Chapter X (1)

Abolition of Slavery.--Abridgment of the Apprenticeship.--The East India Company's Trade is Thrown Open.--Commencement of Ecclesiastical Reforms.--The New Poor-law.--State of Ireland.--Agitation against Tithes.--Coercion Bill.--Beginning of Church Reform.--Sir Robert Peel becomes Prime-minister.--Variety of Offices held Provisionally by the Duke of Wellington.--Sir Robert Peel Retires, and Lord Melbourne Resumes the Government.--Sir Robert Peel Proposes a Measure of Church Reform.--Municipal Reform.--Measures of Ecclesiastical Reform.

Apart from the consideration of the abstract principle, on which the advocates of Parliamentary Reform had insisted, of the light of many classes hitherto unrepresented to representation, they had also dwelt on the practical advantage which might be expected to ensue from the greater degree in which public opinion would henceforth be brought to bear on the action of the Houses, and, by a natural consequence, on the administrative government also. And the bill had hardly passed when this result began to show itself, not only in transactions of domestic legislation, but in others which affected our most remote dependencies, both in the East and West. We have seen in a previous chapter how Wilberforce, after twenty years of labor and anxiety, reaped the reward of his virtuous exertions in the abolition of the slave-trade. But he had not ventured to grapple with the institution which gave birth to that trade, the employment of slaves in our West India Islands. Yet it was an evil indefensible on every ground that could possibly be alleged. It was not only a crime and an injustice, but it was an anomaly, and a glaring inconsistency, in any British settlement. The law, as we have seen, had been laid down as absolutely settled, that no man within the precincts of the United Kingdom could be a slave; that, even had such been his previous condition, the moment his foot touched English soil he became a free man. By what process of reasoning, then, could it be contended that his right to liberty according to English law depended on what portion of the British dominion he was in--that what was incompatible with his claims as a human being in Kent ceased to be so in Jamaica? The sentiment that what was just or unjust in one place was just or unjust in every place; that a man's right to freedom did not depend on the country of his birth or the color of his skin, had naturally and logically been widely diffused and fostered by the abolition of the slave-trade. It was but a small step from admitting that there could be no justification for making a man a slave, to asserting that there was an equal violation of all justice in keeping one in slavery; and this conclusion was strengthened by tales, which were continually reaching those most interested in the subject, of oppression and cruelty practised by the masters, or oftener by their agents and overseers, on the unfortunate beings over whom they claimed power and right as absolute as any owner could pretend to over any description of property. They made so general an impression that, ten years before the time at which we have now arrived, a society had been formed in London whose object was the immediate extinction of slavery in every British settlement; and Canning, then Secretary of State, had entered warmly into the general object of the society; not, indeed, thinking the instant abolition practicable, but inducing Parliament to pass a body of resolutions in favor of at once improving the condition of the slaves, as the best and necessary preparation for their entire enfranchisement;[226] and the next year, 1824, the subject was recommended to the attention of the Houses in the King's speech, and an Order in Council was issued enjoining the adoption of a series of measures conceived in the spirit of those resolutions, among which one was evidently meant as a precursor of the slaves' entire emancipation, since it gave the "negro who had acquired sufficient property" a title "to purchase his own freedom and that of his wife and family." And it was, probably, from regarding it in this light that the planters (as the owners of estates in the West Indies were generally called) selected that provision as the object of their most vehement remonstrances. But, though they were not so open in their remonstrances against the other clauses of the order, they did worse, they disregarded them; and the stories of the ill-treatment of the slaves were neither less frequent nor less revolting than before.

Fresh Orders in Council, avowedly designed as the stepping-stones to eventual emancipation, were issued; and one which reached the West Indies at the end of 1831 was, unhappily, so misconstrued by the slaves in Jamaica, who regarded it as recognizing their right to instant liberation, that, when their masters refused to treat it as doing so, they broke out into a formidable insurrection, which was not quelled without great loss of life and destruction of property. The planters were panic-stricken; many of them, indeed, were almost ruined. The colonial Legislatures,[227] which had been established in the greater part of the islands, addressed the ministers with strong protests against the last Order in Council; and the mischief which had confessedly been already done, and the farther mischief which was not unreasonably dreaded, were so great that the cabinet consented to suspend it for a while; and the House of Commons made a practical confession that the planters were entitled to sympathy as well as the slaves, by voting nearly a million of money to compensate those of Jamaica for their recent losses.

But out-of-doors the feeling rather was that the insurrection had been caused, not by the unreasoning though natural impatience for freedom entertained by the negro--whom Canning had truly described as "possessing the form and strength of a man, but the intellect of a child"--but by the slackness and supineness of the local Legislature, too much under the influence of the timid clamors of the planters to listen to the voice of justice and humanity, which demanded to the full as emphatically, if somewhat less vociferously, the immediate deliverance of the slave. The object, however, thus desired was not so free from difficulty as it seemed to those zealous but irresponsible advocates of universal freedom; for, in the first place the slaves were not the only persons to be considered; the planters also had an undoubted right to have their interests protected, since, however illegitimate property in human beings might be, it was certain that its existence in that portion of the King's dominions had been recognized by Parliament and courts of justice for many generations, and that suddenly to withdraw a sanction and abrogate a custom thus established, and, as it might fairly be believed, almost legalized by time, would be not only ruinous to the planters, who would have no other means of cultivating their lands, but, as being ruinous to them, would also manifestly be most unjust. Even in the interests of the slaves themselves, instant emancipation before they were fit for it might prove to them a very doubtful blessing. The state, too, and the general interests of the kingdom had to be considered, for the shipping employed in the West India trade, and the revenue derived by the Imperial Exchequer from it, were both of great amount. It was a very complicated question, and required very cautious handling; but it was plain that the people were greatly excited on the subject. One or two of the ministers themselves had deeply pledged themselves to their constituents to labor for the cessation of slavery; and eventually, though by no means blind to the difficulty of arriving at a thoroughly safe solution of the question, the ministry decided that "delay was more perilous than decision," and they brought in a bill, in which they endeavored to combine the three great objects--justice to the slave, by conferring on him that freedom to which he, in common with all mankind, had an inviolable right; justice to the slave-owner, by compensating him fairly for the loss of what (however originally vicious the practice may have been) he was entitled by long usage and more than one positive law to regard as property; and a farther justice to the slave, that justice which consists in being careful so to confer benefits as to do the greatest amount of good to the recipient. The first object was attained by enacting that those who had hitherto been slaves should be free; the third was arrived at by making the freedom thus given, not instantaneous, but by leading them to it, and preparing them for its proper and useful enjoyment, by a system of apprenticeship. The slave was to be apprenticed to his master for seven years, receiving, partly in money and partly in kind, a certain fair amount of wages, and having also one-fourth of his time absolutely at his own disposal. And the second was secured by granting the planters the magnificent sum of twenty millions of money, as compensation for the injury done to them; or, in other words, as purchase-money for the property they were compelled to surrender. The apprenticeship system did not wholly succeed. The slaves were not sufficiently enlightened to appreciate the character of the new arrangement; and, as the light in which it appeared to them was rather that of deferring than of securing their emancipation, it made them impatient rather than thankful. In the majority of cases it proved difficult to induce them to work even three-fourths of their time, and eventually the planters themselves were driven to the conclusion that it was best to abridge the period of apprenticeship. By the act of the colonial Legislatures themselves it was shortened by two years, and the emancipation was completed on the 1st of August, 1838.

Still, though on this single point the success of the scheme did not fully correspond to the hopes of those who had framed it, it was one which did great honor to their ingenuity as well as to their philanthropy (Lord Stanley, as Colonial Secretary, being the minister to whose department it belonged). And the nation itself is fairly entitled to no small credit for its cordial, ungrudging approval of a measure of such unprecedented liberality. Indeed, the credit deserved was frankly allowed it by foreign countries. To quote the language of an eloquent historian of the period, "the generous acquiescence of the people under this prodigious increase of their burdens has caused the moralists of other nations to declare that the British Act of Emancipation stands alone for moral grandeur in the history of the world."[228] And, in respect of the personal liberty of the subject, it may be said to have completed the British constitution; establishing the glorious principle, that freedom is not limited to one part of our sovereign's dominions, to these islands alone, but that in no part of the world in which the British flag is erected can any sort of slavery exist for a single moment.

The abolition of the political authority of the East India Company, which took place some years after the time at which we have arrived, and which will be mentioned in a subsequent chapter, would make it unnecessary to mention the renewal of its charter, which took place at this time, were it not that the force of public opinion again made itself felt in some important limitations of its previous rights. The monopoly of the trade with China which the Company had hitherto enjoyed was resented as an injustice by the great body of our merchants and ship-owners, who contended that all British subjects had an equal right to share in advantages which had been won by British arms. The government and Parliament adopted their view, and the renewed charter extinguished not only that monopoly, but even the Company's exclusive trading privileges in India itself, though these, like the rights of the West India planters over their slaves, were purchased of it by an annuity for forty years, which was estimated as an equivalent for the loss of profit which must result to the proprietors of the Company's stock from the sudden alteration. It cannot be said that any constitutional principle was involved in what was merely a commercial regulation, or relaxation of such regulations. Yet it may not be thought inopportune to mention the transaction thus briefly, as one important step toward the establishment of free-trade, which, at the end of fifty years from the time when Pitt first laid the foundation of it, was gradually forcing itself on all our statesmen, as the only sound principle of commercial intercourse between nations. The laborious historian of Europe during these years finds fault with the arrangements now made, but only on the ground that they did not go far enough in that direction; that, while "everything was done to promote the commercial and manufacturing interests of England, nothing was done for those of Hindostan;"[229] that, "while English cotton goods were admitted for a nominal duty into India, there was no corresponding advantage thought of to the industry of India in supplying the markets of the country." The objection was not unfounded; but the system of which it complains was too one-sided to be long maintained, and in less than ten years a great financial reform had swept away the great mass of import duties, and so far had placed the Indian manufacturer on the same level with his fellow-subjects of English blood.

The disturbances which agitated the first years of the reign of William IV. were not caused solely by the excitement attendant on the passing of the Reform Bill. There had been extensive agricultural distress in England, which had shown itself in an outbreak of new crimes, the burning of ricks in the farm-yards, and the destruction of machinery, to which the peasantry were persuaded by designing demagogues to attribute the scarcity of employment. But statesmen of both parties were agreed in believing that a great deal of the poverty which, especially in the agricultural counties, had become the normal condition of the laborer, might be ascribed to the pernicious working of the Poor-law, which subsisted with scarcely any alteration as it had been originally enacted in the reign of Elizabeth. There was even reason to doubt whether the slight changes which had been made had been improvements. If they had been in the direction of increased liberality to the poor man who needed parish relief, and had to some extent lessened his discomforts, they had at the same time tended greatly to demoralize both him and his employer, by introducing a system of out-door relief, which, coupled with the practice of regarding such relief as a legitimate addition to wages, led the former to feel no shame at underpaying his workmen, and the workman to feel no shame at depending on the parish for a portion of his means of subsistence. It was not to be wondered at that under such a system the poor-rates gradually rose to the prodigious amount of seven millions and a quarter of money; or that the rate-payers began to clamor against such a state of things, as imposing on them a burden beyond their power to bear. It was evident that it was an evil which imperatively demanded a remedy; and accordingly one of the first objects to which Lord Grey's Cabinet turned its attention after the completion of the Reform Bill was the amendment of the Poor-law.

The scheme which in the spring of 1834 they introduced to Parliament was the first instance of the adoption in this country of that system of centralization which has long been a favorite with some of the Continental statesmen, but which is not equally in harmony with the instincts of our people, generally more attached to local government. But, if ever centralization could commend itself to the English mind, it might well be when a new law and a new principle of action were to be introduced, in the carrying out of which uniformity of practice over the whole kingdom was especially desirable. Accordingly, the government bill proposed the establishment of a Board of Commissioners to whom the general administration of the Poor-laws over the whole kingdom was to be intrusted. They were to have power to make rules and regulations as to the mode or modes of relief to be given, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, that thus the establishment of one uniform system over the whole country might be secured. Power was to be given to unite several parishes into one union, and to erect large workhouses for the several parishes thus massed together;[230] and every union was to be under the management of boards of guardians, elected by the rate-payers of the different parishes, with the addition of the resident magistrates as ex officio guardians. Lord Althorp, who introduced the bill, admitted that such extensive powers as he proposed to confer on the Board of Commissioners were "an anomaly in the constitution," but pleaded the necessity of the case as their justification, since it was indispensable to vest a discretionary power somewhere, and the government was too fully occupied with the business of the nation, while the local magistrates would be destitute of the sources of information requisite to form a proper opinion on the subject. The commissioners alone, being exclusively devoted to the subject, and being alone in possession of all the information that could be collected, were really the only body who could fairly be trusted to form correct opinions on it.[231] The fact of the creation of such a board being "an anomaly," or, as it might rather have been called, a novelty in the constitution, does not seem an insuperable objection, unless it were also inconsistent or at variance with the fundamental principles of the constitution, and that can hardly be alleged in this instance. It is true that local management, whether its range were wide or narrow, whether covering the business of a county or limited to a single parish, had been the general rule; but, like every other arrangement for the conduct of affairs of any kind, that local management was inherently subject to the supreme authority and interference of Parliament. Nor, as the maintenance of this Parliamentary authority, as the supreme referee in the last resource, was provided for by the subordination of the commissioners for the approval of their regulations to the Secretary of State, does it seem that the arrangement now proposed and adopted can be said to have been inconsistent with constitutional principle. And the necessity for some change of that nature was clearly made out by the abuses which, undeniably, had been suffered to grow up under the old system.

If the habitual condition of the Irish peasant were to be taken into account, it would be correct to say that there was less distress at this time in England than in Ireland; but there was still greater discontent, and infinitely more of dangerous disturbance. Catholic Emancipation had stimulated the agitators, not pacified them; they regarded it as a triumph over the English government; and, being so, as at once a reason for demanding, and a means of extorting, farther concessions. But this notion of theirs, when inculcated on the peasantry, bore terrible fruit, in such an increase of crime as had probably never been known in any country in the world. In the provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught murders, deeds of arson, and rapine were of far more than daily occurrence.[232] Lord Althorp asserted in the House of Commons that more lives had been sacrificed in Ireland by murder in the preceding year than in one of Wellington's victories. And what was, if possible, a still worse symptom of the disposition of the common people, was exhibited in the impossibility of bringing the criminals, even when well known, to justice. Jurors held back from the assizes, witnesses who had seen murders committed refused to give evidence. The Roman Catholic prelates, and the higher class of the Roman Catholic clergy--most of whom, greatly to their credit, exerted themselves to check this fearful progress of wickedness--found their denunciations unheeded; while O'Connell, in his place in the House of Commons, used language which to an ignorant and ferocious peasantry looked almost like a justification of it, affirming it to be caused wholly by the "unjust and ruinous policy of the government" in refusing to abolish tithes. It was not the first time that the existence of tithe had been alleged as an Irish grievance. In the three southern provinces by far the greater portion of the tenantry were Roman Catholics, and they had long been complaining that they were forced to pay for the support of the Protestant clergyman of their parish, whose ministrations they could not attend, as well as for the maintenance of their own priest, whose livelihood depended on their contributions. According to strict political economy, there could be no doubt that the burden of the tithe fell, not on the tenant, but on the landlord, in the calculation of whose rent the amount of tithe to which each holding was liable was always taken into consideration; and that being the true doctrine, it was equally plain that in reality the Protestant clergy were paid, not by Roman Catholics, but by Protestants, since it was not disputed that by far the greater part of the land-owners in every province were Protestants.[233] But an ignorant peasant is no student of political economy or of logic; and the fact that the payment of the tithe passed through his hands was in his eyes, an incontrovertible proof that it came out of his pocket. The discontent had gradually begotten an organized resistance to the payment, and the mischief of allowing the continuance of such a state of feeling and conduct, which was manifestly likely to impair the respect for all law, made such an impression on the government that, in the royal speech with which he opened the session of 1832, the King recommended the whole subject to the consideration of Parliament, urging the Houses to inquire "whether it might not be possible to effect improvements in the laws respecting this subject."

In compliance with this recommendation, committees were appointed by both Houses; and the result of their investigations was a recommendation that a new arrangement should be made, under which the tithe should be commuted to a rent-charge. Accordingly, the next year the ministers proceeded to give effect to this recommendation. But they reasonably judged that an alteration of a particular law in compliance with the clamor raised against it would be a concession pregnant with mischief to the principle of all government, if it were not accompanied, or rather preceded, by a vindication of the majesty of all law; and therefore the first measure affecting Ireland, which they brought in in 1833, was a "Coercion Bill," which empowered the Lord-lieutenant not only to suppress the meetings of any assembly or association which he might consider dangerous to the public peace, but also to declare by proclamation any district in which tumults and outrages were rife to be "in a disturbed state;" and in districts thus proclaimed no person was to be permitted to be absent from his house from an hour after sunset to sunrise. Houses might be searched for arms, martial law was to be established, and courts-martial held for the trial of all offences except felonies; and the _Habeas Corpus_ Act was suspended for three months. O'Connell and his party protested with great vehemence against such an enactment, as a violation of every right secured to the subject by the constitution. And a bill which suspended the ordinary courts of justice must be admitted to have been incompatible with the constitution as commonly understood and enjoyed. But if the measure thus proposed was extraordinary, the state of affairs which had led to its proposal was so also in a far greater degree. The records of no nation had ever presented such a fearful catalogue of crimes as was now laid before the Parliament, and at such a crisis the statesmen to whom the tranquillity of the country and the safety of the citizens were intrusted were undoubtedly called upon to go back from the letter of the constitution to that which is the primary object of every constitution--the safety of those who live under it. _Salus populi suprema lex_. And the argument of necessity was regarded, and rightly regarded, by both Houses of Parliament as a sufficient and complete justification of even so exceptional an enactment.

And concurrently with this enactment, which, however indispensable for the repression of crime, no one could deny to be severe, the ministers endeavored also to remove the causes of discontent by a large measure of Church reform, not confining their aim to settling the tithe question, but dealing with the whole question of the Irish Church in such a way as to lay down, as an undoubted principle of the constitution, the doctrine that the Church existed for the benefit of the nation; that its property was bestowed on it for the same object; and that, consequently, the nation, or in other words the Parliament, had a perfect right to deal with its property and endowments of all kinds, always keeping the same end in view, the general advantage of the whole nation. Proceeding on these maxims, they introduced a Church Reform Bill, in which, perhaps, the most remarkable circumstance of all was, that the evil which had been the original cause of their taking up the subject at all was the last thing settled, not, indeed, being finally arranged for four years; while the principal detail in the way of reform which was completed in this first session was one which, however reasonable, had hitherto received but little attention, and had certainly provoked no great outcry. It could not be denied that the Episcopal Establishment in Ireland was out of all proportion to the extent of the country and the number of the Protestant population, or of the parishes. The entire population in communion with the Church fell short of 900,000. The number of parishes scarcely exceeded 1400. But over this comparatively scanty flock were set no fewer than eighteen bishops and four archbishops; while England, with 12,000 parishes, was contented with twenty-four bishops and two archbishops. It was proposed to consolidate these bishoprics into ten, the archbishoprics into two, a reduction which could hardly fail to commend itself to all. But with this reduction was combined a variety of other details relating to the Episcopal revenues, to the right of the bishops to grant leases, and other matters of finance, which the ministers proposed so to remodel as to create a very large fund to be at the disposal of the state. On this point the greater part of the ministerial scheme was wrecked for the time. They succeeded in carrying that part of it which consolidated the bishoprics, and in inducing the House of Commons to grant, first as a loan, which was originally turned into a gift, a million of money to be divided among the incumbents of the different parishes, who were reduced to the greatest distress by the inability to procure payment of their tithes, the arrears of which amounted to a far larger sum.

But the assertion that any surplus fund arising from redistribution of the Episcopal revenues ought to belong to the state, not only called forth a vigorous resistance from the whole of the Tory party at its first promulgation, but, when the subject was revived the next year, and one of the supporters of the ministry, Mr. Ward, proposed a resolution that any such surplus might be legitimately applied to secular purposes, it produced a schism in the ministry itself. The resolution was cordially accepted by Lord John Russell, but was so offensive to four of his colleagues, Mr. Stanley and Sir James Graham being among the number, that they at once resigned their offices. The breach thus made was not easily healed; and before the end of the session other dissensions of a more vexatious and mortifying character led to the retirement of the Prime-minister himself. All attempts to deal with the tithe question failed for the time, four more years elapsing before it was finally settled. But, curtailed as it was, the bill of 1833 still deserves to be remembered as a landmark in constitutional legislation, since it afforded the first instance of Parliament affirming a right to deal with ecclesiastical dignities and endowments, thus setting a precedent which, in the next reign, was followed with regard to the Church of England.

Lord Melbourne succeeded Lord Grey at the Treasury; but every one saw that the ministry was greatly weakened. The King, too, had become greatly dissatisfied both with their general policy, especially in regard to the Irish Church--which he took an opportunity of assuring the Irish bishops he was unalterably resolved to uphold--and also with the language and conduct of one or two individual ministers, to which it is not necessary to refer more particularly; and when, on the death of Lord Spencer, father of Lord Althorp, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which took place in November, 1834, it became necessary for Lord Melbourne to propose to him a re-arrangement of some of the cabinet offices, he at once dismissed the whole body of the ministers. It was a somewhat singular step to take, for they had not been defeated in Parliament, and he did not himself allege any special dissatisfaction with anything which they had yet done, though he did apprehend that some of them would press upon him measures disadvantageous to "the clergy of the Church of England in Ireland," to which he had an insuperable objection; and, moreover, that the subject would cause fresh divisions in the ministry, and the resignation of one or two more of its most important members. He had, indeed, six months before, given a practical proof of his distrust of the ability of Lord Melbourne and the colleagues who remained to him to carry on the government of the kingdom satisfactorily, by desiring the new Prime-minister to enter into communication with the leaders of the Opposition, "to endeavor at this crisis to prevail upon them to afford their aid and co-operation toward the formation of an administration upon an enlarged basis, combining the services of the most able and efficient members of each" party.[234] Nor had he relinquished the idea of bringing about such a coalition, till he learned that both Lord Melbourne and Sir Robert Peel considered the differences which divided them to be too deeply founded on principle to render their union in one administration either beneficial to the state or creditable to themselves. And it may be said that the letter in which Lord Melbourne had in November announced to his Majesty the death of Lord Spencer, and the necessity for new arrangements which that event had created, by the expression that "in these new and altered circumstances it was for his Majesty to consider whether it were his pleasure to authorize Viscount Melbourne to attempt to make such fresh arrangements as might enable his present servants to continue to conduct the affairs of the country, or whether his Majesty deemed it advisable to adopt any other course," and that "Lord Melbourne earnestly entreated that no personal consideration for him might prevent his Majesty from taking any measures or seeking any other advice which he might think more likely to conduce to his service and to the advantage of the country," did not only contemplate, but to a certain degree even suggested, the possibility of his Majesty's preferring to have recourse to fresh advisers.

The King's subsequent acts and their result, however, certainly took the kingdom by surprise. He applied to the Duke of Wellington to undertake the formation of a new ministry; and the Duke, explaining to the King that "the difficulty of the task consisted in the state of the House of Commons, earnestly recommended him to choose a minister in the House of Commons," and named Sir Robert Peel as the fittest object for his Majesty's choice. Sir Robert was in Italy at the time; but, on receiving the royal summons, he at once hastened to England, the Duke of Wellington in the mean time accepting the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Secretary of State, as a provisional arrangement, till he should arrive in London.

Sir Robert reached England early in December; and though, if "he had been consulted beforehand, he would have been inclined to dissuade the dismissal of the last ministry as premature and impolitic," he did not consider it compatible "with his sense of duty" to decline the charge which the King laid upon him, and at once accepted the office of Prime-minister, being fully aware that by so doing he "became technically, if not morally, responsible for the dissolution of the preceding government, though he had not had the remotest concern in it."[235] In the formation of his ministry he so far endeavored to carry out the views which the King had suggested to Lord Melbourne in the summer as to invite the co-operation of Mr. Stanley (who, by the death of his grandfather, had recently become Lord Stanley) and Sir J. Graham, who, as has been mentioned before, had retired from Lord Grey's cabinet. A new name, that of "Conservative," had recently been invented for the more moderate section of the old Tory party; and it was one which, though Lord Grey had taunted them with it, as betraying a sense of shame at adhering to their old colors, Peel was inclined to adopt for himself, as characteristic of his feelings and future objects; and perhaps he thought it might help to smooth the way for a junction with him of those who would flinch from proclaiming so decided a change in their opinions as would be implied by their becoming colleagues of one who still cherished the name of Tory. But they declined his offers; and consequently he was forced to select his cabinet entirely from the party of anti-Reformers. He dissolved Parliament, a step as to which it seemed to him that the universal expectations of, and even preparation for, a dissolution, left him practically scarcely any option;[236] but he soon found, as, indeed, he had feared he should find, the attempt to establish a Conservative government premature. The party of the late ministry, following the example set by Mr. Fox in 1784 with better fortune, divided against him in the House of Commons on every occasion, defeating him in every division; and at the beginning of April he retired, and Lord Melbourne and his former colleagues resumed their offices with very little change.

They had, as was natural, not been contented with opposing the Conservative ministry in its general policy, but in both Houses they had attacked it with great energy. They had begun the battle in both Houses in the debate on the address, in which they selected three points in the recent transactions for special condemnation, affirming that in every one of them the royal prerogative had been unconstitutionally exercised--the dismissal of the late ministry, the dissolution of Parliament, and the appointment of the Duke of Wellington to a variety of offices. In the House of Commons the attack was led by Lord Morpeth and Lord John Russell; in the House of Lords by Lord Melbourne himself. It was urged that, though the prerogative of the sovereign to dismiss his ministers was undoubted and inalienable, yet the Houses had a clear right to sit in judgment on any particular exercise of it; and that the circumstances of the late ministry having been but recently formed, of its possessing in a conspicuous degree the confidence of the great majority of the House of Commons, and of its being occupied at the moment of its dismissal with matters of high national concern, justified the House in calling on the new ministers to show valid reasons for its sudden dismissal. As to the dissolution, it was asked what misdemeanor the late House of Commons had committed? No difference had occurred between it and the other House of Parliament. It had passed no hostile vote against any administration. It had been in existence but a very short time. All these circumstances, they affirmed, made it reasonable for the Houses to express to his Majesty their disapprobation of the dissolution. Lord Morpeth argued, moreover, that the right of the House of Commons to inquire into such an exercise of the royal prerogative was proved by the example of Mr. Pitt, who, in 1784, had introduced into the speech from the throne a paragraph inviting Parliament to approve of the recent dissolution; and what Parliament could be asked to approve of, it manifestly had an equal right to censure. But the most vehement of the censures of the Opposition were directed against what Lord Morpeth called "the most unseemly huddling of offices in the single person of the Duke of Wellington; an unconstitutional concentration of responsibility and power, at which there was hardly an old Whig of the Rockingham school whose hair did not stand on end." He admitted that in the present instance the arrangement had only been provisional and temporary, and that "no harm had been done;" but, he asked, "what harm might not have been done? If the country had been suddenly obliged to go to war, who would have been responsible for the Foreign Department? If an insurrection of the negroes had occurred, who was responsible for the Colonial Office? If in Ireland any tithe dispute had arisen, who was responsible as Home-secretary?" And Lord Melbourne, though a speaker generally remarkable for moderation, on this subject went much farther; and, after urging that, "if one person held the situation of First Lord of the Treasury, and also that of Secretary of State for the Home Department, it would not only place in his hands without any control the appointment to every great office in the state, but a person so situated would also have the pecuniary resources of the state at his disposal without check or investigation," he proceeded to assert that "an intention to exercise those offices would amount to a treasonable misdemeanor." He did not, indeed, go so far as his late Attorney-general, Sir J. Campbell, who, in vexation at his loss of office, had even threatened the Duke with impeachment; but, though he admitted that the Duke had been free from the guilty intention of exercising the authority of these offices, he suggested that "the Lords ought to pass some resolution calculated to prevent so great a breach of the constitution from being drawn into a precedent."

On the first point thus raised, for the dismissal of the late ministry without any such cause as is usually furnished by an adverse vote of one of the Houses of Parliament, Peel frankly admitted that his acceptance of office rendered him constitutionally responsible, though, as he also said, it was notorious that in fact he had, and could have had, no previous knowledge of it; but he denied that any constitutional question whatever was involved in it, since the King's right was denied by no one; and he could, therefore, only consent to discuss it as a question of policy and expediency. And, looking at it in this light, he regarded his defence as easy and complete. He contended that the events of the past year, the resignation of several of the subordinate ministers, and finally of Lord Grey himself, and the proposal which had been made to him (Peel) and several of his friends to coalesce with Lord Melbourne, rendered the act by which the late government had been removed perfectly justifiable on the part both of the King and of himself; that the King was justified in thinking a wholly fresh arrangement preferable to a re-arrangement of Lord Melbourne's cabinet; and he himself in obeying his sovereign's commands to form a new administration.

The wisdom and propriety of the dissolution, too, could only be examined as a question of expediency; but in this instance every consideration not only recommended but compelled it. "When he undertook the arduous duties now imposed upon him, he did determine that he would leave no constitutional effort untried to enable him satisfactorily to discharge the trust imposed in him. He did fear that if he had met the late Parliament he should have been obstructed in his course, and obstructed in a manner and at a season which might have precluded an appeal to the people. It was the constant boast of the late government that the late Parliament had unbounded confidence in them. And, if that Parliament was, as had been constantly asserted, relied upon as ready to condemn him without a hearing, could any one be surprised at his appeal to the judgment of another, a higher and a fairer tribunal, the public sense of the people?" Precedent, too, was in his favor on this point, since, "whenever an extensive change of government had occurred, a dissolution of Parliament had followed;" and he referred to the year 1784, and to 1806, when the administration of which Lord Grey was the leading member at once dissolved the existing Parliament on coming into office; though he believed "the present to be the first occasion on which a House of Commons had been invited to express its dissatisfaction at the exercise of the prerogative of dissolution."

To the strictures of Lord Melbourne and Lord Morpeth on the Duke of Wellington's temporary assumption of a combination of offices, it was replied by Sir Robert and the Duke that, though there might be inconvenience from the assumption of all those powers by one individual, it was so far from being unconstitutional, that it was a common practice for the Secretary for one department to act for another during intervals of recreation, or periods of ill-health; that there was ample precedent for such a proceeding. In the last week of the life of Queen Anne, the Duke of Shrewsbury had united three of the greatest posts of the kingdom, those of Lord Treasurer, Lord Chamberlain, and Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, with the sanction of that great constitutional lawyer, Lord Somers. And in 1827 Mr. Canning had retained the seals of the Foreign Office for some weeks after his appointment as First Lord of the Treasury. Moreover, there was actually a law which provided that when the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer is vacant the seals of that office shall be delivered to the Chief-justice; and under this rule, in the latter part of the reign of George II., Chief-justice Lord Mansfield had continued finance-minister for above three months. And, as to the practical result of what had been done in the present instance, the Duke affirmed, what, indeed, was universally admitted, that the arrangement had from the first been understood to be merely temporary; that no inconvenience had resulted from it; indeed, that "not a single act had been done in any one of the offices which had not been essentially necessary for the service of the country."

The first two points on which the ministry was assailed it seems superfluous to examine, since it is clear that the position taken up by Sir Robert Peel is impregnable: that, on every view of the principles and practice of the constitution, there was no doubt of the right of the sovereign to dismiss his ministers or to dissolve the Parliament at his pleasure; and that those acts can only be judged of by a consideration of their expediency. Inexpedient, indeed, the dismissal of the preceding ministry is generally considered to have been, even in the interest of the Conservatives themselves. But inexpedient the dissolution can hardly be pronounced to have been, since, though the new election failed to give them a majority in the House of Commons, it beyond all doubt greatly strengthened their minority. On the other hand, though it cannot be denied that the House of Commons has a perfect right to express its disapproval of any or every act of the minister, it is not so clear that Lord Morpeth's invitation to it to express its dissatisfaction with this particular act of dissolution was, on general principles, expedient or safe; since such a vote is making a perilous approach to claiming for the House the right of being asked for its consent to its own dissolution, a claim the admission of which had been one of the most fatal, if not the most fatal, of all the concessions of Charles I.

As to the Duke of Wellington's assumption of a variety of offices, it is probable that when he first proposed to the King to confer them on him, he anticipated no objection whatever from any quarter, since he had so little idea of there being any impropriety in holding two offices, were they ever so apparently incongruous, if his Majesty should have directed him to do so, that seven years before, when he became Prime-minister, he had at first designed permanently to retain the command of the army in conjunction with the Treasury, and had only been induced to abandon the intention by the urgent remonstrance of Sir Robert Peel; and, constitutionally, there does not seem to be any limitation of the sovereign's power to confer offices, to unite or to divide them. Indeed, the different Secretary-ships of State seem to owe their existence entirely to his will, and not to any act of Parliament. He can diminish the number, if he should think fit, as he did in 1782, when, on the termination of the American war, he forbore to appoint a successor to Lord George Germaine, in Lord Rockingham's administration; or he can increase the numbers, as he did in 1794, when he revived the third Secretaryship, which he had suppressed twelve years before, without any act of Parliament being passed to direct either the suspension or the revival. He can even leave the most important offices vacant, and intrust the performance of their duties to a commission, as was done in this very year 1835, when the Great Seal was put in commission, and the duties, for above two years, were performed by commissioners, who had other duties also to discharge; and these instances may, perhaps, warrant the conclusion that the distribution of the different posts in what is generally known as the cabinet is dictated by considerations of what is practicable and expedient rather than by any positive and invariable rule or principle.

Yet it does not follow that, because the constitution was not violated or endangered by such an arrangement, the leaders of the Opposition did other than their duty in calling attention to it. Unquestionably, it is historically true that the liberties of the people owe their preservation, growth, and vigor to the jealous watchfulness to check the first and slightest appearance of any attempt to encroach upon them, which has been constantly exercised from the very earliest times by an almost unbroken series of fearless and independent patriots. And in this instance the very novelty of such an arrangement as had taken place did of itself make criticism a duty; though it may also be thought that the critics acted wisely in contenting themselves with calling notice to it, and abstaining from asking Parliament to pronounce a formal judgment on it, since any express censure would have been unwarranted either by the facts of the case or by any inference to be drawn from previous usage, while an approval of it would wear the appearance not only of sanctioning, but even of inviting a repetition of an arrangement which, if ever attempted to be carried out in actual practice, must tend to grave inconvenience, if not to discredit.

Lord Melbourne resumed office, and, being strengthened by the manifest inability of the opposite party to command the confidence of the House of Commons, began to apply himself with vigor to the carrying out of several measures of internal reform, some of which involved not only the property but the long-established rights of very considerable bodies, and, as so doing, have an importance in a constitutional point of view, besides that arising from their immediate effects. Peel had been equally alive to the desirableness, so cogent as almost to amount to a moral necessity, of introducing reforms into more than one old institution, such as should bring them more into harmony with the spirit of the age, remodelling or terminating some arrangements which were manifest abuses, and others which, though, if dispassionately examined and properly understood, they, perhaps, were not really grievances, yet in their operation caused such discontent and heart-burnings that they were as mischievous as many others far more indefensible in theory. And, short-lived as his administration had been, he had found time to frame and introduce an extensive measure of Church reform, not only dealing with the question of tithes, the levy and collection of which in some of their details had long been made subjects of bitter complaints by the farmers, but including also provision for the creation of two new bishoprics, those of Ripon and Manchester. No part of his measure was more imperatively called for by the present circumstances of the nation, or of greater importance in its future operation. There had been no increase in the number of bishops since the reign of Elizabeth; but since her time not only had the population of the entire kingdom been quadrupled, but some districts which had then been very scantily peopled had become exceedingly populous. These districts had hitherto been almost destitute of Episcopal supervision, which now was thus to be supplied to them. But the new legislation did more. It might be expected that the growth of the population would continue, and would in time require a farther and corresponding increase of the Episcopate; and the erection of these new dioceses was, therefore, not only the supplying of a present want, but the foundation of a system for increasing the efficiency of the Church which should be capable of gradual progressive expansion, as the growth of the population in various districts might be found to require additional facilities for supervision. And the judgment with which the new arrangement met the requirements of the community may be regarded as proved by the circumstance that now, after the lapse of nearly half a century, it is maintained in active operation, and is admitted by all parties not only to be of the greatest practical benefit, but also to have a moral effect scarcely less valuable in the degree in which it has stimulated the application of private munificence to the great work of Church extension.

But before Lord Grey quitted office his government had also called the attention of Parliament to the necessity of a large municipal reform, which, indeed, it seemed to them that the Reform Bill had bound them, in all consistency, to introduce. In the speech with which the King had closed the session of 1833, he had informed the Houses that he had "directed commissions to be issued for investigating the state of the municipal corporations throughout the United Kingdom, the result of whose inquiries would enable them to mature some measure which might seem best fitted to place the internal government of corporate cities and towns upon a solid foundation in respect of their finances, their judicature, and their police." He reminded them that they had recently passed acts "for giving constitutions upon sound principles to the royal and parliamentary boroughs of Scotland," and warned them that "their attention would hereafter be called to the expediency of extending similar advantages to the unincorporated towns in England which had now acquired the right of returning members to Parliament." The commission of which his Majesty thus spoke had now presented its report, strongly condemnatory of the existing system in almost every point of view; of the constitution and mode of election of the existing corporations, and of their government of the towns over which they presided. It declared that "even where they existed in their least imperfect form, and were most rightfully administered, they were inadequate to the wants of the present state of society." But they charged them also with positive offences of no venial kind. "They had perverted their powers to political ends, sacrificing local interests to party purposes. They had diverted from their legitimate use revenues which ought to have been applied for the public advantage, wasting them in many instances for the benefit of individuals; sometimes even employing for purposes of corruption funds originally intended for charitable uses." And they asserted that this too common misconduct of these bodies had engendered "among a great majority of the inhabitants of the incorporated towns a general and just dissatisfaction with their municipal institutions, a distrust of the self-elected municipal councils, and of the municipal magistracy, tainting with suspicion the local administration of justice." And therefore they "felt it their duty to represent to his Majesty that the existing municipal corporations of England and Wales neither possessed nor deserved the confidence and respect of his Majesty's subjects; and that a thorough reform must be effected before they could become what they ought to be, useful and efficient instruments of local government."