666 Melbourne s Ministry dismissed [1834

Law through the House with real knowledge and ability, and his removal opened the question as to how his place should be rilled. It was decided by the Cabinet that the Premier should recommend Russell for the leadership of the House ; but, when Spencer's death was hourly expected, Melbourne had written to the King apprehending "the most serious difficulty and embarrassment " ; and when the news arrived, he wrote again, declaring that, "as the Government was mainly founded on the personal weight and influence of Lord Althorp in the House of Commons, and that foundation was now withdrawn," he proposed to take his Majesty's pleasure as to whether other arrangements should be made for carrying on the government, adding an entreaty that no personal considerations should prevent him from taking any measures he thought necessary or seeking other advice. The King replied that he would be glad to see him; and the next day Melbourne journeyed to Brighton. The King protested that Lord John would make " a wretched figure " in debate, when opposed to Peel and Stanley, and added that Russell was pledged to encroachments on the Church, which he was determined to resist. He further expressed his disapproval of the recent conduct of the Chancellor. On the following morning the Premier received a letter, dismissing the Ministry on the ground that its general weight and consideration were so much diminished that its tenure had become too precarious to proceed. The final audience with the King was cordial; and Melbourne returned to London carrying a summons to Wellington. The same evening he saw Palmerston and Brougham, the latter of whom, though pledged to secrecy, at once informed the Times, which next morning concluded its account of the King's action with the words: " The Queen has done it all." When the Duke reached Brighton, he pointed out the danger of thus dismissing a Ministry with a large majority, but promised his aid, advising the King to send for Peel, who was spending the recess with his family in Italy. A messenger was at once dispatched to Rome, and the Duke was named First Lord and Secretary of State till his return. The King, indignant at the insult to the Queen, came up to town and insisted on the immediate resignation of the Ministers.

There had been no such step since the dismissal of Grenville in 1807; and the King would not have ventured on it but for the resignations which had occurred a few months before and the growing unpopularity of the Government. His defence, drawn up and sent to Peel a few weeks later, asserted that he quite expected the Premier to announce his resignation at Brighton; and the letters already quoted show that the King only did what his Minister had invited him to do. Moreover, in a letter to Grey, written immediately after his audiences, Melbourne himself declared that he was in no way surprised at the decision, and could not entirely condemn it; and Grey took the same view. But the King's action, though consistent with the principles of the English

1834-5] Peel forms a Tory Ministry 667

Constitution, was inconsistent with its practice ; and the stroke by which he believed that he would rid himself of the Whig Ministry gave it new strength and prolonged its life for six years.

While the nation was discussing the dismissal of the Ministry and the royal courier was on his way to Rome, the whole power and patronage of the State were in the hands of Wellington. The Duke, however, took no steps that would bind the hands of Peel, who, by travelling night and day, reached London early in December, rather more than three weeks after the crisis. Peel afterwards stated, in his memoir on the incident, that he greatly doubted its wisdom, and only accepted office in order to spare the King humiliation. He at once invited Stanley and Graham to join the Ministry; but they replied that they had been too recently in antagonism, adding that they would be of greater assistance as independent supporters. Thus thwarted, he was compelled to fall back on the old Tory Ministry. With Stanley and Graham it is possible that he might have been able to maintain himself; without them his attempt was doomed to failure. Taking the Exchequer himself, and confirming Lyndhurst in the Chancellorship, he placed Wellington and Aberdeen at the Foreign and Colonial Offices respectively, while subordinate posts were entrusted to Gladstone and Sidney Herbert. The powerful support of the Times was secured by negotiations between Lyndhurst and the editor, Barnes. The first task of the new Ministers was to hear and approve a letter which the Premier had written to his constituents, explaining the policy of the new Government. The Tamworth Manifesto, as it came to be called, reminded the country of his own claims to the title of Reformer. He had reformed the currency and the criminal code, and he was prepared to consider the reform of municipal corporations. He had supported the abolition of Church rates, and the relief of Dissenters in regard to the celebration of marriages. He was willing to open the Universities, and he desired to commute the tithes of the English Church. Though its immediate effect was not very great, the document is of outstanding importance as marking the substitution of a rational conservatism for the pure negations of the old Tory party. At the dissolution which followed, Peel scored numerous successes in the counties, but gained no foothold in the towns ; and the Opposition retained a substantial majority.

The o!d Houses of Parliament, which had witnessed the debates of two centuries, had been destroyed by fire during the recess; and the new House met in temporary premises. The struggle at once began with the election of a Speaker, the Opposition proposing and carrying a Whig by a majority of ten. Peel took his defeat calmly; but the Whigs next carried an amendment to the Address deploring the recent dissolution. A third rebuff was incurred on the appointment to the embassy at St Petersburg of Londonderry, the brother of Castlereagh and the inheritor of his political ideas. Peel was extricated from

668 Melbourne returns to office [1835

disaster by Londonderry's voluntary withdrawal; but the episode damaged the Government in the House and the country. The Premier now proceeded to his programme and explained his plan of dealing with Dissenters' marriages and with Irish and English tithes; but the Opposition denied his right to remain in office without a majority. An address to the Crown to grant a charter of incorporation to London University was carried, though the matter was under the consideration of the Privy Council. The defeat led to rumours of resignation; but Peel introduced his Irish Tithe Bill, which differed little from Littleton's plan of the previous year. The Whigs could not oppose their own proposals ; but they refused to accept a Bill which did not appropriate the surplus revenues of the Irish Church. After prolonged debate, Russell's resolution was carried by 33; and after two more defeats on the same question Peel resigned. He had already played his trump card by dissolving ; and he felt that there was real danger of foreign Powers taking advantage of the weakness of the Ministry. The King did not realise the gravity of these continual defeats; and Malmesbury records the rumour that he had threatened to abdicate and retire to Holland if the Ministry fell; but Peel was inexorable. He had fought a losing battle on ground not chosen by himself; and his Hundred Days had won the admiration of his opponents as well as of the country. The sovereign's impatience had arrested the Conservative reaction ; but the ability, courage, and resource of the defeated Minister convinced the nation that it had a statesman of the first rank in reserve.

The King was deeply mortified by the turn of events, and applied for advice to Grey, who urged him to summon Melbourne and Lansdowne. A coalition was once again suggested, and again declared impossible; and Melbourne returned to office. There were, however, three important differences in the character and Parliamentary position of the new Government. In the first place, Brougham was no longer Chancellor. The intrigue with Wellesley had left a deep impression on Melbourne's mind; and the tour in Scotland had made Brougham impossible. He had broken up the Grey Ministry, and his conduct had been one of the principal causes of the fall of its successor. While Peel was still in office, Melbourne wrote to Grey: " I will have nothing more to do with Brougham. The reasons are two — his whole character and his whole conduct." His exclusion was a surprise to nobody but himself. Despite his immense services with tongue and pen to the Whig party, he had ruined his position by his capricious conduct, his ungovernable temper, and his colossal egotism. The Times had hinted that he was mad; and the conviction was shared by many less hostile judges. The letters to Brougham, in which the Premier subsequently explained and defended his action, constitute one of the most scathing indictments ever brought against an English statesman ; but few will deny that every word was justified.

1835] 0' Connell and the Whigs. — The King's attitude 6G9

The second difference was the rise of Lord John Russell to a position equalling, if not rivalling, that of the Prime Minister. He had gained prestige by his services to Parliamentary Reform; but it was not till Stanley and Althorp were removed that the world knew the fertility of resource, the debating power, and the capacity for affairs which lurked within the diminutive person of " the widow's mite." Entering upon his duties as leader of the Opposition on the dismissal of the Whigs, Russell surprised both friends and foes by his ability during the stormy weeks of Peel's Administration, and compelled Grey and other doubting critics to confess themselves mistaken. For the next six years Russell was not only the one commanding figure on the Treasury bench, but the chief director of the domestic policy of the Government.

A third difference was the relation between the Whigs and O'Connell. Grey declared him to be an unprincipled ruffian who engaged in politics for his own ends; and Melbourne's dislike of him was scarcely less pronounced. Yet the new Ministry had no more faithful supporter than the Irish leader, and indeed was only kept in office by his influence. The violence of his language passed all bounds; and, when he described Alvanley as a bloated buffoon and Disraeli as a lineal descendant of the impenitent thief, men of all parties shrank from him in disgust. But though unmeasured in speech, O'Connell was moderate and opportunist in action, and always preferred half a loaf to no bread. Russell, again, had visited Ireland, was an intimate friend of the poet Moore, and was entirely free from the unreasoning fear of the Irish entertained by his former and his present chief. The compact, however, originated in an ficcident during Peel's Ministry. The desire to overturn the Government, which was common to all sections of the Opposition, led Russell to invite his supporters to meet him at Lichfield House. Without Russell's knowledge an English member sent a bundle of invitations to O'Connell, with a request that he would send them to his supporters. O'Connell at once wrote to Russell, undertaking to avoid all contentious matters till Peel was overthrown. Russell was at first alarmed at this unsolicited advance, and was only dissuaded by his colleague Duncannon, a warm friend of O'Connell, from sending a cold answer ; but the parties worked loyally together, and. at a dinner to Russell, O'Connell publicly acknowledged him as his leader. The King's objections prevented the offer to him of high office ; but he was generally consulted with reference to Irish appointments. Though Melbourne could declare that he was in no way pledged to O'Connell, there was a tacit understanding between him and Russell that the repeal agitation should be shelved, and that the Whigs should abstain from coercion and introduce remedial legislation.

The King took no pains to conceal his hostility to the new Ministry; and his rudeness was incredible. He graciously informed Melbourne that he believed him to be as conservative as himself; but his dislike to Russell and some of his colleagues was so extreme

670 Municipal reform [1835

that the Premier was forced to remonstrate, and obtained an apology. Though relations of ordinary politeness were gradually restored, almost every Government. proposal found the King a troublesome opponent. The session of 1835 was nevertheless redeemed from barrenness by the passing of a measure scarcely less important than the Reform Bill. Most of the boroughs then enfranchised possessed no municipal institutions; but the government of the old boroughs, scarcely two of which were the same, was full of abuses. The petitions for reform were so numerous that Althorp had appointed a commission of enquiry. The final report, which appeared in 1835, put the question clearly before the country. Municipal institutions arose out of the committee to which the town had entrusted its common business ; but the existing charters, granted for the most part by the Tudors and the Stewarts, rendered the governing group independent of the main body of the burgesses, the councils being nearly always chosen by self-election. The corporations limited the number of freemen ; and wealth or favour became the conditions of entry. In Portsmouth, for instance, in a population of 46,000, only 102 were freemen. Despite the loss of their political monopoly by the Reform Bill, freemen still possessed in some cases an exclusive claim to certain charities or to exemption from the borough tolls. But even freemen rarely shared in the government of the borough. In small boroughs the mayor usually possessed almost the sole authority and sometimes administered the entire revenues. In most boroughs there were local civil Courts; and in the larger there were municipal magistrates, usually members of the Council and chosen by it. But the magistrates were often illiterate ; and, though in criminal cases they were sometimes assisted by a Recorder, he was not necessarily a lawyer, and often left his work to the town-clerk. In many cases local Acts had conferred powers for lighting, draining, police, and similar purposes, on trustees or commissioners appointed ad hoc, and independent of the municipality. Municipal elections, in the rare cases where they were held, were a farce, the corporate offices a prize, the mayor often a tyrant. The report revealed the utter breakdown of administrative efficiency, and concluded by recommending a thorough reform.

Reform was first achieved in Scotland, where a Commission had undertaken the work of investigation several years earlier. The Bill founded on the report of the English commissioners was introduced by Russell and applied to 178 boroughs. The commissioners had investigated 285 towns, of which 246 possessed municipal powers. Of these London was reserved for special treatment; and 67 were omitted as too small. The Government wisely determined not to complicate their task by an elaborate scheme for the removal of territorial anomalies, the boundary of the Parliamentary borough being usually taken as the boundary of the municipality. All charters, privileges, and customs were swept away. The governing body was to consist of a mayor and