Distrust is usually mutual. The neglect of the minister was resented by the subordinate; the clock, moreover, to go on with the metaphorical quotation, was "disappointed at not being the clock at the Admiralty; . . . at last it became quite irregular, no longer chiming in with the right honourable baronet." The chime had become so much out of tune that Disraeli, in August 1843, ventured to accuse the ministry of "disgraceful conduct." The members of Peel's Cabinet were not yet accustomed to the insubordination of their supporters; and the minister to whose lot the reply fell declared that "it was not seemly on the part of younger members of that House to rise up behind her Majesty's ministers, whom they intended to support, and heap the grossest terms of contumely and opprobrium upon them. In the following year Peel compelled the House to reverse the decision which Miles had persuaded it to express on the sugar duties. Disraeli, in strong language, denounced the conduct of the minister in coercing his supporters, and the weakness of his supporters in yielding to the minister. For himself he intended to remain. firm. "Nor shall I feel that I have weakened my claims upon the confidence of my constituents by not changing my vote within forty-eight hours at the menace of a minister." Goulburn, still unused to language of this kind, declared that he had seldom heard a speech addressed to ministers which contained language so derogatory to their character, and so calculated, if not intended, to hurt their feelings.2 The reproof had no effect on the orator. A year afterwards he raised a laugh in one debate by saying that Peel "had caught the Whigs bathing and walked away with their clothes;" while about 1 Hansard, vol. lxxi. pp. 841, 842. 2 Ibid., vol. lxxv. pp. 1030, 1037. Roebuck, speaking on the same evening, ascribed Disraeli's speech to "a feeling of disappointment." And, in allusion to the manifest impossibility of the minister's satisfying all the claims on him, quoted the sermon preached at the University on Pitt's visit to Cambridge: "There is a lad here with five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so many." Ibid., p. 1082. 3 Ibid., vol. lxxviii. p. 155. Graham, in reply, rejoiced that Disraeli was in open and avowed rebellion, and no longer in a state of covert mutiny. Ibid., p. 156. the same time, in terms of more severity, he declared that Protection appears to be in about the same condition that Protestantism was in in 1828. The country will draw its moral. For my part, if we are to have free trade, I, who honour genius, prefer that such measures should be proposed by the honourable member for Stockport (Cobden) than by one who, through skilful parliamentary manoeuvres, has tampered with the generous confidence of a great people and a great party. For myself, I care not what may be the result. Dissolve, if you please, the Parliament you have betrayed, and appeal to the people, who, I believe, mistrust you. For me there remains this at least-the opportunity of thus expressing publicly my belief that a Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy." It was obvious that the minister felt the blow which he affected notwithstanding to disregard. In other years he had left to his subordinates the duty of reply; in 1845 he attempted it himself. He quoted the praise which Disraeli had accorded to his policy in former years, and contrasted it with the language which he had lately adopted. "This I know," so he concluded, "that I then held in the same estimation the panegyric with which I now regard the attack.” 1 Peel, of course, did not succeed in crushing his opponent by affecting to disregard his invective. He had to deal with a man who had begun life with the reflection that " a smile for a friend and a sneer for a foe is the way to govern mankind," 2 and who, if he occasionally forgot the smile, never omitted the sneer. Within a month of Peel's retort Disraeli renewed his attack on the minister. I never knew the right honourable gentleman bring forward a measure which assumes to settle a great controversy without saying that three courses were open to us. In a certain sense he is right. There is the course the right honourable gentleman has left; there is the course that the right honourable gentleman is following; and there is usually the course which the right honourable gentleman ought to follow. . . . The right honourable gentleman tells 1 Hansard, vol. lxxviii. pp. 1028, 1038. 2 Vivian Grey, book ii. ch. iii. us to go back to precedents; with him a great measure is always founded on a small precedent. He traces the steam- engine always back to the tea kettle." occasion was to be followed by something worse. "Something has risen up in this country as fatal in the political world. as it has been in the landed world of Ireland-we have a great parliamentary middle-man. It is well known what a middleman is; he is a man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other, till, having obtained a position to which he is not entitled, he cries out, 'Let us have no party questions, but fixity of tenure.'" 2 "Peu de Torys," so wrote a distinguished foreign statesman of this very speech-"même parmi les plus mécontents, auraient tenu, sur le plus illustre d'entre eux, un si insultant langage; mais beaucoup prenaient plaisir à l'écouter." 3 The man who habitually throws mud at another may bespatter or miss his opponent; but, in either event, he is certain to sully his own fingers. Disraeli, however, did not mind dirtying himself, if he could only succeed in damaging Peel; and his mud, it must be conceded, usually flew very straight. He gained the double object of making himself the spokesman of discontent, and of irritating the minister who had neglected the agricultural interest and the member for Shrewsbury. The agriculturists, in fact, were in a state of despondency. A high authority declared in the beginning of 1845 that "he had never seen them so depressed and out of spirits as at the present moment." 4 It was authoritatively stated in March that the farmers of Norfolk were paying their rents out of capital, that half the small farmers in Devonshire were insolvent, and that the other half were rapidly falling into the same position.5 The condition of the agricultural labourer was wretched in the extreme. His sufferings had been bad enough when they had been shared by others; they seemed 1 Hansard, vol. lxxxix. p. 557. 2 Ibid., p. 565. • Lord Malmesbury, Hansard, vol. lxxvii. p. 33. intolerable when they had to be endured alone. "It is the remark of a beautiful writer," said Mr. Bright in depression of the House of Commons, "that to have known Continued agriculture. nothing but misery is the most portentous condition Has your under which human nature can start on its course. agricultural labourer ever known anything but misery? He is born in a miserable hovel; he is reared in penury; he passes a life of hopeless and unrequited toil, and the gaol or the union-house is before him, as the only asylum on this side the pauper's grave."1 "I be protected," so ran the wellknown speech of an agricultural labourer at a meeting of the Anti-Corn Law League, "and I be starving." 2 Throughout the whole of Peel's administration the distress of the agricultural classes continued. It alarmed the country gentlemen, and it embarrassed the ministry. The country gentlemen were almost unanimous in ascribing their difficulties to the competition with which they were threatened, and to the burthens which were thrown on land; they were almost unanimous in demanding increased protection and reduced. taxation. And throughout the whole period the great association which Cobden had promoted, and which Cobden and Bright were ever stimulating into action, was holding its meetings, levying its contributions, and declaring that the reed on which agriculture was leaning would only pierce its hand; while Tories were complaining that the course which Peel was pursuing, and the language which he was using, were disheartening the protectionists and encouraging the Anti-Corn Law League. Renewed activity of the AntiCorn Law League. If British agriculture depended on corn laws and protection, the fears which the country gentlemen expressed were justified. Every year which passed made the organisation of the AntiCorn Law League more complete. Its members increased in number, its subscribers increased as rapidly as its members. Instead of contenting itself with holding meetings in large 1 Hansard, vol. lxxvi. p. 1108. 2 The meeting was at Bremhill; the labourer, Job Gringell. Hansard, vol. lxxxiii. p. 1125. towns, it boldly pushed its missionaries through rural England. It asserted its opinions with increasing confidence on the floor of Parliament. In May 1843, while the country gentlemen were still agitated at the prospects which the Canada Corn Bill was affording them, the League maintained a five nights' debate in the House of Commons. In June 1844 Mr. Villiers, who had originated the debate in 1843, again demanded the repeal of the Corn Laws. In June 1845 he renewed the attack. 125 members supported him in 1843; 124 in 1844; 122 in 1845. But the majority which defeated him dwindled from 381 in 1843 to 328 in 1844, and to 254 in 1845. The League, moreover, was not satisfied with demanding the repeal of the Corn Laws. It was undertaking to prove that the Corn Laws were made for the landlords, and the landlords alone. In 1843 Cobden declared that "the law was passed for the landlords, and that it operates for their benefit and their benefit only." In 1844 and 1845 he tried to obtain an opportunity for proving the truth of his assertion. In each year he moved for a committee to inquire into the condition of the agricultural classes, and into the effects of the Corn Laws upon them. The country gentlemen were not prepared to concede the committee. But their refusal of it placed them in a fresh dilemma. It enabled free traders to declare that the protectionists had not the courage of their own opinions, and did not venture to subject them to the test of inquiry.2 Agitation, too, like a snowball, was gathering force as it rolled. The subscriptions to the League rose from £5000 to £12,000, from £12,000 to £100,000. It obtained 500,000 signatures to its petitions in one year, 1,000,000 in the next, 1,500,000, and from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 in the two succeeding years.3 Intelligent farmers criticised the folly of admitting cattle at reduced rates of duty, and of maintaining high rates of duty on beans and Indian corn, the raw materials out of which fat cattle were produced.* The 1 Hansard, vol. lxviii. p. 407; vol. lxxv. p. 1549; vol. lxxxi. p. 381. 2 Ibid., vol. Ixix. p. 393; vol. lxxiii. pp. 862, 960; vol. lxxviii. pp. 785, 881. 3 Ibid., vol. lxxiii. p. 944. 4 Ibid., vol. lxxviii. p. 800. |