XLIII.

CHAP. Words were spoken on both sides which can never be forgiven; deeds done which can never be forgotten. When 1846. eighty Protectionists, the representatives of the old English aristocracy, followed Lord George Bentinck and Mr Disraeli into the hostile lobby on the division on the Irish Coercion Bill, the knell of the Tory party was rung, the rule of steady consistent party on either side came to an end, and the empire was handed over to successive coalitions of discordant interests, involving on all sides dereliction of principle, attended to none by durability of

2.

Both the

the Tories

were destroyed by their own

leaders.

power.

It is remarkable that the breaking up of the two great parties which have alternately ruled the State ever since Whigs and the Revolution was in neither case owing to the hostility of its opponent, however ably directed or perseveringly applied. It was neither Mr Pitt nor Lord Castlereagh that overturned the Whigs; it was not Mr Fox or Mr Burke that paralysed the Tories. From the assaults of those great men, strongly supported as they were, their opponents on both sides entirely recovered, and they never were so powerful as after those periods when the strife had been most violent. Witness Mr Pitt in 1784, after the desperate struggle with the Coalition; Earl Grey in 1832, after the close of the long-continued strife consequent on the French Revolution. Even the Reform Bill, however skilfully directed to that end, did not destroy the Tory party; the Opposition was never so united or so ably led as from 1835 to 1841 when guided by Sir R. Peel, the Government never so powerful as when he came into power in the close of the latter year. The Whigs as a party were destroyed by the Reform Bill, forced through the Lords by their powerful leaders at the head of the whole democracy of the empire; the Tories as a party were destroyed by Sir R. Peel, when at the head of the Government, and supported by a majority so large as promised them a lease of power for an unlimited period. Earl Grey's triumph terminated the ascendancy of the old Whig

XLIII.

1846.

families which had so long ruled the State, and substituted CHAP. in its room that of a coalition of English urban Liberals, Scotch Radicals, and Irish Catholics; Sir R. Peel's return to power with a majority of 91 was the herald of the dissolution of the great and united party which he had so long and ably headed, and its severance into angry, soured Protectionists, too weak to form a government, and wavering Liberal Conservatives, eminent in talent, but without followers sufficient to give them any pretensions to be a ruling party.

3.

which led

Without doubt this strange and anomalous result is to be ascribed in some degree to the pressure of external Causes circumstances. The growing wealth and importance of to these the commercial portion of the nation called for an enlarged changes. admission of their representatives into the legislature, as it did for a certain modification of the duties on the admission of food and necessary articles of subsistence. So far, a concession was necessary in both cases. But the amount and measure of the concession were in both voluntary, and the authors of the changes are responsible for their effects. Both were precipitated, and rendered unavoidable, by the previous acts of the very Ministers who introduced them; both were forced on by the power which they respectively wielded, in utter ignorance of their effects. The Reform Bill was first rendered a national object of desire from the effect of the long-continued declamations of the Whigs and Liberals at the former representation of interests and classes; and it was rendered so broad and sweeping, from Earl Grey seriously and in good faith anticipating from it effects diametrically the reverse of those with which it was actually attended. The demand for the repeal of the Corn Laws was mainly owing to the monetary system which had been in operation for a quarter of a century, which, by halving the remuneration for every species of industry, had swelled into a passion the desire for a corresponding reduction in the price of food; and to the conduct of Sir R. Peel himself, who, by applying the

XLIII.

1846.

CHAP. principles of Free Trade to inferior articles, rendered irresistible the cry for its extension to the principal staples of human consumption. Not less than the great alteration in the structure of the constitution, this social change was forced through by him in direct opposition to the wishes of his party and his own former professions, and in such complete ignorance of its effects, that, before many years had elapsed, it had induced evils of a far more serious and irremediable kind than those it was intended to remove. The commencement of these evils forms the interesting and instructive subject of the present chapter.

4.

of the new

Cabinet.

As a matter of course, the Queen, upon the resignation Formation of Sir R. Peel, for whom she had conceived the highest esteem, sent for Lord John Russell, and he experienced much less difficulty in forming a Cabinet than on the last similar occasion Lord Melbourne had done.* Lord John * THE WHIG GOVERNMENT, AS NOW REARRANGED.

XLIII.

1846.

Russell was First Lord of the Treasury; Lord Cotten- CHAP. ham became Lord-Chancellor; Sir George Grey, Home, and Lord Palmerston, Foreign, Secretary; with whom Earl Grey was now persuaded to act as Secretary for the Colonies. Sir C. Wood was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Auckland First Lord of the Admiralty. The Cabinet consisted of the unusually large number of sixteen, and certainly presented a brilliant display of oratorical and parliamentary talent, though the great preponderance of noblemen gave little promise of a due infusion of business habits, and the paucity of practical men afforded too good reason to fear a serious deficiency in knowledge of the real situation and wants of the country. So completely, however, was the Tory party understood to be split asunder by the dissensions consequent on Free Trade, that the eyes of the entire nation were turned to the new Cabinet, as the only one possible under existing circumstances; and the elections consequent on the vacating of Ann. Reg. seats from the formation of the new Government excited Parl. Deb. very little attention. All the members of the new Govern- 1, 4. ment were returned almost without opposition.1

1846, 102;

lxxxvii.

ment plan

for the

sugar

Parliament met again after a short adjournment, dur- 5. ing which the returns for the vacated seats took place on Governthe 16th July; and the first subject of importance which came on for discussion was the sugar-duties, which re- duties. quired immediate attention, as the bill for the existing July 20. duties expired on the 4th August. Lord John Russell brought forward this important subject in a very able speech; and the plan which he proposed, and which received the sanction of a large majority of the House of Commons, is the more worthy of attention, as it afforded the first instance of the effect of the free-trade measure, then so much in vogue, and so largely adopted by Parliament, upon the producing interests of the empire. "The first question," said his lordship, "is, what is the consumption in average years of the empire? and the next, is there any chance of supply within ourselves adequate

XLIII.

1846.

CHAP. to meet it? The returns of sugar imported on an average of the last three years, and the concurring opinion of all practical men engaged in the trade, fix the annual consumption at 252,000 tons; while the most probable view of the supply does not give above 230,000 tons.* Then, where is the additional supply of 22,000 tons, of an article now become one of the necessaries of life to a large part of our people, to come from? There is no resource we can look to but foreign slave-grown sugar. That sugar has been virtually excluded from the market since. the final emancipation of the slaves in 1837, a period now of nine years, and all the efforts of the producers of sugar in our own colonies have been unable to keep pace with the demand, or prevent the price of the article rising, as it is now doing, to what, as to it, amounts to a famine level. There is an absolute necessity, therefore, of recurring to the Slave States for a supply of this necessary article of consumption. Indeed, the exclusion of slave-grown sugar, under the present prohibitory system, is impracticable, for the Slave States are in possession of treaties under which they are entitled to demand the admission of their slavegrown sugar on the same terms as the most favoured nation. Under the present system the discouragement to slavery in the Slave States is more apparent than real, because the slave growers find a market for their produce in other countries into which it obtains free admission, whence they receive supplies in return which come

6