country, he announced, on the following Monday, his own retirement.1

The fall of Peel in June 1846 was undoubtedly due to the rage which his policy excited among his followers. They could not forget his sacrifice of protection; they could not forgive the repeal of the Corn Laws. As a general rule the historian has no need to interrupt his narrative to indicate the results of the legislation which he records. But the fiscal reforms which Peel carried were of so much importance, the predictions of his opponents were so signally falsified, that it is necessary to depart from the ordinary rule in the present instance.

The results of Free

Trade.

England, so the Protectionists declared, had flourished on Protection. If Protection were withdrawn, they argued, trade would stagnate, agriculture would decay. Fortunately it is possible to test the worth of these predictions by accepted statistics, and the policy which Cobden proposed and which Peel adopted rests no longer on uncertain presumptions but on certain facts. The real or declared value of the exports of British and Irish produce amounted in 1815, the last year of the great war, to £49,653,245; in 1842 it had fallen to £47,284.988. Such had been the result of twenty-seven years' protection. It had risen in 1869 to £189,953,957. Such had been the result of twenty-seven years of free trade.2

It may, however, be thought that these results, startling as they are, do not affect the main issue. Agriculture, so it was asserted in 1846, could not thrive without protection. Farmers pay their income-tax under what is known as Schedule B., and they pay on the rental of their land. The gross assessment of property under this schedule represents, there-· fore, with sufficient accuracy the agricultural rent of Great

1 Hansard, vol. lxxxvii. p. 1040.

2 The figures for 1815 are from M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary, those of 1842 and 1869 from Statistical Abstracts. 1869 has been selected in the text because it is twenty-seven years from 1842, just as 1842 is twenty-seven years from 1815. The results would have looked much more surprising if one of the next four years had been chosen.

Britain. The gross assessment under Schedule B. amounted in 1815 to £38,396,144. It rose in 1846 to £47,170,589. In thirty-one years during which a corn law had existed the assessment had been increased by £8,780,000. In 1877, however, it had risen to £59,300, 285, or by £12,130,000. Thirty-one years of protection had added rather less than £9,000,000 to the annual value of agricultural land in Great Britain. Thirty-one years of free trade had added more than £12,000,000 to it.1

There is one other test which may possibly be applied to the measures which Peel originated. In 1815 the population of England and Wales amounted to about 11,000,000; in 1842 it exceeded 16,000,000; in 1869 it exceeded 22,000,000. There are no means of ascertaining the number of poor in 1815, but the roll of paupers amounted in 1842 to 1,429,c00,2 or, in other words, one person out of every eleven was a pauper. The roll of paupers had fallen in 1869 to 1,039,000; and, in round numbers, only one person in every twenty-one was a pauper. This comparison is in some measure imperfect, because it is impracticable to state the exact number of paupers in 1815. But criminal statistics have been kept with more accuracy. In 1815, 7818 persons were committed for trial, or one person in every 1400 of the population; in 1842, 31,309 persons were committed for trial, or one person in every 500 of the population; in 1869, 19,318 persons were committed for trial, or one person in every 1100 of the population.

Three things, then, are beyond dispute. 1. Commerce,

1 The figures for 1815 and 1843 are from the Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue for 1870, pp. 185, 192; those for 1877 from the Statistical Abstract. Lord Malmesbury, in his Memoirs, vol. i. p. 139. quotes a prediction of his steward's, that the landed proprietors will lose at least 15 per cent. of their rents by Peel's Bill of 1842, and he adds that " experience has shown that this is far under the mark." Experience has shown exactly the reverse. 2 Ante, vol. iv. p. 358.

$ Statistical Abstract. The comparison would again be much more favourable if a later year had been taken.

The committals and not the convictions are selected, because the committals represent the crime, the convictions its detection. The figures are from Porter's Progress of the Nation, p. 642, and the Statistical Abstract.

which stagnated under protective laws, has been rapidly developed under free trade. 2. Agriculture, which progressed from 1815 to 1846, progressed more rapidly from 1846 to 1877. 3. The social condition of the people, which probably reached its maximum of wretchedness in 1842, was materially improved under the new system. Those persons who are best acquainted with statistics will perhaps hesitate to ascribe the vast improvement in trade, agriculture, and morals to free trade and cheap food alone; other causes, such as steam, have played a part in developing industry, just as other causes, such as education, have had a part in reforming society. But these reforms have at least been accomplished under free trade, and all the predictions of ail the Protectionists have proved idle.

For free trade this country is indebted to Peel, for cheap food it is indebted primarily to Cobden. But, just as Peel was the statesman who in 1819 applied Horner's theories to the currency, and who in 1829 applied Canning's principles to religious legislation, so Peel was the minister who adopted Cobden's views, and gave a nation untaxed bread. Verily the English reward their chief benefactors in their own way. In oid Rome Coriolanus was driven into exile because he denied the people corn. In England Peel was driven from office because he gave the people cheap food.

The formation of the

Russell
Ministry.

CHAPTER XX.

THE RETURN OF THE WHIGS TO POWER.

THE defeat of Peel in the summer of 1846 placed a statesman in office who had only a minority of the House of Commons to depend on. There were, indeed, two quarters from which some people thought that Russell might obtain assistance. The free traders under Peel might become the allies of the Whigs from conviction, the Protectionists from circumstance. Support from the former Russell would have gladly secured, but those of thein to whom he applied for co-operation refused to desert their leader in the hour of his defeat. Support from the latter he could only obtain by abandoning the policy of free trade to which he was impelled both by necessity and reason. Unable, therefore, to secure the assistance of the free traders who thought with him; unwilling to apply to the Bentincks and the Disraelis, with whom he had little in common, Russell was forced to rely on his own immediate supporters in the composition of the new ministry.

These supporters were divided into two classes-the old Whigs and the new Liberals. The former comprised the men who had held office under Melbourne, the latter included the advanced thinkers of the party who under Cobden's guidance had destroyed the Corn Laws. Russell formed his Cabinet out of the narrow circle of his old colleagues. Cottenham returned to the Woolsack, Palmerston to the Foreign Office, Lansdowne to the Council Office, Auckland to the Admiralty; Minto became Privy Seal; Lord Grey, Colonial Secretary; his relative,

1 The men to whom Russell applied were Dalhousie, Lincoln, and Sidney Herbert, three of the latest additions to Peel's Cabinet. Recollections and Suggestions, p. 242.

154

position.

Sir George Grey, Home Secretary; Hobhouse was appointed to the Board of Control, Clarendon to the Board Its comof Trade, Campbell to the Duchy of Lancaster, Clanricarde to the Post Office; Bessborough, who, as Duncannon, had held office under Grey and Melbourne, became Viceroy of Ireland; he took with him Labouchere as Chief Secretary; Morpeth was sent to the Woods and Forests, Macaulay became Paymaster of the Forces. Russell himself succeeded to the Treasury. He promoted Wood, who almost immediately afterwards, on his father's death, became Sir Charles Wood, to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer.

Each of these appointments was defensible on its own merits. But it was nevertheless possible to urge an objection to the Cabinet as a whole. Formed to represent the party of progress, it did everything but represent it. It looked too much like a family party to which the nearest and dearest friends of the minister had been invited. The men who had fought the battle of free trade had no place in the Whig council. Mr. Villiers, whose name and whose connections procured him the offer of a seat in the new Cabinet, refused office. Cobden, whose health was driving him abroad, was put off with a civil letter; and the free traders, who had stormed the citadel of protection, saw, as their share of the spoil, the appointment of Milner Gibson to an inferior office in the Board of Trade.

1 There is an excellent account of the members of the Cabinet in Lord Campbell's Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 203. Exceptionally few changes occurred in the composition of this ministry. (1) Macaulay, defeated at the general election, retired from Parliament and office, and was succeeded by Lord Granville. (2) On the death of Bessborough, Clarendon was made Viceroy of Ireland, and at the same time Labouchere was promoted to the Board of Trade, while Sir W. Somerville became Chief Secretary for Ireland. (3) On the death of Auckland, Sir Francis Baring became First Lord of the Admiralty. After these changes had been made, Bright pointed out that the Cabinet contained seven peers, Cottenham, Lansdowne, Minto, Grey, Campbell, Clanricarde, Carlisle, and two persons, Russell and Palmerston, "precisely of the same class and order ;" and "five other gentlemen, four of whom are baronets, and one is not a baronet. Of these I find that one is the son-in-law and brother-in-law of a peer, another is the son-in-law of a peer, another is the nephew of a peer, another is the grandson of a peer and the nephew of a peer by marriage, and the last is the son-in-law of a peer." Hansard, vol. cv. p. 1209. 2 Morley's Cobden, vol. i. p. 403.