by Simon Heffer
It was in such a spirit of humanity that he had finally decided that for the improved condition of the people, and for the sake of trade, the Corn Laws had to go. He had already grasped this when news came from Ireland of the poor potato crop in 1845, with the previous year’s yield of nearly 15,000 tons dropping to 10,000 because of an unusual form of blight. This disaster – given the heavy dependence of people and livestock on the crop – would become a catastrophe in 1846, when the yield collapsed to 3,000 tons. It provided the perfect opportunity for free traders, who argued that in order to feed the Irish the price of bread had to be made to fall. There was also a poor harvest in England in 1845. Lord Heytesbury, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, wrote to Peel in November 1845 to describe in detail the extent of the problem, and the failure thus far of ‘men of science’ to do much about it. ‘Neither the extent of the Calamity nor the period of the year when the pressure may become urgent can be foreseen with certainty,’ he wrote.52 The new, failed crop was all there was to feed most of the Irish for the next year. ‘If this provision be exhausted or destroyed prematurely’, Heytesbury continued, ‘scarcity and even famine are inevitable.’
He said that Europe and even America were being scoured for extra supplies of seed potatoes, but this was not proving successful. ‘In these circumstances,’ he concluded, ‘it is prudent to make timely arrangements, that we may be prepared to meet and to mitigate as much as possible this great calamity.’ In Peel’s mind, and increasingly over the next few weeks in the minds of more of his colleagues, that could mean only one thing: removing the duties on imported corn so that there would be enough bread to feed the Irish. Professor John Lindley, a leading botanist, told Peel the condition of the potatoes being dug up was so poor that he doubted they would keep through the winter.53 Peel was preparing for the worst and anything but complacent; not least because the news from Ireland was increasingly grave.
What Peel heard – and he had been aware of the intensity of the problem since August – was common knowledge around London. Charles Greville wrote in his diary on 16 November 1845 that ‘the evil of the potato failure’ meant that ‘every man is watching with intense anxiety the progress of events, and enquiring whether the Corn Laws will break down under this pressure or not.’54 Greville also noted that the crisis had caused such a loss of confidence in the economy that it had halted railway speculation. Peel received a message from the Queen, who was at Osborne, on 28 November, to say that ‘the Queen thinks the time is come when a removal of the restrictions upon the importation of food cannot be successfully resisted. Should this be Sir Robert’s own opinion, the Queen very much hopes that none of his colleagues will prevent him from doing what it is right to do.’
Throughout the autumn, after the failure of the Irish potato crop and the dismal harvest in England, Cobden and Bright stormed the country at meetings of the League. Not being taken into Peel’s confidence, they nonetheless knew the Corn Laws were almost defunct: just one more heave was required. It soon became apparent to Peel and Graham, at least, that any attempt to maintain the Corn Laws in the face of possible starvation was politically impossible. The reception Cobden and Bright had been getting around the country proved that. It was not merely a Manchester phenomenon now: all the industrial cities of the north cried out for an end to protection. A key development that autumn, however, was Lord John Russell’s announcement that he was committed to repeal: he had been wrestling with his intellect for years. He admitted he had changed his mind, and admitted too the political impossibility of holding any other view except repeal. Other high Whigs were horrified, notably Palmerston: but even they understood the country, and the consequences of seeking to overturn Russell’s coup. Bright told Russell, who had announced his conversion in a public letter: ‘Your letter has now made the total and immediate repeal of the Corn Law inevitable; nothing can save it.’55
In late November and early December the Cabinet met almost daily. Showing that manipulation of the press is not a modern phenomenon, the news was leaked to The Times for its 4 December edition that the Corn Laws would be repealed when Parliament met in January. ‘Sir Robert Peel in one house, and the Duke of Wellington in the other, will, we are told, be prepared to give immediate effect to the recommendation thus conveyed.’56 The paper rejoiced in the decision, further marginalising Tory opinion. ‘It is enough for the merchant and capitalist to know that by the end of January at the latest, the produce of all countries will enter the British market on an absolute equality with our own,’ it wrote. As for Peel’s potential enemies, it predicted they would stay their hand: ‘the British aristocracy feels no such injurious and suicidal ambition’. It seemed to discount the savagery with which diehards in his own party would attack him. It announced: ‘The truth is that it must be done. Necessity knows no laws. The sliding scale cannot, and will not, stand. Protection cannot be maintained. The country cannot be kept in a state of civil war, with the most fearful jealousies daily ripening and coming to a head. The thing must be done, and it is Sir Robert Peel’s common-sense and convenient view of the case that he is the actual Premier, and therefore bound to do it.’
Two days later Gladstone noted that, when asked by Lord Lincoln, the First Commissioner of Works and a Cabinet minister, for his views on the Corn Laws, he had replied that ‘the old law was a delusion’.57 Lincoln, who would after the repeal of the Corn Laws be a committed Peelite like Gladstone, had agreed the law was not working well; it had driven up the price and reduced the level of imports, both disastrous given the potato problem. Lincoln was heir to the dukedom of Newcastle: his view that it was ‘especially desirable to disengage the Corn Laws if possible from the general interests of the aristocracy’ carried clout with Peel and Graham, not least when he argued that the aristocracy was ‘seriously compromised’ by the status quo. Gladstone left his dinner with Lincoln believing that ‘something is in the wind – & something serious.’ The Duke of Newcastle reviled his son for supporting repeal, and would shortly have his revenge on Gladstone, whose patron at Newark he was.
However, there was no agreement in the Cabinet about suspending the Corn Laws. Peel thought it would be cowardly of him to resign and leave a mess in Ireland and in England for others to clear up. He then became aware that he had no choice, because of divisions in the Cabinet: though he managed to secure Wellington’s support, which was crucial. He asked the Queen to accept his resignation on 5 December 1845, and she sent for Russell. This was kept secret for several days. However, Russell could not fulfil the Queen’s commission, even though she conveyed to him a promise from Peel that he would have the support of the last prime minister in repealing the Corn Laws.
However, Russell did not trust Peel to support the wholesale measure the Whigs would have in mind. He decided to accept the invitation to be Prime Minister: but there were objections among his potential Cabinet to Palmerston’s becoming Foreign Secretary. Palmerston was deemed essential, and would take no other post. So after a few days of deliberations by Russell, Peel found himself back in power. As he told Heytesbury, to whom he had a week earlier written a letter of fond, official farewell, ‘you will be as much bewildered as I have been by recent events’.58 Greville observed on 20 December that ‘no novel or play ever presented such vicissitudes and events as this political drama’.59
Peel told him how Russell had sent for various politicians (among them Cobden, who had refused Russell’s offer to become vice-president of the Board of Trade) and then ‘they sat about ten days in consultation – some for accepting office, some against. I believe on the tenth day they divided 10 to 5 for acceptance.’ Peel disclosed that he had given Russell his assurance that he would support him in repealing the Corn Laws, and that Graham, Herbert and Lincoln would do likewise. However, the night before Peel was to take his final farewell of the Queen he received a letter from Prince Albert, telling of his ‘astonishment’ that Russell no longer felt, after all, that he could form a government, ‘and begging that I might go to Windsor
on Saturday at a later hour than eleven. I went at three. On entering the Queen’s apartment, she said to me – you are come to take leave of me – but I am without a Minister and without a Government.
‘I replied – I require not a moment’s consideration. I will be Your Majesty’s Minister and will pledge myself to meet Parliament as your Minister, whatever may happen in the interval.’ Peel returned to London and told his shocked colleagues that he had ‘resumed office’. He added: ‘The question was – not of Corn Laws, but of Government. There was no choice between Lord Grey and Mr Cobden and myself. The Duke of Wellington said he was delighted with the answer I had given the Queen.’ He told Heytesbury of the changes he was making, notably that Gladstone would return that day – 23 December 1845 – as Secretary of State for the Colonies. (‘Peel was most kind, nay fatherly,’ Gladstone recorded in his diary. ‘We held hands instinctively & I could not but reciprocate with emphasis his “God bless you”.’60) Gladstone’s restoration to the Cabinet gave Peel more intellectual heft in the highest counsels. However, it robbed him of Gladstone’s power in the Commons. He had, under the requirements of the time, to resign and fight a by-election at Newark on his appointment to office. He had the misfortune to have had as a patron the Duke of Newcastle, who withdrew his support: so Gladstone was out of parliament throughout the climax of the debate over the Corn Laws, until returned for Oxford University in 1847.
Peel told Heytesbury: ‘Considering that no-one would form a Government on the Protection Principle – that Lord John Russell had failed to form one – had thrown up the task on which he entered for no better reason than that one intemperate and headstrong man [Grey] objected to another Gentleman [Palmerston] having one particular office [the Foreign Office] (for that is the real cause of failure) – considering that there had been an interval of suspense and uncertainty for nearly a fortnight – that the Country was without a Government – a hostile message from the United States impending – I think you and Fremantle will approve at least of one thing – that I instantly resolved to resume office.’
V
Peel, having made his decision, began to explain his reasoning, and to seek the necessary political support for repeal. He used every weapon at his disposal – such as circulating medical reports from Ireland about the terrible state of health of the population there.61 ‘I foresee that these reports will fully demonstrate our Case – that they will cover with confusion those who have been denying the existence of famine in any part of Ireland and have been charging us with exaggeration,’ he wrote to Heytesbury on 14 March 1846. Peel was afraid, though, that the opposite case would be made against him, of negligence: and ordered an emergency fund of £50,000 for Ireland to relieve urgent cases of starvation and illness. The tendency in England to disbelieve how bad things were in Ireland was persistent and outlived Peel’s administration. Richard Whately, the Archbishop of Dublin, would write to Arthur Hugh Clough in December 1846 to say that ‘the distress in this country is real and great. I do not wonder that every report should be distrusted in England, coming from a land so infested with falsehood; and that many should be so sick of the subject as to resolve to believe nothing but what is agreeable. But when you consider that there are about 3 millions who have almost wholly subsisted on the potato, and that this has almost entirely failed, you may guess the consequences.’62
The Queen’s Speech stated that her government would continue policies ‘calculated to extend Commerce, and to stimulate domestic Skill and Industry by the repeal of prohibitory and the Relaxation of protective duties.’63 In a debate on 26 January 1846 Peel specified that he was not proposing to put any measure of repeal to a vote, but merely wished to give the House an opportunity to voice a contrary opinion, if it still wished to do so given the changed circumstances after the Potato Famine. He also specified that he wished the principle of protection in general to be discussed, and not just as it applied to the landed interest. He said he was considering reducing the tariff on manufactured goods, such as woollens and cotton, too. Lancashire and the West Riding would be called upon to make a sacrifice as well as the corn barons. Leather goods, straw hats and even carriages would have their import duties reduced. ‘I am disposed’, he told the House, ‘to act fairly and impartially in respect to the application of this principle of the reduction of protective duties.’64
Having shown that all trade would be free, he then reached agriculture. He wished to lay ‘the foundation for a decided and ultimate settlement of the question by a total repeal’, so corn could be imported duty free.65 There would be a phased programme, starting at once and finishing by February 1849, to remove all tariffs. Peel also proposed to modernise the road system, explaining that the existing reliance on 16,000 separate parishes to run it put enormous expense on ratepayers because of the absence of economies of scale, pushing up prices and making it harder for manufacturers or farmers to compete on price. Legislation allowed the voluntary union of parishes for this purpose. Peel proposed to make union compulsory, replacing the 16,000 with 600 local authorities, and doing away with much local bureaucracy and expense.
In a speech that covered making the Poor Law more humane, dealing with medical relief, taking the cost of running prisons off local authorities and beginning changes to the tax system, Peel was sweetening the pill of tariff reform by holding out savings and improvements to, it seemed, the whole population. He was enabled to do this by the three years of greater prosperity, and successive good harvests that pushed down the price of corn, after the locust year of 1842; but the signs in the last quarter of 1845 were that demand in the wider economy had slumped, and only a programme of reforms such as he was outlining would stimulate it and avoid another social disaster such as in the early 1840s. Everything was aggravated by the failure of the potato crop in Ireland. He implored the Commons to consider carefully what he had told them, and the House agreed to debate the proposals, leading to a vote, a week later.
The debate lasted twelve days, and Peel spoke for the last half of the fifth day. Prince Albert was in the gallery for the opening speeches, marking the Court’s support for Peel’s measures. For the five years of Peel’s administration Albert became progressively closer to him, acting as liaison officer between him and the Queen. Greville records in his diary of 16 December 1845 that when Lansdowne and Russell went to Windsor for an audience of the Queen during the crisis that almost caused the Whigs to take office
the first novelty that struck them was the manner of their reception; all is changed since they went out of office. Formerly the Queen received her ministers alone; with her alone they communicated, though of course Prince Albert knew everything; but now the Queen and Prince were together, received Lord Lansdowne and John Russell together, and both of them always said We – ‘We think, or wish, to do, so and so; what had we better do, &c.’ The Prince is become so identified with the Queen that they are one person, and as he likes business, it is obvious that while she has the title he is really discharging the functions of the Sovereign. He is King to all intents and purposes.66
Greville observed: ‘I am not surprised at this, but certainly was not aware that it had taken such a definite shape.’ The situation was manageable so long as confined within the Privy Council. When evidence of Albert’s role without the normal confines of the British constitution became apparent outside the charmed circle, which it did when he attended the Corn Laws debate, there was trouble. Albert made a grave error by being present, given what was suspected by political insiders to be his closeness to Peel. His presence was interpreted as applying pressure for repeal, a dangerous constitutional move given the Queen’s role above politics.
Much of the debate concentrated on the effect repeal would have on the party system, not least as expressed by aggrieved Tories. Peel argued that party considerations were little compared with ‘the measures by which an imminent public calamity shall be mitigated, and the principles by which the commercial policy of a great empire shall for the future be gover
ned’.67 He outlined what had happened the previous December, when he had sought to resign; and he emphasised that the alternative to what he now proposed to do was ‘calamity’, a word he repeated several times. There were those who by long-held belief were better placed to repeal the Corn Laws than he was; but they had, when given the opportunity, failed to form a government.
He accepted that those who normally backed him might wish to withhold their support, and feel he had gone against the main precepts of party: but he asked them to believe that in taking this course he was motivated by ‘public duty’.68 He elaborated:
What were the facts which came under the cognisance of my right hon Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, charged with the responsibility of providing for the public peace, and rescuing millions from the calamity of starvation? We were assured in one part of this Empire there are 4,000,000 of the Queen’s subjects dependent on a certain article of food for subsistence. We knew that on that article of food no reliance could be placed . . . We saw, in the distance, the gaunt forms of famine, and of disease following in the train of famine. Was it not our duty to the country, ay, our duty to the party that supported us, to avert the odious charge of indifference and neglect of timely precautions? It is absolutely necessary, before you come to a final decision on this question, that you should understand this Irish case. You must do so.69
