XXIII. 1832. have been anticipated when two such powerful interests CHAP. were brought into collision, was violent and long-continued; and the contraction of the currency, which lowered prices 50 per cent, was of course the object of strenuous support from the partisans of the cheapening system. At length the producers were overthrown, and thence the decay of domestic agriculture, the vast increase of foreign importation of food, and the prodigious emigration of agricultural labourers from the British Islands in the middle of the nineteenth century. So naturally did this change in the policy of Government arise from the altered position of the different classes of society, in consequence of the increase of realised wealth during and after the war, that it may fairly be considered as unavoidable; and one of the means by which Providence, at the appointed time, checks the growth of aged societies, occasions the downfall of worn-out empires, and provides in fresh situations for the farther dispersion of mankind. 128. Bill was an effect, in of realised The great means by which this consummation was effected was the Reform Bill; but that organic change, The Reform important as it was, is itself to be regarded as an effect rather than a cause, although, like other effects in the the first instance, of ceaseless chain of human events, it became a cause, and a the increase most material one, in its turn. The more the import- wealth. ant years which preceded the passing of the Reform Bill are studied, the more clearly does it appear that it was the discontent of the producing classes, occasioned by the immense fall in the price of their produce, which induced the cry for a change. They had petitioned Parliament over and over again for relief, but in vain; the legislature, intrenched in the close boroughs, the citadels of realised wealth, turned a deaf ear to their complaints. Instead of expanding the currency, so as to increase the remuneration of industry, they contracted it still farther with every successive catastrophe produced by that contraction itself. The consequence was, that the producing classes, both in town and country, irritated beyond endur CHAP. 1832. 129. fall of prices by the con the cur rency. ance by the long-continued suffering and the disregard of their well-founded complaints, combined together to effect a total change in the constitution, and the excitement consequent on the French Revolution enabled them to carry their intentions into effect. No common man, William Cobbett said that the moment he heard in America of the passing of the bill compelling the resumption of cash payments by the Bank of England in 1819, he took shipping to return to this country, convinced that parliamentary reform could not much longer be delayed; and the result has proved that he was right in his anticipations. These considerations explain how it came to pass that And of the the passion for reform, unfelt as a national feeling prior occasioned to 1820, became gradually stronger and stronger, until, in traction of 1832, it was altogether irresistible. The feeling which produced it was the most powerful which can agitate an intelligent community, and which, when it pervades all ranks in the state, ere long acquires such force that it must obtain its entire direction. "Deliverance from evil!" was the universal cry. This desire, which had acquired such force and intensity as to have become a perfect passion with nearly all classes, and especially the agricultural, is easily explained, when we recollect how deeply all interests, and especially those of labour and production, had been affected by the prodigious change of prices of commodities of all sorts, from grain to cotton, which had been effected by the successive contractions of the currency in 1819 and 1826. With each of these contractions the cry for reform was revived; with the last it became so powerful as in six years wrought an entire change in the feelings, desires, and interests of all classes. It is in this reduction of prices that the explanation of the English revolution, with all its mighty effects, foreign and domestic, is to be found. We have only to cast our eyes on the table below, exhibiting the change in the price of the principal articles of commerce from 1824 to 1832, to see how this XXIII. 1832. fall engen reform. was brought about.* Every article of production or CHAP. exchange fell gradually in price after the suppression of small notes in 1826, till it settled at about two-thirds of 130. its former amount. There was no class of society, save How this the holders of realised wealth, which was not affected or dered the ruined by the change. The capitalists and fundholders passion for alone were benefited: thence the cry, that the rich were every day getting richer, and the poor poorer. Under the constant decline of prices produced by the contraction of the currency, this was no senseless popular outcry; it was the simple statement of an acknowledged and undoubted fact. The organs of the monied interest made a boast of it, when, after the contraction of the currency had worked out its full effects, they said their measures had made the sovereign worth two sovereigns." They had done so; and not less certainly had they made the labourer's shilling only a sixpence. They had halved the remuneration of industry when they had doubled the value of money-they had made the labourer's wage a shilling a-day instead of two shillings. The two effects were consistent, for they both sprang from the same cause. This constant decline of fortunes and diminution of income in the largest, most industrious, and most important class of the community, was felt as the more galling, from the contrast exhibited at the same time by the situation of the * PRICES OF PRINCIPAL ARTICLES OF COMMERCE, FROM 1824 TO 1832. XXIII. 1832. CHAP. holders of realised wealth, who were every day becoming richer, not from an addition to their incomes, but an addition to its exchangeable value. Every holder of commodities felt them every day getting cheaper : the longer he retained them, the worse was his sale, the greater his loss on his transactions. Manufacturers and farmers found that they could not, with markets constantly falling, work to a profit except by saving every shilling in the cost of production, and lowering to the uttermost the wages of their workmen. Thence a steady fall at once in the profits of stock and the wages of labour, and the distressing recurrence of strikes and organisation of trades-unions to arrest the decline. Thence, too, the origin of the sore and angry feeling between the employers and employed, which has never since been allayed, and has so much aggravated, in periods of distress, the dangers of our social position. All classes, save the monied, were suffering from the long continuance of a fall of prices; and this general suffering produced the ill-humours which, skilfully directed by the popular leaders against the nomination boroughs, produced the change of the constitution. 131. Which explains the boroughs. It is seldom that a universal passion, which seizes a particular age or country in this manner, is entirely universal erroneous in its direction. The boroughmongers and hostility at venal boroughs were the object of general obloquy for some years preceding the passing of the Reform Bill; and it is no wonder that they were so, for it was in these seats that the power was intrenched which had produced the general suffering. The holders of realised capital had purchased them, or acquired their direction, and they formed a majority of the House of Commons, which not only had introduced all the new measures, but turned a deaf ear to all the suffering they had occasioned. In this way the virtual representation of interests through these boroughs, which had worked so well down to the close of the war, had not only ceased to be beneficial, but it had become injurious. That representation answers very well, and is the subject of no serious complaint, as XXIII. 1832. long as the interests of all classes are identical; but it CHAP. turns into a serious social evil when those interests are divided, and one has acquired the power to enrich itself, by legislative measures, at the expense of the others. From that moment the representation becomes the object of general hostility; and it is no wonder it is so, for it is the cause of general suffering. When all are making money, their interests are the same, and the government of the many by the few is quietly acquiesced in, because measures conducive to the general benefit are alone adopted. But when one class has made money, and begins to forward its separate interests by forcing through measures conducive to its own advantage, by cheapening everything, and so ruining the others, nothing but the most rancorous hostility between them can be anticipated. This change took place in Great Britain between 1815 and 1830, in consequence of the immense additions made to the realised wealth of the community during those years of pacific accumulation, and thence the triumph of the Reform Bill and all its incalculable consequences. 132. was only worse by the the close The large amount of talent which found its way into the House of Commons through the nomination or venal And which boroughs, after this change was fully established, so far rendered from being an alleviation of these evils, became the talent which greatest possible aggravation of them, because it tended got in by only to augment the phalanx of ability by which interests boroughs. adverse to those of the majority were advocated. Talent at the bar is a very good thing as long as it is exerted on our side, or equally divided between us and our opponents; but when it is wholly enlisted against us, we are much better without it. This was exactly what took place in Great Britain during the latter years of the war, and the first fifteen years of the peace. Ability in plenty came into the House of Commons, and nearly all through the avenue of the nomination boroughs; but when it arrived there, it was all found enrolled in the ranks of capital, and pursuing measures adverse to the interests of industry. All the able young men of the time |