the nation. Excessive establishments were, in his judgment, productive of a double evil. In the first place, the patronage which they involved increased the influence of the Crown, or, as we should more correctly say, of the Ministers; and in the next place the presence of an armed force enabled the Ministry to persevere in autocratic measures. A standing army which destroyed the freedom of England would not march by beat of drum to Westminster and dismiss the House of Commons; it would not proscribe the House of Peers, and deluge the streets of London with the blood of her magistrates. It would appear in the shape of a guardian of order; it would support the authority of the two Houses of Parliament; it would be hostile to none but mobs and public meetings, and shed no blood but that of labourers and journeymen. It would establish the despotic power, not of a single king or a single general, but of a host of corrupt senators and half a million of petty tyrants. [And he added] Happily the projects of 1816 were defeated; a third of the army has been disbanded, and we are not yet reduced to this dreadful state of servitude. Our poverty and distress have saved our constitution.1 Lord John Russell, then, was anxious to clip the wings of aristocracy, and to limit the resources by which it was ordinarily sustained. He stated his views at the opening of the session; seconding, in the debate on the Address, an amendment, moved by Mr. Brand, condemning the Ministry for not convening the legislature at an earlier date, and pledging the House to a rigid inquiry into the public expenditure. In the course of his speech Lord John forced the Government. into a premature declaration of its intention to continue the income tax at a reduced rate. He said It was reported that Ministers intended very shortly to propose to continue a great part of the income tax. He would say that there could be no more dreadful calamity for this country than the continuance of the tax in question. For now, after glory on glory and victory upon victory, all prosperity has vanished. The farmer could not pay his rent, the landlord could not pay his taxes, and from the lowest labourer of the land to the peer who stood next the throne, Russell on the Constitution, pp. 379, 380, 381: cf. the chapter on 'The Influence of the Crown.' all felt that our prosperity was gone, except, indeed, those who were paid out of the public purse.' This passage in Lord John's speech really indicated the policy of the Opposition. The Whigs attacked the estimates of the Government and the supplies which Ministers proposed. In the first of these onslaughts they received active assistance from Lord John; he led the opposition to the army estimates, declaring that the bare proposal that a standing army of 150,000 men should be supported must alarm every friend to his country and its constitution. . . A time might arrive . . . when the House of Commons, for its own security, as well as the security of the Crown, would find it necessary to keep up an immense regular force. When that event occurred, the people must bid farewell to that freedom which they had so long and so anxiously preserved.2 3 Lord John Russell's opposition notwithstanding, the Ministry succeeded in carrying its motion, and Lord John himself, oddly enough, was absent from the division. The Whigs were more successful in their attack on the supplies. By presenting night after night petitions against the income tax, and by raising, as the rules of Parliament then permitted them to raise, fresh debates on each petition, they wearied out the Ministry and created an impression in the country which ultimately enabled them to defeat the proposal for continuing the tax. But in these discussions Lord John took no part. He gave a silent vote against the continuance of the tax, and had the satisfaction, for the first time in his life, of finding himself in the majority. Yet, though Lord John was present in the division on the income tax, and though he spoke from time to time during the session of 1816, the part which he took in the Parliamentary campaign was a very slight one. In 1816, indeed, no accurate record was taken of the manner in which each member of the House of Commons discharged his duties. But on important occasions the votes of members are given in I have pieced together sentences from the speech: Hansard, xxxii. 32, 33. 2 Ibid. 843. 3241 to 121. the session of 1816. Ibid. 1017. Lord John spoke on two other occasions during 'Hansard.' Thirty-two of these lists are preserved for 1816; but in only three out of the thirty-two does Lord John's name appear. After March 18, when he voted against the property tax, he does not seem to have taken part in any division. After March 20, when he paired with another member, his name drops out of the Parliamentary record. It is, perhaps, now too late to determine the causes which induced Lord John thus to withdraw from the heat of the Parliamentary campaign. Whether he was simply distrustful of his own powers, or disheartened with his party's weakness; whether he was meditating on other pursuits or seeking information in other countries; whether, as there is reason to think, his health was suffering from the late hours and close atmosphere of the House of Commons-these are questions which cannot now be decisively answered. However that may be, the future leader of the House of Commons, during the first few years of his Parliamentary life, was one of its most irregular attendants. In one sense, however, his absence had not much significance. The year 1816 is undoubtedly memorable in history, but the circumstance for which it deserves to be chiefly recollected is not the withdrawal of the income tax, but the state of the weather. It was one of those abnormal seasons which, when they occur, make many people believe in the gradual deterioration of the English climate. It is probable that so cold and wet a summer had not been experienced since the end of the seventeenth century; and it is certain that so unfavourable a season did not recur for another sixty years. The harvest almost universally failed, and the price of wheat necessarily rose. The distress which this state of things occasioned may readily be conceived. At the commencement of the year the poor were suffering from low wages and want of work, but they derived some compensation from the price of food. The average price of wheat in January was only 52s. 6d. a quarter. But, when Parliament separated in June, this single benefit had ceased. The price of wheat had risen to 74s. 10d. and it continued to rise till it amounted in December to 1035. a quarter. A quarter of wheat is required in the year for food by each member of the population who lives on wheat. A working man, with a wife and three children, found the cost of his food alone suddenly increased from 137. 2s. 6d. to 257. 155. a year; and in 1816 there were few working men who were able to command 257. 15s a year, or 10s. a week, for their labour. It could hardly be expected that the poor would remain patient under trials which were almost unparalleled. Riots occurred in the agricultural counties of Eastern England. The Luddites, as they were termed, broke the machinery in the manufacturing districts; and the Radicals, embodying their political views in a charter, and thus obtaining the name of Chartists, summoned a meeting in the East of London, at which language of a reprehensible character was used, and a serious riot occurred. The task of the Ministry was, under these circumstances, undoubtedly difficult. The first function of government is the preservation of order; and men cannot be allowed to destroy property and imperil life because they happen to be starving. It was therefore both the right and the duty of Ministers firmly to repress disturbance and enforce the law. But the Liverpool Administration made the grave mistake of assuming that riots, which were attributable to distress, were occasioned by a fixed intention to subvert the constitution, and, instead of relying on the ordinary law, insisted on resorting to a policy of coercion. The Administration, indeed, felt it necessary to strengthen its hands by preliminary inquiry, and, in the commencement of the session, secured the appointment of secret committees in both Houses of Parliament. Lord Sidmouth, as Secretary of State for the Home Department, desired the services of the Duke of Bedford on the Lords Committee. The Duke availed himself of the excuse which an attack of illness afforded him to refuse to serve; but he took occasion to express to Lord Grenville, who unfortunately shared the alarm of the Minister, the grave apprehension with which he regarded the prospect of coercive legislation. The Duke thought that the disturbances were due to distress; and that the discontent of the people was aggravated by the refusal of the Government, during the previous year, to inquire into the state of the country, or to concede any of the reforms which moderate men demanded. He went on to say, in a passage which is well worth quoting I cannot help being reminded by the present situation of the country, as described by you [Lord Grenville], of the state of Ireland during the period of my short administration in that country. Very serious disturbances existed in several parts of Ireland. Mischievous and ill-disposed persons took advantage of these disturbances, and endeavoured to inflame and increase the discontent. I was strongly urged, and even by some with whom I was associated in the government of Ireland, to resort to strong measures, and put in force the Insurrection Act. I felt convinced in my own mind that the ordinary operations of the law, administered in a continued spirit of temper and firmness, were sufficient to put an end to the disturbances, and the result justified my opinion. Before I quitted Ireland I had the satisfaction to write to Lord Liverpool, then Secretary of State, that the country was perfectly restored to a state of peace and subordination without in the slightest degree compromising the dignity or the safety of the Government, and it is with no small degree of pride that I reflect that my conduct on the occasion met with your entire approbation. Unfortunately the wise and statesmanlike views which were expressed in this letter found little sympathy in political circles. The secret committees of both Houses reported as they were expected to report; and Ministers, strengthened by these reports, proceeded to introduce Bills into Parliament for the prevention of seditious meetings, for the protection of the Regent's person, for the better prevention of attempts to seduce persons serving, and for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The last of these measures forced Lord John from the retirement which he was perhaps contemplating. He spoke on the first reading of the Bill; and his speech was more forcible, was reported with more care, and contains more matter of personal interest, than any he had yet delivered. I had not intended [he began] to trouble the House with any observations of mine during the present session of Parliament. Indeed, the state of my health induced me to resolve upon quitting the fatiguing business of this House altogether. But he must have no ordinary mind whose attention is not roused in a singular manner |