Page images
PDF
EPUB

did take place, it was desirable that they should be worthy of the great purpose to which they were devoted, and should have all requisite accommodation. This could only be effected at an expense so vast that, in the present state of the finances, the government might well hesitate to sanction it, but fortunately there was a large sum of money disposable for this purpose. Certain funds in chancery had accumulated during a long period, the greater part of which was never likely to be claimed. It was proposed that they should be appropriated to the erection of new courts, and a bill was brought into parliament sanctioning this application of them, on condition that if the owners of any portion should come forward and substantiate their claim, they should receive the amount due to them. To this it would seem that there could be no valid objection. No application of the money could be more proper, and it was exceedingly unlikely that any claimants for it would now appear. But the spirit of party and personal hostility interfered to defeat the project. It was known to be a favourite plan of the lord chancellor, who was very unpopular with the legal profession generally, and especially with some of its leading members. When, therefore, the question of the second reading of the measure was brought forward in the House of Commons the lawyers mustered in great force, and the discussion was carried on with all the excitement which is generally raised by a debate into which personal feeling largely enters. Mr. Selwyn moved an amendment, on which a division was called for. When the paper containing the numbers was handed in, Mr. Brand (one of the tellers on the government side) gave it to Mr. Selwyn, the mover of the amendment, and one of the tellers on the opposite side. This, according to the usual parliamentary practice, was supposed to denote that there was a majority in favour of the amendment. The opposition thereupon raised a loud shout of triumph; but their exultation was somewhat damped when the announcement was read, from which it appeared that the numbers for and against the amendment were exactly equal. The speaker was about to give his casting vote on the side of the government, when it was discovered that a gentleman in full evening dress had been unable to find his way through the division turnstile into the House. He was

1862.] THE CHURCH-RATE QUESTION AGAIN.

193

therefore brought before the speaker, and asked which way he intended to vote. He replied that he should vote against the amendment; thus causing it to be rejected by a majority of one vote. It is usual when an amendment has been rejected to allow the original motion to pass. But the peculiar circumstances that had attended the preceding division induced the opponents of the bill to make another attempt to get rid of it on the second reading, which they had good reason to believe would be successful; for they had ascertained that two of the members who voted against the amendment would not vote in favour of the second reading. The excitement was now tremendous on both sides; and it increased when, at this critical moment, a government official entered the house and reinforced his party. However, just as the doors were being closed, a member of the opposition slipped through them. Thus in the division the opponents of the bill were in a majority of two. The exultation of the triumphant party now went beyond all bounds. They did not cheer-they absolutely yelled, exhibiting such a scene of wild triumph as has rarely been displayed within the walls of the House of Commons.

On Wednesday the 14th of May there was another remarkable debate and division on the church-rate question, which was decided last year by the speaker's cast ing vote. This circumstance gave an extraordinary interest to the question when again brought forward, and caused an attendance which for a Wednesday-afternoon debate was unusually large. Mr. S. Estcourt moved a hostile amendment; and when the division took place it was at first thought that it had again issued in a tie, and that the speaker would once more be required to give his casting vote. But when, amid the intense expectation of the house, the numbers were given out, it was found that 287 had supported Mr. Estcourt's amendment, while 286 had voted against it; so that it was carried by a majority of one. This small gain was hailed with great delight by the supporters of churchrates in the house. However, Mr. Estcourt's amendment having now been carried, had, according to the rules of the house, to be put as a substantive motion; and a division being demanded by the defeated party, it was carried by 288 to 271; a result which we need hardly add called forth

[merged small][ocr errors]

another burst of noisy exultation. The cheers of the victors were echoed by their supporters throughout the country, who triumphantly proclaimed everywhere that a great reaction was taking place in favour of the church, and were stimulated by this success to agitate more actively than ever in favour of the threatened impost. Subsequently Sir J. Trelawney asked whether the government intended to bring in a measure on the subject, and was told by Lord Palmerston, that they had no such intention.

A sum of 1,200,000l. in addition to what had been already spent for the same purpose was asked from the house, to be employed in the construction of fortifications intended for the defence of the country against invasion. It was alleged on the part of the government, that the expenditure was demanded by public opinion. It might more correctly have been described as demanded by a public panic, which the premier himself had stimulated. However, whether demanded or not, it was numerously supported in the House of Commons; and Mr. Osborne, who resisted the grant, and urged that we might rely with confidence on our navy, yielded to the feeling of the majority. This question of fortifications was the subject of repeated debates in the house; in the course of one of which Mr. Cobden distinctly accused Lord Palmerston of fomenting the alarm which gave rise to the demand for additional fortifications; and to these strictures his lordship replied in a very angry tone, attacking Mr. Cobden, sneering at the French treaty-to the manifest dissatisfaction of some of his colleagues, who had taken an active part in negotiating it and declaring that though Mr. Cobden was a great authority on questions of free-trade, he was on military and naval matters in a state of blindness and delusion, and therefore unsafe as a guide or adviser in matters of national defence.

One striking peculiarity of this session was the large number of counts-out that occurred in the course of it. Counting-out had, in fact, now become a regular institution. There were gentlemen who had undertaken the task of endeavouring to provide that, at a certain moment, there should be fewer than forty members in the house or within call. When that object was supposed to be attained, another member slipped in from behind the speaker's chair,

1862.]

THE COTTON FAMINE.

195

moved that the house should be counted; and if those who wished for a continuance of the debate could not muster the required forty, the discussion was brought to a close for that evening, and perhaps the question was shelved for the residue of the session.

The American war, and the cotton famine, as it was then termed, which had arisen from it, had to a great extent deprived two millions of persons of their usual employment, and was gradually reducing them to destitution. What the consequences would be if the war should be protracted for a much longer period, it was impossible to foresee: they would no doubt be terrible indeed; but even now they were beginning to be very serious. An enormous increase of pauperism had taken place in the manufacturing districts. In Ashton it was found, that at the end of a few weeks the number of paupers was five times larger than it had been at the commencement of that period. At Manchester and Burnley they had increased threefold; at Bury, Haslingden, Oldham, Preston, and Rochdale, they had more than doubled; at Stockport they had increased fourfold; and in all these places the distress was still rapidly progressing, and seemed likely to continue till almost all the inhabitants of the district had been engulfed in one terrible abyss of pauperism.

Under such circumstances it seemed to be the imperative duty of the government to step in and endeavour to alleviate the misery and destitution into which the inhabitants of these districts were falling through no fault of their own, especially as they were exhibiting, amidst all their privations, a fortitude, an endurance, and an independence, which commanded for them the respect of the whole world. Never before had the working classes in any country exhibited in a more praiseworthy manner the desire to support themselves by their own industry, and to avoid being burdensome to others. And it was felt everywhere that these were persons who not only ought to be liberally assisted, but towards whom it would be disgraceful to enforce those severe provisions of the new poor-law, which had been framed for the purpose of checking imposition and curing inveterate indolence. Great efforts, therefore, were made to alleviate distress which was borne with such heroic patience. Private charity was doing all that it could.

[ocr errors]

Many individuals placed money at the disposal of the clergy of the suffering districts for the relief of their parishioners. Large sums were also raised by a society, at the head of which the lord mayor of London placed himself; and great and noble efforts were made by a relief fund committee, sitting at Manchester under the presidency of the Earl of Derby. The queen gave 20007.; the pasha of Egypt, who happened to be in England at the time, generously contributed 10007.; and other persons of inferior rank displayed a liberality no less princely. But private bounty, however great, could not meet the destitution of nearly half a million of persons, who at this time were dependent on others for the barest necessaries of life. Ministers were therefore called on to take the matter up, and not only to use the powers that belonged to them under the existing law, but to endeavour to effect such changes in it as would enable them to meet in a fitting manner the emergency that had arisen. Accordingly, on Tuesday the 22nd of July, Mr. Villiers, as president of the new poor-law board, introduced into the House of Commons a bill on the subject, the provisions of which he explained to a house consisting of about twenty members. On the following Thursday it was read a second time, and it passed rapidly and without opposition through its remaining stages.

The reader will no doubt have observed that this session was of the number of those in which no great measure of public policy, no great organic change was made, or even proposed, by the government. This was partly owing to the unconcealed aversion of the head of the cabinet to force on such changes; partly to the death of the prince consort, and to the unwillingness that was consequently felt to engage in struggles which might aggravate the sorrows and anxieties of the bereaved queen, and partly also to the Great Exhibition, which was opened on the 1st of May.

The opening took place under favourable circumstances. The South-Eastern Railway Company had for some time back been daily bringing from Boulogne-sur-Mer to London some 400 passengers, and foreigners were flocking in by Dover, by Newhaven, by Southampton, and other ports in proportionate numbers. The sum which had been received on the day before the opening of the exhibition exceeded by ten thousand pounds that which had been received on

« PreviousContinue »