The Press. — London, England, 1857-02-28 00:00:00

Titeraturt. Memoirs of the Right honourable Sir Robert Peel, Bart. Published by the Trustees of his Papers, Earl Stanhope and the Right Hon. E. Cardwell, M.P. Part IL The New Government, 1834-5 ; Part 111. Repeal of the Corn Laws, 1845-6. London : Murray. THIS volume concludes the Memoirs drawn up by Sir Robert Peel, and left by him to be published after his decease. We may remind our readers that the memoirs are altogether three in number, and that they relate to those parts of Sir Robert's political life which have been most warmly controverted —l. His conduct on the Roman Catholic ques tion ; 2. On the formation of a Conservative Government in 1834-5; 3. On the repeal of the corn laws. The two latter memoirs are con tained in the present volume ; that on the Conservative Government of 1834-5 is but short, and contains little information new to the public. But that one on corn-law repeal is full and of the greatest importance. The editors say that the first of these two memoirs is given exactly as Sir Robert pre pared it for publication, with no other altera tion than the omission of a single name. That alteration indicates an affectation of reserve which had better been dispensed with. In the letter of the Duke of Wellington to Sir R. Peel (Nov. 15, 1834), in which he acquaints Sir Robert that the King had dismiss id his Ministry, and had decided on a Conservative Government, ho writes : He (the King) mentioned that threatened that he would not put the Great Seal to a com mission to prorogue the Parliament. And in a postscript the Duke adds : it appears that -- -- did not make the threat that he would not prorogue the Parliament, but that Lord Melbourne said here that he was in such a state of ex• citement that he might take that course. Now, as the Great Seal was held by Lord Brougham, and as soon afterwards we read in another letter from the Duke, Lord Brougham resigned the Great Seal yesterday, which was delivered to the custody of Lord Lyndhurst, it must be perfectly apparent to every one that the mysterious "-- --" can only apply to one person. The passages should have been omitted altogether. or have been printed as they stood. The affected conceal ment suggests insult. We venture to predict that Lord Brougham will not feel particularly pleased on learning this very peculiar instance of editorial delicacy. It resembles the pru dery of those American ladies described by Marryat who always concealed the legs of their pianos in muslin trousers. The second of the memoirs is printed with some material omis sions, as the unexpected death of Sir Robert placed these papers in the hands of the editors at an earlier date than could reasonably have been anticipated. We should like to have known at what date these memoirs were pre pared by Sir Robert Peel, but on that point we do not notice any information. The memorandum on the Conservative Go vernment of 1834 is preceded by a short cor respondence between Lord Melbourne and Sir Robert Peel in July, 1834, when Lords Grey and Althorp resigned. The King, with the anxiety natural to amiable minds, wished a Government to be formed by a coalition of the most considerable statesmen of the day, and proposed to Lord Melbourne that the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and Mr. Stanley should be invited to join him. The noble Viscount laid before his Majesty " some of " those objections which press forcibly upon " his mind to unions and c oa liti ons o f °Twos " ing parties." In deference to tho King, however, he communicated the royal wishes to the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. The latter instantly re j ec t e d t h e propos i t i on as impracticable. If the members of the Whig Government could not agree when united on general principles of policy, how could a Government agree selected from par ties essentially opposed to each other? Sir Robert concluded :--- am bound to express my opinion, with the utmost dererence to your Majesty, that such a union could not, in the present state of parties and th e present position of THE PRESS. public affairs, hold out the prospect of an efficient and ♦igorous Aaministration. The King acknowledged that his suggestion was impracticable; waited four months longer, and then, on the withdrawal of Lord Althorp from the Government, consequent on the death of his father, dismissed the Administra tion. " The former Ministers were sulky " enough,•' writes the Duke, and he says, " Lord -- [Brougham'] swears that they are " turned out." In the correspondence it is plain that, however reluctant they might be to go, the Duke was not less eager to get in. His eagerness for office is strange, considering the position he held in the country. He was always sanguine when office was in view—the first to hail a prospect of acceding to power, the last to acknowledge that resignation was inevitable. He refused to see the difficulties which Sir Robert perceived awaited a Conser vative Government in 1834. On November the 30th, in that year, he writes to Sir Robert : The reports of the committee on elections are favour. able. That is the great point of all. I reckon that we must carry two hundred elections at least that were carried in the last Parliament by Radicals and Whigs. The Duke reckoned on a considerable majo rity in the new Parliament; and, though Sir Robert does not detail the Cabinet proceed ings previous to his resignation, we imagine from his memorandum (March 23, 1833), and his letter to the King, that the Duke was favourable to the experiment of a longer re tention of office, though the majorities against the Government were increasing, and obstruc tions were accumulating to the conduct of public business. Still more strange appears the reluctance of the Duke to resign after corn-law repeal had been carried in 1846. In an elaborate memo randum (June 21, 1846), Sir Robert discussed the position and prospects of his Government, with a view to prove that no other course than resignation remained. He wrote, in words which a Premier of our day may ponder with advantage : A Government ought to have a natural support. A Conservative Government should be supported by a Con• aervative party. Support from the compassion of its ene mies, or even from the personally friendly feelings of those who ought on public principle to oppose a Government, is a hollow, and not a creditable support. Discussing the chances of a dissolution, Sir Robert showed that the Administration had no intelligible ground to stand on, and that resort to such a measure without prospect of advan tage would be unjustifiable. The Duke re fused to recognise his reasoning. He proposed to go on to gain time ; he thought the Conser vative party might be rallied to Sir Robert's side ; and counselled dissolution rather than resignation The question at the elections will be the support of your Administration. Many wili oppose it whose support I wish you had. But I am very much mistaken if you should not be supported by a majority of the thinking men of the eutintry. The devoted loyalty of the Duke seems to have clouded his usually clear perception. The question with him always was—" How can the " Government of the Sovereign be carried on ?' Besides, we suspect that his dislike of the Whigs was so intense, that he always regarded their accession to power as a great calamity. The memoir on corn-law repeal contains a complete history of the part taken by Sir Robert Peel in that transaction. It was early in August of 1845 that reports first reached him of the probable failure of the potato crop. One clever grower and salesman wrote (Aug. 11) to Sir J. Graham, then Home Secretary. detailing the extent of the failure, as it had fallen under his observation As the disease spread the Premier and the Home Secretary became alarmed, and both seemed to have formed the conclusion at nearly the same time, that the disaster would produce a corn-law crisis. Sir Robert wrote to the Secretary at Netherby (Oct. 13) : I have no confidence in such remedies ns the pro hibition of exports, or the stoppage of the distilleries. The removal of impediments to import is the only effectual remedy. On the same day Sir James wrote to the Pro. mier at Drayton, stating his opinion of the extent of the peril : A great national risk is always incurred when a popula- tion so dense as that of Ireland subsists on the potato; for SATURDAY, it is the cheapest and the lowest food, and if it fail, no substitute can be found for starving multitudes. Sir James was the first to broach the idea of corn law repeal. In this same letter he writes : Indian corn might be obtained from the United States readily, and on cheap terms, if the people would eat it ; but unfortunately it is an acquired taste ; and if we opened the ports to maize duty free, most popular and irresistible arguments present themselves why flour and oatmeal, the staple of the food of man, should not be restricted in its supply by artificial means. while Heaven has withheld from an entire people its accustomed sustenance. Could we with propriety remit duties in November by Order in Council. when Parliament might so easily be called toge- ther ? Can these duties, once remitted by Act of Parliament, be ever again reimposed! Ought they to be maintained with their present stringency if the people of Ireland be reduced to the last extremity for want of food? It does not appear that Sir Robert had enter tained the idea of total repeal till this sug gestive passage was sent to him. He instantly caught it up, and two days later he wrote to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Oct. 15) : We must consider whether it is possible by legislation, or by the exercise of prerogative, to apply a remedy to the greet evil with which we are threatened. The application of such remedy involves considerations of the utmost magnitude. The remedy is the removal of all impediments to the import of all kinds of human food—that is, the total and absolute repeal for ever of all duties on all articles of subsistence. We think it doubtful whether Sir Robert had ever contemplated so large a measure until Sir James Graham suggested it. On the same day that the Premier wrote to Lord Hey tesbury as above, ho replied to Sir James (Oct. 15) : Interference with the due course of the laws respecting the supply of food is so momentous and so lasting in its consequences, that we mutt not act without the most accurate information. I fear the worst—l have written to the Duke also. In answer, Sir James again appears as the prompter of the Premier : The suspension of the existing corn law on the avowed admission that its maintenance aggravates the evil of scarcity, and that its remission is the surest mode of restoring plenty, would render ils re•enaclment or future operation quite impracticable; yet if the evil be as urgent as I fear it will be, to this suspension we shall be driven. At the close of this memoir, Sir Robert says : I should do injustice the strongest terms, my grateful acknowledgments fn. the zealous support and able assistance which I uniformly received from Sir James Graham. The acknowledgment is just. It is only fair to Sir James to say that though his name does not appear prominently in the transactions covered by this memoir, his letters convey a strong impression of his weighty sense and clearsightedness. The idea of repeal once planted in the mind of the Premier rapidly developed itself. We have seen that he gained the first hint of it as a practical measure for Government consi deration from Sir James Graham on 14th of October, 1845. A fortnight later (31st October) the Premier called the Cabinet together to consult on the measures to be adopted, and on the following day he submitted to the Ministers a memorandum, in which he pro posed that Parliament should be speedily assembled. The first subject for discussion would then be the corn laws : We must make our choice between determined mainte• nonce, modification, and suspension of the existing corn laws. He did not at this time so much as mention total repeal. The Cabinet was divided in opinion, and another council was appointed for the 6th November. At this meeting, Sir Robert submitted a distinct course of action for the approval of his colleagues :-1.. An im mediate order in Council, suspending the corn laws ; 2. The assembly of Parliament on the 27th to obtain an indemnity; 3. A statement that a modification of the corn law would be submitted to Parliament after Christmas, such modification to consist of the free admission of Indian corn and of British colonial grain, with a revision of the existing corn law in other respects, though still preserving the principle of protection and the sliding scale. As Sir Robert subsequently showed that any such scheme was, under the circumstances, totally impracticable, we must suppose that ho was all this time only feeling his way with his colleagues .. It is certain, from his sub sequent arguments, that at this time either ho 208