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he failed. The current of public feeling turned fiercely against him, and the hero of Waterloo was obliged to barricade his London house against a mob. The people, indeed, took an attitude at this juncture the resolute meaning of which could not be mistaken. The reformers of Birmingham, mustering 200,000 strong, and including a large proportion of the soldiery, pledged themselves to pay no taxes and to give themselves up to the cause of reform. The aspect of affairs began to look serious, even ominous, when news radiated everywhere to the effect that Lord Grey had been recalled. Great indeed was the popular joy at this sign of victory. But there was still a doubt how the Lords could be made to yield. This last doubt vanished when the king appealed to the waverers, holding in the background a resolve to create new Peers if his appeal was rejected. All was over then. The Reform Bill passed the Lords triumphantly, and received the king's June 7,

1832

assent on the 7th of June 1832. On that memorable day, the opposition benches in the House of Lords were empty. Reform Bills for Scotland and Ireland received the royal assent on the 17th of July and on the 7th of August. Three great changes were thus made:-1. Seats in Parliament were taken away from many places-called pocket or rotten boroughs-in which there were very few voters, and sometimes none, residing in the borough. Of this class the most notorious example was old Sarum,* in which there was not a single house! 2. Seats were given to large towns, such as Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and Sheffield, which had grown within the last century into first-class cities. At the same time the number of county members in England was nearly doubled. 3. The franchise was extended more widely among the middle classes.

* Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, two miles north of Salisbury. A few traces of walls and ramparts and of its castle and cathedral are all that remain to represent the ancient city. New Sarum is Salisbury, to which the inhabitants began to migrate in the time of Richard I. The old town, we are told, had become wholly deserted in the time of Henry VII.

In towns, the right of voting was given to owners, and to tenants of houses worth £10 a year. In counties, all were entitled to vote who owned property worth £10 a year, or who paid a yearly rent of at least £50 for their holdings. These changes established the principle that the House of Commons is the People's House of Parliament, and that it should be made to represent all classes and interests in the country.

The first reformed House of Commons met in February 1833. The first question which occupied its attention was the emancipation of the slaves in the English colonies. Ever since. 1788 a movement had been going on in the country and in Parliament with that view. William Wilberforce, member for the county of York, first brought forward the motion in the House of Commons; and through a long life he clung with noble perseverance to the work. From time to time the debates were renewed, amid great opposition from slave-holders, planters, and merchants. The slave-trade had been abolished in

1807, on the motion of Mr. Fox ; but it was not until 1833 the question was forty-five years old that slavery itself was abolished. £20,000,000 was granted to slave-owners as compensation; and the slaves were not set free at once, but were bound to serve their masters as apprentices for five years longer. In 1838 eight hundred thousand slaves received their freedom. Wilberforce lived only long enough to see the triumph of his life's work. He died in 1833.

A difference in the cabinet on an Irish question led to its reconstruction in 1834. Earl Grey retired and Viscount Melbourne became Prime Minister. The chief work of this ministry was a new Poor Law. The rate to support the poor had risen to £8,000,000 a year; and a great part of the sum was squandered on the support of strong men and women, who were too idle to work. The new bill placed the local boards under the superintendence of a government department called the Poor Law

Board,* and ordered that no aid should be given to able-bodied paupers, unless they chose to go to the poor-houses, and to work for their living there.

The same year is memorable as the first in which trade strikes occurred on a serious scale. Laws regulating the price of labour, and prohibiting workmen from combining for their own protection, were common from the time of Edward the Third, when two Statutes of Labourers † were passed. All the laws against combination were repealed in 1825. Thereafter trade unions became common, and frequently led to disturbances in the manufacturing towns. In 1834 the tailors of London struck work for increase of wages; and their example was followed by the weavers of Leeds and by the calicoprinters of Glasgow. In each case the loss of wages led to

great suffering.

Signs of a Tory reaction now became perceptible. These were welcomed by the king, who was alarmed by the progress of the reforming spirit. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer resigned in 1834, owing to his transference to the House of Lords, the king seized the occasion to dismiss the Melbourne cabinet, and to place Sir Robert Peel at the head of the government. Peel immediately appealed to the country; but although his supporters were increased, he failed to obtain a majority, and resigned, having held office only four months. Melbourne and most of his old associates then returned to power (April). The chief measure of the session was the Municipal Reform Act, by which the town councils of England and Wales were reformed. To the ratepayers and freemen was given the right of appointing the councillors, who elected the magistrates from among themselves.

Lord

1835

* Poor Lace Board. In 1871 the Poor Law Board was made a department of the Local Government Board, the president of which is a member of the administration for the time being.

+ Statutes of Lab murers. In 1349 and 1353 (See above, p. 227.

Trade unions, Acts regulating the proceedings of these societies were passed in 1868, 1871, and 1875.

Similar changes were afterwards made in the municipal government of Scotland and Ireland.

In 1835 a British contingent was sent to Spain in aid of Queen Isabella, whose rights had been invaded by her uncle, Don Carlos. With this exception, the foreign policy of William the Fourth is insignificant. At home an important measure was passed the Tithe Commutation Act (1836-37), by which tithes, formerly paid to the clergy "in kind," were converted into a rent charge on the land, payable in money, and reckoned according to the average price of corn for seven years. The turbulence of the Irish was also kept under by a Coercion Bill, which troubled the government much and brought them into frequent collision with O'Connell.

On the 20th of June 1837 the kind old sailor, who had worn the British crown for seven years, died at the age of seventytwo, leaving the regal state to his niece Victoria, a girl of eighteen. His last act was one of mercy-the signature which gave pardon to a convict.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE ERA OF FREE TRADE.

Accession of Victoria-Hanover-Canadian Rebellion-The Anti-corn-law League The Chartists-Afghan War-Chinese War-Peel's second ministry-The new tariff-Conquest of Sindh--The Rebecca riotsIrish agitation for repeal-Sikh War-Repeal of the Corn Laws-The Russell ministry-Irish famine-Responsible government in CanadaA stormy year-Irish discontent--The Punjâb annexed-The first Great Exhibition-Australian gold-Death of Peel and of Wellington -The Derby ministry-Second Burmese War- The Aberdeen ministry.

ON

N the 21st of June 1837 Victoria was proclaimed Queen of the British Empire. The daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, brother of the late king, she was born at Kensington on the 24th of May 1819. Left in earliest infancy to the care of her widowed mother, a princess of the SaxeCoburg family, she grew up, an object of the tenderest solicitude, and received from her instructors such culture

1837

as made her a most accomplished woman. Yet were her mental gifts by no means her greatest endowments for the high position to which Providence called her. In her the domestic virtues have blossomed, making the royal home a model toward which her subjects may look with admiration and gratitude. Married on the 10th of February 1840 to Prince Albert of Saxe-CoburgGotha, she bore him five daughters and four sons during twoand-twenty years of happy union.

The change of sovereign strengthened the ministry. Instead of having the influence of the crown against him, as in the late

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