The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860

by Charles Duke Yonge

  In the last sentence of his speech the Chancellor of the Exchequer had "respectfully reserved to himself the freedom of acting in such a way as should appear to offer any hope of success in giving effect by a practical measure to the principle contained in the first resolution." And it was, probably, an exemplification of the power of which he thus bespoke the use that he the next year struck out a scheme for insuring the repeal of the paper-duties, including it in one bill with all his other financial propositions, instead of dividing them in the ordinary way in several distinct bills. It was a manoeuvre which too much resembled the system of "tacking," which had been so justly denounced as one of the most unseemly manoeuvres of faction in the previous century.[316] But, as some of the principal reasons which in the preceding year had led the Lords to condemn the repeal had ceased to exist, and the deficiency of the revenue had been converted into a surplus, they thought it wiser to prove their superiority of wisdom to the House of Commons by showing a more conciliatory spirit, and passed the bill; though the course adopted, which had the effect of depriving the Lords of that power of examination of the details of the financial scheme of the government which they had hitherto enjoyed without any question or dispute, was strongly protested against in both Houses, and by some members who were not generally unfriendly to the administration.

  A hundred years had now elapsed since George III. ascended the throne. It had been a period full of transactions of great importance, developing the constitution in such a manner and to such an extent as to make a change in its character but little inferior to those which had been produced by the contests of the preceding century. One principal result of the Revolution of 1688 has been described as having been the placing of the political power of the state chiefly in the hands of the aristocracy. The Reform Bill of 1832, which has been sometimes called a "second Revolution," transferred that power to the middle classes.[317] And what may be called the logical sequence of the later measures is the contrary of that which was designed to flow from the earlier ones. The changes which were effected in 1688 were intended to promote, and were believed to have insured, stability; to have established institutions of a permanent character, as far as human affairs can be invested with permanency. And down to the death of George II. the policy of succeeding ministers, of whom Walpole may be taken as the type, as he was unquestionably the most able, aimed chiefly at keeping things as they were. Quieta non movere. The Peerage Bill, proposed by a Prime-minister thirty years after the Revolution, was but an exaggerated instance of the perseverance with which that object was kept in view. But the Reform Bill of 1832, like the Emancipation Act which preceded it, on the contrary, contained in itself, in its very principle, the seeds and elements of farther change.

  The Emancipation Act, following and combined with the repeal of the Test Act, rendered it almost inevitable that religious toleration would in time be extended to all persuasions, even to those adverse to Christianity. And the Reform Bill, as has been already pointed out, by the principles on which it based its limitations of the franchise, laid the foundation for farther and repeated revision and modification.[318] The consequence is, that the aim of statesmen of the present day differs from that which was pursued by their predecessors. The statesman of the present day can no longer hope to avoid farther changes, and must, therefore, be content to direct his energies to the more difficult task of making them moderate and safe, consistent with the preservation of that balance of powers to which the country owes the liberty and happiness which it has hitherto enjoyed.

  It is in this point of view that the diffusion of education, beyond the blessing which it confers on the individual, is of especial importance to the state. Political theorists affirm that all men have an equal right to political power-to that amount, at least, of political power which is conferred by a vote at elections. Men of practical common-sense affirm that no one has a right to power of any kind, unless he can be trusted to forbear employing it to the injury of his fellow-creatures or of himself. And the only safeguard and security for the proper exercise of political power is sound and enlightened education. It is unnecessary to dwell on this point, because our statesmen of both parties (to their honor) give constant proof of their deep conviction of its importance.

  But, in closing our remarks, it may be allowable to point out the political lesson which, above all others, the teachers of the masses should seek to inculcate on their pupils. The art of government, and each measure of government, is, above all other things, the two-sided shield. There are so many plausible arguments which may be advanced on each side of almost every question of policy, that no candid man will severely condemn him who in such disputable matters forms an opinion different from his own. Age and experience are worse than valueless if they do not teach a man to think better of his kind; and the history of the period which we have been considering teaches no lesson more forcibly than this, that the great majority of educated men, and especially of our leading statesmen, are actuated by honest and patriotic motives. And we would presume to urge that more important than a correct estimate of any one transaction of the past, or even of any one measure to influence the future, is the habit of putting a candid, and therefore a favorable, construction on the characters and intentions of those to whom from time to time the conduct of the affairs of the nation is intrusted.

  Notes:

  [Footnote 276: "Life of Palmerston," vol. i., c. vii.]

  [Footnote 277: "Life of the Prince Consort," ii, 303.]

  [Footnote 278: Ibid., p. 412.]

  [Footnote 279: Amos, "Fifty Years of the English Constitution," p. 289.]

  [Footnote 280: "Past Gleanings," i., 242.]

  [Footnote 281: "Life of the Prince Consort," iv., 458.]

  [Footnote 282: 219 to 210.]

  [Footnote 283: "Life of the Prince Consort," v., 100.]

  [Footnote 284: Ibid., p. 148.]

  [Footnote 285: "Life of Pitt," by Earl Stanhope, iii., 210.]

  [Footnote 286: "Life of the Prince Consort," iv., 329.]

  [Footnote 287: Ibid., p. 366.]

  [Footnote 288: "Constitutional History," iii., 319, 3d edition.]

  [Footnote 289: It should be added that, on a subsequent occasion, Mr. Roundell Palmer, member for Plymouth (now Lord Chancellor Selborne, and even then in the enjoyment of the highest professional reputation), declared his opinion to be in favor of the legality and constitutional propriety of the proceeding.]

  [Footnote 290: To illustrate this position, Lord Lyndhurst said: "The sovereign may by his prerogative, if he thinks proper, create a hundred peers with descendible qualities in the course of a day. That would be consistent with the prerogative, and would be perfectly legal; but everybody must feel, and everybody must know, that such an exercise of the undoubted prerogative of the crown would be a flagrant violation of the principles of the constitution. In the same manner the sovereign might place the Great Seal in the hands of a layman wholly unacquainted with the laws of the country. That also would be a flagrant violation of the constitution of this country."-Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, cxl., February 7, 1856. In the same debate Lord Derby defined "prerogative" as "the power of doing that which is beside the law." Hallam, in discussing the prosecution of Sir Edward Hales, fully recognizes the principle contended for by Lord Lyndhurst, saying that "it is by no means evident that the decision of the judges" in that case "was against law," but proceeding to show that "the unadvised assertion in a court of law" of such an exercise of the prerogative "may be said to have sealed the condemnation of the house of Stuart."- Constitutional History, vol. iii., c. xiv., p. 86.]

  [Footnote 291: In the reign of Richard II. the Earl of Oxford had been made Marquis of Dublin for life, but he already had a seat in the House as Earl. Henry V. had originally made the peerages of his brothers, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, life peerages; but these were afterward surrendered and regranted "in the usual descendible form," so that they rather made against the present case than for it. Henry VIII. had cr
eated the Prince of Thomond Earl of Thomond for his life, but he had at the same time granted him the barony of Inchiquin "for himself and his heirs forever." It was also alleged that these life peerages had not been conferred by the King alone, but by the King with the authority and consent of Parliament, "these significant words being found in the patents."]

  [Footnote 292: The division was 153 to 133. Some years afterward, however, a clause in the act, which created a new appellate jurisdiction, empowered the sovereign to create peerages of this limited character, one of the clauses providing that "every Lord of Appeal in Ordinary should be entitled during his life to rank as a Baron by such style as her Majesty may be pleased to appoint, and shall during the time that he continues in office as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, and no longer be entitled to a writ of summons to attend, sit, and vote in the House of Lords. His dignity as a Lord of Parliament shall not descend to his heirs." As this act was passed long after the period at which the present volume closes, it does not belong to the writer to examine how far this act, in providing that every Lord of Appeal shall for the time rank as a Baron (the Lords of Appeal being, of course, appointed by the crown), is entitled to be spoken of as introducing a great constitutional innovation, big with future consequences, as it has been described by some writers.]

  [Footnote 293: In one notorious instance, that of the Earl of Bristol (confer Hallam, i., 518), in the time of Charles I., the House of Lords had interfered and compelled the issue of the writ; their action forming a precedent for their right of interference in such matters, which in the present case the Lord Chancellor denied.]

  [Footnote 294: The grant of a pension of L1000 a year, with a baronetcy, to General Havelock, and more recently to Sir F. Roberts, are, it is believed, the only exceptions to this rule.]

  [Footnote 295: Bishop Lonsdale, of Lichfield, in reference to Simon Magus, from whose offer of money to the Apostles the offence derives its name, denying that there was any similarity between his sin and the act of purchasing an advowson or presentation, remarked that it might just as fitly be called magic as simony.]

  [Footnote 296: It has been, and will probably continue to be, a matter of dispute whether the first conception and plan of the insurrection originated with the restless boldness of the Mohammedans or the deeper fanaticism of the Hindoos. It is notorious that the prophecy that a century had been assigned by the Almighty as the allotted period of our supremacy in India had for many years been circulated among both; and, though the conspiracy was at first generally attributed to the Mohammedans, the argument that the period from the battle of Plassy, in 1757, to the outbreak in 1857, though an exact century according to the Hindoo calendar, is three years longer according to the Mohammedan computation, seems an almost irresistible proof that the Brahmins were its original authors. Sir John Kaye, in his "History of the Sepoy War," at the end of book iii., c. iii., prints the following note, as furnished to him by Mr. E.A. Reade, a gentleman of long experience in India: "I do not think I ever met one man in a hundred that did not give the Mohammedans credit for this prediction. I fully believe that the notion of change after a century of tenure was general, and I can testify, with others, to have heard of the prediction at least a quarter of a century previously. But, call it a prediction or a superstition, the credit of it must, I think, be given to the Hindoos. If we take the Hejira calendar, 1757 A.D. corresponds with 1171 Hejira; 1857 A.D. with 1274 Hejira; whereas, by the lunisolar year of the Sumbut, 1757 is 1814 Sumhut, and 1857 is 1914 Sumbut."]

  [Footnote 297: It is worthy of remark that, as early as 1829, the Earl of Ellenborough, then President of the Board of Control, had come to the conclusion that the Company was no longer competent to govern so vast a dominion as that of British India had gradually become. In his Diary, recently published (ii., 131), he expresses his firm conviction that, "in substituting the King's government for that of the Company, we shall be conferring a great benefit on India, and effecting the measure which is most likely to retain for England the possession of India;" and from the same work (ii., 61) we learn that Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone, one of the ablest servants of whom the Company could boast, and who had recently been Governor of Bombay, even while confessing himself prejudiced in favor "of the existing system, under which he had been educated and lived," admitted that "the administration of the government in the King's name would be agreeable to the civil and military services, and to people in England. He doubted whether, as regarded the princes of India, it would signify much, as they now pretty well understood us." See also ibid., p. 414.]

  [Footnote 298: 318 to 173.]

  [Footnote 299: The whole bill is given in the "Annual Register" for the year 1858, p. 226.]

  [Footnote 300: See her letter to Lord Derby on the subject, given in the "Life of the Prince Consort," iv., 308; confer also a memorandum of the Prince Consort, ibid., p. 310.]

  [Footnote 301: Ibid., p. 106.]

  [Footnote 302: It should be remarked that the arrangement originally carried out awoke among the European troops of the Company so deep and general a spirit of discontent as at one time threatened to break out in open mutiny; the ground of their dissatisfaction being "the transfer of their services in virtue of an act of Parliament, but without their consent." Accordingly, "on the announcement of the proclamation transferring the possessions of the East India Company to the crown, some of the soldiers of the Company's European force set up a claim for a free discharge or a bounty on re-enlistment." Lord Clyde's recommendation "that a concession should be made" was overruled by the government of India, and "pronounced inadmissible by the law-officers of the crown" in England. The dissatisfaction was allayed for the time by the judicious measures, equally conciliatory and firm, adopted by Lord Clyde, in whom all ranks of both armies felt equal confidence; but eventually the government became convinced of the necessity of granting discharges to every man who wished for one, provided he had not misconducted himself.-Shadwell's Life of Lord Clyde, ii., 407-416.]

  [Footnote 303: See ante, p. 385.]

  [Footnote 304: Stanhope's "Life of Pitt," i., 173.]

  [Footnote 305: Sir Theodore Martin quotes a passage from a letter of the Times correspondent, giving a report of the effect of the proclamation on the natives: "Genuineness of Asiatic feeling is always a problem, but I have little doubt it is in this instance literally sincere. The people understand an Empress, and did not understand the Company. Moreover, they (I am speaking of the masses) have a very decided notion that the Queen has hanged the Company for offences 'which must have been very great,' and that fact gives hope of future justice."-Life of the Prince Consort, iv., 337.]

  [Footnote 306: The "Annual Register" says that "neither the Emperor nor the Empress was touched;" but Sir Theodore Martin ("Life of the Prince Consort," iv., 155) says that "the Emperor's nose was grazed, and that the Empress received a blow on the left eye which affected it for some time."]

  [Footnote 307: "Life of the Prince Consort," iv., 156.]

  [Footnote 308: Speech of Lord Palmerston, February 19.]

  [Footnote 309: It is remarkable that it was not a very full House, the numbers of the division being only 234 to 215. Many members absented themselves, being equally unwilling to condemn the bill or to approve the silence of the ministry.]

  [Footnote 310: 268 to 39.]

  [Footnote 311: "Life of the Prince Consort," v., 131.]

  [Footnote 312: "Life of the Prince Consort," i., 99.]

  [Footnote 313: Chapter II., p. 54.]

  [Footnote 314: It is known, from two letters from Lord Palmerston to the Queen, published in the "Life of the Prince Consort," v., 100-in one, written before the debate in the House of Lords, he expresses a hope that the smallness of the majority in the House of Commons will encourage the Lords to throw it out, and he "is bound in duty to say that, if they do so, they will perform a good public service;" and in another, the day after the division in the Lords, he writes again "that they have done a right and useful thing," adding that the feeling of t
he public was so strong against the measure, that those in the gallery of the House are said to have joined in the cheers which broke out when the numbers were announced.]

  [Footnote 315: 433 to 36.]

  [Footnote 316: See the proceedings of 1700 (Macaulay, "History of England," v., 278; and of 1704, Lord Stanhope's "Reign of Queen Anne," p. 168). The Whig and the Tory writer equally condemn the "Tackers."]

  [Footnote 317: In the debate on life peerages ("Parliamentary History," cxl., 356), Lord Grey spoke of "that great transfer of political power from one class to another which was accomplished by the Reform Bill" And Lord Campbell, speaking of Lord Grey himself in connection with that measure, says: "His Reform Bill ought to place him in a temple of British worthies by the side of Lord Somers, for it wisely remodelled the constitution, and it is hardly less important than the Bill of Rights."-Life of Lord Campbell, ii., 201.]

  [Footnote 318: A recent writer, professedly belonging to the Radical party, claims for it the credit of "being the legitimate issue of the Reform Bill of 1832." ("The State of Parties," by J.E. Kebbel, Nineteenth Century, March, 1881, p. 497.)]

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