1832] P. W. JOYCE. FOR many years about this time there was great and widespread distress, arising partly from the stagnation of business after the conclusion of the Continental wars, and partly from the pitiless exactions of landlords, middlemen, and tithe-proctors. The misery culminated in 1822, when there was a general failure of the potato crop. There was much disturbance among the starving and despairing peasantry, and there were numerous outrages, followed by the usual coercion acts with wholesale arrests and prosecutions, without the least effect in producing tranquillity; and the country was kept down only by an army almost as large as if it had just been conquered in a successful invasion. Catholic Emancipation. In 1823 the "Catholic Association" was founded by O'Connell and Richard Lalor Sheil, and soon spread through the whole country. The expenses were paid by what was called "Catholic Rent," a contribution of a penny a week from each member; and this organisation was the chief agency by which Emancipation was ultimately carried. In 1828 Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, Member of Parliament for Clare, having accepted office, had to seek re-election, and O'Connell determined to oppose him. He knew well that he could not enter Parliament, for the admission oath was such as no Catholic could take; but he wished to bring before the electors of Great Britain the hardship and absurdity of disfranchising a constituency because the chosen member refused to swear that his own religion was false. Notwithstanding the crushing influence of the landlords he was returned by an immense majority. The Government were now greatly alarmed, and all the more so when they heard that the Catholic Association were preparing to return Catholic members all through Ireland. Wellington and Peel gave way, and introduced a Bill, which after a stormy debate was carried in the Commons. The opposition was still more violent in the Lords; but Wellington ended the matter by declaring that they should choose between Emancipation and Civil War; whereupon the Bill passed, and received the royal assent on April 13th, 1829. The Act contained one provision, raising the franchise in Ireland [1815 from 40s. to £10; though the qualification for England remained at 40s. (p. 8). By the Emancipation Act a new oath was framed which Catholics might take; and at the General Election of 1830, O'Connell and several other Catholics were returned. National Hitherto the primary education aided by the State in Ireland was exclusively for Protestants; and Catholic children could not attend the public schools, as they would have to join classes receiving Protestant religious instruction. This state of things was remedied in 1831, when the system of National Education was founded, which Catholics were able to take advantage of, inasmuch as it provided for separate religious instruction for children of different religious denominations. This measure turned out very successful; for since 1831 both the Government subsidies and the number of schools have gone on increasing year by year. After the great Reform Bill had passed for England in 1832, a corresponding Bill was introduced Reform of 1832. for Ireland in the same year. But though the Irish members led by O'Connell and Sheil had materially aided the Government in passing the English measure, the Irish Bill was narrow and unsatisfactory. The franchise was limited to tenants of £50 a year and leaseholders of £10 a year for 99 years. The Irish leaders attempted to have the franchise restored to the 40s. freeholders; but the ministers had the amendment voted down (p. 11). Of all the payments exacted from the peasantry tithes were the most bitterly resented; for their Tithe War. gross injustice was obvious to the most ignorant. The Protestant clergy lived comfortably all through the country, and ministered on Sundays in decent well-kept churches to congregations of perhaps half a dozen, or less; for all which the Catholic people were forced to pay to support the clergy and keep the churches in repair; while their own priests lived in poverty, and celebrated Mass to overflowing congregations in thatched cabins or in the open air. And whenever tithe-payment was not at once forthcoming, the tithe-proctors seized and carried off the poor people's cows, fowls, bed-clothes, kettles, or anything they could lay hands on. At length, about the 1832] year 1830, a vehement movement arose almost simultaneously against tithes quite a spontaneous uprising, not incited by leaders or agitators from outside; and for some years a destructive" tithe war" raged, especially in the south of Ireland. The military and police were called out to support the proctors, and there were frequent conflicts, with great loss of life. But even when a seizure was made, it commonly turned out useless; for no one dared bid for any seized article set up for sale; or if by chance a sale was effected, the purchasers were pretty sure to suffer outrage of some sort. The proctors were everywhere pursued with vengeance, often mutilated, and sometimes killed. Then came, of course, a Coercion Act; and the military engaged in this warfare formed quite a large army; yet they succeeded in collecting only a small fraction of the total sum assessed, and even that at a cost far exceeding the amount collected. Hundreds of the Protestant clergy received little or nothing, and were reduced to destitution, seldom through any fault of their own, for they were the victims of an unjust and unwise institution; and the Government had to come to their relief by advancing a million on loan. At length, some years later (1838), the tithes were put on the landlords instead of the tenants, which terminated the tithe war. AUTHORITIES.-1815-1832. GENERAL HISTORY. Spencer Walpole, History of England; Harriet Martineau, History of the Peace; May, Constitutional History; Fyffe, Modern Europe; Debidour, Histoire Diplomatique de l'Europe; Molesworth, History of the Reform Bill; Wheeler, History of India; Duke of Buckingham, Memoirs of the Court of the Regency; Correspondence of William IV. and Earl Grey; Le Strange, Correspondence of Earl Grey and Mme. de Lieven; Greville, Memoirs; Croker Papers; Pellew, Life of Lord Sidmouth ; Twiss, Life of Lord Eldon; Alison, Lives of Lord Londonderry and Sir C. Stewart ; Yonge, Life of Lord Liverpool; Stapylton, George Canning and His Times and Canning's Speeches; Peel, Memoirs and his Correspondence, edited by C. S. Parker; Herries, Life of J. C. Herries; Torrens, Life of Lord Melbourne; Sanders, Melbourne Papers; Sir D. Le Marchant, Life of Lord Althorp; Brougham's Life and Times; Spencer Walpole, Life of Lord John Russell; Fitzpatrick, O'Connell's Correspondence; Metternich, Memoirs. SPECIAL SUBJECTS. Naval History and Church History.-See list appended to ch. xxiv. Literature, 1815-1885.-Saintsbury, Nineteenth Century Literature, for the subject generally. In poetry the growth of Tennyson's genius is lucidly exhibited in Mr. Arthur Waugh's Tennyson: A Study of his Life and Work. For an acute and valuable, though not unprejudiced, criticism of Macaulay's prose style, chap. ii. of the late J. Cotter Morrison's Macaulay ("English Men of Letters" Series) may be consulted with advantage; and an appreciation of Carlyle's literary characteristics, [1815-1832 and of his past and present relation to the thought of the age, will be found in the introduction to the Centenary Edition of his works. Geology, 1815-1885.-Besides the more special works mentioned in the text, the following will be found useful:-J. Playfair, Biographical Account of James Hutton; J. Phillips, Memoirs of William Smith; A. Geikie, Life of Sir Roderick J. Murchison, 2 vols.; J. W. Clark and T. McK. Hughes, Life and Letters of the Rev. Adam Sedgwick, 2 vols.; Life, Letters, and Journal of Sir C. Lyell, edited by Mrs. Lyell, 2 vols. ; T. G. Bonney, Lyell and Modern Geology; A. Geikie, Life of Sir A. Ramsay, and Letters of J. B. Jukes; F. Darwin, Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 3 vols.; W. D. Conybeare and W. Phillips, Outline of the Geology of England and Wales; H. B. Woodward, The Geology of England and Wales. The details of the development of the subject will be found in the publications of the Geological Society; first in the Transactions (1811-56), and the Proceedings (1826-45), and then in the Quarterly Journal (vol. i., 1845). To these may be added Memoirs and other publications of the Geological Survey, and the annual volume of the Palæontological Society. Art, Chemistry, Textiles.-See chaps. xxii., xxiii. and xxiv. respectively. Medicine. The General History of Medicine in the earlier part of the century may be read in Clarke's Autobiographical Recollections of the Medical Profession, 1874, II.); in Dr. C. J. B. Williams' Memorials of Life and Work, 1884; and in Sir Robert Christison's Life, ed. by his sons (1885-86). The condition of the schools of anatomy before the passing of the Anatomy Act is well described in Lonsdale's Life of Robert Knox. The professional reader may refer with advantage to the Report of the Select Committee on Anatomy (folio 1832), and to J. Blake Bailey, Diary of a Resurrectionist (1896). The evil effects of intramural interment can only be adequately appreciated by reading the disgusting details given in the Report of the Select Committee. upon the effect of the interment of bodies in Towns (1842). Sir Thomas Longmore has prefixed a short history of the Army Medical Service to his Manual of Ambulance Transport, ed. 2, by Surg. -Capt. W. A. Morris, A.M.S., 1893. Sir John Simon has published an admirable history of English Sanitary Institutions (Lond., 1890); whilst the history of Dentistry has been written by Alfred Hill (Lond., 1877), and the history of the Medical Education of Women by Miss Sophia Jex-Blake (12mo, 1880). Agriculture, 1802-1846.-William Cobbett, Tour in the Northern Counties, Rural Rides; Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1st Series; Harriet Martineau, History of the Thirty Years' Peace; Sir George Nicholls, History of the English Poor Law, and On the Condition of the Agricultural Labourer; Sir Robert Peel, Speech on the Repeal of the Corn Laws in the House of Commons, 1846; G. R. Porter, Progress of the Nation, 1843; A. Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn-Law League; Reports of Select Committees on the Operation of the Poor Laws, 1817, 1834, 1844, and on Agriculture (see below); J. E. Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, and Six Centuries of Work and Wages; Russell M. Garnier, History of the English Landed Gentry, and Annals of the British Peasantry. Economic History, 1802-1885.-The most important materials are to be found in Reports of various Parliamentary Committees and Commissions, especially on Agriculture in 1821, 1822, and 1833; on Machinery in 1824; on the Poor Laws in 1821, 1834, 1843, 1845, 1847, and 1849; on Finance and Currency in 1819, 1828, and 1841; on Children in Factories, 1816, 1833, 1842, and 1883; on the Coal Trade in 1830, 1844, and 1871; on Framework Knitters in 1845; on Handloom Weavers in 1839 and 1840; on Joint Stock Companies in 1844. To the list given in Vol. V., p. 513, we may add S. and B. Webb, History of Trade Unions; Holyoake, History of Co-operation; Frome Wilkinson, Friendly Societies; Goschen, Foreign Exchanges, and the works on Economics by Mill, Marshall, Walker, Cairns, Jevons, Bagehot, etc. There are many important papers in the Journal of the Statistical Society, but any adequate list of authorities would occupy more space than can be afforded here. Social Life and Scottish History.-See ch. xxiii. Ireland.-See ch. xxiv. CHAPTER XXII. PROGRESS AND REACTION. 1832-1846. THE troubles of the Grey Ministry by no means ended with the reform of Parliament. The new House Political History: was eager for further changes, but the LLOYD C. SANDERS. Government, confused by conflicting demands Trouble in Ireland. and divided against itself, introduced large and ill-considered Bills. Ireland, besides, blocked the way to English legislation. More formidable than O'Connell's Repeal agitation was the war against tithes (p. 108), supported by organised outrage. After a disastrous attempt to collect the unpopular tax itself the Government passed a Composition Bill, which by securing the advances to the Irish clergy on a land tax invited further resistance to the law. Lord Althorp's Irish Church Bill, again, was reduced to a disappointing fragment, which suppressed a few sees and docked the incomes of others. He dropped the Appropriation clause, permitting the use of surplus moneys for secular purposes. The terrific indictment of O'Connell by the Chief Secretary, Stanley, secured the passage of a drastic Irish Coercion Bill, but he was shortly afterwards transferred to the Colonial Office to mollify the resentment of the Liberator. the Slaves. Stanley proceeded to carry a Bill abolishing slavery in the West Indies. A plan for gradual admission to freedom had been tried, but Emancipation of neither planters nor negroes accepted it loyally, and it was far from satisfying Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton and his fellow-enthusiasts. Stanley's Bill secured immediate freedom for all children of six years of age and under. The rest were to serve a twelve years' apprenticeship; but this expedient was abandoned after four years' disheartening experiment. The planters received the comfortable compensation of £20,000,000. |