1842-1846 PALMERSTON AND ABERDEEN 927 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. 4. Mines and Factories. 1842—1847.—It would be of little worth to encourage manufactures, if those by whose labour 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 (see p. 911), 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 under ground, 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 favour of confining these restrictions to women and children were that they could not take care of themselves 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. 5. Aberdeen's Foreign Policy. 1841-1846.-The fall of the Melbourne ministry had been caused nearly as much by its foreign as by its domestic policy. Though Lord Palmerston had succeeded in getting his way in the East without bringing on a war with France (see p. 922), sober people were afraid lest he might sooner or later provoke war by his violent self-assertion. 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 between 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. These friendly relations enabled Aberdeen and Guizot to settle amicably a dispute arising out of the conduct of an English Consul at Tahiti, which might very easily have led to war. 6. Peel and O'Connell. 1843.-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. In 1843, O'Connell, instigated by younger men, such as Thomas Davis and Gavan Duffy, pushed the movement on, and predicted that Repeal would be carried before the year was over. He summoned a monster meeting at Clontarf, but before the appointed day the government prohibited the meeting and poured troops into Ireland to enforce the prohibition. O'Connell shrank from causing useless bloodshed, and advised his followers to keep away from the place of gathering. Though no attempt was made to hold the meeting, O'Connell was charged with sedition and conspiracy. Being convicted by a jury from which all Roman Catholics were excluded, he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a heavy fine. There were, however, technical errors in the proceedings, and the judgment was reversed in his favour by the House of Lords, or rather by the five lawyers who had seats in the House of Lords, and who alone decided legal appeals in the name of that House. Partly in consequence of the hopelessness of resisting the government, partly in consequence of the satisfaction felt in Ireland at the reversal of the judgment against O'Connell, the demand for Repeal once more died away, and the Irish leader, whose health was breaking, retired from public life, living quietly till his death at Genoa in 1847. 7. Peel's Irish Policy. 1843-1845.—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, whilst, 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, amidst 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, from 9,000l. to 26,000l., and established three Queen's Colleges to give unsectarian education to the laity. In 1845 the Devon Commission reported that in the three provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught the landlords were in most 1845 THE DEVON COMMISSION 929 cases unable to make improvements on their land because the law prevented them from borrowing money on the security of their estates; and that they frequently let their lands to middlemen, who let it out again to tenants at will. Improvements, if made at all, were usually made by the tenant at will, though he was liable to be turned out of his holding without any compensation for what he had done to increase the value of the estate. The consequence was that the tenant rarely made any improvement at all, and that, when he did, he frequently either had his holding taken from him, or had his rent raised in consequence of his own improvements. In Ulster, on the other hand, there had grown up a custom of tenant right, and when a tenant left he received compensation for his improvements from the incoming tenant who took his place. In 1845 the government, finding that Ulster was peaceful whilst the other provinces were not, came to the conclusion that the Ulster tenant-right made the difference between them, and 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. 8. Peel's Second Free-trade Budget. 1845.-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 re-imposed 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; whilst 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. 9. Peel and Disraeli. 1845. The country gentlemen could grumble, but they were no match for Peel in debate; and they were therefore in a mood to transfer 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. Disraeli, indeed, never grasped the meaning of those doctrines of political economy which were in favour with the Whigs, and were growing in favour with Peel, and being moreover a man of great ambition, he seized the occasion to place himself at the head of the malcontent Conservatives, with the less difficulty because, in giving expression to their ignorance, he did not fling away any settled conviction of his own. He was the 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 organised hypocrisy.' 10. Spread of the Anti-Corn-Law League. 1845.—In the meanwhile, the Anti-Corn-Law League was growing in influence. The oratory of Bright and the close reasoning of Cobden were telling even on the agricultural population. The small farmers and the labourers were suffering whilst 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. It was easy to say that the corn laws encouraged the production of food at home to support the pcpulation. As a plain matter of fact, the population had increased so rapidly that starvation was permanently established in the country. 'I be protected,' said an agricultural labourer at a meeting of the League, and I be starving.' 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. 1845-1846 CORN-LAW REPEAL 931 11. The Irish Famine. 1845. 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 flourishing at night, were in the morning a blackened and fetid mass of corruption. A misfortune which, in England and Scotland was a mere inconvenience, caused abject misery in Ireland. 1845-1846.-Peel saw 12. The Abolition of the Corn Law. 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. 13. The Close of Peel's Ministry. 1846.-Peel had done what he could to mitigate the distress in Ireland. He sent Indian corn there to be sold cheaply, and he ordered the establishment of public works to give means of subsistence to the starving population. The old antagonism between landlord and tenant, however, had not ceased, and evicted tenants and those who sympathised with them still had recourse to outrages and murder. Peel 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 |