the Dardanelles, and to bring it back to a place of safety whenever they pleased. Both England and France disliked this arrangement, but while Palmerston thought that the best remedy was the strengthening of the power of the Sultan, the French Government thought it better to strengthen Mehemet Ali, as being a more capable ruler than Mahmoud. In coming to this conclusion the French were no doubt influenced by the fact that Mehemet Ali employed many Frenchmen in his service. In 1839 the war between the Turks and the Egyptians broke out again, and neither England nor France could remain entirely unconcerned. 19. Threatened Breach with France. 1839-1841.-The war was disastrous to the Turks. The army of the Sultan was routed at Nisib. Sultan Mahmoud died before he heard the news, and was succeeded by his son, Abdul Medjid. The Turkish admiral at once sailed off with the fleet under his command, and handed it over at Alexandria to Mehemet Ali. Palmerston insisted that the Egyptians must be driven back, and in 1840, Russia, abandoning the advantages she had gained by the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, joined England, Austria, and Prussia in a quadruple Treaty, with the object of enforcing suitable terms on the belligerents. France, left out of the treaty, was deeply exasperated. There was wild talk of avenging Waterloo and reconquering the frontier of the Rhine. The French Prime Minister, Thiers, made every preparation for war. A British admiral, Sir Charles Napier, however, joined by an Austrian squadron, captured Acre, and Mehemet Ali abandoned Syria, receiving from the Sultan in return the hereditary government of Egypt, which he had hitherto held only for his own lifetime. Louis Philippe dismissed Thiers, and placed in office Guizot, a sworn foe to revolutionary projects and revolutionary wars. In 1841 all the powers, including Russia, substituted for the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi an agreement by which the Dardanelles was closed against the war ships of all nations unless the Sultan himself was at war. Time was thus allowed to the Turks to show whether they were capable, as Palmerston thought they were, of reforming their own government. 20. Condition of the Poor. 1837-1841.-The Reform Act of 1832 had brought into power the middle classes, and had been followed by such legislation as was satisfactory to those classes. Little had been done for the artisans and the poor, and their condition was most deplorable. A succession of bad seasons raised the price of wheat from a little ever. 39s. a quarter in 1835 to a little over 70s. in 1839. Even if food had been cheap the masses 1837-1841 UNSANITARY CONDITIONS 923 dwelling in great cities were exposed to misery against which the law afforded no protection. Crowded and dirty as many of the dwellings of the poor still are, their condition was far worse early in the reign of Victoria. In Manchester, for instance, one-tenth of the population lived in cellars. Each of these cellars was reached through a small area, to which steps descended from a court, often flooded with stagnating filth. A person standing in one of these areas would, according to the statement of a contemporary writer, have his head about one foot below the level of the street, and might, at the same time, without the least motion of his body, touch the window of the cellar and the damp, muddy wall right opposite.' The cellar itself was dark, filled with a horrible stench. Here a whole family lived in a single room, the children lying on the 'damp, nay, wet, brick floor through which the stagnant moisture' oozed up. In Bethnal Green and other parts of the east end of London things were quite as bad. Overcrowding added to the horrors of such a life. One small cellar, measuring four yards by five, contained two rooms and eight persons, sleeping four in a bed. In some parts of the country similar evils prevailed. In one parish in Dorset thirtysix persons dwelt, on an average, in each house. All modesty was at an end under these miserable conditions. In one case-and the case was common enough-a father and mother, with their married daughter and her husband, a baby, a boy of sixteen, and two girls, all slept in a single room. People living in such a way were sure to be ignorant and vicious. They were badly paid, and even for their low wages were very much at the mercy of their employers. In spite of the law against 'truck,' as it was called, employers often persisted in paying their men in goods charged above their real prices instead of in money. In one instance a man was obliged to take a piece of cloth worth only IIS. in payment of his wages of 358. 21. The People's Charter. 1837-1840.-Many remedies were proposed for these evils, but the one which caught the imagination of the workmen themselves was the People's Charter. The six points of the charter were (1) annual parliaments, (2) manhood suffrage, (3) vote by ballot, (4) equal electoral districts, (5) abolition of the property qualification for entering Parliament, and (6) payment for members of the House of Commons. Those who supported the charter thought that, as the acquisition of political power had enabled the middle classes to redress their grievances, the working class would in like way be able to redress theirs. They did not recognise the unfortunate truth that the working class still needed the political education without which political power is dangerous even to those who exercise it. In 1839 large meetings were held in support of the charter, and at these threats of appealing to violence, if no gentler means availed, were freely used. In 1839 a so-called 'National Convention,' composed of delegates from the workers of the large towns and led by Feargus O'Connor, a newspaper owner, and Ernest Jones, a barrister, sent a monster petition to Parliament. Parliament refused even to take it into consideration, and an increased bitterness of feeling was the result. A riot occurred at Birmingham: houses and shops were sacked, as if Birmingham had been a town taken by storm. The Government repressed these acts of violence by the operation of the ordinary law, without having recourse to those exceptional measures on which Sidmouth had fallen back thirty years before (see p. 880). The last deed of violence was an armed attack on Newport in Monmouthshire. Soldiers, brought to defend the place, fired upon the mob, and killed and wounded many. In 1840 the ringleaders were tried and condemned to death, though the Government commuted the sentence into transportation for life. 22. The Anti-Corn-Law League. 1838-1840. The middle classes were not likely to be tolerant of violence and disorder, but there was one point on which their interests coincided with those of the working men. The high price of corn not only caused sufferings amongst the poor, but also injured trade. This high price was to a great extent owing to the Corn Law, which had been amended from time to time since it was passed in 1815 (see p. 875), and which continued to make corn dear by imposing heavy duties on imported corn whenever there was a good harvest in England, with the view of protecting the agriculturists against low prices. In 1838 an Anti-Corn-Law League was formed at Manchester in which the leading men were Richard Cobden, a master of clear and popular reasoning, whose knowledge of facts relating to the question was exhaustive, and John Bright, whose simple diction and stirring eloquence appealed to the feelings and the morality of his audience. In 1839 Charles Villiers, who took the lead of the Corn Law repealers in the House of Commons, was beaten by 342 votes to 195, but he had amongst his supporters Russell, Palmerston, and most of the prominent members of the Government. It was evident, however, that some time must elapse before a change so great could be accomplished, as the proposal was offensive to the agriculturists, who formed the main strength of the Conservative party. More 1841 A DISCREDITED MINISTRY 925 over, the proposal to put an end to the Corn Law had still to make its way, by dint of argument, with the trading and working classes who were interested in its abolition. 23. The Fall of the Melbourne Ministry. 1841.--The middle classes had grievances of their own against the ministry. They disliked financial disorder as well as physical violence, and, though the ministry had put down the latter, they had encouraged the former. Every year showed a deficit, and whilst the produce of the taxes was falling, the expenditure was increasing. In 1841 the ministry made an heroic effort to deal with the mischief by a movement in the direction of freedom of trade, proposing that there should be a fixed 8s. duty on every quarter of imported corn, whatever its price in England might be, in the place of the sliding scale varying with the price which had been adopted in 1822. Peel opposed them on the ground that they had shown themselves too incompetent as financiers to be entrusted with the working of so large a scheme. The ministry was defeated in the House of Commons, and, after a dissolution, a new House was returned in which the Conservatives were in a majority of ninety-one. The discredited Melbourne ministry resigned, and Peel had no difficulty in forming a new ministry. There was no longer any difficulty about the Ladies of the Bedchamber. Now that the queen was married and in full enjoyment of the society of a husband whom she loved and trusted, she no longer objected to abandon the company of the Whig ladies whom, in 1839, she had refused to dismiss.' 1 Genealogy of the principal descendants of Queen Victoria : I. Peel's New Ministry. 1841.-In his new ministry Peel found room not only for leading Conservatives, but also for Stanley, Graham, and Ripon, who had left the Whigs in 1834, and had since then voted with the Conservatives. Stanley-now Lord Stanley--and Graham were amongst the ablest of the ministers who formed the Cabinet; though the help of a young minister, Gladstone, who was not a member of the Cabinet, was especially valuable on account of his grasp of economical truths, and of the clearness with which his opinions were set forth. 2. Peel's First Free-trade Budget. 1842.-Peel's first great Budget was that of 1842. He put an end to the deficit by carrying a measure re-imposing, for three years, an income-tax similar to that which Pitt had imposed to carry on the great war with France. He justified his action on the plea that it was necessary, in the first place, to stop the constantly recurring deficit; and, in the second place, to effect financial reforms which would enlarge the resources of the government. He consequently lowered many duties the main object of which had been the protection of home manufactures or agriculture. So far as the corn duties were concerned, he modified the sliding scale, but refused to effect any distinct reduction. The advocates of free-trade thought he had done too little, and those of protection thought he had done too much. 3. Returning Prosperity. 1843-1844. During the next two years, 1843 and 1844, Peel's budgets were not remarkable, as he did not wish to take any further step of importance till he had had time to watch the result of the budget of 1842. The experience gained at the end of three years was in every way favourable, as it showed that manufactures really flourished more now that they had to face competition than they had done in its absence. No doubt |