The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860

by Charles Duke Yonge

  In the same year (1844) the ministers felt compelled to raise a constitutional point of singular refinement, which had the effect of arresting the progress of a bill, in which one part of the kingdom took a lively interest, which a division in its favor proved to be fully shared by the House of Lords.[268] It has been already mentioned that in the last year of the preceding reign a bill had passed for creating, when opportunity offered by the sees affected becoming vacant, two new bishoprics at Ripon and Manchester, the incomes of which were to be provided by the union of some of the smaller existing bishoprics, Gloucester with Bristol, St. Asaph with Bangor. But the Welsh regarded with great disapproval any reduction of the number of bishoprics in the principality, and Lord Powis now brought in a bill to repeal so much of the act as provided for the union of two Welsh sees, urging not only their great extent, which he stated at 3000 square miles of very mountainous country, but the fact that the population of North Wales was steadily and largely increasing. The bill, as has been intimated, was favorably received by the Lords, who passed the second reading by a majority of twelve; but, before it could be read a third time, the Duke of Wellington, as leader of the ministry in that House, announced that the bill was one which touched the prerogative of the crown, and therefore could not be proceeded with without the consent of her Majesty, which he was not authorized to express.

  As the matter was explained by the Chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst, the manner in which the bill touched the royal prerogative was this: as, during the vacancy of any see, its temporalities belonged to the crown, any alterations in a see affected the direct pecuniary interests of the crown, and he, as Speaker of the House, doubted whether he should be justified in putting a question which so touched the royal prerogative without the sovereign's consent. A committee which was appointed to investigate the case fully confirmed the view thus taken by the ministers, and the bill was dropped.

  It was, however, an exercise of the royal prerogative which was received by the House in general with great dissatisfaction. Certainly, since the Civil List and royal income had been placed on their present footing, it was only by a very forced construction that the pecuniary interests of the sovereign could be said to be affected. And it seemed a very insufficient plea for evoking the exercise of a power which, as it was said, had certainly never been exerted before since the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty. Nor was it made more acceptable by the explanation of Lord Brougham, who on this occasion came to the support of the minister, that the refusal of the crown's consent at this stage was "a warning, as it were, a polite and courteous communication between the sovereign, as guardian of the privileges of the crown, and the two Houses of Parliament, that if they passed a certain bill it would not receive the royal assent;" for, though the right to refuse the royal assent to any bill was incontestable, it had not been exercised since the time of William III., and to put it in force for the protection of an imaginary interest of the crown itself would have been so unpopular an exercise of it that no administration could have ventured to advise it.

  One of the arguments which the Duke of Wellington brought forward in the discussion, and which, probably, contributed to induce him thus to strangle Lord Powis's bill, has had an influence on subsequent legislation. He urged that its adoption-since the resolution to establish bishoprics at Manchester and Ripon was one which every one desired to carry out-would increase the number of bishops, "and thus make an organic change in the constitution of the House of Lords." It is not very clear how the addition of a single spiritual peer could have that effect. But the Duke had dwelt upon the same argument before in the debate on the proposed union of the sees affected, urging that there was such a jealousy of the Church in many quarters, and especially in some of the large towns, that it would be very undesirable to pass any measure the effect of which would be to increase the number of Episcopal peers. Even if there was any general reluctance at that time to see such an increase (a fact which was by no means ascertained), it may be doubted whether it was founded on any sufficient reason. It is not easy to see why, when there is no limit to the augmentation of the number of lay peers, it should be judged impolitic or unjust to make even so small an addition to the number of spiritual peers. At the Restoration the spiritual peers were, probably, more than a fifth of the entire House. From the great number of subsequent creations of lay peers they were now less than a sixteenth, so that there could be no ground for apprehending that a slight re-enforcement of the Episcopal bench would disturb the balance, or give the Church an undue preponderating weight in the decisions of the House. The difficulty, however, such as it appeared to the Duke then, has had such weight with subsequent administrations, that a new principle has been established of creating bishoprics which shall not at first confer seats in the Upper House till their holders become entitled to them by seniority. As they are peers from the moment of their consecration, it may be doubted whether this creation of peers, without seats in Parliament, does not deserve the name of "an organic change in the constitution," far more than the addition of one or two ecclesiastical peers to the Episcopal bench; and also whether it has not established a dangerous principle and precedent; the disconnection of bishoprics from seats in Parliament, in even a single instance, seeming to furnish an argument in favor of the exclusion of the whole order, a measure which, if unjust and injurious to the Church, would be at least equally injurious to Parliament itself, and to the whole state.

  But all questions of this kind were presently lost sight of in the excitement produced by the measure which more than any other has stamped Sir Robert Peel's administration with a lasting character, the repeal of the Corn-laws. Many statesmen, even of those who were most in favor of free-trade in other articles of commerce, made an exception in the case of corn, partly from a feeling of the necessity of encouraging agriculture, and partly from a conviction of the danger of in any way contributing to create or increase a dependence on foreign countries for the food of the people. Both Whigs and Tories were generally thus agreed on the necessity of maintaining the principle of protection; the dispute between the two parties being whether it were best achieved by a fixed duty on imported corn, or by what was commonly known as a sliding scale: a scale, that is, which varied inversely with the price of the grain itself, rising as the price in the home market fell, and falling as it rose. In the manufacturing districts a different feeling had prevailed for some years. In the first years of the present reign severe distress in Manchester and others of the chief manufacturing towns had led to the formation of an association whose chief object was sufficiently indicated by its title of the Anti-Corn-law League. At first Mr. Villiers, the member for Wolverhampton, was its principal spokesman in the House of Commons, but at subsequent elections two manufacturers of great eloquence obtained seats, and year after year urged the entire repeal of all duties on corn with great earnestness, though for some time their arguments made but little impression on the House. Their motions were rejected in 1842 by a majority of 300; in 1843 by one exceeding 250; in 1844 by above 200; and in 1845 by one of more than 130 in a much smaller House. But this last division had scarcely been taken when an unprecedented calamity-the almost entire failure of the potato crop, which was attacked in nearly every part of both islands by a new disease, the cause of which is not to this day fully ascertained- suddenly changed the aspect of the subject. To the English farmer and laborer it was a severe loss; to the Irish farmer it was ruin; to the Irish peasant famine. The grain harvest, too, was generally deficient. And it was evident that rigorous measures, promptly taken, were indispensable, if a large portion of the peasantry in the southern and western provinces of Ireland were not to be left to perish of actual starvation. In the face of so terrible an emergency Peel acted with great decision. On his own responsibility he authorized the purchase of a large supply of Indian corn from the United States, hoping, among other indirect effects of such a step, to accustom the Irish to the use of other kinds of food besides the root on which hitherto they had too ex
clusively relied.[269] And he laid before his colleagues in the cabinet a proposal to suspend the existing Corn-law "for a limited period," a measure which all saw must lead to its eventual repeal. It would be superfluous now to recapitulate the discussions which took place, the various alternative proposals which were suggested, or the dissensions in the cabinet to which his proposal gave birth; the resignation of the ministry, and its subsequent resumption of office, when Lord Stanley and Lord John Russell had found it impossible to form an administration. It is sufficient to say that, as soon as Parliament met, Sir Robert brought forward a bill to reduce the duty on corn to four shillings, a price only half of the lowest fixed duty that had ever been proposed before, that reduction, too, being a stepping-stone to the abolition of all duties, at the end of three years, beyond a shilling a quarter, which was to be retained, in order to acquire an accurate knowledge of the quantity of grain imported. The diminution, however, of this duty was not the whole object of his new measure. It included other arrangements which would serve as a compensation to the agriculturists, by relieving them from some of the peculiar burdens to which the land was subjected; and it contained, farther, a reduction or abolition of import duties hitherto levied on many other articles, especially on such as "formed the clothing of the country," on the fair ground that if the removal of protection from the agriculturist were "a sacrifice for the common good," the commercial and manufacturing interests might justly be required to make a similar sacrifice for the same patriotic object.

  Though opposed in both Houses with unusual bitterness, the ministry carried their measure, which, indeed, in all probability, even if the destruction of the potato crop had not come to accelerate the movement, could not have been long delayed, the continual and rapid increase of the population adding yearly strength to the arguments of those who denounced the imposition of any tax which had the effect of increasing the price of the people's food. But, however inevitable it may have been, we are not the less compelled to regard it as indirectly bringing about a great constitutional change, or rather as consummating that which had been commenced by the Reform Bill. Till the year 1832 the territorial aristocracy had exerted a predominating influence in the government of the state. The Reform Bill, which deprived the wealthier land-owners of the greater part of their power at elections, struck the first blow at that influence. The abolition of the Corn-laws inflicted on it a still more decisive wound, by its extinction of the doctrine that there was any such peculiar sacredness about the land and its produce as entitled them to protection beyond that enjoyed by other kinds of property. Placing in that respect the commercial and manufacturing interest on a level with the landed interest, it made us, in a farther and a somewhat different sense from that in which Napoleon had used the phrase, a nation of shopkeepers.[270]

  The repeal of the Corn-laws had another result: it divided the Conservative party, and, as a necessary consequence, led to the downfall of the ministry. The same session which witnessed its success in carrying that repeal witnessed also its defeat on a coercion bill, which they regarded as indispensable for the "protection of life in Ireland," where actual murders had reached the appalling amount of nearly three hundred in two years. The ministry at once resigned, and Lord John Russell had no difficulty in forming an administration, now that the question of the Corn-laws was finally settled. It was, however, no bed of roses to which the new ministry succeeded; the famine in Ireland exceeded the worst anticipations; and, though prodigious efforts were made by the government and Parliament to relieve it, though large sums were placed at the disposal of the Lord-lieutenant, aided by contributions from private sources in England to an enormous amount; though the small remnant of the import duty on corn which had been left on it by the measure of the preceding year was taken off, and the navigation laws suspended, in order that no obstacle interposed to the acquisition of food from every available quarter, it was estimated that more than half a million of people perished through actual famine or the diseases which scarcity brought in its train.[271] A severe monetary crisis was one not unnatural result of this distress, so severe that the Funds fell to a price below any that had been quoted for many years, and the reserve in the Bank of England to an amount lower than it had been at any period since 1828. And these difficulties had hardly been surmounted when a new revolution in France overturned the dynasty of Louis Philippe and established a republic. The revolutionary contagion spread to Italy, where, indeed, the movement had begun. The Pope-Pius IX.-who had but lately succeeded to the tiara, was forced to flee from Rome in the disguise of a foreign courier, after his Prime-minister had been murdered by the mob. Germany was scarcely less disturbed. The administration of Metternich, who had governed Austria with authority little less than absolute for nearly forty years, was overthrown in a tumult in which he himself escaped with difficulty from the violence of the populace; dangerous riots took place at Munich, at Berlin, and at the capitals of most of the smaller principalities, and for some time everything seemed to portend the outbreak of a general war, likely to be the more formidable as being a war of the revolutionary and republican against the monarchical principle. Happily, that danger was averted. The only war which broke out between different nations was a brief contest in the north of Italy, which the superior numbers of the Austrian armies and the skill of Marshal Radetsky, a veteran who had learned the art of war under Suvarof nearly sixty years before, decided in favor of Austria, and which in the spring of 1849 was terminated by a peace on less unfavorable terms to Sardinia than she could well have expected. And in the same season tranquillity was re-established even at Rome, which, from the peculiar character of the Papal power, contained special elements of provocation and danger.

  But, though peace was thus generally maintained, these various events had produced a ferment of spirits which required some time to calm down, and so greatly embarrassed the government, that in the spring of 1852 Lord John Russell's administration was dissolved, and a new ministry was formed by Lord Derby[272]. But the causes which had overthrown his predecessor remained to weaken him; so that for some time it seemed impossible to form a ministry which afforded any promise of stability. Such a rapid succession of changes as ensued had had no parallel since the first years of George III. Between February, 1852, and February, 1855, the country had no fewer than four different Prime-ministers, a fact which was at once both the proof and the parent of weakness in every administration. Lord John Russell had attempted to procure a factitious support in the country by stimulating a fresh demand for parliamentary reform. A year or two before, he had provoked the dissatisfaction of the "Advanced Liberals," as they called themselves, by insisting on the finality of the Reform Bill of 1832, and by advising his followers "to rest and be thankful" for what had been then obtained. But now he began to advance an opinion that that act required "some amendments to carry into more complete effect the principles on which it was founded." He inserted an intimation of that doctrine in the Queen's speech; and endeavored to give effect to it by bringing in a bill to lower the franchise, having, it seems, persuaded himself that a five-pound franchise would create a more Conservative class of voters.[273] He had scarcely introduced it when the fall of his ministry led to its abandonment; but, though it was coldly received by the House of Commons, the idea was taken up by the other political parties, who can hardly be acquitted of having used the question merely as an instrument of party warfare, trying, with an unstatesmanlike indifference to the danger of re-awakening the old frenzy on the subject, to rouse the nation to take an interest in it; but trying in vain. The nation was no longer in the same temper as it had displayed twenty years before. The Reform Bill of 1832 had been demanded and carried with a frantic vehemence of enthusiasm such as could only have been excited by real defects and grievances. But those grievances had been removed and redressed. And the bulk of the people could take no interest in schemes whose sole end seemed to be either to satisfy the theories of some political doctrinaires or to embarrass an adversary; till
at last, as Reform Bill after Reform Bill was framed, brought in, and defeated, or dropped, it became plain, "as the Prince Consort noted in a private memorandum at the end of 1859, that what the country wanted, in fact, was not reform, but a bill to stop the question of Reform."[274] And, at last, the prevalence of this feeling Lord John Russell could not conceal even from himself, but confessed to Lord Palmerston, then Prime-minister, who had always silently discouraged the movement, that "the apathy of the country was undeniable; nor was it a transient humor. It seemed rather a confirmed habit of mind. Four Reform Bills had been introduced of late years by four different governments, and for not one of them had there been the least enthusiasm. The conclusion to which he had come was, that the advisers of the crown of all parties having offered to the country various measures of reform, and the country having shown itself indifferent to them all, the best course which could now be taken was to wait till the country should show a manifest desire for an amendment of the representation."[275]

  There was, however, in these years one subject in which the country did take a real interest; that was the development and extension of the principles of free-trade. On that the national view had become so decided that in 1848 the Parliament even abolished the navigation laws, which had subsisted so long, the first act on the subject dating from the reign of Richard II., that the adherence to the principle contained in them of confining both the export and the import trade of the kingdom, with but few exceptions, to British shipping, seemed almost an essential article of the constitution. It was the dearer, too, to the national prejudices, from the sense universally entertained of the paramount importance of maintaining the pre-eminence of our navy, and from the belief that the commercial marine was a nursery for the royal fleets, with which they could not dispense. But latterly the laws had become unpopular even with some of those who had formerly been supposed to derive the greatest benefit from them. Many of our colonies had complained of their operation, and several of the ablest of our colonial governors had recommended their repeal. They had been found, too, to present frequent and considerable difficulties in our commercial negotiations with other countries, and many naval officers of large experience and sound judgment expressed a decided belief that they were of no practical use to the naval service. The result of a long and able debate was that the laws were repealed, with the exception of that portion of them which preserved the monopoly of the coasting trade to our own seamen and vessels, that exception being chiefly dictated by considerations connected with the prevention of smuggling.