The proposed scheme of final adjustment, as it is presented in outline, appears to me to comprehend matters of so wide a range, and alterations of so important a character both as regards the nature of the sacrifices demanded and the sacrifices proposed, that it would be unsafe, and indeed impossible, to decide upon its character until its provisions shall have been embodied in a distinctive and formal shape. Evidently compromise could not be effected with the heads of the Church. But perhaps the Ministry thought that there was more hope of arranging terms with their regular opponents. On the 27th of March Lord John asked Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons whether it was the intention of the Opposition to move an instruction to the committee on the Irish Municipal Bill enjoining the total abolition of these corporations; and Sir Robert asked Lord John whether it was intended to introduce a Tithe Bill, and whether it would contain an Appropriation Clause. Lord John thereupon pulled from his despatch-box the outlines of the Tithe Bill on which the Cabinet had agreed, and announced his intention of inviting the House on April 30 to adopt the necessary resolutions embodying it. This conversation proved to every one that the end was very near. Unfortunately the Conservatives insisted, as a preliminary step, on attempting to expunge from the journals of the House the famous resolution which Lord John had proposed three years before. It was impossible for Lord John to submit to such a demand, and, in a speech of considerable power, which elicited the warm congratulations of Lord Mulgrave, he successfully resisted the attempt. The Conservatives were beaten by 317 votes to 298, and the Government acquired fresh stability from the victory. But, on the other hand, the fact that the Opposition was able to muster some 300 votes in the lobby compelled Lord John to give way in details. The Bill was practically reduced into a project for converting the tithe composition into a rent-charge; 1 1 You ought to be eternally grateful to Acland, not merely as a Minister, but as an individual, for he gave you an opportunity of making a most admirable speech, which I read with the greatest pleasure.'- Lord Mulgrave to Lord John, May 21, 1838. and the rent-charge was ultimately fixed at 75 instead of 70 per cent. of the composition. Nor was this all. It was part of the implied contract between the two parties that, if the one side gave way on Appropriation, the other side should yield Municipal Reform; and; as a matter of fact, the Tory party thenceforward gave up its attempt to abolish local self-government in Ireland. But its leaders refused to confer on the smaller Irish towns the only franchise which the Liberal party thought tolerable; and, as the Tories in the Lords and the Liberals in the Commons equally refused to give way, the Municipal Bill was lost. Lord Melbourne, with the careless indifference which was inseparable from his character, thought that there was little to be regretted in these circumstances. His Ministry had carried two out of its three Irish measures, and he never paused to reflect that the one which was lost was precisely that which was most popular in Ireland; and that one of those which were carried was carried by the sacrifice of that portion of it which his Ministry had been pledged to pass. Lord John did not regard the matter with equal complacency. Yet even he was disposed rather to be thankful for what the Tithe Act did than to regret what it omitted to do. He could write in his old age: A measure which changed the collection of tithes from a question between tithe-proctor and peasant into a question between landlord and tenant, with a percentage of 25 per cent to the landlord for the cost and trouble of collection . . . was one of immense value to the whole body of small occupiers in Ireland. No measure has tended more to the peaceful progress of Ireland than the Tithe Act of 1838. No competent critic will deny the truth of this paragraph. Yet no fair critic will omit to reflect that it states only half the truth. The real question for Lord John to decide at the time, and for posterity to determine now, was whether he was justified in abandoning the position which he had formally. laid down in 1835, that no measure on the Irish Church could be satisfactory or final which did not contain an Appropriation Clause. In answering this question, it should be recollected that the circumstances of 1835 differed materially from those of 1838. In 1835 it was the first duty of a Whig leader to obtain the formal disapproval by Parliament of the change of Government in the autumn of 1834. In 1838 William IV. was dead. The new sovereign was as cordial in her support, as the late King had been suspicious in his distrust, of the Whig Ministers. The country, while it showed itself on the whole favourable to the continuance of the Administration, displayed no desire for the Appropriation Clause. It even showed no disposition to resent the conduct of the Lords; and the question, therefore, for Lord John to consider, was whether he should retire from office while the House of Commons was still willing to give him a majority, or abandon a policy which he had not the least chance of carrying. Different persons will answer this question in different ways. Without attempting to reply to it in these pages, it may perhaps be as well to point out that the course which Lord John pursued forms an exact parallel to that adopted by his great rival, Sir Robert Peel. Both in 1829 and in 1845 Sir Robert Peel found himself compelled to abandon a policy to which he was pledged, and to promote measures which he had previously opposed. The Conservatives were loud in condemning Sir Robert Peel, just as the Radicals in 1838 were loud in condemning Lord John Russell. The Conservatives have never forgiven their great leader. The Radicals have perhaps only forgiven Lord John because the cause which he abandoned in 1838 was stronger than the strongest statesman, and the disendowment of the Irish Church has made men forget the significance of the famous Appropriation Clause. For it should never be forgotten that, though the Appropriation Clause was abandoned by its author, time and events have vindicated his prescience. He failed in 1838, not because he was wrong, but because he was before his time. And the Act. which was at last carried in 1869 was a proof that, though 'the people of England never took up warmly the Appropriation Clause, and, indeed, were not persuaded that the Protestant Church in Ireland could be that miserable monopolising minority which Fox had described it to be,' Lord John Russell was right in 1835: and that right, however successtully it may be resisted for a time, will in the end prevail. 1 Recollections and Suggestions, p. 315. CHAPTER XII. THE CRISIS OF 1839. If the session of 1837-38 was memorable for the abandonment of the Appropriation Clause, it was also remarkable for the vigour and skill with which Lord John fought the battle of his party. It must be recollected that, in a House which was almost evenly divided as to numbers, nearly all the debating power was on the Conservative side. Nothing could be weaker than the Treasury bench in the House of Commons, except perhaps the Treasury bench in the House of Lords. The Duke of Bedford, writing to Lord John on the 24th of August, said It is a very inefficient Government, and, with the exception of yourself, and perhaps Lords Melbourne and Howick, there is not a man amongst them fit to be called a Minister. The Viceroy on the 28th of July, after a short visit to London, said very much the same thing : : It is very unpleasant, even in confidence to you, to say disparaging things of those with whom one has been personally and politically connected. But I really do not think, except you and Melbourne, that there is a single man in the Government for whom, at present, the county cares a straw. . . . You would be quite surprised if I were to enumerate the number of persons who held this language in London while I was last there. Mr. Sydney Smith used similar language:— I only mention Lord John Russell's name so often because . . . he is beyond all comparison the ablest man in the whole Administration; and to such an extent is he superior, that the Government could not exist a moment without him. If the Foreign Secretary were to retire, we should no longer be nibbling |