The Leading Facts of English History Part 60

The feeling attending the pa.s.sage of the Reform Bill of 1832 (S582) had pa.s.sed away; but now a popular agitation began which produced even greater excitement. Although the act of 1832 had equalized parliamentary representation and had enlarged the elective franchise to a very considerable degree, yet the great body of workingmen were still shut out from the right to vote. A Radical Party called the "Chartists" now arose, which undertook to secure further measures of reform.

They embodied their measures in a doc.u.ment called the "People's Charter," which demanded:

1. Universal male suffrage.

2. That the voting at elections should be by ballot.

3. Annual Parliaments.

4. The payment of memebers of Parliament.

5. The abolition of the property qualification for parliamentary candidates.[1]

6. The division of the whole country into equal electoral districts.

[1] Property qualification: In 1711 an act was pa.s.sed requiring candidates for election to the House of Commons to have an income of not less than 300 pounds derived from landed property. The object of this law was to secure members who would be comparatively free from the temptation of receiving bribes from the Crown, and also to keep the landed proprietors in power to the exclusion of rich merchants.

This law was repealed in 1858.

The Chartists held public meetings, organized clubs, and published newpapers to disseminate their principles, but for many years made very little progress. The French revolution which dethroned King Louis Philippe (1848) imparted fresh impetus to the Chartist movement. The leader of that movement was Feargus O'Connor. He formed the plan of sending a monster pet.i.tion to Parliament, containing, it was claimed, nearly five million signatures, praying for the pa.s.sage of the People's Charter.

A procession of a million or more signers was to act as an escort to the doc.u.ment, which made a wagonload in itself. The Government became alarmed at the threatened demonstration, forbade it, on the ground that it was an attempt to coerce legislation, and organized a body of 250,000 special policemen to preserve order.

The Duke of Wellington took command of a large body of troops held in reserve to defend the city; and the Bank of England, the Houses of Parliament, the British Museum, and other public buildings were made ready to withstand a siege.

It was now the Chartists' turn to be frightened. When they a.s.sembled (1848) on Kennington Common in south London, they numbered less than thirty thousand, and the procession of a million which was to march across Westminster Bridge, to the Houses of Parliament, dwindled to half a dozen. When the huge pet.i.tion was unrolled it was found to contain only about a third of the boasted number of names. Further examination showed that many of the signatures were spurious, having been put down in jest, or copied from gravestones and old London directories. With that discovery the whole movement collapsed, and the House of Commons rang with "inextinguishable laughter" over the national scare.

Still the demands of the Chartists had a solid foundation of good sense, which the bl.u.s.tering bravado of the leaders of the movement could not wholly destroy. Most, if not all, of the reforms asked for were needed. Since then, the steady, quiet influence of reason and of time has compelled Parliament to grant the greater part of them.[1]

[1] Sir Thomas Erskine May, in his "Const.i.tutional History of England," says: "Not a measure has been forced upon Parliament which the calm judgment of a later time has not since approved; not an agitation has failed which posterity has not condemned."

The printed or written ballot has been subst.i.tuted for the old method of electing candidates by a show of hands or by shouting yes or no,-- a method by which it was easy to make blunders, and equally easy to commit frauds. Every voter must now have his name and address registered in a printed list. Every voter, too, casts a secret ballot and so safeguards his political independence (S609). The property qualification has been abolished (S591, note 1), so that the day laborer may now run for Parliament. He is sure, too, of being well paid, for Parliament voted (1911) to give 400 pounds a year to every member of the House of Commons. The right of "manhood suffrage" has been greatly extended, and before the twentieth century has advanced much farther every man in England will probably have a voice in the elections.

592. The Corn Laws (1841).

At the accession of the Queen protective duties or taxes existed in Great Britain on all imported breadstuffs and on many manufactured articles. Sir Robert Peel, the Conservative Prime Minister (1841), favored a reduction in the last cla.s.s of duties, but believed it necessary to maintain the former in order to keep up the price of grain and thus encourage the English farmers. The result of this policy was great distress among the poorly paid, half-fed workingmen, who could not afford to buy dear bread. A number of philanthropists led by Richard Cobden and John Bright organized an Anti-Corn Law League[1] to obtain the repeal of the grain duties.

[1] Corn is the name given in England to wheat or other grain used for food. Indian corn or maize cannot be grown in that climate, and is seldom eaten there.

At the same time, Ebenezer Elliott, the "Corn-Law Rhymer," gave voice to the sufferings of the poor in rude but vigorous verse, which appealed to the excited feelings of thousands in such words as these:

"England! what for mine and me, What hath bread tax done for thee?

Cursed thy harvest, cursed thy land, Hunger-stung thy skill'd right hand."

When, however, session after session of Parliament pa.s.sed and nothing was done for the relief of the perishing mult.i.tudes, many began to despair, and great numbers joined in singing Elliott's new national anthem:

"When wilt Thou save the people?

O G.o.d of mercy! when?

Not kings or lords, but nations!

Not thrones and crowns, but men!

Flowers of thy heart, O G.o.d, are they!

Let them not pa.s.s, like weeds, away!

Their heritage a sunless day!

G.o.d save the people!"

Still the Government was not covinced; the Corn Laws were enforced, the price of bread showed no signs of falling, and the situation grew daily more desperate and more threatening.

593. The Irish Famine, 1845-1846.

At last the Irish famine opened the Prime Minister's eyes (S592).

When in Elizabeth's reign Sir Walter Raleigh brought over the cheap but precarious potato from America and planted it in Ireland, his motive was one of pure good will. He could not foresee that it would in time become in that country an almost universal food, that through its very abundance the population would rapidly increase, and that then, by the sudden failure of the crop, terrible dest.i.tution would ensue. Such was the case in the summer of 1845. It is said by eyewitnesses that in a single night the entire potato crop was smitten with disease, and the healthy plants were transformed into a ma.s.s of putrefying vegetation. Thus at one fell stroke the food of nearly a whole nation was cut off.[1]

[1] O'Connor's "The Parnell Movement."

In the years that followed, the famine became appalling. The starving peasants left their miserable huts and streamed into the towns for relief, only to die of hunger in the streets.

Parliament responded n.o.bly to the piteous calls for help, and voted in all no less than 10,000,000 pounds to relieve the distress.[2]

Subscriptions were also taken up in London and the chief towns, by which large sums were obtained, and America contributed shiploads of provisions and a good deal of money; but the misery was so great that even these measures failed to accomplish what was hoped. When the famine was over, it was found that Ireland had lost about two million (or one fourth) of her population.[3] This was the combined effect of starvation, of the various diseases that followed in its path, and of emigration.[4]

[2] Molesworth's "History of England from 1830."

[3] The actual number of deaths from starvation, or fever caused by insufficient food, was estimated at from two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand. See the Encyclopaedia Britannica under "Ireland."

[4] McCarthy's "History of Our Own Times," Vol. I.

594. Repeal of the Corn Laws, 1846-1849; Free Trade established, 1869.

In the face of such appalling facts, and of the bad harvests and distress in England, Sir Robert Peel (S592) could hold out no longer, and by a gradual process, extending from 1846 to 1849, the obnoxious Corn Laws were repealed, with the exception of a trifling duty, which was finally removed in 1869.

The beginning once made, free trade in nearly everything, except wine, spirits, and tobacco, followed. They were, and still are, subject to a heavy duty, perhaps because the government believes, as Napoleon did, that the vices have broad backs and can comfortably carry the heaviest taxes. A few years later (1849) the old Navigation Laws (S459) were totally repealed. This completed the English free-trade measures. But, by a singular contrast, while nearly all goods and products now enter England free, yet Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa--in a word, all the great self-governing English colonies--continue to impose duties on imports from the mother country (S625).

595. The World's Fair (1851); Repeal of the Window and the Newspaper Tax; the Atlantic Cable, 1866.

The great industrial exhibition known as the "World's Fair" was opened in Hyde Park, London (1851). The original plan of it was conceived by Prince Albert. It proved to be not only a complete success in itself, but it led to many similar fairs on the part of different nations.

For the first time in history the products and inventions of all the countries of the globe were brought together under one roof, in a gigantic structure of gla.s.s and iron called the "Crystal Palace,"

which is still in use for exhibition purposes at Sydenham, a suburb of London.

The same year (1851) the barbarous tax on light and air, known as the "Window Tax,"[1] was repealed and the House Tax (which is still in force) was subst.i.tuted for it. From that date the Englishman, whether in London or out, might enjoy his sunshine, when he could get it, without having to pay for every beam,--a luxury which only the rich could afford.

[1] This tax, which took the place of the ancient Hearth Tax (1663-1689), was first imposed in 1695.

A little later (1855) a stamp tax on newspapers, which had been devised in Queen Anne's time in the avowed hope of crushing them out, was repealed. The result was that henceforth cheap papers could be published, and the workingman, as he sat by his fireside, could inform himself of what the world was doing and thinking,--two things of which he had before known almost nothing, and cared, perhaps, even less.

To get this news of the world's life more speedily, England had established the first line of Atlantic steamers (S565); next, the first Atlantic cable, connecting England with America, was laid (1858). It soon gave out, but was permanently relaid not long afterwards, in 1866. Since then a large part of the globe has been joined in like manner,[1] and the great cities of every civilized land are practically one in their knowledge of all important events. So many improvements have also been made in the use of electricity, not only for the transmission of intelligence, but as an illuminator, and more recently still as a motive power, that it now seems probable that "the age of steam" will be superseded by the higher "age of electricity."

[1] There are now over 250,000 miles of submarine electric cables in operation in the world.

596. The Opium War (1839); the War in the Crimea (1854).

For nearly twenty years after Victoria's accession no wars occurred in her reign worthy of mention, with the exception of that with China (1839). At that time the Chinese Emperor, either from a desire to put a stop to the consumption of opium in his dominions, or because he wished to encourage the home production of the drug, prohibited its importation. As the English in India were largely engaged in the production of opium for the Chinese market,--the people of that country smoking it instead of tobacco,--the British government insisted that the Emperor should not interfere with so lucrative a trade. War ensued.

The Chinese, being unable to contend against English gunboats, were soon forced to withdraw their prohibition of the foreign opium traffic. The English government, with the planters of India, reaped a golden reward of many millions for their deliberate violation of the rights of a heathen and half-civilized people. The war opened five important ports to the British trade, and subsequent wars opened a number more on the rivers in the interior. This action, with the later aggressions of other European powers, roused an intensely bitter feeling among large numbers of the Chinese. Their hatred of foreigners finally led to a desperate but unsuccessful attempt (1900) to drive all Europeans and Americans, including missionaries, out of the country.

Eventually, the pressure of the great powers of Europe and the diplomatic influence of the United States induced China to grant the "Open Door" to the demands of foreign trade. Later, England and China made an agreement (1911) which bids fair to stop the exportation of opium to that country.

Next, Turkey declared war against Russia (1853). The latter Power had insisted on protecting all Christians in the Turkish dominions against the oppression of the Sultan. England and France considered the Czar's championship of the Christians as a mere pretext for occupying Turkish territory. To prevent this aggression they formed an alliance with the Sultan, which resulted in the Russo-Turkish war, and ended in the taking of Sebastopol by the allied forces. Russia was obliged to retract her demands, and peace was declared (1856).