Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/478

 456 PEEL From 1835 to 1840 he pursued the same course of patient and far-sighted opposition, the end of which, sure though distant, was not only office but power. In 1837 the Conservative members of the House of Commons, with victory now in sight, gave their leader a grand banquet at Merchant Taylors Hall, where he proclaimed in a great speech the creed and objects of his party. In 1839, the Whigs having resigned on the Jamaica Bill, he was called on to form a Government, but failed, through the refusal of the queen, by advice of Lords John Russell and Palmer- ston, to part with the ladies of her bedchamber, whom he deemed it necessary to replace by ladies not connected with his political opponents. His time was not even yet fully come. In 1840 he was hurried, it is believed by the ardour of his followers, into a premature motion of want of confidence, which was brought forward by Sir John Yarde Buller and failed. But in the following year a similar motion was carried by a majority of one, and the Whigs were compelled to appeal to the country. The result was a majority of ninety- one against them on a motion of want of confidence in the autumn of 1841, upon which they resigned, and Sir Robert Peel, becoming first lord of the treasury, with a commanding majority in both Houses of Parliament, the country in his favour, and many colleagues of the highest ability and distinction, grasped with no doubtful hold the reins of power. The crisis called for a master-hand. The finances were in disorder. For some years there had been a growing deficit, which for 1841 was upwards of two millions, and attempts to supply this deficit by additions to assessed taxes and customs duties had failed. Distress and discon tent reigned in the country, especially among the trading and manufacturing classes. The great financier took till the spring of 1842 to mature his plans. He then boldly supplied the deficit by imposing an income-tax on all in comes above a certain amount. He accompanied this tax with a reform of the tariff, by which prohibitory duties were removed and other duties abated on a vast number of articles of import, especially the raw materials of manu factures and prime articles of food. The increased con sumption, as the reformer expected, countervailed the reduction of duty. The income-tax was renewed and the reform of the tariff carried still further on the same prin ciple in 1845. The result was, in place of a deficit of upwards of two millions, a surplus of five millions in 1845, and the removal of seven millions and a half of taxes up to 1847, not only without loss, but with gain to the ordi nary revenue of the country. The prosperous state of the finances and of public affairs also permitted a reduction of the interest on a portion of the national debt, giving a yearly saving at once of 625,000, and ultimately of a million and a quarter to the public. In 1844 another great financial measure, the Bank Charter Act, was passed and, though severely controverted and thrice suspended at a desperate crisis, has ever since regulated the currency of the country. In Ireland O ConnelPs agitation for the repeal of the Union had now assumed threatening propor tions, and verged upon rebellion. The great agitator was prosecuted, with his chief adherents, for conspiracy and sedition ; and, though the conviction was quashed for in formality, repeal was quelled in its chief. At the same time a healing hand was extended to Ireland. The Chari table Bequests Act gave Roman Catholics a share in the administration of charities and legal power to endow their own religion. The allowance to Maynooth was largely increased, notwithstanding violent Protestant opposition. Three queen s colleges, for the higher education of all the youth of Ireland, without distinction of religion, were founded, notwithstanding violent opposition, both Protest ant and Roman Catholic. The principle of toleration, once accepted, was thoroughly carried out. The last remnants of the penal laws were swept from the statute-book, and justice was extended to the Roman Catholic Church in Canada and Malta. In the same spirit Acts were passed for clearing from doubt Irish Presbyterian marriages, for settling the titles of a large number of dissenters chapels in England, and removing the municipal disabilities of the Jews. The grant for national education was trebled, and an attempt was made, though in vain, to introduce effective education clauses into the factory bills. To the alienation of any part of the revenues of the Established Church Sir Robert Peel never would consent ; but he had issued the ecclesiastical commission, and he now made better provi sion for a number of populous parishes by a redistribution of part of the revenues of the church. The weakest part of the conduct of this great Government, perhaps, was its failure to control the railway mania by promptly laying down the lines on a Government plan. It passed an Act in 1844 which gave the Government a right of purchase, and it had prepared a palliative measure in 1846, but was compelled to sacrifice this, like all other secondary measures, to the repeal of the corn laws. It failed also, though not without an effort, to avert the great schism in the Church of Scotland. Abroad it was as prosperous as at home. It had found disaster and disgrace in Afghanistan. It speedily ended the war there with honour. By the hand of its governor-general of India the invading Sikhs were destroyed upon the Sutlej. Guizot has said that the ob jects not only the ostensible but the real objects of Sir Robert Peel s foreign policy were peace and justice among nations. The angry and dangerous questions with France, touching the right of search, the war in Morocco, and the Tahiti affair, and with the United States touching the Maine boundary and the Oregon territory, were happily settled by frank and patient negotiation. In this and in other parts of his administration Sir Robert Peel was well seconded by the ability of his colleagues, but the premier himself was the soul of all. Yet there was a canker in all this greatness. There were malcontents in Sir Robert Peel s party whose presence often caused embarrassment and twice collision and scan dal. The Young Englanders disliked him because he had hoisted the flag of Conservatism instead of Toryism on the morrow of the Reform Bill. The strong philanthropists and Tory Chartists disliked him because he was a strict economist and an upholder of the new poor law. But the fatal question was protection. That question was being fast brought to a crisis by public opinion and the Anti- Corn-Law League. Sir Robert Peel had become in prin ciple a free-trader. Since his accession to power a new responsibility had fallen on him, which compelled him to think less of a class and more of the people. He had expressed to Guizot a deep, nay, a passionate conviction that something must be done to relieve the suffering and precarious condition of the labouring classes. He had lowered the duties of the sliding scale, and thereby caused the secession from the cabinet of the duke of Buckingham. He had alarmed the farmers by admitting foreign cattle and meat under his new tariff, and by admitting Canadian corn. He had done his best in his speeches to put the maintenance of the corn laws on low ground, and to wean the landed interest from their reliance on protection. But to protection the landed interest fondly clung ; and it is hard to say how far Sir Robert Peel himself dreaded the consequences of repeal to the steadiness of prices and to mortgaged estates. The approach of the Irish famine in 1845 decisively turned the wavering balance. The ports must be opened, and, being opened, they could not again be closed upon the same conditions. The Clare election and Catholic emancipation were played over again. Sir