Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century | Page 6

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The names of Sir Robert Peel and Richard Cobden are indissolubly connected with the legislation which repealed the "Corn Laws" and placed English commerce upon the basis of free trade--Cobden as the theorist and untiring agitator, whose splendid talents were unsparingly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 enormous expansion of English industry in the early part of the century brought special hardship to several classes in the community. The substitution of the factory system for cottage industry destroyed home life for thousands of families, and the pressure of poverty and the greed of manufacturers ground the poor mill operatives between the