The session closed with a motion by Dundas for the restoration of the Scottish estates forfeited for the rebellion of 1745. The bill was unanimously approved by the commons. Thurlow, who for some reason, possibly merely from jealousy of Pitt, adopted a generally malcontent attitude, spoke against it in the lords, but it passed there also without a division. Before the end of the year Pitt's success was declared by the accession to his ministry of old Lord Camden as president of the council in the place of Lord Gower, who took the office of privy seal, vacated by the appointment of the Duke of Rutland as viceroy of Ireland in the previous February. Shelburne, who was deeply offended by his continued exclusion from office, was created Marquis of Lansdowne with the promise that, if the king made any dukes outside his own family, he should be one of the number. He was not appeased by this promotion, and remained hostile to Pitt, who would have been weakened by his alliance and lost nothing by his hostility. Temple, who also aspired to a dukedom, was created Marquis of Buckingham, and was encouraged to hope that his ambition might in the future be fully satisfied. The session closed on August 20. Parliament did not meet again until January 25, 1785, and from that time the custom of beginning the regular session before Christmas has been discontinued.

PITT'S PARLIAMENTARY REFORM BILL.

As Pitt had already twice brought forward motions for parliamentary reform, in 1782 and 1783, the friends of the cause looked to him to promote it as head of the ministry. The question was not at that time exciting much public interest. The king was personally opposed to reform, and it was not until March, 1785, that Pitt obtained his assent to the introduction of a bill. He promised the king that if it was rejected he would not resign, unless "those supposed to be connected with government" voted against it. George took the hint, and while he expressed dislike of the bill to Pitt, assured him that he would not use any influence against it. Pitt did his best to insure the success of his bill, and even persuaded his friend Wilberforce to return from abroad to support it. He brought forward his motion on April 18. After defending himself from the charge of innovation by pointing out that in past ages changes had frequently been made in the representation, he laid down that the representation of boroughs should depend not on locality but on the number of voters. He proposed to disfranchise thirty-six decayed boroughs, and to add their seventy-two members to the representation of counties and of London and Westminster. The boroughs were to be disfranchised at their own request, which was to be obtained by the purchase of their franchise from a fund provided by the state. In the future any other borough which was, or became, so decayed as to fall below a standard fixed by parliament, was to be allowed to surrender its franchise for an adequate payment, and its right would be transferred to populous towns. He further proposed to extend the franchise to copyholders, and in towns to householders.

According to his plan £1,000,000 sterling was to be set aside for compensation; 100 members would eventually be chosen by free and open constituencies instead of by individuals or close corporations, and some 99,000 persons would receive the franchise. North spoke ably against the motion, dwelling on the coldness with which the country regarded the question; only eight petitions for reform were presented, and none came from Birmingham or Manchester. Fox opposed it on the ground that the franchise was a trust, not a property, and that to offer to buy it was contrary to the spirit of the constitution; and Burke objected to the alteration which it would make in the representation of interests by increasing the influence of the country gentlemen. Pitt allowed that the scheme of purchase was a "tender part"; it was, he said, "a necessary evil if any reform was to take place". Leave to bring in the bill was refused by 248 to 174. Pitt had not yet secured an organised majority. Connexion and influence had not wholly given way to a system of parties founded on general agreement on political questions. There is no reason to suppose that the king broke his promise to Pitt, but his dislike of reform must have been well known, and probably had much weight. Pitt made no more attempts at parliamentary reform, and for the next seven years the question was of little importance in English politics.

REFORM DEMANDED IN IRELAND.

The chief conflict of the session was fought over Pitt's scheme for establishing free-trade with Ireland. An agitation for parliamentary reform in Ireland brought into prominence a spirit of discontent. The Irish parliament did not represent even the protestant population; the house of lords was composed of a large number of bishops, generally subservient to the crown, and of lay lords, many of them lately ennobled for political service; the house of commons of 300 members, scarcely a third of them elected by the people. Flood urged reform on a strictly protestant basis, and the cause of reform was supported by a convention of volunteers assembled at Dublin under Lord Charlemont. The Bishop of Derry, Lord Bristol, a vain and half-crazy prelate, advocated the admission of catholics to the franchise, and tried to excite the volunteers, who were then no longer exclusively protestant, and were recruited from the rabble, to extort reform from parliament by force. He attended parliament with an escort of volunteers and in regal state, and appeared in a purple coat and volunteer cap fiercely cocked. His seditious behaviour, the claim made for the catholics, and the violence of the democratic party caused a division among the volunteers and among the advocates of reform generally. Charlemont and Flood himself checked the violent party in the convention, which was dissolved peacefully. Flood's motions for reform were rejected, and the volunteer movement lost political importance. Pitt regarded parliamentary reform in Ireland as certain if it were adopted in England, and was prepared to welcome it, but was at that time determined to maintain the exclusion of the catholics from the franchise. The Irish administration was opposed to a change of system, and the Duke of Rutland, the viceroy, a young man of great ability, held that the state of the country would render it dangerous. The defeat of Flood's last attempt at reform, in 1785, left the Irish parliament as before without "the smallest resemblance to representation".[192]

In face of the threatened interference in politics of an armed force, of discontent and disloyalty, and foreseeing difficulties in the future between the independent Irish parliament and the imperial government, Rutland prophesied in 1784 that "without an union Ireland would not be connected with Great Britain in twenty years longer".[193] Pitt hoped to pacify discontent by benefiting Irish trade, and to unite the two countries by a community of interest. His plan, to which he attached more importance than to Irish reform, though commercial in character, was based on a lofty political conception; it was designed to promote "the prosperity of the empire at large".[194] North's concessions to Ireland in 1779 and the subsequent establishment of Irish legislative independence left both countries at liberty to regulate each its own trade. Ireland admitted English goods free or at low duties; and England shut out most Irish manufactures, though admitting linen, the manufacture of which was encouraged by a bounty, and, for her own convenience, woollen yarn free of duty. Ireland, too, though enabled to trade directly with the English colonies, could neither send their products to England nor buy them from England. Pitt designed to establish perpetual free trade between England and Ireland, and as Ireland would be the gainer by the change, he proposed that in return she should contribute a fixed sum to the naval defence of the empire. Rutland, who saw that sending money to England would be violently opposed, suggested that the contribution should be spent on a portion of the navy to be kept on the Irish coasts. In words which it is well to remember, Pitt pointed out that "there can be but one navy for the empire at large, and it must be administered by the executive in this country".[195] The resolutions he sent over to be presented to the Irish parliament provided that the contribution should come from the surplus which the grant of free trade would create in the hereditary revenue of the crown, for, as that revenue was chiefly made up of customs and excise, the payment would be in exact proportion to the benefits conferred by the change.

PITT'S RESOLUTIONS ON IRISH COMMERCE.

As, however, Ireland had a heavy debt, which was largely due to the extravagance of government, Grattan insisted that the contribution should depend on the yearly equalisation of the revenue with the expenses. The Irish government yielded to his demand, and with that change the resolutions were carried. Pitt brought them before the English house of commons on February 22 in a speech of remarkable power. Fox, who had long been hoping "to make his harvest from Ireland,"[196] opposed them as injurious to British manufacture. The manufacturers at once took the alarm; a petition with 80,000 signatures was sent up from Lancashire against the resolutions, and a "chamber of manufacturers," with Wedgwood as president, vigorously protested against them. English manufactures, it was asserted, would be undersold and ruined by goods produced by cheap labour in Ireland. After evidence had been heard on the matter for twelve weeks, Pitt saw that he must modify his scheme. On May 12 he brought forward a new set of resolutions less generous to Ireland, and providing that in commercial legislation the Irish parliament should perpetually be bound by the parliament of Great Britain. Fox, North, and Sheridan vehemently opposed them, and Fox denounced the whole plan as an attempt to lure Ireland to surrender her liberty. "I will not," said he, "barter English commerce for Irish slavery; that is not the price I would pay, nor is this the thing I would purchase." Nevertheless after long and warm debates, Pitt triumphantly carried his resolutions. The speeches of Fox and Sheridan found a loud echo in the Irish parliament; Grattan, in an impassioned speech, condemned the new resolutions, and they passed the commons only by 127 to 108. So strong an expression of adverse feeling forced Pitt to abandon his scheme. Thus was his wise and hopeful attempt to encourage Irish trade and strengthen the bond between the two countries wrecked by the factiousness of the opposition, the selfishness of the manufacturers in England, and the susceptibility of the Irish liberal party. Fox's opposition to free trade with Ireland brought him a temporary return of popularity in the manufacturing districts.

Pitt's command of the house of commons was still uncertain. In February, 1786, he was defeated on a bill for fortifying the dockyards at Plymouth and Portsmouth. His defeat was largely due to the unpopularity of the Duke of Richmond, the author of the plan, who had not gained in general esteem by deserting his former party, and to the old prejudice against increasing the military power of the crown. Yet it illustrates Pitt's position at the time. It was a "loose parliament"; the majority voted every man as he had a mind; Pitt had yet to bind his party together, and his cold and repellent manners still hindered him from making friends.[197] His power was strengthened in this session by the general approval elicited by his bill for the reduction of the national debt by means of a sinking fund. In forming his plan he received much help from Price, a nonconformist minister, distinguished as a writer on financial questions. When introducing his bill he was able to show that the public revenue would exceed the expenditure by about £900,000, which he proposed to raise to £1,000,000 by some new taxes not of a burdensome nature, ample resources existing to meet a temporary excess in naval and military expenditure caused by the late war. That the revenue would continue to improve seemed assured by the increase in the customs due to Pitt's measures against smuggling. Government might reckon on at least £1,000,000 surplus, and that sum he proposed to make the foundation of his new sinking fund. Unlike the sinking fund established by Sir Robert Walpole in 1716, which had from time to time been diverted to other purposes, his fund was to be kept inviolate in war as well as in peace, and applied solely to the discharge of debt. To secure this, he proposed that in every quarter of each succeeding year £250,000 should be paid to six commissioners of high position, and should be used by them in the purchase of stock. The interest of such stock, together with the savings effected by the expiration of annuities, was to be invested periodically in the same way. The fund thus created would then accumulate at compound interest and become a sinking fund for the extinction of the national debt.