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Chapter LVIII

FREE TRADE. 1841-1852

LEADING DATES

PEEL'S SECOND Ministry, 1841-1846-PEEL'S FIRST FREE TRADe Budget,
1842-PEEL'S SECOND FREE-TRADE BUDGET, 1845-REPEAL OF THE CORN
LAW, 1846-THE RUSSELL MINISTRY, 1846-1852-EUROPEAN REVOLU-
TIONS, 1848-THE FIRST DERBY MINISTRY, 1852

N his new Ministry Peel found room not only for leading Conservatives, but also for Stanley, Graham, and Ripon, who had

I

left the Whigs in 1834, and had since then voted with the Conservatives. Stanley-now Lord Stanley-and Graham

among the ablest of the ministers who formed the Cabinet; though the help of a young minister, Gladstone, who was not a member of the Cabinet, was especially valuable on account of his grasp of economical truths, and of the clearness with which his opinions were set forth.

Peel's first great budget was that of 1842. He put an end to the deficit by carrying a measure reimposing, for three years, an income-tax similar to that which Pitt had imposed to carry on the great war with France. He justified his action on the plea that it was necessary, in the first place, to stop the constantly recurring deficit; and, in the second place, to effect financial reforms which would enlarge the resources of the Government. He consequently lowered many duties the main object of which had been the protection of home manufactures or agriculture. So far as the corn duties were concerned, he modified the sliding scale, but refused to effect any distinct reduction. The advocates of free trade thought he had done too little, and those of protection thought he had done too much.

During the next two years, 1843 and 1844, Peel's budgets were not remarkable, as he did not wish to take any further step of importance till he had had time to watch the result of the budget of 1842. The experience gained at the end of three years was in every way favorable, as it showed that manufactures really flourished

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1842-1847

more now that they had to face competition than they had done in
its absence. No doubt the return of prosperity was partly owing to
the good harvests which followed Peel's accession to power, but it
was also in a great measure owing to his policy.

It would be of little worth to encourage manufactures if those
by whose labor they were produced were to be a miserable, vicious,
and stunted population. In 1842 a commission, appointed to
examine into the condition of mines, reported that women and even
young children were forced to drag heavy trucks underground,
sometimes for twelve hours a day. Lord Ashley, foremost in every
good work, and who had already alleviated the lot of factory
children, induced Parliament to pass a bill, which was not
all that he wished, but which enacted that no woman, or child
under ten, should be employed underground, and that no child
between ten and thirteen should be employed for more than three
days a week. In 1844 Graham passed an act prohibiting the
employment of children under nine in cotton and silk mills; but it
was not till 1847 that, after a long struggle conducted by Lord
Ashley, an act was passed prohibiting the employment of women
and children in all factories for more than ten hours a day. The
arguments employed in favor of confining these restrictions to
women and children were that they could not take care of them-
selves as well as men, and also that injuries done by overwork to
the health of mothers and of young people seriously affect the
health and strength of future generations.

The fall of the Melbourne Ministry had been caused nearly as much by its too assertive foreign as by its weak domestic policy. Peel's foreign minister, the Earl of Aberdeen, was always ready to give up something in order to secure the blessing of peace.

In

1842 he put an end to a long dispute with the United States about
the frontier between the English colonies and the State of Maine
on the eastern side of America; and in 1846 he put an end to
another dispute about the frontier of Oregon on the western side.
With France, where Guizot was now Prime Minister, his relations
were excessively cordial, and a close understanding grew up be-
tween the two governments, assuring the maintenance of European
peace. The entente cordiale, as it was called, was ratified in 1843
by a visit of Queen Victoria to Louis Philippe, at Eu, and by a
return visit paid by Louis Philippe to the queen at Windsor in

1844.

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1842-1847

Each successive ministry was confronted with the problem of Irish government, and soon after Peel came into office the cry for the repeal of the Union, which had died away during the Melbourne Government, was once more loudly raised. The Government stoutly opposed, and the demand for repeal once more died away, and O'Connell, whose health was breaking, retired from public life, living quietly till his death at Genoa in 1847.

The main source of mischief in Ireland was to be found in the relations between landlord and tenant. Evictions on the one hand were answered by murder and outrage on the other. To check the latter Peel in 1843 passed an amended Arms Act, forbidding the possession of arms except by special license, while, to check the former, he issued, in 1844, a commission, of which the Earl of Devon was chairman, to inquire into the grievances of Irish tenants. In 1845 he raised, amid a storm of obloquy from many English Protestants, the Government grant to the College of Maynooth, in which Roman Catholics were educated for the priesthood, and established three Queen's Colleges to give unsectarian education to the laity. In 1845 the Devon Commission reported, and the Government brought in a bill securing a limited amount of compensation to those tenants who made improvements duly certified to be of value. The House of Lords, however, refused to pass it, and for many years no further effort was made to improve the condition of the Irish tenant.

Peel was more successful in dealing with England. When in 1845 the three years for which the income-tax had been granted came to an end, Peel, instead of remitting it, obtained leave from Parliament to continue it for three more years; though, as a matter of fact, it was subsequently reimposed and is still levied to this day. Peel, having received a surplus, employed it to sweep away a vast number of duties upon imports which weighed upon trade, and to lower other duties which he did not sweep away; while at the same time he put an entire end to all duties on exports. The country gentlemen, who formed the large majority of Peel's supporters, took alarm at a proposal made by him to remove the duties on lard and hides, on the ground that if this were done foreigners would, in regard to these two articles, be enabled to compete with English produce.

The country gentlemen could grumble, but they were no match for Peel in debate; and they were therefore in a mood to transfer

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1845

their allegiance to any man capable of heading an opposition in
Parliament to the statesman whom they had hitherto followed.
Such a spokesman they found in a young member, Benjamin
Disraeli, who, after attempting to enter Parliament as a Radical,
had been elected as a Conservative. His change of opinion was
greater in appearance than in reality, as his principal motive, both
as a Radical and as a Conservative, was hostility to the tendencies
of the middle classes which he held to be embodied in the Whigs.
He now discovered that the same tendencies were also embodied
in Peel; being, moreover a man of great ambition, he seized the oc-
casion to place himself at the head of the malcontent Conservatives.
He was more angry with Peel because Peel had refused him office.
Fixing upon Peel's weak point, his want of originality, he declared
that the Prime Minister, having caught the Whigs bathing, had
walked away with their clothes, and that under him a Conservative
government was "an organized hyprocrisy."

In the meanwhile, the Anti-Corn-Law League was growing in
influence. The oratory of Bright and the close reasoning of Cob-
den were telling even on the agricultural population. The small
farmers and the laborers were suffering while the manufacturers
were flourishing. Peel, indeed, was a free-trader on principle.
He believed that legislation ought to make goods cheap for the sake
of consumers rather than dear for the sake of producers, and at
this time he even believed that the nation would be wealthier if
corn fell in price by being freely imported than if its price was
raised by the imposition of duties. He still held, however, that it
was the duty of Parliament to keep up the price of corn, not for
the benefit of the existing generation, but as an insurance for future
generations. If Great Britain came to depend for a great part of
her food supply upon foreign countries, an enemy in time of war
would have little difficulty in starving out the country by cutting
off its supply of foreign food. The only answer to this was that
the starvation which Peel dreaded in the future was existing in the
present. If anything occurred to bring home to Peel the existence
of this permanent starvation, he would become a free-trader in
corn as well as in manufactures.

The conviction which Peel needed came from Ireland. The population was 8,000,000, and half of this number subsisted on potatoes alone. In the summer of 1845 a potato disease, previously unknown, swept over both islands. Potato plants, green and flour

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1845-1846

ishing at night, were in the morning a black and fetid mass of corruption. A misfortune which, in England and Scotland, was a mere inconvenience, caused abject misery in Ireland.

Peel saw that if the starving millions were to be fed, corn must be cheapened as much as possible, and that the only way of cheapening it was to take off the duty. In October he asked the Cabinet to support him in taking off the duty. The majority in it had minds less flexible than his own, and its decision was postponed. In November, Russell, now the leader of the Liberals, wrote what was known as "the Edinburgh letter" to his constituents, declaring for the complete abolition of the Corn Law. Peel again attempted

to induce the Cabinet to follow him, but the Cabinet again refused. and on December 5 he resigned office. Russell, however, was unable to form a ministry, and on December 20 Peel returned to office pledged to repeal the Corn Law. Lord Stanley now resigned, and became the acknowledged head of the Protectionists, who resolved to oppose Peel's forthcoming measure. On the other hand, Russell gave assurances that he and the Whigs would loyally support it. Accordingly, when Parliament met in January, 1846, Peel proposed to bring in a bill for the abolition of the Corn Law, though three years were to pass before the abolition would be quite complete. On June 25 the bill, having previously passed the Commons, passed the Lords, and an end was at last put to the long-continued attempt to raise by artificial means the price of bread.

Peel had done what he could to mitigate the distress in Ireland. He sent Indian corn and he ordered the establishment of public works. He also brought in a bill for the protection of life in Ireland. Russell and the Liberals disliked it because it was too stringent. The Protectionists in the House of Commons, led nominally by Lord George Bentinck and really by Disraeli, were glad of any opportunity to defeat Peel, and on June 25, the day on which the Corn Bill passed the Lords, the Irish Bill was thrown out by the Commons. On the 27th Peel resigned office.

Lord John Russell had no difficulty this time in forming a ministry, and, though his followers were in a minority in the House of Commons, he was sure of the support of Peel and of the Peelites, as those Conservatives were called who had voted with their leader for the abolition of the Corn Law. Russell had in 1846 to face a state of things in Ireland even more deplorable than that which

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