CHAP. VI.] OPENING OF THE SESSION-THE QUEEN'S SPEECH. Yet it was believed-believed by men of education, Such was the period that was setting in-such CHAPTER VI. HE new administration insisted, as 639 were personal friends and adherents of the late ministers, one of the two, who was not a party-man at all, was asked what he supposed Peel and Goulburn would do. The reply was: 'Why, Peel has told you two things which, put together, shew you what he means to do. He says he is not going to repeal the corn-laws; and he says he will put an end to our sinking into debt. Therefore, he must be going to lay on an income-tax.' The uproar of ridicule was loud; and the guest was told on all hands that he was talking nonsense, and that he little knew Peel if he supposed him to have the 'courage' to lay on an income-tax. His answer was: You asked my opinion, and you have it. Time will shew if I am wrong.' It seems surprising now that so few should have anticipated a positive policy-a set of broad measures, which should be at once remedial and progressive; but too many minds had become weak and superficial about political affairs, under the incapable rule of the Whigs; and those who went into society found little but a vague expectation of some relief from shiftings and changes under the heads of the debt, and some putting on and taking off among the taxes. Meantime, nothing occurred in the way of disclosure till January-a short time before parliament met, when the Duke of Buckingham seceded from the ministry. This was understood as a sign that something was going to be done with the corn-laws that the Duke of Buckingham did not like. The farmers were uneasy. The Whigs were delighted-hoping that there was already a division in the cabinet. The speech was eagerly listened to, at the opening of parliament on the 3d of February. The numbers who thronged the House of Lords were unusually great, because of the new interest which surrounded the queen after the recent birth of the Prince of Wales, and because the King of Prussia was present, and the ceremony was conducted with unusual splendour; but there was more eagerness still to hear how the appalling distresses of the country would be noticed, and our financial difficulties be met. In the speech, the recognition of the distress was emphatic; and so was that of 'the exemplary patience and fortitude' of the sufferers. The evil of the annual deficit, now become so familiar, was pointed out as one which must immediately be put an end to; and the tone of decision about this shewed that some practical method of recovery was about to be proposed. Parliament was also requested to attend to the laws affecting the importation of corn, and of other articles of foreign production. What 'other articles?' people asked each other, and how many of them? Was there to be an extension of freetrade? Could any considerable sacrifice of importduties be contemplated at a time when the first consideration was how to deal with our annual deficit? The debate on the address did not detain men long from the answers to these questions. There was a seriousness and business-like character about the speech, and the demeanour of ministers in meeting parliament, which rebuked captiousness, and put a check upon waste of time in party recrimination. The Whig leaders were more amiable than they had been in the autumn; and some taunting observations from Lord John Russell, easily answered, and a curious piece of abuse of the sliding-scale from Lord Melbourne-as free and easy as if he had never deprecated attacks upon it--were the only hostile manifestations on the part of the Whigs. The address echoed the speech, and passed quickly. The premier gave notice that the budget would be brought forward early. Ministers were ready with it now; but they thought it due to the country to go into the corn question first, with which their remaining measures would be connected, as speedily as possible. The corn question was to come on on the next Wednesday, February 9. All that day, the avenues to the House were thronged; and the moment the doors were opened, there was a rush which filled the strangers' gallery. As the Horse Guards' clock struck four, the head of a remarkable procession appeared from the Strand. Six hundred anti-corn-law delegates were marching down to the House, where they demanded admission to the lobby, and were refused, on the ground of the obstruction that would thus be caused to the entrance of members. While the members were entering, therefore, the strangers lined the way in Palaceyard, and greeted each member as he passed with a hint or exhortation about the repeal of the cornlaws. They felt their full importance; and it was really great. Already, since the meeting of parliament, 994 petitions for the repeal of the corn-laws had been presented; and these delegates were the representatives of some millions of the queen's best subjects. When they had duly impressed themselves on the passing members, they marched back again up Parliament Street, and, at Privy Gardens, they met Sir R. Peel in his carriage, on his way to the House. He looked very grave; and his countenance did not relax when he heard the cries all round him for the downfall of the bread-tax. This was an anxious day for the minister-the last great occasion of his speaking from a false position-from too dubious and unsatisfied a mind within, to enable him cheerfully to brave unpopularity without. He rose to speak about five o'clock. The Duke of Cambridge and many other peers were present, and the House was crowded throughout, and yet particularly still, till towards the close of the speech, when the minister had to ask for the attention of his hearers. There was no confidence in his manner; it was nervous and uneasy. There was no argument in his speech; it was mainly one of clear exposition of the government proposals, and vague deprecation of 'reliance on foreigners' for the food of the nation. He even condescended to the statement that in ordinary years the nation had enough, or nearly enough, of home-grown corn for its consumption, and that it was therefore only on extraordinary occasions that we need to resort to foreigners for any considerable quantity of food. In a little while, he was to see, as clearly as any man, that it was not for him or any one to say when the people had enough, or how long our annual produce would serve our increasing numbers; and that the occasional character of our demand for foreign corn was precisely that which made the commerce an evil instead of a good. But now his mind was entering upon its final transition stage-something of the bitterness of which he had known before. The joy of the agricultural party at finding that they were not to be bereft of their sliding-scale could give him no pleasure in the present state of his mind. The derisive cheers of the opposition were clamorous when it appeared that nothing more was proposed than a reduction of duty, and to make the slidingscale really slide instead of jumping; and the Whigs were delighted to find that the minister had failed to come up to their own point-of an 88. fixed duty. Their cheers were caught up by the anti-corn-law crowd without; and the minister, supposed to be the strongest since the peace, found himself almost overwhelmed on the announcement of the first of his schemes. The ministerial plan proposed to preserve the principle of the corn-duty varying inversely with the price of corn in the market; and the existing system of averages was to be retained-if for no other reason, because it was the basis of the recent tithe commutation scheme. But some security was provided by changes in the mode and instrumentality of procuring the averages, and yet more by extending the area from which the averages were to be derived. Instead of the 150 towns named in the Corn Bill, many of which were insignificant in comparison with new towns that had risen up, every considerable town which had a corn-market was to be named in the new act, to contribute to the averages. As for the main point-the reduction of duties-much fraud and other evil had been found to arise from the suddenness of the reduction of duty when corn was at the dearest. Thus, when wheat was at 70s., the duty was 138. 8d.; and it fell to 10s. 8d. when wheat was only 1s. dearer. Yet worse, when wheat was again 18. dearer, the duty sank 4s., so as to be 68. 8d. at 72s., and 2s. 8d. at 73s.; and above that, only 18. The inducement to corn-merchants to hold back corn, in order to enhance its price, and escape all but the lightest duties, was thus very strong; and the injury was great to the government, which lost much duty; to the home-grower, by causing an over-supply in the market precisely when prices reached their highest point; and above all, to the consumer, who had to pay the high prices thus artificially caused. This was the evil to be redressed. In coming to the mode of redress, Sir R. Peel made the agricultural faces in the House very grave by saying that he did not believe it to be for the interest of the farmer that prices should reach higher than the range from 54s. to 58s. The manufacturing interest were not surprised at his seeing no good in prices being lower than that range; and he made both classes understand that he was as far as possible from supposing that the price of home-grown corn could be fixed, or even indicated, by anything that could be done in parliament. This being understood, it was now proposed that the duty should never exceed 20s., and that this duty should remain till the price of wheat passed 50s. When it was 51s., the duty was to be 193. Then it was to be 18s., while the price mounted through 3s.—that is, till wheat was at 55s., when the duty would be 178. This rest' in the slide was to be repeated when the price was 66s., and CHAP. VI.] THE CORN BILL OF 1842-FINANCIAL STATEMENT. the duty 6s. The price must be 69s. before the duty sank to 58. Such was the scheme, proposing a very considerable reduction of duties, and of 'protection' to the home-grower; but somewhat easing the reduction by amending in his favour the action of the scale. It was in itself no great matter; it did not touch the vices of the system, or introduce any remedial principle; but it told plainly enough, to all that had ears to hear, that the corn-laws were doomed. The dubious countenances of landowners in both houses said so. The shakes of the head at market-tables said so. The embarrassed bearing of the minister said so, to those who saw his position and his course more clearly than he did himself. The cheers of the delegates, outside the House, before assembling to concert new measures of agitation, said so; and, as for the newspapers, some of them said so very plainly. It was the 7th of April before the bill passed the Commons; and great was the excitement in the interval. The farmers were at first disposed to be as angry as the manufacturers; but they were advised by their friends in both Houses to be quiet, as it was certain that they could get nothing better than this bill by opposition, and they might get something worse. The League called meetings in London, and all the large provincial towns, where the imposition of any tax whatever on food was denounced, and declared to be doomed to extinction. At these meetings, Lord John Russell's proposed policy made no progress. A fixed duty was scouted as emphatically as any movable duty. In some manufacturing towns, Sir R. Peel was burned in effigy. He had gratified nobody, satisfied very few, and offended a vast majority of the nation; so he might well look grave by anticipation, when he met the delegates by his own gate as he was going down to the House. The first thing the House did was to sanction the principle of the sliding-scale by rejecting Lord John Russell's resolution against it, by a majority of 123 in a House of 575 members, after a debate of four nights. Yet Mr Villiers brought forward his promised motion against any corn-duty whatever; and this was debated for five nights more, and lost by a majority of 393 to 90. A scale of duties proposed by Mr Christopher, as superior to the ministerial one, was rejected in committee by a majority of 306 to 104. Lord Ebrington opposed the second reading on the 8th of March, but was outvoted by a large majority. The debates had now become languid and wearisome. Everybody knew what would be said on all hands, and that the bill could not but pass, after the rejection of Lord John Russell's resolution; and it was a universal relief when the Corn Bill of 1842-the last defiance of the great natural laws of society, in the shape of a slidingscale of food-duties-was sent up to the other House. There Lord Melbourne followed the course of Lord John Russell in the Commons-but in his own characteristic manner. He declared that all sound argument, all good sense, all clear reason, all the well-understood interests of mankind, were on the side of free-trade; but that all usage, all prejudices, and nearly all feelings, were in favour 641 of protective duties. He therefore dissented from Lord Brougham's proposed resolutions in favour of a perfectly free trade in corn, and moved a declaration in favour of a fixed duty on its importation. This was negatived by a majority of 117 to 49; and Lord Brougham's, in a thin House, by 87 to 6. Lord Stanhope, on the other, the ultraProtectionist, side, would have had the bill read that day six months; but the day of his party was over; and the bill became law on the 29th of April. In the meantime, the all-important statement had been made the statement of the measures by which ministers proposed to retrieve the financial affairs of the nation, to arrest its course into annually deepening debt, and give a new and healthy stimulus to manufactures and commerce. The statement took the House and the people by surprise-not after the manner which had become a Whig device, but by the breadth and comprehensiveness of the measures proposed. It was remembered that measures proposed by a Peel cabinet were always fit to be carried, as far as their preparation was concerned; so that, if passed at all, they would be passed complete; and men saw their whole prospect when the ministerial proposals were laid before them. It is seldom that so wide and new a prospect is opened before a people as on the present occasion; and it was indeed time that the most vigorous and effectual efforts were made for the redemption of our sinking state. It was at this date that it became clear that the Chinese war was not over; and our deadly misfortunes in India were beginning to open upon minds at home. Though the East India Company bore the expenses of wars which concerned their own territory, it was impossible to say what might not be the drain upon the national treasury in consequence of the Afghan enterprise. We have seen something of the daily deepening distress and trouble throughout our own islands; and, of all disheartening things, the minister had to begin his government under a certain deficiency of two millions and a half for the year, and upwards of ten millions for the last six years. The excuse of the Whigs for leaving affairs in this condition was, that they could not help it. They declared that, from this consideration, and a principle of religious submission to misfortunes sent by Providence, their minds were calm, and their consciences clear. Such was their declaration. It is well for the British nation that Sir R. Peel's was somewhat different-in spirit as in terms. Which was the nobler, the more religious, and the more benevolent, the event soon shewed. Sir R. Peel's declaration was as follows; and it aided his after-work, by spreading stimulus and hope over the country, and rousing the best spirit of the nation. On the 11th of March it was that, before opening his scheme, he intimated the spirit in which it was prepared. 'No one,' he said, 'can feel more than I do the importance and the extent of the duty that devolves on me. No one can be more conscious than I am how disproportionate are my intellectual powers to the proper performance of my task; but, sir, I should be unworthy of the trust committed to meI should be unfit to stand here in my place as the minister of the British crown-if I could feel disheartened or discouraged-if I could entertain anything but composure and contentedness of mind -anything I may say, but that buoyancy and alacrity of spirit which ought to sustain every public man when entering upon the discharge of a great public duty; conscious that he is actuated by no motives that are not honourable and just, and feeling a deep and intimate conviction that, according to the best conclusion of his imperfect and fallible judgment, that which he intends to propose will be conducive to the welfare, I may say, essential to the prosperity of the country.' So much for his own state of mind. As for that which he confidently anticipated from the nation, his own intimation of what it ought to be, at the conclusion of his speech, was enough to call it into life, if it was not already existing. No History of the Thirty Years' Peace would be complete which did not embody the views of the patriotism of peace, in analogy with that of war, which were this night offered, amidst the deep silence of a listening parliament, by the first minister of the crown: 'I have given you,' said R. Peel, 'a full, an explicit, an unreserved, but, I hope, an unexaggerated statement of the financial embarrassments in which we are placed. There are occasions when a minister of the crown may, consistently with honour and with good policy, pause before he presses upon the legislature the adoption of measures which he believes to be abstractedly right. . . . . But there are occasions, and this is one of them, upon which a government can make no compromise; there are occasions, and this is one of them, upon which it is the bounden duty of a government to give that counsel to the legislature which it believes to be right-to undertake the responsibility of proposing those measures which it believes to be for the public advantage, and to devolve upon the legislature the responsibility of adopting or rejecting those measures. I have performed, on the part of her majesty's government, my duty. I have proposed, with the full weight and authority of the government, that which I believe to be conducive to the public welfare. I now devolve upon you the duty, which properly belongs to you, of maturely considering, and finally deciding on, the adoption or rejection of the measures I propose. We live in an important era of human affairs. There may be a natural tendency to overrate the magnitude of the crisis in which we live, or those particular events with which we are ourselves conversant; but I think it is impossible to deny that the period in which our lot and the lot of our fathers has been cast-the period which has elapsed since the first outbreak of the first French Revolutionhas been one of the most memorable periods that the history of the world will afford. The course which England has pursued during that period will attract for ages to come the contemplation, and, I trust, the admiration, of posterity. That period may be divided into two parts of almost equal duration; a period of twenty-five years of continued conflict-the most momentous which ever engaged the energies of a nation-and twenty-five years, in which most of us have lived, of profound European peace, produced by the sacrifices made during the years of war. There will be a time when those countless millions that are sprung from our loins, occupying many parts of the globe, living under institutions derived from ours, speaking the same language in which we convey our thoughts and feelings-for such will be the ultimate results of our wide-spread colonisation-the time will come when those countless millions will view with pride and admiration the example of constancy and fortitude which our fathers set during the momentous period of war. They will view with admiration our previous achievements by land and sea, our determination to uphold the public credit, and all those qualities by the exhibition of which we were enabled ultimately, by the example we set to foreign nations, to insure the deliverance of Europe. In the review of the period, the conduct of our fathers during the years of war will be brought into close contrast with the conduct of those of us who have lived only during the years of peace. I am now addressing you after the duration of peace for twenty-five years. I am now exhibiting to you the financial difficulties and embarrassments in which you are placed; and my confident hope and belief is that, following the example of those who preceded you, you will look those difficulties in the face, and not refuse to make similar sacrifices to those which your fathers made for the purpose of upholding public credit. You will bear in mind that this is no casual and occasional difficulty. You will bear in mind that there are indications among all the upper classes of society of increased comfort and enjoyment -of increased prosperity and wealth; and that, concurrently with these indications, there exists a mighty evil which has been growing up for the last seven years, and which you are now called upon to meet. If you have, as I believe you have, the fortitude and constancy of which you have been set the example, you will not consent with folded arms to view the annual growth of this mighty evil. You will not reconcile it to your consciences to hope for relief from diminished taxation. You will not adopt the miserable expedient of adding, during peace, and in the midst of those indications of wealth and of increasing prosperity, to the burdens which posterity will be called upon to bear. You will not permit this evil to gain such gigantic growth as ultimately to place it far beyond your power to check or control. If you do permit this evil to continue, you must expect the severe but just judgment of a reflecting and retrospective posterity. Your conduct will be contrasted with the conduct of your fathers, under difficulties infinitely less pressing than theirs. Your conduct will be contrasted with that of your fathers, who, with a mutiny at the Nore, a rebellion in Ireland, and disaster abroad, yet submitted with buoyant vigour and universal applause-with the funds as low as 52-to a property-tax of 10 per cent. I believe that you will not subject yourselves to an injurious or unworthy contrast. It is my firm belief that you will feel the necessity of preserving inviolate the public credit-that you will not throw away the means of maintaining the public credit by reducing in the most legitimate manner the burden of the public debt. My confident hope and belief is that CHAP. VI.] FINANCIAL SCHEME-INCOME TAX-NEW TARIFF. now, when I devolve the responsibility upon you, you will prove yourselves worthy of your missionof your mission as the representatives of a mighty people; and that you will not tarnish the fame which it is your duty to cherish as the most glorious inheritance that you will not impair the character for fortitude, for good faith, which, in proportion as the empire of opinion supersedes and predominates over the empire of physical force, constitutes for every people, but above all for the people of England-I speak of reputation and character-the main instrument by which a powerful people can repel hostile aggressions, and maintain extended empire.' The minister continued to do his own part, by a bearing of unflinching firmness and patient courage. On the night of the 11th of March, while the House was waiting for his statement, he had had the painful duty of communicating to it the news of the murder of Sir William M'Naghten, and of the calamities of the Cabool force; and for many nights afterwards, his attendance in the House was a sort of running the gantlet of inquiries and objections about his scheme, which was too large to be at once comprehended, and too vigorous to be at once estimated by the existing House of Commons. The scheme was this. Here was a large deficiency to be met, and such a surplus to be provided as would prevent the recurrence of a deficiency. It was too great a need to be met by a tax on a commodity here and a commodity there, at a time when too many commodities were going out of use through the poverty of the people. The appeal must be made directly to property; and the first proposition was of an income-tax, not to exceed 7d. in the pound, or nearly 3 per cent., for a limited period. Such a tax, besides filling up the deficit, would yield a surplus that would justify a vast reduction of commercial taxation; and the confident expectation of the minister was, that so much relief would be felt from these reductions-from the improvement in trade and in comfort that must follow-that the payment of the income-tax would be rendered very easy. He believed that when almost the whole mass of commercial duties was removed, the difference to individuals, from the relief, would be worth fully the £2, 188. 4d. in every £100 of their incomes that the income-tax would take from them. From this tax, all incomes below £150 were to be exempted. This was very well. But it was not so well that income from all sources was to be treated alike; that the receiver of a temporary annuity of £200 from the funds, for instance, should pay £5, 16s. 8d. out of it, in the very last year, while the receiver of £200 per annum from landed property paid only the same sum; and, again, that the professional man— the surgeon or lawyer-who, in the decline of life, was beginning to earn £1000 per annum, but who had not made a provision for the family who would lose their income at his death, should pay the same amount of tax as the proprietor who would transmit a rental of £1000 to his children. This was regarded at the time, and has been regarded more and more since, as the great imperfection of the ministerial scheme. It was allowed to pass at first, because the 643 tax was proposed as a temporary one; and it was felt that the vast labour and difficulty of making arrangements for the ascertainment of the sources of income and the apportionment of the tax could hardly be got through before the term of its imposition would have arrived. But arrangements should have been made for the prosecution of this task from the moment it was supposed that a renewal of the tax would be necessary. It has been twice renewed, with the entire approbation of the majority of clear-headed and public-spirited men in the country, many of whom would be glad to see it increased to 10 per cent. for the sake of the abolition of all other taxes; and yet nothing is done or promised about proportioning the tax to the saleable value of incomes. After deducting the incomes under £150, which would have yielded a quarter of the whole amount, the impost was expected to afford something above three millions and a half. As for its duration, five years would have been proposed unconditionally, but for the chance of one of those turns of commercial prosperity which might render its continuance unnecessary. It was, therefore, to cease at the end of three years, or go on to five, as parliament should at the time see fit. Ireland was exempted from the tax, not only on account of her poverty, but because, not being subject to assessed taxes, she had no machinery for the collection of this duty; and the consequences of setting up such a machinery, in the existing state of Ireland, required the gravest consideration. It was proposed to levy an equivalent amount of tax in Ireland by increased duties on spirits-the consumption of which was again on the increase, from the decline of the temperance movement-and by equalising the stampduties in England and Ireland. Absentees, residing in England from choice and not public duty, would be subject to the income-tax, as English residents. One other measure for increasing the revenue was proposed the extension of the 4s. duty on the export of coal, hitherto partial, to all exportation of that article. Here would be a revenue, it was supposed, of £4,380,000 from these new sources. After supplying the deficit, what was to be done with the surplus? It was to be applied in the largest reduction of commercial taxation ever contemplated by cabinet or parliament. Out of 1200 articles subject to customs-duties, 750 were to be reduced. The first principle was, the minister said, to remove prohibition; and the next, to reduce duties on the raw materials of manufactures to 5 per cent. or less. On articles partially manufactured, the duty would now never exceed 12 per cent.; nor, on articles wholly manufactured, 20 per cent. The loss by these 750 reductions would not, he believed, exceed £270,000 -a small sum for which to have borne so vexatious a taxation for so long! The new tariff was all ready -divided under twenty heads-laid on the table this Friday night, so as to be read by every tradesman in Great Britain on Monday morning, and talked over in every Monday club. As Sir R. Peel took the document from the hands of Mr Gladstone, loud cheers arose from every part of the House; and every one probably felt that it was worth waiting |