The last measure on ecclesiastical subjects was also chiefly of a financial character, though its details were calculated, some directly, others indirectly, to produce benefits of a still more important nature. The condition of the property of the bishops and the ecclesiastical chapters had long been a subject of censorious remark. The various dioceses differed greatly in extent, as did, therefore, the labors of the diocesans. Some sees contained above 1000, one (London) even above 1200 parishes; others contained under 150. The revenues of some were very large, in one or two instances approaching L20,000 a year, while those of others scarcely exceeded L1000 or L1500 a year, thus affording incomes palpably inadequate to the support of the Episcopal dignity; so inadequate, indeed, that they were generally supplemented by the addition of some better endowed deanery or canonry. It was universally felt that such a deficiency and such a mode of supplying it were in themselves a scandal, which was greatly augmented by the system of translations to which it had given birth. The poorer bishoprics would hardly have been accepted at all had they not been regarded as stepping-stones to others of greater value; and the hope of such promotion had in some cases the not unnatural, however deplorable, effect of making the bishop anxious to please the minister of the day, to whom alone he could look for translation, by parliamentary subservience; and the still more mischievous result (if possible) of rendering the whole Bench liable to the same degrading suspicion; while the canonries and prebends in the different chapters, whose revenues also varied greatly, were in every diocese so numerous that they had become nearly sinecures, the duties rarely exceeding residence for a month, or, at the outside, six weeks in a year.
These abuses (for such they could not be denied to be) had attracted the attention of Sir Robert Peel, who had appointed a commission, of which many of the highest dignitaries of the Church were members, and who, after very careful investigation and deliberation, presented a series of reports on which the ministry framed its measure. They proposed, as has already been mentioned in connection with the labors of Sir Robert Peel, an amalgamation of four of the smaller bishoprics at their next vacancy, in order hereafter to provide for the addition of two new ones at Manchester, or Lancaster, and Ripon, without augmenting the number of bishops. Lord Melbourne apparently feared to provoke the hostility of some of the extreme Reformers, who had recently proposed to deprive the bishops of their seats in the House of Lords, if he should attempt to increase the number of the spiritual peers; though, as their number had been stationary ever since the Reformation, while that of the lay peers had been quadrupled, such an objection hardly seemed entitled to so much consideration. Another clause was directed toward the establishment of greater equality between the revenues of the different bishoprics, a step which, besides its inherent reasonableness and equity, would extinguish the desire of promotion by translation, except in a few specified instances. Various reasons, sufficiently obvious and notorious, rendered the two archbishoprics, and the bishoprics of London, Durham, and Winchester, more costly to the occupants than the other dioceses; and these were, therefore, left in possession of larger revenues than the rest, proportionate to their wider duties or heavier charges. But all the others were to be nearly equal, none exceeding L5500, and none falling below L4500; while the five richer sees were also the only ones to which a prelate could be translated from another diocese. It followed, almost as a matter of course, that the practice of allowing a bishop to hold any other preferment was to cease with the cessation of the cause that had led to such an abuse.
Another part of the bill provided for the suppression of such canonries or prebends as might fairly be considered superfluous. Four were considered sufficient for the proper performance of the duties of each cathedral; and the extinction (after the lives of the present holders) of the rest was designed to form a large fund, to be at the disposal of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners,[243] and to be applied by them chiefly to meet the wants of the more populous parishes in different large towns, for which it had hitherto been difficult to make any provision,[244] by contributing to the erection of additional churches, by increasing the incomes of the incumbents in cases where it was insufficient, or in any other way which the practical experience of the members of the commission might suggest. One very important reform of a different kind was also provided for in the abolition of pluralities, the bill prohibiting the holding of two livings by the same person except they were within ten miles of each other. The measure was objected to by Sir Robert Inglis, who had represented Oxford as the peculiar champion of Protestant and Church principles ever since 1829, and by a party which shared his views, as one calculated to be "fatal to the best interests of the Church." They looked on the property of the Church and everything connected with it as invested with so peculiar a character, that they not only contested the right of Parliament to take any step to diminish its revenues or to change the employment of them, but they even "disputed its right to deprive one class of the clergy of any portion of their revenues for the purpose of distributing it among another." But the distinction thus made between Church property and that of any other public body seems one which can hardly be supported. The purposes for which ecclesiastical chapters or officials have been endowed with possessions and revenues are undoubtedly of a more sacred character than the duties imposed on lay corporations; but that consideration cannot be regarded as affecting the tenure of those possessions, or as inconsistent with the doctrine that they are national property, bestowed by the nation on the Church for the service and advantage of the people; deeply interested not only in the maintenance of an Established Church, but in that Church being in the highest possible degree efficient for its holy objects. Being so bestowed and appropriated, that property must, on every principle of the constitution, be subject to the control of the national Parliament. And surely that control could never be more legitimately exerted than in carrying out the recommendations of a commission which numbered among its members several of the prelates of the Church, whose profession and position were a guarantee for their anxiety to preserve all the rights of the Church which contributed to its credit or efficiency; while their matured experience enabled them better than any other men to judge how to reconcile the maintenance of its dignity with the extension of its usefulness.
Notes:
[Footnote 226: The second resolution affirmed that "this House looks forward to a progressive improvement in the character of the slave population, such as may prepare them for a participation in those civil rights and privileges which are enjoyed by other classes of his Majesty's subjects." (Stapleton's "Life of Canning," iii., 98, where also large extracts from the minister's speech are given.)]
[Footnote 227: Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Demerara were the only British islands which had not separate Legislatures.]
[Footnote 228: Miss Martineau. "History of the Thirty Years' Peace," book iv., c. viii.]
[Footnote 229: Alison, "History of Europe," 2d series, c. xxxi., sec. 74.]
[Footnote 230: In the debate on the Registration Bill, in 1836, Lord John Russell stated that two hundred and twenty eight unions had already been formed in England and Wales, and that it might be calculated that when the whole country was divided into unions the entire number would amount to something more than eight hundred.]
[Footnote 231: See Lord Althorp's speech, of parts of which an abstract is given in the text.-Parliamentary Debates, xxii., April 17.]
[Footnote 232: Lord Althorp made the following frightful statement of the crimes committed in the province of Leinster alone in the last three months of 1832 and the first three of 1833: 207 murders, 271 cases of arson. The assaults attended with grievous personal injury were above 1000; burglaries and robberies, above 3000.]
[Footnote 233: It was often asserted that fourteen-fifteenths of the land in Ireland belonged to Protestants, but this estimate was, probably, an exaggeration.]
[Footnote 234: "Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel," ii., 3, 19.]
[Footnote 235: "Memoirs of Sir Robert
Peel," pp. 31, 32.]
[Footnote 236: "One important question I found practically, and perhaps unavoidably, decided before my arrival, namely, the dissolution of the existing Parliament. Every one seemed to have taken it for granted that the Parliament must be dissolved, and preparations had accordingly been made almost universally for the coming contest."-Peel's Memoirs, ii., 43.]
[Footnote 237: "Middle Ages," ii., 31 seq. See also Stubbs, "Constitutional History," i., 82-92 et seq.]
[Footnote 238: See Hallam's "Constitutional History," ii., 155.]
[Footnote 239: This was a matter of no small importance. The number of boroughs included in the bill was 183, having a population of about two millions. Their annual income was stated by Lord John Russell to be as nearly as possible L2000 a year for each, being L367,000; but their annual expenditure exceeded that amount by L10,000, being L377,000; "besides which there was a debt of L2,000,000 owing by these bodies."]
[Footnote 240: See Hallam, "Middle Ages," ii., 205-207.]
[Footnote 241: "Life of Pitt," ii., 131. Lord Stanhope imagines that the plan was relinquished in consequence of discouraging comments by the Archbishop (Dr. Moore).]
[Footnote 242: These objections were founded on the following calculations, or something similar to them. The tithe was the tenth of the produce. In letting estates it was estimated that a farm ought to produce three rents; in other words, that a farm let at L1 an acre ought to produce yearly L3 an acre. One-tenth of three pounds, or 6s., therefore, was what the clergyman was entitled to claim. Out of this, however, he had to defray the cost of collection, which might, perhaps, be one shilling, leaving him five shillings. But the average of compositions over the whole kingdom was under 2s. 9d., or eleven-twentieths of what he was entitled to; and if augmented by ten per cent., it would not exceed three shillings.]
[Footnote 243: The fund so created was expected to amount to L130,000 a year.]
[Footnote 244: As instances of the want of church-room in such towns, Lord John cited the dioceses of London, Chester, York, Lichfield, and Coventry, containing a population of 2,590,000 persons, with church accommodation for only 276,000, or one-ninth of the population; the Commissioners, from whose report he was quoting, reckoning that church-room ought to be provided for one-third.]
CHAPTER XI. Death of William IV., and Accession of Queen Victoria.-Rise of the Chartists.-Resignation of Lord Melbourne in 1839, and his Resumption of Office.-Marriage of the Queen, and Consequent Arrangements.-The Precedence of the Prince, etc.-Post-office Reform.-War in Afghanistan.-Discontent in Jamaica.-Insurrection in Canada.-New Constitution for Canada and other Colonies.-Case of Stockdale and Hansard.
The reforms mentioned in the preceding chapter were the last measures of the reign of William IV. In the summer of the next year, 1837, he died, and was succeeded in his British, though not in his Hanoverian, dominions by our present gracious sovereign, who had only just arrived at the age which entitled her to exercise the full authority of the crown. The change was calculated to strengthen the crown, by enlisting the chivalrous feelings of all that was best in the nation in the support of a youthful Queen, and in a lesser degree it for a time strengthened the ministry also; but, with respect to the latter, the feeling did not last long. For the next three years the summers were very unfavorable to the farmer; the harvests were bad; the inevitable accompaniment of a rise in prices had caused severe and general distress, and distress had produced clamorous discontent, and in some districts formidable riots. It had been greatly aggravated in the manufacturing counties by the operations of the trades-unions, which had gradually put forth pretensions to regulate the wages and other conditions of work, and had enforced them with such tyrannical violence, not flinching from the foulest crimes, that in many instances they had driven the masters to close their factories rather than submit to their mandates; and in others had compelled the workmen themselves to discontinue their labors, thus spreading destitution among thousands whose earnings, if they had been allowed to consult their own wishes, would have been amply sufficient for the support of their families;[245] and the evil had grown to such a height, that in 1838 a committee was appointed by the House of Commons to investigate the whole subject of trade combinations. But the turbulent spirit excited by this distress did not now confine itself to single outbreaks of violence, but, under the guidance of some demagogues of a more methodical turn of mind than usual, developed itself in a systematic organization having for its object what they called "the people's charter," which aimed at a total revolution of the existing parliamentary system, with the avowed design that, when adopted, it should eventually lead to an entire reconstruction of the government. The Chartists, as they called themselves, had advocates even in Parliament, who presented their petitions to the House of Commons, and tried, though unsuccessfully, to give them importance by the appointment of a committee to investigate the character of the reforms which they demanded. They were not, however, contented with peaceful modes of pressing their demands, but, in the course of the summer of 1839, broke out in formidable riots in different parts of the country. At Birmingham they set fire to different parts of the town, carrying on their work of pillage and destruction to such a pitch that the Duke of Wellington compared the condition of the town to one taken by storm in regular warfare; and at Newport, in Monmouthshire, they even planned and carried out an attack on the troops quartered in the district. But this violence led for a time to the suppression of the movement, the leaders in the Newport riots being convicted of high-treason; and, though the government forbore to put the extreme severities of the law in force against them, those who remained unconvicted had been taught by their example the danger which they incurred by such proceedings; and some years elapsed before a series of revolutionary troubles on the Continent again gave a momentary encouragement to those in this country who sympathized with the revolutionists, and prompted them to another attempt to force their views upon the government and the people.
It had nearly, however, been another ministry on whom the task of quelling these riots had fallen. Though, as has been already said, Lord Melbourne's cabinet derived a momentary strength from the accession of a young Queen, the support it thus acquired did not last; and in May, 1839, having been defeated on a measure of colonial policy, which will be mentioned hereafter, the cabinet resigned. The Queen intrusted the task of forming a new administration to Sir Robert Peel, who undertook it with a reasonable confidence that he should be able to hold his ground better than formerly, now that the retirement of his predecessors was their own act, and admitted by them to have been caused by a consciousness of the divisions among their supporters and their own consequent weakness. He had the greater reason for such confidence, since two of the colleagues of Lord Grey who had refused his offers in 1834, Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, were now willing to unite with him; and he had almost completed his arrangements, when he was stopped by an unexpected, though not altogether unprecedented, impediment. It will be recollected that, in 1812, some of the arrangements for the formation of a new administration on the death of Mr. Perceval were impeded by a doubt which was felt in some quarters whether the new ministers would be allowed to remove one or two officers of the household, to whom the Regent was generally understood to be greatly attached, but who were hostile to the party which hoped to come into power, though it was afterward known that these officers had felt themselves bound to retire as soon as the arrangements in contemplation should be completed.[246] Sir Robert Peel was now met by a difficulty of the same kind, but one which the retiring ministers had the address to convert into a real obstacle. The Queen, who had warm affections, but who could not possibly have yet acquired any great knowledge of business, had become attached to the ladies whom Lord Melbourne had appointed to the chief places in her household. It had never occurred to her to regard their offices in a political light; and, consequently, when she found that Sir Robert considered it indispensable that some changes should be made in those appointments, she at onc
e refused her consent, terming his proposal one "contrary to usage and repugnant to her feelings." Sir Robert, however, felt bound to adhere to his request for the removal of some of the ladies in question; for, in fact, they were the wives and sisters of his predecessors, and a continuance of their daily intercourse with the Queen might reasonably be expected to have some influence over her Majesty's judgment of the measures which he might feel it his duty to propose. Such a difficulty could not have arisen under a male sovereign; but Lord Melbourne himself had departed from the ordinary practice when he surrounded his royal mistress with ladies so closely identified with his cabinet. It is very possible that he had originally made the appointments without any such design, from the careless indifference which was his most marked characteristic; but he cannot be so easily acquitted when, in reply to the Queen's application to him for advice on the subject, he, being joined in his assertion by Lord John Russell, assured her that Sir Robert Peel's demand was unjustifiable and unprecedented. Supported by the positive dictum of the ministers on whose judgment she had hitherto been bound to rely, the Queen naturally adhered to her decision of refusing to permit the removal of the ladies in question, and the result was that Sir Robert Peel declined to take office under circumstances of difficulty beyond those to which every new minister must of necessity be exposed, and Lord Melbourne and his colleagues resumed their posts. The transaction was, of course, canvassed in both Houses of Parliament. Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington, who was the spokesman of the party in the House of Lords, defended their refusal to undertake the government on any other condition than that for which they had stipulated, on the ground that the authority to make such changes in the household as they had proposed was indispensable, as a proof of their possession of her Majesty's confidence; while Lord Melbourne, with a strange exaggeration, defended the advice which he had given her Majesty by the assertion that to have complied with Sir Robert Peel's proposal would have been "inconsistent with her personal honor." Other arguments on the same side were based on the alleged cruelty of separating her Majesty "from the society of her earliest friends, her old and constant companions;" an argument which was disposed of by Lord Brougham's remark, that till she had become Queen (not yet two years before) she had had no acquaintance with them whatever.[247]
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