CHAPTER III. LEGISLATION UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA. THE Princess Victoria succeeded to the throne amid Accession general acclamations. She had been well trained by Victoria. of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, and early manifested those domestic and public virtues which have endeared her to the hearts of her people, and given her an illustrious and honourable place among British sovereigns. Upon the accession of her Majesty, the crowns of England and Hanover were divided. Hanover being under the operation of the Salic law, which forbade the female succession, the Hanoverian crown fell to the late King's younger brother, the Duke of Cumberland. The young Queen continued Lord Melbourne and his The Mincolleagues in office. Parliament was dissolved in July, istry. and at the ensuing elections Ministers secured a sufficient majority, though it was not one indicating any pronounced return of confidence in the Government. When the new House of Commons assembled in November, 1837, it was composed of 348 Liberals and 310 Conservatives. List. The Queen's Civil List was settled on the same The Civil principles as that of her predecessor, and amounted to £385,000. But there was one variation, for, in lieu of the pension list of £75,000, her Majesty was empowered to grant pensions annually to the extent of £1,200, and these pensions were only to be granted to such persons tion under Queen Regency CHAP. III. as had just claims on the royal beneficence, or who by Legisla- their personal services to the Crown, by the performance of duties to the public, or by their useful discoveries in Victoria. science or attainments in literature and the arts, had merited the gracious consideration of their sovereign and the gratitude of their country. This new arrangement of the pension list was in accordance with a resolution carried by the House of Commons on February 18th, 1834. Two Regency Acts were passed after her Majesty's accession. The first enacted that, in the event of the Queen's decease while her successor (the Duke of Cumberland) was out of the realm, the administration of the government should be carried on in his name by lords-justices until his arrival. The second act, passed after the Queen's marriage in 1840 to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, provided that, in the event of any child of her Majesty succeeding to the throne before the age of eighteen, the surviving parent should be regent, without any council of regency or any limitation upon the exercise of the royal prerogative, except an incapacity to assent to any bill for altering the succession to the throne, or for affecting the uniformity of worship in the Church of England or the rights of the Church of Scotland. The Melbourne Government acted injudiciously over the Annuity Bill for Prince Albert. Lord John Russell proposed a grant of £50,000 to the Prince for Annuity. life, to commence on the day of his marriage, February 10th, 1840. The fearful distress prevalent among the manufacturing classes, which found expression in armed outbreaks of Chartism as well as in a rapidly falling revenue and continuous deficits, made it clear that such a large grant would be opposed. Accordingly, by a majority of 104, in a House of 420 members, Parliament fixed the grant at £30,000. In a fit of anger, Lord John Russell declared that the amendment was intended as a mark of disrespect to the Queen. This was an unfortunate remark to come from one of the most constitutional of statesmen, and he was rebuked for it by Sir J. Graham and Sir Robert Peel. The House of The Prince Consort's Legisla tion under Queen Victoria. cedence Commons also rejected a proposal to give the Prince CHAP. III. precedence over all the royal family by an act of Parliament, while it at the same time elicited a formal declaration of the Prince's Protestantism, which Ministers had not provided for. Precedence at court was given to The Prethe Prince by the Queen's prerogative only. The Prince question. Consort came to England a stranger, but by his urbane manners, the support which he gave to the Queen in times of national solicitude, and his desire to act in accordance with the principles of the Constitution, he secured the affection and esteem of all classes. Legislation has been so prolific during the reign of Victorian legislaQueen Victoria that order and convenience alike demand tion. a separate treatment for great questions. The late Lord St. Leonards once stated that from the date of John's Great Charter to 1853 Parliament had passed 16,422 public statutes; and from the latter year the annual rate of production greatly increased. I propose therefore to adopt a sectional treatment of the Victorian legislation, giving a complete and consecutive record of the measures passed under each section. I shall endeavour to include in this survey every public act of importance, but the contemporary character of the legislation and the general accessibility of full records of the transactions in Parliament will absolve me from the necessity of dealing with the debates at length. I. REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS. Periodical motions on the subject of the Corn Laws made during the reigns of George III. and George IV. have already been recorded. The question was further agitated in William IV.'s reign, notwithstanding the urgency of Parliamentary reform and questions concerning Ireland. In the House of Commons on May 17th, 1833, Mr. Whitmore moved that the Corn Laws, instead of producing equality of prices and thereby effecting a permanent good, had produced a contrary effect and tended injuriously to cramp trade. Ministers pleaded that the time was inopportune for dealing with the question, and Motions on the Corn Legislation under * Queen Corn Law Reveal Association. CHAP. III. the motion was rejected by 305 to 206. In the Lords a similar motion by Lord Fitzwilliam was negatived without a division. During the same session Mr. Fryer's Victoria. bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws was rejected in the Commons by 73 to 47. In the session of 1834 Mr. Hume moved for a committee to consider the Corn Laws, but was defeated by 313 to 155 votes. Mr. Poulett Thomson, President of the Board of Trade, prophetically said during the debate that a failure in the harvest, or any other national disaster, would lead to a demand for repeal couched in such language as he should not wish to hear addressed to that House. In consequence of excellent harvests, however, the question now slumbered for a year or two, but in 1837 the rise in corn, combined with numerous financial failures, again brought it to the front. Messrs. Grote, Hume, Molesworth, Roebuck, and others formed an association for the repeal of the Corn Laws; and in the House of Commons Mr. Clay unsuccessfully moved for the adoption of a fixed duty of 108., to be reduced to 5s. in 1839. The resolution was lost by 223 to 89. In March, 1838, Mr. C. P. Villiers, the earnest and consistent Free Trader, moved for a committee to consider the Corn Laws, but was defeated by 300 to 95. In the ensuing September the Anti-Corn Law League was formed. Mr. Cobden threw his whole energies into the movement, and his earnestness, combined with Mr. Bright's vigorous eloquence, soon made a powerful impression upon the country. Hitherto the advocates of Free Trade had suffered from the hostility of Parliament, the opposition of leading statesmen of both parties, landlords, and farmers, and the indifference of merchants, manufacturers, and traders; but now, aided by bad seasons and other causes, the Free Trade propaganda began to make great headway. Lectures and controversial literature, sown broadcast everywhere, were supplemented by monster petitions to Parliament. The Anti- Motion by In February, 1839, Mr. Villiers moved to hear counsel at the bar of the House of Commons in support of a petition against the Corn Laws, but was defeated by 361 Legisla ion under Queen Victoria. to 172 votes. He then moved for a committee of inquiry, CHAP. III. but his motion was rejected by 342 to 195. Lord Fitzwilliam introduced resolutions in the Upper House condemnatory of the Corn Laws, but they were rejected by 224 to 24 votes. In this small minority were Lords. Brougham, Minto, Durham, Holland, and Hatherton By way of illustrating the rashness and fallibility of the Premier, Lord Melbourne, we may cite his strange de- Lord Melclaration made in the course of this debate. "To leave," "bourne's he said, "the whole agricultural interest without pro- tion. tection, I declare before God that I think it the wildest and maddest scheme that has ever entered into the imagination of man to conceive." Mr. Villiers was again defeated in the Commons in 1840 by 300 to 177 votes, and Lord Fitzwilliam in the Lords by 194 to 42. declara Ministers proposed a fixed duty of 88. in 1841, but Peel takes no measure was brought in, owing to a Ministerial office. crisis. On May 27th Sir Robert Peel carried a vote of want of confidence against the Whig Government by a majority of one-312 to 311. Upon this Lord John Russell said Ministers intended to appeal to the country, and Parliament was at once dissolved. The Conservatives triumphed at the elections, returning 367 members, against 286 Liberals. Mr. Cobden was elected for Stockport, and two years later Mr. Bright was returned for Durham. The new Parliament met in August, 1841, and Ministers were defeated in both Houses by large majorities in the Lords by 168 to 96 and in the Commons by 360 to 269. Lord Melbourne resigned office, and Sir Robert Peel became Prime Minister. He was joined by Lord Ripon, Lord Stanley, and Sir J. Graham, the seceders from Lord Grey's Ministry, and his Government likewise included Lords Lyndhurst, Aberdeen, Ripon, and Eliot. Mr. Gladstone was VicePresident of the Board of Trade, but in 1842 he succeeded Lord Ripon as President. scale of In the session of 1842 Sir R. Peel carried his sliding Sliding scale of corn duties, which fixed a 20s. duty at 51s., decreasing to 12s. at 60s. and 1s. at 73s., the duty not duties. |