A History of the Four Georges and of William IV Volume IV Part 8

[Sidenote: 1831--Parliamentary procedure]

When the House goes into committee, according to the formal Parliamentary phrase, the temptation to obstruct becomes indefinitely multiplied, for in committee a member can speak as often as he thinks fit on the subject--or, at least, such was his privilege before the alterations adopted in very recent years. It may be well to explain to the general reader the meaning of what takes place when the House goes into committee. When a Bill has pa.s.sed through its first and second reading it is understood that the main principles of the measure have been agreed upon, and that it only remains for the House to go into committee for the purpose of considering every clause and every minute detail of the Bill before it comes up to the House again for its third and final reading. Now the House, when it goes into committee, is still just the same House of Commons as before, except that the Speaker leaves the chair and the a.s.sembly is presided over by the Chairman of Committees, who sits not in the Speaker's throne-like chair, but in an ordinary seat at the table in front of it. There is, however, the important difference that, while in the House itself, presided over by the Speaker, a member can only speak once on each motion, in the committee he can speak as often as he thinks fit, and for the obvious reason that, where mere details are under consideration, it was not thought expedient to limit the number of practical suggestions which any member might desire to offer as the discussion of each clause suggested new possibilities of improvement. By the alterations effected recently in the rules of procedure the Speaker of the House, or the Chairman of Committees, obtains a {161} certain control over members who are evidently talking against time and for the sake of wilful obstruction; but in the days of Lord John Russell's Reform Bill no such authority had been given to the presiding officer.

The very motion--in ordinary times a purely formal motion--which had to be pa.s.sed in order that the House might get into committee, gave to the opponents of reform their first opportunity of obstruction. The motion was that the Speaker do now leave the chair, and the moment that motion was put it was immediately met by an amendment. A Tory member raised the question that there was a mistake in one of the returns of population in the const.i.tuency which he represented, and he proposed that his const.i.tuent should be allowed to show cause in person or by counsel at the bar of the House for a rectification of the error. Lord John Russell admitted that there appeared to have been some mistake in the return, but he contended that the motion to enable the House to go into committee was not the proper time at which such a question could be raised. Every one in the House knew perfectly well the motive for raising the question just then, and after some time had been wasted in absolutely unnecessary discussion the obstructive amendment was defeated by a majority of 97. That, however, did not help matters very much, for the House had still to divide upon the question that the Speaker do now leave the chair. This was met by repeated motions for adjournment, and on every one of these motions a long discussion was kept up by some leading members of the Opposition and by their faithful followers. The reader will remember that until the motion had been carried for the Speaker to leave the chair it was still the House, and not the committee, that was sitting, and therefore no member could speak more than once on the same subject. But then this fact did not secure even that particular stage of the debate against obstruction, for there were several different forms in which the motion for adjournment might be made, and on each of these several proposals a member was ent.i.tled to speak even although he had already spoken on each motion previously proposed {162} to the same practical effect.

Perhaps it may be as well to bring the condition of things more clearly and more practically within the understanding of the general reader, seeing that the Parliamentary obstruction which may be said to have begun with the Reform Bill became afterwards so important an instrument for good or for evil in our legislative system. The motion then is made that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair. Thereupon Mr. Brown, Tory member, moves as an amendment that the House do now adjourn, and Mr. Brown sets forth in a lengthened speech his reasons for thinking that the House ought not to sit any longer that night. Some member of the Ministry rises and gives his reason for urging that the Speaker should be allowed to leave the chair at once, and that the House go into committee in order to consider the details of the measure.

Thereupon several of Mr. Brown's friends arise, and one after another expound, at great length, their reason for supporting Mr. Brown. The ministers, by this time, have made up their minds that the best course they can follow is to let Mr. Brown's friends have all the talk to themselves, but some independent members on the side of the Government are sure to be provoked into making speeches denouncing the obstructives and thereby only helping to obstruct. At length, when all Mr. Brown's friends have had their say--and Mr. Brown, it will be remembered, cannot speak again on this particular question--a division is taken on his amendment, and the amendment is lost. Then the question is put once more for the Speaker to leave the chair, and instantly Mr. Jones, another Tory member, springs to his feet and moves as an amendment, not that the House do now adjourn, but that this debate be now adjourned, which, as every one must see, is quite a different proposition. On this new amendment Mr. Brown is quite ent.i.tled to speak, and he does speak accordingly, and so do all his friends, and at last a division is taken and the amendment of Mr. Jones has the same fate as the amendment of Mr. Brown, and is defeated by a large majority. Up comes the question once more about the Speaker leaving the chair, and up gets Mr. Robinson, {163} another Tory member, and moves that the House do now adjourn, which motion is strictly in order, for it is quite clear that the House might with perfect consistency refuse to adjourn at midnight and yet might be quite willing to adjourn at four o'clock in the morning. On the amendment of Mr. Robinson his friends Brown and Jones are of course ent.i.tled to speak, and so are all their colleagues in the previous discussions, and when this amendment too is defeated, then Mr. Smith, yet another Tory member, rises in his place, as the familiar Parliamentary phrase goes, and moves that this debate be now adjourned. This is really a fair summary of the events which took place in the House of Commons on this first grand opportunity of obstruction, the motion to enable the House to get into committee on the details of the Reform Bill.

[Sidenote: 1831--The Reform Bill in committee]

It was half-past seven in the morning when the out-wearied House consented to adjourn, and the story was told, at the time, that when Sir Charles Wetherell was leaving Westminster Hall with some of his Tory colleagues he observed that a heavy rain was pouring down, and he declared with a vigorous oath that if he had known of that in time he would have treated the Government to a few more divisions before giving them a chance of getting to their homes. The Bill, however, did get into committee at last, and then the work of obstruction began again and was carried on after the most systematic fashion. In committee the opportunities were ample, for the case of each const.i.tuency which it was proposed to disfranchise, or each const.i.tuency the number of whose members it was proposed to lessen, had to be discussed separately, and, of course, gave rise to an unlimited number of speeches. A committee was actually formed to prepare, organize, and apply the methods of obstruction, and of this committee no less a person than Sir Robert Peel, then one of England's most rising statesmen, afterwards to be one of her greatest statesmen, was the president. Sir Robert Peel was himself one of the most frequent speakers in the obstructive debates, and among his rivals were Sir Charles Wetherell and Mr. John Wilson Croker, a man who has {164} been consigned to a sort of immortality by a famous essay of Macaulay's and by Disraeli's satirical picture of him as Mr. Rigby in "Coningsby." The committee of Tory members which has been already mentioned arranged carefully, in advance, the obstruction that was to be carried on in the case of each particular const.i.tuency, and planned out in advance how each discussion was to be conducted and who were to take the leading parts in it.

[Sidenote: 1831--Determination to pa.s.s the Bill]

Meanwhile popular feeling was rising more and more strongly as each day of debate dragged on. Some of the largest const.i.tuencies were most active and energetic in their appeals to the Government to hold out to the very last and not yield an inch to the obstructionists. A fear began to spread abroad that Lord Grey and his colleagues might endeavor to save some of the main provisions of their Bill by surrendering other parts of it to the Opposition. This alarm found expression in the cry which soon began to be heard all over the country, and became in fact the battle-cry of Reformers everywhere--the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill. Great public meetings were held in all parts for the purpose of urging the Government to make no concessions to the political enemy. During the summer a meeting of the most influential supporters of the Government was held in the Foreign Office, and at that meeting Lord Althorp, Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that Lord Grey and his colleagues were perfectly determined not to give way, and he declared that the Government were resolved to keep the House of Commons sitting until December, or, if necessary, until the following December, in order to pa.s.s the Bill before the rising of the House for its recess. Naturally this firm declaration had some effect on the obstructionists, especially on the rank and file of the obstructionists. Nothing discourages and disheartens obstruction so much, in the House of Commons, as a resolute announcement on the part of the Ministry that the House is to be kept together until the measure under debate, whatever it may be, is disposed of. It is a hard task, at any time, to keep the House of Commons together after the regular season for its {165} holiday has come on; and if the rank and file of Opposition can once be brought to believe that a certain measure is to be pa.s.sed no matter what number of weeks or months it may occupy, the rank and file is very apt to make up its mind that there is no use in throwing good months after bad, and that it might be as well to get the thing done, since it has to be done, without unlimited sacrifice of personal comfort. Still, the leaders of the Tory Opposition were not deterred by Lord Althorp's proclamation from maintaining their work of obstruction for some time yet. The impatience and anger of the country rose higher and higher. A reforming member of the House was in an unlucky plight indeed if he happened to be caught by one of the amendments proposed from the benches of Opposition and, believing that it had something reasonable in it, allowed his too sensitive conscience to persuade him into supporting it by his vote. Into such a plight fell a worthy alderman of the City of London--who had been sent into the House of Commons as a Radical reformer. This well-meaning person had permitted himself to become satisfied that there was something to be said for one of the Opposition amendments, and in a moment of rash ingenuousness he voted for it. He was immediately afterwards formally censured by his const.i.tuents and by the body to which he officially belonged. He was informed by solemn resolutions that he had been sent into the House of Commons to help the Government in pa.s.sing the Reform Bill, and it was more or less plainly intimated to him that he had no more right to the exercise of his independent opinion on any of the details of the measure than a private soldier on a battle-field would have to exercise his individual judgment as to the propriety of obeying or disobeying the order of his commanding officer. The poor man had to make the most fervid a.s.surances that he had meant no harm in voting for the Opposition amendment, that he was thoroughly devoted to the cause of reform, and to the particular measure then before the House of Commons, and that never again was he to be induced by any arguments to give a vote against the Government on any {166} section or sentence or line of Lord John Russell's Bill. Then, and not until then, he was taken back into favor.

[Sidenote: 1831--The Reform Bill pa.s.ses the Commons]

The Bill, however, did get through committee at last. The Government contrived by determined resistance and untiring patience to get their scheme of reform out of committee in substantially the condition they wished it to have. Then came the third reading. It was confidently a.s.sumed on both sides of the House that there would be a long debate on the motion that the Bill be now read a third time. In the House of Commons, however, it often happens that the a.s.sumption of a forthcoming debate as a certainty is itself the one cause which prevents the debates from being long. So it happened on this important occasion.

Every Tory took it for granted that his brother Tories would keep the debate going for an indefinite time, and in this fond faith a good many Tories felt themselves in no hurry to get to the House, and were willing to leave the first hour or two at the disposal of their colleagues. When the sitting began, and, indeed, when the motion for the third reading came on, there were comparatively few Tories in the House, and the great leaders of Opposition were not present. There was confusion in the ranks of the Tories, and the crowded benches of the Reformers thundered with clamorous shouts of "Divide! Divide!" Now, it takes a very heroic orator indeed to continue declaiming for a long time when a great majority of the members present are bellowing at him and are drowning, by their united voices, the sounds of the words which he is trying to articulate. The members of Opposition in the House found this fact brought home to them, and, being further bewildered by the fortuitous absence of their leaders, soon gave up the struggle, and the debate collapsed, and the third reading was carried by a large majority before Sir Robert Peel, Sir Charles Wetherell, and others came in leisurely fashion into the House, filled with the a.s.sumption that there would be ample opportunity for them to carry on the debate. Even yet, however, all was not over. According to the procedure of the House, it was not enough that the motion for the third reading of the {167} Bill should be carried. It was still necessary to propose the motion that the Bill do now pa.s.s. The moment this motion was proposed the torrent of opposition, frozen up for a too-short interval, began to flow again in full volume. The nature of the formal motion gave opportunity for renewed attacks on the whole purpose of the Bill, and all the old, familiar, outworn arguments were repeated by orator after orator from the Tory benches. But this, too, had to come to an end.

The House was no longer in committee, and each member could only speak once on this final motion. Of course, there could be motions for adjournment, and on each such motion, put as an amendment, there would be opportunity for a fresh debate; but the leaders of the Opposition were beginning to see that there was nothing of much account to be done any longer in the House of Commons, and that their hopes of resisting the progress of reform must turn to the House of Lords. So the Reform Bill pa.s.sed at last through the House of Commons, and then all over the country was raised the cry, "What will the Lords do with it?"

Soon the temper of the more advanced Reformers throughout the country began to change its tone, and the question eagerly put was not so often what will the Lords do with the Bill? but what shall we do with the House of Lords? At every great popular meeting held throughout the const.i.tuencies an outcry was raised against the House of Lords as a part of the const.i.tutional system, and no speaker was more welcome on a public platform than the orator who called for the abolition of the hereditary principle in the formation of legislators. One might have thought that the agitation which broke out all over the country, and the manner in which almost all Reformers seemed to have taken it for granted that the hereditary Chamber must be the enemy of all reform, might have put the peers on their guard and taught them the unwisdom of accepting the imputation against them, and thus proving that they had no sympathy with the cause of the people. But the great majority of the Tory peers of that day had not yet risen to the idea that there could be any {168} wisdom in any demand made by men who had no university education, who had not what was then described as a stake in the country. The voice of the people was simply regarded as the voice of the rabble, and the Tory peers had no notion of allowing themselves to be guided by any appeal coming from such a quarter.

[Sidenote: 1831--The Reform Bill in the Lords]

The agitation of which we are speaking had been going on during the long reign of obstruction in the Commons, and there was no time lost by the Government between the pa.s.sing of the Bill in the representative Chamber and its introduction in the House of Lords. On the evening of the day when the Bill was pa.s.sed by the Commons, September 23, 1831, it was formally brought into the House of Lords and read a first time. It has already been explained that, according to Parliamentary usage, the first reading of any Bill is taken in the House of Lords as a matter of right and without a division. The second reading of the Bill was taken on October 3. Lord Grey, who had charge of the measure in that House, delivered one of the most impressive and commanding speeches which had ever come from his eloquent lips, not merely in recommendation of the measure itself, but in solemn warning to the peers in general, and to the bishops and archbishops in particular, to pause and consider carefully all the possible consequences before committing themselves to the rejection of a demand which was made by the vast majority of the English people.

Lord Grey was a n.o.ble ill.u.s.tration of what may be described as the stately order of Parliamentary eloquence. He had not the fire and the pa.s.sion of Fox; he had not the thrilling genius of Pitt; and, of course, his style of speech had none of the pa.s.sionate and sometimes the extravagant declamation of which Brougham was a leading master. He had a dignified presence, a calm, clear, and penetrating voice, a style that was always exquisitely finished and n.o.bly adapted to its purpose.

It would not be too much to say for Earl Grey that he might have been the ideal orator for an ideal House of Lords, if we a.s.sume the ideal House of Lords to be an a.s.sembly in which appeal {169} was always made to high principle, to reason, and to justice, not to pa.s.sion, to prejudice, or to party. Lord Grey, so far as we can judge from contemporary accounts, never spoke better than in the debate on the second reading of the Reform Bill, and it was evident that he spoke with all the sincere emotion of one whose mind and heart alike were filled with the cause for which he pleaded. But the House of Lords just then was not in a mood to be swayed greatly by argument or by eloquence. Lord Wharncliffe moved an amendment to the effect that the Bill be read a second time this day six months. This, at least, was the shape that the motion took after some discussion, because Lord Wharncliffe, in the first instance, had concluded his speech against the second reading by the blunt motion that the Bill be rejected; and it was only when it had been pressed upon his attention that such a method of disposing of the measure would be a downright insult to the Commons that he consented to modify his proposal into the formal and familiar amendment that the Bill be read a second time this day six months. The effect would be just the same in either case, for no Ministry would think of retaining office if the discussion of its most important measure were postponed in the House of Lords for a period of six months. During the debate which followed, the Duke of Wellington spoke strongly against the Bill. On the morning of October 8 the division was taken. There were 199 votes for the amendment and 158 against it, or, in other words, for the second reading of the Bill.

The second reading was therefore rejected by a majority of 41. The whole work of legislation during all the previous part of the year had thus been reduced to nothing, and the House of Lords had shown what it would do with the Bill by contemptuously rejecting it, and thus bidding defiance to the demand unquestionably made by the vast majority of the people of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Parliament was at once prorogued, and the members who were in favor of reform hurried off to address great meetings of their const.i.tuents, and to denounce the action of the House of Lords. Popular enthusiasm was aroused {170} more than ever in favor of the Reform Bill, and popular pa.s.sion was stirred in many places to positive fury against the princ.i.p.al opponents of the Bill. In London several public men who were conspicuous for their opposition to the Bill were surrounded in their carriages as they drove through the streets by suddenly collected crowds, who hooted and hissed them, and would have gone much further than hooting and hissing in their way of expressing condemnation but for the energetic intervention of the newly created police force. In some of the provincial towns, and here and there throughout the country, the most serious riots broke out. In Derby there were disturbances which lasted for several days, and consisted of attacks on unpopular persons and of fierce fights with the police. Nottingham was the centre of rioting even more serious. Nottingham Castle, the seat of the Duke of Newcastle, was attacked by a furious mob and actually burned to the ground. In the immediate neighborhood was the estate of Mr. Musters, which was invaded by an excited mob. The dwelling-house was set on fire, and, although the conflagration was not allowed to spread far, yet it ended in a tragedy which must always have a peculiar interest for the lovers of poetry and romance. The wife of Mr. Musters was the Mary Chaworth made famous by Lord Byron in his poem of the "Dream," and other poems as well--the Mary Chaworth who was his first love, and whom, at one time, he believed destined to be his last love also. Mary Chaworth does not seem to have taken the poet's adoration very seriously--at all events, she married Mr. Musters, a country gentleman of good position. Mrs. Musters was in her house on the night when it was attacked by the mob, and when the fire broke out she fled into the open park and sought shelter there among the trees. The mob was dispersed and Mrs. Musters, after a while, was able to return to her home; but she was in somewhat delicate health, the exposure to the cold night air of winter proved too much for her, and she became one of the most innocent victims to the popular pa.s.sion aroused by the opposition to the Reform Bill.

{171}

[Sidenote: 1831--The Reform riots]

Bristol was the scene of the most formidable riots during all that period of disturbance. Sir Charles Wetherell, who had made himself conspicuous as an opponent of reform, was the Recorder as well as the representative of Bristol, and his return to the city after the Lords had thrown out the Bill became the signal for an outbreak of popular fury. Houses were wrecked in various parts of the city; street fights took place between the mob and the military, day after day; the Mansion House, where Sir Charles Wetherell was supposed to have taken refuge, was besieged, attacked, and almost demolished, and Sir Charles Wetherell himself was rescued, more than once, with the utmost difficulty from hostile crowds who seemed thirsting for his blood. All these riots were atoned for dearly soon after by some who had taken part in them. The stroke of the law was heavy and sharp in those days, and many of the rioters in Derby, Nottingham, and Bristol, and other places expiated on the scaffold their offences against peace and order.

Some of the cathedral cities became scenes of especial disturbance because of the part so many of the prelates who were members of the House of Lords had taken against the Reform Bill. The direct appeal which Earl Grey had made to the archbishops and bishops in the House of Lords to think long and well before opposing the Reform Bill was delivered with the highest and sincerest motive, with the desire that the Church should keep itself in harmony with the people; but the mere fact that the appeal was made, and made in vain, seems to have aroused in many parts of the country, and especially in the cathedral cities, a stronger conviction than ever that the prelates were, for the most part, the enemies of popular rights. Then, again, there was a more or less general impression that the King himself, in his heart, was not in favor of reform and would be glad to get rid of it if he could. Daniel O'Connell, addressing a great popular meeting at Charing Cross in London, pointed with his outstretched right arm towards Whitehall, and awakened a tremendous outburst of applause from the vast crowd by telling them that it was there Charles I. had lost his head {172} because he had submitted to the dictation of his foreign wife. There was a popular belief at the time that Queen Adelaide, the wife of King William, cherished a strong hatred against reform such as Lord Grey and his colleagues were pressing on, and that she was secretly influencing the mind of her husband her own way, and so it was that O'Connell's allusion got home to the feelings and the pa.s.sions of the mult.i.tude who listened to his words. Never, in the nineteenth century, had England gone through such a period of internal storm. All over the Continent observers were beginning to ask themselves whether the monarchy in England was not on the verge of such a crisis as had just overtaken the monarchy in France.

[Sidenote: 1832--The third Reform Bill]

Lord Grey and his ministers still, however, held firmly to their purpose, and the King, much as he may have disliked the whole reform business, and gladly as he would have got rid of it, if it were to be got rid of by any possible means, had still wit enough to see that if he were to give his support to the House of Lords something even more than the House of Lords might be in danger. Parliament was therefore called together again in December, and the Royal Speech from the Throne commended to both Houses the urgent necessity of pa.s.sing into law as quickly as possible the ministerial measure of reform. Lord John Russell brought in his third Reform Bill for England and Wales, a Bill that was, in purpose and in substance, much the same as the two measures that had preceded it, and this third Reform Bill pa.s.sed by slow degrees through its several stages in the House of Commons. Then again came up the portentous question, "What will the Lords do with it?" There could not be the least doubt in the mind of anybody as to what the majority of the House of Lords would be glad to do with the Bill if they only felt sure that they could work their will upon it without danger to their own order. There, however, the serious difficulty arose. The more reasonable among the peers did not attempt to disguise from themselves that another rejection of the Bill might lead to the most serious disturbances, and even possibly to civil war, and they were not {173} prepared to indulge their hostility to reform at so reckless an expense. The greater number of the Tory peers, however, acted on the a.s.sumption, familiar at all times among certain parties of politicians, that the more loudly people demanded a reform the more resolutely the reform ought to be withheld from them, and that, if the people attempted to rise up, the only proper policy was to put the people down by force. The opinions and sentiments of the less headlong among the Conservative peers had led to the formation of a party, more or less loosely put together, who were called at that time the "Waverers," just as a political combination of an earlier day obtained the t.i.tle of the "Trimmers." The Waverers were made up of the men who held that their best and most patriotic policy was to regard each portion of the Bill brought before them on its own merits, and not to resist out of hand any proposition which seemed harmless in itself simply because it formed part of the whole odious policy of reform.

King William is believed, at one time, to have set hopes on the efforts of the Waverers, and to have cherished a gladsome belief that they might get him out of his difficulties about the Reform Bill; as indeed it will be seen they did in the end, though not quite in the way which he would have desired.

Lord Grey introduced the third Reform Bill on March 27, 1832. The first reading pa.s.sed, as a matter of course, but when the division on the motion for the second reading came on on April 14, there was only a majority of 9 votes for the Bill: 184 peers voted for it and 175 against it. Of course Lord Grey and his colleagues saw, at once, that unless the conditions were to be completely altered there would be no chance whatever in the House of Lords for a measure of reform which had pa.s.sed its second reading by a majority of only 9. The moment the Bill got into committee there would be endless opportunities afforded for its mutilation, and if it were to get through the House at all, it would be only in such a form as to render it wholly useless for the objects which its promoters desired it to accomplish. This dismal conviction was very speedily {174} verified. When the Bill got into committee, Lord Lyndhurst moved an amendment to the effect that the question of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt should precede that of disfranchis.e.m.e.nt.

Now this proposal was not in itself one necessarily hostile to the principle of the Bill. It is quite easy to understand that a sincere friend to reform might have, under certain conditions, adopted the views that Lord Lyndhurst professed to advocate. But the Ministry knew very well that the adoption of such a proposal would mean simply that the whole conduct of the measure was to be taken out of their hands and put into unfriendly hands--in other words, that it would be utterly futile to go any further with the measure if the hostile majority were thus allowed to deal with it according to their own designs and their own cla.s.s interest.

[Sidenote: 1832--The Peers and the third Reform Bill]

Lord Lyndhurst was a man of great ability, eloquence, and astuteness.

He was one of the comparatively few men in our modern history who have made a mark in the Law Courts and in Parliament. As a Parliamentary orator he was the rival of Brougham, and the rivalry was all the more exciting to the observers because it was a rivalry of styles as well as of capacities. Lyndhurst was always polished, smooth, refined, endowed with a gift of argumentative eloquence, which appealed to the intellect rather than to the feelings, was seldom impa.s.sioned, and even when impa.s.sioned kept his pa.s.sion well within conventional bounds. Brougham was thrilling, impetuous, overwhelming, often extravagant, scorning conventionality of phrase or manner, revelling in his own exuberant strength and plunging at opponents as a bull might do in a Spanish arena. Lyndhurst's amendment was one especially suited to bring to his side the majority of the Waverers. It was plausible enough in itself, and gave to many a Waverer, who must have had in his mind a very clear perception of its real object, some excuse for persuading himself that, in voting for it, he was not voting against the principle of reform.

When the division came to be taken on May 7, 151 peers voted for the amendment and 116 against it, thus showing a majority of 35 against {175} the Government, by whom of course the amendment had been unreservedly opposed.

The country saw that a new crisis had come, and a crisis more serious than any which had gone before. There was only one const.i.tutional course by which the difficulty could be got over, and that was by the King giving his consent to the creation of a number of new peers large enough to carry the Reform Bill through all its subsequent stages in the House of Lords. Other outlet of safety through peaceful means there was none. Lord Grey's Ministry could not possibly remain in office and see the measure, on which they believed the peace and prosperity of the country to depend, left at the mercy of an irresponsible majority of Tory peers. The King was most unwilling to help his ministers out of the trouble, especially by such a process as they had suggested, and in his heart would have been very glad to be rid of them and the Reform Bill at the same time. Charles Greville in his Memoirs makes several allusions to the King's well-known dislike for the Whig ministers and his anxiety to get the Duke of Wellington back again. Lord Grey and his colleagues, finding it hard to get the King to recognize the gravity of the situation, and to adopt the advice they had offered to him, felt that there was nothing left for them but to resign office. And the King was delighted to have a chance of recalling the Duke of Wellington to the position of Prime Minister.

Under the date of May 17, 1832, Greville has some notes which well deserve quotation: "The joy of the King at what he thought to be his deliverance from the Whigs was unbounded. He lost no time in putting the Duke of Wellington in possession of everything which had taken place between him and them upon the subject of reform and with regard to the creation of peers, admitting that he had consented, but saying he had been subjected to every species of persecution. His ignorance and levity put him in a miserable light and proved him to be one of the silliest old gentlemen in his dominions." Greville goes on to say: "But I believe he is mad, for yesterday he gave a dinner to the Jockey Club, {176} at which, notwithstanding his cares, he seemed to be in excellent spirits, and after dinner he made a number of speeches so ridiculous and nonsensical beyond all belief but to those who heard them, rambling from one subject to another, repeating the same thing over and over again, and altogether such a ma.s.s of confusion, trash, and imbecility, as made one laugh and blush at the same time."

[Sidenote: 1832--The King seeks a Prime Minister]

The poor muddled-headed old King in fact could not understand that the question submitted to him allowed of no middle course of compromise.

He seemed to think he had gone far enough in the way of conciliation when he offered to allow his ministers to create a certain number of peers. No concession, however, could be of the slightest use to the Ministry unless the power were conceded to them to create as many new peers as might be necessary to overbear all opposition to the Reform Bill. The struggle was in fact between the existing House of Lords and the vast majority of the nation. One or other must conquer. The only const.i.tutional way in which the existing opposition of the House of Lords could be overborne was by the creation of a number of new peers great enough to turn the majority of the House of Lords into a minority.

Lord Grey and Lord Althorp were not, it is hardly necessary to say, men who shared in the popular sentiment, which would, if it could, have abolished altogether the hereditary principle in legislation. But Lord Grey and Lord Althorp read the signs of the times, and saw clearly enough that if the House of Lords were allowed to stand much longer in the way of the Reform Bill the result would be probably a political revolution which would abolish the House of Lords altogether.

Therefore the ministers could make no terms with the King short of those which they had offered, and as the King did not see his way to accept their conditions there was nothing left for them but to resign office. Accordingly Lord Grey tendered his resignation and that of his colleagues, and the King, after much indecision and mental flurry, thought he could do nothing better than to accept the resignation, and try to find a set of ministers more suitable to his {177} inclinations.

He sent for Lord Lyndhurst and entered into conversation with that astute lawyer and politician, and Lord Lyndhurst advised him to send for the Duke of Wellington. The Duke was sent for, but the Duke had not much to say which could lend any help to the King in his difficulties. Wellington saw distinctly enough that there was no alternative but that which lay in the choice between reform and some sort of popular revolution. We have seen already in these volumes how Wellington preferred to accept Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation rather than take the risk of plunging the country into civil war. In the case of the Reform Bill he would have acted, no doubt, upon the same principle if driven to the choice, but after the repeated and energetic denunciations of reform which he had delivered in the House of Lords he did not think that it would be a fitting part for him, even for the sake of helping the sovereign out of his const.i.tutional trouble, to be the Prime Minister by whom any manner of Reform Bill should be introduced. Wellington therefore strongly urged the King to send for Sir Robert Peel, and declared that he himself would lend all the support he possibly could to a Peel Administration. Peel was sent for accordingly, but Peel was too far-seeing a statesman to believe that he could possibly hold office for many weeks unless he yielded to the full demands of the country, and his political principles would not have allowed him to go so far as that. He did his best to make it clear to the King that no administration but a reform administration could stand, and that, if a reform administration had to be accepted, there was nothing better to be done than to invite Lord Grey and Lord John Russell back again to office.

Meanwhile the country was aroused to a fervor of enthusiasm in favor of reform, which seemed only to increase with every delay and to grow stronger with every opposition. Public meetings were held in Birmingham of larger size than had ever been gathered together in England before, and resolutions were pa.s.sed by acclamation which were almost revolutionary in their character. In many cities and towns appeals were made for a run on the {178} bank, a run for gold, and there were alarming signs that the advice was likely to be followed to such a degree as to bring about utter confusion in the money market.

In the City of London an immense meeting was held, at which resolutions were pa.s.sed calling on the House of Commons to stop the supplies unless the King accepted the councils of the Whig statesmen and gave them authority for the election of new peers. The overwhelming strength of the demand for reform may be easily estimated when it is remembered that the majority in the great cities and towns, and also in the counties, were for once of the same opinion. In more than one great political controversy of modern times, as in the free-trade agitation for example, it has happened that the town population were of one opinion and the county population of another. But at the time which we are now describing the great cities and towns were all nearly unrepresented, and in their demand for representation they were of one mind and one spirit with the county populations, which called out for a real and not a sham representation. There will probably always be a question of curious speculation and deep interest to the students of history as to the possibility of a great revolution in England if the King had made up his mind to hold out against the advice of the Whig statesmen and to try the last chance. It is certain that the leading Whig n.o.bles were considering, with profound earnestness, what course it might be necessary for them to take if the King were absolutely to refuse all concession and to stand by what he believed to be his sovereign right to set up his own authority as supreme. If the choice should be forced on them, would these Whig n.o.bles stand by the obstinate King or throw in their lot with the people? This grave question must have been considered again and again in all its bearings by the Whig leaders during that time of terrible national crisis.

[Sidenote: 1832--The Whig n.o.bles and the military]

It would seem to be beyond all question that some, at least, of the Whig n.o.bles were contemplating the possibility of their having to choose between the King and the people, and that their minds were made up, should the worst come {179} to the worst, to side with the people.

Many years afterwards, during the State trials at Clonmel which followed the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848, evidence was brought forward by the counsel for the defence of Mr. Smith O'Brien and his fellow-prisoners to prove that the Whig n.o.bles during the reform crisis in England had been in communication with Sir Charles Napier, the great soldier, for the purpose of ascertaining how the army would act if there should come to be a struggle between the sovereign claiming despotic rights and the people standing up for const.i.tutional government. All this, however, is now merely a question of interesting historical speculation. The King had tried Wellington, had tried Peel, had sent for Wellington a second time, and found that Wellington, though he dared do all that might become a man, saw nothing to be gained for sovereign or State by an attempt to accomplish the impossible, and William at last gave way. It was about time that he did so. William was becoming utterly unpopular with the great ma.s.s of his subjects. He who had been endowed with the t.i.tle of the Patriot King was now to be an object of hatred and contempt to the crowds in the streets with whom from day to day he could not avoid being brought into contact. When his carriage appeared in one of the great London thoroughfares it was followed again and again by jeering and furious mobs, who hissed and groaned at him, and it was always necessary for his protection that a strong escort of cavalry should interpose between him and his subjects. Even in the London newspapers of the day, those at least that were in favor of reform, and which const.i.tuted the large majority, language was sometimes used about the King which it would be impossible to use in our days about some unpopular Lord Mayor or member for the City.

All this told heavily upon poor King William, who was a good-natured sort of man in his own way if his ministers and others would only let him alone, and who rather fancied himself in the light of a popular sovereign. He therefore made up his mind at last to accept the advice {180} of his Whig ministers and grant them the power of creating as many new peers as they thought fit, for the purpose of pa.s.sing their importunate Reform Bill. The consent was given at an interview which the King had with Lord Grey and Lord Brougham, Lord Brougham as keeper of the royal conscience taking the princ.i.p.al conduct of the negotiations on behalf of the Government. The King, as usual on such occasions, was flurried, awkward, and hot-tempered, and when he had made up his mind to yield to the advice of his ministers he could not so far master his temper as to make his decision seem a graceful concession. Even when he announced that the concession was to be made the trouble was not yet quite over. Lord Brougham thought it necessary to ask the King for his consent in writing to the creation of the new peers, and hereupon the wrath of the sovereign blazed out afresh. The King seemed to think that such a demand showed a want of confidence in him which amounted to something like an insult, and he fretted and stormed for a while as though he had been like Petruchio "aboard carousing to his mates." After a while, however, he came into a better humor, and perhaps saw the reasonableness of the plea that Lord Grey and Lord Brougham could not undertake the task now confided to them without the written warrant of the King's authority. William therefore turned away and scratched off at once a brief declaration conferring on his ministers the power to create the necessary number of peers, qualifying it merely with the condition that the sons of living peers were to be called upon in the first instance. The meaning of this condition was obvious, and its object was not unreasonable from the King's point of view, or, indeed, from the point of view of any statesman who was anxious that the House of Lords should be kept as long as possible in its existing form. n.o.body certainly wanted to increase the number of peers to any great extent, and if only the eldest sons of the living peers were to be called to the House of Lords each would succeed in process of time to his father's t.i.tle and the roll of the peerage would become once again as it had been before.

{181}

[Sidenote: 1832--Pa.s.sage of the third Reform Bill]

The political crisis was over now. When once the royal authority had been given for the unlimited creation of new peers there was an end of all the trouble. Of course, there was no necessity to manufacture any new batches of peers. As the Reform Bill was to be carried one way or the other, whether with the aid of new peers or without it, the Tory members of the House of Lords could not see any possible advantage in taking steps which must only end in filling their crimson benches with new men who might outvote them on all future occasions. The Reform Bill pa.s.sed through all its stages in the House of Lords, not without some angry and vehement discussions, during which personal recriminations were made that would have been considered disorderly at the meeting of a parish vestry. One n.o.ble lord denounced the conduct of Lord Grey as atrocious, and even the stately Lord Grey was roused to so much anger by this expression that he forgot his habitual self-control and dignity and replied that he flung back the n.o.ble lord's atrocious words with the utmost scorn and contempt.

The Bill pa.s.sed its third reading in the House of Lords on June 4, 1832, and received the royal a.s.sent on June 7. The royal a.s.sent, however, was somewhat ungraciously given. King William declined to give his a.s.sent in person, a performance which, at the time, seemed to be expected from him, and it was signified only by the medium of a formal committee. The Bill, however, was pa.s.sed, the third Reform Bill that had been introduced since Lord Grey had come into office. The Reform Bills for Ireland and Scotland which had gone through their stages in the House of Commons immediately after the Bills relating to England and Wales were then carried through the House of Lords. The great triumph was accomplished.

It is not without historical interest to notice the fact that a long discussion sprang up at this time and was revived again and again, during many successive years, with regard to certain words used by Lord John Russell in expressing his satisfaction at the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bill. He was endeavoring to calm the apprehensions of timid {182} people throughout the country who feared that the whole time of Parliament would thenceforward be taken up with the pa.s.sing of new and newer Reform Bills, and he declared that the Government of which he was a member had no intention but that the Reform Act should be a final measure. It might have seemed clear to any reasonable mind that Lord John had no idea of proclaiming his faith in the absolute finality of any measure pa.s.sed, or to be pa.s.sed, by human statesmanship, but was merely expressing the confident belief of his colleagues and himself that the Bill they had pa.s.sed would satisfy the needs and the demands of the existing generation. At the time, however, a storm of remonstrance from the more advanced Liberals broke around Lord John Russell's head, and he was charged with having declared that the Reform Act was meant to be a measure for all times, and that he and his colleagues would never more set their hands to any measure intended to broaden or deepen its influence. There were indeed popular caricatures of Lord John to be seen in which he was exhibited with the t.i.tle of "Finality Jack." Lord John's public career proved many times, in later days, how completely his meaning had been misunderstood by some of those whose cause he had been espousing, for all through his honored life he continued to be a leader of reform. But the common misunderstanding of the phrase was in itself significant, for it seemed to foretell the fact that the Bill, with all the great changes it had introduced and the new foundations it had laid for the future system of const.i.tutional government, was in itself indeed far from being a final measure. The authors of the Reform Bill had left what might now be called "the ma.s.ses" almost altogether out of their calculations. The rate at which the franchise was fixed for town and country rendered it practically impossible that the artisan in the town or the laborer in the country could have any chance whatever of obtaining a vote.

[Sidenote: 1832--Some defects in the Reform Bill]

This was the one great defect of the Reform Bill introduced by Lord Grey and Lord John Russell. Perhaps it would not have been prudent for these statesmen, at that {183} time, to enter on the introduction of a more comprehensive measure. Perhaps Lord Grey and Lord John Russell would have preferred of their own judgment not to introduce too comprehensive a reform measure all at once, and to allow the franchise to broaden slowly down. But it is certain that almost immediately after the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bill a profound feeling of disappointment began to grow and spread among the cla.s.ses who found themselves excluded from any of its benefits, and who believed, with good reason, that they had rendered much practical service in the carrying of the measure. The feeling prevailed especially among the artisans in the cities and towns. In some of the towns the Reform Bill had distinctly operated as a measure of disfranchis.e.m.e.nt rather than of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt. In Preston, for instance, there had been so large a number of what we have called, adopting a more modern phrase, "fancy franchises" that something not very far removed from universal suffrage was attainable by the male population. These fancy franchises could not be justified on any principle commending itself to rational minds, and it was, moreover, an obvious absurdity to have one system of voting prevailing in this const.i.tuency and a totally different system prevailing in another. Therefore Lord Grey and Lord John Russell cannot be censured for their resolve to abolish the fancy franchises altogether. They were introducing an entirely new const.i.tutional system, and it was evident that in the new system there must be some uniform principle as to the franchise. But it is none the less certain that the men who were disfranchised by an Act professedly brought in to extend the suffrage must have felt that they had good reason to complain of its direct effect upon themselves and upon what they believed to be their rights. Nearly forty years of agitation had yet to be gone through before the princ.i.p.al deficiencies in the Reform Act of 1833 were supplied by Liberal and Tory legislation.

Before closing this chapter of history it is fitting to take notice of the fact that the debates on the Reform Bill gave opportunity for the public opening of a great career in {184} politics and in literature--the career of Lord Macaulay. [Sidenote: 1832--Thomas Babington Macaulay] Thomas Babington Macaulay was a new member of the House of Commons when the first Reform Bill was introduced by Lord John Russell. He was the son of Zachary Macaulay, who was famous in his day, and will always be remembered as the high-minded philanthropist and the energetic and consistent opponent of slavery and the slave trade. Macaulay the son had, from his earliest years, given evidence of precocious and extraordinary intelligence and versatility. When he entered Parliament he found that his fame had gone before him, but his friends were not quite certain whether he was to be poet, essayist, historian, or political orator. As years went on, he proved that he could write brilliant and captivating poems; that he could turn out essays which had a greater fascination for the public than many of the cleverest novels; that he could write history which set critics disputing, but which everybody had to read; and that he could deliver political speeches in the House of Commons which, when correctly reproduced from the newspapers, appeared to belong to the highest cla.s.s of Parliamentary eloquence. It may well be questioned whether any man could possibly attain supreme success in the four fields in which, from time to time, Macaulay appeared to be successful. At present we are only concerned with the speeches which he delivered in the House of Commons during the debates on the Reform Bills. Macaulay's appearance was not impressive, and he had a gift of fluency, a rapidity of utterance which continued, from first to last, to be a most serious difficulty in the way of his success as a Parliamentary orator. He appears to have committed his speeches to memory, and his memory was one of the most amazing of all his gifts; and when he rose to deliver an oration he rattled it off at such a rate of speed that the sense ached in trying to follow him, and the reporters for the newspapers found it almost impossible to get a full note of what he said. This was all the more embarra.s.sing because his speeches abounded in ill.u.s.trations and citations from all manner of authorities, authors, and historical incidents, and the bewildered {185} reporter found himself entangled in proper names which shorthand in the pre-phonetic days could but slowly reproduce. The speeches, when revised by the author, were read with intense delight by the educated public, and with all the defects of the orator's utterance he soon acquired such a fame in the House of Commons that no one ever attracted a more crowded and eager audience than he did when it became known that he was about to make a speech. We may quote here a characteristic description given by Greville of his first meeting with Macaulay in the early February of 1833, while the struggle over Lord Russell's third Reform Bill was still going on. "Dined yesterday," says Greville, "with Lord Holland; came very late and found a vacant place between Sir George Robinson and a common-looking man in black. As soon as I had time to look at my neighbor, I began to speculate, as one usually does, as to who he might be, and as he did not for some time open his lips except to eat, I settled that he was some obscure man of letters, or of medicine, perhaps a cholera doctor. In a short time the conversation turned on early and late education, and Lord Holland said he had always remarked that self-educated men were peculiarly conceited and arrogant, and apt to look down on the generality of mankind from their being ignorant of how much other people knew; not having been at public schools, they are uninformed of the course of general education. My neighbor observed that he thought the most remarkable example of self-education that of Alfieri, who had reached the age of thirty without having acquired any accomplishment save that of driving, and who was so ignorant of his own language that he had to learn it like a child, beginning with elementary books. Lord Holland quoted Julius Caesar and Scaliger as examples of late education, said that the latter had been wounded, and that he had been married and commenced learning Greek the same day, when my neighbor remarked 'that he supposed his learning Greek was not an instantaneous act like his marriage.' This remark and the manner of it gave me the notion that he was a dull fellow, for it came out in a {186} way which bordered on the ridiculous so as to excite something like a sneer. I was a little surprised to hear him continue the thread of conversation, from Scaliger's wound, and talk of Loyola having been wounded at Pampeluna. I wondered how he happened to know anything about Loyola's wound. Having thus settled my opinion I went on eating my dinner, when Auckland, who was sitting opposite to me, addressed my neighbor: 'Mr. Macaulay, will you drink a gla.s.s of wine?' I thought I should have dropped off my chair. It was Macaulay, the man I had been so long most curious to see and to hear, whose genius, eloquence, astonishing knowledge, and diversified talents have excited my wonder and admiration for such a length of time, and here I had been sitting next to him, hearing him talk, and setting him down for a dull fellow."

We are here only at the opening of Macaulay's great career. Even at this time the world seemed to have made up its mind that Macaulay had a great career before him. At the present day, when more than forty years have pa.s.sed over his tomb in Westminster Abbey, it is a question still keenly contested every now and then, whether Macaulay fully realized or barely failed to realize the expectations which men were forming of him on that day when Charles Greville met him for the first time, and was amazed to find, as the conversation went on, that he was sitting next to Macaulay.

[Sidenote: 1832--Death of Sir Walter Scott]

The year of the Reform Bill was marked by an event forever memorable in the history of literature. That event was the death of Sir Walter Scott. The later years of Scott's life, as we all know, had been darkened by the failure of his publishers, by the money troubles in which that failure had involved him, by the exhausting efforts he had to make to force his wearied mind into redoubled literary exertion, and, more than all, by the loss of the wife who had been his devoted companion for so many years. No words could be more sorrowful and more touching in their simplicity than those in which Scott declared that after his wife's death he never knew what to do with that large share of his thoughts which always, in other {187} days, used to be given to her. He had gone out to Italy, obeying the advice of his friends, in the hope of recovering his health under warmer skies than those of his native land, but the effort was futile. It was of no use his trying to shake off his malady of heart and body by a change of air. He carried his giant about with him, if we may apply to his condition the expressive and melancholy words which Emerson used with a different application. Scott was little over sixty years of age when he died--a time of life at which, according to our ideas of longevity at the present day, we should regard a man as having hardly pa.s.sed the zenith of his powers and his possibilities. He had added a new chapter to a history of the world's literature. He had opened a new school of romance which soon found brilliant pupils in all countries where romance could charm. There have been many revolutions in literary rulership since his time, but Walter Scott has not been dethroned.