Accordingly, in the first week of the session of 1858, Lord Palmerston, as Prime-minister, introduced a bill to transfer the government of British India from the East India Company to the crown. It was natural that the principle of such a measure should be opposed by the Directors of the Company, though it was supported by more than one person who had held high civil office in India; and equally natural that the arrangement of its details should call forth a minute and rigorous examination, and on many points a very determined opposition. We need not, however, say more about this bill, since circumstances prevented its being proceeded with; and the history of those which succeeded it is now only worth referring to as showing the extreme difficulty of the task of framing a government on new principles for a dependency of such vast magnitude and importance.[297]
Lord Palmerston's bill was dropped, in consequence of the fall of his ministry, before the time came for its second reading; but the discussion on it had to some extent smoothed the way for that of his successor, Lord Derby. A great impression on the Parliament, and on the country in general, had been made by a very able speech of Sir G.C. Lewis, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He traced the whole history of the Indian government from the day of Plassy, and substantiated the right of the home government and Parliament to remodel it as they might judge best, by proving that ever since the passing of Pitt's first bill, in 1784, the Company had been constantly subject to Parliamentary control. He showed, too, most convincingly, that a petition which the Company had presented to the House of Commons, deprecating any change in the existing system which should tend to diminish the authority of the Directors, was based on one great fallacy—speaking, as it did, of the Company as one and indivisible, and unchanged in character, functions, and influence, down to the date of the last renewal of its charter, only five years previously; whereas the truth was, that in the one hundred years since Plassy the system had undergone as many changes as the English constitution between the Heptarchy and the reign of Queen Victoria.
He had thus removed some of the obstacles out of the way of the measure of the new government, though Lord Derby would have preferred postponing it till tranquillity should have been restored to the country by the complete suppression of the revolt, had not the large majority[298] which had sanctioned the introduction of Lord Palmerston's bill, in his opinion, "placed the Company in such a situation that they could no longer command the same amount of public confidence and public support as they were entitled to receive previously to that vote of the House of Commons." It may be added that the first bill on the subject which was introduced by his government bore evident marks of the difficulties under which it was framed—difficulties existing from the unexpected suddenness of his accession to office; so that, after a not very short discussion, it was eventually withdrawn, and it was not till the end of June that the measure which was finally adopted was introduced.
The leading enactments of the measure[299] provided that for the future the government of India, described as having been hitherto vested in, or exercised by, the Company in trust for her Majesty, should be vested in her Majesty, and exercised in her name; that one of her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State should have and perform all such powers and duties relating to the government or revenues of India as had formerly belonged to the Court of Directors, as the Court of Proprietors of the Company; that a Council of the Governor-general should be established, consisting of fifteen members, seven of whom should be appointed by the Court of Directors, being persons who were, or had formerly been, Directors of the Company, and eight should be nominated by the crown. And as to both classes, it was provided that the majority should consist of persons who had served or resided in India for ten years at the least, and should not have left India more than ten years when appointed. They were to hold their offices during good behavior, to receive salaries, and to be entitled to retiring pensions, but to be incapable of sitting in Parliament. The appointment of Governor-general and Governor of each Presidency was to belong to the crown. The expenditure of the revenues of India, both in India and elsewhere, was to be subject to the control of the Secretary of State in Council; other clauses provided for the dividends of the Company, for the admission of persons into the civil service; and, with reference to existing establishments, one clause provided that "the Indian military and naval forces should remain under existing conditions of service."
This last clause was strongly objected to by the Queen,[300] as "inconsistent with her constitutional position as head of the army, which required that the Commander-in-chief should be put in communication with the new Secretary of State for India, in the same manner in which he is placed with regard to the troops at home or in the colonies toward the Secretary of State for War.... With regard to the whole army, whether English or Indian, there could, with due regard to the public interest, be only one head and one general command." She yielded her opinion, however, to the resolute objections of the Prime-minister, with whom on this point his predecessor,[301] Lord Palmerston, agreed; but the result proved the superior soundness of her Majesty's view. It was not only a most anomalous arrangement, since the supreme control of all the warlike forces was one of the most inalienable prerogatives of the crown, but it had the strange fault of preserving the double government in the case in which, above all others, unity of system and unity of command were most indispensable. And, what weighed more than either consideration with the generally practical views of English statesmen, it was from the beginning found to work badly, creating, as it did, great and mischievous jealousies between the two divisions, the Royal and the Indian army. It was found that all the generals then in the highest commands in India—Lord Clyde (Sir Colin Campbell having been ennobled by that title), Sir Hugh Rose, and Sir William Mansfield—strongly disapproved of it, and recommended a change; and consequently, in the summer of 1860, Lord Palmerston, who in the mean while had returned to the Treasury, came round to the Queen's view of the subject, and a new act was passed which amalgamated the two armies into one Imperial army, taking its turn of duty throughout all parts of the British empire.[302]
A letter addressed by Lord Palmerston to the Queen in the autumn of 1857, which appears to have been his first statement to her Majesty of the opinion which he had formed of the necessity of abolishing the governing authority of the Company, states the principal arguments in favor of such a measure with great clearness, as arising from "the inconvenience and difficulty of administering the government of a vast country on the other side of the globe by means of two cabinets, the one responsible to the crown and Parliament, the other only responsible to the holders of Indian stock, meeting for a few hours three or four times a year, which had been shown by the events of the year to be no longer tolerable." His disapproval of parts of Lord Ellenborough's policy probably prevented him from alluding to his recall from India by the Directors, in direct defiance of the opinion of the government,[303] though that strange step can hardly have been absent from his mind. But, in fact, the case for taking the whole rule of so vast a dominion wholly into the hands of the Queen's government at home was so irresistible, that it did not require to be strengthened by reference to any individual instances of inconvenience. When the double government was originally established, the English in India were still but a small mercantile community, with very little territory beyond that in the immediate neighborhood of its three chief cities. Of the conduct of the affairs of such a body, still almost confined to commerce, the chief share might not unreasonably be left to the merchants themselves, subject to such supervision on the part of the government at home as was implied in the very name of the department invested with that supervision, the Board of Control, which, as Pitt explained the name, was meant to show that it was not to be, like the measure proposed by the Coalition Ministry, a board of political influence.[304] But the case was wholly altered when British India reached from Point de Galle to the Himalayas, and spread beyond the Ganges on the east, to beyond the Indus on the west; when the policy adopted in India often influenced our dealings with European states, and when the force required for the protection of those vast interests exceeded the numbers of the royal army. India, too, is a country the climate of which prevents our countrymen from emigrating to it as settlers, as they do to Canada or Australia, and where, consequently, the English residents are, and always must be, a mere handful in comparison with the millions of natives. In such a case their government must at all times rest mainly on opinion, on the belief in the pre-eminent power of the ruler; and it was obvious that that belief would be greatly fortified by the sovereign of Britain becoming that ruler.[305] The great rajahs cordially recognized the value of the transfer of power considered in this light, and felt their own dignity enhanced by becoming the vassals of the sovereign herself.
Turning to French affairs, a brilliant French writer has remarked, that his countrymen are, of all peoples, the least suited to be conspirators, since none of them can ever keep a secret. But it was the ill-fortune of Louis Napoleon that he had provoked enmities, not only among his own countrymen, but among the republican fanatics of other nations also, who saw in his zeal for absolute authority the greatest obstacle to their designs, which aimed at the overthrow of every established government on the Continent, and shrunk from no crimes which they conceived to be calculated to promote their object. To free themselves from such an antagonist, the most wholesale murders seemed by no means too large a price. And in the middle of January, as the Emperor and Empress were going to the Opera, a prodigious explosion took place almost beneath the wheels of their carriage, from the effect of which they themselves had a most narrow escape, both being struck in the face by splinters, the aide-de-camp in their carriage also being severely wounded on the head; while their escort and attendants were struck down on all sides, ten being killed and above one hundred and fifty wounded.[306] It was soon found out that the authors of this atrocious crime were four Italians, of whom a man named Orsini was the chief, and that he, who had but recently escaped from a prison in Mantua, had fled from that town to England, and had there concocted all the details of his plot, and had procured the shells which had been his instruments.
It was not unnatural that so atrocious a crime, causing such wide-spread destruction, should awaken great excitement in France, and in many quarters violent reclamations against England and her laws, which enabled foreign plotters to make her a starting-place for their nefarious schemes. Even in the French Chambers very bitter language was used on the subject by some of the most influential Deputies, for which our ministers were disposed to make allowance, Lord Clarendon, the Foreign Secretary, writing to the Prince Consort that "it was not to be expected that foreigners, who see that assassins go and come here as they please, and that conspiracies may be hatched in England with impunity, should think our laws and policy friendly to other countries, or appreciate the extreme difficulty of making any change in our system."[307]
But a different feeling was roused by a despatch of the French Secretary of State to the ambassador here, which seemed to impute to this country that it deliberately sheltered and countenanced men by whose writings "assassination was elevated into a doctrine openly preached, and carried into practice by reiterated attacks" upon the person of the French sovereign, and asked, in language which had rather an imperious tone, "Ought the English Legislature to contribute to the designs of men who were not mere fugitives, but assassins, and continue to shelter persons who place themselves beyond the pale of common right, and under the ban of humanity? Her Britannic Majesty's Government can assist us in averting a repetition of such guilty enterprises, by affording us a guarantee of security which no state can refuse to a neighboring state, and which we are justified in expecting from an ally. Fully relying, moreover, on the profound sagacity of the English Cabinet, we refrain from indicating in any way the measures which it may seem fit to take in order to comply with this wish. We confidently leave it to decide on the course which it shall deem best fitted to the end in view." Still, though the charge that our Legislature contributed to the designs of assassins was some departure from the measured language more usual in diplomatic communications between friendly powers, under the circumstances this remonstrance might have been borne with. Unluckily, it was not all, nor the worst, that we were called upon to bear. A few days afterward some addresses to the Emperor from different military corps were published in the Moniteur, which not only poured forth bitter reproaches against the whole English nation, but demanded to be led to an invasion of the country, "as an infamous haunt for the carrying out of infernal machinations." Political addresses seem to our ideas inconsistent with military discipline; but the army had been permitted, and even encouraged, to make them ever since the days of the Consulate, though such addresses never received the recognition of a publication in the official journal till they had been subjected to careful revision, and, if necessary, expurgation. On this occasion, however, that supervision had been carelessly performed, and the offensive passages were left standing, though, when the Emperor learned the indignation which they had excited even among his well-wishers in England, he instructed his ambassador to apologize for their retention and publication, as an act of inadvertence on the part of the officials whose duty it had been to revise such documents. So far all was well. And had the English ministers replied to the despatch of M. de Persigny in firm and temperate language, they would have escaped the difficulties which eventually overthrew them. There was no doubt that, according to diplomatic usage, a written despatch formally communicated to the Secretary of State required a written reply.
Unfortunately, a written reply was not given. Lord Clarendon was too apprehensive of the mischief which might possibly arise from a protracted discussion, leading, perhaps, to an angry controversy; and under the influence of this feeling contented himself, when the despatch was presented, with giving the ambassador a verbal answer, that "no consideration on earth would induce Parliament to pass a measure for the extradition of foreign political refugees; that our asylum could not be infringed, and that we adhered to certain principles on that subject which were so old and so sacred that they could not be touched;"[308] adding, however, at the same time an assurance that the Attorney-general was already, at his request, examining our law of conspiracy, to see whether it was sufficiently comprehensive or stringent. The purport of this answer was all that could have been desired; but there was a very general impression that the omission to reply by a written despatch was a sacrifice of the national dignity, if not an unworthy submission to scarcely disguised menace; though at the same time there was also a feeling among both parties in Parliament that our laws with respect to the conduct of foreigners residing among us were, perhaps, susceptible of improvement. On the very first night of the session, in allusion to the attack on the French Emperor, Lord Derby had said that "he could wish to hear the opinion of the ministers whether the existing laws of this country were adequate to afford security for the lives of foreign princes against plots contrived in this country; and, if they were not, whether they might not be amended, so as to meet the case of such crimes as had recently been perpetrated, which were so heinous and revolting to every feeling of humanity." And even before that speech the ministers had applied themselves to frame a measure to amend the law, which in the second week of February the Prime-minister himself introduced to the House of Commons.
It was read a first time, though not without some opposition; but before it arrived at the second reading, though only a week afterward, the feeling of the country, reflected in this instance by the House, had become so inflamed, that the measure was not discussed on its own merits, but on the point whether, since no other answer had been given to the French despatch, this must not be regarded as the ministerial answer, and therefore whether it were such an answer as it befitted England to send. Had it been examined on its own merits solely, it could hardly have provoked much adverse criticism. It was entitled, "A bill to amend the law with relation to the crime of conspiracy to commit murder," and it merely proposed to establish in England a law which had long existed in Ireland. Hitherto, as Lord Palmerston explained the matter, England had treated conspiracy to murder as a misdemeanor, punishable with fine and imprisonment. In Ireland it had long been a capital crime; and, though he did not propose to assimilate the English to the Irish statute in all its severity, he proposed to enact that conspiracy to murder should be a felony, punishable with penal servitude, by whomsoever the conspiracy might be concocted, or wherever the crime might be designed to be committed.
The principle of such a law, supported as it was by the precedent of Ireland, could hardly be resisted. And Mr. Walpole, who had been Home-secretary in Lord Derby's ministry, avowed his determination to support the bill, "as being right in principle." But even he limited his promise of support by a condition "that the honor of England should be previously vindicated;" arguing that the French despatch bore the character of a demand, based upon allegations which were contrary to truth, and which, therefore, the ministers were bound to repudiate; and that to pass such a bill without putting on record a formal denial of those allegations would, in the general view of Europe, imply a confession that to them we had no answer to give. And it was this consideration which eventually determined the decision of the House, Mr. Disraeli, who closed the debate on his side, condemning the conduct of the ministers as "perplexed, timid, confused, wanting in dignity and self-respect. In not replying to the despatch, they had lost a great opportunity of asserting the principles of public law." The House, taking his view of their conduct, threw out the bill by a majority of nineteen;[309] and the ministry resigned, and was succeeded by one under the presidency of Lord Derby.
Many of those who on this occasion combined to form the majority had denounced the bill, as an infringement of the principles of our constitution. It is, however, evident that, had it passed, it would not have deserved such a description. It would in no degree whatever have deprived a foreign resident of safety and the protection of English law, so long as he should obey that law; and that is all the indulgence that the constitution ever gave or ought to give. Foreigners had always been amenable to our courts of justice for any violation of the law. And Lord Palmerston's bill not only went no farther than removing a certain class of offences from the category of misdemeanors to that of felonies, but it also imposed no liability in that respect on foreigners which it did not at the same time impose on all the Queen's subjects. Indeed, the bill was so moderate, and the improvement it proposed so desirable, that, in a subsequent discussion in the House of Lords, Lord Campbell, the Chief-justice, expressed a hope that Lord Derby's government would take it up; though Lord Derby, in view of the existing feeling of the country on the subject, prudently forbore to act on that suggestion. But, as one of Orsini's most guilty accomplices, a man named Bernard, was still in London, he caused him to be indicted for murder, as having incurred that guilt as accessary to the death of some whom the explosion had killed. The excitement on the question had, however, not died away when the trial came on; and, though it will, probably, be generally admitted that the evidence was sufficiently clear, Bernard was acquitted.
Lord Derby, however, did not long retain his office. Indeed, the Earl was so conscious that, on questions of general policy, the House of Commons was inclined to views differing from his own, that he would have preferred declining the task of forming a ministry, had he not conceived that, in the difficulty in which the Queen was placed by recent circumstances, he was bound by his duty to make the attempt, even if the result of it were merely to obtain a kind of respite for his sovereign and the country, which might give time for the present excitement of feeling to calm down. He was not deceived in his forebodings of his inability to maintain his position. In the course of the next spring he was twice defeated in the House of Commons—once by the House which he found in existence, and a second time in one which was the fruit of a general election. And in the summer of 1859 Lord Palmerston returned to office, with power increased by the junction of many of those who had helped to overthrow him in 1858, but who now combined with him to strike a similar blow at his Conservative successor.
Yet, brief as was Lord Derby's tenure of power, it was made memorable by the commencement of a movement which cannot be regarded as devoid of constitutional importance, since, though originally it was only designed to supply a temporary re-enforcement to our ancient constitutional forces, the regular army and the militia, it has eventually created a force which, to the great honor of those who constitute it, has become a permanent addition to them. In the great war against Revolutionary France, when it was generally believed that those who held rule in Paris were contemplating an invasion of these islands, Pitt, as we have seen, had encouraged the formation of corps of volunteers, which continued to be of great use till the very end of the war, by performing, in conjunction with the militia, a great portion of the home duties which must otherwise have fallen on the line regiments, and thus disengaging the regular army for service on the Continent. There was now no such formidable enemy to be dreaded as the first Napoleon, but in every part of Europe affairs were in a state so unquiet that every kingdom seemed at times on the very brink of war; and since, if it should once break out, no one could feel confident that we should not be involved in it, or, if we should be, who would be our allies or our enemies, measures of precaution and self-defence seemed as needful now as they had been sixty years before. Our boldest statesmen were disquieted and anxious; and the nation at large, sharing their uneasiness, kindled with the feeling that it was a time to show that the present generation inherited the self-denying patriotism of their fathers. Leaders were not wanting again to prompt the formation of a volunteer force. The government at once saw the value of the scheme. Fortunately, the Secretary for War, Colonel Peel, happened to be an old soldier, a veteran who had learned the art of war under Wellington himself; and he, having great talents for organization, placed the force from its infancy on a sound footing. How thoroughly the movement harmonized with the martial spirit of the nation—to which, indeed, it owed its birth—is shown by the history of the force, which now, above twenty years after its original formation, maintains its full numbers and yearly improves its efficiency. Though there has not for many years been any apprehension of war, above one hundred and twenty thousand men still annually devote no small portion of their time to the acquisition of military discipline and science, and that so successfully, that, by the testimony of the most experienced judges, they have attained a degree of efficiency which, if the necessity for their services should ever arise, would render them valuable and worthy comrades to the more regularly trained army. Lord Derby retired from office while the force was still in its infancy; but Lord Palmerston was equally sensible of its value, and gave a farther proof of his appreciation of the vast importance of measures of national defence by the vigor with which he carried out the recommendations of a royal commission which had been appointed by the preceding ministry to investigate the condition of our national defences. Its report had pointed out the absolute necessity of an improved system of protection for our great dockyards and arsenals, which, from their position on the coast, were more liable to attack than inland fortresses would have been, had we had such. And, in accordance with that warning, in the summer of 1860, Lord Palmerston proposed the grant of a large sum of money for the fortification of our chief dockyards. It was opposed on a strange variety of grounds; some arguing that the proposed fortifications were superfluous, because our navy was the defence to which the nation was wont deservedly to trust; some that they were needless, because no other nation was in a condition to attack us; others that they were disgraceful, because it was un-English and mean to skulk behind stone walls, and because Lycurgus had refused to trust to stone walls for the safety of Sparta; and one member, the chief spokesman of a new and small party, commonly known as the "peace-at-any-price party," boldly denounced the members of the commission as a set of "lunatics" for framing such a report, and the ministers as guilty of "contemptible cowardice" for suggesting to the nation that there was any danger in being undefended. But the ministry prevailed by a large majority;[310] the money was voted, and the nation in general warmly approved of the measure. As Lord Palmerston subsequently expressed it, "the government, the Parliament, and the nation acted in harmonious concert"[311] on the subject.
One of the arguments against it which the objectors had brought forward was, that the ministry was not unanimous in the conviction of the necessity; and we learn from the "Life of the Prince Consort"[312] that Mr. Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was vehement in his resistance to it, threatening even to carry his opposition so far as to resign his office, if it were persevered in. And, as has been intimated on a previous page, this was not the only question on which in the course of this year the Prime-minister did in his heart differ from his Chancellor of the Exchequer, though he did not think it expedient to refuse his sanction to his proposals on a matter belonging to his own department, the Exchequer. The subject on which he secretly doubted his colleague's judgment was one of the proposals made in the Budget of the year. As has already been mentioned, the transaction throws a rather curious light on the occasional working of our ministerial system; and the fate of the measure in the two Houses of Parliament is also deserving of remark and recollection, as re-opening the question, which had not been agitated for nearly a century, as to the extent of the power of the House of Lords with respect to votes of money. In a former chapter[313] we have had occasion to mention the angry feeling on the part of the House of Commons which, in the year 1772, had been evoked by the act of the House of Lords, in making some amendments on a bill relating to the exportation of corn which had come up to them from the Commons. A somewhat similar act had, as we have also seen, revived the discussion a few years later, when the minister of the day had shown a more temperate feeling on the subject. On neither occasion, however, had the question of the privileges of the Lords been definitively settled; and no occasion had since arisen for any consideration of the subject. But the Budget of 1860 contained a clause which, in spite of the deserved reputation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a skilful financier, was not regarded with general favor. There was a large deficiency in the revenue for the year; but while, among his expedients for meeting it, Mr. Gladstone proposed an augmentation of the income-tax, he proposed also to repeal the excise duty on paper, which produced about a million and a quarter. It is now known that the Prime-minister himself highly disapproved of the sacrifice at such a time of so productive a tax.[314] And, if that had been suspected at the time, the House of Commons would certainly not have consented to it; even when the ministry was supposed to be unanimous in its approval of it, it was only carried by a majority of nine; and, when the bill embodying it came before the House of Lords, a Whig peer, who had himself been formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Melbourne's administration, moved its rejection, and it was rejected by a majority of eighty-nine.
The rejection of a measure relating to taxation caused great excitement among a large party in the House of Commons—so violent, indeed, that the only expedient that presented itself to the Prime-minister, if he would prevent the proposal of some step of an extreme and mischievous character, was to take the matter into his own hands. Had he been able to act entirely on his own judgment, it may, perhaps, be thought that, with his sentiments on the inexpediency of the measure which had been rejected, he would have preferred a silent acquiescence in the vote of the Lords; but he would have been quite unable to induce the majority of his own supporters, and even some of his own colleagues, to adopt so moderate a course; and accordingly he moved the appointment of a committee to examine and report on the practice of Parliament in regard to bills for imposing or repealing taxes. And when it had made its report, which was purely of an historical character, setting forth the precedents bearing on the subject, he proposed three resolutions, asserting "that the right of granting aids and supplies to the crown is in the Commons alone, as an essential part of their constitution, etc.; that, although the Lords had exercised the power of rejecting bills of several descriptions relating to taxation by negativing the whole, yet the exercise of that power by them had not been frequent, and was justly regarded by the Commons with peculiar jealousy, as affecting their rights, etc.; and that, to guard for the future against an undue exercise of that power by the Lords, and to secure to the Commons their rightful control over taxation and supply, the Commons had it in their power so to impose and remit taxes, and to frame bills of supply, that their right, etc., might be maintained inviolate."
In the debate which ensued his chief opponents came from his own party, and even his own colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, displayed a fundamental difference of feeling from his on the subject, a difference which was expressed by one of the most eloquent supporters of the resolutions, Mr. Horsman, M.P. for Stroud, saying that "Lord Palmerston wished to make the independence of the House of Lords a reality, while Mr. Gladstone seemed to desire that it should be a fiction." Lord Palmerston, indeed, showed the feeling thus attributed to him in a statesman-like declaration that, if "this nation had enjoyed a greater amount of civil, political, social, and religious liberty than, as he believed, any other people in the world, that result had been accomplished, not by vesting in either of the three estates, the Crown, the Lords, or the Commons, exclusive or overruling power over the others, but by maintaining for each its own separate and independent authority, and also by the three powers combining together to bear and forbear, endeavoring by harmonious concert with each other to avoid those conflicts and clashings which must have arisen if independent authority and independent action had been exerted by each or by all." He entered into the history of the question, explaining that, though "each branch of the Legislature retained its respective power of rejecting any measure, the Commons had claimed from time immemorial particular privileges in regard to particular measures, and especially the exclusive right of determining matters connected with the taxation of the people. They claimed for themselves, and denied to the Lords, the right of originating, altering, or amending such measures; but, as long ago as 1671, the Attorney-general, in a memorable conference between the two Houses, had admitted that the Lords, though they could not originate or amend, had, nevertheless, power to reject money-bills;" and this admission he regarded as consistent with common-sense, for "it was well known that, though the Commons contended for the right of originating measures for the grant of supply, and of framing bills with that object, according to their belief of what was best for the public interest, yet such bills could not pass into law without the assent of the Lords; and it was clear that an authority whose assent was necessary to give a proposal the force of law, must, by the very nature of things, be at liberty to dissent and refuse its sanction."
The committee had enumerated a large number of precedents (above thirty) in which, since that conference, the Lords had rejected such bills; but the cases were not in general exactly similar to that now under consideration, since the bills which they had rejected had commonly, if not in every case, been for the imposition and not for the repeal of a tax; and in most cases some question of national policy had been involved which had influenced their vote. But the view which Lord Palmerston pressed on the House was that the present was "a case in which party feelings ought to be cast aside. It was one in which higher and larger interests than those of party were concerned, and in which the course that the House now took would be a precedent to guide future Parliaments." He pointed out, moreover, that the smallness of the majority in the House of Commons had been to the Lords "some encouragement to take this particular step," and that "he was himself led to think that they had taken it, not from any intention to step out of their province, and to depart from the line of constitutional right which the history of the country has assigned them, but from motives of policy dependent on the circumstances of the moment; and therefore he thought it would be wise if the Commons forbore to enter into a conflict with the Lords on a ground which might really not exist, but satisfied themselves with a declaration of what were their own constitutional powers and privileges. It was of the utmost importance in a constitution like ours, where there are different branches, independent of each other, each with powers of its own, and where cordial and harmonious action is necessary, that care should be taken to avoid the commencement of an unnecessary quarrel, and the party that acted otherwise would incur a grave responsibility."
Mr. Gladstone, however, though he ended by expressing his concurrence in the resolution proposed by his chief, used very different language respecting the vote of the House of Lords, characterizing it as "a gigantic innovation, the most gigantic and the most dangerous that had been attempted in our time," since "the origination of a bill for the imposition of a tax, or the amendment of a money-bill, was a slight thing compared with the claim to prevent the repeal of a tax;" and, dealing with assertions which he had heard, that in this instance "the House of Commons had been very foolish and the House of Lords very wise," he asked whether that really described the constitution under which we live. The House of Commons could not be infallible in matters of finance more than in other matters. It might make errors, but he demanded to know whether those errors in finance were or were not liable to correction by the House of Lords. If they were, "what became of the privileges of the Commons?" On the other hand, Mr. Disraeli, as leader of the Opposition or Conservative party, supported the resolutions, and applauded the speech of the Prime-minister, as "a wise, calm, and ample declaration of a cabinet that had carefully and deliberately considered this important subject. It had acknowledged that the conduct of the Lords was justified by law and precedent, and sanctioned by policy," and he maintained that it showed that "the charge made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was utterly untenable, and had no foundation." And Mr. Horsman, taking a large general view of the legitimate working of the parliamentary constitution, argued that, while it was an undoubted rule that "all taxes should originate with the Commons, as that elective and more immediately responsible assembly that is constantly referred back to the constituencies, the reviewing power of a permanent and independent chamber was no less essential;" and that, considering that "the Reform Bill of 1832 had given a preponderance of powers to the Commons, and that the tendency of any farther Reform Act must be in the same direction, so far from narrowing the field of action for the peers, the wiser alternative might be to adopt a generous construction of their powers, with a view to preserving the equilibrium that is held to be essential to the safety and well-working of the constitution. The House of Commons," he concluded, "is perpetually assuming fresh powers and establishing new precedents. Virtually all bills now originate with the Commons; but this is not the consequence of any aggressive spirit in them, but is the necessary and inevitable result of the historic working of the constitution; and so this act of the Lords was but the natural working of the constitution to meet a definite emergency." The resolutions were passed, the first and third without a division; the second, to which an amendment had been proposed, designed to limit the force of the precedents alleged as justifying the act of the Lords, by a majority of nearly four hundred.[315] In their form and language the resolutions cannot be said to have greatly affected the power claimed by the Lords, and exercised by them in this instance. The first two were simply declaratory of acknowledged principles or facts, and the third intimated no desire to guard against anything but an undue exertion by the Lords of the right which they were admitted to possess. But it can hardly be doubted that the intention even of Lord Palmerston, dictated by the strong feeling which he perceived to prevail in the House of Commons on the subject, was to deter the Lords from any future exercise of their powers of review and rejection of measures relating to taxation, when, perhaps, the Commons might be under less prudent guidance; nor that the effect of the resolutions will correspond with the design rather than with the language of the mover, and will prevent the Lords, unless under the pressure of some overpowering necessity, from again interfering to control the Commons in such matters. At the same time it seems superfluous to point out that one claim advanced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was apparently carried beyond his usual discretion by his parental fondness for the rejected bill, is utterly unreconcileable with the maintenance of any constitution at all that can deserve the name. When there are three bodies so concerned in the legislation that the united consent of all is indispensable to give validity to any act, to claim for any one of them so paramount an authority that, even if it should adopt a manifestly mischievous course, neither of the others should have the right to control or check or correct the error, would be to make that body the irresponsible master of the whole government and nation; to invest it with that "overruling power" which Lord Palmerston with such force of reasoning had deprecated; and to substitute for that harmonious concert of all to which, in his view, the perfection of our liberties was owing, a submission to one, and that the one most liable to be acted upon by the violence or caprice of the populace. He was a wise man who said that he looked on the tyranny of one man as an evil, but on the tyranny of a thousand as a thousand times worse. And for this reason also the resolutions which were now adopted seem to have been conceived in a spirit of judicious moderation, since, while rendering it highly improbable that the Lords would again reject a measure relating to taxation, it avoided absolutely to extinguish their power to do so. Lord Palmerston, it may be thought, foresaw the possibility of an occasion arising when the notoriety that such a power still existed might serve as a check to prevent its exercise from being required. In the very case which had given rise to this discussion he regarded it as certain that the feeling of the majority of the nation approved of the action of the peers; and, as what had occurred once might occur again, it was certainly within the region of possibility that another such emergency might arise, when the Lords might interfere with salutary effect to save the country from the evil result of ill-considered legislation; finance being, above all others, the subject on which a rash or unscrupulous minister may find the greatest facility for exciting the people by plausible delusions. There is, moreover, another reason why it would not only be impolitic, but absolutely unfair, to deprive the Lords altogether of their power of rejection even in cases of taxation; namely, that the Commons, when imposing taxes, are taxing the Lords themselves, as well as the other classes of the community; while the Lords alone of the whole nation are absolutely unrepresented in the House of Commons. There is a frequent cry for a graduated income-tax; and surely if an unscrupulous demagogue in office were to contrive such a graduation as would subject a peer to three times the income-tax borne by a commoner, it would be a monstrous iniquity if the peers were to have no power of protecting themselves in their own House.
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 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 created 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 £1000 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 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 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 the 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 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.)]