X. 1820. structed on religious subjects by their respective religious CHAP. teachers. A general rate might be levied on all for the support of the teachers in the first; a special rate on those professing each persuasion for the instruction in the last. This is done in several schools in manufactories in Scotland, and is generally practised in America with perfect success. The system appears complicated, but it is perhaps the only way in which the difficulties connected with the subject can be obviated, or a general assessment for educational purposes be reconciled with the sincere, hare's Ameand therefore respectable, scruples of the serious portion 61. of the community.1 1 Treman rica, 56, 57, 61. be done educated But supposing this difficulty surmounted, another, and a yet more formidable one, remains behind, to the magni- What is to tude of which the world is only beginning to awaken. with the When the people are educated, what is to be done with classes? them? How is the country to get on when so many more are trained to and qualified for intellectual labour than can by possibility find a subsistence, even by the most successful prosecution of any of its branches? How is the constantly increasing multitude of well-educated persons, armed with the powers of intellect, stimulated by the pressure of necessity, not restrained by the possession of property, to be disposed of, when no possible means of providing for them but by physical labour, which they abhor, can be devised? How are they to be prevented, in periods of distress, from becoming seditious, and listening to the suggestions of the demagogues who never fail to appear in such circumstances, who tell them that all their distresses are owing to the faulty institutions of society, and that under the reign of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," they will all disappear before the ascending power of the people? How, in such circumstances, is the balance of the different classes of society to be preserved, and the great, but inert, and comparatively unintellectual mass of the rural X. 1820. CHAP. population to be hindered from falling under the dominion of the less numerous, but more concentrated, more wealthy, and more acute inhabitants of towns? If they do become subjected to them, what is that but classgovernment of the worst and most dangerous, because the most numerous and irresponsible kind? And what is to be expected from it, but the entire sacrifice of the interests of the country, by successive acts of the legislature, to those of towns? England has already felt these evils, but not to the degree that she otherwise would, from the invaluable vent which her numerous colonies have afforded to her surplus educated and indigent population: in America they have been wholly unknown, because the Far West has absorbed it all. 62. Effect of education in leading to the dispersion of mankind. : These observations are not foreign to a work of general history its subsequent volumes will be little more than a commentary on this text. And without anticipating the march of events, which will abundantly illustrate them, it may be observed that the maintenance of despotic institutions in a country of advancing intelligence is impossible; that as knowledge is power, so knowledge will obtain power; that the wisdom of government with a people growing in information, is gradually and cautiously to admit them to a share in its duties; that the only way to do this with safety, is by the representation of interests, not numbers, the latter being class-government of the worst kind; and that, with all that, safety must mainly be looked for in the providing ample outlets for the indigent intelligence of the state in colonial settlements. It is impossible it should be otherwise, for it is by the force of education that the destinies of the species are to be worked out by the voluntary acts of free agents. The desires consequent on information, with their natural offspring, democratic ambition, are the great moving powers of nature; and in the last days of man, as in the first, it is by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge that he X. is torn up from his native seats, and impelled by the force CHAP. of his own desires to obey the Divine precept to overspread the earth and subdue it. 1820. 63. chisement pound, and to York Another subject, destined in the end to be attended with paramount importance, though its moment was not Disfranperceived at this time, was at the same time introduced of Graminto Parliament, and showed how closely the growing transfer of intelligence of an era is connected with the desire for an its members extension of political power. This was PARLIAMENTARY shire. REFORM. Lord John Russell on 9th May introduced the subject by proposing three resolutions: 1. That the people were dissatisfied with the representation; 2. That boroughs convicted of bribery should be disfranchised; and, 3. That their members should be transferred to some populous place not represented. Grampound had been convicted of bribery in the last election, on so extensive a scale that it appeared in evidence that "perhaps there might be two or three electors who had not received bribes." The bill disfranchising the borough passed without any opposition, but a great division of opinion arose as to the place to which the members for it should be transferred. In the bill, as it originally stood, it was proposed that they should be transferred to Leeds; but the aristocratic party, in both Houses, inclined to give them to some rural district, where their influence might be more easily exerted. The bill was not pushed through all its stages this session, in consequence of the proceedings against the Queen absorbing the whole attention of the legislature; but it was revived in the next, and, as it passed the Commons, the franchise was conferred on Leeds. In the Lords, however, this was altered, and the members were bestowed on the county of York. With this alteration the Reform party were far from being satisfied; but they wisely agreed to it, and the bill, thus amended, passed into a law. Thus was the foundation laid of the great fabric of parliamen X. 1820. CHAP. tary reform, ten years before the empire was shaken to the centre by the superstructure being raised. Even at this early period, however, the opening made awakened very serious alarms in many able persons, who afterwards became leaders of the Whig party.* Happy would it have been for the nation if it had been regarded by the opposite parties as a question of social amelioration, not political power, and the use that was practicable had been 1820, 46, made of the progressive and just reforms which might Deb. v. 604, have been founded on the disfranchisement of the boroughs 971,696, convicted of corruption, instead of the wholesale destruction of the majority of their number.1 1 Ann. Reg. 47; Parl. 624, 974. 64. trade ideas among the and Lord Lansdowne's The doctrine of FREE TRADE, afterwards so largely Rise of free- acted upon by the British legislature, first began at this time to engross the thoughts not only of persons engaged merchants, in commerce and manufactures, but of the heads of the Government. On 8th May, Mr Baring presented a petition declaration on this subject from the merchants of London; and on the 16th, Mr Kirkman Finlay, a Glasgow merchant, equally remarkable for the extent of his transactions and the liberality of his views, brought forward a petition from the Chamber of Commerce of Glasgow, which set forth, in strong terms, the evils arising from the restricted state of the trade with China and the East Indies, and the on the sub ject. * In October 1819, after the Grampound Disfranchisement Bill had first been introduced into Parliament, Mr Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley, wrote to the Bishop of Llandaff: "All I am afraid of is, that by having the theoretical defects of the present House of Commons perpetually dinned into their ears, the well-intentioned and well-affected part of the community should at last begin to suppose that some reform is necessary. Now, I can hardly conceive any reform that would not bring us within the whirlpool of democracy, towards which we should be attracted by an irresistible force, and in an hourly accelerated ratio. But I flatter myself there is wisdom enough in the country to preserve us long from so great an innovation." In April 1820 he again wrote: "When I see the progress that reform is making, not only among the vulgar, but persons, like yourself, of understanding and education, clear of interested motives and party fanaticism, my spirits fail me. I wish I could persuade myself that the first day of reform will not be the first of the English revolution." In February 1821 he writes: "Mackintosh would keep the nomination boroughs; for my part, I am content with the constitution as it stands.”— Lord DUDLEY's Letters, 226, 247, 277. X. 1820. advantages over British subjects which the Americans CHAP. enjoyed in that respect; and urged the repeal of the Usury Laws, and the reduction or removal of the duties on the importation of several foreign commodities. These views were so favourably received in both Houses of Parliament, that Lord Lansdowne was encouraged, a few days after, to bring forward a motion for the appointment of a committee to take into consideration the means of extending our foreign commerce. He dwelt, in an especial manner, on the inconveniences to which the trade of the country was now exposed by the numerous duties which restricted it in every direction, and argued that, "whatever brought the foreign merchant to this country, and made it a general mart for the merchandise of the world, was beneficial to our trade, and enriched the industrious population of our ports. Such freedom of transit would allow an assortment of cargoes for foreign markets, and thus extend our trade in general. The import duties on Baltic timber should be removed, for they cost us annually £500,000 more for our ships and houses than if we bought it from the north of Europe. The duties on French wines also should be lowered, to augment the trade with that country, and the trade with India entirely thrown open. As a proof of the superior value of the free trade to the East to that of the East India Company, it is sufficient to observe, that the former has 61,000 tons of shipping and 4720 seamen, while the latter employs only 20,000 tons and 2550; and our trade to America, which, at the period of the inde- Ann. Reg. pendence of that country, was only £3,000,000, has 85; Parl. now swelled to the enormous amount of £30,000,000 466. a-year." 1 1 1820, 83, Deb. i. 456, pool's me Lord Liverpool made a very remarkable speech in 65. reply; memorable as being the first enunciation, on the Lord Liverpart of Government, of the principles of free trade, which, morable half a century before, had been promulgated by Quesnay speech in in France, and Adam Smith in Great Britain. "It reply. |