Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century | Page 6

of the new century Ireland had been, for legislative
purposes, a part of the United Kingdom. It was the act which had
established this "Legislative Union" and abolished the Irish Parliament
which O'Connell was determined to repeal. All that monster meetings,
soul-moving oratory, secret associations, printer's ink, could do to
influence the government by parliamentary manoeuver, demonstration
of popular feeling, intimidation, and threats of insurrection was done.
As a member of Parliament, and the dictator to his "tail" of half a
hundred Irish members, the silver-tongued "Irish tribune" exerted a
considerable political power so long as parties were somewhat evenly
divided so as to make his support desirable. But when, in 1841, the
Tories came back into office under Sir Robert Peel, backed by a strong
majority, this influence declined. The arrest of O'Connell, in 1843, for
treasonable utterances, discredited him with his following, which soon
fell apart-the more determined section to carry Ireland's cause to the
extreme of violent outbreak, the milder partisans to await a more
opportune moment to press their agitation for Home Rule.
THE REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS
The names of Sir Robert Peel and Richard Cobden are indissolubly
connected with the legislation which repealed the "Corn Laws" and

placed English commerce upon the basis of free trade--Cobden as the
theorist and untiring agitator, whose splendid talents were unsparingly
devoted to preparing public opinion for the economic revolution, and
Peel as the protectionist Prime Minister, who was open-minded enough
to become convinced of his error in persisting in the policy in which he
had been trained. The necessity for a change of commercial policy
grew out of the altered conditions in the nation. The agricultural
England of the eighteenth century had in a generation been transformed
into a hive of manufacturing industry. The rapid adoption of steam
power and improved machinery in England on the one hand, and the
paralysis of industry on the Continent during the Napoleonic wars, had
wrought the change, while the commercial marine, guarded by her
powerful navy, had brought the carrying trade of the world under her
flag. The weakest point in the English system was the protective tariff,
which lay heaviest on imports of grain--or "corn," to use the insular
term. The Corn Laws were a body of legislation enacted from time to
time by Parliaments which were controlled by the great land-owning
interests. The land-owner, whose income was derived chiefly from
rents upon agricultural lands, consistently favored a scale of tariffs
which would maintain the price of cereal grains at the highest figure. At
the close of the great war (1815) the nation was confronted with
business disaster. "War prices" for grain fell rapidly, the markets were
stocked with more manufactured goods than impoverished Europe
could absorb, while the English labor market was glutted by the influx
of several hundred thousand able-bodied soldiers and sailors in quest of
industrial employment. As early as 1821 Mr. Huskisson, a cabinet
colleague of Mr. Canning, had endeavored to lighten the burden of
British manufactures by reducing the import duties upon the raw
material used by the English looms. He was for getting at the root of
the matter and disposing of the Corn Laws, so as to provide "free food"
as well as "free raw materials," but his Tory companions believed that
such legislation would vote the bread out of their own mouths. In 1838
an Anti-Corn Law Association was formed at Manchester. Under the
direction of Richard Cobden, a young and successful manufacturer,
who had become the most ardent of free traders, a league of similar
clubs was organized throughout the country, and through it an agitation
unsurpassed in the history of politics was prosecuted until its object

was attained. In Parliament he became one of the most effective orators,
and the chief target of his argument was Peel, the leader of the
protectionists. In 1845-46 a more powerful argument than Cobden's
was thrown into the scale. The failure of the Irish potato crop, the sole
food supply of that unhappy island, "forced Peel's hand." In the face of
two-thirds of his own party, in opposition to his own life-long political
creed, he gave notice as Prime Minister that he should introduce a bill
for the immediate reduction and ultimate repeal of the laws which were
responsible for the high price of food. He had become a convert to free
trade, and was ready to carry it into practice. The young Disraeli as the
representative of the Protectionist element of his party, lashed the
premier in the speech which first gave him a following in the
Parliament that he was soon to control. But enough Peelites followed
their leader into the camp of the free traders to carry the bill. The Corn
Laws disappeared from the statute-book.
HUMANITARIAN LEGISLATION
The sudden and