Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846

Stoop the star-spangled blue
Of his Bellenden banner when Leaguers came on?
Proved the Lion a jest
On great Wellington's crest?
Did his Virtus exude at the shriek of Lord John?

VII

"Arthur falter'd? – I'll swallow such inpudent flams
When the ears of the sow yield us purses of silk;
When there's no Devil's Dust in the Cotton Lord's shams,
And the truck-master's pail holds unmystified milk.
Not a Tory, I swear,
Will be forced to declare
In the face of the Nation's assembled Senatus.
That from duty he shrunk,
Or once felt in a funck
About Cobden, and Bright, and some rotten potatoes!

VIII

"We shall see them again, even now or erelong,
Upon Wisdom and Equity taking their stand,
Calm, able, and upright, harmonious, and strong,
In peace and prosperity ruling the land.
Firm, faithful, and free?
What they say they will do —
No Right unprotected, no Wrong unredress'd;
While writers of Letters
And all their abettors
Stand in swaggering impotence caught and confess'd."

THE CRISIS

The announcement that the Peel Ministry had resigned was received by us, as we believe it was by the nation at large, with feelings of sincere and solemn regret. We do not know that any Cabinet has existed within our memory whose retirement was wished for by so few, and deprecated by so many among all classes of men. We have doubted the policy of some of its measures, and more than doubted the propriety of others. But we have never ceased to respect the energy, the ability, and the honesty of the great men composing it; and have always felt that in those points on which we could not agree with them, they were entitled to a generous forbearance, due to their responsible and arduous position, as the ministers who have most strenuously and most successfully endeavoured to solve the problem, how the government is to be carried on under the Reform Bill. The disappointment of some expectations among a powerful and prominent part of their supporters had diminished the enthusiasm, and divided the feelings, of the party who mainly contributed to bring them into power. But, on the other hand, it should not be forgotten, that they equally disappointed the adverse expectations, and ultimately gained the confidence of a large, and not unimportant, portion of the country, who for years had been taught to believe, that the accession of Conservatives to power would commence a new era of warfare, oppression, profusion, and corruption. Let us look fairly at some of the practical and palpable facts of the case – at some of the most conspicuous features of public affairs, during their administration. Agriculture has flourished, and agricultural improvement has advanced in an unprecedented degree. Commerce has plumed her wings anew, and added other regions to her domain. Public Credit has been supported and advanced, and the revenue raised from an alarming and increasing depression. Peace has been universally maintained abroad, and agitation rendered powerless and contemptible at home. The Poor have been contented and employed, and not a murmur has been heard against the authority of the Crown, or the principles of the Constitution. These unmistakable results have been felt by all men, and all have confessed, in their hearts, that however they may have been offended with minor blemishes – whether by the short-coming, or by the excess of ministerial liberality, – the great purposes of government have been achieved by the ministry now dissolved, and they will frankly acknowledge with ourselves, that we shall not soon look upon its like again.

We know nothing of the causes that have led to this memorable and momentous event, except that apparently differences of opinion prevailed among the members of the Ministry in reference to the corn-laws. We shall not believe, until we hear it from their own lips, that any portion of the Cabinet have advocated any scheme fraught with danger and injustice to the best interests of the country: nor shall we indulge in any conjecture as to the real nature of the policy that may have been under discussion, where conjecture must be so vague, and where it must so soon give place to authentic information. We shall merely say, that any measure calculated to place agriculture and industry generally, in a disadvantageous and defenceless position, must have met with our unfactious, but firm, opposition. If ever the day should come, when protection, by common consent, were to be withdrawn, truth compels us to declare, that there is no one by whose hand we should desire to see that painful and dangerous operation performed so much as Sir Robert Peel; – not because we should be insensible to all the awkward and painful embarrassments of such a change of course; but simply, because we are bound to say, that there is no other man of whose knowledge, skill, and sagacity we have the same opinion. By none we think could the fall be so much broken, or the transition made so smooth, or so little injurious. Certain it is, that a measure of total and immediate abolition from the Whigs, incompetent and incapable as they have been proved, would be a calamity of which the magnitude can scarcely be estimated by the most gloomy imagination. We are far, however, from contemplating the necessity or possibility of such a policy from any Ministry whatever.

We take our stand upon the principle of protection to national agriculture and industry, in the existing and peculiar circumstances of the country. We do not love restrictions for their own sake, or desire any protection by which nothing is to be protected. But we think that protection is demanded by the exigencies of the whole community, and to that extent and on that ground we advocate its preservation for the general good. We shall not enquire at present how far the amount or the form of that protection may be modified. That may no doubt be a varying question, of which the discussion is to be controlled only by the grave consideration that its too frequent agitation is a great evil, as inevitably unsettling important rights and arrangements. But if it be thought that the rapid progress of events in this railway age admits or requires a relaxation or re-construction of existing restrictions, we are prepared candidly to consider any specific plan that may be tabled, and to weigh deliberately the amount and kind of protection that may now be necessary to preserve our status quo, having regard to the facilities of transit, the discoveries of science, the progress of improvement, the increase of population, the abundance of money, and any other elements which may be alleged as to a certain extent emerging since the last adjustment of the scale, and having special regard also to any alteration in the distribution of taxation which may accompany the proposal for such change. We do not see our way to such a change. We do not recognise its necessity; but we think it unbecoming the position occupied by those who concur in our principles to offer a blind or bigoted resistance to any discussion of a practical matter, which must always depend greatly on surrounding circumstances and complex calculations. Far less shall we here enquire whether the time is soon or is ever to arrive when all protection is to cease. In politics, as in other things, the absolute words of "always" or "never" are rarely to be spoken. It is sufficient for us to say, that the period when such a revolution ought to take place has not as yet been presented to our minds as an object of present and practical contemplation.

Let us unite, then, in support of these national principles with a calm, candid, and temperate firmness, demanding a just and fair protection, so far and so long as it is needed to keep our soil in cultivation, and to foster those improvements, which cannot be carried on without the prospect of a due return, and by means of which alone, if ever, the necessity of protection may be superseded, or its amount diminished. Let us oppose any rash or undue alteration, from whatever quarter it may come; but, above all, let us resist to the uttermost the attempts of selfish Leaguers and the more reckless portion of the Whigs, whose interested or unprincipled policy would overlook all those large and deep-seated considerations, which in every view require so much management, and such nice computation, before any thing can be done in so momentous a matter as the providing permanently for a nation's food, and the development of a nation's resources with a due regard to those various interests which seem often to be conflicting, but which, in a just point of perspective, are ultimately identical.

Our pain in contemplating the loss of one ministry, is not alleviated by our anticipation of the ministry that is expected to succeed. The rash and presumptuous man who has been called to take office, does not possess, and his character, so far as hitherto known, is not calculated to command, the confidence of the British nation. We could not look back upon the crude projects and unscrupulous practices by which the last Whig ministry disgraced their office and endangered their country, without a feeling of the deepest alarm – if we believed it possible that a repetition of them would now be tolerated. What is to be the character and course of our new rulers? Independently of the corn-laws, what is to be their policy as to Ireland, as to foreign affairs, as to domestic finance? Is the Popish Church to be endowed in the sister kingdom? or is the Protestant Establishment to be overthrown? Is repeal to be openly patronized, or only covertly connived at? Is Lord Palmerston to be let loose on our relations with other powers, and to embroil us, before six months are over, in a quarrel with France and a war with America? Is our revenue to be supported to the level of our expenditure, or is a growing deficiency to be permitted to accumulate, till our credit is crippled, and our character branded with almost Pensylvanian notoriety? Is the country prepared for such enormities as these, or for the risk of their being attempted? We hope not: we think not. We feel assured that the very contemplation of their possibility, would make the nation rise in a mass, and eject the imbecile impostors who have already been so patiently tried, and so miserably found wanting.

Then, as to the corn-laws, is the new minister to adhere to his last manifesto, or has he used it merely as a lever for opposition purposes, to be laid aside, like some implement of housebreaking, when an entry into the premises has been effected? That attempt will scarcely be tolerated by his own supporters. Then how is he to carry his measure? With the present House of Commons, he cannot hope to do so, nor can he entertain that anticipation from any dissolution, except one carried on under such circumstances of unprincipled agitation, as would convulse the country, and prove fatal to commercial credit and prosperity.

But suppose he had the power, how would he use it? Would his measure be such as would immediately throw any considerable portion of land out of cultivation? That seems to be the hinging point of this corn-law question; and it is one on which the "total and immediate" men are more evasive, in public discussion, than on any other, though privately such of them as understand the subject, are fully aware of its bearings. If the proposed scheme would not attain or involve the result of throwing inferior soils out of culture, what good would it do to the League and their friends? For, strange to say, when the matter is probed to the bottom, the battle for which the League are truly fighting is directed to the great national end of laying waste inferior land. It is only by lowering rents and prices that they expect benefit, yet it is as clear as day that rents are dependent on the comparative value of the highest and lowest grades of the land in tillage; and if prices fall, those lands that barely pay at the present rates must cease to be cultivated. Read any of the more open and outspoken repealers. Take up the little tales of Miss Martineau, one of the most able and honest of her sect, and see how completely the object is to get rid of the expense attending the cultivation of inferior land. If that object is not attained by total and immediate repeal the whole discussion is a delusion. But if Lord John's proposed measures will throw lands out of cultivation, to a large extent, what provision is to be made to avert the inevitable evils that must ensue? How is the surplus population to be supported that will thus be thrown loose on the market of labour? How are the burdens to be provided for that the land thus disabled has hitherto borne? Are the imposts on agriculture to increase while its returns are to diminish? or is the old Whig expedient to be resorted to, of raising that very tax which they have resisted and denounced? Are all customs-duties to be abolished, and is the deficiency to be supplied by having the property-tax aggravated to whatever multiple the account may require? What safeguards or palliatives are to be devised to prevent the panic likely to ensue from so vast and so sudden a revolution; in which, under the instant diminution of rents and precariousness of prices, every mortgagee will be driven in desperation to recur upon his debtor, and every landlord upon his tenant; while the whole landed interest, high and low, though chiefly, no doubt, the middle and smaller proprietors and tenants, will be compelled to curtail their expenses to the lowest sum, and those who have already but a narrow margin of surplus, be reduced to beggary and ruin.

But would this confusion and distress affect the landed interest alone? No; the same alarm which involved that interest in ruin, would soon extend to manufactures, by striking at their foundation, credit. Already, from a singular and unhappy combination of causes, a period of restricted circulation and of high interest for money, has begun to follow on one of unlimited accommodation: distrust seems ready to take the place of confidence: gigantic schemes in progress are paralysed or threatened with abandonment: the country appears to be trembling on the brink of one of those commercial crises which from time to time, and unavoidably, arise out of the spirit of speculation. Let but this additional element of confusion – the distress of the agricultural classes, and all that depend upon them– be thrown into the already wavering scale, and who can pretend to estimate the amount of ruin which a week may produce? The paradise of free-trade in corn may indeed be obtained, but it will be reached through the purgatory of a general bankruptcy.

But is free-trade to be confined to corn? Are the agriculturists alone to be deprived of protection, the manufacturing interests retaining the advantage of those protecting duties which exclude the competition of foreign markets? That is plainly impracticable. The silk, the wool, the iron, the manufactures of the Continent – the "main articles of food and clothing," according to Lord John Russell's letter – are also to be admitted into our markets at rates with which native industry cannot contend. Is this likely to raise wages, or to keep them as they are? Will it better the condition of the working classes? Or is the condition even of the higher classes in the mercantile circles to be made more comfortable by that immediate increase of the income-tax, which must be imposed, to balance the loss of revenue arising from the deficiency of our customs, if national faith is to be preserved, or the government of the country conducted. In every view of the case, and to every interest in the state, we believe that absolute free-trade, such as appears to be contemplated by the late leader of the Whigs, would be fraught with ruin. The letting loose of such a storm upon the State, with the hand of Lord John Russell to hold the helm, is a contingency from which we believe the very boldest will draw back.

But we feel no apprehension of such a result. There is now no democracy to be fooled into a new excitement in favour of a Whig ministry, or to be cheated by a cry of cheap bread, counteracted as it must be by the contemplation of lower wages, and an increased competition in the labour-market. The middle classes, again, and all who have any thing to lose, are too wise to hazard the prosperity of the last four years, by supporting the men to whose ejection from office that prosperity is attributable.

We should, at the same time, act with a want of candour and frankness towards our agricultural friends, if we did not direct their attention to another aspect of the case. If it be true, contrary to our own hopes and convictions, that repeal is inevitable, every thing depends on the time and manner of effecting it. There is a inestimable value attending every year of continued protection that can yet be gained. Even a comparatively short period might be of infinite importance in completing those great improvements now in progress, which will raise the available fertility of so large a portion of our soil, but which must instantly stop, if protection be suddenly withdrawn. It is not in our power to see far into futurity, but every delay is precious, as enabling us better to meet the demands of public necessity, and to stand a competition with foreign soils, if that competition must ultimately be entered upon without legislative aid. How infinite, too, the difference of any change produced with a panic, and without one! There may be various arrangements, moreover, which, if boldly and equitably made, might possibly go to place our protection on a footing nearly as firm, and not so likely to be assailed. On all this, however, we suspend our judgment for the present, remarking merely that we are not prepared to quit our present amount and plan of protection without demonstration that we cannot fairly or prudently retain it.

In the meantime let us hope and struggle for the best, for the maintenance either of the present law, or of a scale substantially equivalent. If that fails us, let us aim at the next best arrangement; and by a firm and temperate course, we need not at least despair of averting that overwhelming confusion and wide destruction of property that would inevitably follow from the nostrums of desperate and designing men, devised and conducted with an equal absence of wisdom and of honesty.

A single word of earnest admonition in conclusion. The next few months or weeks must decide one important practical question, which we think has been unfolding itself silently before the minds of considerate men for the last few years, and which, whether they will or no, men of all opinions must weigh well, with the deliberation due to their own safety and self-interest, and with that freedom from personal pique or party spirit which the emergency demands. We are far from pinning our faith to individual characters, or thinking that the welfare of the state can be wrapped up in the fortunes or progress of a single mind. But still the question will recur, whether, in the existing state of the country, and when all circumstances are balanced together, Sir Robert Peel is not the statesman of the day, as being at once the most Conservative and the most Liberal minister whom the opposite and conflicting forces in operation in this great country are likely to suffer or submit to. He may not be so tenacious of certain points as some would wish, or so lavish of concession as may be wished by others. But we speak of him on the one hand as witnesses to the fact, that his past measures, though calculated to excite apprehension, have been found, by experience, to carry with them no detriment to agriculture, or to any other great interest in the country; and, on the other hand, in the confident anticipation that nothing has recently occurred in his proposed course, that will not, in due time, be fully and satisfactorily explained. With these views of Sir Robert Peel's conduct, we cannot avoid asking, whether when we take him all in all, and appeal to the standard of practical good sense and prudence which wisdom will alone employ in such a momentous discussion, there is any other man now in the field, or likely to appear, to whom all parties can look so confidently, as an equitable and safe arbitrator of our national differences? If there is such a man, let him be pointed out. Sure we are that it is not Lord John Russell.

We had written thus far, in the belief that the Whigs, though after some coy, reluctant, amorous delay, would succeed in forming a sort of government – a task which we were sure Lord John Russell would attempt. That result seems now more than doubtful, and we close this article in the anticipation that a Conservative cabinet may possibly be again in power, before these pages meet the eyes of our readers. We rejoice at the prospect, and the country will rejoice. Good measures from good men is the best consummation of political well-doing, as it is certain that dangerous measures from dangerous and desperate men, is the most fearful political evil. In any view our friends have a plain course. It is, to adhere to their principles with a firm, yet prudent, determination of purpose – to hope and believe the best of their leaders and party – and to await patiently, and receive candidly, the elucidation of those things that have hitherto been a mystery; and, as to which, as it was impossible to make any explanations, so it was unjust to pronounce a decision. We earnestly pray that, whether in power or in opposition, the meeting of Parliament will see among our great Conservative statesmen, and their followers throughout the country, including the new adherents whom the rashness and recklessness of our opponents have necessarily gained for us, that solid union of opinion and vigorous co-operation of action, on safe and sound principles of legislation, which can alone terminate the crisis and avert its recurrence.

notes

1

This has been recently the subject of a decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, in the case of Egan v. The Guardians of the Kensington Union, 3 Queen's Bench Reports, p. 935, note (a). The same rule applies to physicians. Veitch v. Russell, ib. 928.

2

Leading counsel, indeed all counsel much engaged in business, necessarily place their time almost altogether at the disposal of their clerks, whose duty it is to keep an exact record of their employer's engagements, and see that no incompatible ones are made for him. Counsel find quite enough to do, in adequately attending to the matters actually put before them by their clerks, without being harassed by adjusting the very troublesome arrangements and appointments, for time and place, where their duties are to be performed or, at all events, doing more than keeping a general superintendence over their arrangements thus made. To all this must be added those innumerable contingencies in the arrangements of the courts, and the course of business, which no one can possibly foresee; and which often derange a whole series of arrangements, however cautiously and prudently made, and render counsel unable, after having carefully mastered their cases, to attend at the trial or argument.

3

The clerk of a barrister has a fee on every fee of his employer, in a long-settled proportion of 2s. 6d. on all fees under five guineas; from, and inclusive of five guineas, up to ten guineas, 5s.; from ten guineas, 10s., and so on for higher fees.

4

Phil. c. vi. sec. 7.

5

Adapted from Edmund Burke.

6

Sir Walter Raleigh —History of the World, last paragraph.

7

Fahrten und Schicksale eines Deutschen in Texas. Von H. Ehrenberg. Leipzig: 1845.

8

The founder of the American colonies in Texas, and father of Stephen F. Austin.

9

The arms of Mexico are a cactus, with as many leaves as there are states of the republic.