Harriet Martineau's Writing on British History and Military Reform, vol 4

Deborah Logan, Kathryn Sklar

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000161748
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Storia
• Categoría: Storia mondiale

This volume contains Harriet Martineau's writings on the history of England and its efforts and negotiations to promote peace between 1834 and 1841, providing a detailed account of the political revolutions and democratic and military reforms that shaped England's history.

VOLUME IV.

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

FROM the time of the passage of the Reform Bill, the three parties in the State – kindred with those which exist in every free State – began to accept one another’s new titles, and the professions included in those titles. The Tories, Whigs, and Radicals wished to be called Conservatives, Reformers, and Radical Reformers; and the easy civility of calling people by the name they like best, spread through public manners till the word Tory was seldom heard except among old-fashioned people, or in the heat of political argument. The Whig title has since revived, – inevitably, – from the Whigs having ceased even to pretend to the character of Reformers; and the Radical Reformers were not numerous or powerful enough in Parliament to establish for themselves a title which should become traditional. There was some dispute, and a good deal of recrimination, at the outset, about the assumption by each party of its own title: the Tories declaring, that they were as reforming, in intention and in fact, as the Whigs, only in a preservative way; the Whigs declaring, that the only true conservatism was through reforms like theirs; and the Radicals, who were called Destructives by both the others, declaring, that a renovation of old institutions – a regeneration on occasion – was the only way to avoid that ultimate revolution which the Tories would invite, and the Whigs permit. While the titles were changing, the parties were as yet essentially the same as ever. As usual, they consisted mainly of the representatives of those who had much to lose, those who had much to gain, and the umpire party, disliked by both, whose function is to interpose in times of crisis, and whose fate it is to exhaust the credit acquired, in such seasons, during long intervals of indolence and vacillation. Such was, as usual, the constitution of the three political parties, after the passage of the Reform Bill, and when the changes in their titles actually took place; but there were clear-sighted men at that time who perceived that the change of names was but the first sign of an approaching disintegration of the parties themselves, – a disintegration which must be succeeded by more or less fusion, – that fusion being introductory to a new exhibition of products. The old parties, notwithstanding their new names, were about to disappear. They could not be annihilated; but they would re-appear so transmuted that none but the philosopher would know them again, – with new members, a new language, a new task, and a whole set of new aims. As much of this prevision has come true as time has yet allowed for. The disintegration and fusion have taken place; and all thoughtful people see that a new formation of parties must be at hand. One limit of the transition-period of parties remains still future; the other must be laid down at the date of Sir Robert Peel’s accession to power, in December, 1834. Here we have the old Eldon oracle speaking again, – speaking ‘in the spirit of fear,’ and not ‘in that of power, and of love, and of a sound mind,’ and therefore giving out its truth in a dismal disguise; but still giving out more truth than anybody could use at the time. Here we have Lord Eldon’s party view of the future; while the Wellingtons and Rodens, and Knatchbulls and Lyndhursts, and Wharncliffes and Ellenboroughs, were in power, at the opening of the year 1835:* ‘The new ministers certainly have the credit, if that be creditable, of being inclined to get as much popularity by what are called reforms as their predecessors; and if they do not, at present, go to the full length to which the others were going, they will at least make so many important changes in Church and State, that nobody can guess how far the precedents they establish may lead to changes of a very formidable kind hereafter.’ Though Lord Eldon could see no other reason for Tories making changes than a hankering after popularity, we can discern in the facts, and his statement of them, the beginning of that wasting away of parties which he did not live to see.

The new Conservative rule began with a joke. Some, who could not take the joke easily, were very angry; but most people laughed; and, among them, the person most nearly concerned, – the Duke of Wellington, – laughed as cheerfully as anybody. Sir Robert Peel was at Rome: it must be a fortnight before he could arrive, and nothing could be done about the distribution of office in his absence; so the Duke took the business of the empire upon himself during the interval. This he called, not deserting his sovereign; and he was as well satisfied with himself in this singular way of getting over the crisis, as on all the other occasions when he refused to desert his sovereign. His devotion was such, that, for the interval, he undertook eight offices, – five principal, and three subordinate. ‘The Irish hold it impossible,’ wrote a contemporary, ‘for a man to be in two places at once, “like a bird.”^† The Duke has proved this no joke, – he is in five places at once. At last, then, we have a united government. The Cabinet Council sits in the Duke’s head, and the ministers are all of one mind.’ The angry among the Liberals treated the spectacle as they would have done if the Duke had proposed to carry on the government permanently in this manner. Condemnations passed at public meetings were forwarded to him, with emphatic assurances that the condemnation was unanimous; an orator here and there drew out in array all the consequences that could ever arise from the temporary shift being made a precedent; and Lord Campbell condescended to talk, at a public meeting at Edinburgh, of impeaching the multifarious Minister. At all this, and at a myriad of jokes, the Duke laughed, while he worked like a clerk from day to day, till the welcome sound of Sir Robert Peel’s carriage-wheels was heard.

It is a strong proof of the virulence of the party-spirit of the time, that even generous-minded men, experienced in the vicissitudes of politics, could not at first – nor till after the lapse of months or years – appreciate the position of Sir Robert Peel. Everybody saw it at last; and there were many who, during that hard probation, watched him and sympathized with him with daily increasing interest and admiration; but there were too many who turned his difficulties against him, and who were insensible till too late to the rebuke involved in the fine temper which became nobler, and the brilliant statesmanship which became more masterly, as difficulties which he had not voluntarily encountered pressed upon him with a daily accumulating force. His being at Rome proved how little he had anticipated being called to office. He had no option about accepting it, – his sovereign sent for him, and he must come; and, when he arrived, he found there was no possibility of declining a task which he believed to be hopeless. Unpopular as the Whig Ministry had become, the Conservatives were not the better for it, but the worse: for the cry for reform was growing stronger every day; and he could have no hope of gratifying the majority of his own party, as he could not attempt to repeal the Reform Bill, or to get back to the old ways. There was nothing before him but failure, with discredit, on every hand; but, while he would certainly never have chosen to fill a position so hard and so hopeless, he had a spirit whose nature it was to rise under difficulties, and to feel the greatest alacrity under desperate conditions.

One of the desperate conditions was, that he could not form the Cabinet which his intentions and the necessities of the times required. He arrived in London early on Tuesday, the 9th of December, and went at once to the King; yet, on the next Saturday, nothing was known but that he would himself be Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as First Lord of the Treasury. Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham had declined being of his corps; and he did not accept the ultra-Tory adherents of the Duke whom he found hanging about on his return. In his ministry are found, naturally, but unfortunately for its chances, four men whose political steadiness could never again be counted upon, – Lords Lyndhurst and Rosslyn; Sir James Scarlett, now made Lord Abinger; and Mr. Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton. The rest were of such politics as to discredit at once all professions of the Duke and his friends, in Sir Robert Peel’s absence, of the desire of the government to promote all rational reforms. The Duke himself went to the foreign office; Mr. Goulburn, to the home; Mr. Herries, to the war; and Lord Aberdeen, to the colonial office. Sir Henry Hardinge was Irish Secretary; Lord Wharncliffe, Lord Privy Seal; and Lord Rosslyn, President of the Council. Lord Lyndhurst was on the woolsack, and Lord Abinger became Chief Baron. Some of the King’s sons-in-law, who were Whigs, resigned their offices in the household, and were succeeded by Conservatives of a very pure water.

Another of the desperate conditions was the state of parties in the Commons. From the moment there was a rumor of a difficulty between the King and Lord Melbourne, the Whigs and Radicals in the House began to incline towards each other, lest the reformers of England should lose any of the ground they had so hardly gained. From the moment it became known that Lord Melbourne had declined the earldom and the garter, which the poor King had the bad taste to offer as a compensation for unreasonable treatment, all differences were sunk for the season, and the two parties united as one; so that it was believed, on every hand, that little more than a fourth – certainly less than a third – of the existing House of Commons would support the new Ministry. Though the people might not, at that juncture, return a much more favorable House, the experiment must be tried. Parliament was prorogued on the 18th of December; and on the 30th it was dissolved by proclamation, and a new one was convoked, to meet on the 19th of February.*

Before taking the sense of the country, it was necessary for the Minister to put forth some declaration of what the country had to expect from him; and this he did in the form of an address to his Tamworth constituents, avowing that he was at the same time addressing the whole middle classes of the nation. It is observable, that, while he speaks undoubtingly of his obligation to take office, and heartily of his intention to toil and persevere, there is scarcely an expression in the address which indicates hope of permanence and success. Its tone is cheerful, but no one could call it sanguine: and, in indicating the principles on which he means to act, he speaks for himself alone, and makes no reference to a Cabinet policy, or to administrative co-operation in any way; merely declaring, in a parenthetical manner, that the sentiments of his colleagues are in entire concurrence with his own.

First, he declares himself a reformer of abuses, and points to his own great measures in regard to the currency, to criminal law, to jury trial, and other matters, in proof of his disposition to remove abuses and facilitate improvements. In the same spirit, he would accept and make operative any reform actually accomplished, whether he originally approved of it or not; and he would therefore accept the Reform Bill, considering it a ‘final and irrevocable settlement of a great constitutional question;’ and he would carry out its intentions, supposing those to imply a careful review of old institutions, undertaken in a friendly spirit, and with a purpose of improvement. Coming down to particulars, he would not interfere with the inquiry of the corporation commissioners, of which he had shown his approbation by being voluntarily a member of the parliamentary committee upon it. He had voted with government on Lord Althorp’s church-rate measure, and was still willing to relieve the Dissenters from the grievance of paying church-rates, and of a celebration of marriage in terms to which they conscientiously objected. He would not admit the right of Dissenters to admission to the universities; but he would recommend an alteration of the regulations which prevented any of the King’s subjects from being on a perfect equality with others in respect to any civil privilege. He would not countenance any retrospective inquiry into the pension-list, – filled, as it had been, under circumstances that had passed away; but he would advocate more care in future in the conferring of pensions. About church-reform in Ireland, again, his mind was not changed: he was in favor of the best distribution, be it ever so new, of ecclesiastical property for ecclesiastical purposes; but he could not sanction its application to any other than strictly ecclesiastical objects. He wished to see a commutation of tithe in England; and, with regard to deeper matters, – the laws which govern the Church, – he desired time for further thought, and opportunity for new light. The somewhat deprecatory tone of the conclusion of this address is striking now, and must have been strongly felt by all the many classes of readers who thronged to get a sight of it on the morning of its appearance. ‘I enter upon the arduous duties assigned to me with the deepest sense of the responsibility they involve, with great distrust of my own qualifications for their adequate discharge; but, at the same time, with a resolution to persevere, which nothing could inspire but the strong impulse of public duty, the consciousness of upright motives, and the firm belief that the people of this country will so far maintain the prerogative of the King as to give to the ministers of his choice, not an implicit confidence, but a fair trial.’

Such was the text on which the popular comment of the elections was to proceed. It was much more liberal than the Liberals had expected; but, when they looked at the group of colleagues behind, they distrusted the Minister and his manifesto, and set vigorously to work to elect a House which should bring all his counsels to nought, and frustrate all his efforts. He could not have said that they, as Liberals, were wrong; and neither he nor they could anticipate how their opposition would rouse his faculties and exalt his fame. This address appeared in one paper as a mere advertisement, in small type. In another, it was conspicuous as the leading article. It was immediately reprinted, throughout the country; and it is strange now to see it standing under the heading of ‘the Tory Manifesto.’ If this was its true title, Toryism had indeed changed its character, much and rapidly.

The first reformed Parliament had not satisfied its constituents: it had done some wrong things, and omitted many right ones; but it had had the great virtue of being in advance of the ill-compacted, desultory, unbusiness-like Whig Cabinet. It would have done more and better but for the drag of the Administration, which was always put on when there was up-hill work to be attempted. If the same Parliament had been allowed to remain, its great reform party no longer impeded by the Whigs, but aided by them, great things might be hoped. As it was not to remain, it was parted with more respectfully and good-humoredly than could have been supposed possible three months before, under a prevailing sense that much allowance must be made for the disadvantage of the reform Ministry having so soon fallen so far below all rational expectation. Every thing might be hoped from the next House of Commons. The first object of every class of reformers was clear enough, – to depose the Conservatives, and reinstate a reforming Ministry; and it would be perfectly easy to do this by union between the Whig and Radical parties, though, as every one knew, there would be more Conservatives returned under a Peel than under a Grey Ministry. More Conservatives were returned, but the Reformers had still an overwhelming majority; and from the hour when the members assembled, it was only a question of time – a consideration of sense and temper – when and how Sir Robert Peel should be compelled to retire. The popular power being thus clearly able to do what it would, it now appears strange that the virulence of the time was what it was. The Minister seems to have been almost the only man who preserved temper and cheerfulness, though his position was incomparably the hardest, – placed, as he was, in that hopeless position, without any choice of his own. It is not necessary to record the ill-humor of the time by anecdotes which would now convey more disgrace than the parties deserved; but it may be said, that the kingdom was covered with altercation, from the House of Lords, where the late ministers spoke with extreme bitterness of late events, down to the street-corners and police-courts, where fretful men complained of each other, and of the police, and the bill-stickers, and all officers concerned in all elections. The Conservatives quarrelled among themselves quite as virulently as either party with the other. The old Tories put out a caricature of the search of Diogenes,¹ who lights upon Lord Eldon as the only honest man. The ‘Times’ lectured the party on its slowness and apathy; and other Conservative papers denounced all compromise with reform, now that the opportunity was present of putting down the Papists and the Radicals by the powers of government, under the countenance of the King. As soon as it was clear that the Reformers had a very large majority, and when the ‘Times’ retreated so far as to discuss the possibility of a coalition between the Grey and Peel parties, the other leading paper, the ‘Standard,’ intimated that the new Parliament would be immediately dissolved, in order to afford the people an opportunity of reconsidering their duty, and returning a House more agreeable to the other ruling powers. This intimation caused such an outcry about a return of the time of the Stuarts, that the paper softened its menace immediately; but it could not recall the hint it had given to the constituencies to keep up their organization, in readiness for a new election, at any hour. Accusations of bribery all round were profuse, and, on the whole, too well deserved; for the occasion was indeed a most critical one, when the corrupt, as well as the honorable, felt called on to put forth all their resources. Then, there was incessant quarrelling about the waverers, or doubtful men, who were just sufficient to make it difficult to calculate, and easy to dispute, what the Conservative minority would in reality be. Then, again, it was certain, that, from the losses to the Reform party in the English bo...