1826-7] Canning Prime Minister 591

The landed interest had a majority in Parliament, but a dissolution was at hand; and even Squire Western and his friends shrank from defying public opinion. In thus yielding they imagined that they had made only a temporary concession to immediate necessities. In reality the reverse was true. As there was no country in Europe where the labourer held less land, the English labourer was more interested in the price of corn as consumer than as producer. The restrictions on import were such that the accident of a bad harvest in England must cause great suffering, and the profit from the enhanced prices would go eventually into the landlords' pockets. By temporarily relaxing the Corn Laws the landed interest had admitted the hardship imposed by the existing laws upon the mass of the population. Hence it became easy to argue that a desire to retain the existing Corn Laws could only be indulged at the expense of the community as a whole.

Huskisson and Canning were about to introduce an amendment to the Corn Laws when, on February 17, 1827, Lord Liverpool was smitten with a paralytic stroke, which irreparably destroyed his mental faculties. When this became known there ensued a scene of intrigue and dissension in the Ministry to which there is no parallel in nineteenth-century history. The truth is that the ultra-Tory and the Canningite sections of the Cabinet were and had long been utterly at variance with one another. The masterful and imperious Canning had recently forced the Ministry into measures, both in domestic and foreign policy, with which many of his colleagues did not agree. As Palmerston wittily declared, the real Opposition sat on the Treasury Bench.

When Canning was at length chosen as Premier by the King, six of his colleagues resigned, as they all declared, from personal not party differences. This defence may fairly be made for Wellington, Eldon, and Peel, but not for the rest. If Canning was to retain office, a coalition with the Whigs was essential. The Opposition had, during the later years, given an example of disinterestedness and moderation almost unique in the annals of party warfare. Some few Whigs now held aloof and looked suspicious; and Lord Grey savagely attacked Canning in the Lords. But the main body threw in their lot with the new Premier ; and the Commons saw Brougham and Canning sitting side by side on the Treasury Bench, and defending each other from attack. Tierney accepted office as Master of the Mint; and the Duke of Clarence, who had Whig sympathies, became Lord High Admiral. Robinson, Chancellor of the Exchequer under Liverpool, was sent to lead the House of Lords with the title of Viscount Goderich ; and the new Ministry was thus complete.

The new Corn Law was carried in the Commons by Canning on March 6. By the time it reached the Lords, the new Ministry was completed, and party passions were aroused. The Bill introduced a sliding-scale of duty, varying with the price of corn in England, that is with the abundance or otherwise of the home harvest. Wellington,

592 Com Laiv defeated. — Death of Canning [1827-8

misunderstanding a loosely-worded alternative suggestion sent him by Huskisson, carried an amendment to the effect that foreign corn should not be taken out of bond till the price reached 66s. per quarter. This was to wreck the whole principle of the sliding-scale and, though no one seems to have noticed this, it was unconstitutional because the Peers cannot amend money-bills. Canning made a true comment when he said that Wellington had defeated the whole purpose of the Bill, and a bitter one, when he described the Duke as an instrument in the hands of the landed interest. All he could do was to promise to bring in a new Bill next session, in which, as is now known, he designed to fix the price at which foreign corn could be imported at 50s. per quarter. He indicated in public, and boldly announced in private, that only a thorough revision of the Corn Laws could avertthe coming struggle between industrial and agricultural interests. The session ended in July, and on August 8 Canning died.

The period when Canning led the Commons, as compared with that immediately preceding it, seemed to contemporaries an age of gold succeeding to one of iron. Such a comparison, though by no means just to Castlereagh, had in it considerable truth. But Canning's ideas were beginning to conflict with the spirit of the times; and they would in the time to come have tended towards reaction. Progressive in everything else, he was utterly hostile to Reform, foreseeing, as no one else did, that it would lead inevitably to democracy. When forming his Coalition Ministry, Canning had boldly announced that he would oppose any project of Parliamentary Reform to the end of his life. Yet that question was now becoming superior in importance even to the revision of the Corn Laws, Catholic Emancipation, or those general projects of administrative reform which Canning advocated. Circumstances were rendering Parliamentary Reform inevitable and all-important; and Canning's alliance with the Whigs could only have served to retard it. The tragedy of his death and the dazzling qualities of his genius have blinded historians to the fact that on the vital question of the next few years he was unprogressive. And therefore, while his world-wide influence in foreign policy, and his great achievements in progressive legislation are acknowledged, it can hardly be pronounced that, on the side of domestic policy, the death of this extraodinary man was inopportune either for his country or his fame.

To hold together and reconcile his strangely-assorted coalition had taxed the genius of Canning; it proved a task to which his mediocre successor was unequal. Lamentably weak, whether as orator, administrator, or chief of a Cabinet, Goderich resigned office in January, 1828, securing the distinction of being the only modern Premier who has never faced Parliament. So sudden was the close of a Ministry which had cost such pains to construct. The result of the coalition had, however, had at least one effect, that of making the old Tory party thoroughly unpopular. This was now seen when Wellington, at the

1828-30] Ministry of Wellington 593

King's command, formed a new Government. It was supported by the whole force of the landed interest, and by the whole prejudice of the militant Protestants. It lasted but three years and fell unregretted. The Liberal tone, which Wellington eventually adopted, was forced on him against his will by popular pressure. This is proved by the fact that, though he included Huskisson, Palmerston, and other Canningites in his Ministry, he took a very early opportunity of getting rid of them. The reasons inducing him to take this course could hardly have weighed with him, had he thought their views to be in real harmony with his own. As a consequence the Canningites permanently joined the Whigs; and the Tory Government was soon driven by events into legislative activity. Early in 1828 Lord John Russell carried a motion for the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts; and a Pill founded on it became law. The Government had at first shown signs of opposing the Bill, but at length accepted it. Owing to the Act of Indemnity which was annually passed these Actscaused nopractical harm ; but the removal of theoretical grievances now placed Dissenters of all kinds on a legal equality with members of the Established Church. The significance of this measure, as marking the influence of the middle classes and the tendency towards Reform, is not easy to exaggerate.

It was the prelude to a far more important and far-reaching measure. The history of the Catholic Relief Bill, which became law in April, 1829, is given elsewhere in full. It is only needful here to note its indirect effects upon English politics. Wellington stands in history as the last representative of the older Toryism, as the supreme champion of that old order which perished with 1832. Such was certainly not the opinion of his own party in 1829. To many of these he seemed a traitor, who had abandoned and betrayed their party and principles. He and Peel had always been the most formidable opponents of Catholic Emancipation; yet, when in power, they used their authority to carry that very measure, which they had so often declared would effect the ruin of their country. The ultra-Tories now feared that wealthy Catholics might buy up rotten boroughs, and secure representation in the Commons. Hence the ultra-Protestant Marquis of Blandford actually brought in a motion for Parliamentary Reform in February, 1830, and, by a masterpiece of irony, found himself seconded by O'Connell himself, the great champion of Catholic Emancipation. Wellington might have disregarded the intense unpopularity of the Ministry throughout the country, but he could not withstand this distrust and division within his own party. Moreover, for the first time since the death of Fox, the Whigs were thoroughly united in the Commons under the leadership of Althorp — " honest Jack." To complete Wellington's misfortunes, George IV died on June 20. He was succeeded by his brother William IV, who was an advocate of Reform and a friend of the Whigs. The dissolution, required by the demise of the Crown, increased the numbers of the Whigs, and on

594 Ministry of Earl Grey. — Bentham [1830

November 13 a motion was carried against the Government. On November 16 Wellington resigned the seal; and the King commissioned Lord Grey to form a Ministry. Grey agreed, on the express understanding that a measure for Parliamentary Reform should be adopted by the new Ministry, and submitted to the Commons. Reform, so long the plaything of irresponsible politicians, had at length been formally adopted by one of the orthodox and historic parties in the State.

The greatest movement of this period in our domestic history, the movement towards Parliamentary Reform, was vitally and profoundly affected by the parallel movements of political thought. The greatest, or at any rate the most celebrated, of contemporary political thinkers was undoubtedly Bentham. When every deduction is made, there is still room for astonishment at the extent and variety of his achievements. The philosopher, who elaborated a new political system, devised a new plan for icehouses, revised the whole criminal law, and constructed a new scheme for building and managing prisons, insisted upon the abstract importance of England adopting universal suffrage, and upon the practical necessity of her polling-booths being furnished with a ballot-box of his own special design. This mingling of the general and the particular, this grasp at once of principle and of detail, together with an unsurpassed power of destructive criticism, gave him his wonderful influence in his own time. Posterity has been impressed less by his doctrines or thought than by his method. This method, which he called the scientific, would be more correctly termed the practical; for to Bentham science meant only accurate empiricism. To judge all things by their practical utility was certainly a means of demonstrating many profound errors ; and it is because of the establishment of this method and standard that posterity has recognised his real claim to greatness.

A description of the intellectual evolution of Bentham also explains a gradual mental development in many contemporary Englishmen. Bentham started by a profound dissatisfaction with Blackstone, who had held up the British Constitution as the perfection of human wisdom. In his Fragment on Government (1776) Bentham mercilessly attacked Blackstone, pointing out the defects and corruptions of our constitutional machinery. But, if contemptuous of English institutions, he was equally averse from the ideas of the French revolutionists, and he criticised the " Rights of Man " with a severity which made his strictures on Blackstone seem mild. Till about 1800 Bentham was, on his own confession, something of a Tory, and desirous only of improving the old Constitution by gradual and moderate reforms. But his relations with Shelburne and Pitt, Camden and Loughborough, and with George III himself, gradually began to alter his views. These governors of the country showed unaccountable reluctance to adopt schemes which Bentham thought he

Origin of Bentham's political views 595

had proved to be necessary and right. As every philosopher is largely influenced by circumstance and environment when forming the principles of his system, it is possible that Bentham might have continued to defend the old order, had Pitt been a little more polite, or King George one degree more compliant. As it was, seeking to account for their coldness and indifference, he was driven to the hypothesis that the governors sought, not the good of the governed, but their own advantage. From this view the transition to a completely Radical system was natural, easy, and indeed inevitable. It is first seen in his famous Catechism of Parliamentary Reform, which was written in 1809 and published in 1817. He there demonstrated, in characteristic fashion, that our existing system was thoroughly bad, that misgovernment caused most evils, and that the institution of democracy would remedy most abuses. He preferred induction to deduction, facts to theories, reason to sentiment, the teachings of science to the impulses of nature. But he had at length come to accept the very principles which he had once criticised with such merciless skill. Though the road by which he had travelled had been different and more circuitous, the goal which he had reached was the same as that of the French revolutions.

The formula adopted by Bentham was brought to him indirectly through Helvetius and directly through Priestley, a fact which in itself illustrates how Bentham fitted French theories into a scientific setting. Helvetius impressed him with a contempt for precedent and tradition, and with a belief that the vices of a people were revealed in its legislation. He also taught him that the average man acted entirely from motives of self-interest or selfish impulses. Helvetius had thus supplied Bentham with a conception of man ; it remained for Priestley to give him a conception of government. In Priestley's Essay on Government (1768) Bentham found " the sacred truth," that " the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation." These various ideas comprise the whole Benthamite formula, except the assumption, common to other thinkers of that age, that individual selfishness produces collective happiness. Bentham borrowed much of his logical method from Hume, many of his ideas on crime and punishment from Beccaria; but the rapturous terms in which he speaks of Helvetius and Priestley leave no doubt as to the real origin of his views.

Bentham declared the end of all government to be utility, or the good of the governed. This formula was by no means new; but it had been obscured by the mystic atmosphere of reverence and tradition which hung round medieval institutions and was not absent from Holy Alliance manifestos. In this formula everything was included, and by it everything was to be tried. Every existing English institution — Crown, Church, Courts of Justice, Parliament, Executive — were tested by it and found wanting. The Constitution was " lawyer-ridden " and " aristocracy-ridden " ; and government was in the hands of a minority.