Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/230

 The Bank of England was constituted a ‘controlling and central body’ in the matter of the issue of bank notes; (2) it was divided into two branches, an issue and a banking department, the latter branch being wholly free of government interference, except only that it was obliged to publish its accounts; (3) the issue department was allowed to utter notes, such notes to be secured as follows: ‘The fixed amount of securities on which I propose that the bank of England should issue notes is 14,000,000l., the whole of the remainder of the circulation to be issued exclusively on the foundation of bullion’ (ib. p. 360).

As for Ireland, Peel always considered it the great difficulty of his life, and a cartoon of ‘Punch’ represented him as the modern Sisyphus rolling uphill a huge stone, the head of O'Connell, while the whigs look on smiling at his discomfiture. He was a strong supporter of the union, and on 25 April 1834 had given a final pronouncement on that subject in a speech the peroration of which is among his best. Now O'Connell resolved to measure himself once more against his old rival, and announced that 1843 was to be the repeal year. Agitation and crime grew side by side, and in 1843 the government carried an arms act. Still O'Connell defied them, and a great meeting was summoned to be held in the autumn at Clontarf. It was proclaimed and prohibited; O'Connell was arrested and imprisoned for conspiracy. The verdict was, however, set aside in September 1844 by the House of Lords on a technical plea, and he was released. But his influence had been broken, and was not to revive. Peel, however, was not the minister to rest satisfied with so barren a triumph. Hitherto he had not had an opportunity of dealing with Ireland in a comprehensive manner, for it was his maxim that a government should only undertake one great measure at a time. But he now took two important steps as the introduction to a wide scheme of Irish policy. In 1843 he appointed the well-known Devon Commission to inquire into the ‘state of the law and practice in respect to the occupation of land in Ireland.’ The report, presented in 1845, revealed to the public, for the first time, the real state of Ireland. The second step was to send, in Peel's phrase, ‘a message of peace to Ireland.’ He adopted in 1845 the measure of increasing the annual grant to Maynooth, a college for the education of the Irish priesthood, from 9,000l. to about 26,000l., and of establishing certain queen's colleges on a non-sectarian basis. Again, as in 1829, the minister was assailed by all the bigotry of protestant England. The tory portion of the conservative party, to the number of about one hundred, voted against him; and Disraeli, a member since 1843 of the Young England party, seized his opportunity and, fomented by his exertions, ‘the disgust of the Conservatives and their hatred of Peel kept swelling every day’ (, ii. 277). On the other hand, Peel haughtily declined to notice these personal attacks. The measure was not of any magnitude in itself. It is remarkable, however, as an indication of Peel's tendency, that, in private conversation at Nuneham a few years later, he recommended as a measure fit to be adopted the endowment of the Roman catholic church in Ireland (, Recollections, p. 213). But this by no means exhausted his scheme of policy. In offering to William Gregory the conduct of Irish business in 1846, he used these words: ‘It will hereafter be a matter of pride to you to be associated with measures of a wide and generous character, which may entirely change the aspect of Ireland to England’ (, Autobiography, p. 129). Unhappily Peel fell in 1846, before he could mature his plans. Too late, he pressed a portion of them on the whig ministry in the debate 30 March 1849. He then stated that at the root of the Irish question were ‘the monstrous evils which arise out of the condition of landed property,’ and he pressed for a commission with powers for ‘facilitating the transfer of property from insolvent to solvent proprietors.’ Something, but not much, was done, and twenty years passed before another scheme was carried to its fulfilment by Mr. Gladstone, Peel's arduous disciple.

Lastly, there were the corn laws. The principle of the acts of 1815 and 1822 had been the total prohibition of the importation of foreign corn until the price had risen very high in the home market. But the act of 1828, passed while Peel was a minister, abolished prohibition and substituted a duty varying inversely with the price of corn—in other words, a sliding scale. After the Reform Act the question slowly rose into prominence. But it remained open until the whig government, on the eve of its fall in 1841, had declared for a fixed duty of eight shillings the quarter. On the other hand, Peel declared for the existing law subject to certain necessary amendments, and during the winter of 1841 brought the matter before the cabinet in two memoranda. For his method of business in the cabinet was to prepare and read to his colleagues an exposition of his views on any subject, and subse-