The Leading Facts of English History Part 58

579. "Rotten Boroughs."

For instance, the borough or city of Old Sarum, in Wilts.h.i.+re, which had once been an important place, had, at an early period, gradually declined through the growth of New Sarum, or Salisbury, near by. (See map, p.436.) In the sixteenth century the parent city had so completely decayed that not a single habitation was left on the desolate hilltop where the caste and cathedral once stood. At the foot of the hill was an old tree. The owner of that tree and of the field where it grew sent (1830) two members to Parliament,--that action represented what had been regularly going on for something like three hundred years!

In Bath, on the other hand, none of the citizens, out of a large population, might vote except the mayor, alderman, and common council. These places now got the significant name of "rotten boroughs" from the fact that whether large or small there was no longer any sound political life existing in them. Many towns were so completely in the hands of the squire or some other local "political boss" that, on one occasion when a successful candidate for Parliament thanked the voters for what they had done, a man replied that he need not take the trouble to thank them; for, said he, "if the squire had zent his great dog we should have chosen him all one as if it were you, zur."[1]

[1] See Hindon, in Murray's "Wilts.h.i.+re."

580. The Great Reform Bill.

For fifty years after the coming in of the Georges the country had been ruled by a powerful Whig (SS479, 548) monopoly. Under George III that monopoly was broken (S548), and the Tories (S479) got possession of the government. But whichever party ruled, Parliament, owing to the "rotten-borough" system, no longer represented the nation, but simply stood for the will of certain wealthy landholders and town corporations. A loud and determined demand was now made for reform.

In this movement no one was more active or influential among the common people than William Cobbett. He was a vigorous and fearless writer, who for years published a small newspaper called the Political Register, which was especially devoted to securing a just and uniform system of representation.

On the accession of William IV the pressure for reform became so great that Parliament was forced to act. Lord John Russell brought in a bill (1831) providing for the abolition of the "rotten boroughs" and for a fair system of elections. But those who owned or controlled those boroughs had no intention of giving them up. Their opponents, however, were equally determined, and they knew that they had the support of the nation.

In a speech which the Reverend Sydney Smith made at Taunton, he compared the futile resistance of the House of Lords to the proposed reform, to Mrs. Partington's attempt to drive back the rising tide of the Atlantic with her mop. The ocean rose, and Mrs. Partington, seizing her mop, rose against it; yet, notwithstanding the good lady's efforts, the Atlantic got the best of it; so the speaker prophesied that in this case the people, like the Atlantic, would in the end carry the day.[1]

[1] Sydney Smith's "Essays and Speeches."

When the bill came up, the greater part of the Lords and the bishops, who, so far as they were concerned personally, had all the rights and privileges they wanted, opposed it; so too did the Tories (S479), in the House of Commons. They thought that the proposed law threatened the stability of the government. The Duke of Wellington (S573) was particularly hostile to it, and wrote, "I don't generally take a gloomy view of things, but I confess that, knowing all that I do, I cannot see what is to save the Church, or property, or colonies, or union with Ireland, or, eventually, monarchy, if the Reform Bill pa.s.ses."[2]

[2] Wellington's "Dispatches and Letters," II, 451.

581. The Lords reject the Bill; Serious Riots (1831).

The King dissolved Parliament (S534, note 2); a new one was elected, and the Reform Bill was pa.s.sed by the House of Commons; but the upper House rejected it. Then a period of wild excitement ensued. The people in many of the towns collected in the public squares, tolled the church bells, built bonfires in which they burned the bishops in effigy, with other leading opponents of the bill, and cried out for the abolition of the House of Lords.

In London the rabble smashed the windows of Apsley House, the residence of the Duke of Wellington. At Nottingham the mob fired and destroyed the castle of the Duke of Newcastle because he was opposed to reform. In Derby a serious riot broke out. In Bristol matters were still worse. A mob got possession of the city, and burned the Bishop's Palace and a number of public buildings. The mayor was obliged to call for troops to restore order. Many persons were killed, and four of the ringleaders of the insurrection were hanged.

All over the country shouts were heard, "The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill!"

582. Pa.s.sage of the Great Reform Bill, 1832; Results.

In the spring of 1832 the battle began again more fiecely than ever.

Again the House of commons voted the bill, and once again the House of Lords defeated it.

Earl Grey, the Whig Prime Minister (S479), had set his heart on carrying the measure. In this crisis he appealed to the King for help. If the Tory Lords would not pa.s.s the bill, the King had the power to create a sufficient number of new Whig Lords who would.

William refused to exercise this power. Thereupon Earl Grey, with his Cabinet (S534), resigned, but in a week the King had to recall them.

Then William, much against his will, gave the following doc.u.ment to his Prime Minister:

"The King grants permission to Earl Grey, and to his Chancellor, Lord Brougham, to create such a number of Peers as will be sufficient to insure the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bill--first calling up Peers' eldest sons.

"William R., Windsor, May 17, 1832"[1]

[1] "First calling up Peers' eldest sons": that is, in creating new Lords, the eldest sons of Peers were to have the preference. William R. (Rex, King): this is the customary royal signature. Earl Grey was the leader of that branch of the Whig party known as the "Aristocratic Whigs," yet to him and his a.s.sociate Cabinet minsiters the people were indebted for the great extension of the suffrage in 1832.

But there was no occasion to make use of this permission. As soon as the Lords found that the Cabinet (S534), with Earl Grey at the head, had actually compelled the King to bow to the demands of the people, they withdrew their opposition. The "Great Charter of 1832" was carried, received the royal signature, and became law.

The pa.s.sage of this memorable act brought about these beneficent changes:

(1) It abolished nearly sixty "rotten boroughs" (S579).

(2) It gave every householder who paid a rent of ten pounds in any town a vote, and largely extended the list of county voters as well.

(3) It granted two representatives to Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and nineteen other large towns, and one representative each to twenty-one other places, all of which had hitherto been unrepresented, besides granting fifteen additional members to the counties.

(4) It added, in all, half a million voters to the list, mostly men of the middle cla.s.s, and it helped to purify the elections from the violence which had disgraced them.[1]

[1] See Summary of Const.i.tutional History in the Appendix, p.xxvi, S31.

Before the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bill, and the legislation which supplemented it, the election of a member of Parliament was a kind of local reign of terror. The smaller towns were sometimes under the control of drunken ruffians for several weeks. During that time they paraded the streets in bands, a.s.saulting voters of the opposite party with clubs, kidnaping prominent men and confining them until after the election, and perpetrating other outrages, which so frightened peacable citizens that often they did not dare attempt to vote at all.

Finally, the pa.s.sage of the Reform Bill of 1832 effected, in its own way, a change which was perhaps as momentous as that which the Revolution of 1688 had accomplished.[2] That, as we have seen (S497), made the King dependent for his crown on his election to office by Parliament. On the other hand, the Reform Bill practically took the last vestige of real political authority from the King and transferred it to the Cabinet (S534), who had now become responsible to the House of Commons, and hence to the direct will of the majority of the nation. But though the Sovereign had laid down his political scepter, never to resume it, he would yet, by virtue of his exalted position, continue to wield great power,--that of social and diplomatic influence, which is capable of accomplis.h.i.+ng most important results both at home and abroad. To-day then, though the King still reigns, the People, and the People alone, govern.

[2] Compare the three previous Revolutions represented by (1) Magna Carta (S199); (2) De Montfort's House of Commons (S213); (3) the Civil War and its effects (SS441, 450, 451).

583. Abolition of Slavery, 1833; Factory Reform, 1833-1841.

With the new Parliament that came into power the names of Liberal and Conservative began to supplant those of Whig and Tory (S479), for it was felt that a new political era needed new party names. Again, the pa.s.sage of the Reform Bill (S582) changed the policy of both these great political parties. It made Liberals and Conservatives bid against each other for the support of the large number of new voters (S582 (4)), and it acted as an entering wedge to prepare the way for the further extension of suffrage in 1867 and 1884 (S534), representing the Commons, had gained a most significant victory; and further reforms were accordingly carried against the strenuous opposition of the King.

Buxton, Wilberforce, Brougham, and other noted philanthropists secured the pa.s.sage through Parliament of a bill, 1833, for which they, with the younger Pitt, had labored in vain for half a century. By this act all negro slaves in the British West India colonies, numbering about eight hundred thousand, were set free, and the sum of 20,000,000 pounds was appropriated to compensate the owners.

It was a grand deed grandly done. Could America have followed that n.o.ble example, she might thereby have saved a million of human lives and many thousand millions of dollars which were cast into the gulf of civil war, while the corrupting influence of five years of waste and discord would have been avoided.

But negro slaves were not the only slaves in those days. There were white slaves as well,--women and children born in England, but condemned by their necessities to work underground in the coal mines, or to exhaust their strength in the cotton mills. They were driven by brutal masters who cared as little for the welfare of those under them as the overseer of a West India plantation did for his gangs of black toilers in the sugar-cane fields. On investigation it was found that children only six and seven years of age were compelled to labor for twelve and thirteen hours continuously in the factories. In the coal mines their case was even worse. All day long these poor creatures sat in absolute darkness, opening and shutting doors for the pa.s.sage of coal cars. If, overcome with fatigue, they fell asleep, they were cruelly beaten with a strap.[1]

[1] See Gibbin's "Industrial History of England," E.F. Cheyney's "Industrial History of England," and Mrs. E. B. Browning's poem, "The Cry of the Children."

Parliament at length turned its attention to these abuses, and pa.s.sed acts, 1833, forbidding the employment of women and young children in such work; a later act put an end to the barbarous practice of forcing children to sweep chimneys.

584. The First Steam Railway, 1830; the Railway Craze; the Friction Match, 1834.

Ever since the application of steam to machinery, the inventors had been discussing plans for placing the steam engine on wheels and using it as a propelling power in place of horses. Macadam, a Scotch surveyor, had constructed a number of very superior roads made of gravel and broken stone in the south of England, which soon made the name of "macadamized turnpike" celebrated.

The question then arose, Might not a still further advance be made by employing steam to draw cars on these roads, or, better still, on iron rails? The first locomotives built were used in hauling coal at the mines in the North of England. Puffing Billy, the pioneer machine (1813), worked for many years near Newcastle. At length George Stephenson, an inventor and engineer, together with certain capitalists, succeeded in getting Parliament to pa.s.s an act for constructing a pa.s.senger railway between Liverpool and Manchester, a distance of about thirty miles.

When the line was completed by Stephenson, he had great difficulty in getting permission to use an engine instead of horse power on it.

Finally, Stephenson's new locomotive, The Rocket,--which first introduced the tubular boiler, and employed the exhaust, or escaping, steam to increase the draft of the fire,--was tried with entire success.[1]

[1] Stephenson's Rocket and Watt's stationary steam engine (S563) are both preserved in the South Kensington Museum, London. The boiler of the Rocket was traversed by a number of tubes communicating with the smoke pipe. The steam, after it hada done its work in the cylinders of the engine, escaped with great force through the smoke pipe and so created a very powerful draft. Without these two important improvements the locomotive would probably never have made an average speed of more than six or seven miles an hour.

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was formally opened in the autumn of 1830, and the Duke of Wellington, then Prime Minister, was one of the few pa.s.sengers who ventured on the trial trip. The growth of this new mode of transportation was so rapid that in five years from that time London and the princ.i.p.al seaports were connected with the great manufacturing towns, while local steam navigation had also nearly doubled its vessels and its tonnage.

Later on (1844-1847), Stephenson might easily have made himself "rich beyond the dreams of avarice,"--or at least of the avarice of that day. All he had to do was to lend the use of his name to new and doubtful railway projects; but he refused on the ground that he did not care "to make money without labor or honor." Meanwhile the whole country became involved in a speculative craze for building railways.

Scores of millions of pounds were invested; for a time Hudson, the so-called "Railway King," ruled supreme, and Dukes and d.u.c.h.esses, and members of Parliament generally, did homage to the man whose schemes promised to cover the whole island with a network of iron roads, every one of which was expected to be as profitable as a gold mine. These projects ended in a panic, second only to that of the South Sea Bubble (S536), and thousands found that steam could destroy fortunes even faster than it made them.

Toward the close of William's reign (1834-1835) a humble invention was perfected of which little was said at the time, but which contributed in no small degree to the comfort and convenience of every one. Up to this date two of the most important of all civilizing agents--fire and light--could be produced only with much difficulty and at considerable expense.

Various deviced had been contrived to obtain them, but the common method continued to be the primitive one of striking a bit of flint and steel sharply together until a falling spark ignited a piece of tinder or half-burned rag, which, when it caught, had, with no little expense of breath, to be blown into a flame. The progress of chemistry suggested the use of phosphorus, and after years of experiments the friction match was invented by an English apothecary, who thus gave to the world what is now the commonest, and perhaps at the same time the most useful, domestic article in existence.

585. Summary.

William IV's short reign of seven years was marked (1) by the great Reform Bill of 1832, which, to a great extent, took Parliament out of the hands of rich men and "rotten boroughs" and put it under the control of the people; (2) by the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, and factory reform; (3) by the introduction of the friction match, and by the building of the first successful line of steam railway.

VICTORIA--1837-1901