713 



PEEL, SIB ROBERT. 



PEEL, SIR ROBERT. 



714 



This was shown by the result of the elections which followed the dis- 

 solution of parliament a dissolution thought necessary by Sir Robert 

 himself. As soon as the new parliament met, government was defeated 

 by a mnjority of 316 votes to 306 on the election of a speaker Mr. 

 Aberoromby, the nominee of the Whigs (now Lord Dunfermline), 

 being chosen instead of the former speaker, Sir Charles Button. This 

 was on the 19th of February 1835; and on the 25th of the same 

 month government was again beaten in the Commons by a majority 

 of seven, on a motion by Lord Morpeth for au amendment on the 

 address. Sir Robert's speech on this occasion was extremely able. 

 Singling out the fact that the strength of the opposition to him arose 

 from the co operation of Mr. O'Connell and the Irish members with the 

 Whigs, he animadverted in cutting terms on this conjunction, seeing 

 that in point of fact the Irish party and the Radicals had been far 

 mor.3 unfriendly to the defunct Whig ministry than he and the Con- 

 servatives had been, and seeing also that even now the Whigs did not 

 pledge themselves, any more than he did, to the Ballot, the exclusion 

 of bishops from the House of Lords, the repeal of the Corn Laws, or 

 any other of those measures upon which the Radicals had split with 

 the Whigs. The gist of his argument was, that a Whig ministry could 

 not really be a whit more innovative than his own would be. The 

 answer to this given at the time, aays Mr. Doubleday, was "that the 

 Whigs would be more 'squeezable' than the Conservatives;" and, 

 accordingly, though Sir Robert remained in office, showing wonderful 

 patience and wonderful practical talent, till April, he was then defeated 

 by so considerable a majority, in a skilfully framed series of motions 

 of Lord John Russell's, relative to the temporalities of the Irish 

 Church, that he had no option but to resign (April 8, 1835). Lord 

 Melbourne was again placed at the head of a Whig administration, 

 consisting of nearly the same men who had been in office four months 

 before, the chief exception being that in the interim the famous 

 rupture bad taken place between the Whigs and Lord Brougham, so 

 that the chancellorship waa given not to him but to Lord Cottenham. 

 Lord John Russell became home secretary. 



The second Melbourne administration lasted throughout the rest of 

 the reign of Wiiliam IV. (who died June 20, 1837) and during nearly 

 four years of the reign of Queen Victoria. During those six years 

 (1835-1841) though many questions were agitated, their chief success 

 was in the Municipal Reform Bill, passed during the first year. From 

 1836 to 1839 they were able to do little, and, robbed of their strength 

 aa they were by the growth of the more extreme party and of the party 

 who desired a repeal of the Corn Laws, they were becoming more and 

 more unpopular. At last, Sir Robert Peel, whose popularity had 

 been in proportion increasing, and who had in the meantime been acting 

 as a critic of their measures, and husbanding his own strength, 

 opposed their bill for suspending the constitution of the Colony of 

 Jamaica ; and the majority for ministers was so small, the numbers 

 being 294 against 289, that the Whigs resigned on the following day 

 (May 7, 1839), and Sir Robert was called upon to form a new ministry. 

 In this he failed, owing to the refusal of the Queen to consent to the 

 removal of some ladies of her household, whose connection with the 

 Whig party Sir Robert deemed inconsistent with their holding official 

 place under a Conservative government. The Whigs accordingly 

 resumed office, and kept it for more than two years longer weakened, 

 as before, by the pressure upon them of Mr. O'Connell's party, and 

 the Anti-Corn-Law League on the one hand, and of Sir Robert Peel 

 and his well-drilled Conservatives on the other. A general election 

 in 1841, instead of giving them fresh strength, so increased the 

 force of the Conservatives, that, immediately on the opening of the new 

 parliament, Sir Robert had a majority of 360 against 209 in the 

 Commons on a motion for an amendment to the address so framed as 

 to involve a vote of want of confidence in the policy of ministers, 

 more especially their financial policy and their conduct in reference to 

 the Corn Laws (Aug. 27, 1841). Three days afterwards Lord Melbourne 

 and his colleagues resigned, and Sir Robert Peel was once more premier. 



The new Conservative cabinet consisted of the following members : 

 First Lord of the Treasury, Sir Robert Peel ; Lord Chancellor, Lord 

 Lyndhurst; President of the Council, Lord Wharncliffe ; First Lord 

 of the Admiralty, Lord Haddington; Lord Privy Seal, the Duke of 

 Buckingham; Home Secretary, Sir James Graham; Foreign Secretary, 

 the Karl of Aberdeen ; Colonial Secretary, Lord Stanley ; President of 

 the India Hoard, Lord Kllenborough ; Secretary at War, Sir Henry 

 Hardiuge ; President of the Board of Trade, the Earl of Ripou ; Chan- 

 cellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Goulburn ; Paymaster-General, Sir 

 Kdward Knatchbiill. Among the miui.-ters not in the cabinet, was 

 Mr. W. E. Gladstone, aa Vice-Presidentof the Board of Trade. At the 

 head of this ministry, and with the command of a working majority of 

 about a hundred in the House of Commons, Sir Robert entered on the 

 greatest period of his political career. The history of his ministry from 

 August 1841 to July 1846 is full of interest. Having committed 

 himself to no definite line of policy, except in his preference for a 

 sliJing-scale of corn-duties over a fixed duty, and such other general 

 avowala, the country, on his accession to office, waa left to form its 

 own auguries and anticipations. Nor during ti.e remainder of the 

 cession of 1841 would he bring forward any explicit statement of 

 intended measures resolved as he was to mature them during the 

 prorogation. On the reataeiubling of parliament in February 1842, he 

 was prepared with big measures. They were of a bold and compre- 



hensive character. First, in the matter of the Corn Laws, he proposed 

 his famous sliding-scale (Feb. 9, 1842), according to which the duty ou 

 foreign corn, commencing in the case of wheat at 20s. per quarter when 

 wheat was at 60s., should gradually diminish, as the price rose, 

 becoming, for example, 17s. when wheat waa at 55s., 12s. when wheat 

 was at 60s., 8s. when wheat was at 65s., 5s. when wheat was at 70s., 

 and only Is. when wheat should be at 73s. or upwards. There was a 

 corresponding scale for oats and another for barley. The measure, 

 displeasing as it was on various grounds to various parties to the 

 Whigs, because they had declared for a fixed duty, to the Anti-Corn 

 Law League, because they desired a total repeal, and to many of tho 

 landed proprietors, because they disliked any relaxation of protection 

 roused much discussion ; but after several motions against it ou 

 different principles had been rejected, it became law. Next came the 

 important question of the means of repairing the deficit which had 

 been going on iu the revenue, at such a rate that the total for the five 

 years ending April 5, 1842 was 7,502,63SJ., while for the year 1842-3, 

 it was calculated by anticipation at '2,570,0002. On this head, says Mr. 

 Doubleday, Sir Robert argued " that the maximum of indirect taxation 

 was then reached, and that to accumulate the already unbearable load 

 of imposts upon the necessaries or even the luxuries of life would be 

 ruinous as well as futile. The conclusion, therefore, was that nothing 

 but a direct tax upon income could be relied upon to fill up the hiatus 

 in the exchequer." Accordingly it was proposed to levy for three years 

 an iucome-tax of sevenpence in the pound, or nearly three per cent. 

 This also, in spite of opposition, was carried. Then came the revision 

 of the tariff, by which the premier abandoned the duties on a great 

 variety of minor foreign commodities, such as drugs and dye woods; 

 and diminished the prohibitory duties on cattle, sheep, pigs, salted 

 meat, butter, eggs, cheese, and lard. Though the new tariff was also 

 carried, it caused dissension between Sir Robert and many of his 

 Protectionist supporters ; the more so that, iu the course of the debates 

 upon it, it distinctly appeared that he was a convert to the theory of 

 free trade. " I believe," he said, in his speech on the tariff, " that ou 

 the general principle of free-trade, there is now no great difference of 

 opinion, and that all agree in the general rule that 'we should pur- 

 chase in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest.' " This statement 

 drew rapturous cheers from the economists aud opposition generally ; 

 and though Sir Robert went ou to say, that he deemed corn and sugar 

 exceptional cases, the ulterior tendency was evident. With the exception 

 of some debates on the poor-law, and some on foreign policy in refer- 

 ence to France, Spain, America, and China, the foregoing measures of 

 taxation and nuance engrossed the parliament of 1842. The most 

 important events of 1843 were extra-parliamentary. The permission 

 of the disruption of the Scottish established church iu May 1843 has 

 been accounted by some a strange oversight of a ministry constructed 

 on the principles of conservatism, and has been attributed to false or 

 insufficient information on the part of government. The contest with 

 Mr. O'Couuell, who was then agitating Ireland to the verge of revo- 

 lution by monster-meetings and the organised action of au association 

 which had 'repeal' for its motto, occupied a greater share of the energies 

 of the government. For a time, Sir Robert, confident, as it afterwards 

 appeared, that Mr. O'Connell himself did not mean to go bejond a 

 certain length, allowed him to proceed without check ; but at length 

 (October 1844) the government took their measures, the Clontarf 

 meeting was forbidden, aud Mr. O'Connell, his son John, aud seven 

 of their associates, were arrested on charges of conspiracy and sedition, 

 and, being tried, were sentenced to fine and imprisonment. From that 

 moment Mr. O'Connell was virtually crushed ; for, though he survived 

 during the remainder of Peel's administration, he was never able again 

 to be what he had been. This however arose partly from causes which 

 could not have been foreseen. 



The year 1844, with its Banking Act and its extraordinary activity 

 in railway?, had passed away ; and 1845 opened with every outward 

 show of prosperity. The parliamentary session of that year was 

 comparatively easy; the renewal of the income-tax for three years 

 longer, the augmentation of the Maynooth grant, and the proposal for 

 erecting six new Irish colleges, open to all sects, were carried by 

 government ; and though the Anti-Corn-Law League, represented in 

 the House by Messrs. Cobdeu and Bright, were making way, and were 

 gaining over the Whigs, the stability of the existing administration 

 ] was not materially affected. But the events of the long recess of 1845 

 I were of a kind to disturb all existing arraugemeuts and all ordinary 

 j calculations. The potato rot, followed as it was by a dreadful famiue 

 I in Ireland, rendered it absolutely necessary to come to some conclu- 

 sion on the great question which the Anti Corn-Law League had been 

 maturing. Lord John Russell announced this ia his famous letter of 

 the 22nd of November, written from Edinburgh, to the electors of 

 London. Sir Robert Peel lost no time in declaring to his colleagues 

 his conviction, that the Corn Laws must be totally repealed. In this 

 Lord Stanley and others would not go along with him ; and on the 

 6th of December, Sir Robert advised the queen to send for Lord John, 

 Russell. As Earl Grey refused to join with Lord John in attempting 

 to form a cabinet, Sir Robert was recalled after a few days, and 

 re-accepted office at the head of his ministry (Lord Stanley seceding) 

 with the avowed iutcution of repealing the Corn Laws. Accordingly, 

 a few days after the meeting of parliament (Jau. 27, 1846), he brought 

 out a new tariff, and with it his proposition to modify the action of 



