tectionists had not been so near a victory since Peel had adopted the principles of free trade.

Shaken by the effects of this division, uneasy at the protracted strife on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, the ministry desired to make a vigorous effort to retrieve its position. A good Budget would, it was thought, reunite a party The Budget. distracted by religious controversy. It was known

that the revenue had been unexpectedly large; that considerable savings had been effected in the expenditure; and it was assumed that a growing income and a cautious economy would combine to place a considerable surplus at the Chancellor of the Exchequer's disposal. Unfortunately for the ministry, this knowledge quickened expectation; and exaggerated rumours were freely circulated of the surplus which it was supposed that Wood would have at his command. When the Budget was proposed, on the night which succeeded. the decision on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, there was a general disappointment on discovering that the surplus available for distribution did not quite reach £1,900,000. Still, this sum, if it were not adequate for effecting the reforms

which Disraeli had pointed, was sufficient to enable the

1 The revenue of 1850 had been estimated at £52,285,000, the expenditure at £50,763,000. Ante, p. 227. In 1851 Wood declared that the revenue would probably reach £52,656,000, that the expenditure would probably only amount to £50,134,000, and that the surplus would reach £2,521,000. He did not venture, however, for the ensuing year (1851-52) to place the revenue at more than £52,140,000, the expenditure at less than £50,247,171, and the surplus at more than £1,892,829. The actual Budget figures were as follows:

Chancellor of the Exchequer to remedy some of the ills of which the agriculturists complained. But, to their sorrow and disappointment, they found that, instead of attending to their complaints, he was intent on taking some further steps in the direction of free trade. Foreign coffee had hitherto paid a duty of 6d, colonial coffee of 4d. a pound. Wood proposed to place an uniform duty of 3d. on all kinds of coffee. Sawn timber had hitherto paid a duty of 20s., hewn timber of 15s. To the dismay of country gentlemen, who had acres devoted to timber and pheasants, Wood proposed to reduce these duties by one-half. Foreign seeds had hitherto paid a duty of 55., colonial seeds of 2s. 6d. per cwt. Wood proposed to fix the duty on all seeds at Is. These changes respectively absorbed £176,000, £286,oco, and £30,000 of the surplus.1

The

One other change of much more importance was proposed at the same time. For rather more than one hundred and fifty years a tax had been imposed on windows. window-tax. In the first instance it had been associated with a house-tax. All houses were required to pay a tax of 25. But an additional tax of 4s. and 8s. was exacted from houses with ten or twenty windows. These taxes were increased in the reign of Queen Anne, separated in Pelham's Ministry, trebled by Pitt, augmented by Addington and Perceval, and afterwards reduced by Robinson.2 In 1834 Althorp had been induced to repeal the house-tax.3 It may be doubted whether he would not have acted more wisely if he had maintained the house-tax and repealed the window-duty. The rent of a house is not an accurate test of its occupier's income, but it is a much better test than the number of windows which the house contains.

The inequality of the window tax was not the only objection to it. Its existence was deplored by the sanitary reformer. Air and sunshine are among the first requirements of healthy dwellings, and the window-tax induced every builder to shut 1 Hansard, vol. cxiv. pp. 728-734.

2 Ibid., vol. xcvi. p. 1255, where a good history of the tax is given. For Robinson's reductions, see ante, vol. ii. pp. 151, 184.

3 Ante, vol. iii. p. 436.

out the sun and exclude the air. Poor men were unable to afford the luxury of adequate windows for their dwelling-rooms, or of any windows for their closets. Lord Duncan, the grandson of the great admiral whose famous victory placed him. among the foremost of England's naval heroes, had the merit of drawing attention to the evils of the tax in 1845, in 1848, and in 1850. On each occasion he experienced defeat. But the defeat of 1850 partook of the nature of a drawn battle; and in 1851 Wood decided on abolishing the tax. The surplus, however, did not enable him to sweep it away without providing a substitute. He therefore determined to retrace the steps which Althorp had taken in 1834, to substitute a house-tax for a window-tax, but to exempt from the new tax all houses worth less than £20 a year. The change, he estimated, would involve a loss to the revenue of £701,000 a year.2

There was nothing in this Budget which it was easy to criticise, but there was nothing in it to excite enthusiasm. Free traders complained that it did nothing for trade. Country gentlemen declared that it did nothing for agriculture. All that the farmers had secured by the great debate on Disraeli's motion was the remission of £30,000 of taxation on seeds. Before the House had recovered from its disappointment, Locke King, the member for Surrey, the second Locke King's son of Lord King, asked for leave to introduce a bill motion. to place householders in counties on the same footing in respect to the franchise as householders in towns. It is not usual to oppose preliminary motions of this character. The fate of bills in the House of Commons is usually decided on the debate on the second reading, and their introduction is generally conceded as a matter of courtesy. Russell, however, on this occasion deviated from the customary course.

He

1 The motion in 1845 was for inquiry. Hansard, vol. lxxviii. p. 1054. Duncan was beaten by 93 votes to 47. Ibid., p. 1092. The motion of 1848 was for repeal, and was rejected by 160 votes to 68. Ibid., vol. xcvi. pp. 1254-1297. The motion of 1850 was only rejected by 80 votes to 77. Ibid., vol. cx. p. 99. 2 The window-tax yielded £1,856,000. The new house-tax of 1s. in the pound on all dwelling-houses, and of 9d. in the pound on all shops, &c., was estimated to yield £1,155,000. Ibid., vol. cxiv. p. 726.

admitted the necessity for the further extension of the franchise; he promised that the Government would introduce a measure for extending it in the course of 1852; and he asked the House, on receiving this assurance, to reject Locke King's motion. His speech split his party into two sections. Advanced Liberals who desired reform supported Locke King, and Russell could only hope for a majority by enlisting support from the Opposition. The Conservatives, almost to a man, were opposed to Locke King, but the defeat of the Government was a much greater object to them than the rejection of a motion which pledged the House to very little. Instead of supporting the ministry, they walked away; and Russell. in a thin House, composed almost entirely of his own friends, was defeated by a majority of nearly two to one. His situation had become intolerable. The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill could only be carried by the assistance of his opponents; the division on Disraeli's motion made it doubtful whether the Budget could be carried at all. Locke King's success placed him in a new dilemma. Men who had experienced the humiliations which had been heaped on the Government during the decline and fall of the Melbourne Administration could not desire to cling to office when their power had departed from them. The Cabinet unanimously decided to retire, and on Saturday morning, the 22nd of February, Russell placed his resignation in the queen's hands.

The ministerial crisis of 1851.

Then ensued a singular crisis. The queen, taking the ordinary course, sent for Stanley as the recognised leader of the Opposition. But Stanley, hesitating to accept office in a hostile Parliament before every other expedient had been adopted, advised her to strengthen her old ministry by consolidating the Whigs with the small body of distinguished men who had been identified with the fortunes of Peel. The attempt was made and failed. Aberdeen and Graham declined to join the ministry unless 1 By 100 votes to 52. Hansard, vol. cxiv. p. 869.

2 Russell had frequently endeavoured to obtain Graham's help, offering him the Admiralty, the Governor-Generalship of India, &c.; see Greville, second series, vol. iii. pp. 87, 92, 259, 410.

the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill was abandoned; and Russell, though he offered to modify the measure, declined to withdraw it. The failure of the proposed coalition forced the queen to apply again to Aberdeen and Stanley. Each of these statesmen felt that he was too weak to stand alone;1 and Aberdeen was still more unwilling to join the protectionists than to coalesce with the Whigs. On the exhaustion of every expedient, the queen, on the advice of Wellington, turned once more to her old advisers, and Russell was persuaded to resume place. It would be misleading to add that he returned to power.2

Titles Bill.

The circumstances in which the ministry had quitted office, as well as those in which it resumed it, justified a consideration of its policy. On the 7th of March, Grey, as Secretary of State for the Home Department, explained the alterations which his colleagues had decided on introducing into the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill; while, on the 4th of The EccleApril, Wood, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, siastical stated the modifications which it was intended to make in the Budget. The second edition of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill was not more acceptable to Churchmen and Conservatives than the first. In its original shape the measure had prevented Roman Catholic prelates from doing any acts, receiving any gifts, or succeeding to any property under territorial titles. In its amended shape the bill merely made it illegal for them to assume titles of this character. It was declared by Grey that it would be a "national protest" against the act of the Pope. It was not, however, clear why, if a national protest only were required, it was necessary to legislate at all. During the negotiations in the preceding

3

1 According to Lord Malmesbury, Stanley's refusal was due to the timid conduct of Herries and Henley. Memoirs of an ex-Minister, p. 207, Cf. Greville, second series, vol. iii. p. 387; and Edinburgh Review, No. 332, P. 517.

2 The explanations on this crisis are in Hansard, vol. cxiv. pp. 996, 1029. Cf. Martin's Prince Consort, vol. ii. p. 346 et seq.; Stockmar's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 245; Recollections and Suggestions, p. 257; and Lord Aberdeen's letter to Princess Lieven in Edinburgh Review, No. 324, P. 554.

3 Hansard, vol. cxiv. p. 1134.