A.D. 1844.] ESTABLISHMENT OF AN ANTI-LEAGUE LEAGUE. tending to the honour of the House nor to his own credit. I therefore must be excused if I declare my determination to give my vote upon this occasion as I did in the former instance; and as I do not follow the example of the hon. and gallant member near me (Sir H. Douglas), it will not subject me to the imputation of having voted on the former occasion without thought or purpose." The appeal of the Ministers, however, was, fortunately for the free trade movement, for a time successful. The Government were reinstated by a vote of 255 to 233, in a House in which both parties had evidently done their utmost. ance. 591 of the day represented by a slightly modified picture from the fable of the frog and the bull. To those, however, who read only the tracts of the Anti-League League, it doubtless appeared that the torrent was to some degree arrested. It began to be asserted that the League was extinct, that the country was sick of its incessant agitation, and that Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright were about to "back out." These, however, were not the views of the League men. Like the mariner, who has work appropriate for foul weather as well as for fine, and all equally conducive to his ultimate object of taking his vessel into port, the Manchester men, and their friends and supporters throughout England, worked harder than ever. The lists of voters, the freehold land scheme, and the gathering in of that £100,000 fund which was now fast approaching completion, furnished them abundant employment for their hands, and it was carried on with a success which gave sure promise of the final undermining of the stronghold of the enemy. The party which, under the guidance of Mr. Disraeli, Lord Stanley, and Lord George Bentinck, was destined to present so formidable an opposition to the Minister's policy, and to render his labours in the interests of the people so full of pain and anxiety, as yet only marked its existence by murmurs along the Conservative benches. As usual, the somewhat revived prosperity of the country was the chief pretext for resisting change. "My hope," said the greatest orator of the movement People with this view did not see the danger of opposing at one of the League meetings at this period, "is brighter reforms, until a sudden storm compelled the Legislature than ever; my faith is undimmed by the smallest shadow to face them with mischievous haste. It had again and of a doubt. There is everything throughout the whole again been shown that the evils of the old system of country which betokens the speedy and final triumph of restrictions lay chiefly in the fact, that they led to this question. And why should it not triumph? We seek violent fluctuations in the circumstances of the people. only that which the good and the just in all ages have Nothing, therefore, could be more certain than that, even sought; we are seeking for freedom and justice. This is had the prosperity been tenfold greater, one of those a struggle which has been going on upon the earth for alternations of depression which brought so much misery thousands of years. Our forefathers have carried it on, to the people would not be long in making its appear- and they have gone to their rest; we are working out the The monopolist party, however, seldom looked same object in our day and generation. Many of us will beyond the day or the hour. There had been rick-burn- live to see the accomplishment of this great work, and ing in the country, and an agricultural labourer, named those who come after us will have something else to do. Joseph Lankester, had declared that his object in com- And I trust that in all this labour we shall leave them mitting this crime was to raise the price of wheat, and so an example of steady determination and unflinching perbring about those high wages which the political farmers severance on behalf of that which we believe to be right and landlords were always saying came from good prices and just. In a great struggle, in the long run, the just in the corn market. The Protectionist lords declared, always wins. He must have read very little of history nevertheless, that the Anti-Corn-Law League, with their who does not know that liberty is triumphing. There is mischievous agitation, their models of the big and little more freedom and justice in the world now by far than loaf, their lectures and meetings, their music and there ever was at any former period. There are more banners, their poisonous tracts and pamphlets, were men having a love of what is just and right; the oppressor at the bottom of these disturbances; while the League is cowed and abashed; he does not come amongst us with rejoined by declaring that Joseph Lankester's views force and violence, but he works insidiously and treachewere only "Richmondism put in practice;" that the rously; he wraps his chain in chaplets of flowers, and destruction of bonded wheat, when the duties became thus he tyrannises over his countrymen. Yes, freedom more than it was worth, was but another phase of is Heaven's first gift to man. But bear in mind that, "Lankesterism;" and that, indeed, the whole theory of precious and excellent as this liberty is, there are certain the Corn Law, the object of which was to render corn conditions upon which alone it can be obtained and dear by artificial means, was closely akin to the ignorant secured. You must rely upon yourselves for it. Liberty notions of the deluded rick-burners. In the towns, how-is too precious and sacred a thing ever to be entrusted to ever, political agitation was comparatively silent. To some agriculturists it appeared a fair compromise to maintain the protective laws in consideration of their being content to put up with the low prices of the day. Any way, the dreaded League seemed to them to be checked. The landowners had established an Anti-League League, for counteracting the Manchester men with their own weapons-an association which the satirists the keeping of another man. Be the guardians of your own rights and liberties. If you are not, you will have no protectors, but spoilers of all that you possess. You can only hold it on the condition of perpetual vigilance. You must look at it as though it were a matter of business; you must consider this question of defending your rights as a concern no less important than that of providing for your family. What is it but this, if we come to look narrowly into it? This freedom for which you struggle is the freedom to live; it is the right to "eat your bread by the sweat of your brow." It is the freedom which was given to you even in the primeval curse; and shall man make that curse more bitter to his fellow-man? No; instead of despairing, I have more confidence and faith than ever. I believe that those old delusions and superstitions which, like verminous and polluted rags, have disfigured the fair form of this country's greatness, are now fast dropping away. I think I behold the dawn of a brighter day; all around are the elements of a mighty movement. We stand as on the very threshold of a new career; and may we not say this League-this great and growing confederacy of those who love justice and hate oppression-has scattered, broadcast throughout the land, seed from which shall spring forth, ere long, an abundant, a glorious harvest of true greatness for our country, and of permanent happiness for mankind?” * The Parliamentary session for 1845 was opened by the Queen in person, on the 4th of February. At a meeting a few days earlier, Mr. Cobden had warned his hearers that no change in the corn laws could be expected from Sir R. Peel, so long as the Ministry could avail themselves of the old excuse, the revived prosperity of manufactures and commerce. "Ours," he had said, "is a very simple proposition. We say to the right honourable baronet, Abolish the monopolies which go to enrich that majority which placed you in power and keeps you there. We know he will not attempt it; but we are quite certain he will make great professions of being a free trader, notwithstanding." The following vague passage in the Queen's speech-"The prospect of continued peace, and the general state of domestic prosperity and tranquillity, afford a favourable opportunity for the consideration of the important matters to which I have directed your attention; and I commit them to your deliberation, with the earnest prayer that you may be enabled, under the superintending care and protection of Divine Providence, to strengthen the feelings of mutual confidence and good-will between different classes of my subjects, and to improve the condition of my people"appeared only too clearly to confirm this view; but the sequel showed that the free traders had scarcely done justice to the intentions of the Minister. The debate on the address produced a remarkable declaration from Lord John Russell of his conviction "that protection is not the support but the bane of agriculture." The budget was brought forward on the 13th of February. It proposed to continue the income tax, which experience had shown to afford a means of supplying the place of taxes repealed, until such time as the revenue should recover itself. The Minister then unfolded his scheme, which formed no unworthy complement to his great budget of 1842. It proposed a reduction in the sugar duties, which could not be calculated at less than £1,300,000, and was expected to reduce the price to the consumer by about 1d. a pound. The Minister then proceeded to refer to a list of articles, 430 in number, which yielded but trifling amounts of revenue, and many Speech of Mr. Bright at the League Meeting held at Covent Garden of which were raw materials used in the various manufactures of the country, including silk, hemp, flax, and yarn or thread (except worsted yarn), all woods used in cabinet-making, animal and vegetable oils, iron and zinc in the first stages, ores and minerals (except copper ore, to which the last act was still to apply), dye stuffs of all kinds, and all drugs, with very few exceptions; on the whole of these articles he proposed to repeal the duties altogether, not even leaving a nominal rate for registration, but retaining the power of examination. The timber duties generally he proposed to continue as they were, with the one exception of staves, which, as the raw material of the extensive manufacture of casks, he proposed to include with the 430 articles, and to take off the duty altogether. On these articles the loss amounted to £320,000. The next and most important relief in the whole proposition was the article of cotton wool, on which the Minister proposed also to reduce the duty altogether, and on which he estimated the loss at £680,000; and these constituted the whole of the proposed reductions of the import duties-that is, sugar, cotton wool, and the numerous small articles in the tariff. The next items of reduction proposed were the few remaining duties on our exports, such as china-stone, and other trifling things, but including the most important article of coals, on which the duty had been placed by the Government, and of the result of which Sir Robert Peel candidly avowed his disappointment. The duties he estimated at £118,000. He then passed on to the excise duties, among which he had selected two items of great importance for entire repeal the auction duty and the glass duties. By a repeal of the auction duty he estimated a loss of £300,000; but as he proposed, at the same time, to increase the auctioneer's licence uniformly from £5 to £15 (making one licence answer for all purposes, whereas, at that time, several licences were often necessary to the same party), he expected from 4,000 auctioneers an increased income, so as to reduce this loss to £250,000. On the important article of glass, he gave up £642,000. These constituted the whole of his proposals; and the surplus of £2,409,000 was thus proposed to be disposed of:-Estimated loss on sugar, £1,300,000; duty on cotton repealed, £680,000; ditto on 430 articles in tariff, £320,000; export duty on coal, £118,000; auction duty, £250,000; glass, £642,000. Total, £3,310,000. The budget excited extraordinary interest throughout the country; but the proposed sugar duties were, in the eyes of the free traders, objectionable, as maintaining the differential rates in favour of the West Indian landlords. Though well received on the whole, it was impossible not to see in the budget traces of the anomalous position of the Minister. One newspaper described his measures as combining the most glaring inconsistencies that ever disfigured the policy of any Minister, and arranged in parallel columns illustra tions of its assertion. Sir Robert Peel was charged with proposing at the same time a tariff whose express object A.D. 1845.] GROWTH OF THE LEAGUE IN PUBLIC ESTIMATION. was declared to be to cheapen the necessaries of life and corn, and provision laws whose sole object was to make the chief necessaries of life dear; with professing great concern to relieve trade and commerce, for the sake of which a property tax was proposed, combined with a still greater concern to uphold the rent of land, for the sake of which trade and commerce were loaded with a bread tax; with devising taxes for the mere purposes of revenue; with taxes for the mere purpose of protection; with repealing the duty on slave-grown cotton, while imposing prohibitory duties on slave-grown sugar; with encouraging Brazilian coffee and cotton, while refusing Brazilian sugar; and with admitting cheap slave-grown sugar to be refined in England, and sold to Continental nations, while forbidding the selfsame cheap sugar to our own working people. Still, there was progress. The Corn Law was untouched, but statesmen of all parties had spoken despairingly of its continuance. The gulf between the Minister and the landowners was widening. The debates on the budget, and on Mr. Cobden's motion for inquiry into the alleged agricultural distress, had drawn out more bitter speeches from Mr. Disraeli, and served still further to mark the distinction between the Minister and a large section of his old followers. But one of the most significant signs of the time was the increasing tendency to recognise the talents and singleness of purpose of the Anti-Corn-Law Leaguers. It became almost fashionable to compliment "the ability of Mr. Cobden." It was almost forgotten that the Minister had once carried with him the whole House in making an excited charge against that gentleman of marking him out for assassination. The bitterness of the ultra-Protectionists was certainly unabated; but neither the Quarterly nor any other review now classed the Manchester men with rick-burners and assassins, or called upon the Government to indict them for sedition. An able writer has given a spirited sketch of the growth of the League in the estimation of the public. "Month after month, and day after day," says Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens, "that great combination of commercial wealth, energy, and intellect extended its influence. It had outgrown the silly scepticism of West-end Liberalism, and the idle interdict of Tory wrath. It had struck root palpably in the electoral soil of the country; and though the time had not come for bearing fruit, it was manifestly approaching. The Parliament was four years old-a consideration which, in times of change, outweighs most others in the minds of constitutional Ministers. It had been confidently prophesied by all, who read events in the shadows they cast behind them, when Sir R. Peel had been borne into office by a majority of ninety, that the League would die out. It was formed of vulgar stuff, of common clay, that had not the ring of gentility in it, and that must soon go to the bottom from sheer want of floating power. The idea of a mere middle-class movement succeeding, without the leadership or even the patronage of either set of hereditary legislators, was simply absurd-so absurd, indeed, that no thorough-bred politician believed in its possibility until after it had happened. Manchester might talk of raising £50,000, 593 and might possibly do it; for was not the effort to obtain free trade a good investment, after all, for rich manufacturers, who must find new markets to employ their accumulative capital? But the clubs, and the press, and the constituencies of the kingdom, were too long accustomed to fetch and carry at the bidding of the old, recognised party leaders, to be won over or bullied by a knot of nobodies, however pertinacious or persevering. When the £50,000 had been raised and spent in holding scores of meetings, and getting up hundreds of petitions, and circulating many thousands of statistical pamphlets, Whiggery and Toryism nodded to one another across the street, and laughed each in its sleeve as it wondered what these people would do now.' These people said they would raise £100,000; and what was worse, they began to do it. Regardless of Lord Melbourne's saucy veto, and his having said that they would take the crown off Her Majesty's head,' several excitable persons, who ought to have known better, joined the League. Lord Fitzwilliam asked Mr. Cobden to Wentworth, and drove him over to Doncaster next day, to attend a great gathering there; but then the earl was so odd that sensible men would not mind him. It was certainly more provoking when Mr. Jones Loyd gave in his adhesion; but still he was only a banker; and as for the City election, in which Mr. Pattison had beaten Mr. Thomas Baring, that was one of those caprices of large constituencies, like Mr. Hume's return for Middlesex in 1831, which could not be accounted for. But when it was ascertained for a fact that the Marquis of Westminster had subscribed £500 to the League Fund, a certain sense of misgiving began to creep over the minds of the best-bred unbelievers, and fear fell upon all who had paid dear for their seats in Parliament, and who, if they were to hold them, knew that they must pay dear for them again. The shadow of events began to be cast the other way; and every time-serving trimmer and fribble set about learning to read what was indicated thereby. Two hateful facts grew day by day more clear, alike to Whig and Tory minds-that the League would not die, and that the Parliament speedily would. Symptoms of a gradual giving way became discernible in what had undoubtedly been the prevalent faith in protection; and thousands who, above all things, dreaded commotion, and who still tried to persuade one another that they despised the League, half inarticulately began to mutter a wish that the troublesome question were settled." * The debate on Mr. Villiers' annual motion, on the 10th of June, produced still further evidences of the decline of Protectionist principles. On that occasion Sir James Graham, who was currently believed to be better acquainted with the feelings of the Premier than any other of the Ministers, said, "He would not deny that it was his opinion, that by a gradual and cautious policy it was expedient to bring our system of corn laws into a nearer approximation to those wholesome principles which governed legislation with respect to other indus "Life of Sir James Graham, by T. M'Cullagh Torrens," 1863. trial departments. But it was his conviction that same. First a brown spot was observable on the skin Sir Robert Peel spoke more cautiously; but he began by striking away a favourite maxim of his party, in observing that experience proved that the high price of corn was not accompanied by a high rate of wages, and that wages did not vary with the price of corn. He said that he "must proceed, in pursuance of his own policy, to reconcile the gradual approach of our legislation to sound principle on this subject, with the interests which had grown up under a different state of things;" but he admitted that it would be 66 impossible to maintain any law on the ground that it was intended to keep up rents." Lord Howick pointed out that not one word had been said during the evening by the Government in contradiction of the resolutions of Mr. Villiers, condemnatory of the Corn Law. In fact, the Anti-CornLaw struggle had come to this, that a Tory Ministry had made a full concession of free trade principles, and had no ground of demur to Mr. Villiers' motion, but that it was too precipitate. Such was the position of affairs when Parliament was prorogued on the 9th of August. The Peel Ministry appeared to be as firmly seated as any combination then possible was likely to be, and the agriculturists' monopoly seemed safe at least for another year; but the Government had already received warnings of a coming storm. The weather had been for some time wet and cold, but as yet a general failure of the wheat crop was not anticipated. The trouble approached from a quarter in which no one had looked for it. Early in the month of August, Sir Robert Peel had received an account of an extraordinary appearance in the potato crop in the Isle of Wight. On the 11th of August, Sir James Graham received a letter from a great potato salesman, indicating that the same mysterious signs were observable throughout the south-eastern counties, and he hastened to communicate the facts to his colleague. These isolated observations soon became confirmed from numerous quarters, and the account was everywhere the The Government at once sent Dr. Lindley and Dr. Playfair, two men of science, to Ireland, in the hope that they might be able to suggest remedies for staying the progress of the disease, or preserve that portion of the crop which was still untainted; and the consular agents in different parts of Europe and of America were directed to make inquiries and endeavour to obtain a supply of sound potatoes for seed; indeed, the seed question was even more important than that more immediately pressing one, of how the people were to be fed. In addition to this, early in October, they secretly gave orders for the purchase abroad of £100,000 worth of Indian corn, to be conveyed to Irish ports for distribution among the people. These measures, however, proved of little avail, and meanwhile it became evident that in a great portion of the United Kingdom a famine was inevitable, which could not fail to influence the price of provisions of all kinds elsewhere. During this time it became known that the harvest, about which opinions had fluctuated so much, would be everywhere deficient. The friends of Sir Robert Peel in the Cabinet who shared his free trade tendencies knew then how impossible it was that the already tottering system of the corn laws could be any longer maintained. The Ministers had scarcely reached the country seats in which they looked for repose, after the labours of the session, ere the cry of "Open the ports" was raised throughout the kingdom; but except three, none of them took the Minister's view of the gravity of the crisis. All knew that the ports once open, public opinion would probably for ever prevent the re-introduction of the duties, and the majority of the Cabinet for a time still adhered to their Protectionist principles. The magnitude of the interests at stake, the difficulty of estimating the real character and extent of the threatened evil, and the alarming consequences which must ensue, if the worst fears should be realised, rendered immediate action necessary. A Cabinet Council was held on the 31st of October. From what passed on that occasion, says Sir Robert Peel, in the account which he has left of these events, "it was easy to foresee that there was little prospect of a common accord as to the measures to be adopted." On the oth of November he apprised Her Majesty of the probability of serious differences of opinion. At the adjourned meeting of the Cabinet, on the 6th of November, he submitted certain proposals for the consideration of his colleagues, which he has recorded in the following outline of these events: A.D. 1845.] DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SIR R. PEEL AND HIS COLLEAGUES. CABINET MEMORANDUM, NOVEMBER 6. "To issue forthwith an order in council remitting the duty on grain in bond to one shilling, and opening the ports for the admission of all species of grain at a smaller rate of duty until a day named in the order. "To call Parliament together on the 27th instant, to ask for indemnity and a sanction of the order by law. "To propose to Parliament no other measure than that during the sitting before Christmas. To declare an intention of submitting to Parliament immediately after the recess a modification of the existing law, but to decline entering into any details in Parliament with regard to such modification. 595 once relinquishing office; but, after mature reflection, considering that the rejection of my proposals was not a peremptory one by all of those who for the present declined to adopt them, that additional information might materially abate the objections of many, and that the dissolution of a Government on account of differences on such a matter as that under consideration must cause great excitement in the public mind, I determined to retain office until there should be the opportunity of re-consideration of the whole subject. That opportunity would necessarily recur at the latter end of this current month (November), when it was agreed that the Cabinet should again assemble. In determining to retain office "Such modification to include the admission, at a for the present, I determined also not to recede from the nominal duty, of Indian corn and of British colonial | position which I had taken, and ultimately to resign corn." The Cabinet, by a very considerable majority, declined giving its assent to the proposals which the Minister thus made to them. They were supported by only three members of the Cabinet-the Earl of Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Sidney Herbert. The other members of the Cabinet, some on the ground of objection to the principle of the measures recommended, others upon the ground that there was not yet sufficient evidence of the necessity for them, withheld their sanction. "On account of the gravity of the question (says Sir R. Peel), and the smallness of the minority assenting to my views, I might, perhaps have been justified in at office if I should find on the re-assembling of the Cabinet |