for three years, and to send out Lord Durham with almost dictatorial powers. Lord Durham’s conduct was, unfortunately, marked by indiscretions which led to his resignation; but before leaving the colony he drew up a report on its condition and on its future, which practically became a text-book for his successors, and has influenced the government of British colonies ever since. Nor was Canada the only great colony which was seething with discontent. In Jamaica the planters, who had sullenly accepted the abolition of slavery, were irritated by the passage of an act of parliament intended to remedy some grave abuses in the management of the prisons of the island. The colonial House of Assembly denounced this act as a violation of its rights, and determined to desist from its legislative functions. The governor dissolved the assembly, but the new house, elected in its place, reaffirmed the decision of its predecessor; and the British ministry, in face of the crisis, asked parliament in 1839 for authority to suspend the constitution of the island for five years. The bill introduced for this purpose placed the Whig ministry in a position of some embarrassment. The advocates of popular government, they were inviting parliament, for a second time, to suspend representative institutions in an important colony. Supported by only small and dwindling majorities, they saw that it was hopeless to carry the measure, and they decided on placing their resignations in the queen’s hands. The queen naturally sent for Sir Robert Peel, who undertook to form a government. In the course of the negotiations, however, he stated that it would be necessary to make certain changes in the household, which contained some great ladies closely connected The bed-chamber question. with the leaders of the Whig party. The queen shrank from separating herself from ladies who had surrounded her since she came to the throne, and Sir Robert thereupon declined the task of forming a ministry. Technically he was justified in adopting this course, but people generally felt that there was some hardship in compelling a young queen to separate herself from her companions and friends, and they consequently approved the decision of Lord Melbourne to support the queen in her refusal, and to resume office. The Whigs returned to place, but they could not be said to return to power. They did not even venture to renew the original Jamaica Bill. They substituted for it a modified proposal which they were unable to carry. They were obviously indebted for office to the favour of the queen, and not to the support of parliament.
Yet the session of 1839 was not without important results. After a long struggle, in which ministers narrowly escaped defeat in the Commons, and in the course of which they suffered severe rebuffs in the Lords, they succeeded Penny postage. in laying the foundation of the English system of national education. In the same session they were forced against their will to adopt a reform, which had been recommended by Rowland Hill, and to confer on the nation the benefit of a uniform penny postage. No member of the cabinet foresaw the consequences of this reform. The postmaster-general, Lord Lichfield, in opposing it, declared that, if the revenue of his office was to be maintained, the correspondence of the country, on which postage was paid, must be increased from 42,000,000 to 480,000,000 letters a year, and he contended that there were neither people to write, nor machinery to deal with, so prodigious a mass of letters. He would have been astonished to hear that, before the end of the century, his office had to deal with more than 3,000,000,000 postal packets a year, and that the net profit which it paid into the exchequer was to be more than double what it received in 1839.
In 1840 the ministry was not much more successful than it had proved in 1839. After years of conflict it succeeded indeed in placing on the statute book a measure dealing with Irish municipalities. But its success was purchased Fiscal policy. by concessions to the Lords, which deprived the measure of much of its original merit. The closing years of the Whig administration were largely occupied with the financial difficulties of the country. The first three years of the queen’s reign were memorable for a constantly deficient revenue. The deficit amounted to £1,400,000 in 1837, to £400,000 in 1838, and to £1,457,000 in 1839. Baring, the chancellor of the exchequer, endeavoured to terminate this deficiency by a general increase of taxation, but this device proved a disastrous failure. The deficit rose to £1,842,000 in 1840. It was obvious that the old expedient of increasing taxation had failed, and that some new method had to be substituted for it. This new method Baring tried to discover in altering the differential duties on timber and sugar, and substituting a fixed duty of 8s. per quarter for the sliding duties hitherto payable on wheat. By these alterations he expected to secure a large increase of revenue, and at the same time to maintain a sufficient degree of protection for colonial produce. The Conservatives, who believed in protection, at once attacked the proposed alteration of the sugar duties. They were reinforced by many Liberals, who cared very little for protection, but a great deal about the abolition of slavery, and consequently objected to reducing the duties on foreign or slave-grown sugar. This combination of interests proved too strong for Baring and his proposal was rejected. As ministers, however, did not resign on their defeat, Sir Robert Peel followed up his victory by moving a vote of want of confidence, and this motion was carried in an exceptionally full house by 312 votes to 311.
Before abandoning the struggle, the Whigs decided on appealing from the House of Commons to the country. The general election which ensued largely increased the strength of the Conservative party. On the meeting of the Sir R. Peel forms a ministry. new parliament in August 1841, votes of want of confidence in the government were proposed and carried in both houses; the Whigs were compelled to resign office, and the queen again charged Sir Robert Peel with the task of forming a government. If the queen had remained unmarried, it is possible that the friction which had arisen in 1839 might have recurred in 1841. In February 1840, however, Her Majesty had married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. She was, therefore, no longer dependent on the Whig ladies, to whose presence in her court she had attached so much importance in 1839. By the management of the prince—who later in the reign was known as the prince consort—the great ladies of the household voluntarily tendered their resignations; and every obstacle to the formation of the new government was in this way removed.
Thus the Whigs retired from the offices which, except for a brief interval in 1834-1835, they had held for eleven years. During the earlier years of their administration they had succeeded in carrying many memorable reforms: during the later years their weakness in the House of Commons had prevented their passing any considerable measures. But, if they had failed in this respect, Lord Melbourne had rendered conspicuous service to the queen. Enjoying her full confidence, consulted by her on every occasion, he had always used his influence for the public good; and perhaps those who look back now with so much satisfaction at the queen’s conduct during a reign of unexampled length, imperfectly appreciate the debt which in this respect is owed to her first prime minister. The closing years of the Whig government were marked by external complications. A controversy on the boundary of Canada and the United States was provoking increasing bitterness on both sides of the Atlantic. The intervention of Lord Palmerston in Syria, which resulted in a great military success at Acre, was embittering the relations between France and England, while the unfortunate expedition to Afghanistan, which the Whigs had approved, was already producing embarrassment, and was about to result in disaster. Serious, however, as were the complications which surrounded British policy in Europe, in the East, and in America, the country, in August 1841, paid more attention to what a great writer called the “condition of England” question. There had never been a period in British history when distress and crime had been so general. There had hardly ever been a period when food had been so dear, when wages had been so low, when poverty had been so widespread, and the condition of the lower orders so depraved and so hopeless, as in the early years of the queen’s reign. The condition of the people had prompted the formation of two great associations. The Chartists derived their name from the charter which set out their demands. The rejection of a monster petition which they presented to parliament in 1839 led to a formidable riot in Birmingham, and to a projected march from South Wales on London, in which twenty persons were shot dead at Newport. Another organization, in one sense even more formidable than the Chartist, was agitating at the same time for the repeal of the corn laws, and was known as the Anti-Corn Law League. It had already secured the services of two men, Cobden and Bright, who, one by clear reasoning, the other by fervid eloquence, were destined to make a profound impression on all classes of the people.
The new government had, therefore, to deal with a position of almost unexampled difficulty. The people were apparently sinking into deeper poverty and misery year after year. As an outward and visible sign of the inward distress, Budget reforms. the state was no longer able to pay its way. It was estimated that the deficit, which had amounted to £1,842,000 in 1840, would reach £2,334,000 in 1841. It is the signal merit of Sir Robert Peel that he terminated this era of private distress and public deficits. He accomplished this task partly by economical administration—for no minister ever valued economy more—and partly by a reform of the financial system, effected in three great budgets. In the budget of 1842 Sir Robert Peel terminated the deficit by reviving the income tax. The proceeds of the tax, which was fixed at 7d. in the £, and was granted in the first instance for three years, were more than sufficient to secure this object. Sir Robert used the surplus to reform the whole customs tariff. The duties on raw materials, he proposed, should never exceed 5%, the duties on partly manufactured articles 12%, and the duties on manufactured articles 20% of their value. At the same time he reduced the duties on stage coaches, on foreign and colonial coffee, on foreign and colonial timber, and repealed the export duties on British manufactures. The success of this budget in stimulating consumption and in promoting trade induced Sir Robert Peel to follow it up in 1845 with an even more remarkable proposal. Instead of allowing the income tax to expire, he induced parliament to continue it for a further period, and with the resources which were thus placed at his disposal he purged the tariff of various small duties which produced little revenue, and had been imposed for purposes of protection. He swept away all the duties on British exports; he repealed the duties on glass, on cotton wool, and still further reduced the duties on foreign and colonial sugar. This budget was a much greater step towards free trade than the budget of 1842. The chief object in his third budget in 1846—the reduction of the duty on corn to 1s. a quarter—was necessitated by causes which will be immediately referred to. But it will be convenient at once to refer to its other features. Sir Robert Peel told the house that, in his previous budgets, he had given the manufacturers of the country free access to the raw materials which they used. He was entitled in return to call upon them to relinquish the protection which they enjoyed. He decided, therefore, to reduce the protective duties on cotton, woollen, silk, metal and other goods, as well as on raw materials still liable to heavy taxation, such as timber and tallow. As the policy of 1842 and 1845 had proved unquestionably successful in stimulating trade, he proposed to extend it to agriculture. He reduced the duties on the raw materials which the farmers used, such as seed and maize, and in return he called on them to give up the duties on cattle and meat, to reduce largely the duties on butter, cheese and hops, and to diminish the duty on corn by gradual stages to 1s. a quarter. In making these changes Sir Robert Peel avowed that it was his object to make the country a cheap one to live in. There is no doubt that they were followed by a remarkable development of British trade. In the twenty-seven years from 1815 to 1842 the export trade of Great Britain diminished from £49,600,000 to £47,280,000; while in the twenty-seven years which succeeded 1842 it increased from £47,280,000 to nearly £190,000,000. These figures are a simple and enduring monument to the minister’s memory. It is fair to add that the whole increase was not due to free trade. It was partly attributable to the remarkable development of communications which marked this period.
Two other financial measures of great importance were accomplished in Sir Robert Peel’s ministry. In 1844 some £250,000,000 of the national debt still bore an interest of 3½%. The improvement in the credit of the country enabled the government to reduce the interest on the stock to 3¼% for the succeeding ten years, and to 3% afterwards. This conversion, which effected an immediate saving of £625,000, and an ultimate saving of £1,250,000 a year, was by far the most important measure which had hitherto been applied to the debt; and no operation on the same scale was attempted for more than forty years. In the same year the necessity of renewing the charter of the Bank of England afforded Sir Robert Peel an opportunity of reforming the currency. He separated the issue department from the banking department of the bank, and decided that in future it should only be at liberty to issue notes against (1) the debt of £14,000,000 due to it from the government, and (2) any bullion actually in its coffers. Few measures of the past century have been the subject of more controversy than this famous act, and at one time its repeated suspension in periods of financial crises seemed to suggest the necessity of its amendment. But opinion on the whole has vindicated its wisdom, and it has survived all the attacks which have been made upon it.
The administration of Sir Robert Peel is also remarkable for its Irish policy. The Irish, under O’Connell, had constantly supported the Whig ministry of Lord Melbourne. But their alliance, or understanding, with the Whigs Ireland. had not procured them all the results which they had expected from it. The two great Whig measures, dealing with the church and the municipalities, had only been passed after years of controversy, and in a shape which deprived them of many expected advantages. Hence arose a notion in Ireland that nothing was to be expected from a British parliament, and hence began a movement for the repeal of the union which had been accomplished in 1801. This agitation, which smouldered during the reign of the Whig ministry, was rapidly revived when Sir Robert Peel entered upon office. The Irish contributed large sums, which were known as repeal rent, to the cause, and they held monster meetings in various parts of Ireland to stimulate the demand for repeal. The ministry met this campaign by coercive legislation regulating the use of arms, by quartering large bodies of troops in Ireland, and by prohibiting a great meeting at Clontarf, the scene of Brian Boru’s victory, in the immediate neighbourhood of Dublin. They further decided in 1843 to place O’Connell and some of the leading agitators on their trial for conspiracy and sedition. O’Connell was tried before a jury chosen from a defective panel, was convicted on an indictment which contained many counts, and the court passed sentence without distinguishing between these counts. These irregularities induced the House of Lords to reverse the judgment, and its reversal did much to prevent mischief. O’Connell’s illness, which resulted in his death in 1847, tended also to establish peace. Sir Robert Peel wisely endeavoured to stifle agitation by making considerable concessions to Irish sentiment. He increased the grant which was made to the Roman Catholic College at Maynooth; he established three colleges in the north, south and west of Ireland for the undenominational education of the middle classes; he appointed a commission—the Devon commission, as it was called, from the name of the nobleman who presided over it—to investigate the conditions on which Irish land was held; and, after the report of the commission, he introduced, though he failed to carry, a measure for remedying some of the grievances of the Irish tenants. These wise concessions might possibly have had Free trade. some effect in pacifying Ireland, if, in the autumn of 1845, they had not been forgotten in the presence of a disaster which suddenly fell on that unhappy country. The potato, which was the sole food of at least half the people of an overcrowded island, failed, and a famine of unprecedented proportions was obviously imminent. Sir Robert Peel, whose original views on protection had been rapidly yielding to the arguments afforded by the success of his own budgets, concluded that it was impossible to provide for the necessities of Ireland without suspending the corn laws; and that, if they were once suspended, it would be equally impossible to restore them. He failed, however, to convince two prominent members of his cabinet—Lord Stanley and the duke of Buccleuch—that protection must be finally abandoned, and considering it hopeless to persevere with a disunited cabinet he resigned office. On Sir Robert’s resignation the queen sent for Lord John Russell, who had led the Liberal party in the House of Commons with conspicuous ability for more than ten years, and charged him with the task of forming a new ministry. Differences, which it proved impossible to remove, between two prominent Whigs—Lord Palmerston and Lord Grey—made the task impracticable, and after an interval Sir Robert Peel consented to resume power. Sir Robert Peel was probably aware that his fall had been only postponed. In the four years and a half during which his ministry had lasted he had done much to estrange his party. They said, with some truth, that, whether his measures were right or wrong, they were opposed to the principles which he had been placed in power to support. The general election of 1841 had been mainly fought on the rival policies of protection and free trade. The country had decided for protection, and Sir R. Peel had done more than all his predecessors to give it free trade. The Conservative party, moreover, was closely allied with the church, and Sir Robert had offended the church by giving an increased endowment to Maynooth, and by establishing undenominational colleges—“godless colleges” as they were called—in Ireland. The Conservatives were, therefore, sullenly discontented with the conduct of their leader. They were lashed into positive fury by the proposal which he was now making to abolish the corn laws. Lord George Bentinck, who, in his youth, had been private secretary to Canning, but who in his maturer years had devoted more time to the turf than to politics, placed himself at their head. He was assisted by a remarkable man—Benjamin Disraeli—who joined great abilities to great ambition, and who, embittered by Sir Robert Peel’s neglect to appoint him to office, had already displayed his animosity to the minister. The policy on which Sir Robert Peel resolved facilitated attack. For the minister thought it necessary, while providing against famine by repealing the corn laws, to ensure the preservation of order by a new coercion bill. The financial bill and the coercion bill were both pressed forward, and each gave opportunities for discussion and, what was then new in parliament, for obstruction. At last, on the very night on which the fiscal proposals of the ministers were accepted by the Lords, the coercion bill was defeated in the Commons by a combination of Whigs, radicals and protectionists; and Sir R. Peel, worn out with a protracted struggle, placed his resignation in the queen’s hands.
Thus fell the great minister, who perhaps had conferred more benefits on his country than any of his predecessors. The external policy of his ministry had been almost as remarkable as its domestic programme. When he Peel’s foreign policy. accepted office the country was on the eve of a great disaster in India; it was engaged in a serious dispute with the United States; and its relations with France were so strained that the two great countries of western Europe seemed unlikely to be able to settle their differences without war. In the earlier years of his administration the disaster in Afghanistan was repaired in a successful campaign; and Lord Ellenborough, who was sent over to replace Lord Auckland as governor-general, increased the dominion and responsibilities of the East India Company by the unscrupulous but brilliant policy which led to the conquest of Sind. The disputes with the United States were satisfactorily composed; and not only were the differences with France terminated, but a perfect understanding was formed between the two countries, under which Guizot, the prime minister of France, and Lord Aberdeen, the foreign minister of England, agreed to compromise all minor questions for the sake of securing the paramount object of peace. The good understanding was so complete that a disagreeable incident in the Sandwich Islands, in which the injudicious conduct of a French agent very nearly precipitated hostilities, was amicably settled; and the ministry had the satisfaction of knowing that, if their policy had produced prosperity at home, it had also maintained peace abroad.