Chapter III 1841–1846
Unpopularity of the Whigs—Fall of the Melbourne Ministry—Peel’s Cabinet—The Afghan War—Murder of Sir A. Burnes and Sir W. Macnaghten—The Retreat from Cabul—Annihilation of the British Force—The Corn Duties—The Pioneers of Free Trade—Failure of Potato Crop in Ireland—Lord John Russell’s conversion to Free Trade—Peel and Repeal—Rupture of the Tory Party—The Corn Duties repealed—Defeat and Resignation of the Government—Review of Peel’s Administration.
| Unpopularity of the Whigs |
The closing months of the Melbourne Ministry afford melancholy matter for chronicle. The Government went on steadily losing popularity in the country and forfeiting respect in Parliament. The sword, long impending, descended at last. Mr. Baring, who had succeeded Spring Rice as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had to confess to a deficiency in his Budget of nearly two millions, which he proposed to meet by a re-adjustment of the sugar and timber duties, which brought about the defeat of the Government by a majority of thirty-six. Still, Ministers did not resign. Russell had determined at length to make a bid for the Free Trade vote, and gave notice of his intention to propose a permanent reduction in the duty on corn. But the announcement fell flatly; people only saw in this sudden conversion another desperate effort to retain office, for the Whigs hitherto had been inflexible in resistance to Free Trade demands. Melbourne had sworn roundly that of all the mad projects he had ever heard of the surrender of duties was the maddest; and Russell had been equally explicit, though employing fewer expletives. The duty on imported corn had been established by legislation in 1815, and was on a sliding scale according to current prices. The impost was 27s. on each quarter of wheat when the price fell below 60s., and diminished in proportion as the price rose till it stood at 1s. when the price of the quarter was 73s. and upwards.
| Fall of the Melbourne Ministry. |
The next move in Parliament was a vote of no confidence, moved by Sir Robert Peel, and then at last Lord John Russell announced that Her Majesty had been advised to dissolve Parliament immediately. Writs were made returnable on August 19, by which date the political tables had been completely turned. The Conservatives who went to the country in a minority of thirty returned with a majority of seventy-six. It is notable that in recording this result the Annual Register for the first time exchanges the title of Whigs for that of Liberals.
| Peel’s Cabinet. |
| The Afghan War. |
Before following the fortunes of the Administration formed by Sir Robert Peel, reference must be made to mournful news which, while people at home were crowding round the hustings and polling booths, were slowly approaching this country from Central Asia. The most serious reverse to British policy and the greatest disaster to British arms which have happened in the present century were the outcome of events which may thus briefly be recapitulated. In 1837 Captain Alexander Burnes, Orientalist and traveller, arrived as British agent at Cabul, capital of the province of that name, in the north of Afghanistan. The Prince of that fragment of the ancient Empire of Ahmed Shah was Dost Mahomed Khan, an usurper, it is true, but a popular hero, a soldier of remarkable ability, and a sagacious and bold ruler. Dost professed the friendliest feelings towards England, but, for some reasons now unknown, was profoundly distrusted by the Foreign Office. Captain Burnes thoroughly trusted Dost, but his repeated assurance failed to convince his employers that in his disputes with neighbouring States, Dost greatly preferred relying on English influence to accepting the advances continually made to him by Russia and Persia. Burnes was instructed to regard Dost as dangerously treacherous, and at last Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India, made a treaty with Runjeet Singh, hostile to Dost, and with the purpose of restoring Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk, whom Dost had deposed from the throne of Cabul. A British force invaded Cabul, overthrew the brave Dost, and enthroned Soojah, whom nobody wanted. But Dost Mahomed was a foe of no ordinary mettle. On November 2, 1840, he encountered the allied force of the English and Shah Sooja at Purwandurrah, and if he did not actually win the battle, the gallantry of his Afghan cavalry caused it to be drawn. Dost, however, was too wise to believe that he could resist for long the force of England. On the evening after the battle he rode into his enemy’s camp and placed his sword in the hand of Sir W. Macnaghten, the British Envoy at Soojah’s Court. Dost was honourably treated, his sword was returned to him, he was sent to India and provided with a residence and pension.
| Murder of Sir A. Burnes and Sir W. Macnaghten. |
But Dost was the darling of his people. They hated Soojah, whom the English had forced on them, and they rose in revolt against him. Burnes was the earliest victim, for although, in truth, he had all along stood stoutly for Dost, the insurgents believed him to have betrayed their ruler. He and his brother and all their party, man, woman, and child, were hacked to pieces. Akbar Khan, second and favourite son of Dost Mahomed, now put himself at the head of the insurrection, and the shameful part of the story began. Hitherto, there had been blunders enough in English dealings with this brave people: but there is nothing to blush for in blunders provided they are clear of disgrace; one cannot, however, ignore the truth that, after a few weeks’ fighting, British troops, having been repeatedly beaten, became so demoralised that their officers could not get them to stand before the fierce Afghans. General Elphinstone, the chief in command, was an experienced, able soldier; but his health had broken down before the insurrection began, and he had written to the Governor-General begging to be relieved of his command, which he felt he was physically unfit to continue. Unfortunately there was some delay in appointing his successor, and the trouble came before Elphinstone could be relieved. Against the personal courage of Brigadier Shelton, the second in command, no reflections have ever been made, but he proved lamentably supine at moments when prompt action was most required. Affairs went from bad to worse with the British force in cantonments outside Cabul, until at last Elphinstone, grievously weakened by disease, could be brought to contemplate no course but abject surrender. Abject surrender! not quite unconditional, it is true, but on most humiliating terms, including the release of Dost Mahomed and the immediate evacuation of Cabul by the British.
Bad as this was there was darker disgrace to come. The evacuation was delayed—on the part of the British from a foolish “Micawber” hope that “something would turn up”—on the part of the Afghans, no doubt, in order that the advent of winter should make the passes impracticable. Macnaghten, the British Envoy, seems to have been infected by the prevailing demoralisation, and fell into a trap prepared for him by Akbar Khan. At the very moment when he (Macnaghten) was negotiating openly with the chiefs in Cabul he entered into a conspiracy with Akbar to destroy them, to establish Shah Soojah as nominal monarch, and to secure the appointment of Akbar as Vizier. Macnaghten’s punishment made no long tarrying, for Akbar was acting a subtle part. Macnaghten, accompanied by three officers, rode out one morning to a conference with Akbar on the west bank of the Cabul river. It was a solitary place, as befitted the discussion of the contemplated treachery, but they had not been conferring long before they were surrounded by a crowd of armed country people. The British officers remonstrated with Akbar; at that moment Macnaghten and his companions were seized from behind; a scuffle took place; Akbar drew a pistol, a gift from the Envoy himself, and shot him in the body. Macnaghten fell from his horse and was instantly hewn in pieces; Captain Trevor was killed also, and the other two officers, Mackenzie and Laurence, were carried off to the town.
| The Retreat from Cabul. |
| Annihilation of the British Force. |
Deeper and deeper grows the horror—more profound the shame—as the story proceeds. General Elphinstone and Brigadier Shelton lay in their cantonments with 4,500 fighting men, with guns, and camp followers to the number of 12,000. Macnaghten’s bloody remains were dragged in triumph through the streets of Cabul, yet not an arm was raised to avenge him. Major Eldred Pottinger was for cutting their way out and dying on the field, but no one would listen to him: negotiations were opened with Akbar Khan, and the British force were allowed to march out, leaving all their guns except six, all their treasure and six officers as hostages. They started, upwards of 16,000 souls, to march through the stupendous Khyber Pass to Jellalabad in the very depth of winter. Akbar Khan’s safe-conduct proved the shadow of a shade; either he would not, or, as seems to have been the case, he could not, protect them from hordes of fanatic Ghilzies, who hovered along the route—shooting, stabbing, mutilating the wretched fugitives. Akbar, indeed rode with Elphinstone, and probably it was true, as he declared, that he could do nothing with his handful of horse to keep off the infuriated hillmen. At last it became evident that a choice must be made of a few who might be saved either from a bloody death or from perishing of cold in the snow and searching wind. Akbar proposed to take all the women and children into his own custody and convey them to Peshawur. The awful nature of the dilemma may be imagined when such a proposal was agreed to. Lady Macnaghten was placed in charge of the assassin of her husband: with her went Lady Sale, Mrs. Trevor, and eight other Englishwomen; and, as an extreme favour, a few married men were allowed to accompany their wives. General Elphinstone and two other officers were also taken as hostages. The rest struggled on as far as the Jugdulluck Pass. Then came the end: the hillsides were crowded with fierce mountaineers; the 44th Regiment were ordered to the front; they mutinied and threatened to shoot their officers, broke their ranks, and were cut down in detail by the Afghans. A general massacre followed. Out of more than 16,000 souls who marched out of Cabul, a sorry score of fugitives were all that left that horrible defile alive. Sixteen miles from Jellalabad, only six remained: still the murdering knife was plied, until, at last, one solitary haggard man, Dr. Brydon, rode into Jellalabad to tell of the literal annihilation of the army of Cabul, and announce to General Sale, commanding in that place, that his wife was in the hands of Akbar Khan.
There is little more to add. It had been part of Elphinstone’s shameful bargain with Akbar Khan that Jellalabad and Candahar should be evacuated before the army of Cabul should reach the former place, and orders had been sent to General Sale in Jellalabad and General Nott in Candahar to abandon these towns. Luckily, these officers were of the right British stamp, and they refused to obey. Akbar Khan besieged Sale in Jellalabad; Sale not only held that place but gave battle to the Afghans outside the fort, routed them, and made ready to co-operate with General Nott at Candahar for a forward movement on Cabul. But the faculties of Lord Auckland, the Governor-General, seemed paralysed. Regardless of British prestige, the very keystone of our rule in India, he ordered the precipitate recall of all the troops in Afghanistan. Luckily, again, his term of office was just drawing to a close, and Lord Ellenborough came out to take the reins of government. At first he issued a proclamation endorsing the withdrawal from Afghanistan, but more spirited counsel prevailed in the end. The re-conquest of Cabul was accomplished by the entry of General Pollock into the capital on September 15, 1842, when it was found that the unfortunate Shah Soojah had paid the penalty of the greatness thrust on him by English diplomacy, and had been assassinated by the people he had been set to rule. Of the English ladies and children who had been taken under the protection of Akbar Khan the story has been written in a once famous book, Lady Sale’s Journal. The husband of that lady, General Sir Robert Sale, was sent to recover the captives, who had suffered innumerable hardships. General Elphinstone had died—the best thing that could happen for his fame; the rest were found in a hill fort in the Indian Caucasus, in charge of a chief, who, having heard of Akbar Khan’s defeat, was easily bribed to surrender his trust. The retreat from Cabul had begun on January 6, but the news did not reach England till March 7.
| The Corn Duties. |
The Tories—or, as they must in future be called, the Conservatives—had been carried to power by a strong wave of reaction in 1841, but it was the destiny of their leader, Sir Robert Peel, to shake the fabric of the Party to its base. There was a story current, of dubious authenticity, about this statesman, how that in his early days his father, also Sir Robert, warned Lord Liverpool that if the young man did not get office immediately he would go over to the Whigs and be lost to his party, whereupon Liverpool immediately appointed him Irish Secretary. No doubt Peel was far more disposed for progress and reform than the average Whig, and there was something paradoxical in the fate that made him leader of the Tories. At first all went smoothly; the leader of the House of Commons was chief of the Ministerial forces and master of the Opposition also. But the first note of approaching storm was sounded on the eve of the meeting of Parliament in February, 1842. The Duke of Buckingham, Lord Privy Seal, resigned his office and seat in the Cabinet on January 31. The reason for this, as the Duke afterwards announced in Parliament, lay in the following expression in the Queen’s Speech:—“I recommend to your consideration the state of the laws which affect the importation of corn, and of other articles, the produce of foreign countries.” This little sentence, wedged in among the usual ceremonial or occasional paragraphs, contained the kernel of the Ministerial programme, and at once excited extraordinary interest in the country. On February 9, when Peel was to propound his scheme, the delegates of the Anti-Corn Law League marched down in procession to Westminster, and it required all the force of the police on duty to keep them from taking possession of the lobby of the House of Commons.
| The Pioneers of Free Trade. |
| Failure of Potato Crop in Ireland. |
This League was a remarkable organisation under a no less remarkable leader. Richard Cobden, the son of a yeoman farmer, was employed in his youth in a London warehouse, and then became partner in a Manchester cotton factory. He first attracted notice as a pamphleteer, attacking some of the most cherished traditions of British statesmanship. He travelled far and wide on the business of his firm, and in every country he visited his thoughtful mind gathered material for the doctrines inseparably associated with his name. He first entered Parliament in 1841, being recognised at that time as the leader of the movement in the country against the corn duties. Mr. Charles Villiers had won for himself the position of parliamentary head of the Free Trade party; to him Cobden came not as a rival but as a wise, resourceful ally. A third figure was soon to be added to this famous group in the person of John Bright, a Quaker manufacturer in Rochdale. A notable trio, each supplying the complement of the other’s qualities; Villiers, of aristocratic birth and connections, well acquainted with the rules and peculiar temperament of the House of Commons, ardent, industrious, and well informed; Cobden, a man of the people, temperate, just, “the apostle of common-sense,” and singularly persuasive; Bright, intensely—sternly in earnest, possessing gifts of oratory denied to his colleagues, but exercising them with a discretion rare among fluent speakers. Lastly, one attribute shared equally by each of the three men—absolute integrity and complete disinterestedness. They were Radicals, but they dissociated themselves from all ties of political party, looking for no reward from either side, but ready to support any Minister who would carry out their views. Their appeal was addressed to the understanding, not to the passions, of men: their aim was to secure cheap food for the masses, but they never stooped to inflammatory tirades against the classes. Hence the steady, rapid growth of the League, and its irresistible influence on the Queen’s Ministers. Mr. Villiers had advocated for many years the total abolition of the corn duties, and nothing less would now satisfy the League. Russell, who scouted the very idea of absolutely free imports, had yielded so far as to propose, in 1841, a fixed duty on foreign corn, greatly less than the existing rate, which varied between 27s. and 1s. per quarter, according to the market price. Peel came forward in 1842 with a more liberal remission of duty, but although his Bill was passed by a very large majority, all it did was to make the country party behind him uneasy without conciliating the Anti-Corn Law people. No one but men of the Manchester school—“Cobdenites,” as they afterwards came to be called—no one, either Whig or Tory, dreamt of denying that protection was desirable, even necessary, for agriculture. Peel’s first measure was framed to protect wheat growers against a fall in the average price below 56s. a quarter, and also to protect the consumer against a higher price. But the corn duties had been fixed in 1815: a whole generation had grown up under them: their outworks could not be tampered with without risking the stability of the whole structure. It required a momentum of extraordinary force to carry the movement against them to success. That impetus came, in the autumn of 1845, from two sources equally unforeseen. First arrived news of a destructive disease, wasting the potato crop in Ireland. Potatoes had grown to be to the Irish peasant what wheat is to English, what oats still were to Scottish labourers. The Government were informed that one-third of the food of the people was already destroyed, that the disease was still spreading, and no estimate could be formed of how much of the crop could be saved. Deadly disaster was imminent, and the Cabinet was summoned to many anxious deliberations. The Prime Minister advocated that in order to avert famine all ports should be thrown open to corn ships. He coupled this advice with the warning that, once the duties were suspended, he did not think it would be possible to re-establish them. The warning weighed more with the Cabinet than the advice. Three Ministers only—Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and Sidney Herbert—supported Peel’s proposal. It was set aside, and a Commission was appointed instead to take measures to mitigate the immediate necessity in Ireland.
| Lord John Russell’s conversion to Free Trade. |
The other source of impetus referred to was Lord John Russell’s declaration at this juncture of his total conversion to the principle of free trade in corn. His proposed modification in 1841 of the duties had been less liberal than that of Peel in 1842. It had been a fixed duty instead of a sliding scale. But there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of his conversion or to suspect him of merely desiring to gain a party advantage. The circumstances of the Anti-Corn Law party at the moment were not such as to tempt the leader of the Opposition to embrace their programme out of a mere desire to steal a march on his opponents.
| Peel and Repeal. |
| Rupture of the Tory Party. |
The immediate effect of Russell’s conversion, coming on the top of alarming news from Ireland, was to send Peel forward on a course he had been contemplating for years. He read a memorandum to the Cabinet on December 2 recommending that Parliament should be summoned early in January, and that he should submit a Bill for the practical and immediate repeal of the Corn Laws. Lord Stanley and the Duke of Buccleuch refused their support to this policy. The Duke of Wellington said he was still in favour of maintaining the Corn Laws, but that if Peel considered that their repeal was necessary for the maintenance of his position “in Parliament and in the public view,” he would support the measure. The Cabinet adjourned till next day. By some accident—it was said that a lady was the means of it—the Times became possessed of the secret, and on December 4 the startling announcement appeared in its columns that the Cabinet had resolved on the Repeal of the Corn Laws. The only modern parallel to the consternation ensuing in the clubs and the country may be found in that which took place when, in 1886, it was made known that Mr. Gladstone’s Cabinet had decided to give Home Rule to Ireland. Many refused to believe the statement in the Times, alleging that it was impossible that a Cabinet secret could have leaked out in this way. The Standard published an emphatic, though not authoritative, contradiction of the story. Excitement and dismay, delight and disgust, contended for mastery wheresoever a few men gathered together: in a few days all was known. Lord Stanley—the “Rupert of debate,” as Disraeli afterwards called him—and the Duke of Buccleuch resigned their seats in the Cabinet. Peel would not consent to proceed without the unanimous consent of his colleagues; on December 5 he went to Osborne and tendered his resignation to the Queen. Lord John Russell was at once sent for to form a Ministry: he attempted to do so, but failed: Lord Grey’s distrust of Lord Palmerston’s foreign policy proving a fatal obstacle to it. Peel, on being required to do so by the Queen, withdrew his resignation and resumed the duties of office. The Duke of Buccleuch returned as Privy Seal, but Lord Stanley was not to be reconciled, and Mr. Gladstone entered the Cabinet for the first time as Colonial Secretary.
| The Corn Duties repealed. |
Parliament met on January 22, 1846. Expectation was at the boiling point; it was one of those rare occasions, happening not more than once or twice in an ordinary reign, when the ears of the whole country await an announcement of interest to every class in it. Adopting an unusual, almost unprecedented, course, the Prime Minister rose immediately after the speeches of the mover and seconder of the Address: he entered into no details of the measure foreshadowed in the Queen’s Speech, but he removed all shadow of doubt that the Ministry had resolved on the total repeal of the corn duties. Those who know the ways of the House of Commons will best understand the significance of a comment made by one who was present. “He did not get a solitary cheer from the people behind him except when he said that Stanley had always been against him... and then the whole of those benches rung with cheers.” Perhaps nothing in his speech gave deeper offence to his Party than the concluding sentence, in which he declared that he found it “no easy task to ensure the harmonious and united action of an ancient monarchy, a proud aristocracy, and a reformed House of Commons.”
The spokesman of the angry Tories was one of whom much was to be heard in coming years. Benjamin Disraeli had done nothing as yet to redeem the apparently hopeless failure of his maiden speech in 1837. Outwardly, a remarkable figure enough, in a Parliamentary sense he was no more than obscure when he rose from his seat on the Government benches to lead the first attack on the new policy. He was bitter, he was personal, but he was adroitly opportune; and his fame as a statesman dates from that day.
| Defeat and Resignation of the Government. |
The immediate result was a split—a secession. The House of Commons ratified Peel’s policy by a majority of ninety-seven, but Disraeli himself has put on record the feelings which animated Peel’s ancient supporters. “Vengeance had succeeded in most breasts to the more sanguine sentiment: the field was lost, but at any rate there should be retribution for those who had betrayed it.”
The opportunity for vengeance was not long delayed. The Corn Bill left the House of Commons on May 15. On June 25 it passed the third reading in the House of Lords, and the most momentous measure of Queen Victoria’s reign awaited only the Royal Assent to complete it. On that very night the House of Commons were to divide on one of those Bills conferring extraordinary powers on the Executive in Ireland which it has been the fate of successive Governments to introduce—Coercion Bills, as they are called for short. The Protectionists perceived what lay in their power: if they threw their weight in with the regular Opposition and O’Connell’s Irish Catholics, they could defeat their lost leader. About eighty of them did so: the rest stayed away and Ministers were left in a minority of seventy-three.
Peel resigned: “he had lost a party but won a nation.” He never returned to office, but, though he did not live to see it, the principles for which he fought and fell became those of the Conservative party.
| Review of Peel’s Administration. |
During the five years of his last Administration he had restored equilibrium to the national finances. He turned the deficit of two millions to which he succeeded to a surplus of five millions in 1845. He carried the grant to the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth against the votes of half his own party, though it cost him the loss of his colleague, Mr. W. E. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone himself lived to abolish the grant, for it was he who ruled the whirlwind that swept away the Irish State Church in 1866, and the Maynooth grants disappeared with it. Peel’s Administration must also be credited with a marked advance in legislation for the working classes. Lord Ashley (better known in later years as Earl of Shaftesbury) had obtained the appointment of a Commission to inquire into the employment of women in collieries: the horrible evils thereby brought to light, the infamous degradation of women and girls, harnessed like beasts of draught with a girdle round their waist—unclothed, unwashed, and sometimes hopelessly crippled—deeply moved the public mind, and the Act of 1842, prohibiting the employment of females in mines, passed almost without opposition. More prolonged was the resistance to the Factory Act of 1844, regulating the hours of labour of youthful persons. This beneficent legislation should not be overlooked in the glare of conflict over the Corn Laws.