'without concert or consultation with any one else;' and events proved that he wrote it without any more insight than people in general had into what 'the State-that is, the cabinet-was about. Lord John Russell presently shewed himself determined not to share the 'inaction of the State.' He addressed to the electors of London a letter from Edinburgh, dated November 22, 1845, which he declared to be occasioned by the separating of the ministers without apparent result, after their frequent cabinet meetings. After confessing his changes of opinion during the last twenty years, and relating the stages of his advocacy of a continually lessening amount of fixed duty, Lord J. Russell declared: 'It is no longer worth while to contend for a fixed duty.

The

struggle to make bread scarce and dear, when it is clear that part, at least, of the additional price goes to increase rent, is a struggle deeply injurious to an aristocracy which, this quarrel once removed, is strong in property, strong in the construction of our legislature, strong in opinion, strong in ancient associations and the memory of immortal services. Let us then unite to put an end to a system which has proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter divisions among classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people.' This invitation was valuable as a preparation for the deed to be done by other hands. But it was too late as regarded Lord J. Russell himself. It met with no hearty response. His position would now have been a glorious one if he had ever before advocated perfect freedom of the corn-trade; and he would have been trusted if he had been a Conservative leader, like his rival-a Conservative leader convinced and converted by the stringency of circumstances; but, as an avowed leader of a Liberal party, converted only at the moment when he should have been attaining the aim of many years-at the moment when his Conservative rival was undergoing the agony of conversion-he was not trusted; and it was impossible that he should be. This letter, on which he clearly founded great hopes, did him no good; the Conservative convert was appointed to the work. When the time came for explanations in parliament, Lord J. Russell made complaints of his letter being regarded as a party move-as a bid for office; but there was one feature in the letter which deprived him of all right to resent such an interpretation-it abounded in taunts and expressions of spleen towards Sir R. Peel. The whole composition has the air of being aimed at the minister.

It is known by means of ministerial explanations afterwards, what took place during this period when all the world was on the watch, and no one could learn anything. The cabinet-councils held between the 1st and the 6th of November were for the purpose of considering the information sent in from Ireland about the potato-crop, and from the whole kingdom about the general crop. As regarded Ireland, the reports were alarming beyond description. The ministers could deliberate upon them without disturbance from without; for as yet there was no agitation about opening the ports which could affect the action of the government-no

petitions, no urgency from public meetings or in the newspapers. The desire of Sir R. Peel at that time was to throw open the ports by an order in council, or by calling parliament together immediately for the purpose; but only three of his colleagues agreed with him; and the ministers separated, on the understanding that they should reassemble at the call of the premier. His hope was that the growing alarm would presently convince all his colleagues of the necessity of opening the ports. Commissions were organised for the prevention of a sudden pressure of extreme distress, especially in Ireland; and on the 25th of November, the ministers again met, to prepare instructions for these commissions. The instructions were agreed on; but then it appeared to the premier that these instructions were inconsistent with the maintenance of the corn-laws in their existing state. He reserved to himself the power of insuring a free supply from abroad; and now his colleagues had become so impressed by the daily increasing alarm as to afford a hope that they would withdraw the opposition with which they before met the proposal. But Lord Stanley could not yield; nor could one or two others. If the opening of the ports had taken place at the beginning of November, it would have been done with a strong hand; but the delay had admitted of the appearance of Lord J. Russell's letter; and now, if the cabinet was not absolutely united-if a single resignation took place it would appear as if the letter of a rival had determined the minister's views, and his acts would have lost all their moral weight.

It was in the midst of the second series of consultations that an incident occurred which startled the whole kingdom, and gave the newspapers plenty to say. On the 4th of December, the Times announced that it was the intention of government to repeal the corn-laws, and to call parliament together in January for the purpose. Some ministerial papers doubted, and then indignantly denied this. Sonie journals said that it could not be known to the Times, because the fact could transpire only through breach of the cabinet oath. Others said that it might fairly be a matter of inference from the general policy being understood; but to this there was the objection that the Times asserted that its news was not a matter of inference but of fact; and the ordinary government papers persevered in denying the truth of the news altogether. The Times was scolded, insulted, jeered at, lectured; and everybody was warned not to mind the Times, but everybody did mind it; and the Times persevered, day after day, week after week, in haughtily asserting that its intelligence would be found correct within an assigned period. Meantime, the general conviction was complete that the Times had some peculiar means of information. One report was that the Duke of Wellington had come down to the Horse Guards in great wrath, swearing, as he threw himself from his horse, at the pass things had come to when the corn. laws were to be given up; but, besides that such a freak was not very like the shrewd and loyal Duke of Wellington, there was no reason here why the Times should be exclusively in possession of the information. There are some, of course, who know,

and many more who believe they know, how the thing happened; but it is not fitting to record in a permanent form the chit-chat of London about any but the historical bearings of an incident like this. The Times had true information, and that is all that is important to the narrative. As we have said, the announcement was made on the 4th of December. On the 5th, the Standard exhibited a conspicuous title to a counter-statement, 'Atrocious Fabrication by the Times; but meanwhile, 'the effect of the announcement by the Times at the Corn Exchange was immense surprise, not so much displeasure as might have been expected, and an instant downward tendency in the price of grain.' So said other papers. 'We adhere to our original announcement,' said the Times of December 6, 'that parliament will meet early in January, and that a repeal of the corn-laws will be proposed in one House by Sir R. Peel, and in the other by the Duke of Wellington.' The freetraders so far gave weight to the assertion as to announce everywhere with diligence that they would accept of 'nothing short of total repeal-not a shilling, nor a farthing, of duty should be imposed without sound reason shewn,'

For a few days after this, the League was at the height of its glory. The agriculturists were cowed, and could only groan and murmur; men were out all day in the streets, to learn the opinions of their neighbours, and, above all, the expectations of Leaguers. On Sunday the 7th, it was understood that the Duke of Wellington had certainly, though most reluctantly, yielded. On Monday, it was observed that he did not attend the council; on Tuesday, it was believed that he would not act with his colleagues on this subject, and, by refusing to do so, had virtually withdrawn his assent. On Wednesday, there was a privy-council; on Thursday morning, it was understood that the meeting of parliament was somewhat deferred, as if to gain time to settle some difficulty. Throughout the day, the rumours of dissensions in the cabinet grew stronger; and at night, it was made known, all over London, that the ministry had resigned.

It may truly be said that the intelligence was received throughout the country with dismay. The full value of Sir R. Peel was not yet known-the value of his moral earnestness when at last freed from the shackles of educational prejudice and party intimacies-but the value of his administration was everywhere felt. For above four years now the nation had reposed upon his wise government—reposed on his safe and skilful financial management, and thorough efficiency in all the business of governing; and he and his colleagues had moreover carried us through a period of deep depression and fearful disorder; replenished the sources of our manufactures and commerce; reinstated our finances; given benefits to Ireland; sanctioned the principle and practice of religious liberty; and strengthened and settled the whole fabric of our polity, as far as the vigorous and skilful administration of the national affairs for nearly five years could do so. And now, just when the most important of all existing questions had to be conducted to an issue, he was to step aside for those who had no more right than he, on any ground, to

the management of the business, and far less power of every kind. The regret was but temporary, however, for the Peel ministry was presently restored.

Sir R. Peel thought it due to the magnitude of the interest at stake to try no experiment which might fail. When assured, therefore, of the dissent of his colleagues, he immediately resigned. Lord Stanley and the other dissentients would not undertake to form a government; and the queen, of her own choice, sent for Lord J. Russell. Lord J. Russell was at Edinburgh. The royal summons reached him at night on the 8th of December. As there was then no railway to London, it was the 10th before he arrived in town, and the 11th before he appeared in the queen's presence at Osborne, in the Isle of Wight. He had made up his mind that, if asked to undertake the formation of a ministry, he must decline, because his party were in a minority in the Commons of from 90 to 100. This was his answer when the queen made the expected request; but Sir R. Peel had left with the queen a paper in which, after declaring the reasons of his resignation, he avowed his readiness, 'in his private capacity, to aid and give every support to the new minister whom her majesty might select to effect a settlement of the question of the corn-laws.' This wholly changed the state and prospect of the case. Lord J. Russell returned to London to consult such of his friends as were within reach. Through Sir J. Graham, Lord J. Russell was put in possession of all the information on which the late ministers had proceeded; but not of the details of their proposed measures. It was no time for a general election. None but a rash minister would dream of requiring it while the country was in strong excitement, and under the visible doom of a great calamity. Instead of this, the thing to be done was to frame such a measure of corn-law repeal as would secure the support of Sir R. Peel and the colleagues who had adhered to him. After a good deal of correspondence, through the queen, of ditli cult transaction by statesmen so delicately placed with regard to each other, Lord J. Russell conceived himself justified in attempting to form an administration; and he communicated with the sovereign to that effect on the 18th of December. But, next morning, an insuperable difficulty arose. One of the friends on whom he had confidently reckoned as a coadjutor declined to enter the cabinet. This was Lord Grey. Highly as Lord J. Russell valued him, he would at any other time have endeavoured to form a cabinet without him, at his own desire; but the position of the Whigs was now too critical—– or, at least, their leader thought so-to admit the risk of such speculation as would be excited by the exclusion of Lord Grey. On the 20th, therefore, the queen was finally informed that Lord John Russell found it impossible to form an administration.

Among the newspaper reports of the public talk during this interval, we find a few words in italics about the popular surprise at there being 'no mention of Lord Grey' in the list of Whig conferences; and close beside this, we meet with notice of the 'alarm' excited by the consideration that Lord Palmerston must have some office, and most probably the foreign department. Our foreign relations

CHAP. XV.]

were now in a critical state, as our history of the French and American questions will have shewn; and there were many who stood in fear of Lord Palmerston's 'talent of keeping perpetually open all vital questions and dangerous controversies.' It was well understood that Lord Grey thought it unsafe to make Lord Palmerston foreign minister at such a juncture; and that he declined to act inconsistently with his own long-avowed principles of peace, by sitting in the cabinet with a minister who had done more than any other man to foster the war-spirit in 1840 and 1841. The disappointed Whig party bitterly complained that 'Lord Grey had done it all;' but with the country at large Lord Grey lost nothing by this difficult act of self-exclusion, or by his honourable silence in the midst of the censure which was abundantly poured out upon him.

On Friday the 19th, the queen intimated to Sir R. Peel that, as their political relation was about to terminate, she wished to see him the next day, to bid him farewell. Before he went to Windsor on the Saturday, he was informed by Lord John Russell of the failure of his enterprise; and when he entered the queen's presence, he was told that, so far from taking leave, he must prepare for the resumption of office. He returned to town as minister of the crown, and found no difficulty in reconstructing his cabinet. Lord Stanley of course retired. All the others remained-all but one who had died suddenly from the anxiety of the crisis. Lord Wharncliffe had been suffering from gout, but no danger was apprehended. He was, however, in no state to bear the turmoil of the time; and he suddenly sank on the 19th of December, in the seventieth year of his age. As president of the council, he had proved himself a zealous and effective minister; and his earnestness in fulfilling to the utmost such provisions for education as had been obtained, secured him much gratitude from society. It was an untoward time for a West Riding election; but this elevation of Mr Stuart Wortley to the peerage rendered it necessary; and Lord Morpeth was returned to his old seat without opposition. Mr Gladstone became colonial secretary, instead of Lord Stanley; and the Duke of Buccleuch succeeded Lord Wharncliffe as president of the council.

And now, once more, all was going well-well for the people; and, in a large view, well for the minister. His position was at once an humbling and a glorious one; his course a hard and yet a straight one. He had to stand up in the face of the world, and say that he had been in error all his life, and that he found himself compelled now to achieve that which he had all his life opposed. This was the hard part -accompanied as it must be by the rage of disappointed partisans, the indignant grief of old friends, and perhaps the intemperate triumph of old enemies. But his position was a glorious one, if he could but shew himself equal to it. If, instead of making this the beginning of a new career, as some anticipated, he settled it with himself that this should be his last scene of power, and he could endure calmly what he must go through as a necessary retribution for previous error, and close his career with giving to the nation the benefit it most wanted in the best possible

727

manner, this last scene of his administration might be the noblest. His course must be hard, for there were terrible storms ready to burst in parliament; and when he had, by a stern and self-forgetting rule, held his party together for the passage of the single great measure now in his hand, his party would fall to pieces, and he might be left alone in his place in the legislature, after a life of industry and eminent political prosperity. But not the less was his course clear. He must propose and carry through a total repeal of the corn-laws, whatever became of himself. This must be his single and his final aim; and those who knew anything of the 'alacrity of spirit' with which a strong and honourable mind enters on a great work of reparation, self-sacrifice, and general justice, believed that Sir R. Peel would now make manifest to the utmost the nobleness of his position and the singleness of his aim.

As for the Duke of Wellington, the peremptory and inflexible, who had gone through so many changes, and must now go through one more-everybody knew, by dint of repetition, what he would say. He would say that he could not desert his sovereign. And this is what he did say. 'At all events,' he declared, 'whatever that measure may be, I must say this: that, situated as I am in this country-highly rewarded as I have been by the sovereign and the people of England-I could not refuse that sovereign to aid her, when called upon, to form a government, in order to enable her majesty to meet her parliament, and to carry on the business of the country. Upon that ground, my lords, I present myself to your lordships.'

CHAPTER XV.

HE royal speech, delivered by the queen in person on the 19th of January, expressed satisfaction in the results of the repeal of customsduties, as far as they had yet gone, and recommended to parliament the consideration whether the repeal of restrictions might not be carried yet further; whether there might not still be a remission 'of the existing duties upon many articles, the produce or manufacture of other countries.'

The remission took place on several articles of the tariff without much opposition. Almost the only raw materials still subject to duty were tallow and timber; and these were to be extensively reduced. In consideration of the release of so much raw material, the manufacturers were expected to acquiesce in the reduction of some remaining articles of manufacture; and this they shewed all willingness to do. And well they might; for the minister's exposition proved the vast increase of the silk manufacture in England, in proportion to the removal of duties. There was to be a considerable reduction of the duty on silk manufactures, with more certainty of levy; and the duties on cotton and woollen fabrics were removed or lessened one-half. The differential duties on free-labour

sugar were reduced-the higher from 11s. 8d. to 88.; and the lower from 9s. 4d. to 58. 10d. On brandy and foreign spirits, the duty was brought down nearer to the point which might obviate smuggling; that is, from 228. 10d. per gallon to 15s. Animal food and vegetables were to be admitted duty free; and butter, cheese, hops, and cured fish, reduced onehalf. Live animals were freed from duty; and a considerable number of minor and unenumerated articles.' The minister was strengthened by the successes of former years, and by the absorbing of men's mind in the corn subject; and these remissions passed without any effectual opposition. The sugarduties, however, were left over for subsequent consideration.

The revenue shewed indisputably the results of former remissions. There was this year a clear surplus of £2,380,600. There was a considerable increase in the consumption of those excisable commodities which are connected with the comfort of the mass of the people; more money was in the savings-banks; and there was something better still -a more significant and more blessed token of prosperity than any other-there was a marked decrease of crime. But for the impending famine, there could be no doubt that our country was on the way to a prosperity which must for ever have settled opinions about the policy of free-trade.

It was on the 27th of January that the above tariff reductions were proposed, in the same speech that was to announce the ministerial plan about the corn-laws. Every crevice' into which a stranger could thrust himself was occupied; and hundreds who held tickets were obliged to remain in the streets. Prince Albert and the Duke of Cambridge sat below the bar. The minister's speech lasted four hours. It was listened to for the most part in quietness; but some paragraphs were vehemently cheered by the opposition.

All agricultural produce which serves as cattlefood, such as buckwheat and Indian corn, was to be admitted duty free. It was this provision which wrought better than any other precaution whatever to reduce the pressure of the subsequent famine in Ireland; for Indian meal is a good article of human food-far superior to potatoes. All colonial grain was to bear a merely nominal duty. This would be good news in our Australian colonies, whenever the tidings could reach so far. As for other grain, all protection was to cease in three years; and that time was allowed for the farmers to accommodate themselves to the change. In the interval, the duties were to be considerably reduced. When wheat was under 48s. per quarter, the duty was to be 10s. When at 18. higher, the duty was to be 1s. lower, till wheat should be at 54s. and the duty at 48., after which the duty should not further change. The same principle and proportion were to apply to other kinds of grain. The immediate effect would be to reduce the duty, at the existing price of wheat, from 168. to 48. It was proposed to afford some important relief to the farmers, otherwise than by laying burdens on other classes. Loans of public money were to be attainable by persons contemplating

agricultural improvements. The law of settlement was to be so altered as to prevent country parishes from being burdened with labourers when adversity pressed on the manufacturing districts. Five years' industrial residence was henceforth to constitute a settlement. The cost of prisoners was to be taken off the county-rates. By a consolidation of the highway departments-a consolidation which would reduce the boards from 16,000 to about 600-a vast relief from waste and mismanagement would be! obtained. Such were the main features of the scheme. Objections naturally sprang up on all sides. The Protectionists were, of course, furious; and their antagonists were sorry-and especially on account of the farmers themselves-that there was to be an interval of three years before the corn-trade | was free. The farmers' friends looked on the accompanying provisions of relief as a mere mockery; and some derided the multifarious character of the scheme. But, after all objections were made, there remained the grand and simple fact that in three years the corn-laws would be no more. The manufacturers threw away with joy such remaining duties as had been called a protection to them; and the League leaders, who had invariably declared that they would support any man of any party who would obtain the repeal of the corn-laws, now gave their whole strength to the minister and his scheme.

The debate began on the 9th of February, and │ extended over twelve nights between that and the 27th, when there was a decision in favour of the government by a majority of 97 in a House of 577.! On the 2d of March, the House went into committee, when four nights more were filled with debate, before the second reading was carried by a majority of 88. A last effort was made, in a debate of three nights, to prevent a third reading; but it was carried, at four in the morning of the 16th of May, by a majority of 98 in a House of 556 members.

In the Lords, the majority in favour of the second reading was 47 in a full House-a more easy passage than could have been anticipated. The few amendments that were proposed were negatived; the bili passed on the 22d of June, and became law on the 26th of the same month.

During this long series of debates, every consideration that had ever been urged, for or against a repeal of the corn-laws, was brought up again. There is no need to repeat any of them here. Every personality that could pass the lips of educated men and gentlemen in our period of civilisation was uttered by angry antagonists; and not a few which it is surprising that educated men and gentlemen could listen to without discountenance and rebuke. It would do no good to repeat any of them here. The principal new points, not mere personality, were the extraordinary denial, on the part of the Protectionists, of the existence or probability of famine in Ireland, though such an amount of evidence was laid before the House as might have been expected to bear down all party rancour, and all pride of opinion, and to induce sympathy with the administration in the most prejudiced man in the House. On this, also, there is no occasion to enlarge. Time has shewn what the condition of Ireland was, and was to