XXII. 1830. which is now felt as so great an evil, especially by the agri- CHAP. cultural classes. The evil is so notorious that nobody but the King's ministers doubts its existence; and how can even they feasibly pretend to deny its existence? And how could even they pretend to deny it, if they cast their eyes around, and saw the counties spontaneously pouring on them every kind of solicitation for relief, while in towns Mr Alderman Waithman has attested that stocks of every kind have sunk in value 40 per cent? 22. "There can be no doubt to what this universal distress is owing; it is to be ascribed to the erroneous basis on Concluded. which our currency has been placed since 1819. Prices have not fallen in agricultural produce only; the depression has been continuous and universal ever since the Bank Restriction Act passed, and especially since the suppression of small notes took effect in the beginning of last year. We are gravely told that the depression of butter and cheese is owing to the wetness of the last season and the superabundance of grass. Did anybody ever hear of an unfavourable season lowering the price at once of wheat and cattle, of oats and wool? Yet all these things have sunk in value together; and in manufactures and traders' stocks the fall has been so great, that in the last ten years it has amounted to 68 per cent. Such a universal and continued depression can be ascribed only to some cause pressing alike upon all branches of industry, and that cause is to be found in the enormous contraction of the currency which has taken place. When we recollect that the Bank of England notes in circulation have been reduced from £30,000,000 to £20,000,000, and the country bankers' in a still xxii. 13, 14; greater proportion, it is easy to see whence the evil has 1830, 6, 7. arisen, and where a remedy is to be found." 1 66 1 Parl. Deb. Ann. Reg. Welling "Bad seasons," said the Duke of Wellington in reply, 23. are not set down as the only cause of distress; but as Duke of there has been undoubtedly one bad harvest, and another ton's reply. got in at an unusual expense, they are circumstances to XXIL 1830. CHAP. be taken into consideration. Competition at home and abroad is the cause of distress among the manufacturers, and can Parliament prevent that? Can it prohibit the use of machinery and the use of steam, which, by throwing labourers out of employment, produce distress? The suffering is not universal; there are parts of the country which are entirely free from it. The exports of last year were greater than any former one, and there is not a canal or railway in the country which does not present an increase of traffic. Profits are small; but they must exist, otherwise business would not be carried on. Is there any distress among the retail dealers in towns, who form a large class? Were those distressed persons who could pay the rents of the shops, which were everywhere enlarged or improved, or of the elegant streets and villas which were springing up around the metropolis and all our great towns? Pressure upon the country there undoubtedly is, but not so great as to prevent it from rising, though slowly. It is not falling, it is improving. 24. "There is no foundation for the assertion so confiConcluded. dently made, that the currency has been contracted, and that that is the cause of the suffering which exists. So far from it, the circulation now is larger than it was when the bank restriction existed.* The truth is, it is not extended circulation, but unlimited circulation, which is The Duke's statement on this point was as follows: Highest during the War.—England. XXII. 1830. 1 Parl. Deb. Ann. Reg. 25. vision, and changes Parliament. desired; in other words, it is wished to give certain indi- CHAP. viduals, not the Crown, the power of coining in the shape of paper, and of producing a fictitious capital. Recollect how narrowly the country escaped the effects of this ruinous system in 1825 and 1826. Capital is always forthcoming when it is wanted. Any scheme, if only a little plausible, is sure to find capital for the purpose of carrying it on. There was no government, however bankrupt, that could not borrow money here; and there was xxii. 34, 42; no man in the country, who had anything like security 1830, 9, 10. to offer, but could get money whenever he wanted it.” 1 The division which took place on this debate in the Commons was very significant, and ominous of future and Narrow diimpending change both in the Government and the con- declared stitution. The majority for Ministers was only 53; the in numbers being 158 to 105. But close as this division was, it became doubly ominous from the manner in which the leading members of the House now arranged themselves. The ultra-Tories-Sir Edward Knatchbull, Mr Bankes, General Gascoigne, Mr Sadler-were to be found in the minority, alongside of Sir Francis Burdett, Lord John Russell, Mr Brougham, Mr Hume, and Lord Althorpe, the chiefs of the Whigs and Radicals; and Lord Palmerston, Mr Charles Grant, Sir Stratford Canning, Mr Huskisson, and Sir George Warrender, the remnants of the Canning party. No such strange and disjointed amalgamation of parties had been witnessed since the famous coalition in 1784, which preceded the fall of the Whigs and long ascendancy of the Tories. It was evident that the old Tory party, so long firm and united, had been completely broken up by the heartburnings and irritation consequent on Catholic emancipation, and that the general distress had given the various classes of malcontents a common ground on which they Parl. Deb. could unite, without abandoning or compromising any of Ann. Reg. their peculiar and declared principles, 2 The habit of sup- 18. porting Government and ministerial influence might give 2 xxii. 121; 1830, 17, XXII. CHAP. the Cabinet a majority over such a coalition for a time, but it could be for a time only; and on the first serious reverse or occurrence of any external cause of excitement, it would infallibly be shipwrecked. 1830. 26. In truth, the Duke of Wellington's position as primeCritical and minister, so far from being an enviable one, was among painful posi Wellington. tion of the the most critical and painful that could be imagined. He Duke of had climbed to the pinnacle of power, but he had there found its loneliness, and experienced its ingratitude. Like Mr Burke, after his secession from the Whigs in 1793, he might have said, "There is a severance which cannot be healed; I have lost my old friends, and am too old to make new ones." He had no party in the House of Commons, no real colleagues in the Cabinet. He was a commander-in-chief there, surrounded by his generals of division, but not a premier aided by the counsels of his followers. He felt the solitude of his situation, and was aware of the necessity of conciliating some of the Whig magnates. Accordingly, on the death of the Chief Baron of Scotland, he appointed Mr Abercromby, an English lawyer and commissioner for the Duke of Devonshire, to that office, instead of the Lord-Advocate of Scotland, Sir W. Rae, whose position entitled him to expect, and whose long and able services in that situation gave him a right to claim it. Encouraged by this step, which seemed to indicate an intention on the part of the premier to follow the example of Mr Canning, and form a coalition cabinet, the Whigs in the early part of the session abstained from any direct attacks upon Ministers, and even on some occasions gave them their support. They were loud in praise of both the Duke and Mr Peel for their conduct on the Catholic question, describing it as "a more 1 Roebuck, glorious triumph than any which had been won on the History of fields of Spain." But their expectations were not reali. 137, 139; ised; the Cabinet doors were not opened; and their i. 541, 542. leaders, smarting under the bitterness of disappointed hopes, gave vent to their feelings in the most acrimonious the Whigs, Martineau, CHAP. XXII. expressions, and prepared for a course of the most uncompromising hostility. * 1830. on the The Duke of Wellington's speech on the distresses of 27. the country met the question boldly and openly, in his Reflections usual straightforward way; but nothing can be more Duke's exevident than that it involved the most obvious falla- planation. cies. He said that the currency, including gold and silver, was as large as it had been at the highest period during the war-forgetting that, since its termination, the nation had advanced a fourth in numbers, and a half in industry and commerce, and that, to render the currency commensurate to its necessities, it should not have remained the same, but advanced in a similar proportion. + Probably the Duke would have given a sharp answer to his Commissary-General, in 1813, if he had proposed the same amount of rations for his army, then 75,000 * "When I find," said Sir F. Burdett, "the prime-minister of England so shamefully insensible to suffering and distress, which are painfully apparent throughout the land; when, instead of meeting such an overwhelming pressure of necessity with some measure of relief, or some attempt at relief, he seeks to stifle every important inquiry; when he calls that a partial and temporary evil, which is both long-lived and universal, I cannot look on such a mournful crisis, in which public misfortune is insulted by ministerial apathy, without hailing any prospect of change in the system which has produced it. What shall we say to the ignorance which can attribute our distresses to the introduction of machinery and the application of steam, that noble improvement in the inventions of man, to which men of science and intelligence mainly ascribe our prosperity? I feel a high and unfeigned respect for that illustrious person's abilities in the field; but I cannot help thinking that he did himself no less than justice when he said, a few months before he accepted office, that he should be a fit inmate for an asylum of a peculiar nature, if he ever were induced to take such a burden on his shoulders. In fact, both myself and very many honourable members about me, have long treated this illustrious individual with much tenderness, because we felt he has conferred the greatest benefits upon his country. He is the only man who could have accomplished what he has done, and be his praise in proportion. But let it at the same time be remembered, that, if his service was great, his recompense has been commensurate. We have repaid him abundantly in returns of confidence and approbation. The time, however, is come when it will be necessary to do much more."-Mirror of Parliament, vol. i. p. 67. |