Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/386

Rh The Mel bourne ministry Chart ism. Full of the Wliis Govern ment. Peel s second ministry. Free trade. Tenden cies of the age. 3G6 to become amenable to those evil influences to which their fathers had succumbed. The new minister dissolved parliament. The increase in the numbers of his followers showed that the country had to some extent taken alarm. But he could not com mand a majority, and he resigned office in favour of Lord Melbourne (1835). The Melbourne ministry signalized its accession to office by the reform of the municipal corpora tions. Then came the lowering of the stamp duty on news papers and the Tithe Commutation Act (1836), benefiting the landholders and the clergy alike. The foundation was laid of many a beneficial change. The accession of Queen Victoria (1837) did not cut short the tenure of power of the ministry. But the condition of the manufacturing poor was deplorable, and it gave rise to the Chartist agitation for admission to equal political rights with the middle classes. A large body of Chartists threatened an appeal to physical force, and the terror pro duced by these threats swelled the tide of Conservative re action. The ministry suffered, too, from a lack of financial ability. They were bold enough where they saw their way. The introduction of the penny postage (1840) was a daring step in the face of embarrassed finances, though it might be supported by the success of the lowering of the news paper stamp duty in 1836. In 1841 ministers produced free trade measures as the best remedy for existing evils. But they were already discredited by past ill success in the management of the exchequer, and the hostile majority in the new parliament which carried Peel to power was the expression as much of want of confidence in their ability as of dislike of their measures. The Conservative ministry followed in the steps of its predecessors. An income tax was once more laid on (1842) to enable the prime minister to reduce the duties on im ports. With respect to corn, he imposed a sliding scale of duties, which shut out foreign corn in seasons of low prices, and allowed it to come in in seasons of high prices. Outside parliament a great association, the Anti-Corn-Law League, with Richard Cobden as its principal spokesman, poured forth unanswerable arguments on behalf of the entire freedom from duty of imported food. It was a fortunate circumstance that the free trade doctrines won their way by degrees. Victories are not won by reason alone, and it is no wonder that after a parliament in which the landowners were more thair usually strong had deprived the manufacturers of protection, the manufacturers dis covered that the arguments which had been found good in their case would also hold good in the case of the land owners, especially after they had learnt from their own ex perience that prosperity was likely to result from the change. At last Sir Robert Peel, shaken by argument and moved by the difficulty of providing for an Irish famine, proposed and carried the repeal of the corn duties (1846). Peel s resolution broke up his party, and made his retire ment from office inevitable. Lord John Russell, who suc ceeded him, completed the system which Peel had estab lished. The markets were thrown open to foreign as well .as to colonial sugar (1846), and the repeal of the naviga tion laws (1847) enabled the merchant to employ foreign ships and seamen in the conveyance of his goods ; and after the. short ministry of Lord Derby (1852), another sweeping abolition of duties was carried by Mr Gladstone as chancellor of the exchequer in the ministry of Lord Aberdeen (1853). The changes in the direction of free trade were accom panied by a large number of other changes which have left their mark on the statute-book and on the habits of the people. There is no mistaking the tendency of this great era of legislation under the influence of the reform by vhioh the balance of power had swayed over to the middle [HISTORY. classes in 1832. The idea which was steadily making its way was the idea of testing all questions by the interest of the nation as a whole, and of disregarding in comparison the special interests of particular classes. It was this idea which lay at the root of the scientific doctrine on which the free traders founded their practice, and which com mended that practice to imaginations as well as to the desires of the mass of the population. This combination of thought with popular movement towards equality was but one of the maniiestations of that greater movement which had been passing over Europe ever since the beginning of the French Revolution. It was assisted by the character of the material progress of the time. When the soil of the country was covered with a network of railways, when the electric telegraph began to come into use, and all parts of the country were brought into closer connection with one another, when the circula tion of books and newspapers became more easy and more rapid, the sense of unity grew stronger with the growth of the means of communication. Nor was it only the cerise of the unity of the various parts of the country which was growing. Class drew nearer to class, and the wants, the desires, and the prejudices of each were better understood than they had formerly been. Slowly but surely the influence of education spread. The duty of legislating for the benefit of the weak and the poor was better under stood, tempered by an increasing understanding of the evils of interference with liberty of action. In the midst of the tendency to equality, the old English belief in the virtue of liberty was strengthened by the knowledge imparted by a more scientific conception of human nature. It was impossible that this change should pass over the Further national mind without giving rise to a desire to include reform the working class in that body of electors in whose hands P r po political power was ultimately placed. Before the end of Lord John Russell s ministry, a new Reform Bill had been introduced by the Government (1852), but it did not pass into law Soon after Lord Aberdeen s accession to office the mind of the nation was too completely taken up with foreign affairs to attend to organic changes at home. The attack upon Turkey by the emperor of Russia was resisted by the allied forces of England and France, England was jealous of Russian advancement in the East ; and in the hands of the emperor Nicholas the government of Russia was a military despotism so brutal, and was so heavily laid in the scale in opposition to all liberal progress on the Continent, that England and France might well have been regarded as fighting the battle of Europe as well as contending in their own cause. The invasion of the Crimea and the victory of the Alma were followed by the The siege of Sebastopol and the successful defence of the heights Crimeai above Inkerman (1854). Inexperience in war left the war&amp;gt; English army especially exposed to hardships in the winter ; and when operations were resumed in the summer, it was far outnumbered by its French allies, who consequently gained the greater part of the credit of the capture of Sebastopol (1855). In the following winter mistakes had been corrected, and the condition of the English anr.y was worthy of the nation which sent it forth. The peace which was signed at Paris (1856) deprived it of the opportunity of showing its powers. The terms, so far as thr^ Imposed restrictions upon Russia, have not proved of any permanent value; and the idea which then prevailed that the Turks were likely to advance in the course of political and social improvement was without any corresponding basis in the region of facts It was quite right that the settlement of the unhappy regions commonly known as Turkey in Europe should be taken up as European rather than a Russian duty, but it is a duty the distractions or jealousies of Euro pean powers left unfulfilled, till Russia at last stepped